Dedication:

This next entry is dedicated to my friend who is a missionary to Haiti - Grace and her husband Troy. This was an entry of a letter she wrote to me recently. Her eloquent writing could not express the true heart of a missionary any better:


"I spent yesterday floating on a gorgeous tropical beach on the Caribbean Ocean. The water was warm, the sky was a crazy shade of blue, the clouds were white and puffy. When I got hungry a table was brought out for me to sit at right on the beach and for $50.00 Haitian dollars which is only around $7.00 U.S. a fabulous meal of Lobster and fried bananas was served. Not one large dry lobster, but three or four smaller, juicy, succulent lobsters a piece. It was paradise.

That is what you remind yourself you were just doing when you are bathing in a bucket of less than perfect water or going to the bathroom on top of someone else’s stuff. Then you tell yourself that it is all meaningless, good and bad, compared to being there just after the bus full of people crashes and you are able to speed people to the hospital because you were at the right place at the right time and you have enough money to pay for the doctoring!

The hand reached out in prayer, the heart reaching out to God. The good, the bad and the ugly can’t compare in severity or worth, because eternity is what really matters and all this other stuff is just experience on the way to really living. God always makes up for the dead rat parts the cat brings in and leaves for you to find on the kitchen floor with your morning coffee (if there is electricity for the coffee to be made) with a fabulous day at the beach or the waterfall.
He knows how to take care of you. Trust him, and don’t allow yourself to major on the minors because there is so much to miss if you do that. That is what I have learned since I’ve been here. I hope you find it useful. It is universal information, and seems to be easily translated right out of this world and back into that one.

This all boils down to everyday living. This Zoe life isn’t something we put on because it’s time to minister as if its something we don at certain times. Its all day every day in the least of these my moments of living. All the principles apply, all translate. The fruit of the spirit are for every moment grand and mundane alike. We should be exercising them at all times with all people no exceptions for familiarity or anything else. Put on your armor and battle like you must, but realize that it is for every day living as much as it is for ministry and nothing will be able to stop you. "