Suffering

At church this last Sunday, we had a guest speaker, a pastor from India. He delivered a message that I won’t soon forget. Besides the fact that I remain captivated by the country of India since even before my trip there last summer, this pastor’s knowledge of the word of God and succinct multi-layered message was quite impacting and memorable. He highlighted a scripture that I had never taken note of previously. As it should be, Paul is someone that is revered throughout Church history for his shear obedience to the Lord. His exploits to the glory of God are clear; wrote about half of the New Testament, undoubtedly the most effective missionary of all time and so on. His devotion to God is perhaps no more clearly displayed than in his exhortation to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20. Paul says in verses 22 and 23:


“And see now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.”


I find the calling of Paul among the most interesting throughout the entire Bible. When Christ appeared to Ananias before Paul was commissioned into the ministry, He said to Ananias: “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”(Acts 9:16). From the get-go Jesus made known this important element of walking in a divine calling: suffering.


I can’t say that such an element of the godly life jives with popular theology; not in America and not so much here either. In my book, there are two type of prosperity gospel adherents, and the prosperity gospel is no respecter of persons, there are plenty of impoverished brothers and sisters here in Tanzania that nonetheless subscribe to the theology. The first type is your prototypical Joel Osteen kind of guy. I’m not trying to bag on him, but I would make no jump in my speech to say that he and those that follow him, believe that Jesus’ painful victory on the cross entitle them to easy sailing in every aspect of their lives. I would go into this further, but this is merely a blog post and I only want to note it, not divulge through it all (click here for a little more on my thought process on Mr. Osteen). The second type is the more common type of prosperity gospel adherent. This is the person that rejects the theology mentally, but largely lives it out in practicum. They would agree with an accurate interpretation of those scriptures on suffering, bearing one’s cross and the like, but do things that make their lives more comfortable, more safe and less sacrificial. I believe that the stance of Paul and the stance of the Bible as a whole confront both of these standpoints.

I love these old Bible story art depictions... even if every character comes out a little feminine. Image via Wikipedia

I’m not intending to sound the least bit masochistic, we all know that suffering is not favorable, but I believe that there is something that is powerful, even beautiful, in such ardent devotion to God. That no matter what happens to a person, they choose to follow God. Its just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego when they are about to be thrown into the fire. They trusted in God’s deliverance but told King Nebuchadnezzar that even if God didn’t deliver them, He would nonetheless be the one they serve and not the Babylonian gods (see Daniel 3:16-18). Yet it was in that time of such incredible trial that God met them in a powerful way; Nebuchadnezzar describing the delivering figure in the furnace to be “like the Son of God.” Seems as though those three men met Jesus even before Mary did!


And yet would they have missed such a powerful experience if they had chosen to not endure the suffering of following the Lord? Unequivocally I would argue yes, they indeed would have missed it.


It makes me wonder what it is that I’m missing in my life because of my hesitancy to suffer for His name. I feel as though the Lord perhaps knows my desire to know Him more and at the same time knows how inept I am to submit to His Spirit. My walk down this narrow path, is a bit slower I’m sure, but I do indeed see the Lord stripping me more and more of those things that I find comfort and security in. More and more, I see Him presenting me with small furnaces that I have the choice to jump into. By no means, am I on the level of those other followers of the Lord that I’ve mentioned, but I have indeed found my wife and I to be in a place of new difficulty. Its somewhat self-imposed you could say. Not that Melissa nor I have made things more difficult due to ignorance or incapability, but rather that we chose to say yes to God to follow Him to a land that is not our own and to a people that are vastly different from us. All my hopes of walking into that second year of overseas ministry as a knowledgeable veteran are yet to be brought to fruition and I’m left wondering why the last couple weeks have felt so difficult. Undoubtedly God has been good, as He always is. Yet it truly is by His goodness alone that we’re making it out here. I mean not to magnify our difficulties, because His grace is more than sufficient for us, as it was for Paul (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). But it has been nonetheless difficult. All the same, I know that this is only a stage. While there will be a time of reaping for those tears we sow (Psalm 126:5-6), there will also be another deeper level of suffering so long as Melissa and I continue to walk in the path He’s chosen for us.


