My Heart (Part 2).

Today is the day we leave. It came so fast, it almost feels too soon. But, as we all know so well, all things must come to an end, good or bad. What we can do is reflect on what has happened, not in a regretful sense or trying to hold on too much to what was, but to learn more about ourselves and press on into the future.

As I spoke about in my previous blog we have been working on a Heart Project. We finished them and shared them this past week, so without any further introduction, here is mine.


I feel that this is going to be something very difficult to explain in a blog, so what I will do is just explain what the piece says about my heart and you should be able to look at it and figure out what means what.

This year has been a year of exploring freedom. Not just freedom from sin, but freedom of mind and heart. The freedom to love, to express, to trust, and to be loved. Part of my coming to Africa is was also a search to find out who Jesus really is. I know a lot of people who have had bouts with skepticism, trying to figure out whether or not God even exists, is Jesus really the Son of God, that sort of thing. I've never had a problem with the existence of God and Jesus, but more of a skepticism that questions what we believe about his nature, his purpose for us, his plan for creation, all those things. I've had lot's of good and bad experiences, but they all point me back to myself. If you can see the top part of Africa, it's a collage of paintings of God or Jesus. They are surrounded by mirror pieces and stained glass. They represent my attempts to find Jesus. Over every one of the faces I put clear glass. This represents my pathetic attempts to put up walls between myself and God, he can see right through them every time. Thinking back over this past year, a lot of my experience has helped my to look back at myself. It's said that community is like a mirror, so over South Africa I did a mosaic of mirror pieces that are coming together to help me see a better image of myself and my own heart. In the middle of Africa I painted a human heart, it is my heart. The metal bars are broken through over my heart, because my heart first needs to be free before I can figure out the rest.

So there is my "brief" explanation. I'd rather tell you more about it in person, it would be a lot easier.

In my last post I also promised a bit of a look into the future. I've applied for and was accepted to come back for an internship here in South Africa with Nieucommunities. There are a lot of details that are coming together, such as support needed, when I will be coming back, and what the long term implications of this will be. It is safe to say that I am looking to come back for a long term position here in South Africa and this is the next step in doing so. What I do know is that it will be focused on my vision statement for my life and ministry that I wrote here. I want to share that with you all who have not heard it in hopes that you'll be able to understand a little better what this internship will be all about.

This vision that God has given me is yet to be complete. As I grow in Him and imagine what could be He takes me to new places and reveals His plan and purpose to me. So today I see myself strengthening and starting new monastic communities all over the world. I want to build relationships that reciprocally challenge and encourage each other. In these communities I dream of the following:

• I will create places of peace and rest for myself and for others. There will be an openness and acceptance of others where they are at. We will have the freedom to ask questions, seek answers and work our true calling. Together we will work out a rhythm of life which will include prayer, worship and fun together. There will be values that the whole community agrees on that will be expressed in everything that we do.
• There will be room for self-expression and creativity. God created me and the world around me and His Spirit and image lives inside of me therefore I have the ability to be creative and innovative. My life and the communities I am a part of should express themselves uniquely according to their DNA.
• I will have passion for the Church, locally and internationally. In my life I want to be a leaf and God’s Spirit the wind. I want to go where He sends me and leave when He decides. In these communities I want there to be an outward focus to those in need, those who can’t help themselves. I want to see Jesus in every person I meet and treat them like royalty at my table. What I have is God’s therefore it belongs to everyone.
  
  
• In these communities we will care for the world around us. We are co-creators with Christ and His salvation is for the whole world, including us. We will teach others how to care for creation in ways that are specific to their context.
  
  

In the end, I hope to be a part of new expressions of love and worship towards God and mission inside and outside our walls.

All that being said, I can't wait to be home and share more of my heart with all of you. I'm so ready to see my friends and family again, to be in familiar places and eat great Mexican food! All of you have been a great encouragement to me on this journey, but it's not over, not by a long shot. There is so much more that God has in store for all of us and I'm excited to be a part of that with all of you.

So, soon we will see each other face to face! Much love to all of you!!!

The Current State of My Heart

This entry is a little different. It doesn't have a lot about what I've been doing because I think you've been seeing a lot of that. I do plan on an update soon with my ministry and what's happening in the community, but I really felt like sharing what's on my heart and just being honest with where I'm at, so here it goes...

