Week Twelve - Traumatized

Yesterday, my colleagues and I sat through a four-hour interrogation with the UK Border Agency. Why? Because we are a team that facilitates immigration through our church sponsorship license. We sponsor new missionaries coming into the UK and monitor them for the first five years of their service. This requires loads of documentation and correspondence and involves serious accountability. Not only to the laws of immigration but also to the consequences to the missionaries should we fail.

We have been involved in this ministry since 2008; this is our second inspection. They found some areas we needed to improve or change, but those are all fixable. However, it was a portion of his closing statement that most traumatized me. He said, "What was acceptable in 2008 when you first got your license and still acceptable in 2012 when you were last expected has now changed." 

It has left me with a feeling of foreboding. What was he not telling us? What changes will ultimately affect us, and how will that impact the missionaries? We need your prayers as we work through the known changes and for God to work on behalf of missionaries in the future. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and we trust this ministry will continue unhindered.

My reaction to this news is my choice. I can let it make me a nervous wreck - and it did for a while. Or, I can work on a plan for solving the issues at hand - which I will begin doing today. Or, I can seek to develop better strategies and implement deeper levels of accountability and controls - which looks like what will be required. 

But more than anything, I must remember this is God's work. His hand has been all over it from the beginning. He opened the door, and He will hold it open for as long as He desires. So pray right now for your missionaries and the furtherance of the Gospel in these last days, dear friend, because the times, they are a-changing!