Confession and more prayer for THE EVENT

First, the confession. Richard left Thursday for Indonesia. I tend to get pretty lazy when he's gone (he might say the same is true when he's not gone). So the past three nights, I have eaten frozen pizza for dinner. The same exact pizza, three nights in a row. I feel so dirty.

Now, some prayer needs for THE EVENT that starts in just two-and-a-half weeks:

• Pray that more people register. This is apparently a busy time of year for lots of churches and an especially popular time of year for missions conferences. Who knew.
• Pray that, regardless of numbers, all those who are there are impacted by the conference. That we all learn new things, are encouraged and challenged, and that we leave confident that it was well worth our time and investment.
• That God would move in our presence. That He would let us know if we are hearing Him or if we're getting off track. That He would forgive me for worrying and controlling and that He would set me free to enjoy and listen to Him.
• That the logistics of flights, sound systems, agendas, meals, hotel rooms, materials, videos and everything else would be smooth.
• That God would protect us from cynicism, hardness of heart, distraction, discouragement, illness, impatience...Lord, be merciful, be mighty, be near.

THE EVENT

Okay, weeks ago I said I'd post some prayer requests for a big conference we're planning at work. I've been preparing for it for months but somehow the time is almost here (just 3 weeks!) and I feel woefully inadequate to pull it off. And so it's a good time to remind myself that it's not about ME and I'm never in control anyway and the point of the whole thing is to glorify GOD even though it would be nice to receive a little praise myself at the end of the day or at the very least to avoid looking like a complete idiot. (I'm just kidding, Lord. If you want me to look like a complete idiot, I'll do it for you. Though I can't imagine why you'd want me to look like a complete idiot, doesn't seem very compassionate. But really, I'm okay with whatever you decide.)

Here's an email I sent out to people on our list to invite:

Dear friends,

It’s hard to believe October is just a few days away! I am counting down the days to our first global church partnership event which will be held in Baltimore, October 18-20. Many of you have registered for this event already. For those of you who haven’t, I want to let you know that we’ve extended the registration deadline (as the attached email explains). If you’re still not sure whether it's for you, let me share a few of the things I’m most looking forward to about it:

1) Vinay Samuel and Oscar Muriu speaking about transformation, poverty and God’s call to the global Church.
2) International program staff and ministers from across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, sharing lessons and leading discussions about missional development and partnership.
3) Pastors, lay leaders and other members of partner churches from all across the USA, coming together to demonstrate that the Church is one body, and that when we come together to glorify God, we are changed. And in being changed, we can change our world.

I anticipate with joy (and not a little fear and trembling!) what God has in store for us -- in the formal meetings; in the unexpected conversations; in the worship and prayer; in the workshops on microfinance, cross-cultural relationships, responding to HIV/AIDS, and everything in between – and I pray you will join us. To register, please see the attached email.

Thank you for being ministers of the Gospel wherever you are. May you be blessed.

So there you go, that's the image of joyful anticipation I'm trying to get across and trying to embody, but let's face it, more often than not it's sheer terror. And again, I remember the reason for this post: prayer.

Please pray for...

• The event to be a time of celebration, excitement, and real relationship building.
• The international staff, that they would be prepared and comfortable, ready to present and engage in meetings.
• The partners and potential partners who will be in attendance, that they would be filled with grace, wisdom and openness to learning new things.
• All of us who are pulling together all the details, from food to hotel rooms to music to agendas to workshops. Pray that our heads don't explode.

More to come...Thank you for praying. Truly.

My Summer Vacation (or is it Fall already?)

Okay, so I didn't manage to get in a post about the vacation. We've been back almost a week and it's like a distant memory after a crazy week back in the office. A few highlights I don't want to forget:

1) The breathtakingly blue water of South Lake Tahoe. Who knew it was even safe to drink and more than 99% pure at the surface? Someone should Google that.
2) The first morning, waking up at 6am to my dad ready to engage in a discussion about a couple of books we'd agreed to read about family dynamics, the conversation diverging (devolving?) into "What's with all the religion?"
3) The trees of Yosemite. Amazing.
4) Walking 2.5 miles at Yosemite. In a moon boot. And Richard and I completed the walk well ahead of everyone else on the bus tour.
5) The bus tour to Yosemite. Our guide (who referred to himself at times as Walker, then as Joe, then Dan, and who didn't stop talking the entire time) said, and I quote, "If you think about it, a drop of water is almost more powerful than a waterful, in actuality." I don't know what he meant but it sounded profound. I kid.
6) An incident between my father and a valet guy at the hotel which ended an hour or two later with my father bringing a beer to Richard and me at the pool as a peace offering. The valet guy still had a complaint filed against him. Sorry, valet guy.

