Today is our final day at ICCT in Wheaton. The July 24th departure date is ever looming. We’ve spent all month learning about asphirated stops and retro-flexed affricates. Phonetics is more difficult that we imagined. On top of that, we really miss Jonathan and Cori! But today it ends, and after a month we will finally see them again this evening. Renee’ and I are both excited about that.
I am very happy that the C&MA requires this Second Language Acquistion course for all outgoing missionaries. I think it will prove an invaluable tool as we proceed into the long and arduous task of learning a second language. Experts in the fields of second langauage acquisition, linguistics and phonetics just spent the last three weeks pouring everything they have into us. Teachers consisted of Wheaton profs as well as SIL staff. The first couple of weeks of our experience seemed a little pointless. We had to kind of go on faith that everything our instructors were teaching us would eventually make sense. We were learning sounds, not words. That became a bit wearisome. bid … bid … bod … bod…
But it all changed the other night when we made a new friend. A native Mongolian speaker who lives here in Chicago came to teach us the Mongolian alphabet. As she began to go through the sounds, it all came together. We were able to reproduce the sounds and began to put them into real words that mean something (Thanks Chimee!). It was an exciting moment for both of us.
After a tough month, we leave encouraged and eager to see our kids.
Pray for us as we begin the more difficult task of saying meaningful goodbyes.
June 30th, 2006
Today is June 24th. We leave in one month.
It seems fitting that Renee’ and I prepare for our July 24th departure to Mongolia living at the Wheaton College campus. These days of learning about aspirated retro-flexed affricates (all of which are great new words!) have been challenging, to say the least. We miss Jonathan and Cori and continue to grieve over the space between us and the life we lived six months ago. However, room for reflection at Wheaton has been abundant. This is the place where Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and Ed McCully attended college and a place where significant spiritual formation took place in their lives. The lives and death of these men were exactly what God used in the spiritual formation of my own life. As a floundering and aimless teenager, I read Jim Elliot’s Journals from cover to cover. I realized that this man was real, passionate and had something that I lacked - and something I desperately wanted and needed.
Without a car, Renee’ and I have done a lot of walking this month. (This is probably good because we need to get used to having to walk and take public transportation everywhere - that will be life in Mongolia - and because there is so much good food everyday at the Wheaton Cafeteria!) As we walk through downtown Wheaton, my mind wanders back to what this little town might have been like over 50 years ago when those men wandered the same streets. What might have been going through their minds as they prepared to leave their families and loved ones and all that was familiar? It’s one thing to say Jim Elliot’s immortalized words in a sermon. “He is no fool who gives what he can not keep to gain what he can never lose“. It’s quite another to feel the loss before you really experience the gain. That’s what I think the Bible calls faith - and it’s what I am realizing to be in great demand; often nearly beyond my capacity. Just because the man described above is indeed ‘no fool’ (I really do believe that), it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel a fool. At least a little bit, sometimes.
At one of those plenteous Wheaton Cafeteria meals, Renee’ and I were sharing with someone at the table our “Steven Curtis Chapman Concert Experience” of a few years ago. Those who know Renee’ and I know of our inner skepticism of popular Christian Music. We went to this concert with very little expectation - but knowing that Jonathan and Cori would like it (For Jonathan’s sake - I want you to know that he’s moved way past SCC, today. One listen to his online MP3 player will clue you in on that one!). As the concert progressed, SCC began to tell the story through video and song of the five martyrs and their families. The wash of emotions Renee’ and I felt as that well-known story progressed was profound. However, it was the end that turned the evening into a memory that still ignites my heart to this day. Steven Curtis-Chapman introduced Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, who then proceeded to introduce Minkaye: the very man who brutally speared his father. Minkaye is a God-follower today. Steve Saint’s children call the man who murdered their Grandfather: Grandfather. Minkaye worshipped the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his native Waodoni tongue, as Steven Curtis Chapman sang “My Redeemer is faithful and true“. It was one of the most beautiful pictures of redemption I believe I’ll ever witness on this side of eternity.
This month at Wheaton has been difficult. However, as I walk these streets - the very ones that Jim, Nate, Ed and others have walked - I know my Redeemer is faithful and true. And though there are times when I wonder about the wisdom and foolishness of it all - I know the One who is all-wise. Making Him famous in as many lives as possible in all of the earth is the one thing that will last forever. His renown is the desire of our soul.
June 24th, 2006
It’s my turn, I suppose. To blog, that is. Bernie has been doing it for a while, Jonathan has his own page of the website and now that Cori has posted a blog, I don’t want to be the holdout. Unless, of course, it involves vulnerable sleeping conditions and situations where I have toilet paper in one hand and a small shovel in another.
