A Note from Jessie – Covenant Newsletter, October 2018

Have you ever had a pen pal?

I’ll never forget learning about this thrilling prospect of “pen pal” when I was in the 6th grade. My French teacher, Mrs. Wiltshire, announced one afternoon that she had signed up every member of our class for an international pen pal program. The next morning, she passed around a large manilla envelope so that my classmates and I could pluck out random cards containing names and addresses of Western European students who had also signed up for the program. And that was that. Voila! Suddenly I had a new letter-writing friend named Cara who lived in Germany and kept pet gerbils and lived with her grandmother and seemed to have a certain affinity for coins. I remember the twin feelings of anticipation and exhilaration associated with this year of my life: the anticipation as I attached a fancy overseas stamp and set my letter free to travel (unfathomably) over the Atlantic Ocean to a part of the world I had not yet been, and the exhilaration of receiving back an interestingly colored envelope with cursive lettering (that in and of itself looked other-worldly) and contained a small peek into a stranger’s life abroad. Cara and I kept in touch for that year I was in Mrs. Wiltshire’s French class, sharing all sorts of tidbits about our days, our schools, and often including photographs that we paid to develop and print for each other. We were curious about each other and perhaps more than a little intrigued to think of our own lives as exotic when viewed through the lens of another’s perspective. I now wonder who sent the last letter to whom, as our devotion to letter-writing faded away with the tide of a new summer.

Pen pals have been on my mind lately because I reckon that is what Doug Tilton, a Presbyterian missionary who serves churches across southern Africa, has been to me for the past two years. When I joined the Presbyterian Women’s Circle 4 in the fall of 2016, a similar moment occurred that swept me right back to Mrs. Wiltshire’s class. After I agreed to be our Circle’s “Foreign Missionary Liason” (which I learned simply meant sending an encouraging email once a month to check in and ask for prayer requests), our wonderful Circle leaders handed me a folder full of several missionaries’ info-cards. Doug Tilton’s caught my eye with this line: “Wherever I go, I am often surprised and profoundly moved by the ways in which God works through the mutual recognition, affirmation, and encouragement shared among brothers and sisters in faith from different parts of the world.” What a beautiful sentiment. When we make connections with people who live on the other side of the planet from us, we celebrate the ways we are gloriously different yet miraculously connected as a global family. Since that day in 2016 when God nudged me toward Doug, we have kept in frequent contact with each other, sharing humorous anecdotes from our days as well as heavy-hearted requests for prayer.

The ease of internet communication has quelled some of that wondrous anticipation and exhilaration from the letter-writing days of yore, but I am as amazed as ever at the sheer magnitude of this awe-inspiring world we share. God is so much bigger and grander and more mysterious than I can conceive, and somehow communicating with Doug has sublimely reminded me of this. Inevitably, we all can become too bothered by the small details of our daily grind. Isn’t it refreshing, then, to untangle ourselves from narrow-minded pettiness with the reminder that our world is VAST and VARIED beyond our wildest dreams? And moreover, what a much needed reminder that God’s love is infinitely BIGGER than the problems lingering on our to do lists.

This week, my South African missionary pen pal came to Nashville for a visit. Doug is in the States visiting family and serving several churches sprinkled throughout the country, and he asked if we might like to have him “swing through Nashville for a visit.” It has been surreal to meet him in person, see him wearing the Nashville shirt that our Circle included in his care package last year, and hear first hand about his travels. What a gift. If you were fortunate enough to meet Doug on his visit and ask him about his life’s passion, he may have told you that it is “exploring ways of working together and building the capacity of the global church to bear witness to the good news of Christ’s redeeming love for ALL humanity.”

Doug has reminded us to take a step back to gain a greater view, to adjust our eyes to the bigger picture, and relearn that each of our missions in this grand world is to love God and love each other well. Amen.

 

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