I leave in less than two days for a trip to Europe, primarily focused on men's ministry, so I thought about writing about the challenges of men in international ministry. But I doubt you would remember anything I said.
That's what a big hurricane does. It sucks all the heat out of the ocean, and sometimes all the water off the shore, and can set things spinning, jumping, blowing, crashing, and flooding. We have many friends, family, and ministry partners in the Houston area, including a partnering church whose facility was severely damaged by flood waters in Hurricane Harvey. We're thinking and praying for you, Bridgepoint Bible. While not everyone in Houston lost their home or car, many many people did including people we know and love.
Taiwan is located directly in the path of typhoons. (Typhoons are the same kind of storm as hurricanes, but on the other side of the world.) Before we experienced the huge earthquake in 1999, we had been through multiple typhoons. I remember taking my family across the street for a family Chinese lesson, only to realize on the way back that I could have lost a child (or myself) just while crossing the street. That definitely scared me. I had never seen winds like that. Later, as I drove out to TEAM's camp to help clean up, I remember seeing endless rows of uprooted trees along the streets of our city, and the many soldiers helping to clean up. Harvey, as you probably all know, was much worse for Houston because of the flooding.
When tragedy strikes a community, people ministering within that community can be more than doubly impacted. First, we may suffer along with everyone else. Second, as we come alongside others, we share in their suffering as well. Third, as relative outsiders in a community, we may not have the support networks that locals have to deal with crises, although we may sometimes be treated as honored guests.
But we also have some thing we can share. We all know about faith, hope, and love. Faith may allow us to see, and share, a bigger picture, in which our heavenly Father supplies all our needs. Hope may allow us to see, and share, a brighter future, in which the struggles, pain, and frustrations of our present world are overcome. Love may allow us to care for others without our own needs being met first, and to receive care from others without feeling conflicted.
In a hurricane, as in many other traumatic experiences, we may genuinely fear the loss of our lives or people and things we hold close to our hearts, and sometimes we do experience these losses. We never know when or how trauma will impact us, and there is no right or wrong way to show our feelings, or even right or wrong feelings to carry inside. One person may walk away from their flooded house with a smile, thankful to get out, while another walks away weighed down with the impact of life forever changed.
We do know that some things make trauma worse. These include being a child, suffering multiple traumas, suffering repeated traumas, and suffering extended trauma. We don't know what we don't know, and so it makes little sense to expect others or even ourselves to handle trauma any particular way. We do know that walking alongside others in difficult situations means accepting exactly where they are at and exactly how they feel about it, no matter how reasonable or unexpected this may be.
One thing I learned to like about typhoons was that they put everything else on hold (once I learned that lesson about respecting the storm!) These days people talk about our always on, always connected, always active world. If hurricanes and other traumas teach us to hold our expectations lightly and breathe deeply, that could be worth a lot. If I can apply this with airplane flights, schedules, traffic, investments, and world peace, I might even have room to walk alongside my brother or sister in their traumas, whatever they may be and however fast or slow they are coming.
Love in him who keeps us, Steve
PS In the next two weeks, I'll be trying to do some of this in Spain and Switzerland, leaving Laura here in Colorado to do some of this here, too. We don't like to be split up, but we've also enjoyed some good times together. I'll save news of that for another day, hopefully one without a hurricane.
Steve and Laura Spinella
US: 1930 Springcrest Rd, CO Springs 80920mail: 9685 Otero Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80920
Steve cell 719.355.4809, Laura cell 832.755.4261
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