Are we there yet? What time is dinner? When is my stimulus check coming? Are the election primaries over yet? Some of you would say it is impatient. While others of you would say it is the desire to get on with life.
Pictured, in a line, Congolese children wait patiently for candy.
Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of England, is credited with saying, “I am extraordinary patient provided I get my own way in the end.” Most of you would agree with “The Iron Lady” on that point. For each of us, the critical unknown factor is “the end”. So, we continually ask, are we there yet?
I confess that I am not a patient person. While working in the Congo, I have learned that things do not go as I have planned. I want things to go well so that I can finish a job and then move onto the next one. I want to cross them off quickly. It is frustrating. But if I persevere to the end, everything will go according to God’s will. Congolese people are a patient people. They have waited their entire life for better conditions.
The Congolese have suffered under King Leopold, colonialism (of Belgium), Mobuto, father Kabila, and son Kabila. Today, they wait for more educational opportunities for their children. They wait for more access to health care and clean water. They wait for less sicknesses, sufferings, and deaths of their children. They wait for more food to eat their children. They wait for more opportunities to make money to support their children. They wait patiently and struggle to persevere because they know that God has promised to make it better, in the end.
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. By John Quincy Adams”
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6
A printable copy Download 05-04-2008.pdf
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