New Beginnings
Hello everyone! It's been a busy few months since my last update, and it's high time I let you know what's going on and ask for your prayers and support in a more specific way!
First, let me fill you in on how things went during my sabbatical in the States. I had an amazing time: I was able to take advantage of the time away to get a much needed rest from the stresses of ministry, and get refocused on how God is calling me to serve him. And a big part of that How? has to do with a With Whom? I am pleased to report that my time with Mary Beth went really well, and as many of you know: we are engaged to be married! We have set the big date for January 2016, and we could not be happier!
All this means that there are some big changes ahead. Mary Beth and I both believe that God is calling us to return to Belize as soon as possible. To this end, a few weeks ago she flew put to Ambridge, Pennsylvania to go through a SAMS Crossroads Conference: three days of interviews, training, prayer and discernment towards her joining the Society as a missionary. Immediately afterwards, she flew down to see me again in Belize, and she has been very well-received, both by our congregations and also by the Bishop. In fact, she even served as our worship accompanist this past Sunday!
We are convinced that we will be a fantastic team for life and ministry, and though this next step is huge, even daunting, we are trusting God to cement our relationship and set our feet and hands in the direction that he will choose. Please keep us, our preparation for marriage and actual relationship, in your prayers.
This however means another big change for our ministry: our budget is going to double. In order to be fully supported, Mary Beth and I will need to raise $6,100 per month in pledges before returning to Belize. As a result, we will be spending the first months of our marriage in the States (I will travel back from Belize just after Christmas), allowing Mary Beth to finish her degree at CSU Fullerton, and giving us time to raise the financial support needed to return to Belize. We ask you to please support us through your pledges and gifts, starting even now, so that we can be back here serving the Lord as soon as possible!
Second let me fill you in on how ministry is going here at our churches and schools in our neck of the woods. I returned to Belize on July 7 to very happy and healthy churches. I am so grateful for the ministry of our interim priest, the Rev. Dr. Shaw Mudge, who watched over things for six weeks while I was gone. I wish I could say that my arrival was relaxing and pacific here at the start of Summer Vacation, but far from it.
Shortly after my return, I was given the opportunity to minister pastorally to the family of a murder victim. The woman had been stabbed 54 times by her lover, in front of their 4-year-old son and her grandmother. A week later, I was privileged to preach at her funeral, and I was reminded of how much we need the Good News of Jesus Christ: both the listeners and the preacher. Please pray for the woman's family, and for the many in our nation of Belize who are dying due to domestic violence.
We are also dealing with investigations into the running of one of our schools. In the absence of our schools' Local Manager (a wonderful woman who who spends much of the year in the States), I end up shouldering some of the supervisory responsibility usually delegated to a lay person. It is a hard thing to catalogue allegations and sit through hearings, but we believe that it is for the betterment of our schools: students, teachers, and administration. Please pray that the course of due process will open doors for the more effective education of our young people.
But the hard parts of ministry are only a bit of the story. Some joys are simple: in a few weeks, I will be marrying two old-timers (in their 70s) and we all couldn't be happier. I am very excited at the progress that our leaders are making. Not only am I confident that we will have new Lay Ministers ready to serve by the beginning of next year, including some for St. Hilda's from Dt. Hilda's, but also the preparation of our postulant for Holy Orders is coming along really well. In fact I am enjoying teaching a course on Systematic Theology in conjunction with the Anglican Theological Institute, and this gentleman's progress in learning and service gets me excited for what God may be doing in our congregations. Please pray that God would continue to choose, call, and raise up new leaders and ministers for his church, especially in our area!
Along the same vein, I am thrilled that we have been taking ground-breaking steps towards the foundation of an Anglican high school at Central Farm. This high school would have a vocational (especially agricultural) focus, and would serve an immediate need for that area, since there are hardly any high schools located between Santa Elena and Belmopan. Not only could it serve the dominantly agricultural communities along the Western Highway and communities linked with Mennonite farms of Spanish Lookout, but it has the potential to tap into the nearby resources such as the Ministry of Agriculture's Research & Development station, the University of Belize's School of Agriculture, BAHA, Galen University and a local BDF camp. There is tremendous potential to bring together the many stakeholders in a project like this from these many communities, to provide a Christian education that would meet so many needs. Please pray for God's guidance and empowerment on this new development.
