Foreigners on earth

It's a strange life, the missionary one. You willfully uproot yourself from all you know, and, when you get to your new land, work hard to become like one of the locals in the hope of saving some. But because in this you're not alone - because you're only here thanks to the support and prayers of folks back (in your original) home (and because you love them), you return to them from time-to-time. As you do, you repeat again and again the whole process of uprooting and replanting, uprooting and replanting. Naturally, all this can be unsettling and, well, just wierd. But it does bring a singular blessing. Here's what I wrote to some other missionaries heading back to Australia for a time...

(From Hebrews 11:8-10 & 16) "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country . . . For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God . . . . [T]hey were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

May this crazy, unsettling time remind you that, together with your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are foreigners and strangers on earth. And may you know peace and joy as you look for a country of your own, a better country than Chile or Australia, a heavenly one. Praise Jesus for making us perfect, so we can live in that perfect place.