September 8, 2008

boot camp

I just survived three weeks in Colorado for this training called SPLICE at Missions Training International – designed to prepare people for foreign missions. Our instructor, a heaven-sent, hell-bent provocateur led us through 8 hours a day of intense cross-cultural training.

o We wrestled with practical issues like – Is it OK to bribe or take a bribe while living in a corrupt country?
o We identified losses in safety, identity, and family. Grown men openly sobbed. As a “sent out” community, we grieved over what we were leaving behind.
o We crammed ourselves into a tarp-covered, cardboard box while trying to “survive” a simulated rebel attack. We had to decide who would be air-lifted out by the MAF pilots and who would be executed.

We wrestled.
We grieved.
We counted the cost.

It was like spiritual boot camp – breaking you down in order to build you up. They said if you still want to go into missions after this, you must either be insane or really certain. Or maybe a little bit of both.

(Am i still going to east Africa? I am.)

hoops

That training was my last official hoop to jump through. So my sights are set on raising up the final spiritual and financial partners needed to minister to the children in east Africa. The departure date that I am aiming at is October 22, 2008. (of $3,600 per month and $15K more in one-time departure gifts), so….

the sent

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
And how can they preach unless they are sent?”

Romans 10:14-15

the rope

I recently heard a missionary from Papua New Guinea speak. He compared a missionary to one being lowered on a rope into the pit of hell.

Who’s holding the rope?

You are.

The rope holders are the people back home. The senders. The ones who pray, the ones who give, the ones who write letters, the ones who don’t let go.

Because I have to say that I am quite certain that I will fall apart in east Africa if you let go. I desperately need people to pray for me, for the ministry, and to not let go. I need people to partner with me in this.

This holding the rope is no small thing.

for the children

“Sometimes we don’t think hard enough about the business of being a witness. Sometimes we think there are two choices: being witnesses or not being witnesses. This is not true.

We are always witnessing to something. The only question is to what are we witnessing.” – Bryant Meyer

God, make your church
a witness of Your Goodness & Grace
to the orphans and vulnerable children
of Africa.