Random thoughts on singleness

A topic which has come up alot recently in different conversations is the issue of singleness. How does/should the church relate to singles? How are singles treated? What do singles need? How do people perceive singles? Being a single myself many of the conversations really hit home with me. After hearing some different ideas about it I wrote some of my thoughts. I hope you will read it and take to heart whatever God may lead you to. Don't feel like just because you aren't single you can't read it. These are thoughts which can apply to all people.

Almost 40 and not married whats wrong with you? 20 years old and you only want to get married whats wrong with being single? 50 years old and happily single? No Sunday School class at your church which you feel a part of because you aren’t married or you don't have children? Do any of these sound familiar? Tired of hearing the clichés like God has the right one just waiting for you? Or stop looking and it will happen.

Singleness is meant to be a gift not a time when you feel like a lesser person because you don’t have a spouse or children. The single life can be fulfilling but it can also be frustrating. I challenge you to think about one question is your church single friendly? Are you single friendly? Not to be a matchmaking service for singles but to be a place where singles can join together for support and encouragement. Did you notice the person who quietly walked into to the church service last Sunday and sat by himself? Did you go talk to him? Did you reach out to him? Or were you in such a hurry to get out that you didn’t acknowledge him?

Being single doesn’t always mean that we have more money because it is only one person to care for and it doesn’t mean we have more time for God’s work. We are still people who have needs and wants. I challenge you have you said before he’s not married he has time to do such and such? Maybe singles do have more flexible time than what married people with children have but maybe you are expecting them to do things they don’t want to do just because they are single.

If you’ve been married for 10 or 20 years do you remember what it was like to be single? Or have you ever known? Were you married straight out of high school or college? Do you remember how sometimes it would just be nice to have a family dinner time? Yes even with the 3 year old who throws his food all over the place or the 6 year old who wants to tell you about his pet turtle or the 10 year old who doesn’t want to practice the piano like you are asking him to do.

In God's eyes we each have a gift which we can bring to His service and that is what we are called to do. For some people that may mean having 6 children, for others that may mean never having children of their own. But the one thing that He calls us to do is to love Him first and foremost and to love others, whether it is the single, the married, the widowed, the divorced, or whoever it might be.

Utah team

Recently I had the opportunity to help Corey and Jenni with their team from Utah. It was a great group of 8 people from their home church in Utah. It was nice to minister with Americans and to experience the freshness and excitement which they brought with them. We were able to share the Creation to Christ story in one of the neighborhoods, work with a childrens hospital ministry, do a True Love Waits rally, attend an African church service, prayerwalk and do other actitvities. It was a good week and I'm glad I had the opportunity to work with them.

Gas station

As I was at the gas station the other day filling up my truck with fuel. I thought in a few months I'm going to have to do this myself. I'm going to have to get out of the automobile and pump my own gas. Yes I've gotten spoiled with the fullservice gas stations which they have here in Mozambique. Also they do a thing which is like an amusement park ride with your car. When the tank gets full they "shake" your car to try and get in more full. The first time it happened to me I didn't know what was going on. Now I am more used to it, however I don't think I'll continue this tradition when I return to the United States.

Labor Day

Even though Labor Day is not an official holiday in Mozambique, I still enjoyed the day with a trip to the beach. Jimmy, another Baptist missionary, is leaving soon to move to his new work area. With the move he will be a 6 to 9 hour drive away depending on the roads. As a goodbye a few of us went to the beach for the day. We were hoping to see whales as this is their migration season but we didn't see them on this trip. Maybe in October we will have the opportunity to travel to the beach again to see the whales.

Literacy Training

Recently I traveled to Murrupula about two hours away for a literacy training. It was a good training with 9 misisons represented. Pray that the recently trained teachers will see the program as an evangelism tool and as a ministry of the church.

Enjoying food

Isn't this the way to enjoy rice and beans??

3 day old baby

This baby was 3 days old when I first saw him during my travels on September 4th. I knew he was young but I was very surprised when they said he was just 3 days old. Mom and baby seemed to be doing fine.

Seeing things anew

Before my recent bush travels a friend of mine encouraged me to see things anew on this trip, to see things like I was seeing them for the first time. I thought how do I do that? I started looking and I began to see how far God has brought me during these past two and a half years. I began to see things that I had become accustomed to on my travels, things such as bathrooms. I remember one of my first trips out to the bush I barely drank any water because I didn’t want to use the bush bathroom. Now that isn’t as much of an issue. Or how I can eat supper at 10pm by the light of a kerosene lamp and be okay with it even if it is incredibly hard to see the chicken pieces.

Another way to look at it is how God wants us to see things. He wants us to focus on the present, not on the past and not on the future. The things in the past we need to learn from and build on to head toward things in the future. As Psalm 118 says this is the day the Lord has made we need to rejoice and be glad in it. Easier said than done on some days isn’t it?

3 days travel

Here's something that can put into perspective for you the size of the country of Mozambique and the road conditions. I was talking to a girl from California and she commented that people drive from Canada to Mexico in 3 days in order to do mission work in Mexico. I thought wow, in 3 days they can travel in 3 different countries and many miles. In 3 days we can travel from Nampula to the capital city of Maputo never leaving the country of Mozambique. I thought that shows the differences in the traveling conditions between Mozambique and there.

Have you seen the xray?

The other day I received a call from Pastor Manuel asking if I could take him to pick up one of the youth from his church who had a car accident the previous day while delivering the Jesus film equipment. I said yes. Pastor Manuel and I had a trip out planned for that day so we modified our plans.

We went to the hospital which was about 2 hours away. I wasn't sure exactly what we would find. Thankfully, the guy wasn't in too bad of shape. He could walk slowly and he could talk. He was having pain in his kidney area.

The Pastor went through the process of finding him in the hospital and checking him out of the hospital. After a while we started on our way back to Nampula. Along the way we stopped at about 3 different places, two of them being police checkpoints and the other one being the scene of the accident. At each place the Pastor asked if he knew what happened to the guy's documents, where was the car that had the Jesus film equipment and then he showed the xray. It was the funniest thing to me to see him showing all these people the xray of the guy's back. I had to laugh at the situation as he showed the xray everywhere we stopped.

When we returned to Nampula we went to the hospital here so the guy could get examined. After about 3 hours he was on his way home again with prescriptions for pain medication.

Now, the guy is doing better I was able to see him yesterday. I'm not sure if the Pastor has been able to locate the Jesus film equipment yet but hopefully he will.