“I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home
or wife or brothers
or parents
or children
for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”
Our worldly possessions were packed into a 20-foot container a few weeks ago, and today are being loaded onto the Washington Express at the Port of Charleston. From there they will travel to Antwerp, arriving approximately 4 October. The transit time from there across Europe to Trnava (1243 km / 772 miles) is about two weeks. Below is a drawing of the kind of ship they will be on, and you can read some technical details here.
Last month I dared to declare what I thought were three essential elements to a good sermon. Toward the end I mentioned in passing a duty of the listener, but I didn’t elaborate. Today I realized that I (like most of you) listen to far more sermons than I preach, so if there is a duty of the listener, I would be wise to make sure I know that duty well – and remind myself of it often.
Kierkegaard has influenced my assumptions about the duty of the listener. Over the years I have returned several times to the twelfth chapter of his Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing. The chapter is aptly entitled, “The Listener’s Role in a Devotional Address.” The key phrase for me in the chapter is, “… to listen in order to act, this is the highest thing of all,” echoing James 1:22, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” [NIV] (more…)
Yesterday Kristian celebrated his fourteenth birthday a day early with a paintball party. This picture is from his first taste of paintball on Labor Day, and he wanted to share the fun (and pain?) with his friends for his last party in Austin. He and his buddies had a blast.
Soon he will take aim at a different kind of challenge, and one that he didn’t choose: his world will be turned upside-down in less than two weeks when Paula and I carry him away with us to Slovakia.
For his birthday I offer a prayer, based on fourteen years of observing the development of his character and personality: Lord Jesus Christ, you have been with Kristian since his earliest days, working in him by your Holy Spirit. We have seen your grace at work in him, in his love for others and his youthful joy in leadership. Please stay with him and make your grace bear fruit in Trnava – make his life a sweet aroma of salvation among his new friends.
And thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing him into our lives.
Amen.
One aspect of our calling that I relish is the prospect of working side-by-side with Paula. We had a taste of this the past two years in an English Camp in the Czech Republic, and it was delicious. We are complementary in almost every way, and we have been growing together for almost 30 years.
But as lovely as it sounds, I suspect it will have its challenges too, and will demand that we both learn more patience, more graciousness, more love, more mutual submission. Those challenges could also be exacerbated in the first year, when we have to deal with culture shock while adjusting to working with each other more than we ever have.
Therefore I ask you, yet again, to pray for us. I hope you never grow weary of my greedy appeals for prayer – I know we will never grow out of our need for God’s work in us and, therefore, never out of our need for your prayers.
I’d like you to pray for a pot of gold.
Not a pot filled with gold for me – I already have more than I need as far as that goes. Rather, pray that I would become a pot made of gold. That is, pray along these lines:
In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
2 Timothy 2:20-21 [NIV]
These verses consumed my meditation a few years ago, when I was fervently praying about life after Dell. Out of those prayers, I believe, grew this invitation to join the team in Trnava. But the invitation is not the fulness of the answer to those prayers. What I ask is to be useful – useful to the team, useful to Slovaks, useful to the Master. So please pray.
We leave in less than three weeks. We will fly from Austin on 27 September, and arrive the next day in Vienna, where our team will pick us up and haul us to Trnava.
I’m hyperventilating….
Here’s a snapshot of our holiday activities. Kriatian and Ethan are trying to keep their brother-in-law Daniel on the tube.
