Day Two (March 16) began with everyone sleeping as late as they could (7:30 to 8:00) and having breakfast together. Then we all went to our individual rooms and read the book of Acts privately. We ended up reading anywhere from 3 to 8 chapters of the book. At 10:00 a.m., we headed out in a shortcut that took us over a footbridge spanning railroad tracks and traipsing next to a high brick wall of a prison until we came to the Treadergerville Church just west of the City Centre in the "City Road" district of Cardiff. There we had tea, worshipped together (Dustin led us with the excellence we have come to expect of him), and Troy gave us a special time of training on the topic of "Ploughing" spiritual ground.
Troy's vision and gifting is amazing. He is a good teacher and an even more committed missionary in the highest and proudest sense of the term. He is sold out to loving people -- especially international people -- to Christ through humility and a personal relationship.
Troy had a change of heart. His original idea was to split us up into two groups of four people each and send one group to Cardiff University and another to Bute Town, where there is a somewhat hostile Moslem community. We went there last night, and even got a tour inside a Moslem mosque (where we all took off our shoes in respect of their culture and religion). Dustin and I had a bit of a check in our spirit about us going into Bute Town because it is such hard ground and I feared a bit for our team's safety. Deedee especially had a check in her spirit about it. But we knew that Troy had this in mind for this particular mission tour and we trust and respect him and want to abide by his direction, being submissive to his authority.
Nevertheless, we were overjoyed today when he announced that he had a check in his spirit about the venture and about the potential safety of our team. Instead of sending the one group to Bute Town, he sent that group to the international flavored shopping district of "City Road" near the Tredergerville Church where we met. City Road is like a long, two-sided Epcot Center -- with shops of every nation in the world next to each other -- Welsh and English and Irish and Somali and Pakistani and Indian and Iranian and Kenyan and Iraqi, and Chinese and everywhere else.
The university group was comprised of Dustin, Jessica, Nate, and Jaime, and the "City Road" group was comprised of Allen, Deedee, Jonathon, and Nate. Our mission for the day was simply to observe the areas we were assigned to and prayer walk, seeking God's direction. We were to plow the ground spiritually, regardless of how easy or hard the ground (people's hearts) were.
It was a tough day. God and Troy had us all playing left handed, working against our natural giftedness and personality traits in order to trust more in God.
For example, God told Allen NOT to go up to a stranger and start a conversation that would inevitably lead to spiritual things. This is as natural to Allen as eating sweets. Instead, God had Allen pray for a lonely, worried man that some other stranger would walk up and talk to him. Allen had to staple himself to the chair in order not to "fix" the problem with over-easy evangelism. And he saw God bring a total stranger up to the man and the two were soon fast friends.
Another example is when Jessica (who as a task-oriented person really craves specific answers and minute direction) was told to just go to a general area (uncertain of which specific area to go) and pray for people (uncertain of specifically which ones to pray for and for what). Zack wanted to use his superpowers of charismatic coolness and begin relationships with people his own age who might have common interests with him as a basis for longer-term relationships, and instead he was paired with a couple of middle aged people, however pretty they might be (Deedee and Allen) walking into a series of coffee shops and pubs filled with middle aged people (and people much older) with whom he has no natural areas of common interest. Nate was game for anything, but seemed a bit overwhelmed at times by the newness of the country, the unusual nature of the culture, and the seeming lack of direction. His natural instinct seems to be to revert to a quiet niceness tinged with silent disorientation and perhaps unspoken frustration.
And so it went. The only ones who seemed to be getting their bearings and thoroughly enjoying their experiences, however disorienting, were Jaime, Jonathon, and Dustin. And eventually Deedee -- but that is its own story. Nearly lost in all this first day confusion (until Troy brought it skillfully out in an evening debriefing meeting) were the moments in which God spoke and real mission ministry broke out anyway:
When Jonathon played an impromptu jazz piano composition acompanied by the surprisingly smooth harmony of Zack on bongos. Man, those guys jammed, and their finale in the empty church brought the steeple down!
When Deedee worked with 20 international ladies who were trying to sew, helping them with their broken English and sewing machines. This proves you reap what you sew.
When Allen, Jonathon, and Zack had a twenty minute lunchtime conversation with a Welshman and his half Welsh / half Northern Irish friend on topics ranging from the virtues of brown sauce on chips, to the glories of the Welsh language, and finally to the state of politics and religion in Northern Ireland.
When Dustin, Jessica, Nate, and Jaime did reconnaissance on the Cardiff University campus, even going on an epic quest to find an amazingly far away cluster of basketball courts as a possible future ministry site.
And then there was Deedee. More that any of us, she found a ministry niche with the international ladies who learn to sew and along the way, learn English as a Second Language and hear a five-minute story from the Gospels. This fits perfectly with the work she used to do with Friendship International.
Deedee also grew today. She had desperately wanted to go over spring break to St. Petersburgh, Russia and visit her daughter, Jordan Deah Moonspice Rice. But God told Deedee that he wanted her in Wales. Today, as Troy explained the missionary vision of being completely zeroed in on God's Will so that you go and do whatever He tells you to do, ESPECIALLY if it is uncomfortable, Deedee understood Jordan better than if she had spent a week with her in Russia. Deedee wept. But it was a good womanly and motherly kind of weeping. And when she was done, she felt God had stretched her enough that for awhile, she was in her daughter's mystical head.
God is stretching us all. Not just individually. We are learning to work together as a team, learning to know and trust and love each other as a band of brothers and sisters. That is not easy with this seven pack of introverts and one wild extravert continually biting his tongue. But it is happening in a sweet, organic way even through or perhaps because of the fits and starts and shocks we are all experiencing together. And we are beginning to experience God in fresh ways, even if they are left-handed ways we don't like at first.
God seems more interested in our usefulness for Him and our holiness than our comfort zones. I never much liked that about Him, but then again, He never seemed much interested in my advice on the matter. But it looks like it is beginning to work out here, even though the team doesn't fully feel it yet.
What will happen when this tired and spiritually bruised team mounts that same bucking broncho tomorrow that threw us off today?
Tune in tomorrow, friends, at the same bat time on this same bat channel!
Allen
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