Eternity Matters

I remember a few years ago, someone I knew was really keen on social causes.  There are certain causes I am all for, and have supported in different ways.  It is good to help alleviate the suffering of people in any way possible, but that never seems to be enough to me, so the goal of social assistance can't be the end all.  It seems shortsighted for Christians to be merely socially and environmentally conscious.  We need to be spiritually conscious, too.

I was reminded of how fragile this earthly condition is by the sudden passing of a co-worker, and the point of all this to do what we can to see God made known among men.  This life is temporary -- ameliorating suffering in the human condition is imperative, but also fleeting.  Eventually, we all die, and will someday stand before the judgment seat.  God makes the offer of eternity with Him, if we only confess our sins and receive Christ as Savior.

What does this have to do with my blog for Spain?  This summer, we plan to go to help a few new churches with painting and outreach projects, but to what end?  To give people hope, help, and encouragement, but also to bring them God's offer of eternal life.  To offer an alternative to eternal suffering is the best type of assistance and relief we can offer.  Thanks be to God that through Christ, we get that kind of relief!

Missions Banquet

The annual Missions Banquet is a big to-do around our church, with dozens of missionaries expected to attend and share, and other folk who share a heart for missions coming out to experience a night of fabulous food, thanks to John Long, Dan Murphy, and a staff of probably a hundred or more helpers.

It means lots of things (including the likelihood that I will edit this later to include some facet or group that I have forgotten to mention).  SCS students sacrifice their food service and have to brown-bag it for the day before (today) since the kitchen is needed for two days almost continuously to make this happen.  Some SCS kids pitch in to earn some required community service hours or just to serve because they want to.  It means custodial staff working hard to set up tables and chairs, and cheerfully being available to help with numerous other things that come up in the course of the preparation.  It means volunteers who take care of ticket sales for a $20 gourmet dinner that rivals one at any classy restaurant with a much higher pricetag.  It means countless hours of preparation by Pastor Rich, missions committee and church office staff.   It means tech support to set up for sound and a projector with Tommy P. and Bob Z. climbing on some gizmo on wheels that seems to work by electric power and raises them up to the ceiling to access the ceiling projector and make sure the settings are right.  It means hours of cutting potatoes, washing dishes, polishing flatware, making sure table settings are just so (cup handles pointing to 5:00!)  It means elementary kids and twenty-or-thirty-somethings, teens and grandparents, singles and marrieds, kitchen staff, and missions committee members working side-by-side to prepare for an event that will allow all to connect and grow in their appreciation one for another, and in their vision for reaching the world for Christ.

Our Spain team members are part of the crew.  Some, like Alba, Art, Kathy, Luis, and I came today after 3pm to help wherever we could, and others are coming tomorrow to pitch in.  As summer missions team members it is part of our preparation requirements, but it is already been a good getting-to-know-you-team-building experience.   Who knew that polishing flatware and matching forks could be so much fun?

Studying Spanish Brings Opportunities to Share

I have so much Spanish rattling around in my head these days.  Can't spit out too many coherent sentences right off the cuff, but usually find myself tongue-tied in the moment of idiomatic need, and left to ruminate about what I should have said, only to come up with an appropriate Spanish response sometime after the event or conversation was long over.  Somehow need to come to that place where this stuff just rolls off my tongue without so much mental formulation.  That I suspect, means finding sentences I will use, memorizing them, and putting them in conversation.

Part of that is coming with my new project:  memorization of worship songs in Spanish.  YouTube is a great source of videos of Spanish versions of worship songs I am already familiar with, and it has been fairly easy to find videos with lyrics right on screen.  I have pretty much memorized "Grande Para Salvar" (Hillsong's Mighty to Save), and the children's chorus "Si, Cristo Me Ama" (Yes, Jesus Loves Me) and am part way through "Hosanna en las Alturas" (Hosanna in the Highest - Hillsong United).

As I sit soaking in the podiatrist whirlpool bath (have been getting treatment for some tendon problems in my feet), or on the exercise bike at the gym  feverishly studying my flashcards, song sheets, and notes, conversation in English has sparked with others about why I am studying Spanish.   This has led to some neat opportunities.  I think of the nice lady in the doctor's office who shared about her adult son who is a Christian, and her misgivings of how he gave up his childhood faith for this, but  shared how she has been to his church on a number of occasions, and has some understanding of why I am doing this missions thing.  I remember the kindly woman from the gym, who I would guess has a few years on my parents, but who works out faithfully and keeps herself in good condition; who also sees me studying regularly and wonders if I am a student at the community college where we both use the gym.  She shares how she has major surgery coming up and that she is very apprehensive about it.  She fears that if this surgery doesn't go well, she may lose her sight and her independence, and is definitely appreciative of my offer to pray for her.

I marvel at how much of a blessing it is to prepare to serve overseas, and how faithful God is to use even the time of preparation as opportunity to share Him with others.

Missions in 1992 vs. Missions in 2012

In 1990 I was privileged to teach MKs at RVA in Kenya. At the risk of sounding old, in the two years I spent at Kijabe, our tech consisted of a computer with word processing program, a typewriter, photocopy machine and for the really tech savvy, a fax machine (which we had to travel to get to). As I get ready for this upcoming two week trip I marvel at the changes in how missionaries can communicate with their fellow missionaries, missions sending organizations, family, friends, prayer partners and supporters since I last spent more than a week overseas...

