My purpose for attending Spring Conference this year is partly just to experience the event. It's partly to reconnect with folks from Brevig and brainstorm ideas for VBS this year (July 12-19- wanna join our team?)
But since folks heard I was coming up anyway, someone asked me to lead a Bible study on the theme verse, Revelation 21:4a. So I'm leading a study of a controversial book to people from a different culture? Yikes. I was a bit intimidated.
I wondered if 1 or 2 people would show up. I had at least 15 and 5 kids who wandered about or napped.
After a general outline of the book and its themes (Revelation gives comfort to those suffering, God wants to save the whole world not destroy it and in the end, God wins) we had some time for sharing and storytelling. I was delighted when people jumped in and started talking.
One of the most striking comments was from a mother of two, member of the Nome congregation who had traveled in Wales. We were discussing how one finds hope in suffering, as the book of Revelation offers. She noted that Wales was an extremely harsh climate: remote, within view of Russia's seas, far from other villages, bombarded with windy blizzards in winter and blowing sands in summers and also no plumbing or running water. How did one stay hopeful in this place?
Flowing out of the mountain near the village is a stream. The water flows constantly, cold, fresh, clean and delicous. No matter how tough the life became, the stream was always there, a flowing water of life, offering dependable relief from thirst and soothing scenery in its flow. This was God's grace to her.
I was moved by the steadfast, courageous ways people come to live and stay in these harsh climates. When it came time for prayer, I allowed people to add their own prayers. They prayed for loved ones and for save travel during this storm.
One prayer stuck out. A woman prayed, "God, we thank you ahead of time" for all the ways God would continue to be faithful and answer prayer. She repeated this phrase like a litany, always thanking God ahead of time, trusting God would be faithful. What beauty! What hope! What optomism, despite living in a harsh, unyielding land. She trusted that God would indeed finish what God had started.
God, today I thank you, ahead of time.
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