Waiting......

I’m writing this in the waiting area of El Dorado Airport, Bogota, half way through my 8 hour connection time on my way home from the GMC in Brazil. As I watch the day dawn over Bogota, it seems an appropriate place to be reflecting on waiting and watching!

A year and a half ago, when I returned to Guatemala after my last home leave, I knew that I was returning to a period of transition and waiting. It was planned that I would soon pass on the role of Short term Coordinator (overseeing the Steppers and Striders serving in Guatemala) to another, so that I could focus more on mission mobilization and sending in Guatemala. I also had a strong feeling that God was preparing me to move house for this new stage and role. I began a process of emotionally and physically sorting and clearing out my house, much of which was previously for the benefit of the short termers who were under my supervision. I didn’t know at that stage where God might be leading me next, but was preparing to leave and let go of stuff anyway. I was open to moving to a significantly different place within Guatemala or to a different country altogether. I had a few ideas and pushed a few doors and tried to discern and sought God’s peace, but none of them really felt right. In the meantime, a few individual tasks or commitments within Guatemala easily felt like they were from God and fitted exactly into my sense of the new role of mobilization.

I have to say that this period of waiting and transitioning has lasted a lot longer than I anticipated. What have I learnt in the process?? I don’t think it’s patience…it’s more like simply trusting in the unknown, and letting go of the past regardless of not knowing what will come next.

I’m now at last in the final stages of handover of the STC role, and more fully working within the mobilization role. The house seems like the final part of the puzzle and is not in place- yet. Through a series of events and conversations, I have felt that it’s right to look to move to Guatemala City, which will be a more central and accessible location for my new role as mobilizer. I’m looking for a place that would give me space to host small groups for missions trainings etc, but I don´t need lots of overnight accommodation for short termers, as I’ve previously had. I’m pushing doors (quite literally) and trusting God for the ideal place, taking notice of the peace or lack of peace I feel in each option.

Since I began to write this post, things have become clearer and I hope to move within the next few weeks. At the same time, one of my sending churches asked me to reflect on Isaiah 54: 1-6, and it´s interesting how this links in. It´s a message to spread out and to think big, as we prepare for the future, written in the language of nomads…. Preparing bigger tents and spreading out the tent pegs. And it makes me think of that first step of spreading out tent pegs for a nomad is to pull them up from where they have been before. That´s what my process has felt like: pulling up the attachments to the past, both physically and emotionally, of reflecting on the past and celebrating it and all that God has done in it, but then letting go of it in order to spread out further.  So as I approach the end of this year and the beginning of a new one, I´m staking out the tent pegs and stretching out the ropes wider than before! I´m excited to see all that God might have for this next stage.

Mobilization conference - Brazil

This last week, I’ve been at the Global Mobilization Consultation in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

 In both Europe and in Latin America, the term Mobilization applied to missions is only just beginning to be used, so it might need a bit of explaining. It refers to the groundwork done amongst Christians and churches in order that every believer understands God’s passion for all the nations to know him and participate in His global mission, whether that’s through praying, giving, sending or going. So mobilization work involves teaching, and training and accompanying churches and individuals in this process of learning and participation.

I went to the first GMC 4 years ago in Nairobi, as I was beginning to understand the need for this in Latin Link. This year, I have been able to convince 3 others from Latin Link to attend as well. (It helps that this time the gathering was held much closer to home!) It has been a really good week of learning from others and of being inspired and challenged to press into this area of work. 

We started the week challenged by TV Thomas to radical collaboration, as we recognize that God is the chief mobilizer, so rather than relying on programmes and courses to help people understand, but we also trust God to inspire and convict people into personal engagement in missions, which calls for humility. 

Mary Ho (who’d I’d sat next to on the plane, without realizing we were going to the same conference) highlighted some of the reasons to celebrate, amongst them the recent surge in indigenous church planting movements globally even within majority Muslim countries, and the accelerated rate of Bible translation projects. 

Amongst Bible studies, workshops, new resources and meeting great people, I was really encouraged by a talk calling for a mobilization based missiology (study of missions). The speaker highlighted the difference between a mobilization/ recruitment based on the mission recipients, which focusses on the needs of unreached people groups and can sometimes result in a guilt-based calling, and a mobilization / recruitment based on the identity and needs of all the church to understand God’s heart and to participate in His global mission, with each person fulfilling their personal calling or vocation in it. The latter is based on the church understanding more fully the heart and desire of the God we worship and serve. 

In Latin Link, we aim to be a ‘community with a calling’, as we enable individuals to discover and fulfill their personal calling within the support and encouragement of a local community. Although many of our teams have some form of recruitment, we have not so far put much work into mobilizing, which is an essential groundwork for missions recruitment. Two years ago I was given this area of oversight, so we have begun to focus more on this area. Our dream would be to have a mission mobilizer/ mission educator within each country team, to undertake this vital work. With my recent transition, I have begun to undertake this role in Guatemala, and a couple of others in other countries have a passion for it too, but we have a long way to go. I’m praying that God would raise up people for these vital roles, as we see the fields ready to be harvested. 

And in amongst all the conference programme, we also found time to celebrate Paul’s birthday!

And I might have had a swim or two.