Postscript

We arrived in Wheaton, Illinois yesterday to take my sister, Ashley, back to college, visit with some friends of ours, Madison and Regina, and speak at their church about our ministry with Wycliffe. Our drive out here included a stop at a Stew Leonard’s grocery store in Connecticut (see our blog entry from last year). We wanted Ashley to experience this place. She’s standing in front of the Chiquita banana animatronic lady. Push a button and she’ll sing about the bananas.

Then we stopped in the home of a wonderful couple that is on the Wycliffe Associates hospitality roster. They showed us the movie, The Ultimate Gift while we were at their house. What a great movie!

We made another stop in northern Indiana to see one of my friends from college, Kelly. It was great to see her, her husband Ryan and now their TWO kids! We enjoyed some great Mexican food together. Jeff says this place has the best tacos outside of Los Angeles!

Oh, and check out this row of soda machines in their town. That’s a serious selection of soda!

We hit the ground running yesterday, arriving in Wheaton early in the day, collecting all of Ashley’s stuff for her on-campus apartment and beginning to unpack it. We visited with Madison and Regina today in-between stops at Ashley’s apartment. It’s always great to see them. Jeff has know them for many years. I met them when Madison worked for Wycliffe in Orlando.

Yesterday, we were at a church in Brookfield, CT. We arrived in time for Sunday School. The pastor was sharing about centering on God and His power over all things, and remembering our complete dependence on Him. He talked about how important it is to always seek God, and not try to use our own strength to create something for God. His text was from 1 Kings where Elijah challenges the authority of Baal over Yahweh. The pastor pointed out how Elijah set a scene where God would be glorified and would be shown to be all powerful in front of the people of Israel. Elijah didn’t try to take control and try to perform his own miracle or even act on his own to convince the Israelites that they were wrong about Baal. He did what God asked him to do, and left the rest up to God.

The pastor went on to talk about some of the great revivals in history. He said that during the Great Awakening that Jonathan Edwards used to read his sermons (some said in a monatone voice) in order to not get in the way of the Holy Spirit working in people’s lives. He never wanted to manipulate a response that God wasn’t behind. I’d never realized that sermons like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God were read in a monotone voice!

After we did a short presentation on our ministry during the morning service, a pastor from a neighboring church shared a message about having faith like the believers highlighted in Hebrews 11.

These were great reminders at this point in our journey. There are so many unknowns in our our lives right now–when will we get to Africa? how long will it be before all of our financial support is raised? what will it be like once we get there? –but God has it all under control. We just have to have faith, do what He’s asked us to do, and then watch Him put all the pieces together.

We went to the craziest grocery store in Connecticut. It’s called Stew Leonard’s. Seriously…if this place was in Orlando it would be called “Stew Leonard’s Grocery World.” There were animatronics everywhere! In the produce section, we were serenaded by the banana lady. We were greeted with a lighthouse and foghorn in the fish area. In the beef section you could pull a cord and a cow would moo. Singing milk containers were in the dairy aisle. A singing horse was in the area with the take out food. There was even an animatronic tree with lights on it for Christmas! Crazy!! All they needed was a boat and it would be just like a Disney ride!

(Look, Dad…they had mango tango!)

Watch the video to see the crazy anamatronics in action (taken on our little digital camera)…

We spoke at a church in East Hartford, Connecticut last night. It was their mid-week Bible study, and we had about 10 minutes to share about our ministry. We asked everyone who had a Bible to raise their hand, and at the same time we unfolded a list with numerous pages (all connected together) of all the languages without the Bible.

The pastor who was speaking that evening asked to look at the list and several after the service looked at it. Many were shocked by how many people don’t have a Bible in a language they can understand. We reacted that same way when we first heard.

We also talked about how many different opportunities (career types) are available in missions. It was neat because after the service several asked us how their skills could be used in missions. Someone was a teacher/administrator. Someone else was a pilot. Someone else was in construction. We could tell them confidently that there were openings in missions right now for them to use the skills they already had.

Today, we had lunch with a pastor and his granddaughter. He has been at his church for more than 50 years. The church we were at on Sunday also had a pastor that had been there for more than 50 years. What an amazing ministry legacy! We both feel humbled by commitment like that. Sometimes it feels like we (all of us humans) run after flashy stuff, but I think God has a far greater reward for those who make commitments to his work for the long-term, even when it’s not all that glamorous.