Twas the night before car repairs

‘Twas the night before Christmas,

And driving my car,

The engine was quitting,

It did not go far.

The drivebelt had slipped

Off the tensioner pulley.

The motor stalled out

Like a cast-iron bully.

I shifted to park

And turned the start key.

With the roar of the engine

I shouted with glee.

The light on the dash

Of the new running car

Was the battery light…

It would not get far.

With no force applied

To the dead alternator

I had to get home

Immediately, not later.

Away down the road

I flew like a fawn.

But turning was hard-

Power steering was gone!

More rapid than eagles

My curses they came.

And I grumbled and growled

And loudly complained.

“You bucket of bolts!

You big useless car!

I’m taking you into

the used scrap junkyard!”

The van made it back

To its parking spot home.

Then I Googled “drivebelt”

And watched Youtube videos.

Then taking a 15mm

Chrome box-end wrench

I pulled back on the tensioner

Until my teeth had to clench.

And slipping the drive belt

Back into its spot

I cranked up the car

Till the engine was hot.

My advice to you all

‘fore you drive out of sight:

Take a look at your belt

And make sure it’s on tight.

"...As Incense"

We were recently asked what we need prayers for. Here is our current list:

Pray that we and our children are drawn closer to God as a result of our mission work.
 
Pray that our family becomes closer to each other in love, respect, comfort, and concern.
 
Pray that the government officials in Papua New Guinea are receptive to allowing missionaries to remain in PNG.
 
Pray that we peacefully transition from the US to PNG.
 
Pray that our rental property sells.
 
Pray that our house sells.
 
Pray that we can obtain educational materials.
 
Pray for our health.
 
Pray for our safe passage and travel.

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
    and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

 ~Psalm 141:2

Still going, still praying.

We are still planning on going to PNG, that has not changed. In fact, they need missionaries (and a Business Manager) now more than ever. But it is correct that there have been, and currently are, attempts to deport Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) missionaries.

I do not have all the details, but I do know that the LCMS Office of International Mission and Synod President Matt Harrison are involved in resolving the current situation and are working toward a long-term solution that will enable us to have a continued presence in PNG. 

In times like these it is easy to get dismayed and discouraged. Add to future uncertainty the discomfort of current turmoil and you have a recipe for stress, fear, and trembling.

In times like these we need to turn to the founder and perfecter of our faith, and find comfort in God's word:

WORDS OF COMFORT

Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Behold, all who are incensed against you
shall be put to shame and confounded;
those who strive against you
shall be as nothing and shall perish.

 

ISAIAH 41:10-11

 

Let us pray for everyone involved. For the missionaries and their families and even their pets and animals. Pray for the government officials to do their duty in all justice and honesty.

 

 

 

Pray for the communities who are assisted by the missionaries. Pray for the church body that the previous generation of missionaries established, the Gutnius Lutheran Church. Pray for those in positions of leadership. Pray that a beneficial resolution can be reached that will allow the work of the missionaries to continue unimpeded.

You shall seek those who contend with you,
but you shall not find them;
those who war against you
shall be as nothing at all.
 

For I, the Lord your God,
hold your right hand;
it is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I am the one who helps you.”

 

ISAIAH 41:12-13

 

 

 

Movie Review - Batman: The Dark Knight

I do not always write dry, boring accounts of detailed nonsense. Sometimes I watch movies. Afterwards I subject my family to rantings, ravings, and incessant blathering about certain particularities of subtly nuanced obscurity buried in the deep, dark, recessed corners of the movie. Other times I make sense.

This time I watched Batman: The Dark Knight.

Batman: The Dark Knight was released on the 18^th of July 2008, which makes this movie review Six-and-a-half years too late. If you have not yet seen Batman: The Dark Knight, then you probably never will, which is fine, because it was not that good. Here’s why…

The movie begins with a bank robbery. Bank robberies are usually very boring. Most bank robbers walk in, hand the teller a note asking for money, leave, and then go to Starbucks for a Caramel Macchiato and a lemon bar. Finally they go to jail, because robbing banks is illegal and Starbucks has security cameras.

The bank robbers in Batman: The Dark Knight do not behave in the typical polite fashion. They are very mean. They have guns and they push people. One of the bank patrons has a gun as well. Actually, I think he was an employee; most likely a loan officer.

