Tag Archives: missionary preparation

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I received a very simple email the other day, and it reminded me that, while I may not know the details of my future, God has not stopped knitting my circumstances to propel me toward His purposes for my life. While preparing for missions deployment, a lot of logistical concerns can plague the mind if we let it. This little picture reminded me that the first missionaries took no spare sandals, no spare money, no change of clothes. Paul worked as a tent-maker, a term now used to describe any missionary who works to pay his/her way. Suddenly, with the receipt of this little collection of digital code and lit pixels, a thousand "What next?" questions were washed away with one very possible godly "What if?"

CURE jobs

There is a CURE hospital in Mbale, Uganda, which we did not get to see on our tour a year ago. They specialize in diseases of the brain, mostly hydrocephalus, a disfiguring and lethal disease, often a consequence of malnutrition and poor fetal development. As I considered the possibilities that open up as a result of emigrating as a "worker" rather than a "missionary" I am amused at how things change with Uganda's Ministry of Immigration. Missionaries need permission to enter; workers apparently just need opportunity.

I need to emphasize this is not a decision that was a made, but merely a suggestion that opened possibilities.

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pleasing interviewGod’s hand on Cindy is an inspiring touch to behold. She would never tell the details so I will. She has been doing contract work for a local temporary administrative services agency which has been faithfully attempting to land her choice positions that may translate into full-time positions. One such was with the local chapter of a major national organization that benefits young girls. She was feeling uneasy about the choice, so she laid out a sort of Gideon’s fleece about it when she said, “God, if it is Your will that I should accept this position, make it obvious by causing them to offer it to me before the close of the interview.” When I heard this story the first time, I thought as you might have just now, “Nobody offers an applicant a position until they have completed all the interviews and examined all their options.” God showed up, and she was offered the position during the initial interview.

As time passed in that office, Cindy became uneasy about the position, but was reluctant to petition God about another step because of the amazingly obvious direction God used to get her there. We talked about a Bible reading I had just done that seemed appropriate: Aaron, whom God chose as priest over Israel, did not remain priest over Israel indefinitely. There came a season when God called him up the mountain because it was time for him to graduate on. Cindy saw the relevance and was fairly certain she had learned what she could from this experience. She asked God to direct her next step. Within a week, she was being fought over by the company that made her uncomfortable and a local non-profit girls’ organization offering her a higher-level executive assistant position. This one, though temporary, offered a greater salary, safer workplace closer to home, and a more stable, established work environment, where she has already made herself more comfortable. It was not the fleece laid out this time, but I was amazed to hear that my precious bride was offered her new position while she was still in her initial interview. God has a way of signing His name to His actions by what the world calls “coincidence” or by making what is normally unheard of seem commonplace. When she told me the address of her new office and asked me for directions to get there, I laughed and informed her it was the building owned and occupied by my pension office, so technically (though I am retired), we have the same employment address!

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peelingThe Lemmons have been paring down, gradually peeling off the grip that ties us to any place or thing. It looks like moving may not be in our immediate future as I thought when I wrote “Paring Down the Lemmon House,” but we are still taking the cue to shrug off the material attachments that entangle us (Hebrews 12:1). Cindy has written about her “nest stuff,” from which she has begun to at least emotionally turn loose. I have waged war on my attachment to material things landing sword-blows like these:

“..whoever loves wealth is never satisfied…” (Ecclesiastes 5:10 NIV)

"You cannot serve God and wealth." (Luke 16:13 NASB)

The reality is when we move to Uganda we cannot keep what will not move, and what we try to move will not be secure (as if anything really is). The conclusion of this thinking has been surprisingly liberating. There is nothing we cannot live without, and there is nothing we must stay in one place to preserve. As we turn loose of our hold on stuff it is shocking to discover how tight a grip it actually had on us.

I just got back from a road trip during which I delivered to my siblings the prized heir-looms of my house. While I was at it, I got to enjoy several family visits that fit into the trip, and I was blessed by each one. Though delivering these gifts was something of a tearing away, I felt cleaner for the parting. Lighter even! Furthermore, I was enriched in a different way by building relationships with family.

On the return leg of my trip, I learned another lesson in material wealth and resource when I stopped at the scene of a blowout that claimed one of my tires several weeks before. It was a long shot, but I wondered if my missing hubcap might still be somewhere along the highway. I had priced a replacement at $60 but decided that good stewardship demanded I stop and spend time looking to recover it before giving up that much. I walked up and back more than a mile, all the while talking to God about His resource, my faith, and my contentment regardless of the results of this search. “It is Your resource,” I conceded, “If You want to restore it, You are entirely capable of directing my steps and guiding my glance, and I trust You to do just that.” I didn’t find the wheel cover, but I was content that I had left the ninety-nine to seek the one. I returned to the "ninety-nine," my trusty old pickup, in unmolested condition, but not entirely whole.

It turned out the mysterious noise I heard as I pulled off the highway, which I had already determined was not another blown tire, was actually an air compressor and a drive belt, the repairs of which would cost $1,100 more of God’s resources. On any other day, I might have reacted differently, but since I had just spent the better part of an hour talking to my Heavenly Father about the community nature of our property, all I could do was wonder why He would want to spend $1,100 on mechanical parts and service when He already owns the cattle and auto parts on a thousand hills. It is perhaps not for me to know.

What is promised to me is enough. God will always meet all my needs. He may not make my wheel covers match or my paint job sparkle, but He will always be there; and everything I have will always be His. Furthermore, in light of the truths that God owns everything, He has loaned me some of it, He has not delivered me from this troublesome world, yet He has overcome the world (John 16:33), I have cause for neither worry nor regret. My citizenship is of Heaven, and it is there I am building myself treasure. Material here on Earth is but dust on my feet.

Oh, yes! In the waiting room of my mechanic’s shop, just in front of a Ugandan Okoa Refuge missionary display, I did meet a retired transplant surgeon, and we spoke about his heart for service and his current project that just happens to involve a local church congregation – mine. Interesting.