I can only hope to have the resolve of Paul as he goes onto speak in the following verse of our original text. “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). I love this, “none of these things move me,” Paul was literally going around to different cities where people would give Him words of knowledge that he would suffer in Jerusalem, but he knew that that is exactly where he was to go. And the daunting truth that “chains and tribulations” awaited him did not sway him from fulfilling the ministry that God called him to. That’s beautiful.


Jesus is our only perfect example of what it means to be fully human and follow the Father’s will. The resurrection is infinitely more beautiful and enjoyable than the cross, but the cross is nonetheless necessary. To often we would like to skip to the resurrection without enduring the suffering of Christ. That’s unwise and we miss out on such an important element of following Jesus. The two go hand in hand. As Paul writes in Philippians 3:10-11, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”


Let us not avoid our cross, let us not be moved by present circumstances or the foreboding future, but let us remember to allow God to meet us in the furnace. He has sent us His Spirit that we “may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,” for this we give praise.


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*I would do my normal rundown of how things are going, but felt that Melissa's done a good job with that on her blog from the other day so check it out here.... http://becomingm.tumblr.com/

Trust: Revisited

Melissa and I are approaching a crossroads. Only three weeks ago, we had the biggest day of our life and now just a short time later we are preparing to re-launch into missionary work in Tanzania. It is a full-plate to be sure and difficult to take it all in. I feel like life just flies by and none more than the last six months. The traveling unsettledness and living out of our suitcases has been far from ideal, but its been the only way that we could see loved ones (though there are still people that we really need to hang out with!) and accomplish the things that we needed to do. And in the midst of it all, somehow we managed to get married a few Saturdays ago and will be in Tanzania in no time.


People keep asking us about when we’ll be heading back to Tanzania. All along we’ve been telling people that we were looking at the first week of July and that is still the plan as far as we know. We got all of the stuff for Melissa’s name change submitted, but are waiting on her new passport to come back. There’s nothing more we can do. Rita has itineraries picked out, but we have to wait to pull the trigger on them because they need Melissa’s new passport info. All the while, Melissa and I seem to be in this odd holding pattern. We had been telling people that our last commitment was Melissa’s friend’s wedding on June 24th, news flash, that’s tomorrow. All of a sudden, not only are we bouncing around and trying to get stuff done, but we could return to Tanzania at what seems to be the drop of a hat.


I had to take a day this week and fast for Melissa. Please be praying for my wife. She’s such a strong woman, but this is a whole new kind of weight on her. She knows what the Lord has been calling her to since she was 16, but it doesn’t change the emotional strain and the huge sacrifice that comes with leaving everything you’ve every truly known to move to the mission field in a foreign land. I didn’t help the situation much early on as I assumed the role of killjoy and devil’s advocate telling her of all the extraordinary difficulties of living on the mission field without emphasizing that the incredible lows are accentuated by the incredible (and incredibly simple) joys. I know she’s going to do great, but it’s certainly a tall order. I can only imagine what it feels like for her to be starting a month by getting married and ending it with moving for the long-term indefinite future to a foreign country. Talk about transitions!


Its during these times of trial and transition that we learn to trust. Not only do we learn to trust but we learn what or who it is that we trust in. If you trust in your country and its government entities, you trust that its “safety net” will catch you if you lose your job. If you invest a lot of money into your retirement plan, you’re trusting that it will be there when you get to the age of 55 (or 65 as it’s looking like more and more these days). If you get emotionally and physically connected to your boyfriend or girlfriend, you are trusting that they are going to be there for you forever, no matter what.


The problem with each of those things is that our trust, our reliance, is on something that is not automatically secure. They may seem secure, but looks can often be deceiving. How many stories have we heard in the last couple years of people that thought their financial future was secure and then all of a sudden, they’re up a creek without a paddle? How many people have you heard with those awful break-up stories where they’re just destroyed because their loved one left them? Everybody has had something or someone that they relied in a major way give out or give up on them. Our trust, our very faith, was tied up in that and then it’s just gone.

