These days, as sure as the day ends with a ‘y’,
a tradition you can set your watch by in the British sports media is the annual
league table predictions, particularly in the top flights. Most outlets wheel
out their big-name pundits around early August, with the remit of looking in to
their proverbial crystal balls and foretelling the order of the Premier League nine
months later. A fool’s errand, if ever there were one, and thus one that, come
May, tends to yield no shortage of fuel for wanton mockery; and that, of
course, is a British tradition that predates football by centuries. The folly
of such predictions was exposed most ferociously by the events of the 2015/16
season, as those who remember Gary Linker’s appearance on Match of the Day that
balmy August evening will remember with no shortage of fondness/queasiness.
All of this comes to mind most forcefully as I look
back on a blog entry from January 2015. Like this, it was the first for many
months; also like this, we used it to outline our plans for our new term in
Bolivia. To save you a long read, the main gist was that we were going to avoid
getting sucked back into old habits of trying to spin too many plates at once; this
we hoped to do by thinking more clearly about where our gifts and passions were
better used, rather than where there was a need to be met at all.
Well, it was a good idea while it lasted. One
of my own plans, for example, was to lay aside the music ministry, where I was
certainly gifted, but where my enthusiasm was running low, and also where – to the
best of my knowledge – there were plenty of others who had done a decent enough
job without me during my year away from the field. This masterplan went out the
window within, er, just a couple of days of setting foot in Bolivia. Indeed, we
were not even back in Trinidad yet! We had been met by one of the church’s
musicians shortly after getting off the plane at Santa Cruz, en route
home. He wasted no time in telling me how greatly the ministry had deteriorated
without me, and so I capitulated.
(As it happens, I’ve had a similar experience
this time, though I hope I’ve demonstrated greater resistance. Within 24 hours
of arriving in Santa Cruz, someone from Trinidad texted me to ask if the
English classes – which God firmly closed the door on last year – were beginning again. When I replied, saying, “Sorry,
but I won’t be teaching English any more,” my contact said, “And why not?” I
opted to leave that question unanswered.)
So I am mightily aware of the pitfalls of this endeavour.
But I hope that, this time around, with lessons learned, this will not be so
much an exercise in predictions, as plans (though I use that term with caution:
there is, of course, much about the next few years that our gracious Heavenly
Father, in his wisdom, has chosen not to reveal to us yet). A big reason for
this is that, after a period of prayer and reflection during our time away, we
informed the relevant locals of the main changes to our ministry some months
ago, giving them time to digest these developments and plan for the future.
This is a little counterintuitive for our
friends in Bolivia, as the response from one or two individuals to this news demonstrated.
Regular readers will be aware that, as a culture, the Bolivians have much to
teach us westerners about responding to the needs of others: in a crisis, no
matter the seeming scarcity of resources, needs are met and no questions are
asked. This is fundamentally a good thing. But in ministry, this becomes more
problematic where there is no gifting; just because a new ministry that
requires a dozen helpers is being set up doesn’t necessarily make you the right
fit for it. Despite everyone’s best efforts, it eventually becomes exhausting
for the one who makes the gesture, and discouraging for the intended recipient.
In our desire to bring only glory to God, then,
and to be best equipped for his purposes, here are some fundamentals we wish to
keep at the forefront of our thinking over the next two or three years. I was
going to share all of this in a single blog post, but it got so out of control
that we have decided to split this into two parts. Next weekend, we will
outline what our individual roles are set to look like this time round; here,
we will share a couple of fundamental goals we have this time around in our
approach to ministry and family.
Working from a place of rest
Despite this culture’s laid-back attitude
to principles such as commitment and organisation – or, perhaps, as a response
to such attitudes – the evangelical church here takes commitment pretty
seriously. Most churches have not one, but two midweek meetings for Bible study
and prayer. Youth work tends to take place on Saturdays, and some churches will
have special events on Friday evenings. Throw in planning meetings and other
meetings for specific groups such as men and women, and it is easy to see how
church and its activities can take up pretty much every day of the week. In
many cases it does, and we know people who, if they could, would happily attend
church, or help at a church event, every day of the week.
This is exacerbated somewhat in our
own church, which is small, and therefore has fewer people to help run things.
Nonetheless, recognising needs (see above), they often do just that, meaning
that spare time for, say, family, is severely limited.
Now as outsiders to the culture, Amanda and I
have been aware of these issues from the beginning of our ministry. And yet, also
as outsiders to the culture, we have at times felt nervous about addressing
such issues, not wishing to come across as superior or dismissive of the people
here.
