Reflections . . .

I missed my normal morning at work since sweet Addy was still recovering from her stomach bug, so I came to the office tonight to catch up on a few things.  The time is quickly approaching when the interns will arrive and the chaotic hubbub of Pre-field Orientation and PMI (Pioneer Mission Institute) will be in full swing.  The month of June is a very fulfilling, busy season in our ministry.  Although it’s the most stressful time of the year, it is also when I feel most connected to the people we long most to reach - with every phone call, every email, every recruiting trip, every prayer . . . every breath.  We long to reach out and touch them.  To bear their burden alongside them.  To hurt with them.  To meet them in their poverty, both spiritual and physical. 

The Bibleless. 

I have carried but a very small portion of their burden for 12 years now, since the day I sat at the CIY On Purpose conference and listened to a Wycliffe translator, Marilyn Laszlo, share her heart for the Bibleless.  I wept and longed to be a part of their story. 

It has been nine years since I walked among them, but my heart bleeds for them.  It has been nine years since I held their hands, shared their table and watched as they painstakingly checked portions of Scripture alongside a PBT translator.  I was an observer.  I was a learner.  I was an intern. 

And I was filled to overflowing.

Today I serve as an intern coordinator for students who, like me, long to find a way to use the gifts God has given them to reach out to the least of these.  I review applications, mail acceptance packets and reading materials, answer emails, write budgets, acquire visas, coordinate pre-field training, deposit support checks and remind the interns to send Fathers Day cards while they are gone for the summer.  I work behind the scenes, which is very much where I prefer to stay. 

I am a support worker. 

There are many days like today when I long for even an hour overseas.  It’s funny because I’m quite sure some friends of mine would say the same about being “home” in the states.  Our hearts beat for the same things, but the Lord has led us to serve in very different ways.  We are a team.  This is a team ministry - of which I am so blessed to be a part.

And so, tonight I return to my emails and the binders I am putting together for the interns’ first week of training.  With every word I type, I keep the faces of the Bibleless before me.  The faces of friends made long ago on a priceless internship to the Land of the Unexpected, Papua New Guinea.  I call it, “The Land of my Heart,” because so much of it remains there.

Tonight is for them - and for so many like them - who are still waiting.