Prophecy and Maté

The missionaries: From top down: Dani, me, Rachel, Ashley
Celeste, Damaris, Juan

Well, while you are preparing for Halloween next week, Argentina is slowly slipping into spring. Celebrating Halloween is a big no-no in South American Christianity, so we North Americans have by-passed it completely and have been blasting the Christmas music all week. Some of us may be a little homesick. The Stringers, the pastors, Juan, Dani, and I will be here in Cordoba through the holiday season, so we have been discussing how to combine all our favorite traditions into the most epic American/Argentine/Brazilian Christmas ever. I’m sure it won’t compare with seeing the lights in Locomotive Park.

Juan, Dani, me

Unlike many missions organizations, Extreme Nazarene has a full time wellness team of counselors to help keep us going. Last week Sheli and Trevor came from Boise to do a two day team building seminar. It was fun and helpful. My favorite part was one exercise on the second day about speaking from the heart. We were first challenged to tell our partner what our heart would want to tell us if it could speak. Not our brain or spirit, but the part of us that is pure emotion, what would it say? What would it want me to know? My heart often gets neglected. I told my partner my heart probably would tell me to express its emotions more often, to love others better, to be led by my emotions more. It was a different and good way to think. Then things got weird. Sheli asked us to share with our partner what we thought their heart wanted them to know. ? My partner (Dani) and I looked at each other with disbelief. We have very different personalities and perspectives. How could we possibly know each other’s hearts better than our own? As Sheli described the expectation, we began to understand better that reading the heart of another has very little to do with us. What has God created in this person’s heart that they haven’t seen yet? God lives in this person’s heart, what does He want to say to them? It could be something very similar to prophecy. I looked at Dani again and heard God speak one word to me. Dani looked at me and I knew God was speaking to each of us. As we shared God’s message for each other, we were surprised at what God told us, but we were more surprised at what God told through us. We got to see each other with God’s eyes. Dani told me I have a very big heart and I have a lot of love for people. I still have a hard time being completely convinced of this, but Dani knows it’s true. We were able to understand each other better than we understand ourselves.

Practicing sharing and communicating well

This creating truth with words has been a theme. Jaci is an expert at it. Within minutes of meeting a new friend, she will call her “woman of God,” whether she is or not. It’s a training; you hear something often enough and you make it true. It’s creation; creating something new by speaking it. She does it often with me. She has been telling me for weeks that I am the source of creativity in our partnership. She’s told me enough now that I actually believe it. What’s more is I make it true because I am more willing to believe in the creative ideas God gives me. I have become the creative strategist Jaci told me I was. Parents and teachers have been using this technique for centuries, but do I use it with my friends? My disciples? Do I speak God’s truth into their lives? It’s more than encouragement. It’s seeing the potential and speaking it as truth. It’s creation God-style: speaking reality into existence. What a privilege!

Maté

Cultural extra: So we drink maté. It looks like drugs and it tastes terribly bitter, but we drink it and like it. Unlike tea that is steeped, the yerba plant is poured directly into a cup. The cup is then filled with hot water and drank through a special straw with a strainer at the end that (hypothetically) keeps the yerba grass parts out of your mouth. The straw is also special in that it is (hypothetically) germ resistant. Ok, that’s a lie we tell ourselves because maté is usually drunk in a large group where everyone drinks out of the same cup with the same straw. The maté master prepares the drink with fresh water and sugar (never enough) and passes it to someone in the circle. That person drinks all the water and hands it back to the preparer who refills the water and sugar and hands it to the next person. Yes, really. And all the time, anywhere. In the living room, in the park, in the street, at work, at church, morning, noon, and night. We drink maté.