Many of you who read this may not know that I am getting prepared for a missions trip to Kenya, Africa. Tim and Chrissy have been taking teams to Africa for the last ten years working with friends from their days at Bethany College of Missions in Minnesota, who are full time missionaries in Kenya. This trip is to build a girls school where there is no school for girls, in an area where there are few Christians. If you have interest in learning more, I would invite you to our blog about the missions we are involved in at
www.lhcmissions.blogspot.com.
We leave June 10th and will be gone over two weeks. If you can help me financially please email me and will send you out a support card. If you will pray for me during this time please email that you would commit to that.
tony@campdaniel.org
I am getting a consistent question...Why do you want to go to Africa? Don't you have enough to do? The answer is yes, I have enough to do, but more importantly the answer is that I believe this trip will help me grow; closer to God, farther from my "American" candy coated life, and as a servant, a minister and leader. I go on this trip not necessarily feeling "called" but I don't particularly believe that has much to do with anything but my main life's pursuit. Biblically, it says to "Go" so I will. It is hard for others from the outside to see how this lines up in the vision God has given us for Camp Daniel, but it does. My Uncle Jerry taught me many years ago that God always cares more about our relationship with Him than the ministry we are in. It is that basis in which much of the ministry has happened at Camp Daniel. As the servants who carry out the ministry grow, so does the ministry grow. So this trip is vital to the future of Camp Daniel and our growth.
Sue Koch taught taught me a simple yet very profound concept some years ago. It goes like this; Life is like watching a baseball game... through a knot hole in a fence. The game is going on and God is seeing it all, yet we can only see the narrow sight line through that hole. At some point in the game we may see a batter hit the ball up in the air, and a fielder catch it. We may have disappointment because he got out. But what we missed was the go ahead run scoring as it was a sacrifice fly. This has been so profound to me that I have based allot of my leadership on the concept, I am only seeing from my point of view, not God's. So a big part of what I have tried to do is enlarge the knot hole in order to have a wider sight line. That is what this missions trip is all about, enlarging the knot hole to see a broader perspective to change me, the ministry I am involved in, and the way I lead, by seeing from a perspective just a little closer to heavens.
I know that we never see the entire game while here on earth, and that will make it hard to do things right. Yet, I also know God is constantly giving us opportunity to see things from His perspective, we must be willing to look. They are simply glimpses, but they are life changing every time they happen. So I go to Africa knowing I will get a glimpse of what God wants me to see, and that is exciting, yet I go humbly and with a little fear as I know that these glimpses cause us to grow and growth can hurt! So I ask for your prayer as I continue to cut at that knot hole to make it bigger.
God wants us to grow in every area of our lives -- to be completely whole as we let His Holy Spirit do the work in our lives. So if we are "not whole" we must continue to cut at that knot hole to make it bigger. I couldn't wait to say that. Love ya, Tony.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is that Sue Koch has some very insightful ways of looking at life. If I had anything to add to this visual (and it would be very little)it would be that the field of life is enormous and also contains much clutter similar to the grandstand at the baseball field. When I went to the Brewers new stadium years ago I couldn’t get over this magnificent facility and the interesting things going on around me involving the fans. As if the knot hole isn’t limiting enough I sometimes allow the distractions of the things going on around me to limit my opportunity to see clearly what God is trying to show me. It would be like watching the baseball game through the knothole but spending way to much time looking at the cheering crowd rather than the game.
ReplyDeleteMy hope for this mission trip is that each of us will keep our eyes focused on the things that God has prepared each of us to do. I don’t want to make the mistake of getting caught-up in the surroundings or hold back due to fears that one contact or event that was ordained of God for me from eternity.