Image by Thorne Enterprises via Flickr

At the end of Matthew 7, as Jesus is wrapping up His most famous sermon (the one on the mount as we say), He tells a parable to encourage the people to follow all the things He just spoke. He talks about two men who were building houses. In verses 24-27, He says,

“whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them [trust in action], I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (parentheses mine)

It is easy for us as Christians to say that our trust is in Jesus and that we are “on the rock,” but it would be unwise of us to act as though there aren’t countless things that are vying for our trust and faith in this world; things that seem secure as the rock is secure - sand posing as synthetic rocks if you will. When that storm hits and certain structures that we’ve built on the sand start falling down, we begin to have no other option but to cling to the rock. We then learn to start building there more. We start to learn what trust actually looks like.


Its interesting that the previous post I wrote called “Trust” was dealing with the potential of me staying in the states for the first half of 2011 and now I (and Melissa as well) are learning trust again as we prepare to head back to Moshi. Another angle this time around is that we aren’t only having to trust in God for all the things across every physical, spiritual, emotional and relational facet, but we are having to do it from a place where we feel more distant from God then we typically do. There are of course a hundred and one different theologies of what is actually happening during spiritual times like these. Our hearts are confused as to why the distance seems to be present and our heads can’t understand what caused it or why we can’t get back on board with the Lord. It sucks and makes us all the more blind to what’s actually going to happen. Our adversary doesn’t waste the opportunity to try and discourage us, driving us to immeasurable tears and countless questions. Not fun.


Its times like these that all we can do is call our emotions into alignment with the Lord’s word and move forward blindly trusting Him who sent us. That’s a scary notion. Moving forward blindly. Such a notion seems like absolute foolishness to the world, but the gospel itself is foolishness to the world (1 Corinthians 1:18).


Who do you trust? If you’re a believer, I’m sure you would quickly answer Christ. If that’s the case, and I hope it is, how does your life reflect your trust in Him? Do you have every worldly security known to man? At what expense? What does relational security look like to you? If any given loved one (or most of them) suddenly left or became far less involved, would you be okay with just you and God? He promises to be enough. He has created you and proven Himself trustworthy. If He nonetheless feels distant, are you going to go ahead with the word that He spoke to you previously? Are you going to follow His biblical principles even though He seems aloof? Who do you trust?


My family is at a crossroads and are in need of our God to come through. We trust that He will, for this we give praise.

Mission

Over the last several hours, I feel as though a new weight has come upon me. Its funny that a single day isn’t a very long period of time. Yet, going from eight days till the wedding to a week till the wedding felt like a huge shift. The line of where responsibility ends and feelings of anxiety begins is a bit blurry over the last day or so.


Its not hesitancy, its not cold feet, its not worry. Its just a weight. A weight of responsibility. It is a bit of realizing not only the magnitude of what Melissa and I going to walk into for our personal lives, but also the magnitude of the effect that this will have on the Kingdom. To be sure, the most important person in our marriage is neither of us. And while that’s easy enough to say for any Christian relationship, saying that God is the center, the focus and the most important Person in our relationship takes on another meaning when the couple have chosen to do something that is beyond themselves.


I’ve said it before, but I really have no interest in living a life that is meaningless or understandable. I think that God does things that are supernatural and impossible to comprehend, He then calls us into that same life. I want that. I am grieved by the moments of my life that don’t reflect Who He is. I know that it is the same for Melissa. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t know what I’m doing. I really don’t. I have friends that are missionaries or pastors and sometimes I feel like they have such a handle on things. They know what they’re doing and have effective Kingdom advancing techniques. At other times, I see into their lives at more real moments and realize that they don’t know what they’re doing either. And I really think that that is the way that God designed it, because if all of life and ministry came down to checking off a list and having things figured out, it would be nothing more than empty religion and passion would become non-existent. Praise God that such a life like that doesn’t even work.


Instead of dead religion, He calls us to go on a mission with Him. He will tell us things, but only when He wants to and only when its necessary. He could give us a perfect plan at one time and we do it and it works great for His purposes. We could then figure that that will do the trick every time, try it again, and fall flat on our face. It seems unpredictable to us, but its perfect sense to Him, whose ways our higher than our own.

