Perspectives Class dinner

Joannella and the beauty of spring's flowers

Me in Boston April 2, 2006

First Baptist Church of Cambridge - JHOP Boston

Brooke's Uganda Ministry Update #7

Brooke’s Uganda Ministry Update #7 – Sunday, April 23, 2006

Dear Friends,

“I have learned the secret of contentment in all circumstances – I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
- Paul (from Philippians 4:11-13)

I can hardly believe that the fast has been over for me for two weeks already. It was such a shaping time in so many ways – formative in my relationship with our Lord and a time of such sweet simplicity… and here I am in the mix of busyness again… I guess it really is where I live and disciplines of spiritual nature such as fasting, simplicity and solitude come at high costs in the midst of a performance-based success-driven way of life and culture that drives the West, America, and Washington, DC in particular. The forty days for me were sweet times when I was intentional in my withdraw from the distractions – good and bad and desire to believe that something could be accomplished within me as well as spiritually in our nation if I followed this intimate voice asking me to be “set apart.” I know there was much to learn and there still is much to reflect on for what was and will be accomplished, but first let me pause to give thanks. Thanks first and foremost to the Lord who sustained me and reminded me daily that all things can be accomplished in and through Him and that trusting His is what faith means for everything as simple and complete as daily bread… Thank you also to the friends and family that were praying with and for me in this and for the ones at The Cause that sustained the House of Prayer in Boston these forty days, their intercessions and my honor to join them and thousands around this nation in this sacrifice is what made it so worthwhile.

The absolute highlight for me was being able to travel to Boston the first weekend of April, April 1st-3rd. Much of the fast for me was an isolating time – working from home is like that anyways for me a lot and choosing not to eat really limits the social interactions you can have (including even work related lunchtime meetings). So, I was blessed the last week of March to travel to California and join my co-workers in some planning meetings and share life and work and then to Boston the next weekend to join my co-laborers in Christ who had forsaken all other and moved to Boston believing being a part of this 40 day launch of this house of prayer was worth the high cost. The time in Boston was amazingly deep and intimate in the prayer times and the way we were able to join together to siege and believe God wants the lives of the students at Harvard and all the other 300,000 students that study in Boston to come to know Him. I was able during my time in Boston not only to pray with The Cause, but also to pray with some dear friends whose ministry I have been following. Brian Ellis is a campus pastor with Campus Crusade (CCFC) at Harvard and Babson and Emily and Eric Litman serve with CCFC at Brandeis University. It was great to spend time with these friends as I was there to pray for the city and students and hear first hand what was happening on these campuses and how to pray more specifically and effectively. The weekend was also a great time to catch up with my friend Melissa Purswell and her parents in New Hampshire, Melissa had recently moved home to be with them and it was wonderful to get to pray with her also. The weather that weekend was absolutely spectacular, so it made all the prayer walking I did around Boston even more magnificent but honestly I just felt the Lord’s pleasure. I realized more and more, this is the type of travel I want to do: led by the Spirit and for a specific eternal purpose. How much money I must have wasted in the past 26 years traveling for my own pleasure or glory and how much does the Lord want to give me the good things of the land when I freely surrender to His yielding and purpose…?

“Ours is a cluttered, complicated world. God did not create it that way. Depraved, restless humanity has made it that way!”
- Charles Swindoll, Intimacy with the Almighty

In coming to the center of yourself you realize how much power and strength exists from the Lord within you and how little you live out of this place. In the weakness of the flesh I discovered, or was reminded of a truth I had once learned, that living out of the center is where I am the strongest. To live an intentional instead of accidental existence, to live out of faith and not fear, to live by love and trust rather than striving to accomplish. Pray that I would continue to be reminded of these even as I begin eating, spending time in more social settings and have my horizons seemingly opened up again…

“Don’t forget this simple truth: everything God allows in your life today is preparation for something He wants to do in your life tomorrow!”
- Mark Batterson, I.D.: The True You

One of the most beautiful and profound benefits to completing this Facedown 40 time is also the greater capacity and desire I have for prayer, both corporate and individual. The Lord has been wooing me in this discipline for many years but I am more satisfied by it and hungrier for it now. I know I have a long way to go to desire as John the Baptist did to truly longing for “him to become greater and I become less (John 3:30).” But I believe I am on the road to that place…

“Our century thirsts for the authenticity of simplicity, the spirit of prayer, and the life of obedience.”
- Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

It is interesting to seek to live this call of simplicity in a complicated world. But I am learning that there is simplicity on the far side of complexity that makes sense. Even if I am writing this update first from Baltimore/Washington International Airport, now on a layover in Denver and finally hope to send it out to the internet from my hotel near Los Angeles Airport this evening, there is still a peaceful center where all the different landscapes, people, noises and blur does not get disturbed. In my world of I-Pods, laptops, Treos and digital cameras there can be a more connected and relational aspect although there also seems to be more room to distance from others. It is a choice of the heart – where you rest, if you are easily distracted and how you decide what is important.

