I got back last night from our Missionary Retreat. It’s a three day retreat (I only went two) with any of our Calvary Church missionaries who are in town for our annual Missions Conference. We have 91 missionary families and a $1.2 million missions budget that primarily goes toward supporting our missionaries.

The highlight for me was having lunch with John and Kathie Watters. John has been the President or Executive Director of Wycliffe International for the past 8 years. Kathie has been working on a HIV/AIDS/Abstinence curriculum for use in Africa similar to what we did with Christ’s Hope International last summer. We talked about our different experiences in teaching kids in Africa. We asked John tons of questions about the future of missions and also what he thought about Calvary Church.

He said that even though many people bash on short-term missions, almost every Wycliffe/SIL missionary (that wasn’t an MK) got their first taste of missions through a short-term trip. He also said that even though globalization and the new American awareness of colonialism in missions is allowing more and more nationals to be trained to reach their own countries for Christ instead of the Westerners coming to save the day. But he also said that we need all the Americans that are willing to go.

He also spoke very highly of Calvary which was good to hear. He said that Calvary Church of Santa Ana is the largest giving church to Wycliffe of all time. That was cool. He also said that there are only a handful of churches that support agency missionaries the way Calvary does. He said that most larger churches try to do missions work themselves instead of supporting missionaries and that makes it hard for the people trying to dedicate their lives to missions.  So all of this made me very proud of Calvary Church and our Missions Director, Liz Gold.

Have you ever been in a situation like this?

Some of us drove home on Saturday night because we had church responsibilities. I actually preached both services on Sunday. I like doing the Celebration service. It’s about twice as big as our Elevation service, but that’s not why I like it. It’s has less energy and enthusiasm as our Elevation service, but that’s not why I like it. I like it because the people love talking about it after the service. I was talking to these three adorable older ladies after the service who just wanted to chat. It was funny and kinda fun. They loved that I teased our Sr Pastor in my sermon about being a germa-phobe.

Then we had Hume Lake sign-ups and had hundreds of people outside the gym. We had a big “cookout” as my southern friends would call it. We raised about $1,500 for the Kenya trip with the BBQ as us SoCal people call it. Awesome.

I left the house at about 6:30am and got home at 2:45pm and I was on my feet the whole time after being on the Men’s Retreat. Needless to say, I am exhausted. It’s good to be with my family.

P.S. We leave for Maui next Saturday. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

February 06, 2007

This Travel Warning is being issued to remind American citizens to consider carefully the risks of travel to Kenya at this time due to ongoing safety and security concerns. This supersedes the Travel Warning of August 10, 2006.

The Department continues to recommend that private American citizens in Kenya evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing terrorist threats and increasing incidents of violent crime. Terrorist acts may include suicide operations, bombings, attacks on civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels in or near Kenyan ports. Violent criminal attacks, including armed carjacking and home invasions/burglary, can occur at any time and in any location, and are becoming increasingly frequent, brazen, vicious, and often fatal. In January 2007, two family members of a U.S. Embassy employee were killed by armed carjackers. Kenyan authorities have limited capacity to deter and investigate such acts.

U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate and random attacks on civilian targets in public places, including tourist sites and locations where foreigners are known to congregate, as well as commercial operations associated with U.S. or other foreign interests.

American citizens in Kenya should remain vigilant, particularly in public places frequented by foreigners such as clubs, hotels, resorts, upscale shopping centers, restaurants, and places of worship. Americans should also remain vigilant in residential areas, schools, and at outdoor recreational events, and should avoid demonstrations and large crowds.

Americans who travel to or reside in Kenya despite this Travel Warning are encouraged to register through the State Department.

Our Missions Ministry at church doesn’t want us to go there and I don’t think it’s a great idea either, but I’m not sure if I should have more faith or patience. The organization we are going with, Christ’s Hope, has ministry sites in other countries such as Namibia and Zimbabwe so we will probably be able to transfer the trip to another site. But this is all a big bummer.

So check it out here – Darfur is Dying.

It made me think that to understand the Kingdom of God and to understand who Jesus really is takes knowing him experientially and knowing him intimately. To be intimate with Christ and to experience him is really what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus.

Then I was listening to this old CD of Shaine Claiborne speaking at Axis at Willow and I was blown away by this guy who just bailed on the USA and went to live in India with Mother Theresa and serving the poor. She told him to go home because there are plenty of marginalized people in America. So he did and he lived with people on the streets of Philadelphia and he still serves them there.

Then I’m watching TV tonight while Bea was typing a final for her students and I start to watch “Ghandi” with Ben Kingsley. I didn’t really connect all that stuff, but it’s so cool how he serves his people. I’m only an hour into it, but I’m loving the radical message of peace, nonviolence, and firm conviction.

I started to write the whole, “It’s kind of sad that other people do this and evangelicals don’t line” but that’s crap. There are lots of people that do this stuff – evangelicals, Catholics, mainliners, emergents, hindus, muslims, mormons, atheists. Religious groupings aren’t the issue. I’m the issue. I’m not doing this stuff. I wanted to hang out with homeless people in Hart Park and work at Juvenile Hall, but both didn’t really work out. The juvenile hall thing had reasons, but the Hart Park thing was fear. It freaked me out going down there. I didn’t know how to act. I need to do something, but I don’t know what. I’m going to Kenya this summer for two weeks to work with people with AIDS, but that’s not what I mean. I mean something more regular. It’s so freaking hard because I have a pregnant wife and a three year old daughter. They have to be my priority, but I have to do something. Man, this stuff is messier than it seems.

But living that kind of life seems to be what it means to “understand” Jesus. To know Him intimately and experientially.

I can’t wait.