“Jesus says, ‘Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you” (John 15:4, MSG). Home is a place of welcoming love, nonjudgmental acceptance, accompanied by many signs of affection” (Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God, p. 36).
Dear Friends and Family,
2010 will be a year full of changes. This is the year I have been anticipating for a long time, the year when Word Made Flesh moves into Moldova. Over the next month we will be saying goodbye to our community in Romania and will be moving to the Moldovan capital, Chişinău (Kee-she-now). Our team of six has been busy fundraising, doing required reading, casting vision and is now even starting to pack. Our official move date is January 15, although I will probably move to Moldova a week or so earlier in order to finalize housing details and to get our office/meeting space set up to welcome the team.
I took two short trips to Moldova over the past month in which I was able to finalize details regarding our living permits and to meet with the different organizations where we will begin volunteering in January. One of these places is a state-run boarding school in a small city just minutes outside of Chişinău called Străşeni (Struh-shane). Approximately 350 children live at this school, many of them having been abandoned or orphaned. The director of the school was incredibly open to allowing us to provide supplemental tutoring for the children as well as to lead other activities (e.g. music, art, drama, etc.).
As I anticipate what the new year holds and as I imagine what life will be like in Moldova, I continually try to remind myself that the object of our service is Jesus and that, above all, we are seeking intimacy with him. This past month I was able to take a four-day personal retreat in which I meditated on several subjects, one of them being intimacy. As I focused on a text from John 14 one day, I was drawn to the imagery Jesus uses to describe our relationship with God: “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (v. 20, NIV). What does it mean for us to be in God and for God to be in us? I wondered.
The next day, I moved on to John 15, where Jesus says in verse 4, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you” (NIV). Brennan Manning, in his book The Furious Longing of God, quotes the Message translation of this verse, which reads “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you.” He writes that home “is a place of welcoming love, nonjudgmental acceptance, accompanied by many signs of affection” (p. 36). I began to sense Jesus calling me to live in such a place, to embrace the fact that I am deeply loved and accepted by God. I am home in God. And God is at home in me.
I want to maintain and to further pursue this type of intimacy with Jesus throughout the transition over the next month to Moldova. It is going to be easy to be overwhelmed by logistical details and questions about our ministry. We will be looking for host families and working on details for our living permits and beginning our volunteer work. We will be meeting often as a team for orientation and other necessary discussions. But in the midst of the activity, we want to be people who stop to contemplate the great love of God and to be filled with that love so that it might be poured out for others.
As we enter into 2010, my prayer for each of you is that you also might take a moment to contemplate the greatness of God’s love for you and that you might allow its relentlessness to fill your being. May you make your home in God and allow God’s home to be made in you.
With love,
John
The Christmas tree in downtown Chişinău, Moldova.
PRAYER REQUESTS
1) Pray for our staff members who are in the process of fundraising before we leave for Moldova. As we are each responsible for raising 100% of our needed funding, ask that we would trust fully in the provision of God. If you are interested in receiving prayer letters from and/or supporting one of our other staff members, please let me know by email (john.koon@wordmadeflesh.org). Our two Romanian staff, Magda and Iosif, and our Moldovan staff, Adriana, are all looking for people to join them on a monthly basis.
2) Pray for us on January 15 as we say our goodbyes. For some of our staff, this will be the first time they have ever moved away from home.
3) Pray for our first few weeks in Moldova as we adjust to new living spaces, a new city, a new culture and new work. Ask that as we spend time getting to know each other better and casting vision for our work in Moldova that we would be united, clothing ourselves above all in love (Colossians 3:14).
4) Pray that we would have ears to hear God speak as we seek specific direction in ministry. We want to be open and available to reimagining what community and service among the poor can look like.