Sigueme…Follow me… (Matthew 10:37-42)

Matthew 10:37-42… These verses have been running through my brain for weeks now… and last night as Padre Horacio, Horacio and I met with a delegation from Iowa these were the verses that the delegation had chosen as the gospel lesson for their last night in Guatemala. It was at this worship service, with this text that I tried my hand for the first time at translating a sermon into English while it was being preached in Spanish so that the delegation members could understand.

How ironic, that the very reality that I am struggling with is the sermon that my mouth is asked to translate… I was put to use, but to death, by the very gospel that I am fighting. The words went through me… in a number of ways as I nervously translated for the first time… as if the seraph’s coal that burned Isaiah’s lips was burning mine and commissioning me for my call.

You see… ever since the Renter’s emailed back in August letting their address book know that they would not be returning to Guatemala, I have been struggling. When I read that email something inside clicked and knew, for just a moment, that God had had a hand in my coming to Guatemala. I just did not know, and still don’t know, how long I will be here and what my time will bloom into.

But in my time here so far, I joyfully give of myself to the work that has been put before me. I am here on a Graduate Preaching Fellowship, and I am learning about preaching… the only way you can… to dive in and love people and to confess Christ to and with them right in the midst of their lives and your own.

I have been counseled by many people I love, trust and respect… all seeing my situation from their own. My parents want their daughter close so that we can enjoy many years and many memories together. My sister and her fiancé threaten to take away my passport when I come home for their wedding in April; they want me close so that I can be the Godmother of their children one day. My pastor and many others see my gifts for ministry, my love of preaching and teaching the gospel, and my charisma… and they see the need that we have in the United States, in the ELCA for a person with such gifts… and they council that I return to the States and serve there.

Others see the joy I have as I talk about the work that I have been given here in Guatemala… and they understand why it is so life giving for me to be able to confess Christ so immediately and, as one professor put it, to walk in the pages of scripture… while they also see the need for confessors in the States, they also trust that perhaps the fields are ripe for hearing the gospel here in Guatemala and if that is the case then God might want that I stay here a bit longer.

Sigueme…Follow me… yes, but =D
One professor put it well… I am struggling with the freedom that I have in Christ to love and be neighbor and the command to honor father and mother.

I will always be a daughter, a sister, a friend… but I am realizing more and more what the freedom that we have as children of God entails.

Please keep me in your prayers… that if I do have a call here in Guatemala that it can be answered and that I can continue to honor my beloved mother and father and other relationships that would be affected by such a call.

God bless and keep each of you in his mercy, love and peace that surpasses all understanding. Amen