 Tech Tools for Missions in 1992 vs. Tech Tools for Missions in 2012

In 1992...

• a prayer letter was always a hard copy and preparing one meant folding paper, licking stamps, and handwriting and sealing envelopes.  Sometimes it was handwritten and photocopied, sometimes sent to a printer to print,  and sometimes it was typed on the typewriter or computer and printed with a dot matrix printer.  Regardless, it meant a trip to the post office.
• keeping in touch with prayer partners and financial supporters involved phone calls (and not too many of those from an African phone that didn't have direct dial), lots of aerogrammes, note cards, and stationery
• my tech savvy family in NY bought a fax machine so they could exchange faxed letters with me.  It meant faxing from NY to AIMServ in Nairobi, or vice versa then on the Nairobi end relying on some kind missionary courier to bring the letter from Wilson Airport to Kijabe when they stopped there on business.  It saved days or potentially weeks (the Gulf War was going on -- I didn't even know it was called Desert Storm until after I returned to the US -- and letters from NY to Kenya could get stalled for weeks) of postal travel time
• Photo taking was done with 35 mm camera using film and images printed as either slides or prints.  If you were really cool, you were taking video, too, and saving it to VHS tapes.  

In 2012...

• a prayer letter can be hard copy with folding, stamps, and actual handwriting, but could also be blogged, written as a post or note on a social media site.  It could even be a video creation!
• keeping in touch can be as traditional as mailing a letter via snail mail, or as instant as sending an email, video chatting on OoVoo or Skype, or texting on a cell phone.  Post office optional.
• Photo taking can still mean using film and printing out hard copies of photos, but rarely means creating slides.  Usually it is done with a cell phone or a nice digital SLR, and can easily be sent to the folks back home via a picture message, email attachment, on Facebook, twitter, or Google+ or as an album to be shared from Flickr or Picasa, or another photo sharing site.  They even make cameras now that allow you to upload directly to the cloud from the camera itself via WiFi.  Cellphone cameras can take video, or a small pocket sized bloggie or Flip type camcorder and laptop can allow for easily uploading video to a social media site, or creating your own movie with video editing software that comes with your laptop.
• I don't even know what else, but I am fascinated by the possibilities!

My 1st Prayer Letter for Spain

Dear Friends and Family,

 You know how you can hear something, and not really tune in, but know it is rattling around in your subconscious somewhere? I am a Brentwood kid who grew up in a community where Spanish is spoken at least as freely as English, but I never formally studied the language, or felt confident enough to try to speak more than a few words of it though I heard lots of it. Five years ago I taught a bilingual kindergarten class, and spent countless hours working with interpreters and translators to communicate effectively with parents who spoke little or no English, which led to more understanding, but also cultivated a desire to really learn conversational Spanish. I bought some Spanish immersion CDs and later a bilingual Bible, but four-plus years of grad school put a cramp in my language learning efforts. At the beginning of 2012, I felt God moving on my heart to sort of figuratively do what Peter did: ‘step out of the boat’ and try ‘walking on the water’, but wasn’t sure what that meant literally.

 About that time, I found a renewed desire to work on learning Spanish. In February, I signed up for what I thought was a low-key conversational Spanish adult education class at a local high school, only to find myself in a quasi-immersion course. More recently I learned of the opportunity to travel to Spain on a two week missions trip with a group from my church and sensed a real excitement about stepping out ‘on the water’ to trust God to bless my growing espanol and old talents in a new way to reach Spanish people for Christ. Might I enlist you to pray? Here’s the 4-1-1...

 ...the plan. We were told we will be helping Pastor Antonio Amigo and the Buenas Noticias Church in their new church plants by doing some painting and evangelistic work in two municipalities in the community of Madrid - San Martin de Valdeiglesias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mart%C3%ADn_de_Valdeiglesiasand Navas del Rey http://translate.google.com/translate?&u=http%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNavas+del+Rey&sl=es&tl=en The trip dates are July 16th-31th. ...the preparation. All those who desire to participate in the summer teams my church sends out (at least six teams this year!) are asked to attend 8 weeks of Mission Bridge preparation Sunday School class, with some homework and projects attached. I have been blessed to serve on a number of short trips here and abroad, and even spent two years as a missionary teacher in Kenya, but mostly used English. I am tapping every resource God has provided in friends and colleagues who have willingly helped me practice my developing language skills, by listening to my Spanish Immersion CDs, double checking things on Google Translate, attending Thursday night Adult Ed classes and feverishly working on pronunciation, vocabulary, Scripture, and music that will be helpful in sharing Christ in Spanish.

 ...the participants. We are a group of about 10 people from Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle, with our group leader who is a veteran missionary who lived in Spain with his family for four years.

 ...the prayer requests. Please pray for God’s provision for all of us, help with my Spanish language learning, for His Protection, for unity amongst our team, for good health, direction as details are worked out for our accommodations and travel arrangements, for effective outreach and boldness as we share, and that we would especially be an encouragement and blessing to Spanish Pastor Antonio Amigo and the brothers and sisters of the fellowships in San Martin de Valdeiglesias and Navas del Rey.

 Thanks so much in advance for your prayers.

 Blessings! Tricia

  Por tanto, vayan y hagan discipulos de todas las naciones..Mateo 28:19a

ps. Watch our team facebook, page www.facebook.com/SgtSpainOutreachSummer2012 and this blog for more updates! Will send out another letter when I return. :o)