By faith ... but how?

You know that whole faith-and-works paradox in the Bible? If you grew up in a good biblical church as I did, then of course you do. Ephesians 2, we're saved by grace through faith alone and not of works. James 2, that faith will produce works if it's real. A fundamental.

Somehow the fundamentals of faith can take our whole lives to get down. My Dad and I have asked each other through a number of confusing life decisions, "Does faith mean 'wait on the Lord' and don't try to help Him, or does it mean do what you can, be diligent to knock on doors and trust the Lord will open the right one?"

This confusion occurs all the more in ministry. For instance, George, a member of TEN3's curriculum department, is to go to Nigeria to work with writers for three weeks starting May 20. He has the funds to go, the time seems appropriate, and we really need this face-to-face time with them. However, George wisely does not want to go alone, as the circumstances would likely put him one-on-one with females, which is a bad idea in ministry.

Solution? Send Ray, the other available member of the curriculum department, with him. The problem was that Ray didn't have the funds. He sent out a letter to supporters to make the need known, but there wouldn't be enough time to process any gifts that came in before his ticket would have to be purchased. So we had to make a decision--we could front the money from an organizational account if he could get the donations in later to reimburse the account. But we had to make the decision before we would know if that money would come in.

So why not have me go with George, or with both of them? Well, these married folks can only stay away a few weeks at a time, whereas if young, happily single I could stay for months at a time, writers could come see me once a week or so and we get much more done together. Though I have enough funds in my ministry account to make such a trip work, SIM has enough experience to know a long-term missionary shouldn't exhaust all her funds for a short-term venture, so I'm waiting for my monthly support to build up.

Which brings me back to the faith question--is it a double standard to front Ray's money in faith that it will come in, but for me to have to wait until money is actually coming? I don't think so, because there's no distinct answer to this in the Bible--it's different for every situation. Sometimes God works in a big "Stand still and see the power of the Lord" way; sometimes He works through our day-and-night toil that seems to bring little fruit. God is growing in us a mature faith that can both act and wait, and a heart that is close enough to Him to know which He wants today.

A poem I wrote four years ago

This Cup

Forcing myself, Never Good. Enough.

“Save!”  atonement “Come.”

All I have been screams for dear life,

  for everything I grasped, that is not life.

The Savior continues to quietly beckon.

This boldfaced acceptance of my death--

Gulp down the pain, remembering His. . .

Dying. Drink. -(poison) A reckless release

to unseen hope (medicine)- Finding. Life.

--is a risk that I cannot afford not to take.

“No more my will,  but what You will.”

All this, that I may imbibe of the new

marriage covenant, a regular sacrifice;

slammed with intensely bitter waves

tossed upon the richly sweet fluid.

As I accept the momentous cup

from Your bleeding hand

that took it first

and filled it,

I want

the faith

to not

just

drink,

but quaff the full;

To partake of all of You. 

Trying

Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted. To be honest I'm weary; lots of stuff going on. The one that's really draining my work now is the fact that my cat has been ailing for two months. He stopped eating, and has been in and out of the vet several times. He gets better, and then stops eating again. Poor little guy has been diagnosed with renal problems, diabetes and hepatic lipidosis, in addition to suffering from constipation and a cold in the last few weeks. These things are supposed to be treatable, so I began syringe feeding him in hopes he would recover. It's been quite time-consuming and emotionally draining, and I still don't much know what to do, except to pray and try my best to comfort him. Fortunately, my family and colleagues have been understanding and supportive. God gave me a very sweet gift in Chocolate, one that has been very dear to me these past twelve years. This chance to take care of him intensively is a gift as well; and I commit my responsibilities, to my cat and to my job, to His hand whose wisdom will not fail in these trying circumstances.

Ok, ministry news. I am very excited to say that we have started training about twenty school representatives to begin using our Computer Training Outreach in their schools. I still need to finish the conversion to Puppy Linux; I have three chapters left in Computer Essentials. Hopefully Spreadsheet Essentials will be a simpler transition. At least OpenOffice Light works in Puppy, so I don't have to change to completely different office program instructions!

Also, we're tentatively looking at sending George and possibly Ray to Nigeria for three weeks this May to work with the writers. I'm hoping about then to be looking to buy my own plane tickets go to go for a longer term. As we say in TEN3, Deo Volente (God willing).

Traveling down a rocky road

One Saturday while we were in Nigeria last August, Ray wanted to go to Miango to visit Kent Academy, where he had taught for I think thirteen years. George and I went with him. We packed lunches and climbed in the van that our driver Joshua used. Let me tell you, riding from one town to another in Nigeria is a recipe for motion sickness. The roads are unsorted stretches of pavement, mud and potholes, often with more of the latter two than the former. There were lots of points where, I would have thought nothing without 4-wheel drive could have possibly made it. We drove right through a creek once. Another time, the road literally ran into a rise of solid rock, and resumed about 8 feet higher in elevation. If I were driving, I would have turned back there. But Joshua knew what the van could handle. We did come on one point where he did turn back and find another route:

A collapsed bridge

My cautious little American mind would have stopped unnecessarily at a lot of rough spots where I thought no way can this vehicle make it. But Joshua knew the terrain; he had the experience to push the vehicle and get us there and back safely.

