interMISSION

As I sit here on the front porch of my house, smoking my pipe and looking out at the end of another day in Greer, South Carolina I try and ponder the barrage of thoughts running through my head and feelings swelling in my heart. Tomorrow is the beginning of August, a month which I will primarily spend on a different continent. It is two days since I have been back from Mississippi and almost a week since the last campers left my staff and I to clean up and clear out. So here I sit collecting all of these thoughts so that I may properly organize them and begin to figure them out. I find that writing is one of the best ways for me to do this.

Some of the thoughts are about camp and what it means to finally be done with it. Reading that sentence over in my head makes it sound like I couldn’t wait for it to finish, which is far from the truth. I have already admitted that at the beginning of the summer I didn’t look at FUGE as anything more than a fun way to spend a summer and a smart way to save money but of course GOD had different plans. Those plans included meeting a group of people which, for the second time in my life, helped me understand what unity in the faith meant. The people of which I speak are, of course, the staff of Mississippi College FUGE ’08. If it didn’t take forever, and anyone would take the time to read it, I could write a paragraph about every member of my team and some things I love about them. For some I could write more. Some times I think that corporations and conventions of Christianity miss the point but GOD can work anywhere and he’s not too shy to demonstrate that. I wish I could explain here, in eloquent words, what camp is like and what it meant to me but I feel like that task is beyond my skill so I will only say that it was a GOD experience and leave it to someone else (or challenge the reader to try it for a summer.)

As school was ending and May approached I was really thinking only thing of one thing (I wish I could say it was exams but it wasn’t…it wasn’t Indiana Jones either) and I think that everyone could tell. What I’m talking about is, of course, Africa. For those of you who don’t know, I will be spending the last three weeks of August in Africa with my best friend, Nathan Willis, making short films with locals and missionaries about HIV/AIDS in Malawi. For those of you who know me, know that this is the beginning work of something that I feel GOD is calling both Nathan and I to. When I reached camp I realized the danger I was in of simply getting through the next two months so that I could take this journey so I prayed that HE would direct my focus not on the future solely, but primarily on the present. Well, HE did just that in me. Not that my excitement faded in any way but that I was able to learn all that HE wanted me to learn from camp and do the ministry there that needed to be done and I was blessed by this. So blessed that I almost didn’t want to leave and am thankful that I had many things awaiting me (including Africa) after I finished. GOD is so good at what he does that HE even put a few things in my life which made part of me almost want to stay (don’t worry I haven’t lost any of my fervor and I know that it is where I haven been called which makes it even more exciting.) I have found lately the test of my patience to be one of the greatest lessons I am learning.

Most people my age don’t know what they will do with their life and find this rather testing. What GOD wants of them and their lives is something they have to search for and in this way he tests them and asks that they purse him in this way. My (and Nathan’s) lot is a different one but no less trying. In this case we both know where we want to be and what we want to do but we know that it is a long road that leads there. I have spent time praying and searching the Bible for something to teach me in this. After a few months of doing so I realized that which I was searching for in God’s word was terribly obvious but I probably just didn’t spend enough time looking for it. You see there’s this story of these people who are told by GOD of a place where the land is full of milk and honey and it is promised to them. Of course being human they screw it up and are forced to spend 40 years in the desert wandering around and unable to reach their destination. The funny thing is (read: not funny) their leader (Charlton Heston…I mean, Moses) has to wander around with them and take care of them (well, GOD worked through him in this way.) The thing is the 40 years in the desert isn’t pointless because GOD takes this time to teach lessons, reveal his presence, and bring the Israelites to the place they need to be in order to enter this place (of course the original group of people are all dead…good lesssons to learn in that as well.) There are also miracles in the desert (um…bread on the ground every day? Crazy.) and Moses doesn’t spend his time thinking about how great the promised land is but instead about what has to be done while in the desert.

So lately I’ve been tasting humility because before I’ve been struggling with pride. GOD has been showing me how he doesn’t need me but chooses to use me anyways. It’s a lesson I wrote down in Sunday School long ago but one I need to learn daily. My father told me today, when I began to worry about a lot of stuff that I had to do for Africa that GOD had it under control and that I should know that. I do know this but it’s too easy for me to forget. My friend Kathryn Justice pointed out that GOD was probably still teaching me patience and it was exactly what I needed to hear and instead of trying to figure out the problem immediately, which I wanted to do, I decided that I needed to spend some time with GOD. I spent time praying that HE would break me and take this away, that I would rely solely on him and then I spent time singing songs to him and finding some peace.

I believe that we are all designed for adventure and a lot of things that I’ve been seeing and hearing lately only reinforce that. Well this summer has been full of adventure and it’s about start again. I am thankful, however, for this time to sit and read and smoke a pipe, and talk with friends and worship, and pray. There is beauty in the desert also. I ask that you all pray for me as this journey begins that I seek GOD fully in all of it and that he reveal himself to me. I hope the same for all of you.