Tag Archives: Ebenezer

My June 6 Ebenezer

I will always remember where I was that warm Wednesday afternoon, standing in our tiny second-floor apartment in the living room of the married student housing for the University of Oregon. I had just walked in from teaching my sweet Grade 3 & 4 class at Lifegate Christian School. I was rocking the baggy denim teacher dress of the 90’s. Kent told me right away to check the answering machine (remember those?)

Returning from Kenya in 2000. We were babies!

See, we had been applying for membership in Wycliffe Bible Translators. We had met in Wycliffe training school, served overseas together for a year teaching Wycliffe kids/doing linguistics and felt very clearly called to pursue work somewhere in the world getting Bibles in the hands of those without. Kent had applied years before on his own in the middle of a dark season and been rejected. We were told we should finish his MA in Linguistics and reapply. He was entering his final year, so in January we had a friend ask a friend at Wycliffe Headquarters if we should reapply now. The news we received was crushing. They did not want us to reapply at all.

We got that call one dark, cold January night and immediately got on our faces. How had we followed Jesus down this path for so many years and now it was blocked? All doors closed. Not just closed, but bolted shut. Had we heard wrong? Did He really want us to do something different? We surrendered it to his hands, fell asleep and waited. A few days later, a call was scheduled with the Director of Recruitment. He had some questions. Because of my work schedule and the time difference, we were meeting over the phone at 6:00am. I am not sure exactly what happened in that 45-minute phone call, but it began with a list of all the reasons they never wanted to hear from us again, and ended with him begging us to reapply and that he would like to handle our application personally! (He even drove several hours out of his way the next month to meet with us personally on a business trip – and bought us fried chicken! Grad students cannot be picky.)

We were elated to see God miraculously open this door that seemed firmly closed. We began all the paperwork. There were forms to fill out, essays to write, Bible knowledge tests, interviews and finally medical exams. We were working around our full-time student and teacher roles, so it took a few months to get it all done. The Director had told us that they met to review applications once per month and the last meeting before summer holiday would be June 6. All of our papers were in except for my medical form from my doctor, which had been mailed from Oregon to Florida several weeks earlier.

We began to wonder if it were lost in the mail, or lost in their office, or just where it went! This too, felt like another obstacle that we did not understand, and that we were powerless to move. The Director was praying that it would arrive. We were praying that it would arrive. And day after day it was not there. The Director called us the day before the vote to let us know that it had not arrived, so our application was incomplete and we would need to wait another several weeks for the next meeting to vote. It was such a disappointment after we can come so far in so many months. We tried to trust in God’s timing.

As I hit “Play” on the message machine that June afternoon, the Director had called again. He described how he took the elevator down to the mail room on his way to the 9:00am meeting just in case my medical form had arrived extra early – and there it was! Who gets mail before 9:00am on a Wednesday morning? Right on the top of all the mail for the day was the very missing letter we had been praying for for weeks! And it arrived the hour before the meeting to vote. He was able to add it to our application, deemed it complete and present it to the board. They all unanimously voted us in as members of Wycliffe Bible Translators! What a message!

Revelation 3:7-8 say, “What he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open. I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can close.”

We had seen God open doors that were firmly bolted and locked, and these closed doors had taught us to keep our eyes on Him, not on our circumstances. There would be several times over the next few years that I looked back on this process in 2001, and because of how it all happened, I KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that we were on the path that Jesus chose for us to walk. It was a confirmation that kept us going through 9/11 (and flying to Wycliffe’s Training Camp right afterward), assignment to Eastern Congo when their president had just been assassinated, raising support, and so much more that followed that year.

June 6 is more to me than an ‘Ebenezer’ (rock of remembrance) about membership in Wycliffe Bible Translators – 20 years, it is an Ebenezer to God’s ways being higher than mine.