This Child

Do you see this child? He's standing right here
Screaming his lungs out, but you've covered your ears
Injustice rules her life and everyday she's beat down
Thorns are forced upon her head and they call it a crown
His life is consumed by disease, blood, tears,
Loneliness, violence, sadness, fear
But she deserves so much more, every human does
And yet she walks this earth and no one shows her love
Now is that okay with you? Can you just let that go?
Or does something scream inside of you that justice must flow?
'Cause this is real life people, its sad but true
He's screaming out loud, the next action's on you


Oh praise You Lord Jesus, thank you Lord that You hear
That as she walks along, I know that You're near
And his burden is so heavy and its something he can't bear
And yet You reach out to him and let him know that You care
Oh, let us be like You Lord - Holy, Righteous and Just
And speak truth into lives as we give You our trust


And now my precious little children, put your hope in the Lord
Trust that He loves you and blesses with every word
Daughter, know that you're beautiful. Son, know that you're strong.
Bad times may come, but they won't last long
You're such a strong daughter and a beautiful son
Let us find our peace in Jesus, the Holy and Just One.

Brandon Michael

March 28th, 2008

Of Storms and Reflections

Before I get going on this blog, I feel like I should have literary integrity and come clean with you. Writing this blog was my back-up plan for the evening. I was supposed to skype with my folks followed by Melissa. However, I live in Tanzania and simple things don’t always go according to plan. Instead of skyping with loved ones on this Thanksgiving weekend, its been one thing after another keeping that from happening. Thursday the internet was down all day, Friday the power was out altogether, today everything was good to go except that a power surge fried the network switch for the internet upstairs and I have no way of getting on to skype. However, the good news (aside from “talking” with all of you lovely people) is that it gave me time to run to the store to pick up a few essentials and in the process found that my most frequented store has begun carrying Mountain Dew. Thank you Lord. I’m not much of a soda drinker these days, but MD has a special place in my heart. During high school I hit that drink hard; I consistently had a Blood-Mountain Dew Content Level of .08 or higher. I was legally stoked/hyper. Good times, good times. Makes me think back on life, ah the memories.

Speaking of reflecting on life (forgive my lame transition), this weekend offers me a unique opportunity to reminisce. I received an email on Thursday informing me that I’d be preaching this Sunday at ICC. Not uncommon to find that out only a few days before getting up there. I began preparing last night and I as I was asking the Lord what to speak on, he gave me the words “heartbreak” and “loneliness.” I didn’t really know what to do with those, but then He guided me to Mark 4:35-41. The first scripture that I ever preached on and haven‘t preached on against since.

My final semester of college was nuts. I did 21 units on top of working and only the Lord got me through it all. One of my classes was an upper division class on The Gospel of Mark. I loved that class and the culmination was my 14 page exegetical analysis paper on Mark 4:35-41. I was quite proud of the paper and while the Bible is enormous, I do fancy myself somewhat of an expert on those seven verses. I took all that info and crammed it into a sermon that I delivered in the Tanzanite capital of the world, Mererani, Tanzania two and a half years ago.

I’ve noticed that when I preach, and also when I write, I tend to speak out of what the Lord is teaching right then. That was certainly the case when the Lord opened my eyes to this passage that I subsequently preached on. I’ve written about what was going on in my life at that time, so I won’t bore you all with that rabbit trail. Needless to say, life was tough. I grew more in that season of my life than perhaps any other. It wasn’t pretty though; it truly was a storm like the one in this passage. The change towards righteousness took place not out of a joyous victory, but rather heartbreak. I was confused, sad and lost. The Lord spoke to me out of the storm and took me so radically in a new life direction that I stand on the other side of that storm and thank the Lord that He not only calmed the wind and waves, but used the storm to bring me to where I am today.

Lately, I find myself not only reflecting on that time of my life, but also the last year of ministry. Believe it or not, I’m wrapping up month eleven right now and I leave for my furlough in about five weeks. Nuts. Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready for work I was listening to the worship play list that I listen to every morning. I always put the play list on shuffle and as chance would have it, back to back Phil Wickham songs came on. The first was “Heaven Song” and it took me back to January when I landed in TZ and found out that Anjela had passed away while I was in transit. The second was “Divine Romance” and it took me back to my birthday in April when my Life Group sent me a affirmation video that had the song in the background. Both of those seem like so long ago now and that is because they are pretty long ago now. Its been a long year. Its been a hard year with more difficulty to come for sure. Its been a great year too though.

