Looking Forward

 Look at these two questions below:

What’s holding you back?

Drumming at one the first weddings of 2022

What’s keeping you from moving forward?

They are more or less the same question, but with an important difference.  The first question, “What’s holding you back?”  focuses on the past.  But the second question, “What’s keeping you from moving forward?” encourages forward movement.

As part of our leadership training we are required to participate in some life coach training.  Life coaching offers some helpful tools and strategies for the team leader.  One of which is to ask better questions.  Another part of coaching is the idea of moving forward, to help people get “unstuck.”  

As 2022 begins, it’s been easy to feel a bit stuck.  COVID still rages, disrupting our plans, weakening our health and strength, and interrupting our relationships.  It feels as if many of the problems that plagued us in 2021 plan to continue with us into 2022.  It’s easy to see all the things that are holding us back and dwell on them.

Not many masks at these weddings!

But the New Year is a time to look forward.  It’s a new year—despite what might be happening at the moment, there will be new opportunities.  There will be lives changed.  There will be growth and hope and new birth.  We can’t lose sight of that.

Both island culture and island religion have a strong fatalistic tendency.  In the response to recurring hard things you often hear on the islands:  “Nothing ever changes.” “This is what God wants.”  It’s amazing how deeply this mentality can influence culture.  It certainly impacts their understanding of ‘new’.  New is a temporal thing.  It does not last.  Before long, it will be gone and things will be back to the way they were before.  As a result, islanders do not expect things to last.  When they buy clothes they expect them to fall apart after one use.  When they paint a house they water down the paint to make it stretch.  The paint job looks beautiful at first, but after just a few weeks it begins to crack, peel and fade.  Restaurants, hotels and businesses will open with a lot of beautiful things, but after 6 months everything will be breaking down or dingy with no plan to replace them.  New is nice and beautiful, but it is temporary and fleeting and leaves no lasting change.

Isolating Bday girl!

We find this acceptance and expectation of fleeting newness frustrating. We are not here for a quick fix, a new novelty or some short term change.  Our goal, our calling is transformation.  We believe that change is possible.  We believe that hearts can be changed. Mentalities can be changed. Lives can be changed.  Communities can be changed.  Even countries can be changed.  We believe there is a kind of new that lasts—it is a newness that grows.  It is not fleeting or temporary but it puts down roots and it expands and it grows into a mighty tree.  But it takes time.

As 2022 began we were sick, isolated, and a bit discouraged to have COVID again, but we will not fall into fatalism.  We will move forward!  It’s a New Year and we look forward to the promise that everything is destined to be made new! And not just new, but a forever new! That is a promise that keeps us moving and looking forward with hope and joy.

So welcome 2022! Let’s see what new things God’s got in store for us!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
A number of our prayers from last week have been answered!  We are feeling better and many of our friends who were sick are feeling better too.  Some rain finally came!  There are certainly more hot days to come throughout this month and the next, but the rains give us a much needed reprieve from oppressive heat and we are very thankful!  We are also thankful for negative COVID tests for our colleagues who have been traveling and their safe return (there’s still one on the way). We are thankful that despite isolating that we were able to have a fun day for Megan's birthday!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Some friends are still sick with COVID, including our newest team member in the US who hopes to join us in February.  Pray for quick recoveries for all.  Our island sister Elewa badly sprained her ankle and was told to stay in bed for a week— pray for her quick recovery. A training that was supposed to happen in late January on our island had to be canceled because of the COVID surge, but it frees us up to visit our friends and colleagues on the French Island. This would be the third time we’ve attempted to go there to encourage them— pray with us that it would work out this time.  Pray that we will not be discouraged but encouraged.  Pray for great things in 2022—lots of new life, and opportunities to share the hope we have, new friends who want to learn and that old friends would discover something new and lasting.  Pray for our island family to grow and shine.  Pray for new people to come and join us in the work.  Pray for great things with us.  Pray us forward!