Out of Africa: Part 10 – Full Day of Debriefing, Reflection and Relaxation

On my recent trip to Africa, I disciplined myself to keep a daily journal of what transpired and how I felt about it. These entries are from that journal.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Experience #1 – Future Partnership

There is great value in reflection following an experience such as this. So many thoughts are rumbling through your mind that you simply need time and space to process, analyze, listen to God and determine what is going on inside and what He is going to do in my spirit, life and ministry as a result of this trip. In my case it impacts an entire church.

This afternoon John Thompson and I sat down and talked about 45 minutes or more about Fountain Park’s future involvement. (He is the World Vision US C2C Coordinator, who by the way lives in Greensboro, NC less than an hour from my hometown of Kannapolis, NC. Our schools used to play one another in high school football. It is a small world. He is the man in the very center of the above photo who jumped in at the last minute.) We had already had 3-4 discussions in this vein throughout the weekend, but this one was directly about how they could assist us in the decision making process. Our discussion centered upon what I think God will want us to do in partnership with World Vision as a follow up to this trip. I am sure it will be something. I told him I came here with no agenda, and I leave with none.

I have an idea of what I think God will want us to do, but I will have to see how that plays out. When I return I intend to meet with my local World Vision representative to ask some questions in preparation for a meeting with Fountain Park folks and discussing our involvement with this ministry. I was pretty honest regarding two primary issues that impact where Fountain Park will end up. The first is that we already have at least two other options for partnerships in overseas missions. The first is in Brazil and the second is potentially partnering with a woman several of us have known who is working with the Kurds in Iraq. I / We have some work to do in our evaluation process.