Loan officers are like police officers, except loan officers are much worse. Both officers give you papers to sign, which require you to pay money. The difference is that, based on a mortgage loan’s amortization schedule, you will pay much more money to a bank for buying a house than you ever will pay to a judge because you were speeding while trying to get to Starbucks before they sold out of lemon bars.

While the ill-behaved thieves bungled their way through their nefarious deed, the brave loan officer produced a sawed-off shotgun from his pencil drawer. This was to be expected. Accountants have dangerous jobs and, in addition to 10-key machines and sticky notes, most have personal protection devices nearby.

What happened next, however, was so unbelievable that it ruined the entire rest of the movie. In fact, after I retell the atrocious event that transpired I will end this review. That is unless you want to hear about a man with extraordinary financial resources, supported by a team of gadget-making assistants, who single-handedly defeats an evil villain’s plot to harm civilians. And as always, James Bond wins in the end. Um…I mean Batman.

The valiant accountant approached his enemies, gun raised, prepared to defend his honor, the bank’s reputation, and stacks of inflation-devalued fiat currency. He shot once. He shot twice. He shot again and again, and I think he shot again. I can’t remember, because I had stopped counting. My mouth was hanging open in shock. I could not fathom how anyone, even a financial expert, could miss at such close range with a shotgun.

Disbelief can be suspended only so much. After this, my mind was unable to pretend that a guy in a plastic suit could jump off buildings, ride magnetic balloons out of windows and defeat rooms full of gun-wielding maniacs. Not to mention the scene when Batman drove the bat-motorcycle around the Joker instead of driving straight into him. Why didn’t Batman hit him with the bat-motorcycle? That would have severely injured the Joker. At the very minimum he would have been in intensive care for months while healing.

Then the police could have easily given him a ticket. Or even worse, they could have given the Joker a Long Term Adjustable-Rate Mortgage Loan. Let’s see him get out of that trap!

A New Normal, Part 3

Wherein I continue the meeting between me and another missionary.

Clergy, not laymen

“A New Normal” is a multi-part story of how I came to be a Missionary to Papua New Guinea. Click Here to read the second installment, and Here to read the first.


I have made a decision. At the end of the last installment of  "A New Normal, Part 2" I told you I was going to tell you what the newly-called missionary told me. I have decided that I am only going to tell you half of what he told me. At the end you will know why, although you will not be satisfied. But you will understand, in part, why I pursued the missionary field. At least, I think you will. Alright, here goes.

We were at a play date. There were three families present: Two seminarian-families and one layman-family.

Tangential aside (which might just win the award of "earliest 'tangential aside' in writing history"): I do not like the word 'layman'. Although I know, understand, and agree with its meaning and usage, I object to its sound. Before I continue, allow me to insert the definition, taken from www.dictionary.com:

Layman

noun, plural laymen.

1. a person who is not a member of the clergy; one of the laity.

2. a person who is not a member of a given profession, as law or medicine.

George Washington, layman

Now I am going to ask you to do something. I need you to take action; you must participate in this exercise before you can continue this blog with any hope of grasping my meaning. What I ask is simple, and almost anyone can do it.

You need to say the word 'layman' out loud. Do not do this if you are an air-traffic controller. In that case wait until your break or when you are off work so as to avert disaster. Everyone else, including babies, should say it...right...now!

Some of you said  /lay-mun/  and blurred the 'm' and the 'n' almost into the same sound. Others said  /lay-min/  because you were trying to emphasize the 'man' portion. It really doesn't matter how you said the second part, because both of you said the first part correctly. Congratulate yourself. Now continue...

Albert Einstein, layman

What everyone heard is the 'y' and the 'm' blur together. and that is the root of my dislike. Now watch as I transform a perfectly kind word into an insult. I begin by separating the word into syllables, then transition them into similar sounding equivalents. Regretfully, the end result will shock you.

lay - man
laym - man
lam - man
lame - man

Lame man!!

See?? Now do you understand!?? That is what I hear every time the word is said aloud. No, I do not assume the speaker meant to be demeaning or degrading. No, I do not launch into a long-winded explanation of the audible derivative of their utterance. No, I am not calling for an end to the ministry because of a poor-sounding designation. Neither am I demanding an end to the clerical distinction because of an unfortunate aural association.


