We are finishing up our first furlough. We arrived in February of 2009 and have tickets to return to Colombia on January 20th. As I reflect on our year of furlough, several blessings and several difficulties stand out.
Since I tend towards being an optimist, let’s start with the blessings.
First, we thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with family, friends, and our supporting churches. I don’t have the exact numbers on hand, but I think that we visited twenty-five churches over this year of furlough.
Second, we were able to attend several conferences and training seminars that were very helpful. We read more books that we normally would have read, and many were challenging (okay, that Dan Brown novel I listened to in Spanish doesn’t count).
Third, we reconnected with our sending church, Campus Baptist Church, in a wonderful way. I was actually wondering out loud about the usefulness of this furlough in some ways when my sister-in-law reminded me of this point. How many missionaries can spend as much time as we did with their sending church on furlough? We are blessed to be a part of Campus, and I thank God for our pastor and his wife, Will and Amy Hatfield, and the other pastors on staff, not to mention their families.
Fourth, I was able to share the Word with several different Spanish speakers in Ames. I went a number of times to La Fuente restaurant to share the Bible with some of the workers, and I had a great Bible study with Hector from Colombia.
Now, what about the challenges?
The biggest difficulty was mine. I experienced about two months of cultural and ministry disorientation when we first arrived. Then I struggled at times with the weekly routine. I kept asking myself, “Is this really how God wants me to spend my days?” As I’ve talked about with my ministry partner Scott, furlough is a rush of activity followed by days of not knowing what to do. I missed not having a more regular schedule. In hindsight, I think it would have been good to ask about working at our church office a few days out of the week.
I really missed the challenges of normal missionary ministry. Furlough tends to be an itinerant ministry, and I prefer local church ministry.
Photo courtesy of: ecstaticist on Flickr
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll be following this blog faithfully as you head out of the country! Was great to read about your experiences at La Fuente — I love that place. Glad to see God is moving even there.
Beautiful family!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe how big your kids are. Praying that God blesses your ministry.
“Aunt Kathy”
Thanks Natalie! Yeah, La Fuente is a great place and a number of the guys there were really open to talk about the Bible. It was great to see you over the weekend!
Thanks Kathy! We need lots of prayer, and we don´t take it for granted. Blessings!
Hola Jhonatan, es especial, ver como Dios les ha utilizado, y oramos mucho por tu regreso
le pido mucho a Dios por la obra en Santamarta, voy a estar alli en semana santa, paravisitar mis amigos y para ver la posibilidad misionera de apoyarles. Te pido que ores por que podamos seguir sinedo instrumento para la obra.
Un abrazo
Tu hermano en Cristo
Leonardo Rozo, desde Bogotá
Efesios 3:20
Hola Leo:
Gracias por el comentario y estamos emocionados de regresar a Colombia. Necesitamos mucha oración y nos gustaría verte en la Costa.
¡Bendiciones en Jesús!