I could go on, but I am running out of time here. Suffice to say, there is so much going on! Please continue keep me and Mary Beth, our churches, schools, local team and families in your prayers. May God richly bless you all!
As of today - April 28th
Greetings from toasty Belize, where it got up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday! We are surviving, even thriving these days, though you may not see us walking about much at midday.
Life and ministry continue on for me, and have returned to normal after the frenzied activity of Holy Week and Easter. Palm Sunday was our largest service, though we had good attendance for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday (with a traditional 3-hour service at St. Andrew's), and our Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday as we baptized five new Christians and celebrated the Light which the darkness could not overcome! Our Easter Sunday was buoyant and joyous, especially at St. Hilda's where we saw many old friends back at church.
On the Tuesday after Easter, I was blessed to fly to Colombia and spend a week with my mentors and friends, Juan and Maria Marentes. Though the health of Maria's ankle has deteriorated badly (they fly to the United States in a few weeks to seek medical treatment), they were in good spirits, and it was a true encouragement for me to be with them. The time ended quickly however, and I arrived back in Belize on April 14, hitting the ground running. Please keep Juan and Maria in your prayers, as they seek healing and direction for their next steps in life and ministry!
Since then, life and ministry have continued on as usual, both with our churches and with our schools, granting the occasional twist and turn. For instance, tomorrow evening I will be a speaker at a youth revival at St. John's Cathedral, and I'm looking forward to proclaiming again the power of Christ's resurrection in the midst of our broken world. We are also enthusiastic that a member of St. Andrew's has stepped forward as a postulant for holy orders (for those who don't speak Anglicanese: he would liked to be ordained as a minister), and I look forward to accompanying him in his process of discernment and direction in the months ahead.
I continue to have low moments in life and ministry: burnout (it seems) can take a while to overcome. There are some signs that the burnout in my life may be on the wane, but it still is having a large effect on my mood and energy level. Please continue to keep me in your prayers in this regard!
However, I should let you know that regular ministry for me here in San Ignacio will go on a brief hiatus for a few weeks. Through several conversations, my missionary society SAMS-USA has encouraged me to take time to rest and to enjoy quality time with my girlfriend in the United States as we discern what future the Lord may have for us as a couple. For this reason, with Bishop Wright's permission I will be absent from Belize, from the end of May through the beginning of July. The Rev'd Dr. Shaw Mudge will be taking my place for most of that time, and I am so grateful for his willingness to come and serve our congregations! Please keep me in your prayers as I travel, and please pray for the Lord's richest blessing upon the two of us as we spend these weeks together.
Thank you all for your prayers, your support, your attention, and your love. May God richly bless you all!
Six Months Later
My dear friends, it has been far too long since I wrote anything. I am so grateful for your support, and you deserve more communication from me, but ministry and life have been coming at me at too rapid a pace for me to process and then transmit much of anything to you. But I'm going to try and do just that right now. As a result, this update may be a little long, but it's an important one, and I would ask you to take time to digest what the Lord has been doing in my neck of the woods.
1. Ministry
Since September, ministry at our churches and schools has continued, and although there have been ups and downs, God has really been blessing us in big ways. I came back from my two weeks of September vacation in Peru refreshed and ready to knuckle down and serve the Lord. Shortly after my return, I was officially installed as Priest-in-Charge of our churches and schools, and the rest of 2014 was a rush of activities. And to tell you the truth, 2015 has only seen things rev up even more.
St. Andrew's Church (San Ignacio) is still growing bit-by-bit. I am excited to let you know that we have new leaders emerging in our midst, and I believe that God is setting things up for some major growth in the future. Not only could we see this at our patronal feast (November 30th) when Bishop Wright confirmed 17 young people, but I've been training three new lay ministers for service in the church, one of whom is interested in preparing for the priesthood. We have been assigned a recently ordained deacon who, though she lives in the States, comes every month to help out in our worship service, and there is the possibility she might relocate to Belize fulltime. And our youth are growing in maturity and service in the church. The new Church Committee for 2015 is made up almost entirely of younger Belizeans, and I am excited to see how the Lord will use them in the months and years ahead. In the meantime, the regular rhythms of Morning and (now) Evening Prayer, pastoral visits, youth group, choir practice and Bible studies continue, and God is continuing to show his faithfulness.
