In De-Nile That We Are River-ting Back Home

We had our last big fun event together as a squad before coming home. Big fun events give me something to blog about. So let’s get into the blogging. 

Before talking about the big fun event, I would be remiss to not mention ministry. The size of the Bible studies has started to decrease after people learned that there were no more Bibles, but that change was anticipated. Hopefully our pastor will still be able to retain some of the momentum from us being here. One positive update would be many of the kids around the community know my name and come up to hug me because of all of my soccer side quests. Hopefully some kids retain some of those memories. 

The biggest event during the fun weekend was whitewater rafting down the Nile River. Let me tell you something, that rafting experience was a microcosm of the Word Race experience. I’m going to explain all the ways. 

1. The nervous build up: We were told on a repeated basis on how dangerous rafting was going to be. From the stories of being underwater for significant periods of time, the build up from the staff, some of the photos and videos, we thought for sure we were heading into something intense. This experience is a lot like the initial setup of the World Race. All we knew going in was stories from other racers and which six countries we were going to. This lack of information created nervous anticipation. 
2. Interruptibility: We saw a baby bird that was going to die in the river. We stopped what we were doing and saved him. We named him Rico. You have to be very interruptible on the World Race. 
3. Encounters with interesting people: The people on the raft included me, four of my teammates, and two other individuals. One was a man who had traveled to 66 different countries. The other was a tour guide and a former kayaking National champion. Both of them were believers. As you can probably imagine, there were interesting conversations, which is par for the course for the World Race. 
4. Long periods of waiting: There were many long stretches of time where we were just waiting for the next rapid, much like how there can be a lot of waiting for events on the World Race, as well as the day to day grind that comes with doing anything for a long period of time. The paddling was a bit tiring just like day to day on the World Race. 
5. Cooperation with teammates: When you raft, you have to try and coordinate and synchronize with your teammates to get where you need to be. This setup is an obvious parallel to the World Race with the team structure. 
6. Learning of new information as you go: We weren’t told the details about the rapid until right before we got to the rapid. We knew were would be going on five rapids (was actually six), and knew the grades of the rapids, but knew nothing else. This experience is similar to learning about each country’s ministry, location, and team as we go along. 
7. Making our own fun: We got out of the water to swim on multiple occasions and went down a grade 5 rapid another time off script. I also skipped watermelon and pineapple rinds down the Nile River. This experience is similar to making your own fun and adventure on the World Race. 
8. Getting sunburnt: I get sunburnt a lot. I got sunburnt again. Nothing to see here.
9. Visiting a waterfall: One of the rapids is called a waterfall. The rapid was too intense to go down but we went to look. We sure did visit a lot of waterfalls on the World Race. 
10. Seeing God move in unexpected ways: We had resigned to the fact that the raft was going to flip over and we were going to have to react. Some people were excited about that future, some people were nervous about that future, but all of us signed up for the flip and expected the flip. Despite the fact that there are a significant number of chances for the boat to flip, no flips occurred. There is one rapid in particular called the arrow. When we got past the arrow without flipping the boat (some teammates did fall into the water) our guide said in his 20 years of experience, he has never seen a raft not flip over that rapid. We estimate based upon the amount of trips that he takes he’s seen over 2000 rafts go down that area. I prayed for us to have fun and the Lord to guide our steps. That result happened and all glory goes to God as the explanation. Some wanted to flip, but God said no for whatever reason he had. 
11. Losing teammates: As I said, a couple of our teammates fell off the boat. A couple of our teammates certainly also fell off of the boat this year. The only difference is this time we got the fallen ones back. 
12. A very fun adventure: Self explanatory. 

Later that night, we went on a sunset cruise. The cruise started out absolutely fantastic. We were waiting the sun go down playing worship music on the boat. But there were a few aspects to the cruise that put a damper on the experience. First, we literally got damp, as rain happened toward the end. Second, there was a dam in the way of Lake Victoria, so we didn’t get to see the lake. But the biggest problem for me was our tour guide. He was a kind person, but he said some stuff I felt like I should’ve responded to but didn’t. First, he said it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Muslim, or any traditional African religion, it’s all the same God. One of my teammates was about to challenge him on that point and when he sensed the tension he pivoted. But then later he brought up the problem that a lot of people in America face: The talk of the miraculous. If you’ve never seen God move in absurd ways, I understand why so many people have trouble with miracles mentioned in the Bible. I totally get the mindset, as I had the same blindness for God’s work in my life for over twenty years.

My teammate answered that ultimately believing in miracles does come down to faith, which is true, but is an insufficient answer for most people in America. There are points relating to miracles, such as it doesn’t make sense for God to not be able to interact with the environment, the fine tuning present in the universe, and the historical facts related to the Biblical text. But at the end of the day, Jesus still being human performing miracles would not “prove” what he is saying about the kingdom of heaven is true. God doesn’t want us to have faith fully in the materialistic world. I wish I would’ve talked to him, but my teammate already was. I’m just bummed about not talking after that whole difference between heaven and hell rah rah a couple of blogs ago. God will have his way with my guide regardless, and I just have to remember that other people’s salvation is not on me.  

Other activities included souvenir shopping, a large slide into the Nile, and a rope swing into the Nile. At a restaurant, one of my teammates unexpectedly ran into someone from their church and I drank a Dr. Pepper for the first time in a year, so cool times all around. The oreo cheesecake was absolutely disgusting though. I got a scroll with a congratulations message that I had exactly enough money for, which was a fitting last souvenir. 

The slide was intense. I only went down once, because one time was enough adrenaline for me. There were also very specific instructions you had to follow about how to place your body on the slide and holding that position with the adrenaline rush was stressful enough for me to only slide once. I have always been afraid of heights so even doing the slide and the rope swing was a big deal. I couldn’t rope swing so the event turned into jumping into the Nile. I’m glad I listened to God (heathens call it instincts) when he told me to jump instead of trying to swing. 

Well that blog was a long one. But my time left before America is not long anymore. I still want to go home.