Eleven Years

For the past eleven years, this has been our church home.  Our memories extend back to that first Sunday in 2000 when Charlie filled the pulpit.  Snow covered the ground.  The black cross on the front of the building beckoned us up the long driveway.  We entered the building and found a group of friendly people.  We rejoiced in the beautiful music we heard that morning and left certain that they would want someone better qualified to be their pastor.  Instead, they called us and became our personal friends.  More than that.  They became family.

Eleven years is longer than I have ever held a single job and longer than I’ve ever lived in the same house.  Those who were teens when we arrived have graduated from college and are living on their own.  Between the time we came in January and March when Charlie started as pastor, a little girl named Polly was born.  Her bright eyes and pixie smile are a continual reminder of how long we've been here.  One night, about eleven years ago, we were awakened by a phone call that one of our members had been rushed to the hospital with respiratory heart failure.  When Charlie got off the phone, he realized he hadn’t asked which hospital; and we were new enough that we didn’t realize that there were only two hospitals in town.  That woman is still worshipping with us and has been such a blessing through these years.

During these eleven years, the church has stood by us.  We have moved multiple times since we arrived – into a temporary residence, then a three-bedroom white ranch, then a four-bedroom contemporary ranch to care for  Charlie’s father, and then our stuff into storage and ourselves into a series of temporary residences.  On every occasion, there were people from the church ready to help.  They stood by us and prayed for us when we tried to adopt children.  They were there for us when Charlie’s dad died and my parents moved in and then out of Maine.  They have encouraged us, helped us, and made our ministry here a joy.

With grateful hearts for the past eleven years and high expectations of what God will do for West Hampden Baptist Church in the future, we say farewell.  We rest in the certainty that “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

We love you, West Hampden and look forward to hearing of the great things that God is doing in your lives.

Moving as a Way of Life

In 2005, we bought a house together with my father-in-law.  It was the nicest house I have ever owned.  From our bedroom we could see the Coast Guard make its way up the Penobscot River, cutting a way through the ice in the winter time.  Eagles flew overhead and sometimes sat in the trees on our property.  Five picture windows allowed natural light to fill our home. A full basement and plenty of closet space meant I never had to get rid of things just because of a lack of space.  Old hardwood floors and a newly renovated kitchen made it a place of my dreams.

A wintry picture of the house of my dreams.

In the summer of 2009, when God called us out of the pastorate into an itinerant teaching ministry, we put the house on the market.  It sold in February, 2010.  We sold much of our household belongings and moved the rest into storage.  Since that time, we have been in a series of temporary locations.  In the past six months we have moved three times.  Last week we moved again, this time into a singlewide trailer in a coastal town in Maine.

The day may come when I tire of the frequent moves, but right now I am very thankful for them.  They remind me of things that are too easy to forget in our everyday normal life. 

• I am a nomad through this life.   This world is not my permanent dwelling.  I was made for eternity.  I best live out my destiny when I keep this life temporary and invest in eternity.
• I live in a temporary shelter (my body) that I will shed one day like worn out clothes.  While I must care for it in order to use it to its best use, it is less important than the person inside it.
• Living in a series of temporary locations keeps me from investing too much time and energy on things that will not matter in one hundred years.  While I still love to surround myself with beauty and order, I draw more from the things that are free, like the flowers that grow alongside the road and the beautiful sunsets outside my window.  
• I have great examples to follow.  Abraham lived in tents and wandered throughout the promised land.  Jesus never owned a home.  Paul was an itinerant church planter and teacher. 

Perhaps the best part of this itinerant life is the way it forces me to focus on internal roots rather than external ones:  "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."  (Col. 2:6-7)

Thank you, Lord, for these opportunities to focus on You.

A new place to live

We have recently moved to the missions house of the Lighthouse Bible Church in Searsport, ME. Pastor Rusty Bonin has been a friend in the ministry and we have known and fellowshipped with the people of Lighthouse for over a decade. Searsport is only 20 miles or so from Hampden, but it is a very different community. On the banks of the Penobscot River, just like Hampden, but closer to the sea, Searsport is still an active seaport. While Searsport has a smaller population, it has a defined town center and Joan and I can walk to the store, post office, library etc. about one and a half miles away.

The weather has been windy and overcast and one night we had a dense fog with a decided salty tang I had not smelled in a long time. I was glad I was on dry ground and not the deck of a ship that night!

We have no cable, no internet at home and must go to the local library to get online, cell phone coverage is less reliable than Hampden, but still useable.

