Perry's August 29 message

Being in partnership can help us lose control.

I’m a big planner. So it’s gratifying to me when things here at church seem to go more or less according to plan, our plan. When we’re working in partnership - and especially on one of these trips – we’re working with several groups within our local church, with mission workers abroad, and – most importantly - with partners like the folks with the Q’eqchi’ Estoreño, Izabal Presbytery. On a trip we’re also working in an unfamiliar setting, in an unfamiliar culture, and with an unfamiliar language. In setting like that, it becomes even more clear that it’s God, not any of us, who is in control.

I’m going to share a couple of examples of this from the trip. We’d been engaged in a series of discussions about partnership in general and about our partnership in particular. One afternoon we took a break and went to a Mayan artifacts museum. After a while our Guatemalan friends slipped out. We had heard before that they would be going to the home of a couple of PC(USA mission workers, where they would brainstorm about the future of our partnership. Pastor Jane’s mantra before and during the trip had been: we don’t know what’s going to happen. And we truly didn’t know what was going to happen. Would we get a divorce? Would we stay together? Or would our partnership go in an entirely different direction? I honestly don’t think that the Guatemalans themselves knew what was going to happen. As is often the case, however, something worked out. The Guatemalans came back, and they and we recommitted ourselves to the partnership, filling in some details, pending governing body feedback. None of us had known what was going to happen. God – not any of us – was in control.

A day later the Guatemalans and we went our separate ways, as we left Coban in our van. A couple of hours down the road I began not to feel well. After a while I told the driver that I needed us to stop. I checked in with Ellen, the retired mission worker who helped lead our group, who said: Perry, this isn’t a very safe place to stop. I thought about it for a split second, and then I headed off into the sunset. As I walked away, Jane’s words rang in my ears: we don’t know what’s going to happen. We had pulled over on the side of a busy highway, but otherwise in the middle of nowhere, in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Half an hour later, I walked back to the van. I won’t say we weren’t any worse for the wear. But we survived and eventually made it to Antigua. I didn’t plan to get sick, and I certainly didn’t plan for us to stop along the side of the road. But God had a plan. We made it to our destination and back to Louisville. God was in control.

Ever since our departure from Antigua, I’ve been reminded about this. Our experiences in Guatemala helped prepare me for losing control. They also helped me start to accept and understand it. I trust that being in partnership is helping many of us understand. May it be so.

- Perry