So you may be wondering what I am doing sending this update out from LA? Good question! I am on my way to serve our ministry at the Azusa Street Centennial. This once in a lifetime event celebrates the Pentecostal/Holy Spirit outpouring that happened in 1906 on a small side street in Los Angeles in a small house and since that time over 600 million believers trace their Pentecostal experience to that small street. This event will be bringing in thousands of believers from all continents and many nations and Pastor Jackson Senyonga that I work with is the Africa Coordinator for the Centennial Cabinet. This means that since I am the Project Manager, since last June I have been helping to coordinate thousands of Africans to register from over a dozen nations. This work has been interesting and challenging – including phone calls from Africa in the middle of the night (accidents of not realizing the time difference)! It has involved communication barriers and hardships (the vast majority of registrants were not able to obtain US Visas), and some disappointments (many people’s accommodation that we had hoped to be complimentary has fallen through seemingly last minute). Yet, I see so many of these difficulties as manifestations of spiritual warfare to discourage some to not participate and to prevent what the Lord is going to accomplish during this time. Even this past week as I watched a 4 minute promotional DVD about the meetings that were going to take place, I felt a profound anointing on what the Lord is going to do with this time. Please pray for perseverance, stamina, patience and for the wisdom and discernment to complete the role I have in a manner worthy of what the Lord is asking. Pray that those still needing housing would be provided for and that even at this late date, if there are those who need to be coming from Africa, and other nations around the globe, that visas and finances would come together to allow them to participate in this. The dates are April 25th-29th and if you are interested in finding out more about the activities, please go to the website: http://www.azusastreet100.net/. Pastor Senyonga is especially involved with the Africa night on Thursday the 27th (part of the International Revival Series) at the LA Convention Center and the Youth Convocation during the final celebration at the LA Memorial Coliseum Sports Center. Pray also for safety in travel and for the energy needed to serve with joy.

When I return the Perspectives class (http://psp.godsperspective.org/) I have helped to coordinate these last few months’ winds down and May 2nd will end our class. It has been a joy to walk through these months with the students and share the joy of considering the Great Commission and what God has for us who follow this call to serve cross-culturally. I have been renewed through the speakers who have come to share from all topics from the Biblical mandate of mission to anthropological sensitivities to Christian community development. One of the best parts has also been forming a community among like-minded believers of all races and ages from the Washington, DC metro area. This past week I hosted a dinner at my house where one of our students, Tom Jeffers who has lived in the West Bank cooked us a scrumptious Arabic feast and another student Kevin used his skills as a salsa teacher to engage in some post-dinner entertainment and exercise!

I am so glad for so many reasons to still have a good couple of months in the Washington, DC area. To be present while still anticipating moving to Australia for grad school can be a challenge, but there is much to look forward to as the weather warms and the cherry blossoms become tulips which transition into azaleas. Washington truly is a gorgeous city in all seasons, but for this Florida girl being able to wear skirts and tank tops without sweaters is a promising vision! Joannella and Anita and I continue to try and enjoy the four months or so of living together in community and have made room for more time lately which is so welcome, as we all have many transitions to weather and look forward in this season. I am also very grateful for my church and the opportunity to work with some amazing people to craft this idea of an International Partnership Council and what this means exactly and to ponder how prayer can be more integrated into the life-blood of our congregation. I eagerly anticipate also the summer to be living in Washington without working at the Southeast White House… don’t get me wrong, every summer spent there over the past 4 years has had its share of joys and fun working with the kids in the summer – but it also has been exhausting! This summer, working one job on behalf of Ugandans and preparing for the trip I’ll take back to Uganda in early September will have a different feel to it. Originally I had thought I would be taking a logistics trip back to Uganda in either May or July, but with fuel prices increasing, it looked less and less likely and has now been decided that I will go in the beginning of September for 6 weeks instead of in May for 2 weeks and a month in mid-September-mid-October. Although I was initially disappointed not to be able to return to Uganda sooner, when all of the other options began to surface and the concentration on the opportunities the Lord still has for me presently in DC – I cannot help but rejoice in His timing! Pray that I would continue to try and be as present as possible and as open to what the Lord still has to do in me and through me even as I still concentrate on working on behalf of the Ugandan church. By the way, our deadline for the short-term mission trip to Uganda has been extended. If you or your church may be interested in sending some professionals or lay people to Uganda in October, please check out our website: http://www.christianlifeministries.org/missions.html.

I close again thanking you for your friendship and exhorting us all to press into Christ more – there is so much left to discover and learn. I leave you with a scripture that has been rocking me during the Lenten season and I pray we would all wrestle with the implications of it for us in our modern context…
All my love,
Brooke

Philippians 3:7-11
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead.”

“One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservatism means standing in the flow of the status quo, and the status quo no longer belongs to us. If we want to be fair, we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo.”
- Francis Shaeffer
PS – check out my blog for the latest photos on what I am writing about… http://www.brookesintladventures.blogspot.com/