I am thankful to the good people of Lighthouse Bible for their generosity, and I am thankful that our Lord tells us "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine..." (Haggai 2:8) He has a plan for our ministry, and He knows how he will provide for our ministry. He knows the churches and people who will pray. He knows the churches and people who will give of their housing, food, and other resources. He knows our needs, and more important, His desires for us. I would ask you to pray for us, that we would not "despise the day of small things" as the Lord starts a work in us and through us that will equip men and women to exalt His name to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Travel to Arequipa, Peru, 101

We left Bangor, ME, on February 4 and returned on February 15.  Our trip was fairly uneventful, but the few things serve as lessons learned for the next time we travel there.
1.  If the forecast calls for a lot of rain, do not plan to wash your clothes. It rained every day that we were there.  Without dryers, clothes just do not dry.  Fortunately, we had taken enough that it was not a problem.
2.  Their summer is their rainy season.  While the 60 degree weather was a break from our severe winter cold, the weather would have been more pleasant at another time.  On the morning of this photo, the clearest morning we had, the clouds moved in shortly after lunch.  By afternoon, it was raining.  In the distance, you can see the snow-capped volcano, Chachani.

3.  Peruvian Spanish is easy for a foreigner to understand.  I have been in countries where they slur their words together.  In others, they speak very rapidly.  In still others, they have so much slang that it is hard to follow.  But Peruvian Spanish is clear and relatively free of slang.  While they speak rapidly to each other, when they turn to speak to a foreigner, they usually slow down and speak more precisely.
4. Not all rumbling sounds are earthquakes.  I awoke with a start on Friday night as a flash of light and low crackle reverberated through the room.  In an instant, I was out of bed and halfway to the door, thinking that an earthquake was happening.  As I ran across the room, I realized the house was not shaking, so I stopped.  A few minutes later, the same sound happened, only this time we did not see the flash of light.  This one seemed to awaken the rest of the household.  In the morning we asked our hosts what it was.  Firecrackers.  If people see bands of wandering kids at night who appear to be up to no good, they light off firecrackers as a way of letting them know they have been spotted.  That also awakens the neighbors and they can check as well.
5.  Arequipa has some of the cleanest restrooms in the world.  Having travelled the world, this came as a surprise to us.  Both Charlie and I expected less than clean restrooms.  Yet every restroom was clean.  Some gleamed with recent polishing.  Take your own toilet paper, though.  That is seldom available.
6.  Peru has wonderful cuisine.  We enjoyed such things as Potato Cakes, Stuffed Peppers, Roasted Pork, Rotisserie Chicken, and other wonderful dishes while we were there.  Every dinner had potatoes, and sometimes there was rice as well.
7.  Lima’s airport is one of the best for a the middle-of-the-night layover.  When I saw our schedule included an eight-hour layover in Lima in the middle of the night, I was dreading it.  We arrived a little after midnight and went to see if we could check our bags, but the American Airlines desk did not open until 5:00 a.m.  We wandered, and found a Starbucks open.  After purchasing two mochas, the barista gave us the password to the internet.  For the next two hours, we toured the internet.  Then we browsed in the stores, all of which were open.  When the AA desk opened, we checked our luggage, passed through security, and then enjoyed the international wing until the time of our departure, including catching about an hour of sleep on the chairs there.

If I were a simple tourist, I would certainly want to visit Peru again.  It was a delightful experience for us in that way.  But as itinerant teachers, we want to visit again because the people of Peru are gracious, loving, and wonderful.

Mysterious Misti

They tell me that a snow-capped volcano is a majestic and beautiful sight.  For the past twelve days we have lived in the shadow of a beautiful volcano  named Misti, in the Andean mountains of Peru.  But Misti has remained a mystery to us because the days of rain and clouds shrouded it from our sight.  One morning, the clouds parted just enough to let us catch a glimpse of its shoulder.

Mysterious, snow-capped volcanoes may be incredibly beautiful, but they were not what drew us to the Andes mountains.  Instead, we went to meet a beautiful group of believers who were not at all mysterious to us.  They welcomed us with open arms, loved us, shared their lives and their hearts with us.  They rejoiced with us and cried with us, and we with them.  They have left a deep impression upon our lives that will remain with us until we see them again.

For three days in the evening, Charlie taught a gathering of believers from different churches.  On Sundays he preached in various churches.  I spoke to the ladies one evening, and Charlie challenged the young people in another meeting.  These were joyful times of sharing biblical truths with God’s people.

Perhaps some of the best times, though, were shared around the dinner table in the home of our hosts.  Laughter, tears, prayer concerns, questions about ministry and the Bible, and stories of the grace and glory of God were all part of those dinner time conversations.  Authentic Peruvian food satisfied our stomachs while the conversations satisfied our hearts.  (Our hostess was a marvelous cook.) 

We told our hosts that since Misti had not allowed us to see him, we needed to return.  But to be honest, it is not the mountain that draws us back, but the beautiful people.  It is difficult to put into a few words on this page the beauty of these few days.  As I process and post again, it will become clearer.  In the meantime, it is enough to say that, Lord willing, we will return.