Time

Greetings family, friends and supporters!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

Time is an illusory commodity. No more has this been true than in these last three weeks of illness, sugery and recovery. As my best friend just pointed out in her final newsletter article for internship, there are times when "time" goes by rapidly almost unnoticed and other times when it seems to creep on by seemingly right before us! It seems that time may be an illusion like a trick from a magic show!

The end of this month marks exactly the first year of my service with the ELCIC as Long-Term Missionary to Peru. A year ago, I was packing and selling belongings, saying good-bye to loved ones, attending Mission Orientation and various planning meetings, and preparing to leave. Now, one year later, it seems impossible to believe all that has happened within this year. As I prepare the various annual reports to the Bishop and to Mission in the World, there are questions about goals and progress, etc, etc. And after these three weeks of illness, surgery and now recovery, "time" that has crept by slowly, has been an opportunity to reflect on these questions and this first year. This time has been a wonderfully and sometimes painfully packaged gift to remind me of what has been important in this first year of service, what is core in my life (and in our lives), what ministry really means in this context, and what needs to be changed and adapted in me in order TO minister here. Much of this has already occurred, of course, but much more is about to happen I am sure, once my health is restored and ministry and life can continue normally, well, hopefully better than what has been "normal"!

The surgery itself was complicated and difficult, according to my surgeon. It took more "time" to accomplish what is a common surgery, meaning more anesthetic, a longer hospital stay, and a bit longer for recovery (I'll be officially back to work next week). However, I am at home now, resting, taking care of myself, and recovering. The Clinica Anglo Americana has been a wonderful facility to have this procedure, the staff were supportive and patient, many of them speak English. The ILEP church family and my new friends were, likewise, supportive and very helpful while I was in the Clinica and now in this week of recovery. I want to thank those who called, sent emails and cards!! I appreciate your thoughts and prayers so much!!!I am especially grateful to those who cared for me and visited me while I was in the Clinica, including a small delegation from the Texas-Louisian Gulf Coast Synod, including Bishop Mike Rinehart and Jim Young.I was sad to miss the Celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the First Ordained Ministers of ILEP, but heard that the worship service, meal, gifts, and speeches were a wonderful celebration!!

Who knew that the outcome of my 13 cm long gallbladder (normally they are 5 cm) filled with ten fairly large stones and resulting surgery and recovery, could be such a gift?! This "time" to reflect and digest all that has occurred has allowed my spirit the chance to catch up with all that has happened; all of the new experiences, changes, adaptations,learnings and challenges. As my body heals, I am trying to allow it the time it needs to do what it knows how to do. And I am reminded that in our anxiousness in this life and this hectic world of ours, that God acts with us and for us in this way, too. God knows what to do to heal our world, God knows our pain and weaknesses and our struggles. God knows we need time to heal and be restored, and God gives us a time for this. Even as we are called into action and service, to be the hands and feet of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ, we are also called into the illusion of time, into God's time to allow some of these things to happen in God's way, in God's time.

Thanks be to God for the gift of time!

With joy and peace,
Pastora Fran.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?..indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Matthew 6: 25-33