The journey to Wellspring on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda is a long one. For us starting from Texas, it meant 18 hours of flight time via London, navigating the netherworld that is immigration in Entebbe, and a two-hour car ride from the airport ending in a session of midnight honking outside the ministry center gate as we waited for it to be opened for us! Herbert and Eve and all the Wellspring staff are the most amazing hosts, but they must share along with the rest of their nation the frustrations of frequent and unpredictable power outages. By candlelight we found our room and fell into our beds.
Wellspring is not remote in location—certainly there are places in the African bush that are far more remote in terms of being cut off from civilization—but it is remote in terms of ease of accessibility. We in the west who like to talk about being “intentional” need only take a car ride of any kind through the streets of Entebbe and Kampala to sample a new level of intentionality displayed by each and every driver! The amount of focused determination necessary to get somewhere through the traffic would be enough to accomplish a dozen goals in our lives and churches which offered a “normal” amount of resistance! (It was no surprise that even in Heathrow airport on the way home, conversations could be overheard between several nationalities, the topic of which was the Kampala traffic!)
Once at the Wellspring complex, however, perched as it is with a view of life in the valley below (a valley that only a few decades ago was bush), one finds an oasis of peace—a little city of Kingdom development, fully functioning and moving in the opposite spirit of the chaos outside. There is a small hospital, a not-so-small primary school, a fully-functioning cafeteria and dormitories, conference center, offices to support micro-enterprise and housing developments, and also a church which is bustling with activity. In my life, I don’t know that I have ever seen such a footprint of the Kingdom—and I live with my eyes searching for such things! (I declared upon our return to our church which we very purposely named, “The Abbey,” that I had just come from an African Abbey: so much more than a Sunday morning!)
We had come to Wellspring to speak at their annual pastors’ conference—their 7th such event. Having learned through experience that God delights in joining his people across cultures, we knew that the relationships formed with the African pastors and leaders on the trip would be rich—and it certainly was. (I feel I carry them in my heart now.) What we did not realize, however, was that God was doing something that would transcend our bonds with Africa. The six members of the ministry team that had been assembled by Herbert and Eve (directors of Wellspring) were appointed for a purpose beyond the ones we could have imagined.
The web of relationships among the team included so many “coincidences”. Phil Moore from England was one of the first people that we had connected with 15 years ago when we first travelled to the U.K. He and his church had taken us in and loved and cared for us, but we had lost touch with him as the years had gone on. Our good friend, Andy Read, had completed a year as C.E.O. of Links International and it was a joy to travel with him doing Links business, moving our relationship beyond just visiting each other’s houses and churches. And then there were Mike and Beryl Godward, the founders of Wellspring (and doers of many other exploits) who now lead Links International in South Africa. We had only run across them briefly over the years, but had always longed to hear their stories and know them better—amazingly in them we discovered a mutual desire towards us!
We ministered all day (literally—many sessions) at the Pastor’s conference. Unlike an ordinary conference where you simply come with a message and deliver it, we all noticed that we were, like bike racers on the same team, drafting off of each other’s wind! I fled to my room more than once to alter my prepared message, having caught fresh inspiration from someone else on the team in the previous session! Though we came from diverse starting points, never has a conference been so thoroughly “whole”—it was one big teachable moment with several players involved—an epic unfolding that consumed our individuality!
At the end of the day—when everything shuts down because there may or may not be power—we found a way each night to be together for fellowship, joined the second part of the week by our son Joe and Billy Wells from San Marcos—two of the next generation who have begun to work with Links USA. Whether it was gathered with all the African leaders at the home of Herbert and Eve for a meal, dancing, singing, including the national anthems of every nation represented (and the University of Texas fight song—sorry—Billy kept saying that Texas was once its own nation!), or just the team hanging out together at the home of Holly who oversees the Wellspring educational initiatives, we couldn’t get enough time together.
The Kingdom is both present as well as “waiting to emerge” at all times, but there are those moments when the invisible reality of Kingdom just SHOWS UP like a STORM! We seem to live for those moments. On the last night of the conference, in our fellowship at Holly’s house, we had one. What began as just sharing turned into revelation and we realized God Himself had joined in the chat-time with a loud voice and a mighty hand! Suddenly we knew we were sitting in a miracle: Through all it took to get there, God had assembled us in Holly’s living room to testify once again to us that this Kingdom is built through relationships and that it will never be any stronger on earth than the relationships that carry it! From diverse places, backgrounds and experiences, we sat as one sensing the reality of God’s strategies and networking for the nations. IT WAS SO REAL! Words couldn’t express it and yet we all tried. Tears flowed. Hearts merged.
