Truth is, if I blogged about what I do you wouldn’t read my blog. My life is very exciting to me but would be really boring to you. Got that? So, you get hippos and insane ravings about coffee breath and Cyber-Psalms (sorry, not today) and an occasional gem. This blog is the sound of my mind humming, or the mental doodling in the margins of my work week.

But I’m getting a little nervous that you might think I don’t really do anything for a living. Especially all the bigwigs from my organization who have, despite my best efforts, discovered this blog and now read it to keep tabs on the chatter of the rabble. And then there are all those saints that in a fit of evangelistic zeal agreed to sponsor my work in Africa either financially or by banging on the pearly gates on my behalf. I can imagine they read this stuff and say, “Hmmmm…” These humble and holy folks have stuck by our family for more than a decade. But perhaps they’re starting to reconsider their investment.

So this is a little glimpse into the unglamorous ground-level grind of getting the Gospel out in Mozambique.

• This week I was in executive committee meetings for our mission. These are boring and necessary. Kind of like the fine print at the bottom of a contract. Only we can’t skip over it. We have to read it over and over and over and over…
• I attended several meetings on how I too might someday become a bigwig. So, I learned about nasty things called AMPR’s for evaluating staff and their work. My mission has an inordinate fondness for acronyms.
• I kid you not, I attended a session on stress-management. I was sending messages on my phone. The guy next to me was writing to-do lists on his handouts. Strangely enough, when I filled out the stress survey I discovered that I’m not burned out.
• I worked on an ultra-top secret website project whose purpose is to publish all the literacy, development and Scripture materials developed by our mission over the last decade. It is so cool it is cold. We’re talking Kelvin. And the couple implementing it are like Zan and Janna (”Wonder twin powers activate!”)
• I met with the Big Kahuna and the Big Cheese and got to ask them just what the heck they think they’re doing and how can I be involved. They are very patient with me.
• I met with members of the new department over which I reign like a monarch for life. Rather than bring me gifts they kept asking for more tea and cake. The conversation was like nuclear fission. Sometimes God’s dream is so big that it fills several brains all at the same time.
• I also got to hear about a dictionary project that I started which is now being run by someone else. She has taken this so far and so fast that she burned out. Whoops. But hey, what an exciting way to go!
• On my way here I also met with Bible translators in Tete and Beira as well as radio and gospel recording people.
• And I got to hang out with one of my musician buddies. I’m hoping he’ll take me to the beach this evening.

This is not a life with comfortable margins. This is a life in the margins. Out on a limb where all the fruit is (as well as all the nuts). I’m lucky because I get to do the fun stuff first. Despite the committee meetings.

My dream is to leave behind a surplus of Scripture in every district of this country. I want to see total saturation. But right now what I really want is to get home to my lovely wife and my rowdy children and do the fetal-position thing on the couch for a couple days until I recover from a week away.

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