Disconnected

Well, this is the first post of this blog of our long adventure of church-planting. It’s funny to me to write “adventure.” Whenever we tell people that we’re off to Belfast to begin this God-inspired quest to plant a church, the most typical reply from people, both Christian and not is, “that sounds like an adventure.” It’s a response that I expect, but it’s almost like in talking about who I am, someone summed it up with, “your hair is brown.” (or in Wes’ case, “you don’t have hair, but you have a beard,” which seems to be some sort of prerequisite to becoming a Vineyard pastor, so we must be heading in the right direction). It seems so flippant to say adventure, because to me, to us, it’s so, so much more than just an adventure, it’s trying the best you can to hear God and then having the faith to be sure you heard him right and then selling all your stuff and saying goodbye to the best community you’ve known, the family that’s loved you and then moving across the ocean to a place that I hear rains a lot and is like 55 degrees in the summer. It kind of sounds like an emotional and physical winter to me. It’s bitter in a way, but Guinness is bitter and I like that, so it’s not all bad, but right off the bat, I can tell you that it’s not all fun.

Right now we’re in that place which I imagine if limbo did exist, which I don’t believe it does, but if it did, I think it would feel something like what we’re experiencing now. Our hearts are looking to the future arrival in Belfast so we have something more to this experience than what we can imagine up, but we’re in Peoria, IL with my amazingly generous parents who have welcomed us into their home for the past two weeks and a half a week more. After that we’ve got a couple more weeks involving travel and seeing family and friends. We’re enjoying all of it, but are getting the itch to be loose, to start running. We’re the thoroughbreds, that have been trained to run and have spent a lot of time in the gate, hot with anticipation and crackling with a bit of nervousness…our race is a bit different and the rules involve more than just running for ourselves.

This part feels like an extended time of disconnecting. Maybe that’s why I feel such a strong desire to be in Belfast already. Even though it’s filled with the fun of visiting the zoo, or the pool, or going out to eat, or seeing more of the country, having it mixed up with goodbyes actually makes me a little irritable and uncomfortable. I’m missing the things and people that I’ve said goodbye to already. I’m not yet at a place where I can fill it up with new things to be excited about, or people to hold on to. Really, right now, the only thing I can do, we can do, is sit at the feet of Jesus, without our stuff and without our family and friends and ask him to be enough for us. He will be.