Mostly it was wonderful to be away from reality, to have nothing that I had to do, to be free to take naps and be lazy and let my skin tan. And it was really good to be with Richard and for us to spend a week with my dad and step-mom. No family is perfect. Mine is nuts. But I love them.

Now I'm back at work and the countdown to THE EVENT begins...Less than 5 weeks until my department tries to pull off the biggest church-focused conference we've held as long as I've been there. I'll post some prayer requests in the next posts -- prayer is the only thing that will keep my head from exploding and THE EVENT from turning into a comedy of errors (or, worse, a COMPLETE DISASTER).

Broken

Where do I start after so long? My last blog left me in Maputo. I finished that leg of the trip and flew (via Nampula, Pembe and Nairobi) to Mombasa, a town in southeast Kenya on the coast of the Indian Ocean. My last memorable Mozambique moment was being picked up from the apartment at 4am, when it was still pitch black, and the driver telling me it was very dangerous to be driving at this time because of highjackers. He ran most of the red lights to avoid stopping at deserted corners. I was not too sad to leave, but I was sad for the people who live in a place that has become increasingly violent as the country strives to develop.

Kenya was wonderful and difficult. The Kenya office's staff retreat was the reason we were in Mombasa. The hotel (really a cluster of freestanding cottages) was in some ways exactly what you'd expect from a beach-side resort -- a beautiful pool overlooking the ocean, a large dining area with never-ending buffet, palm trees heavy with coconuts. But some of it was out of the ordinary, like the dozens of skinny black and white cats decorating the grounds, playing in the giant planters, following you to your room, waiting for something to drop from your dinner table and ready to finish off scraps of food after you've walked away; like the swarms of monkeys swinging from balcony to balcony, jumping from palm tree to thatch roof, avoiding the sling-shot of the man whose responsibility it was to keep the monkeys away from guests enjoying their meals; like the 20-year-old hotel employee eager to practice his English, asking me to explain salvation to him and how I could believe in something as illogical as the Trinity.

There is too much to say. The people working for our organization in Kenya are gifted, well-educated, articulate, passionate and funny. I am blessed to have spent a little time with them. The retreat provided was just what I needed: space for personal reflection, time to get into God's word, a reminder of the brokenness of this world and the healing that is in our reach.

I was picked up at 3am from the hotel in Mombasa to catch a flight to Kigali, Rwanda, where I spent the remainder of my time. I should do a post on the people I met with -- there were days of 10- and even 14-hour marathon meetings, but it was worth it just for the opportunity to be touched by their wisdom, for it to somehow ooze onto me. I felt richer when I was around people like Kayijuka and Sophonie, Ngoga and Marcel, Rita and Joie-Claire, who have known genocide and war and suffering beyond any scale I could fathom, but who have been given the strength and grace to speak words of peace, healing and wholeness.

I got home Thursday evening. Richard took me to an urgent-care clinic to have my foot x-rayed. Just a couple of days before I left for Africa, it had started hurting; I'd been walking with a limp for 3 weeks now. The x-ray showed a stress fracture of one of the metatarsals (the long bones in your foot). It's official: I've broken myself. Too much walking, too much speed, too little rest. The doctor ordered me to wear a moon boot, which Richard and I picked up from a medical supply store the next day. I am now walking around in a great big black Star Wars-looking contraption that goes all the way up to my knee.

On Saturday we got on an airplane headed for South Lake Tahoe, where we'll be this week for a long-awaited vacation. Next post: the importance of having appropriate expectations (or Why Didn't Someone Tell Me My Vacation Would Be More Disneyland Than Rustic Getaway).