Can We Look on the Bright Side?

There are parts about this country that I just absolutely love. Then there are parts that make me shake my head, completely astounded. How can a country be so beautiful have such a rotten underbelly? Take that for a metaphor!

Ken took me into Lautoka this morning. That is the place where the denomination began, and they have two churches in and around the city. Both had beautiful compounds for the churches that were very functional. The original church in the city had a huge plot of land and a gorgeous parsonage on it.

Amazing how you can travel over 5000 kilometres and you still find similar problems in a church. People who want control of the future of the church – in other words, politics. No, this is not just a first-world problem... it’s a human problem. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Church is not something that we own. God does not only need OUR money in order to survive, and our opinion does not rise above the crowd because how fearful people are of us. We are participating in something that is not ours. God is in control of the church!

I had a good long talk with Ken on the way back about how I was seeing some of the things already. Most of it was just passing ideas by him, such as approaching the generational and parenting issues from three directions – parents, youth and children. If you can have parents trained on how to discipline and raise their children while you teach the youth about how to live properly, and catch children before any of this becomes an issue, you can steer a generation away from the same follies of their parents. Perhaps I’m just too hopeful!

In the afternoon, I went for a little walk around the housing I’m currently staying in. I climbed a hill, took some pictures, and walked around. That sun is HOT when you are under direct light. There has to be a 10 degree difference between shade and direct sun. Moral of the story – if you don’t need to be in the sun, don’t!
Settling in is the hardest thing to do... but God is slowly helping me to relax and find my place in this foreign culture! The God of all Comfort!