outside the gate

Living on a compound has been one of the biggest adjustments Matt and I have made over the past years.  Due to the instability and desperation of Haiti in general, OMS Haiti has three different housing/ministry compounds where all OMS Haiti missionaries live.  The compound where we live is maybe 10 acres with a block wall outlining it and a large gate at the front. 

Three homes are in the back corner, and the whole Seminary campus, dorms, etc. are in the middle, and the front gate, the only way in or out, is on the main road of Saccanville. 

Being walled in all the time, being apart from the community, living where we work and being unable to really get away, and not having other little ones within the walls for Lily make compound living difficult. 

At the same time, there have been lots of positives--letting Lily play outside and having a personal relationship with every person that she may come in contact with, living with 70 other people who all have the same focus and ministry, having literally NO security issues (we haven’t had so much as a flip-flop taken since moving to Saccanville), etc.

However, with so much ministry happening WITHIN the walls, it’s easy just to stay there. 

A few weeks ago, there was a young couple visiting EBS for a few days.  They were interacting with students, spending time in the classroom, and loving it.  It was crazy hot, we were both crazy busy, and I was crazy tired.  I found myself telling myself that because of these reasons, it was ok to just work and focus inside the walls for the last few weeks.

“We’ve got to get them out!” Matt said this couple’s second day. 

“I know, I know,” I told him, “but they’re doing lots of good stuff here, and they’re having fun, and things are so busy right now!”

“I know, babe,” he reminded me gently, “But everything good that is happening here is happening because of what’s out there.  Emmaus Biblical Seminary exists for what’s outside these walls.  What we do HERE each day is because of what is out there!  We can’t forget that.”

That afternoon, we all took a walk out in the community, introduced our new friends to Pehpay, walked through the lives of hundreds, and as always, saw Jesus, and the need for Him, all over the place.

I got my hot, tired self out there every chance I got the past few weeks before leaving Monday, each time Matt’s words reminding me why. 

Coming back to the States almost a week ago now, it seems at first that there is no real comparison.  I don’t know anyone here who lives in a walled compound, or who lives at their jobs or ministries.

But the more I think about it, the more I again realize that life is the same everywhere. 

“Outside the gate” is where Hebrews 13:13 says HE is to be found.  “Jesus, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  So, let us go!  Let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” 

How easy is it for all of us to stay inside our worlds?  How much simpler and undemanding it is to just enjoy the ministry within our gates!  We can tell ourselves that we ARE ministering!  We can tell ourselves that we are doing just what He has called us to do right where He has brought us!  Maybe we are working full-time where He’s brought us…in our church, with our family, in a certain ministry, at Emmaus Biblical Seminary. 

But no matter WHAT He has called us each to specifically and uniquely, as His followers, I have to remember that I am ALWAYS called Outside the Gate.  Always called outside of myself, of my life, of my interests, of my friends and even outside of my specific calling to take Jesus places that AREN’t comfortable, to people that AREN’t always accepting or friendly, to lives that are messy. 

What I know for sure about “outside the gate” is this: I’m NEVER sorry.  I have never arrived back home, covered in sweat and dirt and the grime of others, sorry that I went out.  I am instead always radiant, blessed to have been among His creation and fully aware of His presence, always anxious for Matt to come home so that I can tell him about sweet moments of true connection and relationship, of new friends we need to be praying for, of the many ways that He showed Himself to me through many who don’t even know Him….anxious to share with Matt how He met me when I went out to meet Him.

It was what he spent most of His time on earth doing, wasn’t it.  Just being with “outside” people.  And not just smiling at them as they passed or working on being ‘kind’, but spending TIME with people, in their lives, and making sure to tell them, directly, about Himself and Their Father. 

I am now in Ohio, and I am indeed 37 weeks pregnant with a two year old and a husband on the road.  My “compound” here in the States is very small and very comfortable.  And while He is very clearly here with me, I know that He is waiting outside, too.  I had several opportunities just today to “seek the city which is to come” and to “go out to Him”, and choose instead to be content with less.

As I continue to ponder all this, O. Chambers pushes me further…

“Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christians; nor is sin.

The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we live.

Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13).

In Luke 10:20, Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us DO rejoice.  We have a commercialized view—we count how many souls have been saved, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right.  We finish there. 

We wear His name, but are we going on with Him?”

As with many things, this idea is easier to see in Haiti.  There is an actual gate.  There are thousands of lost people outside.  We can stay in, or we can go out.  We can share Him where we are, and we can get a little more uncomfortable and take Him outside.

What's YOUR compound ministry?  Where's your gate?  Are we going out to Him?  What's HE doing out there that we can bear with Him?  What traps are keeping us homebound? 

I know I haven't lived a very long time.  But thus far, it seems to be that there is ALWAYS more abandonment of self, abandonment of comfort and abandonment of "inside the walls" to be done. As Matt says, we can't forget why we exist.  We may work in different ministry or give to different things.  But we exist to be in relationship: first with Him, and then with others...ALL others.  

"So, let us go!  Let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  After all, we do not have a lasting city here, but are seeking the city which is to come."