Jie
My primary ministry these days continues to be taking care of Yohana. Now approaching her ninth month of life, she has learned, among other things, to crawl, sit, pull herself up, cruise (walk while holding onto furniture), and eat a variety of solid foods. She has also begun to learn boundaries and obedience to Mama and Papa as we teach her what behaviors, objects, and places are acceptable and which ones are off-limits. It is a joy to communicate with her and see her comprehension growing day by day.
The first six months of her life, I didn’t have enough mental or emotional energy to even consider returning to work. Now, although I love staying home with Jie, I also find myself looking forward to the day when I will step back into the classroom for a few hours a week. I will probably start thinking more seriously and specifically about teaching again after Jie’s first birthday.
Worship Ministry
Overall, being part of the worship ministry has definitely given me a
greater sense of ownership of the church and helped me feel that this
is truly my church family for the time being. I’ve been leading one of our congregation’s worship teams since December and so far am really enjoying it. Although it’s obviously more work to plan, practice, and lead corporate times of worship than not to, I find that it’s more rewarding and meaningful, too, and helps keep me dependent on the Lord. It’s also good to ‘rub shoulders’ with my 5 teammates, bonding and getting to know them better as we work together.
Since January I’ve also taken over as worship coordinator for the English congregation. One area in which I would like to see our ministry grow this year is musical excellence, as most of our worship team members have limited experience in playing their instruments or singing in a worship context. In order to help us develop our musical skills, I have been coordinating training workshops for each instrument, bringing in “experts” from outside our church to teach and work with our members. Hopefully these workshops will inspire and motivate all of us to practice and reach our full potential in terms of the musical talents and abilities God has given us.
Being relatively new to this business of worship coordinating, I’m learning as I go, but it’s kind of amazing to see how God has been preparing me for this responsibility for a long time. In January I gave a training workshop to the youth worship team. While I was speaking to them, I realized how the Lord has given me so many opportunities (and challenges) over the last 15 years to grow and develop specifically in the area of worship and worship leading. In high school – or in college, for that matter - I never would have imagined myself overseeing the worship ministry of an entire congregation, but it seems that God has been growing and maturing me little by little over the years to bring me to the place where I’m at now. Not that this is an ending point, by any means. But I guess sometimes you just get a glimpse of how all the seeming random episodes and experiences in your life are actually not random, but interwoven and contributing to something greater.
Teaching and Learning Language and More
Today was unexpectedly my last day of tutoring Shannon, the girl from Beijing that I’ve been meeting with weekly for the past 5 months. We decided to take a break indefinitely. I feel okay about this since I think her English speaking has improved a lot. Actually the timing works out well. Yesterday I began learning Mandarin from a retired teacher at our church. I’m excited to be a language student once again!
Recently I thought, “I’ve been out of college for almost 7 years and I am still not on the mission field,” and felt a little discouraged. God has been challenging me, though, to really see myself as a missionary right here where He’s placed me. My life is full of people – like my Indian neighbors Neerja and Rishu or my Korean Jehovah’s Witness friends Young Hee and Sun-Nyuh or my sisters Kai and Norma at church – that haven’t heard the good news, or need to be encouraged, instructed, or strengthened in their faith. I need great (or should I say ‘Great’?) amounts of love, patience and faithfulness to be a blessing to these people, not just when I feel like it or on pre-set days, but any time, all the time. If that isn’t a challenge that long-term missionaries face, what is? For now we feel that this is where God wants us, and I just have to be patient and trust that if we are called to serve Him elsewhere, He will open the doors and make the timing clear.
