What's Good?

"What's good, Austin?"  It was just a casual throwaway greeting, but it struck a chord when I heard it earlier this week.  What a game-changer that question was!  I don't know what it did for Austin (one of our bus drivers), but I started thinking of all the things that were good in our life right now.  I thought of  the opportunity of a lifetime we all were experiencing on this trip.  I thought of the lives that are being changed--Thunderbird as well as Livingstone people.  I thought of the lessons being learned about God, about culture, about friendship.  I thought about the beauty we have been surrounded with, day and night.  I thought of how each team member is being stretched beyond their comfort point, a little more each day.  I thought of the way God has led, both in our coming to Zambia, and in our experiencing it, hour by hour.

What's good?  Such an excellent question!  I wondered what Austin would have said if he had answered the question literally instead of casually.  Would he have said that the TAA Mission Team was something good in his life?  Would he have seen and understood what it meant for us to be there in his country, his town?

I think it behooves us as Christians to consider the good in our lives consistently.  I think our lives would be much better, much happier if we were focused on the good rather than what's not.  So...what's good this day (Thursday)?  The Chobe National Park safari, that's what.  God, that's Who.  Put the two together and you have a pretty amazing day.

It began early, with a trip to the border of Zambia and Botswana via bus and boat.  We crossed the Zambezi/Chobe Rivers at a point where they meet, bringing four countries together (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia)--the only place in the world like that.  From there, we went by open jeep-like vehicles to a beautiful resort where we boarded a river boat and moved slowly down the river, getting up-close views of elephants, hippos, and a wide variety of shore birds.

We made our way back to the resort for a delicious lunch and then took the safari jeeps out through the park to observe the land animals and various birds.  We saw dozens of elephants (there are 80-120,000 in the park), impala, kudus, a leopard, a giraffe, and more.  It was an amazing day.  I posted before that there was an incident with an elephant.  Here is the story in the words of Ward Pearson, one of the passengers in the jeep:

"What an awesome day we had today!  We saw the splendor of our God and what neat things He's made.  Seeing it all was a new reminder of what He's created for us to enjoy but also as a reminder that man maybe shouldn't get too close.

"At the very end of our safari, we were almost out of the park.  We encountered a bull elephant that was not pleased to see us.  Another elephant passed across the road and he turned and huffed at another jeep that was coming the other direction and then crossed in front of us into the bush.  Our guide took us a little bit closer to him and then he kind of came back at us so we backed off a little, but in the next 10-15 seconds it became very clear that he was not happy and he started coming through the brush at us.  We all heard it.  His ears came out and he trumpeted and snorted at us.  

At that point I knew this was not the place to be then.  Just as was getting serious, our land cruiser wouldn't start.  We were on an incline and our jeep wouldn't start so we coasted back a bit and the elephant kept coming on steady at us.  It was at that point, at least for me, we knew it was not a good situation.  We were in a vehicle that would not cooperate.  With an elephant that did not want us near him.  When the jeep finally started, it was flooded and blowing back smoke.  Everyone on the elephant sie took off their seat belts, getting ready to run out the other side.  It was about 30 feet from us.  At that point, we were frightened.  There were a lot of prayers going up.  I believe with all my heart that there were angels there keeping that elephant where it was.  If he had charged us, he could have flipped our land rover just like that.  As he was becoming more and more aggressive, he snapped a tree like it was a tooth pick.

Our angels were protecting us and kept a scary situation from being a tragic situation.  We have no idea, but one day, we will be able to ask our guardian angel in heaven to tell us all about it.  So I am here to praise God today.  We had a wonderful day.  We were in a park, but a wild park.  That was their domain, not ours.  We were helpless.  We couldn't go back, and when we finally did, it wasn't very fast.  We finally got back about a quarter of a mile and he finally quit pursuing us.  We were going to try to sneak by him and go forward.  And he came towards us, so we had to keep backing up until we came to a "Y" in the road and took a side road to get way from him, and then that elephant came over the rise and saw us and came running after us.  had he come running at us like that when we were closer, we would have been in serious trouble.  I firmly believe the angels were holding him there and giving us a story to tell and giving us a new respect for creatures in nature.

Nightly Bible Reading--Isaiah 6

Also--read Psalm 91 from The Message Bible.  You will see a direct correlation between that chapter and our experience today . . .