I was sleeping already tonight. Lukas came by though, along with some tears and some sort of problem he couldn't clearly articulate but I helped him back to bed and he's back to sleep. Lucky kid . . .
I sleep decent enough for the most part. I only mention this because in the 8 or so months since my last post on this blog, enough has happened and is going on in our lives that could keep a guy awake for weeks on end. It's not all bad. It's just that for a guy like me who over-analyzes everything, to not be kept awake at night is a miracle. And by miracle, I do mean nothing short of God's intervention. But tonight I am awake. Some of the things I am thinking about (aka: what has changed in the last 8 months):
The Guatemala mission trip. It was soo good on a number of levels. Was it worth it? Was it worth what? Was it worth the money spent? Was it worth the time? Was it worth bringing my family? I think so, to all of that. We didn't come back with any sort of "call" to missions which we were kind of expecting. I think we were really hoping for some big movement of our hearts cause then it could have made the decision to leave Summerland Alliance Church (SAC) easier.
Was resigning from my Associate Pastor position at SAC the right decision? I am almost certain it was.
I now drive a truck. A 2001 Peterbilt 379 Long Nose with a striaght piped cummins ISX 500hp. Terry, my boss/friend bought it for me to drive. It's the first time I have ever had a truck that was all for me. It's cool that I am trusted and valued enough to have my own truck. It even has my name on the door. A first for me. It's cool and all but at the same time, it is just a truck. And I am not a truck driver. This is important. One of my struggles in life is that I place too much of my identity in what I do for a living and I am working to be free from that. So, again, I drive a truck but I am not a "truck driver" or even worse - a "trucker".
So we are living in a transition. I am no longer a pastor, we moved to a new house across town, I have a different job, life is not the same, there are new challenges, we don't want to live the truck driving life, we are trying to figure out what or next "thing" is and it could be ministry of some sort again, we don't know where we belong (church family), we are still struggling to make ends meet, the list goes on.
Reasons for leaving SAC are long and deserve a post or two on their own - hey maybe this is the start of new life for the blog. Don't get your hopes up too high. But just so you know, the reason was NOT to make more money. Let me clear that up because it seems that that is the impression of most people who don't understand.
Mackenzie is in play school - where has the time gone? He finally can ride his bike! We worked on it this past weekend and he picked it up in no time! That's a bit of a story on it's own.
Should we have bought snow tires this week? Yeah, a good move. I kinda wish I could have afforded nicer rims like Terry (my boss/friend) suggested but on the other hand, who am I to be concerned over the look of my car when a lot of my fellow man can't afford food for tomorrow, let alone shiny rims. Then, maybe I shouldn't have bought the snow tires with that in mind. These tensions become too strong in my head - I don't know what to do with them.
I pulled out the "little legos" today. It used to be something only Mackenzie and I played while Lukas was napping but he is old enought to play now. And oh the fun of it all. Mackenzie likes to play with things that I build while Lukas likes to construct towers and explore the little people, especially the lego men. I loved lego as a kid. It was weird to think that pretty much all my lego is older than my boys. Most of it is probably 20 years old or more. I think I have more memories of surrounding lego than any other toy. Now I get to relive it all, and probably for many years to come.
What would a "failed life" look like? That was what I was thinking about when I was tarping my load this morning. And I have thought about it all day and am thinking about it now. I figure that a failed life would include something about marred relationships - God and people. It would be more about that than accomplishments I think. I think I could be a world changer but live a failed life just as I could be a tarper of loads and live a succesful life. Or maybe I tell myself this because I don't want to feel like I am a failure. More thinking to do on this one, but not know cause I am going to sleep. . .
Thursday, November 20, 2008
I sleep not
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Guatemala
Oh yeah, I went to Guatemala. In fact I am there now. I am with a team doing stuff. We have a blog dedicated to this whole thing. I posted on that site tonight but here it is . . .
This is the first time since we've left that I, Chris, have had access to the internet. It has been a glorious fast! I have really had no desire to connect and didn't really want to tonight but since I do have access, I thought I'd let you know what we have been up to.
Working back in time:
I am currently sitting at the table inside the hostel that we are staying at tonight. We are in Guatemala City. We need to be at the airport really early so rather than stay at Fe Viva and get up super early, well, you understand.
We spent the day and the conclusion of our time in Guatemala touring Antigua. A beautiful city! We'll get some photos posted when I manage to get them onto a computer. (It takes to long I am tired - don't ask).
I'm trying to thing of what we did yesterday. It's funny how fast we get our experiences mixed up. Really, the whole trip has been a pile of experiences mashed into one.
Yesterday morning I showed Mike, a guy from Peachland who came to spend time at Fe Viva after we left, how to install Windows XP (in Spanish) and Office onto a bunch of computers that were donated. This was a project I was working on all week at a leisurely pace. Initially, I was told that they had 6 computers they wanted up and running. No problem except that they were plagued with problems. I did get them running, sort of. But like I said, I worked at leisurly pace until they told me yesterday that they have 200 more! What? Yup, 200! There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Well, needless to say, I couldn't get them all up and running so I developed a assembly line system that they can pass onto people as they come and they may have most of them going in a couple of months.
While I did that, the rest of the crew were working on painting a new youth centre that Felix and his wife Teressa are starting. Felix and Teressa were our hosts and you will get to know them as we relive our journey.
In the evening, we said good-bye to the Casa kids. We sang songs with them one last time, Brad shared a devotional with them, and then they sang a special song for us. It was in Spanish so all we could make out was that it was about frogs. It was sad to say good-bye. You wouldn't understand the unique bond that is formed between these kids in such a short time but my heart was sad.
Self portrait - Elvis (the oldest of the Casa Kids) and I
My teammates will have to help me remember some of the kids' namesOnce the Casa kids were in bed, we threw tennis balls with Maria's kids just inside the courtyard. You will get to know these kids. They are a family living in extreme poverty that we invested in as a team while in Guatemala. Some of the money gifts that SAC gave, we gave to Felix to help care for this family. Felix personally is making sure the kids are going to school and being cared for.
We finished the night with a coke, a chocolate bar, and a good visit. A new team had arrived from Saskatoon and it turned out Angela knew one of the girls from over 10 years ago. That's not the only "small world" connection that was made on the trip. Tracy could tell you about hers.
And that was yesterday. Hopefully we'll all find time to recap the other days for you.
Thanks for praying. I was thinking tonight that in a lot of ways, the trip was fairly easy but I caught myself because it was in the air of "we didn't really need to pray that hard after all." Not true at all. If indeed we can say that in a lot of ways, the trip went off without a hitch or that things turned out to not be as difficult that we thought they were - all glory goes to God. He answered our prayers!
Tomorrow will be a long day and we kinda hit the wall of exhaustion tonight. Please pray for good rest, strength, endurance, grace, patience, and a good sense of humor.
See you soon!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
A good friend sent this to me. All I know is that it is from Oswald Chambers
“Jesus said to them again, ‘ As the Father has sent Me, I also send you’ ” (John 20:21).
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front—to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him—to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God’s call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ—“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations ” (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, “What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!” But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
