Last week I had the privilege of getting to hear Fritz Kling speak. He has been very involved in global missions and has traveled the world assessing what is needed around the globe and where missions is headed with younger generations. It was encouraging to hear someone who is so educated in global trends speak truthfully about the pros and cons to my generation of missionaries. He applauded our passion, particularly for justice and aid, along with our ability to stay connected to what is going on in various parts of the globe. However, he mentioned that with all of this focus on justice can come an ignorance of the gospel and its power. He also mentioned how apt we are to hop around from country to country, without dedicating significant time to one particular mission. After the talk, he remembered another characteristic of our generation-- a need for options. We feel hesitant to commit to a particular job, because it isn't the "complete package." Our generation tends to have this romanticized notion of career; it must push us intellectually, must have a good salary with benefits, must allow us to be creative, must have a fun work environment, must change the world...
I could very much relate to all these things he was saying. He said that when he started attending church as a young adult, you couldn't pick and choose the specific jobs you volunteered for. If you were on a volunteer list, you were signing yourself up for everything. I personally belief that people have specific gifts that lend them to work in specific areas, but Fritz has a point about our pickiness. So what if I don't enjoy working with little kids? It should be my joy to be helping out the Church, in whatever avenue is open to me.
A lot of these topics are touched upon in his book,
The Meeting of the Waters: 7 Global Currents that will Propel the Future Church. I really recommend it to anyone who has a passion for missions, justice, or international cultures.
Fritz left us with an analogy that I completely needed to hear. He spoke about Prague, and how, during the Soviet occupation, the beautiful mosaic and cobblestone streets were covered with cement. The Communists did this so those in Prague wouldn't think to hope for anything more beautiful in life, so they would be content to walk about daily, in a gray haze of uniformity. As soon as the Soviets left, the Czech people took sledge hammers to the streets, revealing the beautiful designs that once represented their culture. No one knows the names of the individuals who broke up the cement to display the streets-- and it doesn't matter. What matters is the end result and how people were ultimately affected.
Another daily reminder of how my work in Mundri is not about
me. I am not going around talking to people and trying to form partnerships just so I can be built up as some sort of hero. I am meeting with people so they, too, can take a sledge hammer and work alongside me to create a positive change in a needy region.
I have started reading a collection of Sylvia Plath's work-- not her poetry, but her essays. "Dark" poetry has never really been my thing. However, I am always interested in how authors write about writing. I am fascinated by the process and like seeing how it compares to what goes on in my mind when I'm writing. This particular collection, which contains the short story "Johnny Panic" was edited in 1979, more than a decade after Plath's death. What really caught my eye was the introduction, a short, but telling one, written by Plath's former husband, Ted Hughes. At first, I read the intro with a sort of cold distance. I don't know too much about the two poets' marriage, but from what I remember from undergraduate school, Hughes was portrayed as an unfaithful misogynist. 
While reading, it struck me how critically and cooly Hughes wrote of his former wife's work. That just seemed to confirm for me what a bad person this Hughes guy really was. However, as he continued, I started to realize that Sylvia Plath was not an easy woman to live with. She was critical towards family and friends, which stemmed from her insecurities within herself. She obsessed over her writing, wanting to obtain an unrealistic level of success that allowed no time for a healthy or happy life. Towards the end of her life, she was too self-involved with depression to even accomplish much with the pen. And she always thought she was failing, comparing herself with other popular female writers of the time. It is hard to believe, as I read her beautifully written essays and think, "Why can't I do that?" I guess we all love to hold ourselves to an unreachable standard. 
