Transitions

I am on a flight from Queenstown to Auckland. I said goodbye to a good friend, my brother, an hour ago, someone I have been journeying with for nine months. We fed cows together on campus in Tauranga; we fed hundreds of children together at a Christian camp in Gore. We watched too many movies. We drove along the southern coastline of New Zealand singing Les Mis at the top of our lungs. We saw sea lions, seals and penguins hanging on the beach. We visited lots of churches, lots. We journeyed on outreach together around the South Island sharing the good news of Jesus with hundreds of people everywhere. We brought the light of Christ into a dark nightclub in Nelson where there was only death and despair. We marched holding daisyheads with the fruit of the spirit of God in a parade for Christmas. We prayer-walked together. We prayed into things, together binding minor demons. We faced the bigger demons together for three months of intense -intense- warfare. The kind where you're trevailing. Crying out from every fiber of your spirit to bind and command satan's big guns to go away in defeat. We evangelised at an A&P Agricultural Expo, me playing worship songs on the guitar while he asked passersby what got them feeling alive in life. 

We sat awkwardly at other people's family Christmas get-togethers while people who didn't know us gave us presents and made us feel special and loved. We did. We welcomed the new year watching burly Scottish farmers saw logs, chop trees, and shoot bullets in the sky while we nibbled hot chips. We made friends with German backpackers and Spanish churro-cart operators.

We laughed with Lucy the hyperactive puppy. We played Clue. We baked, cooked, apple crumbled. We shared Jesus with strangers in Queenstown. We cooked for 150 people six meals a day for seven days straight. We crashed for three subsequent days after, barely saying a word as we recovered from such a feat of successful service. Go God!

We worshipped a lot. We prayed a lot. We each encouraged each other as fellow sojourners on our individual pilgrimages with Christ. We swung on swings. A lot.

I met awesome friends along the way, followers of The Way; he did too. Sometimes we got to share each other's new acquaintances and get excited about what God is doing, be it at Invercargill Church or through a Regional Pastors roundtable or a fellowship in Balclutha. We got to know a family in Edendale well. The kids, the parents. We got to pray with each of them independently and together. We saw God move in their lives.

We shared prophetic words and spiritual visions from God. I grew in my prayer life and I saw into an open heaven regularly. His eyes were opened to visions of the supernatural from The Lord. It was so awesome to catch his enthusiasm!

I have a brother I didn't have a year ago. That is so awesome! Truly cool! 

As I'm heading back to "The Shire" to report about the land we've been spying out for The Lord, he remains on the battlefront with God and His angels to follow after his call in the southernmost part of the country on the bottom of the big round globe. This is where The Fellowship of nine which became two ends. Nine companions set out on a journey. Two remained. And then the fellowship came to an end.

I would have shed many tears in saying goodbye except that I had just discovered to my appall that I left my suitcase two hours away in Brydone, and we were at the airport in Queenstown already. I couldn't believe I did that. I don't know if I've ever been so careless. I had even gone back and checked the house. Twice. Because I was living out of a small duffel and because I had been shuffled from place to place in the previous week, I forgot I had packed the black bag to be undisturbed. I didn't see it when I surveyed the room, even though it was in front of my eyes! I scolded myself severely at the airport for my scatteredness. I asked the cargo department if I could ship it. Too expensive. I feel so foolish. I think God wants me to laugh at myself sometimes. Especially since this last three months have been, in a few words, spiritually demanding, exciting, boundary-shaking, territory-claiming. I'm infinitely glad I didn't have to face this adventure alone. I'm infinitely glad there is someone who understands what I've been through. I'm ever so happy that God has stretched me so much. Even though there were many days I felt like butter spread over too much bread.

I am ready to take Daddy God's hand and shout, "Let's Go!" I can't express how much joy I have for journeying with R through this long and treacherous valley, and that I have a brother who is a prince among princes, a man after God's own heart. I think I've helped him a little bit along his journey. I am ready to land from this flight and say an exuberant hello to my tomorrows. I cherish what I have just come from. I hope to come back.

I suppose I have to now, since I left my suitcase!

South of Queenstown on the lake this afternoon skipping stones and reflecting on this long and unforgettable journey. A cairn for my heart-song.    ###