"Come What May"...again

Like most of the rest of the world, I've been thinking recently about the future impact on our world due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Our world will never be the same. Undoubtedly, cultures will change. Economies have been damaged, and we don’t know how they will recover. We will have to learn to live under the continual threat of the virus.  I’ve been wondering how the rest of the world will respond. More importantly, how will the church respond, and how will I respond? We pray for our world.

I have been praying that God would give us direction to our future. We ask ourselves how can we contribute? It's exciting for us to recognize that God uses the multitude of events in our everyday lives to bring us closer to Him and to give us a better understanding of His plans and direction for our lives.  Looking back, we can see the evidence that these events have not come about by coincidence. The timing of our departure from Honduras, the completion of our construction projects, purchase and remodeling of the property, the graduation of our first high school nursing class, the dedication and preparation of our Choluteca teammates, all have led us to believe that it is time for us to move on to a different ministry. 

There is a lot that I don’t understand, but I know that God was aware of all these things. Just as God knew the prophet Jeremiah before he was born, when he was in the womb of his mother (Jeremiah 1:5), God also knows our current and future situations. Nothing catches Him by surprise. I believe that God is preparing the world for something that I can’t anticipate and much less am able to predict or describe. I am hearing others say the same thing. I believe that God is calling us to an awakening, maybe a world-wide revival. Certainly, He is calling us as Christ-followers to be distinct in our response to the changing world around us. The world will never again be the same as it was a month ago and we need to step to the forefront by continually being “salt and light” to the world in these difficult times. 

We believe that God is moving in some kind of a special way at this moment. God can work through pandemics and He can restore our land. Today, the week after Easter, we feel the church coming together in anticipation of a renewal of all things. This morning we participated in an “Americas Region” meeting with World Gospel Mission. Others seem to be coming to a similar conclusion. 

In addition, Angie and I just talked with Dr. Kathy Stone, a good friend of ours over the past 20+ years. Kathy led annual teams of Study Abroad nursing students from the Ohio State University to provide medical brigades in Choluteca. Today, Angie and I explained to Kathy that as missionaries, we are heading in a new ministry direction. While God has called us to leave Choluteca, we continue to serve with WGM, and we still have a strong interest in the ministries in Honduras. We continue to support the programs that we helped start. 

During this transitional period, we are not sure what all that entails. It looks like at least a part of our new job will include monitoring and evaluating some of the WGM projects. World Gospel Mission is focused on increasing the impact of the organization around the world. To assess that impact, we must first measure the outcomes for current goals. We must know if our projects are fulfilling the mission of WGM, following our organizational vision, and make sure we are staying true to our values. A list of measurable indicators was developed for each project. In 2018, an organizational “Ministry Impact Dashboard” report was completed. An independent consultant made suggestions for the future. (See the descriptionon the Choluteca ministries.)

That brings us back to our continuing interest in evaluating the impact of our programs in Choluteca. We cannot know if we are reaching our goals and making a sound investment through our inputs unless we are able and willing to measure those goals and evaluate the impact of our projects. The nursing school is in its fourth year of existence. We are interested in knowing the impact that the nursing school has on nursing students, patients, and the people they work with in the medical profession. Our vocational school will likely reevaluate our course offerings based on a new reality when everyone returns to work. Our community development programs, such as our 4-H clubs, will be designed to give children and youth hope in the difficult days ahead. It is essential to carefully review how our projects are affected by the COVID-19 crisis and its continuing threat to effective ministry outcomes.

Kathy Stone related to us that she had been touched by the WGM Honduras story many years ago. In 1998, we were in a previous transition. We were leaving the Farm School (El Sembrador) and heading into an unknown future and an unfamiliar territory. While we were on a Home Ministry Assignment, Angie was headed to Ohio State to finish her B.S. degree in Nursing. Dr. Kathy Stone was one of the first professors she had in class and was also the advisor for the Nursing Christian Fellowship. The best way to explain where we had come from was for Angie to give Kathy a copy of the book “Come What May”. It was a book detailing how “Don and Twana Hawk’s courage and obedience to God transform a Honduran jungle into El Sembrador, a farm school for underprivileged boys (Hockett, 1998).” 

Kathy reminded us that the book had been all she needed to decide that she wanted to know more about the World Gospel Mission ministry in Honduras. Kathy has 18 years of documented history from the teams that went to Choluteca with Ohio State University. Kathy told us that she hung on to that book all these years because it was what challenged her to get involved in ministry in Honduras. Recently, as she and her husband Doug were remodeling their office, she came across the book again. “Come What May” was instrumental in her thinking and renewed her enthusiasm for the ministry in Honduras. We conclude together that it may be time to consider “Come what may” all over again.  

Hockett, B. M. (1998). --Come what may. Newberg, Or.: Barclay Press.