What I Can Do

I lay awake at midnight on my box-spring-of-a-bed in a Ghana hotel room, wondering whether the experience I had orchestrated was accomplishing its purpose. Because no one can be an expert on all cultures, all cities, all urban strategies for mobilizing God's people for transformational influence, I was overwhelmed with the complexity of the task. The task: leading three non-english-speaking students from China, a student from post civil-war Sierra Leone, a French speaking African from Niger, an Americanized Nigerian, a Tanzanian, a tri-lingual Canadian and five students from the U.S. in a dialogue where they would learn from site visits, from me and each other how to focus their ministries on transforming their cities. They were all so different, all coming from various degrees of ministry experience and theological training. With our Ghanaian hosts I had crafted a daily diet of teaching, dialogue and site visits to NGOs and churches making a difference in the city of Accra. I knew that I had done my best, but the goal seemed elusive at midnight, and sleep deprivation proved detrimental to faith at that moment. There in the quiet of my hotel room I kind of lost it. I wish I had remembered then what I recall now -- that is, the time I tried to have a serious manuscript Bible study on Habakkuk involving a gang member, a college freshman girl, a man convicted of murder but recently released from prison on a technicality, and a gray-haired member of a presbyterian church mission committee. "What the heck am I doing?" I asked myself at the front end. "There's no way this is going to work." But it did. Everyone learned something. In the end, it was also true for the group in Ghana, though it had its own challenges. Students have begun to make plans in their own cities. It's fun to see these emerge, even in their initial stages. It's fun to consider that these emerge from a dialogue I set up, rather than primarily from expertise I pass along. I know that my experience in Urban Ministry and Christian Community Development plays a role. But there's something else that is going on -- something that happens in the dynamic of a dramatic urban environment, the interaction of committed practitioners, and the prayers of saints from around the world that are laying the spiritual foundation for this kind of learning. I just need that perspective when I am staring at the ceiling at midnight. So I do what I can do, and pray that God accepts that offering and makes it more than it is.