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Greetings!
PRAISES and PRAYER REQUESTS
Catching up with “my boys” in Florida
December already?! I started this letter over a month ago and then got distracted with all the craziness of life . .. oops! Leaves have fallen, temperatures are dropping, and I am so thankful that the relatively mild temperatures lasted as long as they did. I will admit that first time I had to scrape my car windows was a bit of a painful wake-up call! I am looking forward to the beauty of a North American winter, but not the bitter cold that can come with that!
- Praise God for beautiful weather and clear roads so far, and pray that the weather continues to cooperate as I continue in my North American travels.
- Praise God for the many people who have opened their homes and hosted me so far. They have been such a blessing!
- Pray for the many missionaries worldwide who will be separated from their extended families during the holidays, especially those experiencing that separation for the first time. Pray for special moments and memories despite the separation and that they are able to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
- Pray for hostel parents for next year!
- Pray for NAB projects throughout Cameroon. If you are looking for something special to support this year, consider our Special Projects: http:/ /www.nabconference.org/ give/special-projects/
- Pray for peace in Cameroon!
Catching up with a couple of former RFIS students in Kansas.
I have settled in Kansas and am thankful to have wonderful friends who have welcomed me into their home for the year. It was great to spend a little time with my home church in Junction City before starting the whirlwind of traveling and speaking that has defined life in the past couple of months.
Guavas in North Dakota?
Life here has been a rollercoaster of adjustments and has already included many joyful moments of reconnecting with friends and family that I haven’t seen in so long. As I have visited supporting churches, it has also been great fun to spend time with individuals from past visits, to make many wonderful new friends, and to spend time reminiscing with individuals who have spent time in Cameroon.
December 2016
National Social Studies Conference in DC.
I am so blessed to be a part of so many wonderful church families! I generally even enjoy the hours in my car and/or airports, though I am reaching the point where I long to be “home”.
“Home” is a concept that changes as we move through life. At one point in my life I think ‘home’ was simply the location which my family lived. For most of my adult life, ‘home’ could mean where I was living, where my parents’ were living, or the town where I had grown up. However, as the years progress and the number of physical places fitting that description continue to multiply, my definition is much less a physical
place than it is the people and community. I am left to reconsider – what or where exactly IS home? There isn’t an easy answer.
Eagle Scout Honor Court for a friend.
Theologically, it is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life, for instead of somewhere we ‘go back to’, it is somewhere we look forward to reaching. Our home, our citizenship, is not here or now and will never fully be known on this side of heaven. For Christians in this world, there will always be some sense of ‘not quite fitting,’ and it SHOULD be that way to some extent. We are called to be counter-cultural. We are called to be light in the darkness. We are called to be LOVE in a world that seems to thrive on hate. Each time I transition between the US and Cameroon, this disconnect becomes more clear to me. I don’t exactly know why, but there is a sense of ‘foreign’ and a sense of ‘home’ that comes with each place. One might think that shifting back and forth would become easier, but I find that those earthly transitions seem to grow more difficult each time. I come back time and again to a great old hymn that we sang for my grandmother’s funeral this summer – This world is not my home (lyrics to below).
Back in Cameroon, the weather is getting warmer and the kids are studying hard as they approach semester exams followed by a long-anticipated Christmas break. I know many of my friends there have been dealing with a lot of extended water and power outages for the past few weeks, so pray for patience and health amidst those challenges. News in the past few weeks from Cameroon as a whole has not been very encouraging. One of the questions I often answer at churches is about the safety and stability in Cameroon, and typically it is an easy answer: we are much more peaceful and stable than all of our neighbors and continue to serve as the location other missionaries evacuate TO when faced with unrest elsewhere. However, in the past few weeks there has been an increasing degree of unrest and tension in the English-speaking part of the country. Please pray for peace and for even tempers in the midst of emotional situations. As far as I can tell from friends throughout the country, it isn’t the type of unrest that has put missionaries in danger or led to many discussions about evacuations. However, the very nature of strikes and riots is unpredictable, and though we (as foreigners) are often geographically separated from direct conflict and violence, our national friends are not. Often they are living amidst the fray . . . and we pray for God’s peace and wisdom to prevail and for his hands to keep them safe as they tackle the normal tasks and challenges that define life in the midst of the chaos.
This World Is Not My Home
Jim Reeves
This world is not my home,
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.
Oh Lord, you know
I have no friend like you
If heaven’s not my home
Then Lord what will I do.
The angels beckon me
From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home
In this world anymore.