This is where we are spending our 1.5 day layover in Cairns, Australia.
I am flabbergasted.
http://treetopslodgecairns.maf.org.au/
I'm a relative baby in the world of missions. Everything is so new to me, the thought so often foreign. Yes after being immersed in it for nearly 4.5 years now (including training) the thinking is less foreign then it once was, but I'm still constantly surprised by 'firsts'.
For example this is our first furlough.
But I am flabbergasted, and I don't get that way often. Treetops is a joint mission effort to create a place to stay for traveling missionaries, or missionaries who need a place to stay near the hospital for having babies, medical processes. etc.
For example some friends of ours last year wound up needing months of rehabilitation after an accident, where could they stay affordably? Treetops.
Okay... so maybe for you it's not hard to imagine people raising their own support to go to work at a 'hotel' for missionaries.
Maybe then you'd imagine a dilapidated facility. Not at all, this place is a haven. It's gorgeous and well kept. The paint is fresh, the road is covered in gorgeous brick pavers... to get an equivalent room like this in the non-missions world you'd be paying about $200 p/night easily. and that's U.S. rates not AUD which would be higher.
But what are we paying? More like $30.00 p/night!
How? Why? Because people recognized a need and God put it on their hearts to fulfill that need.
But even all of THAT isn't why I'm flabbergasted.
The difference between a place out to make a buck, and
a place out to make a difference is tangible.
They have all sorts of conveniences and creative ways to save money... from the 'left over basket' for people to leave their leftover groceries in so others can get them without having to buy...
or the lobby of books and dvd's....
the rental cars for $2 p/ day
or the requirement that if you stay here more than a week you need to contribute to the work (well the dad's do while the mom's watch the kids.. or vice versa)... to keep expenses down.
the nice reminders to not waste electricity....
Still.. not why I'm flabbergasted.
This is what astounds me most of all. We've been in horrid places, we've been in nice-for-a-3rd-world-country places.
This place is plain nice even if you've never stayed in a 3rd world country.
Being a support worker, our vision and aim is to support the work of Bible translation through the talents we have.... and often we don't feel necessarily on the front front lines.
Yes were in the field, but we support translators who are in the village in the field.
So often you can think 'wow I'm not daily in the trenches like THEY are... I'm up here in the CENTER... safer... I have groceries and refrigeration'
Now take that and imagine you're still in your home country but doing support.
This is what flabbergasts me.
That people can serve such a great function and still be in their home country and still raise support and still have the resolve to not get discouraged and do not only their work, but to do it with such excellent quality that it becomes a wonderful ministry to everyone around them!
I LOVE this world of missions.. I love the mentality that things aren't cold and impersonal but that it's one large world-wide country, each serving each other... man this is got to be a small glimpse of what heaven is like... such humility of service.
To explain a tad further... it is very hard to raise support and NOT go overseas. Yet hundreds of people do this yearly. It's harder for them because missions means to many people 'go over seas and build stuff'.
Missions is very simply by my definition, the faith commitment to serve God with the talents you have, wherever He asks you to go. It could be staying in your house.
It's hard to communicate that... especially if you're trying to raise funding.
I imagine for these people they must struggle with 'well I could go get a job at a public motel, and do the same work and get paid for it and not have to raise support'.
But they don't... and people like us, benefit from it.
Missions takes many types.... and this is why I am flabbergasted.
God pulls together those who have money and the heart to give it
those who can pray and protect in prayer
those who can go
those who can send the goers
those who can serve all the above....
and He accomplishes His work, ALL the while creating this huge fabric of relationships based on love, service and humility.
Being a part of that fabric is you and I, and that... astounds me. Almost daily it astounds me, but today seeing the fruition of one such mission.. this place they call treetops which has so often been a boon... a safe haven for missionaries in dire straights, I am amazed by God's complexity and provision.
