Monday Night Football in Guinea

Marrying into a lifelong Denver Bronco family and living in Colorado the last 9 years or so I have become a fan of the team (still second fiddle to the beloved Philadelphia Eagles, Fly Eagles Fly). Last Monday night after being down 24-0, Bronco fans were treated to a terrific comeback in the second half to defeat the San Diego Chargers. Here on the ship, a wonderful company in South Africa donates to us the capability to watch some satellite TV. We have a number of channels to choose from but only 5 channels can be shown on the ship at any one time. We as crew members are allowed to sign out channels when time slots are available. ESPN is one of those channels and the 1230 am to 430 am time slot was available. Can you believe it? What a great game it was….. but we ended up not being able to watch it.

Without going into all the detail, the channel wasn’t changed. No fault of anyone, just something didn’t happen. We actually knew at about 10 pm or so that it wasn’t going to happen and actually went to bed very sad around 11 (Trace did check during the night during one of Cora’s snack times, just in case). We actually shed a few tears. We were willing to be up at that ridiculous hour because more than anything else, we just wanted a taste of being home. We wanted to watch the same thing at the same time as our family and friends and have the same feelings and be able to talk about it later. So to look forward to that and then have it not happen was sad to us. Funny thing is I had barely talked about football since we got here. I was doing just fine without it (something I used to spend 7-10 hours a weekend watching), but when the opportunity was afforded to us, it hurt so much more to end up not having it.

I learned something important though. Here on the ship we are afforded luxuries such as chocolate, Starbucks coffee, soda and other awesome things because companies and organizations donate these specific things to us. We don’t even have to leave the ship to get them at a local store or something. Sometimes we run out of things and some of our crew members are disappointed that they have to go without. I have sat in judgment of them essentially feeling like they should just get over it. We are doing missions and going without is part of the calling right? Well, that was easy for me to say until it was something that was important to me. Plenty of people know I do not get an extraordinary amount of joy out of food/drink type stuff (that drives Tracey nuts) so going without something special is no big deal. But when it hit close to home like football on TV, I was very sad. No one did anything wrong, I just missed out on a luxury that I thought I could have and then I couldn’t. It taught me that we all have our things that help us be able to be here, serve here and stay here. Sometimes, yes, we will go without and yes, we will be fine, maybe better off (see below), but they really do help when available.  Now, I definitely understand the disappointment that comes with going without and will never again mentally tell another person to “Get over it.” These luxury type things are good things that God uses to strengthen us, by allowing us to have them. Reminds of us of how good He is, which I tend to forget. I think this probably applies to lots of areas of life.

Sometimes, though, God strengthens us by allowing us to go without them as well. I am learning to find the joy that comes with sacrifice. We were told to count the cost before coming and ask if we were willing to make the sacrifice. Would the sacrifice be worth it? At the time, it felt like such a negative thing to make the sacrifice, but we knew it would be worthwhile for all the positives. We thought of plus (i.e. serving in Africa as a family together) and minus (i.e small living area). Weigh them all out and see which is better. After all, I am an accountant and we love cost benefit analysis. This thought process though is all about me. I don’t think I thought to count the blessings that come merely from the act of sacrifice.

Paul tells us in Philippians 3 that he is happy to call anything rubbish if it means he gets to know Christ better. In Romans 12, he teaches us to be living sacrifices, not for rewards but because that is the worshipful thing to do. Doing so, will help us understand the will of God better. Paul did not think of sacrifice as a negative thing that brings about a positive. He saw the sacrifice as the positive thing that brings more positive things. He was crazy enough to relish opportunities to sacrifice. He wanted to sacrifice simply because he would get to know Christ more fully, become more like him and worship him more. This really wasn’t about him but Christ. To him, there was no greater reward than that.

I am not trying to say we are always to go without. There are times when God refreshes us and strengthens us with these types of things. Paul had time of refreshment with his friends, which I bet had some pretty good food and lots of joy (but probably not any football). I am not saying sacrifice should be easy either, like this is some way of putting a positive spin on something negative. Dying on the cross wasn’t easy for our Jesus and neither was the persecution for Paul. I just want to take the “opportunities” when they come to become more like Christ and worship him with my attitude in these times. Less focus on MY sacrifice and more focus on the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. So now when I am asked to go without, I am not just tolerating the sacrifice for some greater good in the end, I get to worship now while getting to know Christ better (or at least I hope I keep thinking that way). I am pretty sure I will be happy with the end result still but now the journey doesn’t have to be such drudgery with no joy.  

All that being said; if we have the chance to watch a football game again, I will get out the John Elway jersey I just got off a fellow crewmate and plop down and root for the team J. I look forward to God renewing me with that at some point. Another quick side note.  Since the game that started all of this was on so late, we probably would have gone to bed at halftime with the game seeming out of reach. Think about how mad I would have been in the morning after seeing the outcome. Hmmm….