Out of touch

For some reason Blogger had my blog as a possible spam scam and so my blog was blocked for like 5 days...
Though i have done a lousy job of letting all my amigos know I am online and blogging....for those of you who have been reading up, my apologies. I was pretty frustrated with the whole thing. But I am over that...Now it's time to share about my life.

Today something sweet and real happened.
I'd been feeling disconnected spiritually since I arrived in Kabul. Maybe I was just assigning too much energy to external things rather than spending time alone, moments of real processing my being here.

But this very afternoon, suddenly, as I was being driven back to the office, coming back with Shabibi and Palwashera from my first meeting with a women's handcraft association(about 40 minutes away, district 6 of Kabul) just sitting, just looking curiously out the window, I felt Jesus so close to me, so everywhere and within everything my eyes could see.

I saw Him amongst the sheperd guiding goats along the road, through the various bakers stretching out long slabs of local bread called nan, while people awaited in line, in the eyes of little girls to and from school, in Shabibi's words as she told me of her life as an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, in the grapevines I could see growing inside homes we passed by, in the strong heat I felt in a dusty afternoon but with a cooling breeze brushing my hair and pushing my scarf back. In the lemon stands on every street, offering refreshment from the heat to passersby.
He's here, amongst us. His lifestyle is all around me.
The paths that Jesus walked. I look at this arid, desert place, at men still wearing turbans, long beards, tunics, women covered from head to toe, and then slowly take in the closeness I feel to Him as my eyes drink in the landscape and people that He walked amongst not so long ago.
I recovered my hope, picked up His grace, and made a promise in my heart to remain and keep walking the same roads He walked on.