We suck at this too, BTW, IMHO, FWIW, TTFN.

In doing this, we take part in God’s project of the redemption not just of individual people, but of human communities and of the entire cosmos, co-creating with God a new heaven and new earth filled with beauty and justice (and attracting more co-workers along the way). This new world, always breaking in to ours in surprising ways, is called God’s kingdom.

This story tells of a God who is infinitely loving – always inviting and re-inviting each and every one of us to participate in this kingdom project – and infinitely graceful – always forgiving and continuing to love us when we turn aside to our own projects instead, even evil ones. Though we should know that in cases where we are the cause of injustice, the God who continues to love and forgive us nonetheless takes the side of justice. This is called God’s judgment, and it too is good news.

And that’s way too long and too textbook, but each word is personally felt, I assure you. And if I were to get more personal with that, it would get much, much longer.

All of this said, if you wanna’ come visit Guinea, you are more than welcome. We would love to have visitors & maybe once you saw it first hand, it wouldn’t seem so risky. Crrrrazy, yes, but maybe not as risky as imagined. LOL!

Somehow we need to distinguish between radical and irresponsible, especially when we are talking about our children. What you guys did was radical and not irresponsible (as you have just shown) but more radical than i feel like i could be. on the other hand not everyone would try to plant a church either — so maybe the grass is always more radical on the other side .

We were pretty Un-radical in our planning for it. We decided it was our goal to go to Africa. Dave finished a masters in Intl Development. He got a job in DC. He worked there for two yrs. Then he got an offer for an African position. We made sure we had vaccines covered, medical evacuation covered, moving expenses, housing w/ 24 hr security, schooling w/ security, etc. It took us 4 yrs of work & then we made sure every conceivable i was dotted & t was crossed.

Actually, what is your take on that? Can you still be “radically faithful” if you spend so much time planning & you try to prepare for every possible risk? Is that really radical anymore?

I think there is a limit to how radical you can be w/ your faith, if you have the responsibility to care for a child. I, unfortunately, am not that great at memory verses, but somewhere in the New Testament there is instruction about how some people should not marry. These instructions are given, so that those people will be freed up to follow Jesus to the ultimate ends. But once you get married, & especially after you have kids . . . God knows that you will have some Earthly responsibilities to other human beings. Personally, I interpret that to mean that God wants me to be as faithful as possible to Him through the care of my husband & daughter.

Does that make sense? Radically faithful demonstrated by the way I work to love Dave & Maggee.

BTW, watching shows that include danger to or harm of children after you have your own is soooo painful. When Maggee was Ethan’s age I was especially sensitive to it.

On the other hand with faith, i think we have to wrestle with it almost unceasingly. We have to hold what we think and believe lightly. I mean we cherish it, and embrace it, and dedicate our lives to it, but at the same time we need be always ready to question it, critique it, and change how we understand it (or admit we don’t).

Another way of saying this is maybe that I think that doubt makes our faith in God stronger, where as loyalty makes our relationships with human beings stronger.

That’s not quite right either, but its getting closer.

Except maybe your relationship w/ God has to be even deeper, ’cause the big step is telling God you doubt, whereas saying to your partner, “I’m not really feeling much love for you today” could bring on way too much hurt for human beings in such a close relationship.

I don’t know? Do you feel like those two things are connected?