Rejoicing

It's a beautiful day in Quito Ecuador, looking out my window I can see a beautiful snow capped mountain on this clear day. Despite living here I'm still always blown away at how beautiful this country is and feel so blessed to be able to take it in.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of going to the pastoral retreat where I was asked to speak to the children (youth) of pastors. I was asked to talk on the subject of life as the child of a pastor and what that means for us and our relationship with the Lord. My focus was the need to develop our own identity in Christ. Sometimes growing up in a home that is constantly in "ministry" can be difficult. Often times for children of pastors our identity is wrapped up in our parent's work and our own spiritual growth can be hindered by rebellion or complacency or even our need to be "perfect". I think in many cases that is even stronger here in Ecuador where often times a pastor's children are expected to be a part of the ministry or do things out of expectation rather than a calling. In many cases they are expected to be a part of the worship band, teach sunday school, preach, be the youth pastor... It is often simply by default rather than a true calling or passion and that personal relationship with Christ can be lost in the mix. This is also a culture in which your are told what to believe rather than encouraged to study, discern and develop your own understanding of Christ and what it means to be a christian. I encouraged the kids to not get lost in all of the expectations of perfection but to truly seek out a personal relationship with the Lord, to make it real for them rather than to simply follow along because of who their father is. I believe it was an encouraging time for them as they were able to voice some of their concerns or frustrations with being constantly under the church's microscope.

The following week I traveled out to a Bible school where I translated for my friend Aune Carlson as she spoke to the students about community. The Bible school is an 3 month, annual gathering of students from Ecuador and Sweden where they study the book of Acts and learn about missions, ministry and what it means to be the church. Our time with the students was wonderful and we were able to challenge them on going deeper in community. Because of the severe cultural differences there are some very clear divisions that are perpetuated by each culture's observation of differences in how things are viewed or how they respond to various scenarios. In many cases, these differences are viewed in a negative light. We asked the students to list out some of the differences that they had noticed in their time there and it was interesting to hear how the differences are often times described in Us vs Them language with the end result being a clear expression of our way is better. Our challenge to the students was to re-frame their way of looking at differences to try to understand the why behind the differences in order to potentially understand that different isn't wrong or worse but that there are some cultural reasons for those differences and that we can learn from them and potentially find a valid purpose in them.

At first when we challenged them simply on their language and on what we had observed as divisive perspectives, the students became defensive wanting to claim that in fact they were doing great in the area of community and didn't need to change. Even the director of the school responded and admitted to not liking the challenge when it was first issued but then reflecting on it and realizing that perhaps an outside perspective allowed them to see things that they couldn't see from the inside. In the end I believe we were able to encourage them to find areas of commonality as the springboard for deepening their community as a way to approach their identity within the community that is "the church".

Please pray for the students at the school as this is their last week and they will all be heading back to their countries or home towns. May this three months not have been simply a gathering but that they will be able to return to their homes with a renewed passion for the Kingdom and the sharing of the love of Christ as they share the gospel with their friends and families and the communities that they engage in on a daily basis.

FINALLY...as related to the title of this letter.

I am rejoicing as this week I read that a friend of mine is being baptized this Sunday. My friend is a musician who I met years ago at one of his shows in Chicago. He is a brilliant singer/songwriter who in the 80's was touring the USA and getting a lot of radio play with his band. When we met he was shocked at the fact that I was a seminary student and as we became closer we got to discuss God and theology. At one point he had told me that if he ever got married again he wanted me to perform the ceremony. At the time he was very much living the rock and roll lifestyle so this week it was encouraging to see that the seeds that have been planted in him have born fruit. His name is Chris Shaffer. Here is the song that put them on the map back in the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajbHkLk6LgY

Please join me in praising the Lord for his life and his new found relationship and identity in the Lord.

This week I'll be traveling to Colombia for the first time in 22 years since we were evacuated in 1989. I'll be spending time with our missionaries there visiting some of the microenterprise projects that they are working with as I get close to completing the curriculum I've been writing and preparing to launch the program in churches here in Ecuador.

Please continue to pray for that process as I wrap up the writing and begin the training. We will be running our pilot program at the church "Rios de Agua Viva" (Rivers of living Water).