What Do I Know of Holy?

What Do I Know of Holy – Addison Road

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS 2)
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

(CHORUS)

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

I’m discovering God in new ways. I can see Him in the tears of a girl that “doesn’t ever cry” but who loves her friends so much she cried for their redemption. I have seen Him in the Muslim nurse that cries with her patient because she only has weeks to live. I have seen Him the face of a two year old boy who was fascinated by the blood I was drawing from his mother’s body. I have seen Him working in the life of a girl who doesn’t want to be here, yet is searching for source of joy through it all. I taste Him in the lovingly prepared food that our cooks make three times a week. I hear him in the voice of an incredible woman who feels so much strife because she doesn’t want to invest in us too much because she’s afraid if she does she won’t be able to let us go. How do you experience God every day?

This country is such a beautiful anomaly in the world. It can’t be classified as a developing world and it can’t be classified as a developed world. It’s a grey area. There are men and women here that live next door to each other and are of completely different economic statuses. There are families that have been ripped apart by death and sadness and segregation and yet do good work every day. I was talking to a nurse this week and she asked me what I could possibly like about this country. She was confused as to how I could like it here because the people are so poor and racked with sickness. When I told her that that is exactly the reason that I love it here she looked at me like I was crazy. I continued to tell her that I love the fact that there are so many hurting people, yet their joy is unending and that joy and hope in the face of everything that has happened in this country is something to be admired. She smiled and thanked me for noticing.

Last weekend we went to visit the battlefields of South Africa. The first one that we visited was called the Battle of Blood River. It was the site where the 600 Afrikaners fought off 10-20 thousand Zulu warriors and won the fight. It’s a miracle that they were able to do this and they attribute it to the fact that they prayed and asked God to deliver them from the Zulus and if He did, they would keep the day as a tribute to God’s mercy. However, over the years it turned into a day to celebrate Afrikaner victory over the Zulus – a celebration of oppression. After apartheid ended, the day (which was called the Day of the Vow) was renamed the Day of Reconciliation and became a day to celebrate people loving people. My kind of holiday ; ) That night we stayed at one of the oldest hotels in South Africa that was filled with beautiful antiques in rooms that were all different and just had the feel of being from an old romance novel… meaning it was right up my alley. Part of me wanted to draw a bath in the old bathtub, light some candles and curl up with Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights and just soak in the beauty of it. They fed us so well! There was a South African version of meatloaf, chicken that tasted like it had Thai sauce on it, sweet potato and rosemary soup, and all the deserts you could imagine. They even had coffee that could have put my mom’s to shame because it was so strong and you could tell that it was real drip coffee (which is a miracle because most of the coffee here is instant).After dinner our director, Reg, sat down with us and told us stories of his amazing life and I remembered just how important it is to get to know the incredible people God has surrounded me with here. The next day we drove to two other battlefields. I forgot to mention that this whole time we were being shown around by a little old man named Tony who Reg says “has forgotten more history than I ever learned”. The man was a steel trap of knowledge and you could tell that he adored telling people about the history of his country. The next battlefield was the site of massacre of the British army by the Zulu army because of a tactical error of arrogance by the British army commander. We walked the ground where this fight had taken place and could imagine the army of tens of thousands of Zulus flowing over the hills toward you and knowing you were going to die. It was frightening. The final battlefield we went to was not a battlefield at all. It was a store and a makeshift hospital that had been in place at the same time when some of the Zulus decided to cross the river and attack it. The able bodied soldiers held off thousands of Zulu warriors with only some sacks of Mealy Meal (think of flour sacks) and their guns. Sorry for the history lesson… I just think it’s incredible.

This week on Tuesday I was able to go teach eighth graders about health. While my nursing classmates and I were still in the States, we prepared teaching projects for people of low literacy in rural areas. What we were faced with, however, were 5 classes of incredibly bright eighth graders who all spoke English and had learned a lot of what we had to teach them already. But it was an awesome experience anyway. We taught about basic hygiene, dental hygiene, communicable diseases (Diarrheal diseases, Respiratory infections and HIV) and the menstrual cycle. It was five hours of teaching with a tea break after the second break. We all talked to them like they were 5 years old and they laughed at us for our ridiculous examples and funny way of talking, but they were so quiet and attentive to everything we had to say and answered all of our questions beautifully. I had the express pleasure of teaching HIV causes, prevention and treatment to them which was amazing because I have always loved HIV education. It was a really big struggle for me talking about safe sex with eighth graders because I just didn’t want to imagine them even getting into those situations. But I know that it happens here just as much as it happens in the U.S. and that the only way to prevent this disease and other ones is to empower them, so I told them that many years down the road when they decided to have sex they should use condoms and have one partner. I think I emphasized “someday a long time from now” quite frequently and my professors teased me about it later, while telling me that they loved that abstinence was my emphasis because they need to hear that preached as much as then need safe sex preached. I fell in love with teaching again this week. I think like a teacher and it cracks me up because the one thing I swore I would never be was a teacher. But I know that someday I will be a health educator and that I’ll love it.

Ok. That’s enough procrastinating for now. I love you all. Thanks for reading my rambling. Listen to the song if can… it’s changing my life.

Grace and Peace