Sunday, July 14th
Back
at home—my home in Swaziland, anyways. J Serving as an intern this summer has been
such a time of simplicity and abundance amdist chaos and the demand for
flexibility. Part of that flexibility
has had to do with our living situations; over the last several weeks we have
lived in 4 different places from our intern home, to living with the
missionaries, to a retreat center in South Africa, and finally back to the team
house at the Anchor Center. I just
finished moving all of my stuff back into the house for the third time this
summer and I am grateful that this is the place I get to stay until I leave in
just 9 days. It means I will be able to
go running in the morning only to run into all the preschool kids on their way
to school and be amazingly interrupted by all of their radiant smiles and
delighted squeals to throw them higher or run with them faster. It means I will be able to wander outside
whenever I want; lounging on the boxcar containers, watering the garden, or
sitting behind the center and watching the sunset only to know I will be
interrupted by an old friend or a new friend to be. It means I will be able to dance with Smanga
as I blast music from the stereo in the team center that I jury-rigged with a
cable so we can play music from our ipods.
It means that I will constantly be at the center which anchors this
beautiful and impoverished community and that I know I will be able to find
everyone around that I care about and say goodbye. It will be hard to leave all
this behind. And yet I am ready to
go. This community has become a home,
but I miss the home Ive always known in Oregon.
I miss my friends and my family and I am so excited to return home for
my sister’s wedding in less than 2 weeks.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of my
last full week of ministry here in Swaziland and I am eager to step into it, to
serve, to invest deeply in friendships I care about, and to continue to see how
God will move and make His majesty known amidst these people. He is moving here. He is raising up Godly leaders and youth amidst
a culture that is impoverished and spiritually muddied in many ways. I have shared in the lives and stories of
many of those He is working in. He is
building up his church. I just spent 3
hours singing and dancing and learning from the message of Job as I worshipped
alongside a new church this morning.
And yet, even as I witness the new churchs forming and help construct
another one at one of the care points, I have been struck profoundly by the notion
that Christ’s church is not a building.
The church is our lives. Our
witness. Our testimony by the way we
live. The church is the way we shine our
lives when we are at work, when we are simply driving the vans, when we are
playing with kids, investing in our families.
But even more the church is the intentional worshipping and praising of
the Lord through all that we do and everything that is thrown our way. Will I praise the Lord when life is well, I
am achieving much, and am experiencing rich blessings? Will I praise the Lord when my spirit is crushed,
my motivation gone, and my body in pain?
This last week I found myself
working almost entirely behind the scenes.
I worked at the Anchor Center. I
did a lot of tasks that probably seemed and appeared meaningless. I did a lot of driving; to care points, the
market, and even the hospital. I got up
early in the morning to help construct a new building with some Swazi brothers,
who I could only share in brief conversation with. They didn’t need my help, and even if they
did they easily could have gotten the help of another Swazi man, and yet they
were honored by the fact that I wanted to join them and it was there that I
found satisfaction, joy, and contentment as I mixed volumes of cements and
lifted concrete block after block over my head to hand to my brothers building
the wall. Most of the rest of the
interns were working hands-on with another team here at a care point all
week. They were on the front lines of
ministry as they played and taught with the same kids day after day and helped
on new projects for the community. When
I look back, this was a week in which I didn’t do much and not many events stand
out. And yet this has been one of the
richest and most profound times I have had in Swaziland yet.
As
we started last week we had to move into homes with the missionaries in order
to accommodate the team of 20 at the Anchor Center. Jesse and I found ourselves suddenly living
with a Christian man named Neville, who we didn’t really know yet, but had
offered up his home. It was hard not to
be frustrated at first. We had just
gotten back from our retreat and immediately had to clean and pack and distance
ourselves from the Swazi community as we moved a few kilometers away. This was not where I wanted to be, especially
with only 2 weeks remaining in my timeline in Swaziland. And yet I was praying earnestly and asking
God for a heart to serve Him and those around me, as I strived to engage fully
with what time I still had left. What I
found this last week was a spirit that was amazingly renewed and recharged. What I found was that whoever wants to become
greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven must become least and the servant to
all. What I found was a renewed a
passion and conviction that we all desperately need God’s presence and the hope
of Heaven. Whether Swazi or American,
rich or poor, famed or shamed, Jesus has
died for all and His grace covers all of who we are. He calls us to repentance. He calls us to renewal. He calls us to fall on our knees, acknowledge
His love, and to disciple the whole world through the way we live and
love.
