Greetings,
We've all heard the saying, "absence makes the heart grow fonder," and I have found it to be true lately. Of course, I have always been fond of you all. But I don’t often tell you how fond I am of you all. I love our Way of Life family!
I want to thank Tim Walter, Leslie Edleblute and my lovely wife Yvonne for writing the church letters while I was in Africa. I want to also thank Craig and Sergio for preaching. We are so blessed to have these great men of God in our body who proclaim the truths of scripture so boldly and powerfully. Thank you also to all who led in worship. What a great group of talented musicians and worship leaders we have around our body. Thank you to Mary, Randy, Phil, Susan, Amanda and Zane--you all are so great! Thank you to Joel Weddle who lead the Sunday morning Bible study on John and all of those that came to set up and tear down each week--thank you! I would love to highlight all of those that helped Yvonne and my kids while I was gone. Most all of you know how vital Elizabeth Jones is to our ministry and I want to publicly thank her for all she does for me and our fellowship. Our fellowship is truly becoming such a close family. We are blessed to have, what I think are the greatest group of elders that I have had the privilege to serve with.
Being away for a few weeks really helped me to realize what a tremendous blessing we have here in South Salem! I came home energized and ready to see what the Lord is going to do through us. I am convinced that He is going to continue to build a truly unique and great thing through us.
West Africa is a tribal society. We are nothing like a tribal society here. We could try to synthesize this tribal society here, but, in general, we would fall woefully short. The tribal society naturally honors people in position of authority and builds people up with words of affirmation. If your love language is words of affirmation, you would love Sierra Leone. My sarcasm, ribbing and humor became very evident to me in the light of this honor culture. They genuinely appreciate people and I realized that the way that I appreciate people is careless and haphazard. I use humor and ribbing to show that I care for people. I tease and crack jokes instead of using the words that reflect what I genuinely feel about people. It became clearer and clearer to me as the days went by as I began to write to Yvonne about how I feel, rather than assuming she knows how I feel about her.
For this lack of communication of my genuine appreciation to my family and all of you, I want to say that I am sorry. I will try to do a better job of communicating my appreciation. Forgive me if it takes me some time to adjust. I am sure that I will still tease and rib, but I hope that I can clearly communicate how important each person within our fellowship is to me.
"Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." (Proverbs 16:24)
Love you all so much!
Chris
Being away for a few weeks really helped me to realize what a tremendous blessing we have here in South Salem! I came home energized and ready to see what the Lord is going to do through us. I am convinced that He is going to continue to build a truly unique and great thing through us.
West Africa is a tribal society. We are nothing like a tribal society here. We could try to synthesize this tribal society here, but, in general, we would fall woefully short. The tribal society naturally honors people in position of authority and builds people up with words of affirmation. If your love language is words of affirmation, you would love Sierra Leone. My sarcasm, ribbing and humor became very evident to me in the light of this honor culture. They genuinely appreciate people and I realized that the way that I appreciate people is careless and haphazard. I use humor and ribbing to show that I care for people. I tease and crack jokes instead of using the words that reflect what I genuinely feel about people. It became clearer and clearer to me as the days went by as I began to write to Yvonne about how I feel, rather than assuming she knows how I feel about her.
For this lack of communication of my genuine appreciation to my family and all of you, I want to say that I am sorry. I will try to do a better job of communicating my appreciation. Forgive me if it takes me some time to adjust. I am sure that I will still tease and rib, but I hope that I can clearly communicate how important each person within our fellowship is to me.
"Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." (Proverbs 16:24)
Love you all so much!
Chris
