My Great Ambition

You want to hear something crazy? Being a wife and mom is hard work. Before you get alarmed, I’m not saying I don’t love my husband and child. No, my love for them is the very reason the job is so hard. Because sometimes loving them just doesn’t seem like enough.

You see, the last month has been a struggle. Me, I feel like I’m doing great – but I also feel like I’m the one holding all the pieces together. Some of it is the normal stuff I’m sure every mom goes through: when baby is teething and fighting sleep and no matter how much rocking, how many songs, and how much well-intentioned advice I try to apply, nothing makes him feel better. I want to be able to fix it all and make my sweet baby boy happy and healthy and sometimes all I can do is love him, pray for him, and let him know that I will be with him through the discomfort and yucky days.

How do I do the same for my husband? I’m trying my hardest to meet Michael’s needs and sometimes missing the fact that Luke desperately needs my attention, care, and love as well. Don’t get me wrong –Luke is healthy and fully capable of feeding and washing himself and definitely doesn’t fight sleep. But as we settle back into life and ministry here and my extroverted husband feels virtually friendless and exhausted before he even starts, he needs my tender care and support.

At my ladies Bible study this week a friend challenged us to pray about our ambitions. What are our ambitions for this next year? What has God placed on our hearts to do for Him this year? Well, normally I jump on those big hairy audacious tasks about taking His Word to the nations and helping His Name be known (as any good missionary would do), but man, when I started praying, God made it so clear to me: 

"Love your husband. Forget the big tasks – I’ll give those to Luke. You need to be there to love him, support him, pray for him and give him a place of safety and respite at the end of the day. Your job right now is to be his helpmate."

“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” – Genesis 2:20b-22

 For many women, this may seem so easy. But if you know me, you know I’m a doer. I want to be on the front lines for the Kingdom. So to be given the task of essentially doing less is quite ambitious for me. Pray for your husband. Be there for him. Aside from your tasks in the home, don’t do anything – be there.

So when you ask me what my ministry is here, my answer may surprise you. Yes, I will still be involved in the ladies Bible study and I’m sure I will dabble in bits of this and that at times, but my number one role right now is wife and mom. The Lord has put it on my heart that our ministry (collectively, as a family), will be far more fruitful if I stand behind my husband than if I take off running alongside or ahead thinking that by doing so we will accomplish more.

And man is this a challenge for me. I want to do do do! And I find myself quick to push Luke to do do do more to make up for my lack of doing. I was the runner and he was the cheerleader – and if you know me you know I laugh when people ask if I was also a cheerleader. I don’t cheer from the sidelines. I want to be cheered by millions of adoring fans as I list off all of my accomplishments from the day/week/year.

But again I hear that still small voice calling on me to just love him, pray for him, care for him, and let him know I’m his biggest cheerleader and fan. After all, it’s not for my glory. It’s not for Luke’s glory either. Our roles here – our lives – are 100 percent for the Glory of God. And according to the Father Himself, my life of washing diapers and nursing Michael and cooking meals and buying groceries and praying for my husband and child can bring Him glory as well, and is more than enough.

“Her husband has full confidence in her

and lacks nothing of value.

She brings him good, not harm,

all the days of her life…

She gets up while it is still dark;

she provides food for her family

and portions for her servant girls….

Her husband is respected at the city gate,

where he takes his seat among the elders of the land….

She speaks with wisdom,

And faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;

Her husband also, and he praises her.”

-excerpts from Proverbs 31

May my husband have full confidence in me as I care for our family.  I know I will have to do some serious growing as I battle issues of selfishness and self-worth, but as we wrote in our most recent prayer letter, our worth is in Him. If His will for me right now is to rock my teething child to sleep, plan dinner and pray, pray and pray some more, then who am I to question if that is enough? He has provided, and He will do the rest.

What is His ambition for you this year?

