My five year-old son, Will, asked me yesterday, “Daddy, how long is it until Christmas?”  A question being asked to parents all around the world at this time of year.

“Two weeks”, I responded.

“But I don’t know how to wait”, he mumbled with the cute/innocent/anxious spirit of a child.

He was right. We often don’t “know how to wait” for Christmas. The season of Advent leading up to Christmas is meant to be a time of expectant waiting (the latin word adventus meaning “coming”). But in our anxiousness and uneasiness with “waiting”, we often fill our time dashing from place to place, checking off our ‘to do lists‘, and sprinting toward December 25th. Our style of “waiting” delivers panting breaths rather than peaceful stillness.

So, the challenge continues again this year – To set intentional moments between now and Christmas to slow down, embrace time with family and friends, give unconditionally, remember those in need, and reflect on our lives through a lens of gratitude. It’s in those intentional moments that our “waiting” dissolves and the true spirit of Christmas arrives.

Let the waiting continue…

“Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my doors,

waiting at my doorway.” – Proverbs 8:34

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport

Have I Done Enough?

Over Thanksgiving weekend I got a text from our Chief Operations Officer, Wendy Johnson, that she had just seen the movie, Blindside and the Sandra Bullock character reminded her of me. Yea, I can see that, well except for the hot body and millionaire husband, that could be me. Michael Oher, the homeless youth taken in by the Touhy family, was interviewed on CNN and the anchor finished the interview with how wonderful it would be if the movie inspired others to reach out and take someone in.

Last Saturday I was in Tijuana attending the Ministry Planning Board Christmas party at Pastor Armando Ponce’s church. He has been with us almost from the beginning when his church and home were housed in a facility that resembled an aluminum Quonset hut. A lot has changed since then but what is the most inspiring is that Pastor Armando has planted 10 mission churches in the city of Tijuana.

Tonight Scott and I went to see the new Clint Eastwood movie Invictus. I’ve been thinking about that prison cell where Nelson Mandela lived for so many years and how this one man helped change the course of history in South Africa that makes it now possible for us to serve there. A great and inspiring figure in our lifetime.

These two movies and the testimony of Pastor Armando inspire me to do more. And so this holiday season I am asking myself, “Have I done enough?” I am 55 years old and I know that if I died today I could go to my grave feeling good about the fact that I made a promise as a 9 year old to be a missionary and I kept it. Honestly, since I made that commitment at Guadalupe Christian Service Camp people would say I have accomplished a great deal. And yet until the day I die I will keep asking myself, “Have I done enough?”

Have you done enough?

By Gayla Congdon, Founder and CSO of Amor Ministries

Read more by Gayla by clicking here.

“Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with thee; thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not; as thou hast been, thou forever will be.” – Hymn by Thomas Chisholm, 1923

We all have memories of a time and place that we remember so vividly it is as if it occurred yesterday.  Some memories are so clear that I can even recall what I wore that day.

I have just that kind of memory to share.  Though I don’t remember what I was wearing, what I do know is that Scott and I were driving home from work. At the time, the Amor offices were located on the Hope International University campus in Fullerton, CA.

During that ride, we discussed our friend, Glo Spivey who, as I said that day, was the very definition of the word “sweet” in the dictionary.  In doing so, I asked Scott a question that will forever live on in infamy.  I asked Scott if he thought of me as “sweet.”

The look on his face I’ll never forget because it was intense and tiny beads of sweat formed on his brow.  He gripped the steering wheel of our little yellow Toyota Tercel knowing that he was treading on thin ice with his answer.  Now, any woman reading this will agree that the simple answer was, “Yes, honey.  I think you’re sweet.”

Being Scott, however, he instead said what he thought rather than what I wanted to hear.  I have always been able to count on Scott to say what he thinks yet I haven’t always appreciated being told the truth (especially after getting ready to walk out the door and being told that my outfit isn’t a hit!)

As I waited for him to answer, I wondered why he was taking so long.  Then, his face changed from incredible intensity to great tenderness as he looked over.  So much so, that I truly believed he would say exactly what I expected—that my name would be found next to Glo Spivey’s beneath the definition of “sweet” in the dictionary.

With the kindest voice a wife could wish for, my husband delivered the words I will never forget as long as I live, “Honey, no.  I really don’t think of you as sweet.  I want you to know that I think of you as well, I think of you as efficient.”  And with that pronouncement which he was quite proud of, he returned to the moment before this conversation began.

“Efficient!  Efficient! What do you mean I’m efficient?” I asked.  Poor Scott.  In trying to answer my question honestly and with a real desire to compliment me, he didn’t know what had just happened.  The little yellow Toyota became smaller as he sat beside a raving maniac.

Scott and I, however, remember that day as a defining moment in our marriage because I can trust that he will always be honest with me even when I don’t want to hear it.  In the end, we look back and laugh at our “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” view of the word “efficient”!

Truth be known, he was right.  I am efficient.  Am I sweet?  Well, as my friend Bill Miles says, “I don’t think of you as sweet, but I do think you’re a sweetheart.”  I’m okay with this.

This particular memory came to me recently because of a question that was asked in our Fall Leadership Bible Study.  In Mike Yaconelli’s book, Messy Spirituality he asks what we would like said at our funeral.  I can tell you right now, efficient is not it.

Instead, I would like to hear that I have been faithful.  When I enter those pearly gates, I want Jesus to say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”  I want to be remembered as faithful to my God, faithful to my husband and family, and faithful to the ministry I committed to when I was nine years old.

In this thanksgiving season, we have much for which to be thankful, but it is His faithfulness that inspires me daily.  It’s why Amor Ministries has stayed the course by serving in Mexico when things have been tough and why we continue to respond faithfully to the Pastors and their ministries as they move forward in these challenging times.

2010 will be our 30th Anniversary.  Over a quarter-of-a-million of you have faithfully participated with us over these 30 years in serving the church in Mexico and most recently, in South Africa and San Carlos.  We ask you to join us on one of our 2010 projects as we work alongside the Church in a year of Jubilee celebrating God’s faithfulness to Amor Ministries!

“Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness morning by morning new mercies I see! All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!”

By Gayla Congdon, Founder and CSO of Amor Ministries

Read more by Gayla by clicking here.