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.