Priorities and promises

from Laura

At the very beginning of this school year, as Seth and I were filling out applications for Faith Academy and starting up conversations with mission agencies, I made a commitment. My commitment was to my students this year, that I would not cheat them of my best work, even though I knew then that this would be my last year at Holmes. At the beginning, keeping that commitment had mostly to do with my perspective. I had to make sure that I didn't get so caught up in the excitement of teaching at Faith that I began to look negatively or grudgingly on the challenges of teaching at Holmes.

Once we were accepted by TEAM and began to have training and support-raising responsibilities, I had to start considering my time. For the most part, I have solved this part of the problem by splitting my life into two quite distinct halves-- Holmes life and Philippines life. I've generally separated these two lives by location. For the most part, school is school. If I have schoolwork to do, I stay late and do it there. At home, almost everything is focused on the Philippines. My commute takes me from one world to the other. It's a little surreal, but it has worked out all right.

This past week those convenient lines have begun to blur, and I'm realizing that keeping my commitment to this year's students is going to take renewed solutions over the next two months.

The first blurring factor arrived in the Teacher's Lounge on Tuesday when my Drama job at Holmes Middle School appeared on the job postings bulletin board there. A number of my colleagues already knew about our plans-- I told the administration at the beginning of the school year and started telling others in January, after we were officially accepted as TEAM missionaries. But with my job officially and on-paper vacant, anyone who doesn't know yet is finding out. I really enjoy the conversations that come up. They mean, though, that my "school is school" focus doesn't work so well anymore. I'm just waiting for the day when my students figure out that I'm leaving...

I noticed another change on Wednesday of this week. At our staff meeting that morning, virtually none of the topics applied to me because almost the whole meeting was about next year. Suddenly, I am an observer in those discussions, not a stakeholder. I truly do care about my school, but some of the planning and paperwork is just not important to me at this point, and I will need to watch out for how that may affect my attitude.

Looking ahead, I know that the balance between my lives will shift even further in just a few weeks. When the musical is over, I intend to use that regained time to brush up on my French and begin learning Tagalog. Also, Seth and I are just starting to set up meetings with groups or individuals who are potential supporters, and that will demand my evenings more and more often. As the school year wraps up, even some of my Holmes life will become future-focused as I figure out what to take away with me, and how best to organize the things I will leave behind for someone else to use. Keeping my priorities straight will get complicated, especially as my students will be increasingly summer-focused themselves.

So, today, I am renewing my commitment to my current students. I see the pressures and responsibilities that might draw me away from them, but I will fight back. I'm not sure what it will take or how it will look over the next two months, but these students are still my job and my calling from now until June 8. My promise remains that I will not give them less than my best.

A week in Belize, Central America

by Seth

Just a few days ago, I returned from a week-long missions trip with a team from my home church, Elk Grove Baptist Church. Our goal for this trip was to build a new house for an older lady named Lucia in a small village in Belize called Gales Point. There is only one church in the village, and a bare handful of the men attend services there. Even fewer of them are committed Christians. Basically, it is a village that very much needs to hear and see the Gospel message at work, which was the main reason for our trip.

Our flight down was … interesting. We flew out from O’Hare at 3 AM on Saturday morning, March 20, and after two stops in Guatamala and El Salvador, we arrived in Belize around 10 AM. Two hours later, we were on the road for the Belize Mission and Retreat, which was our home for the duration of our stay in Belize. The BMR is a beautiful facility on the shore of the Caribbean Sea, but it is very remote. All of their fresh water comes from rain, and all of their power comes from solar panels, meaning that both water and power had to be rationed carefully to avoid running out.

The entire trip was a learning experience for all 9 members of our team. We had to learn to be patient with a very different approach to construction than we were accustomed to, and we had to learn to cope with using lumber that was rather badly warped. One of the most common phrases I heard from the villagers that were helping us build the house was “I can live with that.” Their whole approach to building the house was simply to make the best out of the materials at hand. Overall, the feeling was one of casual acceptance of less-than-perfect circumstances.