I have an idea about how to fix this. As tempting as it would be to include the clergy in our plight and call them 'non-layman', I think we should leave them alone and come up with something new to describe ourselves. I suggest going with the opposite meaning and using that to create our new word. Since the opposite of 'lame' is 'cool' we simply go with:

Coolman

We will also accept Awesomeman, Magnificentman, Wonderfulman, or...Wait, I've got it!

Superman

Here ends my tangential aside, and this article. To be continued (began) in part 4...



In the next installment of A New Normal, I will get around to actually telling you historic information about me becoming a missionary without getting side-tracked off into coo-coo land. Hopefully there will be some of you who will stick around to read it.


p.s. The families, briefly mentioned, belong to: Pastor Christopher Gerdes, Pastor Peter Haugen, and Superman Michael Ritzman.

The Story of a Journal

But it is actually a story about me

The journal

What is it? Where did it come from?

There. Do you see it? That is a picture of the journal my co-workers gave me when I left my accounting job. I don't need to describe it do I? I mean, you can see it. It is about six-by-eight inches, has a light tan lined paper cover, with brown leather edging and a button clasp that snaps it shut. Inside are about fifty pages without lines. The pages are thick but soft, and are shot through with little wiggly green fibers. The fibers look like thin pieces of grass.

You are bored, aren't you? Of course you are, you just read a description of a book. Alright, I'll make this more exciting, I promise. How about this? I am about to string together a bunch of interrelated events that took place over the course of many years in just a couple of sentences. Are you ready? Are you even still reading, or am I typing into thin air?!? Nevermind, let's get on with it:

Born. Light and sound became shape. Voices in my head. I am an accountant. My co-workers are giving me a notebook. I am typing this sentence...

There, how was that for consolidating my life? The journal sat in my briefcase for months. I do not own a briefcase. I only said that because it sounds cooler to say ‘I have a briefcase’ instead of a black bag. It is one of those old laptop bags that were popular when people still had laptops, and the laptops were big. So I have a big old laptop bag which is nowhere near as cool as a briefcase, but the shoulder strap makes it easy to carry.

I first used the journal on my trip to Saint Louis. I call it a journal because 'notebook' has been ruined by that love-movie. I don't mean ruined in a bad way, either. All I mean is that an association has been established between the word and the movie, such that, whenever someone mentions the word, women and sensitive men begin to cry. I shall refrain from using that word, therefore, because it is not my intention to make you cry...yet.

Why did the spider cross the road? To get to a different website.

That was a joke, because you were getting bored and studies show that random jokes keep people interested in boring blogs about journals.

Missionary orientation was in Saint Louis and would last two weeks. But before that, and on the way there, I went to a two-day conference on theology and apologetics. Those last two sentences were not important. Do not go back and read them; they were just transitionary filler. The good stuff is coming up.

The conference theme was "Making the Case" and the speakers were to defend a different doctrinal position. I was interested in most of the topics, even to the extent that I was determined to take notes of the highlights and brilliant ideas of the various speakers for my future study and personal edification. I had decided the journal I received as a gift would be the recipient of those notes.

Tangential aside: I am currently writing this portion of the story in a doctor's office waiting for a physical exam. I mention this to demonstrate to you the extent to which I am willing to go to bring you this compelling story of a book, which is really about me, but not really...you'll see in a minute, just keep reading...please.

As I waited for the first speaker, I decided to make some preliminary notes about the events leading up to the conference. 

 

Two things: First, I take notes in cursive, for speed, not to be pretentious. Second, you can see the pieces of grass or whatever stuck in the paper. The content is not important, at this moment. I talk about our preparations for Missionary Orientation—nothing worth reading, however…turn the page, er, scroll down.

Here is where things get interesting. If you look close you can begin to see where my pen hits the little plant pieces. Maybe you can’t see. Here, I’ll zoom in…

Alright, none of these mistakes are the plant’s fault. Here is where it starts to go bad…

Aack, indeed! I blamed my mishap on a ‘dented portion of paper’ whatever that means. Actually, now that I think about it…No wait, something is coming back to me……Oh, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, a superlative combination of thoughts and memories has coalesced into a realization that I am about to share with you, if you can handle being amazed by deep introspection concerning writing instruments and their parchment-based receptacles, a.k.a. journals/books/napkins/inside of matchbook covers/etc.

