This awesome specimen of a picture is taken in a "song taw." Basically you jump in the back of a pick up truck and off you go. It's the most common way for us to travel here, and there is a very good chance that at some point I will be in labor while riding in the back of one of these bad boys.
This past week Emily and I said goodbye to some dear friends who we considered our children for the semester. Don’t you like the family photo? These 6 have spent the past 6 or so months spreading broadly the good news, engaging seekers, and grouping students into small HCs. They have done an unbelievable job and it seems like God, through them, made Ep. 3:20-21 tangible in doing immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. I want to thank them all publicly for what they’ve done:
Jon – For being the team leader and taking on all that entails. Your pace in sharing with everything that moves will always be a challenge to me.
Mark – Your work ethic really was second to none. You set a diligent pace that produced fruit that will last beyond the grave.
Gabe – For being a great teammate. Your joy and hilarity were more valuable than any of us will ever know.
Michael – For using time your could be earning the big bucks in an engineering job serving the Father and more deeply exploring his call on your life this past semester and this coming semester.
Audrey – For setting a pace in truly loving lost Chinese people. Very glad you'll be around next semester!
Martha – For not allowing anyone to look down on you because you are young. You were only young by age, not maturity, and God has used you in ways I’ve rarely seen overseas as a sophomore in college.
There are a ton of things you could pr. for this group as four of them head back to American and two stay. But I think there’s one thing I would most like you to pr. for and that is that they would find their righteousness in the Son alone. I have two reasons that this is my main pr. for them (Martha, I know you’re laughing now). Finding our righteousness in the Son alone keeps us from 1) pride in what we did; 2) guilt in what we didn’t do.
These guys saw amazing things happen this semester and it would be easy to feel righteousness before the Father because of the things they did. More likely though I imagine Satan reminding them often of the things they didn’t do well and making them feel unrighteous, guilty, insufficient, and unloved by Father because of that. These are two terrible ditches to fall in on the back end of a time like this and they will need truth to follow them as they leave.
Righteousness found in the Son alone will remind us in times of pride that we wouldn't have been able to do anything we've done without him and that our good deeds don't make us better than anyone else. Righteousness found in the Son alone will remind us in times of feeling guilty or insufficient that we are just that, guilty and insufficient. Our only hope is not to be stuck in guilt, or try to do a bunch of things to make ourselves feel better, but to run to the Son and find our right standing with the Father the only way possible, through him alone: the way, the truth, and the life.
So pr. with me that the Father will help them to find their righteousness, not in their obedience, but in the blood of the Son who alone made them clean and ready to be used by him.
HO6, I truly believe God is exceedingly pleased with what you have done this past semester. Be grateful for his love for you.
