Being Small

I am here at the end of the day looking back at the mistakes I have made and the grace that guarded my steps. It has rained and in the fading light of evening drops of water sparkle like diamonds as they fall from the thatch of my roof to the muddy ground below. I sit here, looking out at the rain-soaked ground, listening to the distant thunder. I am small, very small.

…The morning begins with the crackling of my radio announcing a new day with the news of great men; great men raging war, great men announcing peace, great men filling the air with senseless declarations, and of course, great men making spectacles of their bodies in athletic prowess. As if in stride, I too begin my day as a great man bent on conquering the obstacles of the day; obstacles that spring, like weeds, from this land of extremes.
And those obstacles do grow, beginning with the moment my drivers and mechanic decide to not get along. That, of course, is followed by a great fall from our tractor – which doesn’t seem like a serious matter until it consumes the whole day.
I am on my way to pick up some food for the parentless boys who have left home to attend our dysfunctional school when I catch up with our tractor which is laden with a load of brick for the hospital construction. Near to the tractor is a young man lying on the ground surrounded by several people. As I stop they lift him up and place him in the back of the pickup I am driving and explain that he had fallen from the trailer when it hit a bump. I drive him to the hospital and am told that before he can be seen, he has to go to the police to fill out an accident report, so I leave him with my drivers and head off to collect the food.
An hour later I am waiting on the bureaucratic system of the UN to run its course as I wait for the food, when I receive a call informing me that my tractor is going to be impounded for “investigation”. I am, of course, a little put out by this and quickly head back to the hospital to get the scoop. There, I am told not only that my tractor will be impounded but that my driver has already been put in jail. The American in me immediately begins to question the logic in putting my driver in jail because someone else fell out of trailer he was pulling, but I am answered that this is the way of Sudan.
I visit the police station in a much more humble state and surrender the keys to the tractor.
There, I find out that my driver will be let go once it is confirmed that the injured man is ok. It turns out that he is in jail as much for his own safety as for investigative purposes – Sudan could go up in flames solely on the irrational retributive attacks that take place for simple accidents that take place. I head back to the hospital to make sure that the doctor takes a look at my injured man and while I wait for the doctor my day gains a whole new perspective. The infirmities that begin to wander past me, remind me that there are far worse things than my day going to pot because of an accident. There is the child who limps his way up the steps next to me, the middle aged man with the disfiguring cleft lip and the old man who is brought out of the operating theatre drugged up and muttering prayers in Arabic. I am reminded that Jesus walks into our days to carry these infirmities – to bear our burdens and love us, the ones who are unlovable in our own self-assurance.
I take a break for lunch and then head to the market to buy some food for my driver in jail. As I arrive at the jail the heavens open and the skies begin to fall with a ferocity that makes any effort at acting like a great man non-sense. I sit with my driver as he eats and we watch the rain pound down around us. He will spend the night in jail and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get back to driving tractors laden with bricks.

It is still raining now, at the end of the day, and I think back on all the faces of this day. The boys who just wanted a little food, the brother of the injured man, wrought with concern, the police man sure in his duties, the disfigured, cleft lipped man, my driver taking a nap behind bars….I woke up a great man and I end it a small, because that is what I am – small. I make it through days like today, full of chaos and rippling with the unreal, not in my own strength at all, but by the King’s grace. I look back at this day and I know that he was there, that he was carrying my infirmity, my own reluctance to be small.