Sunday, September 27, 2009

More Honey Bunches of Oats Fans

R. and I attend a Mission Sunday School class - we are working our way through a troubling book right now called, "When Helping Hurts" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (Moody Publishers, 2009). It is really challenging the way I think about ministry.

One plus to the class is that when any missionaries are home, they visit our class and talk about what is happening.

This is pretty revolutionary for me, because throughout most of my life foreign missions work has seemed -well - foreign. My first memory of exposure to missions was a missionary from the jungles of Africa who had eaten a rat.
He had slides to prove it!

Their opportunities to speak were usually on Sunday night (so the slide projections would show up better), and the meetings always involved a plea for a "faith promise".
I really think God is using this study group to change our thinking on missions and to wake us up to the possibility of adventures in service all around us!

Anyway this morning, we had a speaker that had recently returned from an 11 month mission trip around the world. Her work was with The World Race, part of Adventures in Missions out of Gainesville, Georgia.

R. and I were enthralled by her stories.

Now, here is where the convergence of her story and my recent post on Post Cereals comes in.

When our class year started earlier this month, we all introduced ourselves to one another and the facilitator asked us to tell something about ourselves. His example was that he described his favorite breakfast food. Somehow, everyone followed suit, describing their favorite early morning treat.

Today, he alluded to that type of introduction when welcoming a visitor and when the speaker came to begin her presentation, she pointed out that her favorite breakfast food was "Honey Bunches of Oats".

She went on to say that you can't find "HBO's" in very many places around the world -except in India! She pointed out that while she tarried there she consumed massive quantities of the breakfast treat.

As I think about it now, the "Honey Bunches of Oats" thing was not really all that significant, especially when compared to the stories about the life-changing adventure of a cross-cultural journey around the world armed with a backpack, the gospel and God's grace. But it did provide a good opportunity for me to tell you about it.

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