Whirlwind Wishes

Well, I think I’m way overdue for a blog post! First of all, there are so many thank yous to be uttered that they can’t be counted. The numbers of prayers, words of encouragement, and emails to uplift us through this whirlwind has been such a profound blessing. As many of you know by now, we’ve been traveling for a long, long time. Even though a few of those weeks we were with family in Martinsville, Chattanooga, and Anderson, our “life in a few bags” began at the end of July. After July, we set out on our road trip full of goodbyes, see you laters, hugs, last stateside conversations, sharing about the work we were moving toward, and preparing for our new life here in Kenya. It was a packed, but joy filled, few months. We traveled to Bristol TN, Columbia SC, Marion NC, and then between in Martinsville, Chattanooga, and Anderson. I spent four weeks in additional training. I remember wanting to move to our “next” journey, but I also remember being a little afraid. What would more “long term” life look like on the other side? What will we do? Who will we meet? Where will we go? How long will we be here? I remember vividly being in Anderson and realizing in was the last night before we were set to fly out of Greenville. I tried not to be sad, but really that couch at Grandma and Grandad’s has become one of my favorite places on US soil. And, suddenly, I was overwhelmed with just how much I loved the people God has so graciously placed in my life’s walk. Chase, and through being an Arndt--two sets of incredible grandparents and in laws, wonderful Usry extended family, my extended family, my Forest Hills church family, our Blacksburg family, our very large King, First Pres, Bristol family and church family, all of the churches and individuals who understood our calling and decided that they were about it too. I stand it awe when I thank God for the people in our lives who love us so well.

We landed here completely exhausted, but encouraged, and set out after four days to stay in Kona Baridi for two weeks with our friends Jeremy and Becky. That seems like AGES ago, my friends! Since then, we have stayed in numerous places. Other missionaries have graciously housed us during times we’ve needed to be in Nairobi. We’ve stayed at guest houses, a hostel, visited Tenwek Hospital to see friends, lived in Olepishet for a month, stayed with a missionary for nearly a month, rented a missionary family’s place for nearly a month, and camped on (yes—on!) the car on multiple occasions. In every. single. circumstance. God has provided a place for us to be. There have been days when the next two days are unknown to us. Our time thus far has been oh-so-full of relationship building, language learning, car purchasing, and house searching. I have been humbled with the generosity of local Kenyans and fellow missionaries who have been so willing to take weary travelers into their homes! We have witnessed God’s loved poured out on us. He has been faithful through each phase, each useless worry, each night we lay our heads on a new pillow. And, even though this has been difficult at times, I truly wouldn’t trade it. When we get comfortable, that’s when we stop relying on God and stop experiencing the ways he longs to show us His overwhelming love. I am so guilty of being too comfortable. It’s so easy to worship on Sundays and forget those around us, our very neighbors (and I'm not talking necessarily about the guy right beside your house). When you’re moving about, you have to be somewhat alert of your surroundings. You make choices about where you will stay, what you will buy at the duka (“store” in Swahili) down the road, how long you’ll need X amount of supplies, where you’ll store your other supplies while you’re doing X. By it’s very nature, moving around causes us to be a little more aware of those around us. But, a constant relationship or friendship that can be depended upon and nurtured isn’t really in the mix. That’s what I’m really missing, but I'm thankful for God's (and Chase's) constant companionship.

Even though this phase has brought us a new awareness of God’s very real ability to provide abundantly, we are very ready for community. We are ready to surround and encourage a community. To learn from a community. To pour into people and let them pour into us. We are ready to put some roots down. And although I believe we are getting closer to that time, God still tells us to wait. We want to be faithful in our language study so as to serve people well. And even though I’m itching to know what our roles will be, I’m committed to trying my best to communicate in the language of the people we came to serve. I’m trying daily to be obedient to God’s call, knowing that nothing is wasted and knowing that He is faithful. We westerners don’t like waiting. We like being productive, having something to show for our efforts. If there is something that serving in Kenya ISN’T, it’s that last sentence RIGHT there. And, quite honestly, if earning my latest degree is only used to lighten people’s burdens and point them to the Creator, I am more than content with that.

In my experience, relationships are where true service comes to fruition. Without relationships and knowing people deeply, what do we have? Without intentionality, what do we have? Without a commitment to something, what do we have? Without learning about those around us, what do we have? Without honesty and openness, what do we have? Please pray with us that there will be people committed and ready to help us connect with our community as we stand ready to learn from them. Since language learning is our primary objective for the next six months, please pray for our minds to be able to absorb what they can and not stress over what they can’t. Pray that we will take times to rest and that we will spend time working diligently on language with the help of a language helper. Please pray FOR the people will be our language helpers. We don’t yet know who those folks will be. But, pray that we will love them well. Pray that above all else, we will be Christ to the faces we see in our community. During this season of lent, let us remember that relationships go hand in hand with sacrificial love. Lord, continue to love and teach us how to love sacrificially.

Ann Voskamp says the following and I pray it is true for all of us today and in the days ahead:

By Grace, today I fast from the lie that my calling
isn't great enough because God isn't calling
for people great in skills, schooling, or spotlight -
He's calling those simply great in community,
in confession, in communion, in courage, great in Christ.
Today I will do ordinary things with extraordinarily great love.
We repent of wanting to be great
instead of loving greater.

