I don’t know if other MK’s\/missionaries have experienced a certain deep yearning for the community life they’ve experienced on the mission field once they are no longer there. \u00a0That life had nothing to do with comfort of living or lack of hardships. \u00a0It did have everything to do with the fact that life was difficult and we needed each other. \u00a0Community life wasn’t perfect by any means \u00a0and we all failed one another at times. \u00a0Life was a challenge for our Tribal neighbors and we helped them as they helped us. \u00a0As kids growing up in that community we helped our Tribal neighbors dig graves for members of their families who had succumbed to diseases endemic to the area. \u00a0We ourselves lost family members who are buried there in the jungle. \u00a0But there were lots of positive things going on too. \u00a0We loved to hunt and fish and we tweaked our dugout paddle canoes to get the most out of them like kids in another dimension souped up their hot rods. \u00a0Even at a very young age we were accepted \u00a0and welcomed by our Tribal neighbors and adult missionaries as valued and needed members of our community. \u00a0We were given tasks that required serious responsibility.<\/p>\n
The comprehension of the benefits of having raised our kids in that setting didn’t truly dawn on me till years later when we were living in the U.S. Sure there was the downside to life in the jungle but giving and sharing and sacrificing for the good of others was the norm and they learned these principles well. \u00a0And in a place where one had to build your own home and make anything that worked keep on working, what an incredible place to learn hands on life skills.<\/p>\n
To experience life within a community here on earth however imperfect it may be, stirs something inside us that longs for that perfect community life for which we were created. \u00a0That community where the Tabernacle of God is among men, and where God will dwell among them and God Himself will be their God.<\/p>\n
My desire in the next days, months, years is to share how God has been tenderly answering my deep yearning and longing. \u00a0To do that we need to \u00a0look back to the mission field (some who read this may be there in real time) and explore what I have come to understand to be the most important ingredient of community life here on earth and which many times we desperately needed to understand better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t know if other MK’s\/missionaries have experienced a certain deep yearning for the community life they’ve experienced on the mission field once they are no longer there. \u00a0That life had nothing to do with comfort of living or lack of hardships. \u00a0It did have everything to do with the fact that life was difficult […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}