He has a plan and a purpose; a
vision and a direction. There is no
question of His victory in the spiritual war around us, and yet in this life we
find ourselves desperately caught in the middle of it all. Is Christ professed in my life? Am I seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven? Am I, with unveiled face beholding, as in a
mirror, the glory of the Father and being transformed into His image day by
day? Or am I caught in my selfishness,
my complacency, my needs, my lust, my satisfaction with a life that worships,
seeks, and serves Him occasionally but otherwise is seeking my own? Am I living, planning, and dreaming who I
might be and where I might go and inviting the Lord to come along and bless the
plans that I’ve made instead of seeking His will and glory first? Am I missing out on the whispers of His
spirit, the visions of His calling, and the demonstration of His power because
even as I seek to serve Him I have no time for Him? These are some of the questions that have
kept me awake late at night and have left me simultaneously overwhelmed and
shamed by my shortcomings and inspired, freed, and renewed by the passion and
glory I have glimpsed before but so often let fade. We have all been set free. Jesus has paid the cost with His very
life. I have tasted and seen that the
Lord is good. I have seen the gates of
Heaven crack and glimpsed the glory and joy that abides. We as Christ’s followers possess the greatest
news and hope the world has ever known.
One that has powerfully and radically transformed whole nations and
cultures as well as individuals lives. I
know that and can dwell in thought or conversation on it for hours, but will I
live it? Am I willing to pick up my
cross daily and follow Him?
Part of this regeneration and
renewal of my heart has come about through a book I found in Neville’s home. I had heard a bit about modern missionary and
disciple Brother Yun before and some about his powerful book, The Heavenly Man,
but I had never read anything by him before.
I found a book of his called, Living
Water. It was a collection of his
powerful teachings and things he had learned from a life of persecution,
torture, and imprisonment in China as he strived to bring the gospel to a lost
country in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. It
describes tremendous rejoicing in the face of suffering and the mighty
manifestation of Jesus in miraculous ways to redeem a country once considered
closed-off and nearly impossible to reach with the gospel. Reading some of his stories it bears a remarkable
similarity to the stories of the apostles and the early church. It describes the Holy Spirit coming alive and
the Lord transforming people and a culture through visions and dreams,
miraculous healings, prison doors thrown open, and countless hearts set
free. It describes believers who are so
lost in Jesus and the vision of Heaven He is bringing down that nothing can
stand in their way or oppose the movement of the Spirit. It re-awoken so many
of the wonderings, passions, and hopes that I had glimpsed before as I strived
to follow Christ, but somewhere along the way had begun to lose sight of. I strongly recommend the book to disciples in
the States, as it offers a renewed perspective of a life serving Jesus and what
it really means to answer His call.
As I have prayed for the nation of
Swaziland, for my friends, and for my time here I have begun to ask that God
might work powerfully in Swaziland (and in the States) as He has done in
China. That Heaven would come down,
revival might appear, His spirit pour out, and mighty and miraculous works be done
in His name and for His glory. I haven’t
encountered His miraculous power or voice in a burning bush yet, but I have
seen the Lord’s transformation and faithfulness at work, even in the small
things. Earlier this week, I was waiting
at the hospital with a friend for her young nephew who we had just dropped off
in the hopes that he could get in and have emergency surgery to stop an ear
infection before it reached his brain.
He had been brought to the hospital (90 min away) last week and was unable
to get in. I had gotten up early in the
morning to get him to the hospital first thing and was waiting with a few of my
Swazi friends and Jesse, unsure if he would have the surgery today or how long
it might take. I had brought the book
I’d been reading and spent my time talking with the Swazi’s and reading for a
few hours. At one point I found myself
completely lost and absorbed in what I was reading as the Spirit convicted and
moved my heart. I was only a couple of
pages away form finishing a chapter when I suddenly found myself overwhelmed
with the thought and nudge that you need to pray for this boy right now. I easily could have finished reading in hopes
of feeding the flames of what the Spirit was moving in my heart, but instead I
immediately put the book away and began to pray fervently that the Lord would
protect this boy; that He would get Him into surgery right away, that He would
guide the hands of the doctor, that he would comfort the boy and give him peace
before he went in for surgery, and that he would raise him up to be a godly
leader and model and work powerfully in His life. Fifteen minutes later this boy’s aunt walked
over to where I was and said that she was scared. She had been with him and said that he was
really scared as the doctors had received him and taken him in for surgery not
ten minutes before. I found myself
sharing with her how I had been praying for the boy and how I had felt and had
been scared before I went in for surgery 6 months ago for my shoulder. We rejoiced and praised the Lord together as
we waited and within a few hours the boy was released, heavily medicated, but
all had gone well and he was safe to go home with no fear of further
infection. I had spent nearly the whole
day driving, reading, praying, and rejoicing in the faithful God we serve and
asking that He bring Heaven down to earth here and now and work in the hearts
of many.
This is a long post, but God has
been doing so much this past week and I cant help but profess His glory and
praise for the things I have seen. I am
looking forward to the few days I have left and then I am so excited and am
eagerly anticipating returning home to so many things and so many people I
love. God is faithful and He will continue to be, so I will continue to pray and
ask for His vision; His calling upon my life, His redemption in poverty and
pain, His faithfulness to transform the lives of those I care about, His Heaven
to come down.
