NORTHERN IRELAND

Welcome to the Minimalistic Art Edition of the Messenger missionary feature. This is the edition where I made a quick minimalist piece of art for everything God did in the last three months on our field in Northern Ireland. And by everything, I mean four things.

1. An office space to shine out of

I’m part of Soul Catalyst, a filmmaking-as-missions team. We seek to make short films while building relationships with the artists we work with. For a while now, my colleague Ted and I have been praying for new office space; Ted’s spare bedroom was no longer cutting it.

Well, it appears God answered our prayers. We got connected with Exodus, a Northern Irish youth discipleship ministry, right when they had an office space open up. They liked what we do, we liked what they do, and they gave us an amazing missionary discount on the space. The building also has space for film showings and a cool coffee shop. It’s in downtown Lisburn, which is essentially a suburb of Belfast, but right next to the train station that takes you straight into the heart of Belfast.

2. A new house to grow in

By “new” I mean new to us, and by “grow,” I mean spiritually, personally, mentally, and plant-ally (it has a garden.) I do not mean in population. Just because it has an extra bedroom does not mean Miriam and I are planning on having a bunch of kids here. We’ve only been married eight months.

Seriously though, it’s been a big blessing. It’s both bigger and cheaper than our current place. It cuts half an hour off almost everywhere we need to go, both Miriam and I will be able to walk to work once I move into the new office, and the landlord is a Christian who cares about us, as opposed to the mostly soulless letting agency we had before.

3. Five new commitments to Christ at camp

This one hardly involves me. It definitely shouldn’t count to my “Missionary Effectiveness Rating,” but I probably shouldn’t be calculating that anyway. It is, however, a cool story that demonstrates the power of discipleship and partnership.

Miriam’s ministry was looking for volunteers to mentor young people who would be serving as camp counsellors for the first time this summer. I had wanted to try mentoring for a while, and this seemed like a great opportunity.

I was paired with a young man named Matthew. I suppose I had some expectations about “pouring wisdom into the next generation,” but I was blown away at how life-giving it was for me. It made me feel part of the whole body of Christ in a profound way, and I learned a lot from Matthew about Northern Irish culture.

At one point we were discussing the devotionals he’d be sharing with his campers, and he asked me to go through the Romans Road with him. I pulled up my memory of youth group along with a page on google, and we went through it. I confess I felt like it was a bit formulaic compared to my “wisdom and experience.”

A few weeks later I got a call from Matthew while he was at camp. With tears in his eyes, he told me that two of his campers had just become Christians after he presented the Romans Road to them. By the end of the week, five of his twelve campers had decided to follow Jesus. I was excited with him, but also incredibly humbled.

So thank you for supporting me, so I can mentor Matthew, so he can lead campers to Christ. God works through all of us imperfect people together, doesn’t he?

4. Grace to write

For a long while, I’ve struggled to write. Even missionary updates have been a challenge. Recently I’ve been journalling through my memories, from when I first became a missionary in Germany until now. I realized that I had a lot of unprocessed stuff in those five years, and journalling has been a good way to sort through those emotions.

A few weeks ago I was writing about the great expectations I had for myself when I first decided to become a filmmaker. I was going to shoot photos every day, make a vlog every week, and make the most of all my free time. I can’t count the number of resolutions I made. And, for the most part, none of them happened.

Was this because I was lazy, squandering evenings playing video games? Or were these goals unreasonable, and I did the best I could considering the circumstances?

The answer is probably somewhere in between. But instead of my normal tactic of trying to figure out exactly where in between, I decided to just forgive myself. I took that bag of pain and laziness and unmet expectations and just tossed it out.

God knows, and he’s the only one, the places I should have done better and the places where I tried too hard. He knows, and he still loves me. Therefore, I will also love myself.

And the craziest thing was that after I finished journalling, I found I was able to write. I sat down and hammered out a thousand words of the latest short story idea. I didn’t hold myself back with self-critique; I could just write. The next day was the same. Somehow accepting God’s grace set me free to write again.

I’m very thankful to God in all of this. I’m thankful he brought me to a place where I could look back safely. I’m thankful that he brought me to a place where I could forgive myself. And I’m thankful that he understands us, and still loves and forgives us, even before we understand ourselves.