[all pictures from our safari on 2/2 at Lake Nakuru]I’m sitting here in Bungoma, Kenya, a nice 7-hour bus ride west of Nairobi, a few days into our month here. Upon wrapping up our time in Rwanda, we enjoyed a few days of debrief to rest and rejuvenate at a hostel in Nairobi with the rest of R Squad, as well as the 30-some folks of Q squad, the other group that launched in September, and a handful of AIM staff who flew in from the states. It was certainly a fruitful time of worship and teachings; it’s always encouraging to hear everybody’s stories from the past months.
There’s always great benefit, too, in embracing anew the incredible blessing and value of such an amazing community of believers that I get to share in this work with. As Paul calls it, “my brothers…whom I love and long for, my joy and crown” (Php 4:1). Our squadmate Clint offered some really powerful works on unity and the body the first night of debrief, and those have really been compounded personally as I finished up Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book “Life Together.”
As I look across my team and squad, I see an incredible diversity of personalities and giftings, and God’s certainly been opening my eyes to the absolute necessity of each part of the body. “In a Christian community everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable.” (Bonhoeffer, p94)
“God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Cor 12:18-20)
In a community, we are also blessed with the privilege to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:2) “The Christian…must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated.” (Bonhoeffer, p100)
All of this has been part of a significant perspective shift, in getting to the point where I can allow my brother “to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be”. In this, we can begin to see “the richness of God’s creative glory. God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image.” (Bonhoeffer, p93)
In standard World Race fashion, with another end of month debrief came another shift on the squad. The 4 of team Shabach have been blessed with the addition of Matthew Poole, who brings with him admirable wisdom and insight as well as an overflowing compassion. It’s been really amazing finding our new team identity, and we’re all really excited to see where God will bring us next. We’re still in the process of determining a new team name for the 5 of us, but we trust that God will speak. Be praying for our team and the work God will continue to lay before us.
