A change of mind

I often feel a great tension between doing and thinking, and it's a feeling that's become more pronounced ever since we starting operating the library.

It is one of the ironies of mission work that while the pace of life is slower in a third world society, there seems to be more things to do, and these things take a lot longer to accomplish.

There is the endless cycle of domestic commitments – housework, getting groceries, preparing meals, washing and rewashing laundry that’s been left out in the rain, taking out the trash, sweeping up leaves in the garden…

Then, there are a multitude of ministry tasks to execute. The two of us are many departments rolled into one.

There is the merchandising department - buying paper, toners, stationery, sending worksheets for photocopying, arranging for resources to be carried in from Singapore.

Human resource (very tricky) - finding appropriate help, rejecting inappropriate requests, supervising workers, writing contracts, paying helpers, investigating labour laws.

Teaching - writing endless lesson plans, designing and producing teaching materials, constant reading for ideas, administration (keeping attendance and payment records)

Library operations – ranging from facilities management, to public relations, to designing library outreach programmes.

Community liaison - visiting families, buying and giving gifts, sitting down for yet another cup of extremely sweet and milky coffee…

Relationships with the home side – writing and sending out newsletters, reports, hosting visitors and trippers.

Then, there are routine immigration matters – the visa runs out of the country once every 3 months, the visa extensions.

Finance and accounting – balancing money from this account into that account and so on and so forth. This I help with by not getting involved in!

All of which leaves me with little time or energy or space or desire to…think, or write, both of which happen to be at the core of who I am.

If I do think, my thoughts jump from one track to another like a runaway train that is precariously close to being derailed as I think about the multitude of needs in each of those areas.

Being pressed for time and drained of energy on certain days means elaborate mental processing is a luxury (which may not necessarily be a bad thing now that I think about it, although when I'm in the thick of 1001 things, I tend to be less positive). It will mean that I have to "get there" in a shorter time and quit going down dark intellectual alleys that lead nowhere.

Simply put, there is nothing like scarcity to make you appreciate something more. In my case, that scarce commodity is personal time and space.

Oswald Chambers sums up the most important thing we should discipline our mind to do in this excerpt below.

“If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved.

Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him…Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.” (Oswald Chambers, February 11, My Utmost for His Highest)

 

I am now at Changi Airport, about to catch my flight to Taipei. A part of me had wished to remain in Singapore to do more - be more available for different ones, get more writing done, and so on and so forth. But I'm also seeing that I need to remove myself from all this "work" and catch up with my thoughts, which will hopefully place me squarely before God, whose light I need to illuminate the long and winding road ahead.