Wrestle Time

Our boys and neighbor boys

Our five year old’s voice rang out through the house, “It’s time to wrestle!” A little while later, “Daddy?….. Let’s start wrestling!” The calls for wrestling continued until Tom was done with what he was doing and could turn his attention on our son. (It should be noted that ‘wrestling’ for our boys is mainly a lot of tickling and being thrown into pillows on the bed.)

Last Sunday however it was a very different image of wrestling— Jacob wrestling in the night on his way to reunite with his brother Esau. I don’t know if we’ve ever described what a Sunday morning looks like for us. We usually gather with our team. We take turns hosting at our various homes and whoever hosts takes the lead, choosing songs for us to sing and guiding our time as we study a passage together. Usually one person takes our kids out for Sunday school, but this Sunday there were only three of us adults so we decided to forgo the letter that we were reading and join the kids’ curriculum studying at Jacob’s nighttime wrestle match.

Potential wrestle partners?

We discussed it with the kids for awhile and then got them coloring their small craft while the adults dived deeper. It isn’t an easy story and we still have unanswered questions and musings.  What do we learn about people in this story? Why was Jacob wrestling?  Hadn’t he already been given a promise?  Hadn’t he already been blessed?  Why did he continue to wrestle?  What more blessing did he wish for?  What do we learn about God?  Why did he wrestle with Jacob in the first place?  Why did he agree to bless him? 

We discussed some of these questions for some time, but we always finish our time of study asking ourselves the questions:  What do we learn?  What will I change in my life because of these words?  How am I going to obey and do the things we have learned.  Sometimes the application of the passage is easy.  Other times it is more difficult, but we always eventually seem to find something important and personal before we are done.

This week we came away with wondering, “How’s my wrestling technique?”  Do I even wrestle at all?  Am I too quick to give in and let go and resignedly accept the way things are and so lose the blessing that might have been gained.  We have lived here many years now and we have seen many blessings, many answers to prayer, but there are still those promises that haven’t been fulfilled yet.  Things we have been asking for many years, things we want to see on these islands.  We may be persistent in asking for them, but have we wrestled for them?  Have we fought for them? 

The month of fasting is almost upon us, maybe that would be a good time to wrestle…

Tom & our daughter do homeschool experiments

PRAYERS ANSWERED
A visiting doctor was able to examine Ma Imani and believes that there is nothing to worry about.  We are relieved that our friend is okay and wait impatiently for her to return to our island.  Our colleague with the tumor is recovering well.  The tumor was the size of a grapefruit, but we learned that it was not cancerous and we are told she will make a full recovery! We are so thankful for this news.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Later this week begins the month of Fasting.  It is always a difficult and rewarding month.  Pray for stamina and wisdom for all of us.  There continues to be some political instability.  The current island president is making changes and it has not been well received.  Today in our town there was a confrontation between demonstrators and police. All of the schools ended up closing suddenly in response. Pray for peace. The islands have had a few minor earthquakes. This is not common. We pray that they stop and don’t intensify. Our one teammate is still in Kenya, pray that she’ll be ready to return to us soon.  Pray for growth and perseverance for our entire team (us included).  There is no news on our African colleagues’ situation except that they got their passports back.  We are still waiting for our colleague on the little island to get his visa.