There have been times over the past month when I have also seemed to be the emotional holdout as well. I have walked unaffected through one emotional situation after another these days. Some of you may have been concerned and some even hurt or offended. I hope not, because the lack of tears has by no means been a reflection of the degree to which I will miss family, friends, co-laborers.
Just as the trains that pass outside our new little apartment for one month here at Wheaton run on one track, so it seems does my mind and my emotions. I have been singly intent on one thing – dealing with our belongings. Even when taking a break for things like District Conference, homegroups, special services or visiting with friends and family, my mind has always been partly on the packing task before me.
It finally hit me, and I use the word hit very deliberately. Wednesday, with the boxes ready to go the Post Office, it hit. Lest I come across as incredibly cold and calloused, it wasn’t the completion of the task or the moving of stuff. On the way back from the Post Office Bernie took our dog, Chip to his new home. It’s a wonderful new home and I am so grateful to God for it, but it’s not our home. He’s not our dog any more. He has a new family to love him, and they already do, but he was not a pet — he was family. As I type it hits me again.
As we worked through the night into the morning, trying to accomplish what has seemed to be impossible, that is emptying our home, I was able to get back on my track. I was relatively successful until the end. I vacuumed Jonathan’s room and turned off the light. As I did, it seemed as if he were there, in his top bunk as he has been every morning for the five years, surrounded by his Titans memorabilia and his weather equipment.
Then I went to Cori’s room, vacuumed it and turned off her light. The big dancing flowers Bernie had painted on her purple wall seemed lonely without her there. I felt like I was in the finale of some long-running TV series, turning off the lights and walking away. I remembered the day after putting the nail on our Christmas tree (most of you know what that means, but if you don’t ask me), Cori crawling into Bernie’s lap in the big chair downstairs and saying she wanted to be a Christian.
I remembered the many nights and often late into the night, singing, praying, fellowshipping, struggling, having exciting conversations and hard conversations with so many of you. While we hope to have many more of those opportunities in the future, they will have to be somewhere else, because I turned that light off too.
Okay, if this is blogging, I may never do this again because this hurts, and I prefer to holdout from hurt. Yet as I type, I remember that though the light to one season in our lives has been turned off, there really is only one Light that counts because it will never be extinguished. His light stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see… and now it is my privilege to take His light to other eyes, with the expectation that one day, we shall all share in His promise. “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine one it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…and night will be no more…for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever (Rev. 21:22-26, 22:5).
And just as the former things are passing from us in this season, so they all will in this life, but He will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no mourning, crying or pain for those who are His.
I’m going to stop here, before it stops being a blog and just becomes a sermon. Ah, now I know why Bernie enjoys this so much.
June 4th, 2006
Mark Driscoll is one of the ‘emerging church’ leaders that I really appreciate. I particularly enjoyed his take on ‘24′ (one of the few things on television worth watching, in my opinion). I knew there was reason I liked this show. You can read the article in his blog here.
June 4th, 2006
Yesterday was the end. I have been thinking about this in terms of being the end of a chapter in a great story. Renee’ spoke of a better analogy this afternoon. It is really more like the end of Book two of ‘The Trilogy’ (or what is it when there are four, five or six books in a series? I’ll have to look that one up … ). Yesterday we cleaned out our house of five years. We put a large mass of our belongings into storage at both of our parent’s houses. We put even more belongings into the garage to be sold or given away. A smaller portion were put into boxes and shipped to Mongolia late Wednesday night. (I am confident that both the woman behind the counter and the people who were unfortunate enough to get in line behind me all pretty much hate me.) The rest are in Jonathan’s old room, stacked in the corner, waiting to be whittled down a little more. We need what’s left to fit into eight suitcases; weighing 23 kilograms a piece (translate that to 50 pounds). We cleaned the house. We said goodbye to our dog and took him to his wonderful new home (Thanks Brad and Melanie and Cody for letting Chipper live with you now!). We vacuumed and cried and turned out the lights; locked the door and flew to Chicago.
It is indeed the end of this book. I don’t really know what book number we’re on - Book II? Book III? Which ever it may be, it is indeed the end. But with every end, there is always a beginning. We are beginning to walk in that right now. Renee’ and I are at Wheaton College to participate in pre-field orientation (read: “How to be an Alliance Missionary” - actually it has been helpful so far. We have enjoyed getting to know IM leadership other new missionary families). Next week we begin a Summer course here at Wheaton called Second Language Acquisition - which is a part of Wheaton’s ICCT (International Cross-Cultural Training) program.
So in as much as yesterday was an end, so I know that today is a beginning. I don’t have any real expectations. As I sit and listen to the numerous trains that pass by our little apartment I am reminded of what I know: God is faithful. He is enough. He is good. And He will ultimately make His name famous in all of the earth. The fact that my family can play some small role in making His name famous is thrilling and humbling, indeed.
June 4th, 2006