The need to BE BRAVE

Sometimes we can imagine that pastors and missionaries have no fear as they embark in facing new challenges. 

That's not at all true.

As I look ahead to the unknown of this coming summer, I admit that I'm struggling with some anxiety as I anticipate my month of study in Asunción, Paraguay. While I have several ministry partners in that city, I will likely be less engaged with them this August as I undertake my language intensive. Where I have homestayed in the past with Pastor Koki and Mari of the Japanese Free Methodist Church of Asunción, this visit I will be taking up residence in Nikkei communal housing called the Hamanasu Center. The accommodations sound good, a clean room, a bed, a desk and a shower. But I don't know where it is situated relative to my school, and transportation in and around Asunción is a bit of a puzzle for me. 

I am spending a month in Asunción, not because I'm adventurous. I do this despite my sense of anxiety over doing something completely new and different, away from the relationships that I've cultivated over the years. As I've reflected about this new challenge over the last few days, many concerns seem to enter into my thoughts. "How will you get around?" "How will you cook?" "Can you figure out how public transportation works?"  "Will taxis be expensive?"  "What if you get lost?" What if? What if? 

As you might imagine, my heart needed some calm. I needed to hear the voice of the Lord speak assurance to my heart again. While convinced that this is God's purpose for me this summer, there is so much unplanned and uncharted. 

I heard a song tonight. It's a song I needed to hear. The lyrics go as follows:

I stand before You now
The greatness of Your renown
I've heard of the majesty and wonder of You
King of Heaven in humility I bow

As Your love in wave after wave
Crashes over me crashes over me
For You are for us You are not against us
Champion of Heaven
You made a way for all to enter in

Into Your love that's wave after wave
Crashing over me crashing over me
For You are for us You are not against us
Champion of Heaven You made a way
For all to enter in

I've heard You calling my name
I've heard the song of love that You sing
So I will let You draw me out beyond the shore
Into Your grace

(Bridge)
You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way

You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the promises You've made

- -You Make Me Brave; Amanda Cook (Bethel Music)

I do this ministry not because I'm brave.  I do this because I am walking with the One who makes me brave!  It is a ministry of faith and dependence on God.  It is a faith that may plant the seed for others to follow

Update:  April 23 
So it turns out that the Hamanasu Center in Asunción has changed their policy about travelers staying there and I will no longer be able to be housed there.  Please pray with me as I try to find other housing options.  The Hamanasu Center seemed to be ideal, pricewise.  It also was in the center of the Nikkei community in Asunción, which would have been a great contact opportunity.    

The local pastor (Koki-sensei) is working hard to find a suitable place for me to stay during my studies.  If worse comes to worse, there are some economy hotel options, but the prices are not as reasonable.  Let's see how God will provide for this summer!

Mahalo for a restful vacation

The simple joy of Hawaiian shave ice!

Thanks to great pricing on airfarewatchdog.com and the generous hospitality of my friends, Rick and Kelli, I was able to enjoy a weeklong vacation in Honolulu without a great strain on my wallet.  Without their kindness, this would not have been possible.  

With Rick and Kelli

It was a restful time much needed after two months in four South American countries.  

In addition to visiting with various friends, I was able to spend time with the Nakano family(s).  Machiko, pictured right, is a fellow Brazil alumnus, having served several years as a Honolulu Holiness Church missionary to Brazil.

Speaking of Honolulu Christian Church (formerly Honolulu Holiness), the church was kind enough to invite me to share in their morning worship services and with their college-young adult Sunday School class.

This was actually after church, at lunch with some young adults.

I was able to share a video designed for church presentations during their morning worship time.  You can watch it here, if you wish:



Thank you for your prayers for the ministry.  Prayers and planning are underway for summer of 2014.  This will include a three-week Spanish language intensive in Asunción, Paraguay in August.  Please pray for me as I undertake this challenge. I'm well outside of the language acquisition sweet spot due to my age.  But we serve a great God.  Amen?

Mahalo and aloha!

Do you love to travel?

Do you understand that traveling is not just to see the sights?

Travel is about smelling the fragrances, hearing the sounds, feeling the heat, the rain on your face or the people jostling against you. 

 

It's touching the roughly hewn stone of statuary or the delicate texture of a flower petal. 

  

You have to be willing to smell the experience: the odor of unwashed bodies pressing up against you in a crowded and poorly ventilated train. 

The heavy scent of dung left in the road by a horse or cattle - and hopefully not on the bottom of your shoes. The pristine smell of the rainforest just after an equatorial thunderstorm. 

You have to be willing to feel the place. The humidity. The sun beating on your clothes and burning your skin through the fabric. And sometimes, quite frankly, it's about feeling the tiredness. The aches in the muscles and joints from a strenuous three-mile walk or sitting too long on that cross-country bus. 

You have to hear the sounds. The noise of the million cicadas that do a great imitation of chainsaws, the honking of taxis, the begging of the little children asking for a small coin or two. 

You have to get used to how people in other cultures view time. If travel included handing out tardy slips, I would have run out of them. In South America, they will get there when they get there and no LA boy is going to change culture!

Travel is to taste and feel the textures of food that you simply can't get where you live. The sickly sweetness of the jaca fruit that can choke you to death because it is also very slimy. 

The unusual flavor of the açaí fruit that has the color, texture and when unsweetened, has the taste of cordovan shoe polish. 

It's the robust experience of the Brazilian all-you-can-eat steakhouse (called churrascarias) with some of the best beef in the world! 

If travel was just about sightseeing, we'd be better off with a postcard. 

No problems with odors, discomfort or inconvenience.

That's travel! To love South America (or anywhere for that matter) is to take in the place with all of your senses. Memories come not just from what we can see, but what we experience and encounter with all five of our senses. 

Remember:

(reposted and edited from an earlier entry by Pr John)