We realized as we sat there in the “remote” safe harbor that is the Wellspring zone, that each of us had every reason not to have been together and yet God had drawn us! And we realized that for some of us, there was a destiny to be together than had taken years upon years to emerge! It was as if the camera zoomed out and we could see the big picture in which God had been constantly working and shaping, nurturing seeds that to us had gone dormant during the years that had brought us to this point—during our lifetimes. Those of us connected with the journey of Links International (and it was all of us in the room) have experienced highs and lows, loves and losses, victories and questions, and yet we still believe there is a cause and we are more than ever devoted to each other!
Links International was founded on relationships and it is that relational mindset—which is the Kingdom mindset—that is the revolution waiting to fully engulf the face of missions as we know it. Here we sat experiencing the very essence of what Links is all about: we sat declaring with tears the value of each relationship in that room, thankful that through doubts, challenges, or simply “busy-ness”, we had managed to have enough sensitivity to heed the call and come and partake! In a real Kingdom way, we “fell in love with each other” all over again—not for any natural reason but for the burning sense that God had ordained that TOGETHER we would walk! There, in a place that that seemed inaccessible, and in an assembly that seemed on some level impossible, heaven found complete ACCESS to earth via a few gathered hearts with no veil or defensiveness. As we wept, we began to feel the right-brain burst that is Jesus echoing his words, “With me, all things are POSSIBLE!”
I told someone before I left for the trip that Africa has always had the wonderful effect of stripping me down to basics, showing me the things that I have let become far too complicated. It dulls my delusions of grandeur and grounds ambition in a sense of what is really vital. I suppose you call this perspective, but it is way more exciting than that word tends to sound. I feel I’ve been re-calibrated—like the best of all inner chiropractic adjustments—a realignment that will generate health throughout the rest of the body in time to come! All things really ARE possible, but not because I strive to do all things right! All things are possible because we live in a Kingdom of relationships, chief of which is the one with the glorious God-head, but beyond that includes strategically placed networking of people in real-time dynamic situations!
Lest you think that this is all theory, however, or even all just for the good of the far-away nations, let me share one last very personal thing. In God’s great economy, what helps the nations in the macro is the same thing that revolutionizes the individual in the very deep-hearted “micro”. There is always an individual application.
You see, I’m that girl who always says too much, shares too much, tells it all and lets it out—there is an unexplainable drive in me to express. (My dear husband is often praised as the “saint of saneness” at my side.) But inside, I am also a constant student of human behavior and I have made it my life’s project to decode the effect I seem to have on the world, so as to finally come up with a rule of thumb of when to speak and when to keep silent. I still have not found one but I keep doing the research!
On one evening of our international relational festival of fellowship, over a lovely meal, I began to talk about my childhood and personal life prior to Christianity. I seldom do this. However, I had lost myself in the enjoyment of a Kingdom moment and a sense of temporary but very real “family” had been created in the dinner conversation. Suddenly, Andy Read said, “You should put this on a podcast,” and to my surprise, everyone at the table agreed. I am being honest when I admit that never in my life had I experienced anything but embarrassment about my checkered and unusual bohemian past. I tell people with shame that I was simply “raised by my culture” and I tell it only to justify my passion FOR culture! But I NEVER thought any of it was interesting, or even remotely acceptable! And I don’t think I ever consciously realized I felt such shame until that moment!
Something changed in me in that very moment when a group of friends listened with fascinated interest AND ACCEPTANCE to my little life story—not just the story of who I am in Christ in theory, but the story of the somewhat ridiculous set of circumstances on earth into which the seeds of redemption fell! I had a real and genuine moment of honest ACCEPTANCE at that table that ranks up there with the most extreme “Toronto” or “carpet times” ever experienced. God used these relationships to be family for me, supplying a missing piece, and I will never be the same. I saw myself in the mirror of the group in a way I had never seen myself before—I wasn’t “strange”: I was “interesting”—and that made all the difference in a deep place inside—a place that had formerly been untouched! As He did with the geography of Wellspring, God was again showing me how able He is to ACCESS THE INACCESSIBLE!! It didn’t take hours and counseling, just a moment of complete transparency when I had lost my filters combined with an environment of GRACE that was tangible (not just theological).
All my posturing, packaging and careful self-presentation is unnecessary when I know that God has POSITIONED me where he wants me. God took me to Uganda to remind me of that. There is hope for us all: God has a relational positioning for every one of us—one which will demonstrate the health of family where it has not been known before. As the church comes to more and more look like the Kingdom (less and less like a corporate business model), the grace of acceptance will become tangible more than theological just as it did for me. And if God can orchestrate the details to assemble us as He did in a postmodern African Abbey, then certainly He can move all the pieces necessary to re-calibrate anything else in all our lives that stands in need of adjustment. Many people have asked me in the 48 hours since I have been back, “How was your trip?” See….it’s a big Kingdom answer…..Let’s just say that along with Toto, I really must say, “I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA…..”! (http://www.lyrics007.com/Toto%20Lyrics/Africa%20Lyrics.html)
