I have been told I chased my mother’s car on the first day of Kindergarten.  Her youngest, her last, it was probably tough to keep driving out of the parking lot, knowing the separation would turn out good for both of us.

Brenda and I cried all the way to the Oklahoma border when leaving Missouri, headed to California almost 25 years ago.  Old things were left behind; new things were the promise of the road west.

I sat on a 5-gallon paint bucket and cried the day I got the letter from the principal at Country Hills Elementary School inviting us to parent orientation for Jocelyn’s entry into Kindergarten.  I still cry, almost 15 years later, after dropping her off at John Wayne Airport to return to college in Missouri.  North 55, 5, and 57 aren’t long enough to overcome my grief of letting go all over again.

It is hard to believe I actually...voluntarily...let go...or tried to let go...of North Hills Church for 12 Sundays.  Three winter months!  I have poured the last 17.5 years of my life into our church, sometimes confusing our separate identities, sometimes thinking a bit too much about me.  Hard to release—to keep driving out of the parking lot—of that which has consumed and identified me for such a long run.

The cliché goes like this:  “Let go; let God.”

He has been faithful.  He has been good.  He has not been too fierce, although I might deserve something other than His grace, kindness, and care.  He has not let me go unnoticed.  I have been loved by His hand and through His wisdom.  Not in the places you would expect, but in His place, His time, and His knowledge, He has found me, surprised me, and done me well.

So, today, I have already, on the east coast, attended one service and will begin another service––all before our church even starts.  After grabbing a Dunkin Donuts’ coffee with heavy cream and 4 Splendas, I will head to the airport and come home.

Can’t wait to see you next week.  With new eyes.  With anticipation of what God can do if we will only...

Let go.

Let Him.

It is located just north of my seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, in West Newbury, MA.  For more information about where I will be, go to:  www.ssje.org.  

At noon today, I will celebrate the Eucharist and begin my time away.

I look forward to sharing with you all I hear Him say, for I hope this coming week gives light for our future paths.  Please pray I hear well.

Last Sunday, I woke up for the 11th Sunday away from NHC, and for the first time, I did not want to go some other church.  I wanted to come to 3100 East Birch Street in Brea, CA.  Of course, I have missed you all along, but I’ve found joy in releasing my Sunday leadership and visiting other churches, seeing what God is doing elsewhere.

Last week, I knew my time away was coming to a healthy end, for I felt joy at seeing you soon.  A good sign.

My time away has been sweet.  I’m sure God has used it for the long-term health of our church.  I know He has done much in all of our hearts.

However, with joy, I long to see you.

With this—a full heart—I will walk the woods of New England and try my best to hear Him speak.

Thank you for your prayers for me.  For Brenda.  For our family.  For our church.

You are loved!

See you on Sunday, March 27, 2011...

In other words, it is in the middle of nowhere.

Nowhere is a great place to be when the Lord shows up.  In fact, you can make the case that the “nowheres” of this world are great venues for experiencing the presence of God, free from the constant stream of distraction found in the “somwheres” we spend most of our days.

No cell phone coverage, not even a single roaming bar.  No television.  No billboards.  No news.  Just a bedroom, 3 meals, a library full of books, trails that are longer than your strength to walk them, streams, waterfalls, trees, animals, birds, and, my favorite part:  monks who rise at 3:30 AM every day and give their day to prayer.

Last Thursday, I did my best to assume their daily schedule.  Five times, I joined them in the church and prayed:  3:30 AM, 6:30 AM, 11:45 AM, 5:45 AM, and 7:40 PM.  The prayers are the Psalms—all 150 within a two-week period.  Some were spoken, but most were sung/chanted with the lead monk and the congregation (usually less than 10 folks) responding to each other with every two stanzas.  I asked someone why they sing the Psalms and they said, “They were the songs that Jesus would have sung.”

I walked about an hour and half each morning through the woods.  Every day, I walked. I crossed streams and walked over country roads and saw birds and lots of beautiful scenery.  The trail began with the 13 stations of the cross and ended at the creek.  Beyond the creek, the trail went on and on and on...

Had a lot of great talks with God.  Saw a bunch of things clearer.  Heard nature and the sound of my own footprints.  Best of all worlds:  the woods I’ve loved since boyhood and a God who has loved me since the foundations of the world.  Nice to unplug from the ways of this world and be available for His ways...in a place shouting His wonders.

Can’t wait to see you and give you what He has given me.  Thanks for making it possible for me to be with the Lord, for He is good.

Check out the monastery for yourself on the web:  assumptionabbey.org.

Buy a fruitcake.  It helps the monks pray.  I ate it.  First fruitcake I ever finished...

Thanks for releasing us to rest, to listen, to find time to hear His voice.