In a moment of unrest as I was unloading recent troubles on Melissa over skype, I could hardly continue to talk. At one point all I could muster up was “I’m not the same person that left Long Beach in December.” I don’t think I even realize how true that is. Perhaps I’ll have a better idea when I’m back in those similar situations in California. I can’t get my mind around all that’s taken place in my soul this year. I feel like I know the Lord so much better and yet am more mystified than ever. I feel like I’ve learned so much and yet know so little. I feel like I’m spending so much more time organizing my thoughts and yet have so much less clarity. It is a strange tension to be in and I can’t grasp it myself.  

This passage remains important to me and continues to teach me. In verse 38 it says that Jesus “was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.” The cool thing about exegesis is that you get more out of the little unnoticeable parts of scripture like “He was in the stern.” In boats of that time and place, the stern was the place where the helmsman sat to steer the ship. The pillow was heavy and was a normal accessory for shifting weight in the boat. So it wasn’t just that Jesus was sleeping, He was in fact asleep as opposed to steering the boat. He was asleep at the wheel. Meanwhile, the waves are crashing, the wind is blowing and the disciples are freaking out.

Remember how I said that the Lord typically leads me to preach/write on something He’s doing in me right now? Well, in reflecting on my recent feelings of frustration, anxiety and loneliness in addition to the physical changes to take place soon through taking a break from TOA, spending a longer furlough in CA and getting married in June, I realize that I am once again in a storm of sorts. The dialogue between Jesus and His disciples undoubtedly is reiterated countless times between Him and His disciples today: “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (v. 38) “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” (v. 40).

When the Lord first began speaking this passage to me in early 2008, it felt like I was perishing at times. To some extent, it felt like God didn’t care; like He was asleep at the wheel. I was fearful and based my charges against Him out of a lack of faith and understanding. Storms are common in our walk. There is so much in this fallen world that seeks to scare us, thus debilitating us from walking in the destinies that the Lord has put before us. When we come through these seasons of testing, He wants to know the answer to those same questions. Are you a fearful person? Do you have faith? My prayer, hope and resolution is that I will be a person that is based in faith, not fear.

Faith. The Lord has been faithful. He has increased my faith by so much over the last few years. He is using my current situations to continue to grow my faith. As we turn to Him through the storms in life, He will do that for all of us, for this we give praise.

Submission

You know the Bible is not a random book. And all those little tidbits of “advice” that you find in there aren’t random either. The Holy Spirit used some forty odd writers and delivered God’s very word to us, He then enlightens us to understanding and we figure out how we’re supposed to live this life. Sometimes you can read things in there and they can be a bit hard to swallow, or you’ll want to soften it with some poor interpretation of the scripture. Well, I’ve been learning more and more about one of those such things.

Submission is something that is in many ways a hot button topic in the Church. It plays a role in various topics from gender and church leadership to marriage and government authorities. The Bible is certainly not silent about the topic and it wouldn’t take a long look through the holy book to come across its reference in some fashion.

Desire

Having ended the fast in the last half hour (first thing in my mouth was a spoonful of peanut butter, in case you were wondering), there are so many different things that I can write about, because the Lord was definitely at work in the fast. I’m going to try to roll up several of them into this post and share what the Lord has done.

I have this tendency towards idle productivity. I notice this at my house first and foremost. At my house, there’s not a whole lot to do. I don’t have a TV, I don’t have a DVD drive on my computer (or a single DVD for that matter), I don’t have internet at my house and I don’t have anyone to talk to aside from the Lord and if I’m feeling delusional, any of the various lizards that come in to visit me. Because of that, I try to toil in the interest of growing spiritually. How many pod casts can I listen to tonight? How many chapters will I read in my book? Will I master any new worship songs on the guitar? All of these are good things, but I find that my mindset isn’t always coming from the best angle.