Unfortunately, St. Hilda's Church (Georgeville) has not been experiencing the same kind of growth. Our leadership at the mission continues to feel tapped out and attendence is erratic. I am visiting with members of the community, and trying to reach out to families in the community, but it is difficult to maintain the level of mission activity that we had when I was dedicated exclusively to that community. I keep looking for new lay people to step up in the community and take leadership for the church, but so far no one has been able to do so.
Our new outreach however has continued at the University of Belize (Central Farm). Every Wednesday, I and a few others head over to campus to lead worship at 7am, and we continue to have good turnout from the faculty and students. Other doors may open for us to have a presence there during the student activity hour, and I am truly amazed at how God is moving to touch the lives of those at the School of Agriculture.
Things continue to hop at the our three schools: St. Andrew's (San Ignacio), St. Barnabas' (Central Farm), and St. Hilda's (Georgeville). They are each incredibly different, and in addition to our regular cycle of semi-weekly student chapel services and teacher devotions, I have been taking up different distinct roles as a chaplain and as a manager depending on the situation. My hope is that over the next year or so, we can appoint, train and deploy around 7 Lay youth Chaplains to assist with the 700 students, so that we can better reach out to these students and families despite the large numbers.
My Diocesan responsibilities have also been increasing over the past six months. At the Diocesan Synod in October, I was not only placed on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Belize, but I was also placed as one of the co-chairs of the Youth Commission. This is a huge task, and so far I have been focused on meeting youth leaders (principals, Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders) across the Dicoese. The hub of much of the youth work in the country is in Belize City, and there is a desire to find a Youth Coordinator who can work with the gang violence which has been leading to the deaths of so many young men. Also, it has been my pleasure to interface as much as possible with other churches in the Diocese in general. Not only am I still heavily involved in the Hispanic missions of La Anunciación (Santa Elena), Santa Cruz (Selena), and Santa Trinidad (Frank's Eddy), but I have able to visit other congregations like St. Paul's (Corozal) and St. Jerome's (Hopkins). It's beautiful to work together as clergy and congregations, and I enjoy the good relationship that I have with many of these priests around Belize.
And there is still even more going on. In September, Deacon Thomas Guerra came down to Belize to serve at St. Ann's Church (Belmopan), but in January he was transferred to work with our congregations here in Western Cayo until Easter (April 5). Although his time with us is too short to offload much responsibility exclusively onto his shoulders, partnering in ministry can ease the burden of loneliness and I hope his time with our churches has been and will continue to be inspirational as he returns to the States to pursue ordination as a priest. We are very much looking forward to Holy Week and Easter, but we will miss him and others who will be departing around that time.
In the meantime, there are so many things to attend to. I am preparing candidates for baptism right now, preparing a Healing Prayer Service for March 28 in conjunction with the Belize Cancer Society, and trying to re-imagine what ministry could look like if I were not so busy and not getting so burnt out. And that leads me to the next part of this update.
2. Life
In so many, the ministry is going well for me here in Belize. But personally, I confess that I am at a crisis point, where I know that something needs to change. I am burning out emotionally, and if a change doesn't happen soon I know that the progress which our churches and schools have been making will be frustrated, and I will become even more wounded in the process. Osward Chambers writes of spiritual exhaustion,
Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing with which to feed them (John 21:17). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people's souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely— to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.
To be honest, for the last few months, I have had to learn more intensive ways to replenish my spiritual supply in Christ: they had gotten very low. In the midst of the busyness of my ministry and life (I will have more to say about that below), structured daily prayer has been my lifeline, and today I feel that I am stronger in my faith and closer to God than I have been for a long time. Nevertheless, being spiritually nourished is not the same as being emotionally filled-up, and the rigors of my pace of life and the stresses of my current circumstances have caught up with me.
