This is probably my favorite part of being here in Mozambique again—just sitting around the table sipping tea and telling stories. Well, mostly
listening to stories, but you know how that is, when you’re in the presence of wisdom sometimes you just need to take ear. I have such a great time listening to this man tell us about his life. He’s honestly done it all it seems; a multi-millionaire rocket scientist who used to “commune with nature” and then God got a hold of him at 39 on a beach in the Cape. He told of being excommunicated from the Dutch Reformed church and trekking the rainforests of Madagascar as a missionary…and I get to sit at a little table at a missionaries house in the middle of an orphanage in Machava, Mozambique and hear of all his exploits! It’s pretty amazing.
I love hearing stories like these, not just because they’re exciting and adventurous, but because they’re real and they have God written all over them. Sometimes through people’s stories you can somehow
feel the importance of their words. When I’m around people who you
know hold a prominent place in the Kingdom, I feel like such a part of something, something big. The age, the experience, the wisdom all back these people up and sometimes I just sit back and think…wow…I want to be there someday too. I suppose you’d feel the same way meeting Bill Gates or the President or something, but sitting around this table I don’t have the feeling of being small, unworthy, or insignificant like I think I would with these other men of prominence.
Here, I am brought in.
As Michael gets up from the table, cups my face with his hand, gives me a smooch on the cheek and tells me to “Sleep well deary” I know that I’m not just any peon nobody that you’d never think twice about. Sure we feel like that at times, but we really must get over this mere
feeling and
know who we are and what we’re a part of.
As Michael told tories about deep in the heart of Madagascar he questioned why we weren’t traveling there on the World Race and I simply responded, “Well, I’m sure we’d love to, but we (AIM) don’t have contacts there to do ministry.” He squished his face back and said, “Is that all? Well, that’s no problem. Who do I need to contact?”
Within minutes he was on the phone saying he needed to set up some things and who should he forward the email to? As I listened (quite in shock!) on my side of the conversation my mind went wild with the prospects of AIM in Madagascar. I imagined hundreds of people flocking in through AIM trips, Real Life teams, short termers, World Race groups, the whole bit and all of this from a tiny little conversation around a kitchen table!
I began to expand my mind out a bit further and wondered what else my little hands have been involved in throughout my life. I thought, “Wow, I just can’t wait to get to heaven to see how all of these tiny little things pan out in the end.” I want to see how my little steps of faith have turned into huge outpourings in life, how maybe this one orphan I’m holding today starts up a school and teaches thousands. How one person I share my testimony with becomes a pastor over hundreds and then in turn sends out more hundreds who go and love and teach orphans themselves. It’s a wonderful little cycle and it all starts with that one orphan, with that one person, with that one conversation at the kitchen table.
One of our leaders is going to start a leadership school and he often says that it’s going to start right around his kitchen table discussing ideas and birthing things for the Kingdom right there. And you know, I’ve never heard of a more brilliant idea…amazing things can come from the smallest, most seemingly insignificant things. Who knows what may come of this Madagascar discussion, perhaps nothing, but I’ll never really know the impact of this conversation until the end–it could have been the start to something amazing. So don’t doubt those kitchen table discussions or your small acts of kindness or little steps of faith—you may just be birthing something much grander than you could have ever imagined. Your little hands may reach farther than you think.
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.”
—Habakkuk 1:5