Trust

Basically at any moment after Sunday, my spirit (if not my “material”) seemed ready to sit down and write a post. Sunday, I’m resting it and its only been a few days since my last post. Monday, I skype with Melissa and goes a little long and there’s not enough time. Tuesday, I say tomorrow. Wednesday, I skype with Melissa again then come home and opt to clean instead. I plan on Thursday for sure until Lauren asks if I want to lead worship at their house, I go with that. Then today comes, Friday. Alright, now I’m at the computer and I’m more than ready. After all that’s happened today, I’m so ready.

You know I really like receiving feedback on my writing. Of course you know that, I complain about it constantly. My apologies, but let me explain myself further. It encourages me to hear from people, believe it or not I enjoy interaction with people in the states (go figure, I moved here nonetheless). At any rate, I received a good encouraging feedback message from a friend that I met at Vanguard. Rodrigo was certainly not a guy that I figured was reading any of my posts but nonetheless he hit me up with some encouraging words. Besides saying the normal courtesies like “you’re doing a good job,” “you write well,” and “you’re basically C.S. Lewis reincarnated” (okay, I’m fabricating a little), he gave a sound word that has certainly given me a mind frame for the last week. He shared a story about Mother Teresa and out of it encouraged me to just trust. Clarity and figuring out the how of things won’t get me close to where trust in God will. Obviously that’s a good word and after all that was on my mind last week, it was much needed.

Single-ness

If this hasn’t been a blog in the making, I don’t know what is.

I’ve decided to do a mid-week blog (no extra charge) on something that I know is applicable to many friends back in the states (as opposed to my last blog, seriously who cares about poetry?). And something that is really stinkin’ difficult.

I’m a rarity in this neck of the woods. Moshi is one of the unique cities in the much bigger picture of African missions. Moshi, or the Kilimanjaro region, for whatever reason, has a fairly large missionary populace. We aren’t running this place by any stretch of the imagination, but I know of friends that have been in areas of Africa and have been the only white person within miles and miles. That’s not the case here. Yet despite the larger missionary base, I’m the only missionary that I know or know of that is a single man and a young one at that. (I’m sure that someone from Moshi will comment saying that they know another, in which case my entire tirade will be null and void and I just wasted everyone‘s time… which I‘m probably doing anyways).

Maybe its because I run in the young Christian activism circles back in California, but sometimes I think that “Africa” is more popular there than it is here. And yet despite the hype, not too many young women are willing to just up and move here for a “long-term indefinite” period of time (although shout out and props to women like my friend Lauren who have done just that). I also can’t think of another missionary that is here that is 23, although just one month till my birthday! Even the young women here are older than me. And if you matchmakers are thinking “possibility?” I’m actually one of those guys that really like to be the older one in the relationship (go ahead and quote me here, I’m sure I just sealed my fate to be younger than my theoretical wife).

I sent out a status update while I was in Wisconsin, jokingly asking people to pray that I’d meet my wife at language school (first week of being here) and a bunch of the sistren commented saying they would. I laughed and said I was joking, but inside, I was certainly entertaining the idea. When you sign up to do God’s will, you sign up to do it on His terms. And if you don’t do it on His terms, I give you a 100% guarantee it won’t work. And as I say that, I think to myself “that implies what I’m doing is working.” Weird. Anyways, His terms are really hard and painful. I know all my friends that are married at any age say, “you know, Brandon, marriage is hard” and I’m like “Really? Let me try.” Then I find out they’re quite fond of their wives and won’t share. Okay, life is hard period. Marriage won’t solve everything, alright. And yet that head knowledge doesn’t make it any easier.

Ryan and I were talking during discipleship and this of course came up. Ryan got married at the age of 22 (I think) right after college to Stacy who is one of those rare women who actually was willing to move, along with their whole family, to a third world country and be missionaries. So needless to say, his story is a bit different from mine. Nonetheless, he was talking about when he left college and missing those friends combined with the freedom that came from being young. He took that freedom and married, then stayed in the states for however many years before being sent out a few years ago. I on the other hand took that freedom and moved here, where the realistic number of potential matches for me became much more slim.

