The weeks leading up to my world tour ended up being intense. (So intense I ended up crying through most of the Saturday night service before I left.). One thing I forgot was how much work it takes to go away, particularly for as long as I'm going to be gone. Just preparing the materials that I wanted to teach (about 30 pages of notes) was a major effort, but then on top of that October was the month for year-end reviews (I have about ten staff that I reviewed), spent some time getting Russ De Vos up to speed in Burlington (am very excited to have him on our team), I fast-tracked a major report that I wrote for CTK Bellingham (did about 25 hours of staff interviews that went into that), did all the booking for my trip (including correspondence with the leaders), organized for the Arrows Out Leadership Conference (next February), and had a couple weeks of some pretty intense pastoral care (counseling, etc.).
I had an emotional final few days when I realized the Thursday before the Sunday that I left that I did not have my passport (or a visa to India). Somehow my visa application had gotten stalled and my passport was sitting in the India Consulate in San Francisco. God had it covered. My friend John Johnson "happened" to be in San Fransisco on Thursday, personally retrieved the paperwork, flew back on Friday and hand delivered it to me at the Saturday night service! I felt it was a "wink" from God that He has my back.
And THEN, there was all the the stuff with my family in the last week: Jenna cracked one of her ribs falling down a flight of stairs, Daron's truck radiator blew up, and Erika had her (my) truck vandalized (sprayed with a paint car, tires flattened), and Daron had his 16th birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Whew. I say all of this because, for any of us, the work begins before the work begins. There are often obstacles to overcome just to be put in a position where God can use us. We also have a enemy who would love to shoot us down before we even take flight. He tried!
No comments:
Post a Comment