Saying Goodbye

Today I go back to the US after three weeks in South Africa.  It is an amazingly beautiful place.  The weather has been fantastic as it is summer here in the Southern Hemisphere.  It is actually hard to believe it is really December.

Saying goodbye is never easy.  I am leaving a wonderful family who is doing a good work here.  Building relationships and then leaving is not fun, but it is better to have built the relationships and say goodbye than to have never known such remarkable people.  I am blessed even in saying goodbye.  Love continues and is not confined to our physical boundaries.  We will meet again.

The silver lining is that I will be saying hello to my fabulous friends back home.  

People are People

I write this in South Africa as I am watching the waves from the Atlantic Ocean crash onto the shore.  A few years ago, I set a goal to travel somewhere abroad each year and called them "perspective trips."  Since 2005, I have met this goal except for one year (2009) where I couldn't leave because of work.  The trips have been to Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.  I have observed much cultural diversity, but one of the things that has been consistent throughout my journeys is that people are still people.  

We have emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.  We all feel joy, excitement, sadness, loneliness, and pain.  We are prone to selfishness and other sinful behaviors.  People are people. 

What I have seen in each culture is that we still need to fight for Godliness in our surroundings.  Even though initially the behaviors may look a little different because of the cultural strongholds, we are all fighting the battles in the spiritual realm. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12 ESV)

Sometimes we get the idea that we need to go to the other side of the world and suffer in order to truly live for Jesus.  However, the best and most effective place for each of us is to be where God has called us.  Sometimes he calls us to a place for a long time and sometimes it is for just a short visit, but if we are listening and obedient to His voice, we can journey in joy.