Inadequate and Useless

Before I begin I want to preface that this is not a pity party, nor is it a cry for help. My self-esteem is fine and I know where my identity lies. However, talking to Audrey the other day, we came to the general consensus that in our current transitional point in life and ministry (in traveling, and language learning), we have begun to feel a little useless and a bit inadequate in our service. Which got me thinking, how does one prepare for ministry, especially a long-term ministry? It would be easier (not easy of course) for one to leave their home, jump into another culture, start ministering, go hard at it for a couple months, then go back home into their normal field of work, feeling tired and worn out, but accomplished none-the-less. This is the way most of my mission’s experiences have been; we come in, jump into a project, conquer, and head home. A feeling of satisfaction, but the question arises, what happens to the building, project, or people once I am gone?

This brings about the thought of long-term missions (which I am going to call mid-term missions) these are the one or two-termers (maybe 2-6 years) who have the idea of a longer vision, hoping to develop something that can be adopted and owned by the people they go to serve (this is where I would say we currently fall). It is the awkward stage of missions, as I think my wife would call it (Similar to her transitional lens glasses, somewhere between regular glasses and sunglasses, which is almost-but-not-yet. The look that always leaves you feeling super confident….). The reason I say this type of mid-term missions is awkward is because of the unknown. We want to learn the language to be more effective and speak to the hearts of the people we are coming to serve in their own tongue; however in order to do that it takes up an inordinate amount of time that could be spent ministering, especially if you pick a small obscure language that Rosetta Stone does not cover and cannot prepare before hand. You work on building relationships in the community, but people are unsure how much to invest in you because they are unsure how long you will be around. So you end up having very few real connections on the ground, and the ones you once had at home are fading a bit due to distance. If you are early in your years and career you have the tendency to be plagued by thoughts of how will this effect my resume, or what about the years I am missing in experience and savings? What about family, and having and raising kids, do you plan them for a furlough, or begin your family abroad, and what effects does that carry over into your family back home, and the young ones you will raise? Therefore, if you do not have proper training, you feel underprepared and inadequate at times, and if you spend your time preparing, you look at all the time that is being “lost” and may feel useless (a lose-lose situation).

Then comes the big, ever-question of sustainability, something every missionary longs for, what supporters want to know more about, but truthfully one of the hardest things, it seems, to accomplish. If you are going to leave at some point, it seems best to have a successor, for success without a successor, is failure. Or is it? Is a mission only successful if it carries on after the missionary is gone, or could it all be about the one person it touched? Do numbers matter in the long run, or are all the finances, work, and hard times worth it for only one? It is hard to justify to a room full of donors, but I think deep down it is definitely worth it, just hard to justify it in your mind sometimes. In my mind it seems the very thing we are called to do is to make disciples, to train up followers that can train others, thus perpetuating itself and becoming a sustainable mission. However, what do you do when the people you have come to serve won’t take initiative? What if they don’t buy in? Or what if they do buy in but do not want to put forth the effort? In our short time here in Kenya we have seen dozens of mission projects that were started with the best of intentions to meet a need in the community, the people were trained on how to carry about the mission, and to continue the good work of the project, but yet when the missionaries left, shortly after the project crumbled and disappeared. Yet, when you go into those same areas, with some of the resources still there, although a bit worse for wear, the people say, “Have you come to start back up the project? It was so good! It helped so much. Someone really should start it again…” The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Whose responsibility is it to perpetuate these “good works”? Occasionally, you may find a local individual with the skill and some vision to carry on (we recently met a 80 something year old Maasai man who is carrying on the torch of some missionaries of the past, but he is the only one, no one after him has caught the vision, or has the spark to take over in his old age). It seems these individuals with vision and gumption are few and far between.

If inspiring and discipling does not work, then the only other option is for the LONG termers. These are the missionaries who have committed their lives to serving abroad. These are the ones who have settled in their places of service, whose homeland is not the same as their children’s. They have learned the language through and through, seen scores of people and tried many a project, some have succeeded and some still floundering, but they are committed to the people and committed to their vision. In the wake of no successors they carry on trying to do the most good for the most people while they are still around, hoping the things they do and the people they touch will one day light the spark for another to carry the torch in their absence. This may not happen in their time there. These individuals may not get to see the fruit of their labor or their efforts blossom. However, as Paul says in Corinthians, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God causes the growth.” These seeds that have been planted, whether from short, mid, or long-termers, God may use them all and grow them into something far beyond our scope of vision. However, that may not always be comforting when we are hoping to see growth now, to see fruit, and abundance.

Bringing me to my longwinded point. In no attempt to pity myself, it is easy to feel useless and inadequate. We are young, inexperienced, somewhat unequipped and in our preparations sometimes it feels like we are wasting valuable time that could be spent working. In the wake of “failed” projects, broken people, and everyday trials it is easy to get discouraged. However, we deeply trust, as long as we are seeking Him, He will use all that we pour in, if we are faithful, to further His good work. It is just hard to see sometimes in the thick of it. Today I saw a picture that illustrated this point well. It had a man on a bike with a straight road and a finish line in sight, and it was captioned, “our view of life/ministry”. Then next to it there was a picture of the same man on the bike, a very short straight section of road, some hills, curves, ditches, mountains, oceans, cliffs with sharks at the bottom, and a finish line, and it said “God’s call to ministry”. It’s not that God wants us to suffer, but God prepares and equips us. Life, contrary to what we wish, is not a simple easy road. It is full of bumps, curves, trials, excitements, and disappointments, but God prepares us and guides us along the way, testing us and producing endurance. It’s just hard to see sometimes when you are in that ditch. And yet, we persevere and pray for those who will come along side us and carry the torch when we can no longer. We are all inadequate at times, and there are times I am sure we all feel useless, but the encouraging thing is that there is One greater than us working in and through us, even in our times of weakness and inadequacy. We have our confidence in this, in He who started this good work in and through us, will continue it until His perfect completion. While it may take a while to see we have faith that He is making all things, including us, new.