You see, I have a tendency to just coast through life. I get everything in order as best I can and hope that nothing really important happens to derail life as I know it. When I get in this mode I can tend to overlook the seemingly small details that in all reality will change my life. While taking a personal holiday in Johannesburg God kind of got my attention. While lost in a slightly dodgey part of town I got into a car accident. Now, everyone was fine, it was just a fender bender, but it shook me up a bit. What really became the problem was that I was stuck alone in Johannesburg with very little hope of immediate rescue. So I spent a few days where I was staying, relatively alone accept for the occasional visits of the one friend I had in Joburg, waiting for someone to drive out there and get me. Well, God showed up. He began to show me that I was beginning to coast through my year here in South Africa. It's not that I'm not doing anything. I mean, I have a ministry with the Zimbabwe refugees, I have my teaching times here with Nieucommunities, I have my house chores, and in the end a plethora of other things to keep me busy. Funny thing is, He didn't call me to South Africa to be busy, He called me here to change my life. All these opportunities for ministry are great and the teaching times and relationships are awesome, but if I'm only going skin deep, if I'm skimming on the assignments, not really doing my reading, not going deep with my friends, no, my family here, than what's really changing my life? The answer would be nothing. It's possible to do all the right things and be in all of the right places and never allow your heart to be transformed. I decided that's not what I wanted and it has made all the difference. This last month has been one of the most amazing months of my time here and the best way that I can explain it is that I'm paying attention to the little things. Do I get it right every day? No. Am I experiencing the grace, mercy and love of God? Yes.

I have a friend Will who recently posted a blog talking about identity. He spoke about how he feels like God is restoring his identity, and I think that is true for me as well. I think for too long we've allowed our identity as the beloved children of God to be stolen from us by the lies of the enemy that make us think that we just aren't good enough, whatever that means for each person. It could be a vice, character flaw, something you've done, something you haven't done, what others are saying about you, what they're not saying... all these things and many, many more can cause us to buy into the lies that seem to put a wall up between us and God. It's a wall, my friends, that we were never meant to scale. Earlier in this year I got a picture in my head of a wall in my heart. This wall wasn't something that I was supposed to climb or tear down, I was just supposed to wait. It seemed like the answers to a lot of questions I have, questions about God, my calling, my future, and such were behind this wall, but there was nothing I could to to tear it down myself. I can see now that He's been tearing the wall down from His side and I'm catching glimpses, some larger than others, of what He's doing in my life. The funny thing is He isn't answering any of my questions. Instead He's showing me who I am. Not who I think I am, but the person He is molding and shaping me to be. This is causing me to face up to a lot of the lies and what damage they've done, but He's calling me back. He's renewing me. In following Him, His calling, mission, and love, I am learning to truly be a follower of Jesus, to be His disciple. We were talking today about how to communicate what it is we do here, a summation statement of sorts. It boils down to this:

We are a missional community helping others to follow in the ways of Jesus.

I pray that this is true of me, that it is true of us all.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I really don't deserve it, I know, but for some reason God saw it fit in this time to allow all of us to journey together even though it may be halfway across the world. Let me know how you all are, how I can be praying for you and encouraging you!

Come Lord Jesus, Come

So I'm sitting here listening to one of the other apprentices play piano in the next room. He's playing this worship song that I think is called Come Lord Jesus, Come, and that's the chorus. Just repeating that over and over, come Lord Jesus, come. It's beautiful.

A lot of things have been weighing heavy on my heart. Petty things that don't really make that much of a difference. It seems to distract me from what God is calling me to do. Instead of hearing people I'm drifting off into my own thoughts.

Today I spent several hours just hearing from the Zim refugees, hearing more stories of hurt. One man told us today that he would rather die than continue to struggle, but because of his faith in God he wouldn't take his own life. He's been struggling for 11 years now. He says that he doesn't want to be rich, he just wants to be able to have a home and feed his wife and daughter. That shouldn't be a dream, that should be a reality for everyone in this world. To eat, to have shelter, to be able to provide a home for your family, to be treated like a human being.

What have they done?
One man's decisions has created this.
Come, Lord Jesus, come...

It kind of puts my problems in perspective. It's not that I should ignore my heart, God holds it in His hand. But He hold theirs too, so maybe I should care more about what God thinks of my heart. I'm learning more and more about what matters most and I hope I'm on to something.

Ah, he's singing this song just now...

Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is stronger than mine
This is no sacrifice, this is my life...

May that be true of my life.