Three weeks to go

Three weeks to go and we will no longer be at Talua - that is creating many mixed feelings. Last night the children at Talua put on a farewell for Connie, William and Simon. It wasn’t last night, I should say it was yesterday, as most events here involve a day of preparation, where everyone comes together to prepare. It would be like having guests around for a BBQ, but they also all come around during the day to cook and prepare the food together, sitting under a tree organizing who will say what and being community together. I will miss that. I will miss many things. I will miss some things I don’t even know about. And yet I desire to get back to NZ. I am looking forwards to be “normal” again, to eat normal food, to not have students or staff knock on the door at 5:30AM asking for this or that in their roundabout way, to have good health care available, to not be ‘stared at’ as if we are strange, to be able go to a church service in English and enjoy theology that is developed and the list goes on, some things I can name, other things that are too hard to express. On the other hand we have feelings of hesitation about leaving due to the friendships made, the number of needs, the simple way of life and the knowledge that NZ life is hectic, materialistic and complicated. No doubt we will have some kind of reverse culture shock, probably not initially but later as we each slowly process things we have seen and experienced and decide to buck the NZ system, not wanting to lose certain aspects of life we gained or adsorbed in Vanuatu. What will make this hard is we will have absorbed some things that we don’t realise or are too difficult to articulate. Therefore no doubt we will have various times of frustration and not know why.

I preach for a call soon after getting back to NZ. That will be interesting, I wonder if I drop some Bislama in by mistake - not that my Bislama is very fluent.

I don’t want to be a successful minister - in the way the world see’s success, with numbers, flash clothes and slick church services. On the other hand I do want to be successful in the sense that people grow in their relationships with each other and God, and yes, there should be new converts but not cos of me but because peoples relationships with God and each other are richer. On the issue of success, from the world’s perspective Jesus Christ failed. He died when if he had kept alive he could have healed more, preached more, travelled more……..but he died. I think that somehow a minister has to die, die to the need for success, for slickness and sophistication where amazing programs are run and people come to church for entertainment, escapism and not true spiritual growth. One beauty of Jesus dying is he rose again three days later - no one else has ever done that! It confirms that profound words he spoke during his few short years of ministry were true and not just a kind of philosophy and clever sayings. It proved that to be successful one must die. Jesus said “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” I wonder if I will be able to die to self…………………

God Bless
Jon