Thanks for your prayers during the next week, for I will be alone with the Lord in a monastery surrounded by 2,000 acres of Missouri forest.  (Fret not, for I do not plan on becoming a monk, but I am excited about what can happen when I spend a week devoted to listening, not talking.)

Thanks for your faithfulness to North Hills Church.  I do not know much about what is going on, but I know it is good, for the congregation of our church is made up of good people with good hearts.  I look forward to being together once again.

Thanks for your friendship.  I think and pray about each of you as the Lord brings your face to my mind.

Thanks for everything.

He is good:  this I know and am grateful, giving thanks.

Set.  February would be as I set it to be.

Here on the 8th day of the month and using football imagery, last week I walked up to the line of scrimmage, noticed a change in the defensive landscape...and...called an audible.  

Sometimes life calls for a change of plans.  Quite grateful for the flexibility to make a switch.  A flip.  An adjustment.

I’ve spent the last two days planting flowers and feeding birds, hoping to leave my anxiety in the soil, in the feeder.  I keep telling myself, “This is not about me,” even though it is the hourly battle I wage.  Selfishness scares away birds and stunts the growth of flowers.  I wish I could be free, once and for all, from the desire to make it all about me.

I know I am not the center of the universe.  I know I am best when I am all about Him, you, not me.

Nothing like a sabbatical to wrestle with the demons.  

Thank you, Jesus, for paving the way with your words, your actions, and your power, allowing me to be free...

• I am no longer hitting a wall of slumber about noontime or waking up at 3 AM, hungry and ready for breakfast.

• I am freely using the faucet, blessed provider of clean water.  I can even drink from the garden hose, blessed too.

• I am back in the driver’s seat on the right side of the road, a place I sat, as a passenger without a steering wheel, for over a month.  I’ve had a few weird moments of wondering if I was on the right side of the street...

• I am enjoying sidewalks—wide ones, wider, and certainly smoother, than some 3rd-world roads.

• I am fondly aware of my children, all who grew taller and wiser in our absence, not missing us as much as we missed them.  

• I am aware of political stability, for although the Tea Party folks (and any other political group for that matter) rallied last fall across the land (and many were quite angry, calling for change), none of them burnt police cars, warranted tanks, rubber bullets, gas.  (We flew over Egypt coming and going to Kenya.  Little did we know how unsettling the landscape would become in the last week.)

In other words, no place like home, 11 hours earlier but the zone where our hearts live.  (I was watching the food channel the other day and they had a show where movie stars were talking about their favorite hometown food, some close to tears, admitting the food you grow up with is the food of the heart.)

Speaking of the heart, I have dedicated February to it, as in loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  In the days ahead, I will find “hidden” weeks where I can listen to the voice of the Savior.  As much of an extravert as I am and as much as crowds of people energize me, I am going to do my best to be alone with the Lord and find my energy from Him.

May my eyes be open to see Him.  May my ears be open to hear Him.  May my heart be open to receive Him.  May I not miss Him as He finds me, longing to have my full attention...

Look forward to swapping stories with you about Him.

Fun to hear their accents; great to sense their humble hearts.  About 75 folks worshipping in a way that warmed the building.  I took off my winter coat.

Compared to Africa, Wales has Asda (UK equivalent of Wal-Mart) and Tesco (Target), Starbucks, McDonalds, Staples, and such.  The roads are paved and smooth, free of potholes.  You can brush your teeth with the water.  We welcome back the 1st world.

Africa is a much bigger adjustment when you are used to life in California.

Although the original pilgrims, bringing Christianity to the Americas, set sail from a bit east of here, the church in Wales (and in most of Europe) is still developing.  The missionaries labor with a harvest that is a bit more humble.  In Cardiff, many of the ancient church buildings are not only empty, but some have been converted into offices, bars, and even shopping areas.  I know Jesus does not think about buildings when He thinks about His church, but it is a symbol of the work yet to be done in my ethnic homeland, the United Kingdom.

So, a bit different than the overflowing church we experienced in Nairobi.

But, sweet.

We experienced the sweet presence of God this morning.

Good to know the church is alive and well all over the world, in its various forms.  Good to have faithful servants like the Southerlands serving in a field where the results are a bit slower, but in God’s sovereignty, as they always are.

Our hearts our full.  It is time to come home to the USA and see what God’s been doing since we’ve been gone...

  We’ve been blessed to see both.  You need to see both. You would fail the Father to see one without the other.  I’ve tried to keep the balance in mind as we’ve traveled.

