Full Circle

When I was laid off from my last job in January 2009, I didn’t expect I would find full-time work in the South Carolina Lowcountry again. I did some freelance writing and fundraising, moved to my mother’s house in Georgia for a month, then left to go live in South Africa. As I prepared to return to the States last December, I sensed that my time in Cape Town had really drawn to a close, that my ministry was finished, and that God was calling me back to my home country for a new season of life. I just didn’t know what that would look like.

For the past two months I’ve been applying for jobs and sending out resumes. I had one job offer a few weeks ago, for a counselor position with a school in northeast Georgia that works with troubled teens. On the surface it seemed tailor-made for me – helping kids, just as I had done in South Africa, and living in the southern Appalachian mountains, which I adore. But something about it just didn’t add up. Certainly not the pay, which was a pittance, but also the peace factor – it just didn’t feel right.

Now I’ve landed a job that I certainly didn’t see coming. Next Monday I’ll start work as communications coordinator for the Sea Pines community on Hilton Head Island. It’s not a drastic change from what I was doing before I got laid off; I just didn’t expect there to be another such opportunity in the area. It’s certainly not a missionary role in the sense of what I did in Africa. But Christians are called to be missionaries wherever God sends us, so I’ll be back on Hilton Head, where I first lived almost 13 years ago when I moved from Atlanta to join the staff of a golf magazine. I’ll be back with my home church, LowCountry Community, and am looking forward to attending LCC’s island campus. My house in nearby Bluffton is rented, so I’ll be living on the island, five minutes from work and two minutes from the beach. (I know, I know, it will be a tough life.) I’m looking forward to being part of a community again, to reuniting with old friends and making new ones, to getting involved in volunteer ministry within the LCC family.

One verse in particular had been on my heart the past two months as I sought God’s direction for where to live and work. Psalm 32, verse 8, says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” That was comforting throughout those weeks of uncertainty when the phone wasn’t ringing and I didn’t know where I would end up. When God's instruction became clear, it wasn’t through an audible voice or a message written in the clouds. It was just an unmistakable sense of peace, of knowing this is where He is calling me.

Another verse that's always given me great comfort with regard to location is Acts 17:26. In the NIV translation, it says, “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”

Thanks to those who prayed with me that I would hear from God on where He wants me to be. Where He leads, I will follow.

The Bucket List

Of the countless ways to bare one’s soul on Facebook, a feature that gained widespread use a while back was the “bucket list.” The idea was to send your friends a list of cool things you’ve done, then they could send it back and show you all the cool things they had done. At the bottom of one such list I received – which was full of all sorts of impressive globe-trotting adventures – the sender commented, “Life is looking pretty good right now.”

The thought occurred to me: “But how’s the next life looking?” Because no bucket-list accomplishment is going to be worth anything when one passes from this life to the next. Then, the only thing that will matter is how that person responded to Jesus’ offer of eternal life by virtue of His death and resurrection. Sadly, many people miss out on this offer as they race through their limited time on earth, searching for meaning in everything but Jesus.

In his book Eiger Dreams, Jon Krakauer described the sensations a climber experiences on a wall of ice thousands of feet off the ground: “The accrued guilt and clutter of day-to-day existence … is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose, and by the seriousness of the task at hand. At such moments, something like happiness actually stirs in your chest …” Purpose and happiness – that’s what we want. Not just mundane existence, but something meaningful, something to make us feel satisfied.

King Solomon, who had all the riches and wisdom a man could ever want, discovered he was walking a dead-end road without God. “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun,” Solomon wrote. “All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). Reflecting on this meaningless existence, Solomon finally arrived at this determination: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

To fear God is to honor Him as Lord of all, to worship Him, to be in close relationship with Him. That was His intention since the beginning of humankind, and it is possible through Christ, who offers the ultimate fulfillment to man’s longings. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

Exciting Times

The following is a letter to Living Hope's American ministry partners from Chairman John Thomas:

I trust you all have had a wonderful Christmas and that 2011 will be a year of God’s grace to you and that you will know Him pouring out His Spirit over you in amazing ways.

Thank-you for your ongoing love and support. You have no idea how much you mean to us. We don’t share our gratefulness to you often enough, but we honestly could not continue the work in South Africa without you. There is no doubt in my mind that the USA churches, teams, volunteers and giving have become a critical cornerstone of what the Lord is doing in Cape Town. The month of December was a great one in terms of your giving to Living Hope and we are humbled by your generosity. Thank-you to each one and to each church who gave sacrificially to us.

We have traditionally held our annual Partners Conference at the beginning of March each year. This year we had planned to do the same, but we have decided to postpone it for a while. Let me share why we are postponing it. As most of you know that we have been working on a CD of the Masi Choir and a number of U.S.-based artists. Michael W. Smith, Jars of Clay and Casting Crowns have each recorded a unique track of music on this CD, which is absolutely amazing. The guys at Brentwood Baptist Church have worked so hard on getting this CD together and it is finally produced and ready for printing. We are understandably thrilled that this project is nearing completion – it is a dream coming true. We had planned to have a launch concert of the CD as the opening night of our Partners Conference this year on February 28. We want each of you and your churches to be able to participate in this wonderful celebration with us. A lot of back ground work has gone into getting the U.S.-based artists to host this concert. Unfortunately, despite much effort to hold the concert on the 28th of February, it has become clear that it is not going to happen.

