Coming Home

How do I start and where should I begin?  First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who has expressed their concern for us and committment to pray for us!

No doubt many of you have heard by now that Kate, Jude, baby girl and I will be leaving Holland in the next week (probably Wednesday).  If its a shock to you, perhaps it is good for you to know you are not alone in that sentiment; our church’s board informed us of our dismissal only 48 hours ago.

The short story–in a very long story of both many ups and downs, twists and turns–is that Monday evening the leadership of Cross Culture (the church we’ve been serving) has expressed their satisfaction with the job we were invited here to do.  Specifically the task we were charged with included freeing the lead pastor up and raising up a new youth pastor.

Over the course of the last fifteen months I have been able to assist the lead pastor here in handful of ways, from leading the youth and teaching on Sundays and during the week, to working with him to c0-create the current expression of our church’s mission and means for engaging that mission (displayed in the church’s mid-week meeting area).

On the other side, though we have perhaps had less time than we’d have liked to disciple the youth leader who will taking our place, we are very excited to see how the Lord will work through him.  God is just beginning to do some exciting things here in Holland (see here and here), and I hope you will join me praying for the growth and continuation of these new ways in which Christ is being named where he has not been so before!

Looking Back

Looking back this year has been as much about learning as it has been about ministering.  Personally I feel my love for and relationship with Jesus has deepened as he has lifted our eyes from the what of his church’s doing (Acts 2:42-47) to the why (Acts 1:8).  He is the God who sends, and because he has come himself, I know that he is also going before us now.

Looking Forward

So where is he going before us?  To be completely honest, I’m not sure.  Of course our primary focus right now, aside from packing, is in looking forward to the arrival of baby girl in early March.  Beyond This we’re not really sure where the Lord is leading us.  You can be sure we will keep you posted as things become clear and the Lord paves the way forward–whether that path leads us to Vancouver or beyond.

Again, a huge thank you to those who have so faithfully supported us through email, Skype or Facebook, or in prayer or finances this past year!  You have carried us many times!

As to specifics, the four of us plan on leaving Holland in seven days–just two days before Kate is no longer allowed to fly!

Lastly, for those of you who know the Youngers, keep an eye on their blog or Facebook accounts for more information on their plans to return to Vancouver. (also, a huge thank you to Nathan and Anna for taking care of things here so that Kate, Jude and I are able to return all together!)

Mission Connexion

I know I have a lot of friends who will be serving at and impacted this year’s Mission Connexion being held at Crossroads.  To all of you I wish you a great weekend of drinking in the Lord’s heart and purposes at working his world!

I know you’re going to be hearing a lot more eloquent speakers than me this weekend, but let me add some thoughts on the weekend’s theme of “Reconciling Nations” from the nation God has drawn us to.

Nathan reminded us of our ministry of reconciliation during last Sunday’s service:

“All these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us teh ministry of reconciliation.  In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us…” II Corinthians 5:17-20a (NET Bible)

What a great charge!  What a great responsibility God in Christ has handed over to his church such a great reminder of that for which Christ has saved us!

J.R. Woodward over at Dream Awakener published this quote on reconciliation from Henri Nouwen yesterday:

“How do we work for reconciliation? First and foremost by claiming for ourselves that God through Christ has reconciled us to God. It is not enough to believe this with our heads. We have to let the truth of this reconciliation permeate every part of our beings. As long as we are not fully and thoroughly convinced that we have been reconciled with God, that we are forgiven, that we have received new hearts, new spirits, new eyes to see, and new ears to hear, we continue to create divisions among people because we expect from them a healing power they do not possess.

Only when we fully trust that we belong to God and can find in our relationship with God all that we need for our minds, hearts, and souls, can we be truly free in this world and be ministers of reconciliation. This is not easy; we readily fall back into self-doubt and self-rejection. We need to be constantly reminded through God’s Word, the sacraments, and the love of our neighbours that we are indeed reconciled.” (click here for another great quote from Nouwen on the task of reconciliation)

Finally, one more quote from Newbigin on the passing of Jesus’ mission to his followers:

“It is of the essence of the matter that Jesus was not concerned to leave as the fruit of his work a precise verbatim record of everything he said and did, but that he was concerned to create a community which would be bound to him in love and obedience, learn discipleship even in the midst of sin and error, and be his witnesses among all peoples” (Newbigin, The Open Secret 176)

Any of you who has a chance, I’d encourage you to swing by Worldventure‘s booth (our missions agency).  You’re likely to meet our friend Doug Hazen (the NW Church Connections person). Besides being a very personable guy, he has a great combination of wisdom and experience that I’m sure will keep you talking for quite a while. Also, look for Doug in the workshops being offered throughout the weekend and tell him we say “Hi!” (Joe Murray is also someone we’ve gleaned a lot from).

Enjoy!

Povertyfighters.com

One of the friends  we met last week at Worldventure’s training in Colorado told us about a website that lets you make a difference in the fight against poverty–one click at a time!  Every day povertyfighters.com invites anyone who wants to, to go to their site where you can donate up to $.50 per day by clicking on the  “Click to Donate” button!  The money donated to povertyfighters is then used to provide “micro-loans” to people in impoverished areas.  Pretty cool, huh?

Homing

There are some things in life I just am not good at, and one of them is Homing.  Not twenty minutes in to our home for the week here in Littleton Colorado for training, and Kate says, “I think I’m going to unpack.”  While there may not be anything revolutionary or groundbreaking about this simple statement, as a guy who is about to uproot his life and move it around the world, I find this an incredible blessing.  

Its funny how people can be paired together–whether you believe it to be that “one person God has for you” or not.  Though we never set out to match up our giftings to see where the other person is lacking, I find, time and again, that our giftings do match.  I’m not really a person who homes (taken as a verb of course), but if you given me enough time, I’ll figure out that something is missing.  

Thank God that his plans are bigger than ours and that he sees things we so often miss.  

Keep praying for us this week as God continues to prepare us for those unforeseen things that lie just over the future’s horizon.  

PS – The flight went great.  Jude slept most of the time and never really even cried!  

PPS – Kate and I are both feeling a little under the weather.  I don’t know if it is the altitude or what, but pray we’ll get over it quickly.  We’ll be updating through the week!