That last sentence describes my past few months. Recent ministry events on my calendar have left me gasping for air, yet oh-so-invigorated! The exhaustion is understandable. But why the invigoration?
Let me explain.
EXHAUSTED
It began at the 2009 IFCA Annual Convention in Kalamazoo. A series of events, both large and small, made this year’s convention the hardest one to stage (that assessment was not only mine, but the Home Office staff’s assessment as well). Things just did not go as we had so carefully planned, beginning more than a year before. First off, registrations were slower than in years past. We attributed that to the poor economy. But we still had to sweat out the dribbling number of room reservations at the hotel, wondering if we would meet our conservative number of contracted rooms or face a significant financial penalty. We met the number, but just barely.
On the day I was leaving for the convention, I received an email that our absolutely vital sound equipment manager had a death in his family and he was unexpectedly called away to the funeral. Because he is so efficient, he had arranged for a replacement to do all the set-up, but it was a jarring patch of highway to negotiate. Then I arrived at the convention hotel. That night the hotel had a flood from what some called a tornado, and the location of our dining room was under water and unavailable for maybe the entire week! That required some quick rearranging that put additional pressure on our sound techs. For two days they had to disassemble and then reassemble the equipment to turn our Ladies Conference rooms into an emergency dining room. A number of other issues made for logistical and ministry difficulties. Plus Miriam and I anxiously awaited the arrival of our first grandchild to be born out in Pennsylvania. We made many phone calls out to our son and daughter-in-law while we juggled the convention’s bumps and adjustments.
When the convention ended on Friday noon, I left Kalamazoo physically spent. But that very afternoon, just ninety minutes after we pulled into our garage, we had to host in our home the delegation from Manipur, India. We knew that tea must be served. And our house must the location. Thank God for Miriam! The tea and the setting was delightful (as they say).
At the Manipur Tea Reception I learned of the severity of a famine in Manipur that a once-in-100 year rat infestation was causing. Our brothers from Manipur begged for emergency help. I meekly suggested that maybe after an IFCA-wide appeal for special love offerings, maybe we could pray for the Lord to provide maybe, oh, I don’t know but maybe about $10,000. They replied: “of course, any and all help would be so very much appreciated! But we need at least $20,000 to purchase the amount of rice that is necessary.” The sound of my gulp could be heard across the street. I turned to my loyal friend and co-worker Dan Fredericks (the only other American, besides my wife, in the room) and we both looked faint. We made no promises, other than the promise to pray. And that is how our tea time ended. But I thought to myself, “this was NOT the kind of meeting I needed to have after staging the #1 Hardest-to-Stage Convention in IFCA History. What do we do now??”
Dan drove our Manipur brothers off to their weekend commitments, and I began mowing the lawn and Miriam began washing our clothes. We had only two days to prepare for a weeklong trip out to Utah to celebrate her father’s 80th Birthday, and to continue monitoring our grandchild’s delivery, and to make sure that our daughter’s wedding plans were progressing nicely. The wedding was in less than three weeks.
Utah was great, and our grandson Carter Rummel Lofquist was born when we were out west. We rejoiced as only new grandparents can rejoice.
Then the week in Utah ended and we had exactly sixteen days to fly back to Michigan and begin the Manipur Emergency Relief Project and finalize a wedding for about 500 guests (in our home church which seats 440… but don’t worry said all our friends. Not everyone will show up.) But their daughter wasn’t marrying into an Italian family with 220 in the famiglia. The wedding came, and it was crowded with 500 in attendance and people were everywhere, but with all those wonderful Italians and their wonderful, godly Italian son (now my son-in-law and future IFCA pastor), how could it not be an awesome day? Our hearts overflow with joy as we remember that beautiful day.
Then we began the final three weeks of summer which ended with the normal last-of-the-summer activities: nephew’s Open House / Family Reunion in Minneapolis, youngest daughter off to college, site visit to begin preparing for the 2010 IFCA Convention in Springfield, and study preparation for a major teaching ministry and trip to Guyana, South America.
I flew to Guyana, South America two days after Labor Day to teach a group of pastors from the Association of Bible Churches of Guyana. This trip had been discussed for nearly four years and so, it was the first on my calendar. But it did come at the end a frantic summer. When I got there, it was over 100 degrees every day (often 110) and 95% humidity. Hindus, Muslims, mosquitoes, taking cold showers with frogs and lizards clinging to the shower walls, cows walking the streets, and cars driving on the left side of the road all made for a most interesting cultural experience. But I didn’t go as a tourist. I went to teach a group of 35 pastors and church planters about being a godly Christian leader and mentoring men into leadership. It was a great time!
But I could not access my IFCA email account, so upon my return I had nearly 700 emails. Thankfully I could delete half of them, but that still left me a lot of work to catch up on. Plus I had to have the VOICE all set and ready to go four days after I got back in the office. And there was Slavic Gospel Association’s 75th Anniversary Banquet in Chicago. And the Sunday responsibilities in Michigan, and the SGA Standing Strong Pastor’s Conference back in Chicago on Monday through Wednesday where I was scheduled to preach. Then the drive to Kansas City and the Calvary Bible College Board of Directors meetings and the drive back to Michigan after that…
All of that is the exhausting part. But now the invigorating part.
As I write this article, I am in the midst of one of those intensely grueling schedules all of us who are in ministry can understand. Some months in ministry we find to be peaceful, even mundane, dull and ordinary. Other months are pleasantly challenging and we excitedly rise to the challenges. But in other months, the demands of ministry are nearly more than we can handle. We feel as if we’re racing headlong through a staggering flurry of activity, with a schedule reaching gale force proportions, wondering if we’ll survive and knowing that if we do, we’ll make it only by hanging on with our fingernails.