For me, specifically, I was humbled by my lack of skills. Let’s face it: I cannot swing a hammer straight to save my life. I bent more nails than I ever thought possible. Nevermind that the wood was tropical hardwood (much harder to nail into than pine). The fact remains that I was terrible at hammering those boards together. Yet somehow, God saw fit to use me, and even to give me some measure of proficiency by the end of the week, which I can only attribute to His grace, because I certainly could not have done it by myself. As a side note, you'll notice that my skin is very prone to sunburn, which is why I look so silly in this picture. Gotta protect the neck and all, even if it is with a pink bandana borrowed from Jessy.

God also challenged me to make some changes in my life back here at home. Being away from all the normal distractions of daily life, I realized that there were some things I tend to spend my time on (internet games, television, etc) that I didn’t even miss when I was away from them in Belize. I also realized that there were far more important things I needed to be doing with my time back home, so I have been in the process of pruning these extraneous things from my life. It is not an immediate change, but I am seeing God help me make these changes, and I have been much more satisfied with how I am spending my time these past few days.

I think that is enough for one post, but I just wanted to share some of the things I did and learned from my trip to Belize. I went down there to inspire change in the villagers there, and I hope I did have an impact on them. But, in the end, I think the person who was changed the most by the trip was me.

Relationships

from Laura
I've said several times recently that my favorite part about the work of raising a support team is that it's my JOB to call all my friends and family, and talk to them, about anything! This is both true and misleading. It is really nice that my To-Do list includes "Call everyone you know." It is also difficult for me, because it is so different from my comfortable norm.

Relationships are the crux of missions work-- both on the field, and between the missionary and his/her supporters. As a highly independent person and a natural introvert, I am used to taking my relationships somewhat for granted, to seeing them as important but not urgent. And I am prone to that universal American temptation of putting the urgent ahead of the important in my life. Friends and family tend to fall by the wayside during the school year, to be picked back up on important occasions, holidays, and vacations. I can't do that anymore.

As I get closer to leaving, I am realizing more fully what people mean to me, and how much I care about knowing how they are and what's going on with them. I am finding out that my relationships are perhaps more 'urgent' than I thought. Not only that, but these same family and friends will soon have an even larger role in my life than they have in the past. Seth and I are headed for front-lines territory in the spiritual battles of the world, or at least closer to front-lines than we generally have been here. (That's a topic for another post, really.) And our family and friends are going to be the pray-ers, the encouragers, the kick-in-the-pants-ers that keep us faithful and pick us back up when we're knocked down. They're going to be financing us too, giving from their salaries to keep us living and working in Manila. The ministry God is giving Seth and me is not just ours, it belongs to every person who prays or gives or writes a note. Each time I hear from somebody "I'll be praying" or "We're going to give...", this reality hits home again. And that kind of shared ministry only works when there is real, current relationship-- give-and-take knowing of one another. Relationships aren't just important, they're IMPORTANT, central, life-giving.

I am also becoming convinced that this priority on relationships is how life should be for Christians anyway. For me, it took becoming a missionary and getting ready to move halfway around the world to figure this out. I think, though, that it's not only true for Seth and me now. It should be just true of God's people, that relationships are what is urgent, because people are the most important part of God's creation, according to God. And I could have TOLD you this 6 years ago, but learning to LIVE like it, in the midst of the other responsibilities that we have and that we choose. . . that's what's tricky for me.

It's good that I'm getting some time to practice this new priority while we're still in the same country as most of my friends-and-relations. I'm not very good at it yet. I want to become good at it, though, and I hope I can learn some of the skills quickly. Because in just a few months, I will be able to see almost everyone I know only by webcam. Going out for coffee won't be an option. Calling someone on the phone will take mathematical calculations and serious scheduling (unless, of course, they LIKE talking in the middle of the night). Knowing and being known will take more work from there, but what I am learning is that the work will be worth every minute.