Life Away

This blog was inspired by Tiffany Ferguson. While eating dinner with her and her family one night before Christmas, she encouraged me to write another blog and so I did (and my dad has finally helped me to publish it).

Some of you may know what it is like living here as a missionary, but others may not. This is a blog for everyone, but especially for the people that don’t know what it is like living here. 

First, the leche (milk in Spanish) comes in a large juice-box-like container. The apple juice and other drinks do also, but not all the drinks. 

This is sort of funny to me; there is a bus stop right outside my house. Ho, ho, ho; whoops, I meant ha, ha, ha. Do ya get it; do ya, do ya, do ya? It is good to have a chuckle every once in awhile; okay, back to business. 

We don’t have a car and almost every thing is pricey. Houses have big gates and people can pay for a day and night guard. 

All these thing are different ,but God has been God. He is still God; He has provided; He has kept me safe; He is still God.

Have You Lost Your Mind?

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I heard that phrase as a child growing up; Barry, what have you lost your mind? Whether it was the time I tried to take my favorite candy from my sister's room. Would've gotten away with that one had my sister not come out of the bathroom right when she did. Or whether it was the time my cousin and I mixed up cleaning chemicals and tried to transport them to his house (to see what further chemicals he had) in an Entenmann's cookie tin. Not sure if it was the seeping backpack that we tried to conceal it in or the horrendous odor, but mom knew as soon as we hit the kitchen doorway. Both times the same, "Have you lost your mind?"

Though I'm some 30 years or so removed from those scenarios, this question still follows me around. "You're leaving 11 years of pastoral ministry for the mission field? Have you lost your mind?" "You're selling almost everything you own or giving it away? Have you lost your mind?" "You're moving out of the parsonage and are going to be homeless? Have you lost your mind?" "You're uprooting your family to another country? Have you lost your mind?" "You're completely trusting God with everything? Have you lost your mind?"

If I'm being honest with you, there have been many times where I felt as if I had lost my mind; when none of what we're doing made any sense whatsoever. There was an entire season where I secretly hoped our journey was going to be consistent with the Abraham of Genesis 18 and not the Abraham of Genesis 12. You know, that our willingness to sacrifice everything we held dear would be enough and that at the last moment God would provide a "ram caught in the thicket" - a way out. However, I've come to fully embrace the Genesis 12 version of our life that God has asked us to leave everything behind (to sacrifice it all) and that he is indeed leading us to an entirely different place.

But I guess that's the thing: when did following God's will have to equate to making sense? Did it make sense for Noah to start building an ark? Did it make sense for Moses to return to the country where they wanted him dead? Did it make sense for Abraham to leave his entire family and life behind to follow God? Did it make sense for the disciples to leave their jobs and families to follow Jesus? And we find this repeated all throughout Scripture.

So, I guess we have lost our minds. But I hope we've also lost our bodies...and our hearts...and our very lives to the cause of Jesus. For only in losing the entirety of who we are may we be found in Him.