When I was a Kid...

...my parents made me this sign for me to hang over my door. It read "Jachin's Jungle" with a picture of a giraffe in the jungle. I remember that sign as a invitation to another world, a place where I could do anything and the potential for adventure and intrige was endless. Since then I have seen just a small piece of the world and I have learned that the idea of adventure is not as glamorous as I had once imagined. I saw that God's children in Africa lived in abject poverty, that infants were left without parents because they had been killed by HIV, that pain and want was part of everyday life.

But I learned more about beauty.

Not just the glory of God's creation but the beauty of people who smile in the midst of despair, the true presence of hope. I met brothers and sisters who dealt with extreme hardships wake up every day with praise on their lips and an encouraging word. I witnessed Saints who had every reason to curse God in anger and defeat turn their eyes to the Father and offer thanksgiving for His blessings. I still recall the words of my friend Lazerus while we sat stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken down mutatu and no help in sight: "do not worry Jack (no one could not pronounce Jake, I guess it does not translate well into Swahili) the Lord will make a way".

And He always did.

In any other situation I would have thought those words a tad cliche...from my brothers in Africa, they have called me to a deeper faith in our Lord as words of wisdom from the mature.

It seems that truth is often found in that way. So powerful and simple, hiding deep waters under the guise of a shallow phrase. This is the kind of truth we embrace so easily when we were young, only to lose sight of its power when we begin to believe that our naivety blinded us to "the real world." Often the "real world" means a loss of Hope and a rejection of the idea that God is still at work and still redeeming His world for the Glory of His Name.

I guess that is something that I cling to, the hope and assurance that God is still in the business of redeeming for the sake of His name, His reputation. That indeed, the definition of beauty is the manifestation of redemption in the midst of insurmountable odds stacked against it. Through the renewal of childlike faith and hope we will find that beauty. This blog is hopefully an oasis of stubborn persistance to locate God's activity of restoration in the midst of our world, for the glory of His name. To this I hold, because I still believe that God is in the business of establishing His Glory.