  First, the beauty: while in one of Kenya’s many national parks, we saw a wild (no zoo, for I kept looking for the cages) lioness chase off an opportunistic cheetah at full speed.  The cheetah won the foot race, but he also knew who would win had he been caught.  Saw a leopard three times.  Saw elephants walking in a herd only a few feet away from my “all of a sudden” rather scrawny weight class.  Saw the sun rise on the Masi Mara and set on the same.  Saw bright stars from an altitude and almost in line with the equator.  The trees are creative.  The hippo coming up from the water makes your heart beat faster.  It is hard to not stare at the stripes of a zebra, making the skittish animal all the more insecure.  The giraffes are majesty in motion. Then, you have the birds:  always chirping, full of color, joyfully careless as they flit about.  My heart is full of wonder. What a marvelous Creator of all things!

  Then, you cannot escape the poverty.  Although Nairobi is like every other big city in the world with its discrepancy between those who have and those who do not, I’ve never felt more like a “have” ever before in my life.  In a continent filled with hunger, I feel stuffed, every meal offering way too much to eat.  I can tip the cab driver 200 shekels (less than 3 bucks) and I have made his day with my extreme generosity.  I have not spent much and yet I feel like royalty in this land.  I’ve eaten at the best restaurants, not spending much compared to Brea, and walk outside to poverty, leaving food on my plate.  (Brent Hanson assured me, however, the food wouldn’t be wasted by the kitchen staff, as they cleaned off my leftovers.)  The infrastructure of the city is broken as streets--built for just a few cars--are overcrowded by too many cars.  It takes hours to move a few blocks when the a few lanes become six lanes, not to mention the pedestrian and motor scooter lanes as well.  The slums fill up valleys in the city quickly and people crowd into small, dark coverings to spend the night together. The Europeans and the Americans live behind gated compounds, each guarded by an African glad to have the employment.  Cannot escape the economic and social divisions that exist all over Africa.

  Yet, in the midst of this tension, I walk into International Christian Center in Nairobi (probably four thousand in attendance) and I experience unique and vibrant worship—plastic chairs filled with the wealthy and the poor, singing our same songs but with African enthusiasm.  I wish I could drop our church, in it’s entirety, for just one Sunday into the middle of theirs and just see what happens to all of us.  It sure messed with me.  I was invited to speak to all three services (8:15, 10:15, and 12:15). All in all, I spoke to somewhere between three and four-thousand adults, not including youth and children in other rooms on the property.  The middle service had folks spilled out into a tent, watching the service on flat screens, some sitting in the full sun for over an hour.  Brenda sang a song of response at the end of the message.  The ministry we gave was quite fulfilling.  It was one of those places where as long as you gave them God’s Word, you were not capable of missing the mark.  In one service the power went out and they moved on.  In the last service, the fire alarm went off with a loud roar, and as soon as they shut it off, they moved on.  The pastor and the church are involved in 21 days of fasting and prayer and you could sense a very strong presence of the Lord in the place.  This is a church that is impacting not only the city of Nairobi, but the whole nation of Kenya.  They are partners we want to remember when we give our hearts to Africa.

  Tomorrow, on my last day in Africa, Brent Hanson and I will tour a potential church building site, an extension church planted recently by the main church and already serving hundreds in an opposite side of town.  It would be great to come back with many others from NHC and let them experience all that I have seen.  

  Of course, those who have already been to Africa, know it already.  This place will mess with you.  It will break your heart and change your vision.  It will expand your faith.  It’ll put wind in your sails.  It’ll do you well.

  As I was leaving Brea on December 29th, Charles, one of the guys who went to Fiji last September, brought over six soccer balls to carry in my suitcases to the missionary families.  I had mentioned I was taking gifts and he volunteered to sponsor this project, including deflating them for ease of travel.  I stepped outside after he gave me the deflated balls and gave me a word from the Lord, one I have hung onto the entire trip:  “Doug, I give you these deflated soccer balls knowing they will soon be filled with air and used well.  May you and Brenda be like these balls and allow the Lord to fill you back up with air.  Come back full of Him to be used by Him anew.”

  It brings tears to my eyes to think another man in the church could be used of the Lord in this way and say something as Spirit-driven as this, giving me a picture of what God was about to do in our lives.  It encourages me to belong to such a fellowship of friends.  I’ve held on to the image throughout the last 3 weeks.

  As our time in Africa winds down, we sense new air flowing through our lungs.  Not the dense air of Dakar or Nairobi per se, but the clean, rejuvenating air of the Holy Spirit.  Thanks for your prayers.

  In Him we breathe anew.

I just watched the exciting 4th quarter of the BCS championship game on my computer...one written line at a time.

Here is the last 10 seconds as I saw it:

0:10    4th    Auburn    --    Oregon time out.

0:10    4th    Auburn    1st & 1 at Oregon1    Newton rush middle for -1 yard to the Oregon2.

0:02    4th    Auburn    --    Auburn time out.

0:02    4th    Auburn    2nd & 2 at Oregon2    Byrum 19 yard FIELD GOAL.

Not quite the same.  Oh, the small things missionaries miss.

I will be more careful to be grateful...