Sometimes I just don’t understand people.
We live in a duplex. Last evening, it was a little chilly out. Our neighbor decided to build a fire. An open pit flame. In the carport. The wood carport that we share. The wood carport attached to our house and covering our cars. Flames shooting into the air higher than he is tall. Sparks flying. As we were leaving the house to head off to our evening plans, I heard him yell into his part of the house, “Hey, are you bringing me another beer?”
No possible way this could end badly, huh?
Thankfully, it didn’t end badly… at least not as badly as it could have. He didn’t burn the building down, but our living room smells a bit like a campfire. Things that make you go “hmmm”.
Maybe this isn’t unusual, I don’t know. I would never think of building a small bonfire in my carport. To me, that seems asinine. To our neighbor, it was apparently perfectly normal. I have no idea what the purpose was for his building a fire; if he was cooking or if he was simply nostalgic for a few bars of “Kum Ba Yah”.
Culture Shock? Maybe. Or maybe just plain old shock.
If all goes according to plan, in the none-too-distant future our family will be joining another vastly different culture. We have much to learn in preparation for our transition. There will be a lot of norms that will seem peculiar to us. And, no matter how hard we try, we will do things that will seem peculiar to the folks we will be encountering. Ideally, we’ll all learn from each other and laugh a little together about our gaffes. And maybe we’ll come away better as a result.
Hopefully, though, neither of us will try to burn the house down.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
In a… general… that-a-way… direction
Everyone thinks Jack Sparrow’s compass is broken. It doesn’t point north.
At one point, Jack instructs his crew to set sail “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”. When the crew asks for something a little more definite, Captain Jack responds: “I have every faith in your reconciliatory navigational skills”. And so they set off, albeit with a bit of uncertainty. They’re guardedly optimistic that he’ll lead them safely to their goal, because he’s never let them down before. And so off they go, “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”.
More often than not, that’s how God works. God gives us a heading, “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”. We’d like something clearer, but God just smiles, because he has every faith in our reconciliatory navigational skills. But off we go, perhaps with our own bit of uncertainty, counting on the fact that God has never let us down before.
Now, back to the compass. It’s not really broken, you know. Just because it doesn’t point north, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It is actually quite precise. It points to what the bearer wants most.
God provides us much the same kind of compass. It doesn’t always point where we think it should. But it points exactly where he wants it to. Admittedly, it doesn’t chart the course for us. It doesn’t tell us what conditions we will encounter. It doesn’t tell us if we’ll have to alter our course at some point and then recalculate. But then, neither does any other compass.
With an ordinary compass, you have to make estimates. You make educated guesses as to where you will find the true destination. Not so with Jack’s compass. Not so with God’s compass. If we’re sailing faithful to God, our compass will take us exactly where we want to go and exactly where God wants us to end up.
We’re heading off, in a general that-a-way direction, with a compass that only points us to God’s intended destination.
At one point, Jack instructs his crew to set sail “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”. When the crew asks for something a little more definite, Captain Jack responds: “I have every faith in your reconciliatory navigational skills”. And so they set off, albeit with a bit of uncertainty. They’re guardedly optimistic that he’ll lead them safely to their goal, because he’s never let them down before. And so off they go, “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”.
More often than not, that’s how God works. God gives us a heading, “in a… general… that-a-way… direction”. We’d like something clearer, but God just smiles, because he has every faith in our reconciliatory navigational skills. But off we go, perhaps with our own bit of uncertainty, counting on the fact that God has never let us down before.
Now, back to the compass. It’s not really broken, you know. Just because it doesn’t point north, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It is actually quite precise. It points to what the bearer wants most.
God provides us much the same kind of compass. It doesn’t always point where we think it should. But it points exactly where he wants it to. Admittedly, it doesn’t chart the course for us. It doesn’t tell us what conditions we will encounter. It doesn’t tell us if we’ll have to alter our course at some point and then recalculate. But then, neither does any other compass.
With an ordinary compass, you have to make estimates. You make educated guesses as to where you will find the true destination. Not so with Jack’s compass. Not so with God’s compass. If we’re sailing faithful to God, our compass will take us exactly where we want to go and exactly where God wants us to end up.
We’re heading off, in a general that-a-way direction, with a compass that only points us to God’s intended destination.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
What a Long, Strange Trip – Revenge of the Résumé
The whole “camp pastor” thing was amazingly cathartic.
Not quite a week later we scheduled a meeting to sit down with one of our pastors. After telling him our story, he said that perhaps – and “maybe I’m wrong, but…” – we had been brought to Twin Falls and then to a failed job because we were still supposed to be in ministry, just not that ministry anymore. A different kind of ministry. Knowing how God works sometimes, that seemed reasonable. And so a new batch of résumés went out over cyberspace.
I became active with a couple of Christian job placement sites, headhunters for church work. At the final count, I had sent out 46 résumés. Number 46 was the one that landed a response. It was to an international church in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
“Honey… what do you think about living in Thailand?” The church website told us that they were looking for both a Senior Pastor and a Youth Pastor. I decided to put in for both. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday.
