Today began at 6:00 a.m. with the last interview with the last missionary family. We had run out of time during the week because the interviews kept getting longer and longer and better and better. So in order to interview the last family, we all agreed to meet at 6:00 before breakfast at 9:00 and our final farewell service at 10:00. We completed the interview just in time for breakfast. It has been a glorious week talking with all the missionaries, hearing their stories, and vision casting with the Mission Committee. The incoming Missions Director must have taken a hundred pages of notes during the week as he listened to the missionaries pouring out their souls.
I had the privilege of preaching the last service of the retreat. I began by asking them to remember how they felt on Monday when they arrived. I then gave them a stress test to help explain why they felt like that. As they scored their tests, in which the High Stress score is 300, no one scored under 300. Over half were 300-399, almost another half were 400-499, and four were over 500. It was an eye-opening experience for them and a testimony to the grace of God in keeping them until they could come to the retreat and get some help. God had really done miracles during the week as the missionaries faced their problems and began to deal with them.
I concluded the session with the little poem by Bruce Larson – That's My Soul
After lunch, we all headed back to the Bible School in the bus and other vehicles to go our separate ways.
I am going to turn in early because I must get up at 4:00 a.m. to head for the Airport. Today Venezuela – Tomorrow – My Wife -
Good night.
That's my Soul
That's my soul lying there,
I put it there so you could touch it.
Oh, you think a soul is some ghostly sheet,
Like things that fly around in the air,
That you can see through like smoke.
That's my soul lying there,
I put it there so you could touch it.
That time when I opened myself up to you,
And told you some things about me,
That I had not told anybody else,
That was me, putting my soul out
In the space there between you and me,
So you could touch it.
Or that time I got upset in the group,
When we were talking,
And I said my parents did not love each other,
When I was a child,
And I knew I as a child.
I used to cry about it a lot.
Now I am 34 years old and I do not cry anymore,
But once in a while my eyes still water.
That was me, putting my soul out there
In the space between you and me.
God? Oh, I do not know God.
I mean I do not know the God who sits on a cloud,
And has a white beard and white hair.
Or knows everything, sees everything,
And controls everything,
But I know you.
Is that God in your face?
Is that love?
Well, that's my soul lying there.
I put it there so you could touch it.
And if you want you can ignore it and it will go away.
Or if you want, you can stomp on it
And it will bruise and turn rancid like an old banana.
Or if you want you can put your soul there next to it and touch it.
And if you do, there may be love; there may even be God.
Investing in Futures, Inc.
"Coaching and Equipping the Next Generation"
PO Box 6451
Lakeland, Florida 33807
www.investinginfutures.org
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