Cold, but Warm

Well, I'm sitting on the steps of the "White House" aka the administration building at John Wesley College (really its just a big white building and that is how it got its name- really no correlation to the White House in the US ) hoping my Internet connection will stay long enough for me to send in this blog. At the moment it is 8:00 pm in South Africa, but 2:00 pm according to my internal time clock. So I am exhausted and very cold sitting here on the steps of the White House, it is about 40 degrees and to a girl from Florida, that is cold. Yet although it is cold, it has been incredibly warm at John Wesley college.

The students greeted us when we got here with hugs and kisses and a meal that they had prepared for our arrival. We said we were tired and not hungry, but we must have just been jet lagged because we ate all the food on our plate and sat with them at their table for over two hours talking. We all had to rationalize that we needed sleep and they needed to study to move us from the table, but I'm sure if reason were not apart of the picture we could have talked for hours, and since then we have been able to. Our conversations have been warm as well. It seems that in the respect granted by new situations and strangers we are able to really listen and hear and wonder with each other. Most of our wondering is of course grounded in the area of church since we are all preparing to be pastors of some sort. It has been remarkable to see the similarities between the strengths and struggles within both of our churches that are 8000 miles apart. Maybe those of you in other international context can relate. We talked about the lack of the prophetic voice of the church, the struggles concerning mission and outreach, attendance and discipleship, economic class, racism, and the struggle in countering the prosperity gospel. Although we did not solve the church's problems or the world's in our small conversation over coffee and tea, it was a pleasure and privilege to talk and listen and wonder with them, our fellow brothers and sisters and ministers, it was actually quite warm!