"When I Am Weak, Then I Am Powerful"

Looking back through older posts on this blog, I noticed at the beginning of my need greater career in Guyana I was updating once a week. When I moved deeper into the interior, the updates became more like once a month. We now seem to have reached a limit of four times per year, every three months. Here's a simple - though roundabout - explanation why.

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While preparing for the Watchtower lesson about our yeartext (Isaiah 40:31, "Those hoping in Jehovah will regain power"), I began thinking about myself. I am, for lack of a better term, useless. I tend to be scatter brained. It looks to many as though I procrastinate a lot, but the truth of the matter is I just forget everything important that I'm supposed to do, so it doesn't get done until the last possible minute. Yes, even that pile of dirty dishes that's sitting across from me right now, that somehow has developed into a blind spot that I never even see until an inopportune moment, such as right now.

Where was I going with this...

Ah yes. I cannot be relied upon to handle nearly anything of importance whatsoever. Which is why the last four months have been incredibly terrifying for me. You see, the congregation here has only one other elder, which is a huge help for me because he's been appointed much longer and has more experience and is more intelligent and pretty much everything along those lines. He does most of the work. But then one day in October we learned he and his wife had been invited to SKE, and would be gone from mid-December until mid-March. This would leave me with no support from an experienced brother.

Begin the cold sweats.

Having spent four years in such a small congregation (and having already tackled numerous jobs) I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it takes to keep a congregation going, and that overwhelmed me. Turns out it's even more. But once I thought I had wrapped my mind around what was going to be involved in managing a congregation's affairs for three months, a frightening realization came to me. Memorial. We keep two Memorials simultaneously, both here and in our neighboring village. So I had to get both of those set up best I could. Then came another revelation. Circuit Assembly in Orealla. In case you missed it, we host our own Circuit Assembly, and the prep work for this one would begin in the midst of the SKE class (in other words, while the COBE is still away).

So as you can imagine, things have been busy. I'm averaging 12 hours a day. But here's the thing, the part that I cannot believe and that has spurred this blog update.

Nothing has gone wrong. I repeat, not a single thing has gone wrong. Sure, there's been minor setbacks here and there, but in each instance they have been quickly dealt with, and several times things have turned out better because of the setbacks. Why so? To put it simply, this is why...

"For when I am weak, then I am powerful." - 2 Corinthians 12:10.

There is not a chance I could manage this on my own. I can't even manage a cell phone plan. Trust me, I've tried, several times, and it doesn't work. But with Jehovah's help, the last few weeks and months have gone along smoothly, almost without event.

You know, a few weeks ago I wrote out a to-do list, and it was so long and complicated and full of tasks I could barely comprehend that when I finally sat down and took a look through it, I had to shut off my laptop and stare at the river for a good long while because that was the only way I could keep from panicking. But you know what? It's finished. I don't remember a single thing proving difficult or going wrong. Actually, looking back through it, I see there is exactly one task remaining.

"Collect field service report from (name)." And that's it. Once that's done, I am completely caught up on the work I need to be doing. I'm sure there will be another batch coming soon, but now I have no fear about its chances of getting done.

So please accept this as my apology for lack of updates, and also my personal experience of the truthfulness of this year's theme text. The fact that we have made it this far and the Kingdom Hall hasn't burned down or anything is a testament to the fact that Jehovah will make sure his work gets done, no matter how incompetent the people are that he has to use for his work.

Two more weeks of this and our COBE returns and hopefully things go back to normal. Or as normal as they can get in my life.

(And yes, the name I blanked out on the field service report was my name. I'm the one who still needs to turn in a field service report.)