Death into Life...

Days continue to be marked by extreme opposites - death and life.

On Monday, we said goodbye to our sweet doggie, Onyx.  It was a terribly gut-wrenching decision.  We have been fighting a seizure disorder with him for over a year, and like much of the past year with my dad - watching him have grand mal seizures, emphasized my helplessness and inability to reverse the inevitable course of death around me.

As a family, we gathered around him on the floor of the vet’s office and said goodbye through sobs as he left us.  Over seven years of our lives were shared with him.

The gone-ness of a loved one is heard, seen, felt in ways you don’t expect.  The unfamiliar quiet.  The unnecessary presence of two food bowls on the floor.  The safety of food set down on a low table or a high counter.

The day after the good-bye, we loaded up the car and left for our annual trip to Bear Lake for Staff Retreat where it seems as if life (not death) explodes in fireworks around you.

As we sat and heard the stories of all of our staff members, old and new, and heard their calls to Utah.  A light bulb went off as we realized that the call to Utah for most (except Daran, me and Abby) had originated at the same time - in 2020 - the year of death.  When it seemed as if we were holding things in Utah together by a fragile thread.  Campus ministry tends to be difficult when you can’t actually be on campus.

His call has reached Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota, Louisiana, Colorado, Missouri, Idaho, Montana, Virginia, Congo, Philippines, Utah and more over the years. He has called us from the far reaches of the Earth. Why?

Because most people we meet here have never met a Christian in their life…I’ll let that sink in…

and because we have prayed for 14 years that God would send us laborers…I often tell Christians when they move here for various reasons that it is not accidental…we have prayed them here.

In this valley of death…in this season of death and forever goodbyes…life is sprouting up through the dry, parched ground...what a privilege it is to be here to see the great reversal-death turned into life.