If you know my story, you know my story. I’m going to be careful to not share information that is too personal for another person, but if you know my story, you know my story and if you don‘t the following is more than enough for this area. When I returned from my internship last summer and I had been offered my job at TOA, I had a decision to make. I had to decide if I wanted to stay in southern California and settle down continuing in ministry work with a very respectable and godly woman that I loved very much or to come here, single, and fulfill the story that the Lord had been writing over the previous two years. If I were a more dramatic writer I’d tell you I pined over the decision and it was excruciating, but to be honest, the decision was the easy part. My resolve to come here with or without a partner was set in stone before I got on a plane to come back to California. It wasn’t the decision that was hard, it was the weight of the consequences that was hard. It IS the weight of the consequences that is hard.

My friend Colleen once told me that I’m the kind of guy that makes girls confident that there are still good godly men out there. Isn’t that nice? Its too kind and very humbling. Yet as sweet as it was for her to say that, its entirely frustrating, because if that were true how come I AM SINGLE? Being single is hard. I don’t know what the Lord is up to and I feel like me and all my single friends are just waiting for one big event that will fix our lives. I know that’s not true, but that’s how it appears. I’m not the guy that says “I’m looking for the woman that will complete me.” Because that implies that I’m incomplete, when Christ is truly my everything. And yet all my single friends seem to be waiting, men and women that all have different stories, all clueless. Some of them have remained pure, some have had to have their purity restored, some of them are in college, some are in their mid twenties and all their friends from college are getting married, some are in their thirties and hoping they didn’t miss him/her, I have a friend who is sixty and she was talking about her husband-to-be. All of us are clueless, it seems. I don’t know what the Lord is up to. I know that I can wait, I am waiting and Africa teaches patience well. And yet, I feel like I have to take every opportunity to share about myself and see if there’s potential, because I don‘t want to miss her. Having said that…

Name: Brandon Michael Stiver

Height: 5’11” (although my license says 6’0”)

Weight: 165

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Grey

Favorite Color: Green

Interests: Jesus, children, children who love Jesus, I like walks on the beach or just walks in general, I play guitar, write poetry and listen to Norah Jones.

Looking For: A woman who loves Jesus, has an idea of settling down that includes living in Tanzania for the foreseeable future with future prospects of following the Holy Spirit anywhere else (India, Bolivia, wherever) and adopting children then moving an enormous Abraham/Sarah size family across continents at the Spirit‘s whim, she is artistic in some form and can live on peanut butter.

(Too much to ask?)

These have been my thoughts. They are only thoughts. They affect my prayer life and may affect my future life, but aren’t necessarily affecting my current life. A prayer that I pray often is “Lord, let my actions be righteous.” My thoughts can be to random and distracting, so I just pray that the thoughts that are within the will of God are the ones that I act on, because action is so much more important than mere thoughts. These are my thoughts on single-ness. Despite my thoughts on marriage, I am unmarried, I haven’t acted on any thought I’ve ever had about marriage, only the thoughts on pre-marriage. My prayers to stay in God’s will for who I am or am not with have largely been answered, because I am 100% certain that today I am supposed to be single. I don’t know what He has in store. I may never marry. I may meet my wife tomorrow. I have no idea. I’m clueless. But what I do know is that whether I’m married or single. My focus is the same. I am to focus on the Lord, seek my satisfaction in Him alone and what He has for me today. He is faithful and He’ll take care of me. He hears my every prayer and while I may be confused about His will or how the whole thing works is a non-issue, because He knows how it works and He loves me, thinks of me and will guide me better than I can myself. Praise the Lord.

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The Rundown: Only a couple things since my last blog. For one, everyone’s sick. A few kids (plus Jodie) have malaria. Awadhi’s been home from school all week with a fever. I personally have a killer sore throat, but I think that’s all it is. Apparently Diamond thinks its funny to cough directly into my face and overall we just share colds here at the orphanage. I went into immigration and I apparently got approved. I go into today (Wednesday) to pick up the permit and get my passport stamped. I’m not sure if they gave me one or two years, but watch my Facebook for the status update. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.