That's how I feel about what we're trying to do in curriculum now. George, Ray and I are praying about when to return to Africa. It's a surprisingly difficult thing to pray through, since it's so open-ended. As far as when, we can pick pretty much any dates we want; it would just be up to us and the writers. Anthony and Joe are going to train teachers in Nigeria April 26-May 8, and some of what they do our writers need as well, so it seems a good idea to have at least one of us go then.

The last two times I went to Africa, it was the whole TEN3 team (all the missionaries at least) together. It's wonderful to get to fellowship face-to-face with my colleagues who live so far away, and there are a lot of benefits for the team when we do this. But for our writers, it may be more effective to split up our travel, and have George there for a while, me there later, and then Ray there later or something like that. The men wouldn't want to go more than 3-4 weeks without their wives, but I'm still hoping to stay about six months whenever I go. (This has gotten me to really love being single!)

But we're not really sure what's needed to get the Biblical Health and Life Management curriculum written. We're seeking input from our writers, who are dealing with realities we're not used to, concerning what would be most helpful to them.

I would also love to train writers in other countries besides Nigeria, but we'd need enough interested writers recruited in one place to make a trip worthwhile. So I'm praying for that as well.

Please pray for wisdom and guidance as we push forward. We believe we are called to help the African church develop her own educational system (curriculum, teachers, standards, etc.), but the path is still very rocky and uncharted.

Reset button!

There are several good things about temp work. The obvious one of course is the money, which is coming none too soon, as my car is in need of tires and a horn relay. I also enjoy the change of pace, the chance to get out and interact with more people for a while, and the hopes that I can represent Christ in the process. So I like getting to work at the community college bookstore a few weeks out of the year.

That said, it's a big relief to be done with this rush, too. I haven't touched the CTO-puppy conversion these four weeks, except to package what I've done so far for our teachers to get started on. I've had to put off a lot of my fundraising too for lack of time. Just trying to keep up minimal duties as curriculum department head while working long hours at the bookstore has meant significant sleep deprivation. Now that I'll be free in the daytime hours, I hope to reestablish connections with volunteers and get things in Biblical Health & Life Management curriculum, and updates of older material, going again.

The timing has worked out interestingly, as this month the other members of TEN3 curriculum have been focused on other things as well (Ray on a relationship development ministry trip to Maine, and George on getting computers ready for the Training department). So I think now is really a time for us collectively to hit the Reset button. I hope the Lord uses this change of pace to work in the background arrangements we may not realize we need, and to refresh our hearts and minds for service. I pray that we start anew in the Lord's guidance, that we may have His wisdom and priorities in our work.

Nunca quiero estar aburrida! (Como lo dice en frances?)

My last entry was about my decision to learn French. It's interesting that this resolution comes after I decided to strengthen my Spanish for local ministries, especially the nursing home ministry.

So, we'll see how this goes, finding time to work on French and Spanish, and of course sharpening my mind in many other areas. Good thing God gave me a love of learning--so much so that I want to be fluent in every language in the world! So, here's to this item of my fantastic bucket list (http://baptistdancer.xanga.com/635065864/my-dreams-and-in-my-dreams/)!

I have made a little partial list of things I learned in 2011, which I shared with those of you on my newsletter list. See the Newsletter Archives page.

New Years

I normally don't make new year's resolutions. If I know I need to do something, might as well start it now. The date on the calendar isn't going to make it any easier. But I made a decision a few weeks ago that timed out nicely to be a new year's resolution.

Initially as an editor for TEN3, English was the only language I could work in. Then those crazy colleagues of mine invited me to be curriculum department head :) Fifteen months ago I accepted this responsibility to lead TEN3 in our goal to provide the best curriculum there is all over sub-Saharan Africa -- both Anglophone and Francophone countries. This will mean training French-speaking writers, and facilitating the production and distribution of French curriculum, seeing that it meets the legislative and social requirements of each respective country, and much more.

Now, you'd be surprised how much of this I could do with English. Many educated people in Africa are fluent in both English and French. So I envision a lot of my work in Francophone countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Senagal, and Central African Republic will be through multilingual volunteers. Still, looking ahead of me, I realize that the more French I learn. That leaves a lot of ground, since the present extent of my French is "Merci, mon ami"!

Like I said, I don't normally put much hype into a new year, but I do thank God for this occasion to look with thankfulness and sobriety over the past, in evaluating how it needs to affect me today. I'd like to post a year-in-review of the things I've learned; but now I'm more inclined to list the things I hope for this coming year:
*Train more writers
*Provide our writers the networked support they need, in person if that is what's best, to see the Biblical Health and Life Management curriculum formed
*See the CTO running in many more schools
*Be 100% funded so I can do my part in all of the above
*Love my family
*Learn a lot
*By far most of all, (would that I do nothing else!) bring glory to my Lord!