Behold, my epiphany: I write with my left hand. This makes certain pens unusable because they refuse to defy physics. Yes, I am referring to Gel Pens. I love their smooth consistency and bold color, but they are meant to be pulled, not pushed. And so, when a left hand tries pushing a gel pen there are noticeable breaks. My right hand refused to use gel pens, even after two attempts at bribery and a strongly-worded letter to its mother. And so I use ball point pens exclusively.

What do you call an alligator in a vest? An investigator. You were starting to drift away, weren’t you? But you are back now right? Experts all agree, jokes help you stay focused on pen-related stories.

Ball-point pens were invented in 1888 by John J. Loud, a leather tanner, but that’s not important right now. All you need to know is that when I tried using a ball-point pen on the feathery-soft grass-filled journal pages I had a reunion with my one of my enemies…Frustration.

Frustration came and sat next to me while I was writing notes, and he laughed. Frustration’s laugh is very loud and it drowns out all the other sounds around you, so all you can do is think about how annoying it is that your pen will not write on the page!! And it is all because my left hand does not use gel pens. It all makes sense now. The planets are aligned, birds and squirrels are chirping, and I know why this happened:

Now this is just…just…(adjectives fail me)…It is a complete and utter journal failure. I will translate what I think it says:

Ate dinner…Fisk is about to go on…wait! I met some really cool people during dinner. I will get their naeno  inhanes IIAMEJ NAMES AAAAAMPEH!!! This papee is %&^!@#* zam

Right about this time Panic entered the building and, seeing his friend Frustration, sauntered over and joined him inside my head. Panic does not laugh, he just stares at you with those pale green eyes until your stomach turns into cold soup.

The next page was not so bad. Although, I did have to write in 72 font to get it to work, and my notes were reduced to truncated little Reverend Fisk blurb-thoughts. It looks like a child’s beginning reader book, if your child was Martin Chemnitz.

It gets worse. Look at the size of that letter “S” in ‘seeking’, and the “L” in the word Bible. And the right side page looks like a theological algebra equation. How are any of these notes supposed to be helpful?

Futile and Hopeless came together as a pair. They make a nice couple; very complimentary…a perfect match. I tried to resist, but their soft chuckling was getting to me. Look at that page on the right. What is that, a Dr. Seuss reference? Was I going insane? And what does it say next to the bracket…In My Gland?

I give up.

Ironically, the last entry says, “What matters: Content” which is hilarious when you consider that everything I wrote lacked content

In conclusion, I am thankful beyond words for the gift given to me by my former co-workers. They were/are a great bunch. And they wrote a lot of nice things in the back of the journal. Nice, legible things (they must all be right-handed).

Finally, if you are not weeping at my tragic writing failure, and if you are not crying at my co-workers compassion, I have just one thing to say to you: Notebook.

Hey, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I don't know if you will ever see this. I gave you a business card with this website and told you to check it out. Here are a couple of churches in your area that may be helpful.

Saint Paul Lutheran Church

Trinity Lutheran Church

I pray you see this and, as the Lord directs, you come into contact with a family of faith that will build you up in the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ.

May you find rest in the assurance of the salvation He won for you.

Your fellow servant in Christ,

Michael




For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ~Romans 3:23-24

The windows of the heavens were opened

I have NEVER driven through rain that heavy! Near Chicago...listen to it as we come out from under the bridge. Pray for us as we travel, because...wow!

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Location:Trompeter Rd,Peru,United States

If butterflies can fly...

I watched three white butterflies flit around the yard. Their flight was erratic so that they appeared driven by random chance, or a strong breeze. Aimless they seemed, and yet arriving upon a flower or leaf they looked to have attained their goal.

This was no accident. At times they would approach one another and spin crazy circles of courtship or intimidation (I could not tell which). Then those sheets of living paper would dance away by a mysterious impulse imbued by He who said, "let birds fly," and, "let the earth bring forth...creeping things."

People are like that, especially children, but also adults. How random we seem...thoughtless...aimless...driven by impulse...dancing in courtship or intimidation. But, like butterflies, there is no accident to our actions, either. Consider St. Paul writing to the Ephesian Christians:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ~Ephesians 2:1-3

The "prince of the power of the air" blew our butterfly bodies in swirling sin-circles, as our fallen flesh beat wicked wings, delighting in the dance.

