He was bringing the devotional yesterday at our 10th anniversary celebration of Shiloh.  He turned to the Bible to show us where the name came from.  What it stood for.  Then he told about his own experience at Shiloh.  One thing he shared stood out to me.  He said he always found Shiloh very clean.  It's true.  It has always been our policy to have the house company ready.  People can drop in at any moment.  We have to be ready for them.  But then he want on to say that even our toilets are always clean.  And that's what struck me.

I got to thinking of all the different toilets I have used over these nearly 25 years we have lived out here in Cameroon.  In the early days, when we took the bus up to Bamenda in the Northwest, we stopped at the village of Makininin which is the half way point.  We filed off the bus and had a half hour to eat and use the non-existent facilities.  That's right.  We got to use the great out doors.  Jim and I would walk out of the village a short ways to the first field we could find.  Then we would try to find some bush or anything to hide behind.  It wasn't our favorite activity, but necessary.  Finally some entrepreneurial individual built a public restroom.  We now pay 100 F to get a strip of toilet paper and the privilege of using the facilities.  The place is never really clean.  There are no toilet seats in any of the stalls.  Probably wouldn't want to sit on them if they did exist.  The toilets never were the flush variety.  But there is an over-sized plastic barrel of water in the hallway with a dipper cup for flushing.

We were staying in a village once that had a pit toilet out back.  It was surrounded by battered old sheets of metal roofing.  The whole thing was rickety.  Once I reached out to hold on to the wall to help pull myself back up and nearly pulled the whole thing down on top of me.

Another village, another pit toilet.  This one was very shallow.  I quickly learned why that was not a good idea.  I could see all these maggots boiling just a few inches blow the unsteady logs that I was straddled over.  It was pretty gross.

Once we stayed in the dormitory at a Catholic mission.  While we had our own bedroom, we had to share the bathroom.  A group of teenage guys were also there, so we shared a bathroom with them.  It was easily one of the dirtiest toilets I ever used.

Then there was the pit toilet with the riser made of cement.  Missionaries lived in that compound.  They had a system whereby if the toilet seat was hanging on the nail at the entrance to the circular hut, it was safe to go inside.  But when the toilet seat was missing, the bathroom was in use.  They had a serious cockroach problem so they provided a long handled toilet brush.  We removed the plank over the toilet, swept cockroaches away, put the toilet seat down, and were good to go.

We have visited many middle class Cameroonians who have what is called a modern bathroom.  That means there is inside plumbing but it does not work.  I've never been in one with a toilet seat, unless it was broken and laying against the wall.  The toilet handle is always broken.  And there is no water in the tank.  Usually the tank lid is off, too.  Again, we find the barrel and dipping cup for flushing purposes.  

Truly, our toilets really are clean.  They stand out in their field.  No wonder they deserved mention during our 10th anniversary celebration.

But I got to thinking about our lives.  We all clean up pretty good on the outside.  Put on fancy cloths.  Perfume or aftershave.  The question is, what are we like on the inside?  That part of us that mostly stays hidden from others?  Are we pretty gross?  Or have we invited the only One Who can transform us to come into our lives and make us His own?  

So how's your toilet?  Just wondering.