D'oh!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on "the story of my life". I had gone to the far side of town to get a visa and remembered everything EXCEPT my passport photos.

This is just one of many examples when I feel like slapping my forehead and exclaiming D'oh! like Homer Simpson. Somtimes the simplicity of my own brain surprises. How could I have done that? Why didn't I think of this earlier? etc. etc.

I had another one of those moments about half-way through my bus-trip down here. I had been pondering the annoying timing of things (leaving Ouaga before I was completely ready, spending too much time in expensive Abidjan, Brian and Tabitha might not be in Banfora when I get back, etc etc,). Then, it suddenly occurred to me, as I was jostling (OK bone-jarring) along, that a much better solution would have been to visit Brian and Tabitha on the way down, spending the weekend with them, then arriving in Abidjan during the week so not having to pay for the guest house on Sat or Sun, and then starting my bike trip immediately upon return to Banfora. Perfect solution! Except I was already half-way to Abidjan. Arrrgh.

I thought to myself... self... how can you be so stupid to miss such an obvious solution? Then I started thinking... this happens to me a lot, but in the end, it usually ends up well. How is that? Sometimes I feel like the bumbling detective who does everything wrong and somehow thwarts the bad-guy coming out victorious, no thanks to his real prowess. As I thought back over the events of the past few weeks, I realized that there is great truth to the statement that God works in our weakness.

As it turns out, not having got my visa that particular day was a good thing because otherwise it would have expired before I finished needing it. God was looking out for me. Another example happened only a couple of days ago when I was supposed to send my bike to Banfora with a friend, but left it at the mechanic's too long and when I went to pick it up, found the shop locked up. It turns out that when I picked up the bike the next day, I was able to make some important last-minute adjustments that wouldn't have been done if I had gone in time to send it with my friend. Thanks, God for saving my butt on that one. Come to think of it I can list about a dozen such instances where a stupid act on my part turned out to be really useful.

Basically it comes down to this. I can't take credit for squat because I just forget things and make stupid decisions, etc. God is the one that makes things work out. And that is the truth. Nothin' I have done can be credited to me.

So, I started thinking... why is it that God might be wanting to do through my stupidity this time? Well, today at church, I ran into an old friend, Laurel, from University in BC. She now works in Mali and comes down to help in Abidjan every once in a while. She told me that she is having a big meeting with a language commitee tomorrow, but feels over her head since she mostly does library and computer work, not linguistic or literacy stuff. The meeting is to help advise the people of a certain language how to move ahead in developing their orthography (that is a fancy word for the writing system of a language which includes the alphabet, the spelling rules and grammar choices. It is a highly delicate subject that takes into account a whole mountain of different factors, of which "readability" rates very high. I have studied this a lot, worked on the problem when I was doing Anyi literacy, and taught the subject in courses, so I had lots of advice for Laurel. After about 2 minutes, she cut me off and invited me to be a guest at the meeting.

A-ha. It is all becoming clear now. God wanted me here on Monday morning for a reason. I have no idea what the meeting will be like or who will be there, but I am praying that I will be able to provide wisdom. May He accomplish good things through my weakness.