A Thing of Joy

Grace and peace!

It has been a blessed time to serve alongside our brothers and sisters here in Cambine. We have engaged with the staff that ministers to the needs of the orphans here at the mission compound. We have seen the strides made in sustainable agriculture. We have watched as school children from the area gather to learn. We spent today in paint up and clean up activity in the woodworking shop that will both sustain the infrastructure of the mission compound and impart salable skills to those who live here, as will the sewing center where women here make different articles that we are able to sell in the States to support them with a continuous revenue stream.

Monday, through the generosity of the United Methodist Women, we were able to buy food and hygiene supplies for the widows we support at Massinga. Yesterday I was blessed to once again share with the students at the seminary using the tremendous theological resources of the United Methodist Church. This time we were able to use the book “Methodist Essentials,” a book on theology and doctrine written by Dr. Ted Cambell. My new friend, Rev. Filipe Augusto Hoguane, translated for me as we traced the contours of Methodist theological understandings. It is important to note that this book has already been translated into Portuguese so as to be useful for further study by the students. We also had time for what I like to call “family chat,” where the students and I were able to have conversation about what ministry looks like in the both the North American and African contexts. I always come away with a greater admiration for these servants of God who serve in perhaps the most difficult of contexts with deep faith.

As important as reviewing these understandings are, more important are the relationships that have been created and sustained among us. Many of the students I have had the honor of sharing with over the years. Renewing these relationships brings me joy. More-so is the joy of hearing stories of those who have graduated from the seminary and are now serving the church in significant ways.

I am also enjoying learning from the team members, particularly the young adults of whom I am particularly proud. Having been around them for ten years and seeing them mature into wonderful men and women who are preparing themselves to serve God’s world in following their varying callings – music and medicine, teaching and reaching – they fill my heart to overflowing. As I turn during this season to serve the St. Luke’s community, they are indelibly etched upon my heart.

I am always struck by how much we can learn from all of these servants of God, particularly those in Cambine who are ministering in the context of deprivation and yet setting forward a standard of faith that is connecting many to a saving relationship with a living savior with boundless joy – a joy that I pray would be contagious to the point of engulfing the whole of the United Methodism wherever we may be.

May that joy be yours today.

Clarence