We obviously want you to participate in this concert and launch. Not only was this going to be the CD launch, but also a book launch. Allen Allnoch, a volunteer from Low Country Community Church, has been working tirelessly on a coffee-table story book on Living Hope.  (Like the CD, you are going to love this book). We do not feel that we can ask you to go to all the expense of coming to Nashville twice this year for Living Hope – once for the Partners Conference and then again for the Concert, CD and book launch. We really want this event to be a fantastic time when all our Partners and friends of Living Hope are present. We therefore have decided to put the Partners conference on hold until we have clarity on the concert and CD launch date. I hope the concert will be somewhere between May and September this year. It is my personal longing that every one of you will be there with a whole lot of your church if at all possible. The two days following the concert will then be our Partners Conference.  I know that at this stage I am not giving you dates to keep free, but as soon as we have clarity on possible dates, we will let you know. I really trust that this time of celebration and partnership will be one of the greatest held in the history of Living Hope USA. Do start saving in order to be with us for our Concert, CD and book launch and, of course, the Partners Conference.

Your friend and grateful partner in Christ

John V. Thomas

Chairperson, Living Hope

Hits and Misses

Many people have asked me what I missed the most about life in America while I lived in South Africa. Here are a few of those things, in no particular order, along with a few more I miss about there now that I’m here.

Besides the obvious ones, like family and friends, the things I missed most about the U.S. were:

-          American football. Rugby just ain’t the same.

-          Dr. Pepper

-          Chik-Fil-A biscuits

-          Country music. Thank the Lord for the iPod.

-          Sports Illustrated

-          Southern barbecue

-          Mexican food

-          Fall weather

-          Unlimited internet

And the things I now miss most about South Africa:

-          Mountains and sea everywhere I looked

-          South African accents

-          Breyani (a spicy curry dish with chicken, rice and lentils)

-          An unhurried way of doing things, also known as African Time (OK sometimes I enjoyed this; sometimes it was maddening)

-          Wildlife sightings: e.g., whales, baboons, ostrich

-          Rooibos tea (very tasty and grown only in the RSA)

-          A city, Cape Town, that is one of the most vibrant and scenic I’ve ever experienced

-          Working for a cause greater than my own

-          Some of the most interesting and beautiful people I’ve ever known

Lessons Learned

Now that I’ve been back from Africa for a few weeks and taken some time to process the past 18 months, here are a few observations I’ve reached:

-     Spiritual warfare is real. I knew this going in, but there on the frontlines of poverty and sickness, I realized it more than ever. Christians are striving to bring the love and healing power of Christ, and Satan is actively working to oppose it.

-     The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). Again, I knew this, but to see it in another part of the world just affirms how dark human hearts are everywhere. We are not basically good people who occasionally do bad; we are, by nature, bad people who can only be made good by the perfect blood of Jesus.

-     God is able to do “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). In researching and writing a book about Living Hope, I saw the evidence of God’s hand on this ministry throughout its 10-year history, and even well before that. Living Hope chaplain Graham Haddad, who was there from the beginning, told me that this verse aptly describes the birth and development of Living Hope.

-     When God issues a call to do something for Him, He also provides the means to accomplish it. Much as He did this with Graham, Pastor John Thomas and the other founders of Living Hope, God enabled me to envision the book and carry it through to completion. A year ago, it was a blank slate; today it is nearly finished and it looks spectacular. I’m not saying this to boast about myself – this is all His doing. I, along with many others, was just an instrument He used to make it happen.

-     I hate injustice. I saw it everywhere, from corrupt government officials all the way down to petty criminals, and it drove me crazy sometimes.

Now the challenge is to apply these lessons in whatever vocation and location God places me in next. I’m excited to see what that will be.

The Real Africa

Before my time here was finished, I wanted to experience a bit of the “real Africa.” I love Cape Town, but it’s a teeming metropolis and has more of a European flair than anything. Not so Namibia. This week I enjoyed a short holiday in Etosha National Park, located in the northern part of the country. It’s a hot and harsh environment, and is said to be one of southern Africa’s best locales for wildlife viewing.

I saw pretty much everything but elephants and the big cats (lion, leopard and cheetah). From giraffes nonchalantly crossing the dusty roads right in front of me, to mischievous honey badgers having a party in the trash bin next to my tent, I loved every wildlife encounter. To see these animals in their natural habitat was one of the highlights of my time in Africa.

  

Etosha is also a place of quietness and peace. I have a t-shirt that says of South Africa, “No better place than a wide open space.” That could easily describe Namibia as well. Just a few hundred yards from my campsite was a water hole with an amphitheatre-style seating area for viewing the various animals as they wander in at dusk to eat and drink. As I watched steenbok, white rhinoceros and a lonely hyena take their turns, the words of Psalm 145 came to mind: “The eyes of all look to You, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (vv. 15-16).  

There’s a lesson to be learned for us humans. As far as I could tell, these animals don’t seem concerned about where their next meal or drink of water is coming from. They just go about the business of being who God created them to be. The Creator does the rest. If only we could learn to be so content.

Unashamed

Last Saturday I attended one of my favorite events in Cape Town all year. Carols at Kirstenbosch draws thousands to the national botanical gardens, where the amphitheatre is set against the spectacular backdrop of Table Mountain. It’s not promoted as a Christian event, but story of the Messiah is clearly proclaimed from Isaiah through John, and traditional Christmas songs are sung by candlelight. The guest speaker reminded the audience that not only is Jesus the greatest gift of Christmas, but that He too wants a gift – the gift of our hearts. I can’t help thinking that in the U.S. – if such an event could even be held – someone would write a letter or start a petition or boycott the sponsor because it excluded people of other faiths. But here people simply enjoyed themselves, and as far as I could tell, took no offense. It’s a refreshing sight to one who hails from a land of political correctness.