about to leave

Many years ago, after participating in a mission conference several nights of the week, the pastor of the church told Jim and I he felt his church would not be supporting us because there was too much "glory" in what we did. By that he meant that his church attenders would not understand and be able to equal our experiences of traveling through Europe and purchasing expenses perfumes and the like. In other words being a missionary was all about the glory. . .

It is now about 4 a.m. Weary, exhausted, and not feeling very glorious, we are about to climb in a car, take 19 trunks to Metro Airport, deal with people who are freaked out at our "excess" baggage, board 3 planes during two stops, and sit in one of them for 16 hours straight until we land at Johannesburg.

Once in Kinshasa, we unpack, sort, and repack all the goods, sending the heavier ones up on a rented truck to Kikwit, where we will hire another truck to deliver them to the mission campus because both of our trucks recently died. The lighter trunks will follow us up on the MAF plane, where we once again unpack, sort, and put away either upstairs or downstairs, begin cleaning a house that has not been lived in since October, 2010, deal with an enemy organization recently enlarged by men we had to let go of last trip, go to court over the property given to Jim's father in the 40's, which they continue to claim is their own, and deal with new staff issues.

After we settle in a little bit, we will witness miracles, laughter, tears, untold joy, spiritual breakthroughs, staff meetings, discipleship meetings under a big old mango tree at the dispensary, funeral(s), teaching in Laban Bible Institute, incredible evangelism outreaches, ministering in the Women's Lit Center attended by 94 women at Mbila, hearing moving testimonies from some of these women, letting more staff go, meeting returning students in the Bible school, attending graduation, and a myriad of other experiences.

We come home the richer for having been in a third world country, like Congo. And the glory? Yes, it will be there. But not the glory this pastor spoke of. It will be the glory of God unleashed! which is ETERNAL! Praise His Name!