And yet again, He who said, "Let there be...," became incarnate by the Spirit of the Virgin Mary, that we may have life, and that eternally.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus ~Ephesians 2:4-6

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

A New Normal, part 2

A New Normal, Part 2.

Wherein I detail the meeting between me and another missionary.


“A New Normal” is a multi-part story of how I came to be a Missionary to Papua New Guinea. Click here to read the first installment.


Because we live in Fort Wayne, Indiana we often have seminary students and their families attend our church. They come in all sizes: there are singles, married couples without kids, and families with a variety of children in whole numerical values right on up the number line. As long as I have been attending, the record has been six children.

But when we first met that family they only had four, and so did we. We hit it off right away, as parents of large families are required to do (there is a law somewhere). As it turned out, the wife/mother of this clan was quite the play-date queen. She has the gift of assembling mothers and entertaining them while their children run amok.

And so it was that through these interconnected relationship webs, we came into contact with another Papua New Guinea missionary. Except he wasn’t a missionary yet. He was a seminary student with a wife and four kids. I’ll leave it to the numerologists to decipher the meaning of all our families having four children, even though by the time we met some of us were on our fifth. If this all seems complicated, relax; the story gets easier from here on out.

Seminary students are funny. Not necessarily humorous (although some are), but quirky. They have to undergo four years of arduous, strenuous, and at times monotonous training. One of those years is spent doing field work with a congregation, assisting a pastor (we call it a Vicarage). Upon completion of their academic requirements they do not get to relax, try as they might. For always looming above the seminarian, like an approaching storm, is Call Night.

Call Night is a momentous occasion when the seminary faculty reveals to the seminarians where their dart has struck the map…er, I mean, where they thoughtfully and considerately have been called to serve a congregation as a Pastor. Yet somehow a dart must have gone wide, because one man received a call as a Missionary to Papua New Guinea.

Typically, seminarians have little or no idea where they are going. This announcement, therefore, would have been a 1.21-gigawatt shock had this particular seminarian not known ahead of time. But, in fact, he did know, and I knew as well, because he told me.


In the next installment of “A New Normal” I will tell you what he told me. Stay tuned...


p.s. "The seminarian" in this episode is the Rev. Peter Haugen. Find out more about him and how you can pray for and support his family here. Haugen family

p.p.s. And this family needs prayer and support, too. Ritzman family

Location:Millbrook Dr,Fort Wayne,United States

Musing Medieval

Say what you want about Dante's errant theology (and rightly deserved), he's not all bad. Consider this discourse on Original Sin, the Incarnation, and Atonement from the Paradiso (Canto VII):

Your nature, when it took sin to it's seed,
sinned totally. It lost this innate worth,
and it lost Paradise by the same deed.

Limited man, by subsequent obedience,
could never make amends, he could not go
as low in his humility as once,

rebellious, he had sought to rise in pride.
Thus was he shut from every means himself
to meet God's claim that He be satisfied.

Thus it was up to God, to Him alone
in His own ways--by one or both, I say--
to give man back his whole life and perfection.

All other means would have been short, I say,
of perfect justice, but that God's own Son
humbled Himself to take on human clay.


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Patience,...

Rest assured faithful blog readers, there is much going on behind the scenes. And although the curtain looks closed, trust me when I say there are a lot of stage hands busily scurrying around back there.

What that all means is that I am woking on sorting out the many details necessary to take the next step in my assignment as missionary. Without being vague, here is what you can expect:

1) A wrap-up on orientation. The dust is still settling, but there is enough cohesion to make a useful analysis of the two-week ordeal.

2) A continuation of my personal account of becoming a missionary, what I have entitled, "A New Normal." I will put links if you have missed any of these. Here is part 1.

3) Updates on Papua New Guinea (PNG). Who is there and what is going on.

That's a brief list, but it is a start. Until then...

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:11-14


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The curse

"Cursed is the ground because of you...thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you" Genesis 3:17-18

"And behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son." Genesis 22:12-13

"And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Mark 15:17-18

"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26


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Location:S Kirkwood Rd,Kirkwood,United States

Hello baby!

A 10 day-old baby showed up at Orientation today. Here's the new mom, Angelica, watching Beth demonstrate baby-wrapping techniques.

Missionary Orientation Update. Week one.