Lost in Translation

Sometimes it seems there are a hundred English words for every one Kikaonde word.  Seriously.  Take mambo for example… it can mean affair, fact, matter, or it can be used for reason, because, regarding.  It’s often used for sermon, speech, word, or TheWord.  But then, it can also mean sin, guilt, fault, offense, or trouble. So we use the same Kikaonde word to describe sin as we do for The Word.  Riiiight. Something was lost in translation.

Granted, the meaning of most words are fairly easy to figure out based on their context (though kesha, meaning either yesterday or tomorrow will forever confuse us), but it certainly makes translating Sports Friends materials into Kikaonde interesting.  And I’m realizing that English speakers like to say what is essentially the same thing multiple ways.

Whenever Regina, my friend and language partner, is free, I hike off to Kimasala to sit and pour over the stacks of pages Luke has asked me to translate.  Sometimes it is straightforward – but more often we find ourselves in lengthy discussions as I explain the context of a word’s use and try to think of every English synonym for it hoping we’ll find the right Kikaonde word to fit. 

Here’s one of Luke’s sentences we just kind of had to laugh at:

“To minister”literally means “to care for” or “to serve.”  

Imagine our difficulty when all three of those words are best translated into the same Kikaonde word. Luckily we found another way to say to serve and didn’t have to scrap the line completely.

It was an easy assumption to make that my Kikaonde and Regina’s English would greatly improve as we work through these materials.  What I did not expect was the spiritual growth that would result.  The first two sets of information we worked through were Bible studies Luke wrote based on the goal and training statement of Sports Friends.  As I was focused on plowing through the documents, I didn’t realize at first the way Regina was soaking in each scripture, question and reference.  One day I suggested we stop so I could start my walk home, and she wanted to go just a little bit further because she wanted to know what was next! 

“This is very interesting and I’m learning so much,” she said, expressing that the studies will definitely lead to spiritual growth for their intended audience.

And apparently for an unintended audience.  It’s amazing what the Lord will do beyond the scope of our plans and ideas.  What I thought would be a simple time of translation of materials for future Sports Friends coaches and church leaders has actually become an opportunity to cultivate growth in my translator.  God’s sovereign plan is never lost in translation.

Are We Only Talking to Ourselves?

As I told a co-worker about mid-week Bible studies at our church, she asked, "what do you do there?" So I began to explain that the church members come and we all eat and then the pastor or someone leads us in Bible study.

"But what is a Bible study? I hear people talk about it, but what do you do in Bible study?"

Wow. How ignorant and exclusive are we as Christians? How often do we assume that someone knows what "Bible study" or "praise music" or "mission work" or even .... "FAITH" means? How many times have we let opportunities to share the simple message of God's goodness slip away because we boast and speak in these terms that may mean nothing to someone who wasn't brought up in a protestant church-going family?

I mean seriously, for someone who has never heard that Jesus died on the cross to pay for all the bad things we've done and thought, how terribly boring would "Bible study" sound? "Sorry, can't hang out tonight, I have Bible study." Just the word "study" has such a dry and obligatory connotation. Why not instead say something more like, "a group of us are getting together to discover the treasures God has in store for us in Heaven;" or, "We're going to get to know an awesome God who has forgiven us for all the wretched things we've done;" or, "Some friends are getting together to celebrate eternal life and plan ways to show our gratitude to the Giver of such an awesome gift."

Basically, as someone put it in church recently, we need to go beyond "talking to ourselves." Invite your friend to church and tell her what to expect. Don't decline certain activities because you're a "Christian" or it goes against what you believe. Explain that you want to bring glory to a Great and Wonderful God and Why in the world you would want to do that. Tell people what "small group" or "Bible study" or "Sunday School" or "mission work" means. Who is going to want a relationship with an awesome loving God if they never know who He is and why He is so awesome? Let's stop talking just to each other when it pertains to our faith and start talking to everyone else. Let's get out of our "Christian world" and open oursleves up to the world around us.