Yet, if we are honest, there have been times in
the last few years when our involvement in Christian ministry has left us exhausted,
barely functioning as we sleep-walk from one activity to the other, and
harbouring a little resentment at the impact church work is having on our lives
as individuals and as a family. And the reason for this is quite simple: for all
our seemingly good intentions, we have neglected the model of rest that has
been set for God’s people from Trinidad to Timbuctoo.
So it is our intention to sensitively, but firmly,
establish boundaries in our lives that can better enable us not only to
survive, but to thrive. This will include, for example, ring-fencing our
devotional time each day, physically leaving the house and going somewhere we
can’t be found on Mondays (our rest day), and leaving the goldfish bowl that is
Trinidad on a regular basis for some proper R&R. Above all, it will mean
that we politely say ‘no’ to certain things, something we have already begun
doing in withdrawing from certain areas of ministry.
In doing so, our prayer is that others will not
simply regard us as awkward, or work-shy, but as setting an example that is
worth emulating, and all the more so because it is Biblical.
Putting family first
Overlapping with the goal of having proper rest
is our desire to nurture a more healthy family life.
We will long look back at last year with a
mixture of delight and regret. Sam came home with us at the tail-end of 2015,
and we took the decision to look after him ourselves rather than
sub-contracting this to a nanny; after all, we had a lot of catching up to do.
In practice, this meant that one of us would ‘have’
him in the morning while the other person worked, and then in the afternoon we
would swap. And while we relished this focused time with our new addition,
Amanda and I essentially became like two ships passing in the night. We would
see each other briefly at lunch, and then by the time Sam had gone to bed in
the early evening, we were both so exhausted that we would retreat into our own
worlds just to get a semblance of ‘me time’. But the consequences of this were a
little painful: inevitably, as we saw less and less of one other, we
increasingly forgot how to communicate with each other, and how best to meet
the needs of the other person.
We are determined not to make this mistake again.
For this reason, over the last few months, we have drawn up a new schedule that
will enable us to overcome these difficulties. In particular, we have ring-fenced
a weekly ‘marriage time’ (I would call it a date-night if it wasn’t a Monday
morning!) and committed to pursuing more common interests together in our spare
time. Furthermore, we have ensured that there will be regular time during the
week when the three of us can be together as a family, without the shadow of
work hanging over us.
Conclusion: Adapt first
We never quite get ‘there’ in this life, which
is for the most part a constant experience of making mistakes and making
ham-fisted attempts to learn from them. This is no exception for overseas
workers such as ourselves, and we know that, even if we successfully address the
issues outlined above, others will surely arise. But we know from time spent
with other, more experienced missionaries, that a better balance is possible.
We could have used this opening post to outline
the various ministries and activities we feel God is leading us towards this
time around. To a certain extent, that will come next weekend. But all this will be for naught if we seek
power for these endeavours from within ourselves or fail to ‘manage [our] own
family well’ (1 Tim 3:4). Putting it more bluntly: if we continue down such
paths, we may as well not be here.
You have stood with us in the past in prayer,
and we need this now more than ever. And while you’re at it, please also
consider the following.
Praise
- Well, we made it. And we are so thankful for
journeying mercies, especially for Sam. On the eleven-hour flight across the
Atlantic on Monday/Tuesday, he slept for nine solid hours (count ‘em!). He held
up well the rest of that day, despite the time-zone shift and not landing in
Santa Cruz till late that evening. The boy positively scoffs in the face of
jetlag. Equally, he held up well on the long car journey back to Trinidad
yesterday. Not a case was lost, not a sleep was missed. Give thanks.
- Habemus auto. Back in January, we sold our fast-diminishing
1995 RAV4 with the help of a friend in Santa Cruz, and the same guy was able to
source us a replacement, which we paid for a couple of weeks ago, and picked up
on Wednesday from a reassuringly careful owner. It has a lot more space than
our last one, which was a great help in the journey yesterday.
- Speaking of thriving, give thanks, too, for Mariana, our former colleague at FT, who is now studying at a seminary in Santa Cruz with a view to working in tribal missions in the longer term. We had a chance to catch up with her this week and she is doing great. She is a young woman with a heart that breaks for the lost of Bolivia. We are delighted for her.
Prayer
- This being Bolivia, there is still a little registration
paperwork remaining on the car, some of which will require Craig to head back
to Santa Cruz in the next week or two. Pray for a swift conclusion to all of
this.
- Pray for our preparations for the team from
Strathaven Evangelical Church, who follow us across the Atlantic in just two
weeks’ time. Pray that we might be able to get our house in order (I mean that
literally!) and attend to this and other matters fairly soon.
- Pray for a stress-free readjustment to this unique
place. I might add that we have already noticed a big difference between
returning after six months away, and doing so after a year’s absence; feels a
lot more natural.
¡Que Dios les bendiga!
Craig & Amanda
