I hope that everyone back home is also following the blogs written by our other teammates, and other racers. It is simply impossible to cover everything going on here.
In my last blog, posted just before this one, I had to go for a walk. How was I going to be accountable to a bunch of girls? I get disturbed when Linnea asks me to explain anything. I don´t know if it is some kind of buried misogyny, but we have always joked that I didn´t want daughters. Now I have five little sisters. That I am supposed to be leading. But I am happy with the team covenant, and happy with our team, and know that every single second out here is a learning experience.
After years of doing what I wanted when I wanted, this accountability might be a little difficult to swallow. So I wonder what it is about being under authority that makes my blood boil. Maybe past experiences, a rebellious spirit.
Mary Beth calls them the 4 horsemen. Andrew, Seth, Gary, and Tom Davis. Tom wasn´t at this training, but this has been very interesting. For years, since reading some books explaining the need for mentors, for leaders in a guy´s life, I have searched for (and prayed to have) these men in my life. While I have had some men in my life, my dad, and Chuck Oblom, for the past couple of years who have been there for me, I have just known that the lifestyle back home was not what I was made for.
In my blog ´real hero´ I spoke about Ken Ings. I would say that in my life he is the one man that I knew was committed to me because he wanted to be. He was the man that taught us that there is a higher standard. He was the one man who I respected as having real authority in my life. When I was 16 Ken began his battle with Parkinson´s, and then I went off to college, and was doing my own thing, and since I was 18 have lived as a man under no authority.
Last night I watched these 4 horsemen, and heard what they were saying about authority and commissioning, and I realized this is what I have prayed about for years! Now the issue is, they have such a high standard, I don´t know if me at my best can follow this path. This year will answer many questions.
As Andrew commissioned Chad (read Linnea´s blog), he read from 2nd Timothy, the same verses that Ken had me read in my last visit with him, before we left. My eyes are being opened to what these kinds of things really mean in a person´s life. So Ken, thanks again, as I walk this journey of life, I realize just how much you poured into me, even as there was no one else standing by your side.
After that ordination stuff, we prayed and were sent out. We prayed about speaking in tongues again, and I tried until I was sweating and had a headache. I kept getting told not to try so hard. Yeah right. I felt like a failure, I couldn´t just do this on my own willpower?
As I laid in bed, exhausted and my brain swollen from the week, Linnea said she had a vision of two rams butting heads, I am not exactly sure what that means, but probably the internal battle I always have, butting heads with myself.
My personal world is being rocked down here. It is exciting and scary and frustrating, and at times I am so full of hope and joy, full of love for everyone. At other times I look in the mirror and wonder, what kind of a life have we chosen, am I man enough for this? I know the answer, with God all things are possible.
These are the times Gary was talking about that Linnea and I will need to scream “GRACE!”.