To start with, I am working far too much. This is a constant struggle for many servants of Christ, as the church is in many ways a bottomless pool of need, expectations, and demands. But as I look at the number of congregations, schools, and ministries that I oversee, and the corresponding number of activites that I almost have to be involved in, it is almost impossible to work fewer than 60 hours per week, and very frequently it soars up to 70 or 80 hours. There are some who can endure (and even enjoy) this degree of busyness, even in a crosscultural context. But after almost a year of working at this pace, and still not meeting my own expectations upon myself, let alone other people's expectations of me as their pastor, I find myself emotionally exhausted, empty, and even withdrawn. Working so hard, and feeling like my efforts are still insufficient, is a tough pill to swallow.
Keeping these hours not only adds to the stress that I feel at the end (or, honestly, in the middle) of the day, but it takes away from the time I have available to process that stress. I have less time for reflection and meditation, less time for hobbies, less time for cooking, less time for personal study, less time for exercise, less time for friendships and communication. And unfortunately, I have to admit that I am living less and less like a human being, and more and more like an object or a tool.
And while all this would be enough to deplete anyone's emotional resources, there is so much more. In my first two years here in Belize I took pains to develop strong relationships with people who could support me in my life and ministry, not the least of whom were my mentors Juan and Maria Marentes. However, over this past year, not only have Juan and Maria moved back to Colombia, but most of my other close friends have also moved away in the same time frame. Though there are local people that I can and do depend upon in my ministry, it has been hard to recreate an equivalent social support system for myself after the departure of so many friends, due in large part to the fact that I have so little personal time for myself.
I share all of this here in my update, not to burden you or over-share my pain, but so that you as my supporters can be aware of what I am going through in ministry and life, and so that you can pray that the Lord would heal me from this burnout. And there are positive notes on the horizon: for those of you who have been praying for my feet, orthopedic shoes have helped a lot, and in January I purchased a Yamaha keyboard and have enjoyed expressing myself musically again. But I also realize that I cannot continue on in ministry, here or elsewhere, without making some significant changes, I need you to pray that God would guide me as I seek to find, follow, and perform his will for my life.
3. What's next
As you pray for me and this ministry, you should be aware of a few things that will play an important role in the weeks and months ahead.
First, I need to take a break or two. My mission society SAMS-USA has offered to help me go to Colombia to see my old mentors, Juan and Maria Marentes, for a few days in April. Please pray that this works out, and that I am able to relax and refocus with them away from the busyness of the parish. And please pray that a few other avenues for refreshment that we've been looking into work out as well. I need not only a vacation, but a time to connect again with God's vision for me and this ministry.
Second, my relationship with my girlfriend is becoming more and more important in my life, and I am increasingly thinking about the future that God may have for us. Just to allay too much excitement too soon, we are not yet engaged to be married. But though she is in California and I am in Belize, and though we are both going through very stressful and hectic situations in our lives, nevertheless God has been bringing us together in powerful ways, and I love her truly and deeply. So, please pray that God will continue to shepherd and protect us as a couple, and show us which steps we should be taking as we become increasingly important to one another. I believe that he has amazing things for us, and I can't wait to find out what they are!
Third, there are many other possibilities on the horizon. The Bishop is continuing to restructure the diocese, and seems to have an interest in my being involved with the formation of a deanery (regional collection of churches) in our area, as well as pushing forward with heightening my diocesan roles regarding youth and also recruitment of new missionaries. However, increasing these regional and national responsibilities would only heighten the obvious need for me to back off on necessary congregational duties and push me to look for other clergy who would be able to come serve with our churches and schools. I have spoken with the Bishop about looking for a curate, or even establishing a curacy program in our area, both to lighten the load here in Cayo, and also to attract more missionaries to come to Belize longterm. It is an exciting possibility. Then again, God may have something else in mind.
So please, pray for me, for our churches and schools, for our diocese and country, and most importantly that his will and not ours would be done. Thank you all for your support and your help for me in this ministry: I could never have gotten even close to where I am at here without your constant partnership. May God richly bless you!
