It is Monday morning. We slept in a tent last night, in the nursery building. The first night we did not set up the tent, and we were totally swarmed by mosquitoes. It was so warm that hiding in my sleeping bag was torture. We have also been told that the mosquitoes here can carry Dengue Fever. So, at about 2:30 we decided to put on our ‘Jungle Juice’, 100% DEET. Then, because I was wide awake, I decided it would be a good time to pray, and promptly fell asleep. Last night we set up the tent to avoid the mosquitoes, and it felt like the temperature dropped 20 degrees yesterday, so we slept much better. It was very windy and I would wake up every time a mango hit the tin roof.
Our team of ten people, a mix of the media team- ‘Revolution’, and then ‘Nessa- or Revonessa, was given control of the services for Saturday and Sunday. We also moved on Saturday, and had a lot of necessary team relationship building to do. We are constantly learning how to actually live as a body, how to communicate, and learning how much work this takes. We are learning how sensitive we are to certain things, and are learning that just functioning as a team is our first and so far greatest struggle. Functioning as a body is a command. This is a foreign concept to us as christians. Jesus gave some commands. Paul spent his life trying to show what it means to follow Jesus’s commands. Paul tried to explain how we were to live as the bride of Jesus. The early church in Acts seems to set the example. God worked powerfully in that church, why are our churches so powerless? Why are we all parts of the body functioning alone? We have no power because we don’t think Jesus was serious. Maybe we think Paul gave his life as a joke?
I am writing this because before my very eyes I am seeing lives changed. I am watching our body form. I am watching and feeling and growing with this body. Every day is an amazing miracle. Every day is an almost overwhelming battle. As people are stepping into new identities, trying to work together, emotions spill out. We have committed to being together for this 11 months. A family.
Linnea and I learn new things in our relationship everyday. Every day brings a new challenge to me as a husband. How do I serve my wife? How do I lead her spiritually? Will I wake up early to pray, or just toss and turn like a door on its hinges in the wind. I get tired and cranky, how do I take this to Jesus before I puke it on my wife? How do I do this so I can pray for my team? Linnea and I read so many books together before we got married. Books on marriage, on relationships, on men, and on women. Love languages, how do we communicate? Premarital couselling (thanks Chuck). I don’t know how people enter marriage without it. All of this gave a structure to me so I can understand the minefield I entered on my wedding day. Being a doer of this and not just a reader, putting theories to action, what an amazing adventure. Linnea and I have committed to this until one of us dies. There is no divorce. Linnea and I are both so different than the day we met. We are one flesh, and continually shaping each other.
That is what this new family is. A family put together by God. There is no separation. We have committed to this for 11 months. The honeymoon is over. We are constantly being taught, we have received training, but the reason this body will function is commitment.
I believe this is the first time I have been part of the body where there has been real commitment. No changing churches, no one just sitting like a cancer and absorbing nutrients. Every part of the body committed to God’s plan. Not perfectly, we are learning a new thing, but we are committed, together each day. How I believe God intended it. No other selfish agenda (even as we battle selfishness), no skipping out on stuff because we have something else we would rather do. No making excuses.
Committed. To each other. To God. That is why we are seeing miracles, why lives are changing.
