The Lay Of The Land

It is the last day of August, which for us means the end of another year of ministry.  We arrived in Dulce in late August of 2013 and the first Sunday was on September 1st, so by our reckoning the fourth year ends today and the fifth year begins tomorrow.

What an amazing adventure!  Changing careers for Robin and I, moving our family to a part of the country we barely knew, entering a culture that was completely new.  We probably thought that we had a vague idea of what we were getting into as we wondered about all the unknowns ahead.  What kinds of things would happen?  How would we handle the all of the things that we couldn’t even begin to anticipate?

Four years later some of those things have been figured out.  Some things are problems with solutions.  Some are problems that are more managed than solved.  And there are things that we feel there just isn’t anything we have to offer.  Four years have taught us that as long as we will live and serve here there will be many more surprises, things that just cannot be planned for, and we imagine that is the case with ministry no matter where a person may be serving.

One way to frame our perspective at this point is that in four years we have learned the lay of the land.  I took this picture while driving home from Pagosa Springs this week.  I haven’t made that trip nearly as many times as Robin, but I've made it enough times to know what lies ahead as I travel along the road.  I took the picture close to a place called Edith, a scattered collection of houses just across the Navajo River and barely inside Colorado. I was traveling the "back road," a route which saves miles, but not time, and is hard on tires.

About three and a half years ago I took that road for the first time. If my eyes had scanned the horizon everything would have looked the same.  Hills here, pastures there.  Greens, browns, and perhaps some cattle or deer.  Back then nothing stood out as particular to my untrained eye.

But now my perspective is different.  I look towards where I took the picture and I see the change in line that marks where the road crosses the river and then climbs as it bends south.  I understand the lay of the land in ways that were unknown to me four years ago.  While I'm using the physical landscape as an example I have also learned much of the landscape of the people of our congregation and the community which we call home.  

It would be disingenuous to say that the last four years have been a steady upward journey, moving from success to success, learning along the way and with every lesson being easy and nearly intuitive. 

Success? Certainly, but also failure, disappointment, and regret.  Easy lessons? Absolutely, but also the kind of learning that only comes the hard way, and those lessons are perhaps the more precious ones.

As the fourth year comes to a close I still feel as I did at the end of the first, second and third years, which is glad that this place, Dulce, New Mexico, the homeland of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, is the place where God brought us to serve in ministry.  God has given us many gifts for ministry in this particular place, and we dearly love so many of the people we have met here. 

I'm going to close with the benediction from the Letter to the Hebrews, because after four years we do feel equipped, and we pray for God to work through us according to His will, to produce what is pleasing in His sight, to His glory.  Four years to learn the lay of the land, and excited to see what is yet to come.

"Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.