Packing like a dead man

You keep talking about dying to self, Dr. Rankin. It occurs to me that I have a lot of things packed that a dead man doesn't need. --a colleague headed to Poland

I've told you that Dr. Rankin, the president of the IMB, was here last week doing a three-day seminar on spiritual warfare. The statement above was the defining moment of the seminar. It came during the application time, when we were discussing as a group the impact of the seminar. When the man finished and sat down, we all were kind of stunned. Even Dr. Rankin was speechless for a minute. Then he grinned and said, "I'm going to use that." It was a transparent thing to say, and a meaningful thing to say, but it was mostly the movement of the Holy Spirit kind of thing to say. We have all been so concerned with what we are taking, both literally and metaphorically. Do we have the right socks? underwear? Are we handling the transition well? Are we going to be good missionaries? Are we going to live up to what the IMB and Southern Baptists have invested in us? And yet, those are all things a dead man isn't going to need. Jesus isn't depending on me to create the Russian Baptist church. He is depending on me to depend on Him. And that isn't an easy thing for me. It is the growth area in which I fight Him the most. I want to think about what I can do...I may couch it in terms of what God has blessed me with, but that sometimes isn't very genuine. What He is showing me is that everything up to this point--the good, the bad, the ugly--has been sifted through His hand. What success has come to me has come to me because it served His purposes. That's hard, isn't it? I want to claim those things as my own, and yet they aren't mine. The failures--those I can claim! He is working on me. It doesn't always feel good, but He is definitely working on me.

I had better run and get ready for breakfast. I know these are very short blogs, but it really is all I have time for right now. I want to keep you updated, and I really want you to get to hear the unbelievable experiences we are having. (I haven't talked about worship in Hindi, yet. That was amazing!) Our time is very, very scheduled. Since I likely won't have a chance to write tomorrow, I will go ahead and ask you to pray for us at 3:10. That is our first immunization time. The kids will all get two shots, and Marc and I will get three. One of them is likely to make us feel fluish for a day, so just pray for us. You can imagine, this is the thing the kids have dreaded the most. (Okay--their parents, too.) Continue to pray that we would have ears to hear and eyes to see the crying of a world lost without Him...and that we'll be able to pack like dead men when we leave. Blessings!

His,
Kellye