The Breaking of the Fellowship

I started this blog to tell a story. I hoped that by telling my story- indeed the story that God was telling in and around my life- that you would be encouraged, challenged, changed. This Spring has been a difficult chapter and as many of you have noticed I have written very little of it. Five years ago I began a fellowship with four men of Gondor, a national staff of believers. We have seen and done things of Epic proportions. We have succeeded and we have failed in big ways. We have grown closer than brothers but I always knew they were not mine. They were on loan from the King for some very special purposes and then they would have to move on. That time came in January.

Frodo is really from what I call Ithilien. He lives in Gondor but does not belong here. Merry is not in fact, a disaster management specialist or a community development expert- he is a musician with a unique talent for recording and dubbing. I knew that they would go and work in those fields one day. Well, that day has come. Frodo now runs a taxi service to Ithilien. He will have 18 plus hours on the road to share with his countrymen as they travel to and fro. He will have a few days rest time each week to stay in Ithilien and share his faith there. I am very excited for him. Merry has started a studio. He is currently working on dubbing the film 'Gospel of John' into the local language using professional actors. I am very excited about the project. We have often used the 'Jesus' film but it is almost 30 years old now and the cinematography is quite dated. 'John' will be a great tool. It is the whole Gospel of John put to film- not an adaptation, the actual Gospel is the script.

This leaves Sam with me alone. He is a great evangelist but he is not able to run projects on his own. For now, I am going with him. I love that but as the Country Director for our Aid Agency I don't really have time all the time. We need a new team. That will be hard to build again. But it is important to know where we are in the story that He is telling. I could offer more money, whine and cry, and get the team back. I could keep things exactly as they have been and everyone would say, 'Oh well done! Keep up the good work!' But I will not, must not do that. God is telling a story in each of our lives and we are each a part of a larger story that is going on. When we make the story about us we begin to manipulate, strive, and contrive. When the story is His story we are free to let go, to fail, to fall, and to wait for a resurrection. So now I am waiting. I know that this year is a crucial year for Gondor- indeed much of the world. As the financial crises has revealed the false god of money to be unreliable and false, we have an unprecedented opportunity to share the truth to those desperate to know. To offer real food to those who have been sated with empty promises for so long will be a great joy. I am not sure how I will do this, where I will go, and who I will go with. I need a new fellowship. I know that as I wait he will provide this for this is what He longs to do. He loves it when we love each other well and work together to accomplish the Father's will. As the story goes on I will remain a part of the Frodo and Merry's stories, if in a small way only. I have loved working with them, and learning about our Father and His ways with them. For now, I am grieving but I grieve with hope and with expectancy; expectancy that the greatest chapters in this story are the ones about to be written.