I hope you won’t mind if, as the writer of the poem, I point out that in my mind it has absolutely no religious connotation or meaning. Readers of course have the right to read a text as they will, but I just want to make clear what my interpretation is in this case.

One of the huge problems with communication to partners the fact that we (I’m one of the sent ones) are processing a world in the context of cultural explorers. Most of my partners (the senders) who value my going are processing my retelling of these explorations from the context of settled people, living in familiar territory.

I suppose in reality, we don’t make the best accountability partners. How does one explain the taste of an orange to someone who’s never tasted one? How can I get directions for driving to a certain place from a pedestrian and expect their help to be reliable?

We do have valuable things to share together. Encouragement, prayer, even hands-on help now and then. But ultimately, those serving in places far from home will need to work even harder to share the lessons being learned in ways that make sense to someone who’s being led to reach the world through us.

It doesn’t always work. Some people still think of missions like collecting spoons from all 50 states. So when I determined the best way to do the job God’s called me was to do it from the US, they lost a spoon and I lost support. Can’t be helped. Logic isn’t part of the equation. But I still did everything I could to explain the logic to my best abilities. But it reminded me where my help comes… “from the Lord.”

-NDR