There are a number of words that help me better understand the Kingdom of God and my role in helping build it. One that I have been thinking of a lot lately is ‘home’. Earlier this week I got word my 89 year old dad has colon cancer. As I write this, he is in surgery to remove a mass and if the doctors are right, he still has years left to live. But in the space of the unknown this week I called and talked with my dad. Instead of being depressed, he spoke with a joy and anticipation of the home waiting for him.
Last week, I made an airport run to welcome back a group of relocated refugees who were visiting family in SE Asia. It was the first time in 11 years they had gone back to visit family and friends, the camp they lived in, and the villages they fled from before then. When I greeted them at the Denver airport, I almost said "welcome home" but then I realized that might not be the right phrase when you have just returned from a month in the place that is your home culture.
As I reflect on the almost 10 years of ministry for me under Global Service, I am reminded of this theme of helping people find home. My wife and I, along with many others, have seen refugees move into and thrive in our community. I have sent teams to work with children who were either abandoned or orphaned in Mexico, South Africa, and Uganda. I have had the privilege to come alongside agencies and ministries that provide temporary shelter and transitional housing for the homeless. I have helped single moms and widows be able to move into new spaces by finding people or businesses to donate items. (I am always amazed at how many people thank you that you gave them an opportunity to give to someone in need.) I organized teams of volunteers to help with recovery efforts back in 2013 when we had a flood in Boulder county. And under Reintegra, we not only provide grants to survivors of human trafficking for tuition but for living expenses so they can have their own apartments.
Homes. A place of shelter and refuge for people who are often desperate in their crisis of need. Physical homes.
But even if all of us as Global Servants haven’t provided physical spaces, all of us I am sure have come alongside people to help them find their emotional and/or spiritual homes. Rest for weary souls. A true family. A shelter from the storm. A place of refuge. A home not made by human hands. That’s what we are each doing in so many different ways. All of it - the physical home, the spiritual and the emotional - is the gospel that has been entrusted to us.
I have led a bible study for these adults, these relocated refugees, for about 5 years. We gather in their home, share food they have prepared, listen to a chapter out of the bible in their language and discuss it. It has opened up a world of insight for me to see this seamless story from their point of view. Sometime last year, we were studying John 14 where Jesus says that he is going to prepare a place for us in the Father’s home. As we often do, we discussed how the passage related to their own experience of having to flee their homeland, live for years in temporary camps along the Thai border, and then finally - after a long vetting process - were welcomed into our community in Colorado. I said something like, “this is now your home”. My dear friend - Wah Nay - gently corrected me. “Andy,” she said, “I am grateful that we are here, that my family has a place to live, that I am now a US citizen and all the help you, Robin, and Cornerstone church has given us, but this is not my home. We live here. We are grateful we are here. But this is not our home.”
After 11 years, Wah Nay still feels like a stranger in a strange land. But isn’t that how we are all to live and move? We are citizens of heaven. We are pilgrims on a journey. We are strangers in a strange land. We are asylum seekers longing for that permanent place of shelter and refuge that awaits us. We lead people to a home but the real home is not here.
We are not home. This is not our home.
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
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