the back burner

(please notice the safe language)

I sent out an update letter yesterday and realized just how much has been going on since my last one. In the past four months, I’ve participated in a few training events, said good-bye to a few teammates, planned and executed a few events, and walked into new stages of growth with local contacts and with the Lord. Every time I talk about what’s happening here, people identify aspects that sound most important to them (programs, people transitioning on or off the field, current projects...), but usually miss the slow walking with others and with the Lord, which is what consistently feels most important to me. It’s easy to overlook that in favor of the other, more quantifiable tasks, I think.

More than anything else, I find that gaining a greater knowledge of the Lord really makes the quantifiable things worthwhile. Growing in grace isn't a flashy process, but people who have that value repeatedly cut through stress and discouragement to really re-sell me on the importance of kingdom work. And growing with Him is the constant reminder that, at our best, we only see reality through a mirror dimly.

So, in my latest letter, I skipped the opportunity to talk about all the specific things that are happening and instead talked about some of the things I appreciate about the workers here: lots of humility, lots of looking for community wherever and however it might be found, lots of dependence upon the word, and a willingness to have their vision corrected. This is how workers have seen local leaders really step up and lead out with the gospel in their home contexts. This is how we’ve seen partnerships come together. This is how we’ve seen God take our particular, broken ideas about programs and strategy and use them to change lives, repair families, and renew our own hearts. All of the specific ministry events and opportunities I could have named seem very exciting, but they all boil down to changing our definitions of “getting things done.” It’s hard but wonderful. I felt like I needed people to know.