With Steph's permission (although he's sitting beside me and questioning if I really ever got his okay), I just paid the $9.95 to GoGo Inflight Internet so that I could check in on life (Facebook) and update our blog while we're on our way back to Minneapolis. This is a really cool thing, and I would imagine that it will help to keep my mind off the obnoxious snoring of the cutie sitting beside me... should he happen to doze off before we land. :)
These last six days have been absolutely amazing. Just to update y'all (don't you love it??), we have had the opportunity to take in the ARC AllAccess 2010 conference in Baton Rouge, as well as to spend some days with our awesome family at Children's Cup, too. Our first three days were spent at the conference. We joined Hillsong United in a worship concert on Tuesday evening, and heard amazing speakers throughout the conference, all the while connecting with pastors, leaders and missionaries working the Cup booth. And after the conference, we spent three days with the most amazing 'family away from family', one that we'll serve with, grow with, be broken with, and do some amazing things for God in Africa and beyond -- with little bitty shovels.
"Sometimes the miracle of moving mountains is God giving you the strength to keep shoveling." -Shane Littlefield
Honestly, we're speechless and humbled that God has chosen US to send to Swaziland to be His hands and feet. We are so honored that we've been surrounded by such a loving missionary family in Children's Cup, and have been so warmly welcomed. I don't think that Steph has hugged on sooo many people (and been hugged on!) in his entire life... in this short of days!
We're still trying to process all of what we've taken away from these last six days; however, I think the thing that stands out is what we just absorbed at Healing Place Church this morning. Pastor Dino shared this from John Piper:
“I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.”
At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells.
Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.”
Pastor Dino then hit it home by saying, may we be able to give an account at the end of our lives and not say, "Look, Lord... see my shells", but rather "Look, Lord... see my souls", with his hands outstretched.
I'm going to continue to process our trip to Baton Rouge at 30,000 feet and in the days and even weeks to come, but we are ready to hit the ground running. Souls... not shells.