I have not given up on this blog. I WILL fill it with interesting and relevant content. Your patience is appreciated.

I suppose you are wondering how the missionary orientation is going. Well, so am I. Have you heard the phrase, "information overload"? Whoever made up the phrase must have been a missionary. I would like to shake his hand and thank him for saving me the trouble of having to make up such an adequately descriptive catch-phrase, because, in my case, it is perfectly accurate.

With one exception, however. He never had to assimilate a load of data heavy enough to derail a diesel train while at the same time handling a brand new computer operating system. The challenge is greater than it seems.

I am computer literate, but for my entire computer-interfacing life I have used Microsoft Windows-based systems. Now it seems I must switch over to Apple-based products, as most interactions with International Missions require it. Another catch phrase that comes to mind is "baptism by fire" and not the Holy Spirit kind, either (more like the spirit of Steve Jobs (maybe that's it...the ghost of Jobs is haunting me!! (and I don't even believe in ghosts!))).

To what shall I liken the experience of using a new operating system? It would be like taking notes on a presentation about Asian monkeys, but using your toes to write instead of you fingers, just like a monkey would (which you would know had you been paying attention to the presentation). You know what it is you want to write, you know the shapes of the letters, and there are similarities between hands and feet (same basic structure, same number of digits, etc.). But try as you might you just can't tell the difference between a gibbon and an orangutan. Such has been my life.

Speaking of monkeys, I miss my kids.

Technical Difficulties

Dear readers, (note how the plural noun assumes multiple readers. My optimism on display)

I send you greetings from St. Louis where I am attending the two-week Missionary Orientation/Training session. You shall receive frequent updates, rants, ramblings, and insights...stay tuned.

However, due to technological limitations, they will be brief (hold your applause).
I am attempting to 'type' on a new Kindle (aka Satan's cellphone), which is unresponsive at best, and page-jumping/content-erasing/soul-stealing at worst.

I lost two attempts to post this already; now I shall dictate as my lovely assistant transcribes for me.

A New Normal, part 1

“A New Normal” is a multi-part story of how I came to be a Missionary to Papua New Guinea.


"Why are you doing this?"

I was being sincere when I asked the question; it was not an off-hand remark, or a reactionary comment. I wanted to know why an established pastor with a supportive congregation would agree to become an overseas missionary. From my perspective, he was in an ideal situation: He had completed his long studies, received a divine call to serve as a pastor of a small-ish congregation in a small-ish town, and after many years of service was well-received by his parishioners.

To be honest, part of my reasoning was selfish. I could not imagine leaving a congregation because that was where I wanted to be. I had moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana to attend the seminary and be a pastor, but I never ended up going. Now here was someone who had done all that and was leaving it behind. It made more sense that he should stay and someone else should go. I was genuinely perplexed and intrigued, therefore, when I asked the question.

We were at a backyard barbecue/pool party a few days after he announced he was going to be a missionary in Papua New Guinea (I admit I had to look at a map to find it—the big island North of Australia). We sat watching the kids play in the pool while he explained.

He told me that, about a generation ago, there had been a sizable missionary presence in Papua New Guinea (PNG). But the current pastors were not receiving anything close to an education and the pastors who were trained were getting old and dying off. And while our denomination in the United States has two seminaries, the single one they had in PNG was barely functioning, if at all. It was his calling, his mission, to restore their seminary and train young men to carry on the work of spreading the Gospel.

Now there was a good reason. After hearing this, a curious thing happened. No, it was not what you are thinking. I was not immediately overcome with missionary zeal—I did not rush off to the Office of International Missions and announce my desire to serve…that’s not it at all. What did happen was a re-aligning of my priorities and an examination of my own concerns.

No longer did leaving an established congregation seem strange or ridiculous, if why you were going was to equip other men to serve as pastors, in a place where their numbers were dwindling. And all of the temporal inconveniences and dangers diminished in their intensity when compared to the eternal danger of being without a trained pastor to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments.

That’s why he was doing it. They need to hear about Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of their sins. That was the mission. That IS the mission.

In the next installment of "A New Normal" I meet another PNG missionary...


p.s. The pastor/missionary in this installment is none other than the Rev. Jeffrey Horn, himself. See more about him and his family here, Horn family
 

p.p.s. And while you’re at it, check out this guy Ritzman family