I had originally intended on having a few more blogs on Mutarara, but things got a little interrupted by life there, so I’ll just recap the rest of it. We left when the foundations of the orphanage (and also some spiritual foundations) had been laid, as per God’s direction. Brandon stayed longer and saw the beginnings of the walls going up, and when we last heard a couple weeks ago the roof was ready to be put on. There is another world race team on their way up there now to help with that and continue to build the spiritual house of God for that community. If things go to plan, there will be teams regularly going through there providing things like beds, crops, animals, food, wells, and of course teachings, evangelism, and fellowship for the community around them. Mutarara is such a ripe place for the gospel and for solid biblical teaching, I’m excited that the work will continue on under Mike and Lynn Laubshauer (I hope I spelled that right), who have amazing hearts for children all over Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. They are the newest additions to the World Race family, taking on the roll of being the local contacts, coaches, and generally just acting as parents to World Racers in Africa, and it’s been a privilege to get to know them over the last three months. I hope and pray that our paths will cross again in the future.
After a few days of filling Mike and Lynn in on what was completed and what still needed doing in Mutarara (and returning their trusty Isuzu that served us for nearly 7000km around Africa), my team and I headed to Cape Town into the loving arms of Tom and Cindy Sipling. Our time there was to be spent focusing on what it means to wait on God, the value of silence and solitude, and being the church body. It’s a hard thing to describe since so many always want to know what it is we are ‘doing’ out here on the missions field, when it shouldn’t be that way. It should always be ‘What is God doing,’ and frankly when you travel this much there comes a point when God is going to need you to stop, rest, and listen, because you become pretty useless ‘doing’ all the time. Cape Town was definitely a time of God doing in us instead of us doing for God. I loved every minute of it.
The last few months God has been building something up in me that I can’t even put my finger on yet, I just know what the building blocks look like. For one, as I’ve said in previous blogs, I’ve found myself getting passionate about unifying the church body – when I see a conflict I want to dive in, get to the root of the problem, and make things work together as a body instead of as individual parts. The other thing at work has been my desire to see church lived out, not attended. It’s been said at church, but I still don’t think we get the full extent of what it is to BE the church. As much as it’s discussed, I still see Christians attending church on Sundays, or Wednesdays, or whatever combination of days in the week we go to watch someone deliver a message and worship God without living it outside the walls. For me it’s kind of like this: if my brother or sister in Christ is in need of a bed, will I give them mine? Will I share my food with them, even though I barely cover my own grocery bills, or stop what I’m doing to spend time with the lonesome, broken, and socially outcast people? Can I look at my time, my love, my skills and gifts, and even my possessions as not mine, but Dad’s, and therefore for the whole family to use? I want that answer to be yes. It’s not about spending X amount of time in a building, but spending every moment in obedience to God and living a life that seeks after Him WITH OTHERS. So when I play a game of Halo with my friends or have a poker night, it’s not just for fun but also because I want to invest in the lives of my friends and walk a life of Godliness with them. Talking about our struggles, our needs, our desires, theology, praying together, worshipping together – all those things we try to accomplish in an hour or two on Sundays – are to be done every day, with those around us.
So I’m really excited about being here in Costa Rica, where instead of finding a ‘missions trip’ to do we’ve decided to live in the San Jose area and live this out. Some of us will be called to a need elsewhere, and some will be called to a need around the corner or even within our own squad. Some days are for studying the word or just hanging out, others for feeding the hungry and preaching. And it looks different for each individual too. For myself, I’m leaning towards heading to Panama early to seek out contacts for when we go there next month – we’ll see where God leads me though.
