I'm sitting in Seattle, watching it snow flakes the size of half dollars, reading Philippians in Spanish. Waiting to take a ferry to an island for a week with veterinary missionaries from around the world. Looking forward to soaking up their advice on resettlement, training on participatory teaching methodology, and any tidbits about Bolivia I can absorb. Yesterday, I spent a fascinating day in Pike Place Market, enjoying the company of a CVM staff tour guide, and a veterinarian from Brazil. We slipped into one of my favorite subjects--the class Perspectives on World Missions--and started talking about Hudson Taylor. Knowing he was striving to head to the mission field eventually, he started sleeping on a wooden bed without a mattress, and whittled his food intake down to a piece of bread and an apple a day, to prepare for the hardships of other cultures. The woman who was sharing this story said her response would probably be the opposite; to relish in the comforts of home with even greater appreciation knowing they're soon to be stripped from you.
I've landed somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. As, I try to cut back on my purchases, and downsize my material goods, I also linger a little longer over each luxury of home, including snow, realizing it could be my last for a very long time. The vet I'll be working with in Bolivia is here for the Training Of Trainers conference and this morning he said this was the first time he'd seen snow in eight years. If these gorgeous flakes turnout to be my farewell snowfall, I'll try not to let them melt unnoticed.
3 comments:
Sounds like the middle is a good place to be :) Enjoy the training!
Love
Mom
I was just reading about Hudson Taylor last night...this is from Piper's book, Desiring God:
Satan's number-one objective is to destroy our joy of faith. We have one offensive weapon: the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (Ephesians 6: 17). But what many Christians fail to realize is that we can't draw the sword from someone else's scabbard. If we don't wear it, we can't wield it. If the Word of God does not abide in us (John 15: 7), we will reach for it in vain when the enemy strikes. But if we do wear it, if it lives within us, what mighty warriors we can be! "I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one" (1 John 2: 14).
This has been the secret of God's great spiritual warriors. They have saturated themselves with the Word of God. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, sustained himself through incredible hardships by a disciplined meditation on the Bible every day. Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor give us a glimpse of this discipline:
It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his changeful life, to make time for prayer and Bible study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do the writers remember traveling with him month after month in northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow with the poorest of inns at night. Often with only one large room for coolies and travelers alike, they would screen off a corner for their father and another for themselves, with curtains of some sort; and then, after sleep at last had brought a measure of quiet, they would hear a match struck and see the flicker of candlelight which told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was pouring over the little Bible in two volumes always at hand. From two to four a.m. was the time he usually gave to prayer; the time he could be most sure of being undisturbed to wait upon God.3
The Sword of the Spirit is full of victory. But how few will give themselves to the deep and disciplined exercise of soul to take it up and wield it with joy and power!
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I found grouping of sentencing encouraging last night, not sure what it has to do with your post directly, but you made me think of it when you mentioned Hudson Taylor.
Wow! I think from 2-4am I'd be pretty disturbed by sleep. That's inspiring Dan, thanks!
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