“Wouldn’t it be cool,” I said, “if they got back to us so that we could mention it to the pastor.” Andrea reminded me that it was around 5:00 Saturday morning in Thailand. “They’re probably not going to even get the email until Monday.” I knew this, but still thought it would be cool. That evening, at around 10:00, I saw that I had an email. It was from Chiang Mai. They wanted more information. We emailed back and forth for a week or so, and the church told us that we needed to be connected to a Mission Organization. Andrea’s folks had been with one that merged with Pioneers, so we contacted them.
Pioneers arranged a Skype interview with us, and we passed. We were told that we needed to attend an Orientation in Orlando, either in October or January. Since we wanted to really see if this was the direction God wanted to send us, we settled on the October session. With paying for the training itself and airfare, we were looking at around $2000. Did I mention that we were both still unemployed? Within five days, we had all but $70. We were on our way.
Not quite a week later we scheduled a meeting to sit down with one of our pastors. After telling him our story, he said that perhaps – and “maybe I’m wrong, but…” – we had been brought to Twin Falls and then to a failed job because we were still supposed to be in ministry, just not that ministry anymore. A different kind of ministry. Knowing how God works sometimes, that seemed reasonable. And so a new batch of résumés went out over cyberspace.
I became active with a couple of Christian job placement sites, headhunters for church work. At the final count, I had sent out 46 résumés. Number 46 was the one that landed a response. It was to an international church in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
“Honey… what do you think about living in Thailand?” The church website told us that they were looking for both a Senior Pastor and a Youth Pastor. I decided to put in for both. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday.
“Wouldn’t it be cool,” I said, “if they got back to us so that we could mention it to the pastor.” Andrea reminded me that it was around 5:00 Saturday morning in Thailand. “They’re probably not going to even get the email until Monday.” I knew this, but still thought it would be cool. That evening, at around 10:00, I saw that I had an email. It was from Chiang Mai. They wanted more information. We emailed back and forth for a week or so, and the church told us that we needed to be connected to a Mission Organization. Andrea’s folks had been with one that merged with Pioneers, so we contacted them.
Pioneers arranged a Skype interview with us, and we passed. We were told that we needed to attend an Orientation in Orlando, either in October or January. Since we wanted to really see if this was the direction God wanted to send us, we settled on the October session. With paying for the training itself and airfare, we were looking at around $2000. Did I mention that we were both still unemployed? Within five days, we had all but $70. We were on our way.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wrong Kind of Oops
One night a man had a dream… oh wait… that’s already been used. Sorry.
I did have a dream the other night, one of those right-before-you-wake-up dreams. I was talking with three people about our Thailand plans. All I remember about the conversation was that one of them said, “That’s the wrong kind of oops”. Weird, huh? And all three of the people I was dream-talking with were folks that have pledged support.
When I was more awake (read: second cup of coffee), I began to ponder what “wrong kind of oops” meant. I don’t get the sense that I was being warned that we shouldn’t do this, or that we should somehow try to talk ourselves out of going overseas. I don’t think that’s what this is about at all. But I did come up with an idea for what “wrong kind of oops” is supposed to mean.
Here in the States, if a job doesn’t fit right, you can very easily move on to something new. Chalk it up to being an “oops”. Learn from your mistakes. Even in ministry, you can move on to something new pretty quickly. But not when you go overseas. There is no room for oops. You can’t just pack up and move back. You’re there for a commitment of time. You have to figure out how to make things work. You live by creativity and flexibility and adaptability.
Hopefully, in a little over nine months, we will be relocating to Southeast Asia. Physically and culturally, it’s on the other side of the world. We’re going to have a steep learning curve, and we’re going to make a lot of mistakes. We’re going to wonder if we’ve made the ultimate oops. But we have made a commitment, and we’re not expecting to break it. And here’s where we depend on our friends and family. We need to know you’re praying for us and thinking of us, because that’s what is going to get us through.
You can feel free to begin now…
I did have a dream the other night, one of those right-before-you-wake-up dreams. I was talking with three people about our Thailand plans. All I remember about the conversation was that one of them said, “That’s the wrong kind of oops”. Weird, huh? And all three of the people I was dream-talking with were folks that have pledged support.
When I was more awake (read: second cup of coffee), I began to ponder what “wrong kind of oops” meant. I don’t get the sense that I was being warned that we shouldn’t do this, or that we should somehow try to talk ourselves out of going overseas. I don’t think that’s what this is about at all. But I did come up with an idea for what “wrong kind of oops” is supposed to mean.
Here in the States, if a job doesn’t fit right, you can very easily move on to something new. Chalk it up to being an “oops”. Learn from your mistakes. Even in ministry, you can move on to something new pretty quickly. But not when you go overseas. There is no room for oops. You can’t just pack up and move back. You’re there for a commitment of time. You have to figure out how to make things work. You live by creativity and flexibility and adaptability.
Hopefully, in a little over nine months, we will be relocating to Southeast Asia. Physically and culturally, it’s on the other side of the world. We’re going to have a steep learning curve, and we’re going to make a lot of mistakes. We’re going to wonder if we’ve made the ultimate oops. But we have made a commitment, and we’re not expecting to break it. And here’s where we depend on our friends and family. We need to know you’re praying for us and thinking of us, because that’s what is going to get us through.
You can feel free to begin now…
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