light and fire.

 
back in the day, annie and i would camp out on bunks in the jam-packed bedroom of our college apartment and talk life and God and global mission. and don’t get me wrong, i was whole-heartedly nineteen and had many an hour of sheer idiocy and self-absorbancy, but for every once in a while. every once in a while i caught a glimpse of who God is, and it bowled me over with sweetness.

and He put a fire in my bones, so long ago. and it’s hard to sit still, y’know? it’s hard to sit tight when i’m sure we were made for this, for eternal things, for knowing Christ and making Him known.
 

 
this past week i got to be with annie again, and jeremy, and lori and landon, and all the beautiful kiddos. and the thing i loved most was how we’re still talking life and God and global mission, but now in specifics. L & L just got back from uganda, and they’re diving nose-first into local mission. annie and jer are growing a church plant, and from that faith family, now seeding new plants both here and globally. and we’re all dreaming africa and people and what it looks like to plug in from any continent.

a raging furnace in our bones.

and it’s not just them, it’s so many clear-sighted, compassionate, fiery people in our lives. my childhood friend erin, in the smack-dab hurricane of moving and a baby arriving and new ministry, and still she has time to think of us. made me cry on the carpet. our church family here. our church family in michigan. in mililani and berne and nappanee and waky, and every single person who poured into our lives along the way. our parents. siblings. people we know purely through blogging and emails and phone calls. people we met in ethiopia.

you all are so much light and fire.
 

 
there’s this refugee camp near the school we’ll be serving at. five years back, kenya’s presidential election led to violence and loss and some eleven thousand people without a home. so we have this whole community of folks, a thousand or so, who have pieced together plastic bags and cloth and sticks to make homes and a life in this IDP camp. and our students and staff head over, play with the kids, sit and talk, bring supplies. a couple guys working at our school started a church plant, where a group of otherwise displaced families are finding a church home.

lori said it best, how it’s just like God to make something beautiful out of all that loss, and aren’t we all displaced, aren’t we all sojourners threading through this life and all the while fixing our hearts on home?

this tuesday is our day of reckoning, where we need to be at full pledged support to fly out next month. God is doing miraculous things, and we are just so grateful. there’s still much room to join in, and if you’re meant for this, we’d love to have you with us. two things, really: we can’t do this without you, and we don’t want anyone to miss out.
 

 
‘But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus–the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God’ (Acts 20.24, NLT).