WORK.
“It's exciting to be uncertain but hopeful!!! This is life!!! It's beautiful”
-a text message received in February
Reflecting on the last few months of happenings, the common thread has been God’s distinct presence through it all and the ways this is continuing to be revealed.
My work since January has eased into a ‘flow state’ where I’m beginning to see the timely significance of a job description I wrote up without knowing really what it would entail over the course of a year. Venturing into the recruitment/alumni relations functions of the school has been a shift from working with middle schoolers daily, but one I’ve taken well :).
My database of past alumni and teaching staff has grown from 0 to over 600 names, and it’s been just as fun to look through old yearbooks and photos from the early ’90’s for familiar faces as it’s been reconnecting with old friends and seeing how GDQ has equipped students to get into some pretty creative fields of work. As our plans for a 30th anniversary reunion have begun to take shape it’s become evident that this project has the potential to be of great use to our community. Little did I know (or any of us, really) that GDQ would be asked to leave our school building on Don Bosko after 19 years. Our first GDQ reunion will also be our last at this building that’s served us for almost 2 decades. As a former student, I can attest to the fact that that building was well loved- we have given purpose to every nook and cranny. Walls have been put up, torn down, and moved a couple meters to create a new classroom out of thin air. Balconies have become science labs, storage spaces have become EAL classrooms. While the timing of the move is less than ideal, I can’t help but see the opportunity this could be for GDQ to relax in a forever home and establish the work we’re doing as a permanent feature in the Albanian missional landscape. I’m sensing the administrative work I’m doing is not in vain, and hope our 30th reunion will become a significant milestone in bringing together the GDQ community from years past to thank God for 3 decades of fruitful ministry and fervently pray for His provision for many years to come.
Last week I attended the lecture portion of the Leadership and Spiritual Formation class I’m taking as part of my M.A. in Leadership program through Wheaton College. In all honesty, there’s no reason I should be in a grad program other than the hand of God. If we’re looking purely on merit, my undergrad GPA is nothing one would boast of having. That being said there is little that excites me more than listening to smart people talk about smart things. My world was rocked on more than one occasion. For a class on spiritual formation we spent an awful lot of time in Genesis looking specifically at what it means to be made in the image of God and God’s original design for human work. These are both topics I haven’t given much thought to before last week, other than being made in God’s image meant that God made us differently from the rest of creation and a presupposition that work was a post-fall curse on mankind.
I fear I will do an injustice to the nuances of the image of God conversation, but can confidently tell you that my mind has changed on the latter and work is in fact NOT a post-fall curse. My relationship with work has been a tough one. I’ve more or less seen it as a necessary evil, something we must do because ‘cursed is the ground before [us], and by the sweat of [our] face[s] [we] shall eat bread’. This, however, is overlooking the fact that God was working long before Genesis 3. All of creation is his ‘workmanship’, and what God calls Adam to in the garden in Genesis 2:15 is to “work/tend/cultivate it and keep/watch over/tend/look after it”. Look for these two words, Abad and Shamar in Ancient Hebrew, in other places in scripture and you’ll find they’re often paired together and used to describe rites of worship in the tabernacle and emphasize man’s twofold responsibility in Godly work- service for God, and service for others. It’s a simple concept, I know, but I couldn’t help but have an ‘aha’ moment followed by a deeper question- ‘How does God view the work I do?’
I don’t have an answer to this question yet, but it’s made me much more comfortable having a conviction that missional living is ‘worthy work’ that God looks at with joy and responds in blessing. I’ve appreciated that the nature of my day job kind of requires me to disclose the fact I’m a Christian, and this has led to conversations lasting much longer than the cups of coffee that were in front of us a few hours prior. I’m learning God loves to make Himself the center of our conversation and His truth is not threatened by conversations on church practices, politics, sexuality and marriage, and those questioning the nature of a trinitarian God. It’s hard to relay to you the wild array of people God’s crossed my paths with- lunch with a handful of Mormon missionaries, coffee conversations with Jehovah’s Witnesses, ex-Christians, humanists, and walks in the park with a Minnesotan student, Israeli backpackers, German bikers and a Italian/Belgian oboist to name a few. I see this as my work, and I think God sees it that way too.
I’m writing this from a coffee shop in Athens, Greece. After finishing my class in Prague last week I flew down to work remotely from a friend’s couch until GDQ’s spring break starting tomorrow. With all these ideas, uncertainties, questions, and pushing through the mundane, I am reminded of the simple joy it is to just ‘work’ shoulder-to-shoulder with a cherished brother in Christ this week and the joy it can be for all of us to do life alongside those that spur us towards a deeper knowledge of the Holy. Oh, how refreshing it is!
Some things you can be praying for this month:
We have about 30 Alumni/past staff joining us for the reunion on April 19th. I’m not much of an event planner, so please pray for the logistical elements of a weekend reunion that could come together smoothly for a memorable reunion event.
GDQ’s building search: Finding a building/land that is suitable for the needs of our school has been a difficult process. There are many potential legal/zoning questions that need to be answered before GDQ can even pursue a building purchase that the Albanian state is really no help with. Pray that God will provide an overabundance: for the funding, the manpower/community support, and a building greater than what we could seek on our own strength!
Pray for the writing phase of my MA course: I’ve finished the reading, listened to the lectures, and now come the essays. Pray for a clear mind as I synthesize my thoughts into a cohesive plan of action and reflections on leadership, spiritual formation, and future ministry.
Pray for the folks I’m meeting in Albania and on my travels- those in the past, those I’m meeting currently, and those I’ll meet in the future. Please pray for their hearts to be soft to the work of God in their hearts and I would be obedient in maintaining a conviction of the Truth that would be proclaimed confidently.
I plan to write more these coming months. Well… only after I’ve finished my grad work. There’s a lot more that could be shared but I don’t really know where to start. If you’d like to know more about anything specifically, life/work/ministry related, I’d love to set up a call and chat!
Peace to you all.
Aaron
Praying for you and your work, Aaron! And I like what you said about being made in God's image. Very helpful!
I thank God for what He is doing in your life, and in the lives of others through you.
Aaron, thank you for your update. Praying all goes well for you.