God is faithful

We, Champ, Moses (the Prophet), Dejoy, Hawa, Anita, and I met in the evening. The truck was leaking fluid so they had gone off to fix it earlier. Dejoy and Hawa showed up on foot (the truck seemed ok but they had loaned it to a friend). We walked out to the main road, jumped in a keke for a wild ride, and then walked and walked through neighborhoods. Our meeting was again fruitful. I asked lots of questions, I asked them all to share how they describe partnership. Honesty, trust, agreement, communication, working toward a similar goal.
They have prayed for 15+ years for a partner in ministry. They have had faith that God would provide in His timing. Fifteen years they have diligently prayed. Wow, I lack discipline. We talked about the short term and long-term plans. I shared what it means to start a non-profit in the United States and the responsibility that comes with that. A mentor of mine shared an image with me to help me during this time of contemplating how to begin this cross-cultural work. We set our goal together, and as on a football field, there are boundaries. Those boundaries are agreed upon behaviors, and most importantly what are the out-of-bounds behaviors. A framework for communication and operations, though there is much more work to be done! Pastor Anita said, “oh just like in the classroom. We decide what behaviors are acceptable and what the consequence is.” Haha yes, just like that! Just like children, we all need guides, boundaries, goal posts.
Dejoy had shared a fairly recent occurrence at Covenant Ministries, Inc with me on Friday. A friend he had met in seminary reached out to him and said his son wants to come to Liberia and serve. Together, they started Good Works Now (this was the graduation ceremony Saturday), which I believe is an international organization, at CMI, training church leaders. But after a fairly short time, this son left Liberia with no explanation, only “I don’t want this anymore.” As you can imagine, Dejoy was hurt by this, not that he left but that there was no explanation. He wonders if he did something wrong? This recent experience has

prepared them to ask more questions, to build trust, and I think we resonate with each other as we all can acknowledge there are pitfalls in “aid” and mistakes made even by well intentioned humans. Communicate is vital and it must be two-way, and do not say “yes” when you really mean “no.”
This group of servants, they are full of joy and integrity, desiring to go as God calls. Dejoy brings up the parable of the talents. He believes this team has been faithful with small things and will be faithful with big things, when the time comes. Whether it is in cents or thousands of dollars, they have prayed too long to squander any resources.
We agreed to add one more meeting to our agenda, for Friday night (the night before I leave). I suggested we think about what the next steps are, for example, are we parting ways to pray further about this. They all SMILED and kind of chuckled. Dejoy exclaims, “we have prayed! We do not need to pray any longer for a partner.” Moses says, “my Jaye” and shakes his head – all of them laughing. I was reading one of my friend, Max’s, sermons about the wise men. He wrote, the wise men followed a star but God wants to hang His star on your heart. That, my friends, is how I will describe that moment, that God has hung His star to guide us.

Prayers;
* Discernment for Eddie, Greta and me
* I have some bad heat rash - prayers for treatment? AND healing
* Thanksgiving for all who are walking alongside me, carrying some of my load, both emotionally and physically at home
* Thankgiving for the thing God is doing here, with or without us