The Right Time for Mission

Bom Dia! Some of you haven’t met us yet, but hopefully we can get to know each other over the next couple months. We are Kevin and Kara and we arrived here at the beginning of October. Kevin is a financial planner and Kara is a first grade teacher and we’ve come here from Las Vegas. Once we learn a little more Portuguese, we are moving to the favela to take up residence in Mary Magdalene House. I would like to sincerely thank all you who sacrificed time and treasure to enable the work on the house to come along to near completion, and assure you that we will do our best to be beacons of hope for the community at Alto.

We've finally made it!

Kara and I have been praying about being missionaries since 2010. Kara and I got married in 2012 and tried to go to Malawi as missionaries, but things did not work out. However, our desire to be missionaries only grew stronger. We shared this with our friends and family and many asked, why aren't we just doing it? The answer to that is complicated. Mission isn't always about you. I wanted to be a missionary; I wanted to change the world; I wanted to do awesome things. Did you notice how may "I"s there were in that stream of motivations? Although I had a deeply held conviction that I was supposed to be in the mission field, things did not work out... probably because I was still being formed. I truly believe that this is a matter of God's timing. But we have a God who is persistent... in our prayers we were in a state of agony many times, stuck between the desire to go and things not working out. But we didn’t give up hope, we just begged God all the more.

Convent courtyard. Just in time for morning prayer.

 

The past two and a half years have been a cleansing experience. Our motivations became purified every time our plans didn’t come to fruition. The humility of telling friends and family that we still were not going was an important part of our growth. But we are here now; and we are here because God has been persistent in letting us know that He wants us here and we are responding to something outside ourselves.

 

Sunrise over Salvador: A veiw from our temproary bedroom in the convent.

I see similarities in other areas of my life. I tend to be a reactionary person - jumping on things because they are good opportunities... I am very guilty of that. But what is important in the long run is doing things out of conviction and not necessarily out of opportunity. Sometimes the right thing to do is not the most convenient or opportune thing. Also, God has His own time-frame that we don’t always understand. As Christians, we need to find that balance between action and enthusiasm and thoughtful prayer and consideration. But God is persistent in loving us and showing us where we need to go and when we need to do it.

A view from Mary Magdaline House in the favela.

This week, pray about something in your life that God has been persistently pursuing you about. Take it to prayer, give the timing over to Him, and see what wonderful things He has in store for you when you follow His timing.

 

“Despite the difficulties, be courageous and joyful bearers of the message of salvation” – Pope Francis