Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. Take My yoke upon
you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy
and My burden is light."
-Matthew 11:28-30
Ministry is difficult.
Whether working in a recognized position of ministry or not, when we
choose to minister by loving others we open ourselves to sorrows and
difficulties. I must also add that there
are at times great moments of joy and satisfaction in ministry through serving
the Lord and experiencing fellowship with others and sometimes even seeing
resulting fruit, but the road of ministry is indeed difficult wherever one is
may serve. We may spend much energy and time loving, praying for, and counseling
someone so that they may not fall into one of life's many pitfalls and still
they may fall into one. We may spend
years preaching and teaching the truth in love and not know if it has any
effect on the hearers. We may see other fellow
believers make poor choices that damage our relationships with them. And to add to the difficulties there are the
sins and mistakes that we ourselves commit.
Yesterday I
was feeling a bit down. Not overwhelmed,
but saddened that a friend of mine with whom I enjoy fellowship has made a bad
choice that could have big consequences on this earth for him. I am thankful that he has, I believe,
expressed genuine repentance, but I still hurt a bit for him.
Whether you
are in distress facing great adversity, or feeling discouraged over what may
appear to be fruitless efforts, or feeling a bit down because a friend in whom
you have invested much has made a poor choice, and though the demands of
ministry still remain in addition to these problems, Jesus promises rest for us. Even if we have more than we feel that we can
handle, it is certainly not more that Jesus can handle and he calls us to take
on His yoke. To find such rest though in
the midst of such trials, I believe we must be intentional about taking time
with Jesus. There is so much more that I
could write that has probably already been written, but I want to remind myself
and my fellow followers of Jesus that if you are feeling distressed and
overwhelmed with the demands of life and ministry, perhaps it is time to come
again to Jesus and find rest for your soul in Him.
It is hard for me to believe that I am sitting back here in
South Sudan, healthy, well rested, and having regained my strength after these
past couple of months. Lately I have
been on the move. I have totaled the
days spent in each location where I have stayed over the past two months and I
have found that the longest I have spent anywhere was the three weeks I had in
Kerenge of the Boya Hills while I was working on establishing my home there. It really was not easy and I still have more
work to do, but God provided when I was in need.
When I
arrived to Loryok in August, I purchased and gathered together what would be
needed for the work to get started on building my compound. This included 180 kg of salt for payment, 15
steel corrugated sheets, a sack of charcoal, food, tools, and other items. My little 3mX 3m house was crowded with these
things.
After
getting all that I needed, I found someone in Loryok who had a vehicle that I
could hire to bring up the goods so we agreed upon a price for the
transportation. The next day we loaded
up his pickup. There was some concern
over one of the river crossings about 7km outside of Loryok, but we heard from someone
who had just come from the village on his motorbike that it would probably be
passable with the vehicle. We decided to
go for it but unfortunately when we reached the river we were unable to cross
due to the amount of water flowing. This
meant going back and piling everything into my house again. That was definitely
not what I wanted to have to do.
Thankfully, I got word from my unit leader that five days later he would
be coming through Loryok and was very willing to help me transport my items up
to the village in his Land Rover, a much more suitable vehicle for the trip. When he came we loaded the vehicle and brought
everything up and the next day I started the work with some young men. The work was difficult and at times felt
overwhelming. I did not enjoy negotiating prices for the local materials that
people from the community brought me as well as telling some that they had to
bring more for the previously agreed upon price. Nevertheless with the help of three young Laarim
men, Loboi, Petanyang, and Luka, along with a few others on some given days we
were able to accomplish what I had hoped for.
We completed the fence and redid the roof on the house. I am so grateful for the three who stuck with
me volunteering their time to help. I
could not have done it without them. On
some instances, they even took ridicule for supporting me on the occasions that
some others wanted to take advantage of me.
I thank the Lord that He provided these young men to come alongside and
support me when I was in need.
Since those
three weeks have passed, I have spent days in Loryok, Torit, Nairobi, Juba, in
the air and even in Nebraska for my brother's wedding. I was intending to visit my home church while
in Omaha, but I was hit with a high fever on that Sunday morning that kept me
from going. I have now been back in
South Sudan for about a week and a half and hope in a few days to be back on my
way to the village to finish up the work that I started so that I will soon be
able to live and share God's word with the Laarim in the Boya Hills.
-Continue to pray for hunger for God's word among the Laarim,
particularly in the villages of the Boya Hills.
-Pray for my relationships with these young people whom God
has placed in my life. Pray that our
time spent together would bring us closer to Jesus.
-Please continue to pray for me as I push ahead with the construction, the bible story translation, as
well as learning the language. I sometimes find it easy to forget about the need to watch my health and energy level closely so that I don't run myself down.