Ebenezer 2015

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”

1 Samuel 7:12 (ESV)

For the last several years, it has seemed good to draw up a list of specific ways that God has helped us, as we reflect back on the ups and downs of a year drawing to a close. Some years we have needed that because we needed to see past all the more obvious and difficult things, and remind ourselves of the providence of God working all to Good, as we looked past the pain of each moment to the longer perspective. And many of those points have been more private than publishable, either because we’re not sure we wanted to lay those pains open to the whole of cyberspace, or else because the point of the joy probably just wouldn’t make sense if you weren’t there for the pain as well.

But this year, there have been many joys, and many of those joys are shareable, so it seemed right to do so, and give God glory for what has has done for us this last year (the following list us, as the secondary agents; God is the primary agent working the good out in us):

At the UT Arlington:

  1. I took Statistics, and learned R (a statistics computer program).
  2. I finished formal syntax, formal phonology, and formal semantics requirements, completing my coursework requirements for the doctoral degree.
  3. I Presented the Mbo language (of D.R.Congo) at three different conferences in Feb-Mar: the UTA Student Conference in Linguistics and TESOL (UTASCILT), and the UTA Annual Celebration of Excellence in Students (ACES), and the Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL)
  4. I won an award for my presentation at ACES, talking about the integration of linguistic work and community development.
  5. I had an awesome time at ACAL, reconnecting with some scholars, and meeting new ones, including people whose work I am building on.
  6. My academic advisor took a job elsewhere, and I made a smooth transition to another advisor, with whom I’m getting along very well.
  7. I presented the Ndaka language (of D.R.Congo) at UTA Linguistics department Graduate Student Showcase and the Metroplex Linguistics Conference.
  8. I got broad departmental affirmation for my Metroplex talk.
  9. I submitted an abstract (on Ndaka) for ACAL 47 in March 2016, which was accepted.
  10. I fully drafted my dissertation proposal, and sent it to my committee for review.

In Personal health:

  1. I spent far too much money on doctors and tests to find out that I needed to loose weight (which I already knew).
  2. I lost 60 pounds, and I’ve kept it off.
  3. I withdrew from teaching at church to focus more on our marriage.
  4. I got back into teaching at church.
  5. I got to enjoy some Christmas preparation.
  6. I got to see Kim enjoy me enjoying some Christmas preparation.
  7. I finished the fall term well, early, and in peace with myself, God and Kim.

In the Family:

  1. We prepared and executed a trip to Oregon
  2. We set up a website, and integrated it with Mailchimp, our blog, and our give page at Wycliffe.
  3. We started leading a homegroup.
  4. We celebrated James’ 13th birthday.
  5. We got to see each of our children take major strides in trusting Christ.
  6. We got to see each of our children excel in particular ways at school.
  7. We got solar panels installed on our house.
  8. We made lots of progress in our marriage, both in and out of therapy.
  9. We successfully got each of our cars out of the shop (multiple times each).

Other ministry opportunities:

  1. I got to lead a small group of constantly changing group of fifth graders every other week in Sunday school, where I get to teach a bit and pray for each of them.
  2. I got to lead a boy to Christ in the 5th/6th grade class.
  3. I have continued to pursue relationships at church and homegroup that do not respond as positively as I would like.
  4. I finished CORPS (a training course at our local church) answering questions well on the final exam (incl some potentially divisive ones). I received a particular commendation on my respectful demeanour from our senior pastor, who lead the course (those who have interacted with me over the years may sense how much of a blessing this was to hear!).
  5. Kim has helped make 10+ quilts, and through this ministry continues to raise up prayer for missionaries.
  6. Kim started as a BSF group leader, leading 13 women (including non- and new believers) through a study of Revelation.

So odds are some of the above doesn’t make sense.  That’s OK; maybe it’s more personal than I thought it was.  Anyway, God has carried us through a lot this year, both in terms of things to bear, and things to enjoy. So it just seemed right to ring in the new year giving him the credit. To God be the glory, from whom all blessings flow!

Grace,

Kent