"Forbearance," my new favorite word

This past month, there's been a lot of communicating with my home church leaders and a few individuals. Building bridges that had fallen into disrepair. I had lit a match on the fallen tinder by blogging about the fallen bridge (that particular part of the post below has been removed!). 

To sum it up briefly: I was feeling awkward and like an alien whenever we return to our home church where we'd served for 12 years. Over 14 years it had grown worse and worse each of the times we'd come back as a family (In all fairness, Jim came back once on his own for the 50th Anniversary, and that for him was a remarkable homecoming speaking for and being honored in this special Missions Celebration). This summer was especially hard because, due to our serious shortfall in support, we finally had to start making connections at other churches. We've tried hard to keep our ties strong with this sending church because our trips back are so short that we'd prefer to concentrate our face-time, hoping to have a more significant time of re-connecting, rather than a one-off hellos in multiple church patios. 

This summer, the contrasting experience we had going to other churches (and a few unfortunate and circumstantial mix ups and misses at our home church), turned my long-time sadness into anger. I was feeling mother-bearish for all the other missionaries sent from our church.

I didn't deal with the growing conflict in my heart in a Biblical way by approaching the missions pastor and commission advocate with grace. I instead spent a few jet lagged hours blogging about it when I got back to Singapore.

Then some actually read my post, and I subsequently needed to do a lot of apologizing! I've been humbled, and convicted that we didn't bring the problem up years ago to people who would probably have listened (calling it "grace" when it was really a lack of courage to speak up).

It's starting to be an amazing case study of dealing with and working through conflict, when to be part of the solution when you have a burden about something (and when to let things go), and seeing leaders - brothers and sisters in the body of Christ show forbearance (my new favourite word) and grace, and work together to build Christ's church. I still have a few people I need to apologize to directly (I pray the Holy Spirit will reveal any more!), but there's already such a hope that we are all going to be stronger and better from this.

It seems now, that even though I lacked judgement in writing publicly, and that I hurt some people by what I wrote; these instrumental leaders have heard. They have also apologized to us personally for this regrettable "blind spot," and now we're working together to make a change. 

For the future, our united heart is that our sent missionaries will no longer be/feel forgotten. We'll find ways to introduce and advocate for them to those who are new people in the congregation (who didn't know them when they went overseas), and for those at home who have let their ties become too loose, we'll work to restore the bond. The mutual hope is that in the future, all of our church's "home-grown" missionaries will feel built up from their visits home. The wheels are in motion for this church to give them an intentional welcome, offer more practical care for them, and somehow publicly honor them when they return.

If you are interested in reading or talking more about it, you can write to me personally. As a case study, it is a remarkable model of processing conflict and I hope others will be able to learn from our mistakes. I'm really encouraged to know that I am part of a church where leaders can respect one another and all be humble enough own our sin and move forward in unity.