No Interruptions When Working for the Lord

The sky is clear blue with only a few aircraft trails.  The sun is bright.  This is our first day over seventy degrees since October.  This weekend in church we had just a few minutes to say thank you to the congregation for sending us.  I had picked out a dozen slides to flash on the screen just to give a peek at what we will be showing at our showcase evening after Easter.  As I stood at the back waiting to be called up front, I could not help but think how wonderful it is to be in a body of believers that has wrapped its arms around me and sent me to extend those arms to an orphanage a thousand miles away.  I got a little misty.

As I thanked the congregation and talked about the slides I realized that I had been using the wrong word when talking about the children interrupting our work.  The children were not the interruption, they were the real work.  I need to try to think about my life that way.  If He is in charge, I need to look at “interruptions” a little differently.

How to Measure Success

I have been asked by more than one person if I thought this trip was a success.  I have answered yes each time, mostly because I haven’t really had time to think much about it, and also because I am not sure what measure to use.   Yes we have great stories and yes I believe lives where changed.  Some of the seeds planted this week may not bear fruit for years.  Until then, we will see it in the lives we touched, the work we did, and the changes in our own faith.

Divine appointments

Back from Mexico, I have a lot of things floating around.  I will try to get some of them posted here.

One of the things that struck me almost immediately was the different sense of time in Mexico.  I know that a lot of this is cultural, but I think, especially at the orphanage, it is God’s way of making us Americanos slow down and accept that some things do not happen on our schedule.  Yes we went with a printed schedule for meals work, vbs and youth times.  We refered to it occasionally, but quickly understood that the schedule was more of a guide than the hard and fast ruler of our day.  There were no wall clocks and few wrist watches.   Work was never interupted, but often changed from task that I assigned, to the one that God assigned.  Being with the children, showing them His love was the real work.