"these strange ashes"

i just got done reading "these strange ashes" by elisabeth elliot (it's one of liz's books that we're babysitting this year), a narrative of her first year in the jungles of ecuador with the colorado indians. i found it totally engrossing and wanted to share a couple of sections...this first one is dedicated to all you in foreign lands particularly, but it's just so fitting to the christian life in general:

"It is hard for a young person with high ideals to learn that people cannot be hustled. They cannot be hustled into the kingdom of God and it is well to remember Christ's own descriptions of that kingdom: leaven and seed, things that work slowly and out of sight. We long for visible evidence of our effectiveness, and when it is not forthcoming, we are tempted to conclude that our efforts never had anything to do with the kingdom."

good for all of us to keep in mind, especially y'all who only have a year or two working with certain people in for a little bit of time.

the next quote totally brought me to tears thinking about burkina faso:

elisabeth is heading out to the jungle for the first time from the big city of Quito bouncing along on the tailgate of a beat-up pickup truck..."Obedience to God was the reason for this journey. It was a good thing for me to remind myself of the reason because, on top of everything, it was really great fun. It was an adventure and held the thrill of adventure...I had no sense whatever of gritting my teeth and doing a thing I disliked. It was the thing I was made for and I was full of gladness."

here's a fun link to another blogger's pictures of burkina: http://www.alisasmith.com/gallery/burkinamali?page=1

and here's one for you china girls:

this is her caption: "Little whiff of China with the bike lanes in Ougadougou."

thanks liz, for the loan of a wonderful book.