The Uganda Bike Project

Months of prayer, planning and a little more prayer found me in Uganda last month training bike mechanics in a joint venture between Dakota Wesleyan University and Esperance Education Institute (EEI). Our team of ten people was made up of six DWU students, one DWU faculty (Joel Allen), one Morningside College student (Joel's daughter Johanna) and one RN (who also happened to be the parent of one of the DWU students). We set off with several ministry objectives in mind, but the one that was undoubtedly mine was the bike project.

The goal was to work with four or five people to train them in basic bike maintenance in order to help them acquire the skills they would need in order to begin to do bicycle repair as a source of income. We relied on Adonai Ministries International (a ministry out of Bugiri run by Dr. Charles Oundo) to find local candidates for the program, primarily drawing on people serving as pastors. The training would be taking place at Adonai alongside a training for pastors that Joel was the primary instructor for, with me leading some sessions about discipleship and spiritual formation (more about that in another post).

For the bike project though, we wound up with four men as a part of the project, three of who were from Bugiri with one from Busia (about 45 km away). We had hoped to have at least one female member of the project as well as EEI has placed a particular emphasis on equipping and training women, but Dr. Oundo said that those who he had invited to take part had declined. He said the reluctance seemed to be primarily cultural surrounding traditional gender roles.

My preparation before the trip consisted primarily of fund raising with the goal of purchasing two bike tool kits and one bike repair stand to go along with the one repair stand and floor pump that had been donated by my friend (and Fusion member) Paula Platz from her late husband's collection. Paula's husband Bill was a great guy who I had met on a few occasions and who would love the fact that his tools were being used to help others this way.

We were able to purchase the tool kits and one bike stand with funds donated by EEI and Palace City Pedalers (our local bike club in Mitchell, SD). I had been assured that we would be able to purchase tools in Uganda, but I was a bit reluctant to leave that to chance since there were bike specific tools like cone wrenches, crank pullers and chain breakers that I was not as optimistic that we would be able to buy locally. I didn't doubt that we would be able to buy more general use tools (hammers, wrenches, screw drivers...) in-country and hoped that between what I brought and what would be easier to find locally that we would be in a good position to be able to accomplish what we had set out to do.

As we arrived in Entebbe and gradually made our way through Kampala and Jinja as we headed east toward Bugiri. With it being my first time in Uganda, I was soaking in everything, but I was especially attentive toward the bikes that I was seeing. Most of what we were seeing as we left Entebbe and passed through Kampala were basic mountain bikes, much like we would see in the US. As we passed through the heart of Kampala, we actually saw a group of roadies (riders of road bikes for those not familiar with the lingo) on bikes from Trek, Specialized, Bianchi and Merida (much like you'd find in the US...okay, maybe not Merida so much). Needless to say, I felt very much at home.

As we got farther away from the population centers though, the style of bike began to change from what was familiar to something out of the past. While probably 90% of the bikes in the population centers were very familiar to me, the ratio began to shift more and more toward cargo bikes. And not modern cargo bikes, but bikes that were designed 60 or more years ago that still used cotter pin cranks, very heavy steel frames, and a frame geometry that made handling the bike a bit more challenging.

Dr. Joel Allen on a local cargo bike

We saw these cargo bikes hauling people (it's actually a very common mode of local transportation), produce, benches and even (I kid you not) and axle off of a car. They were obviously the workhorses of bike utility and they were everywhere. By the time we reached Bugiri, the ratio had switched to 90% (ancient, outmoded) cargo bikes and 10% standard mountain bikes/basic commuter bikes. I began to wonder what exactly we would have to work with when we got started with the mechanics.

I anxiously awaited the first day of our training where I would not only be responsible for getting the bike project underway, but would also be leading some teaching sessions on discipleship and spiritual formation. The original idea that had been floated was to have me do just a few sessions of this with the 30 or so pastors that had been gathered while DWU student Amy Zeller did business training with the bike mechanics. I would have then worked the discipleship and spiritual formation topic into some of the time that I spent with the mechanics. It became pretty obvious early on that this wasn't going to be quite as workable in reality as the schedule had shifted somewhat. This wasn't completely unexpected, though it did change some of my approach with the mechanics. Instead of working the discipleship/spiritual formation conversations into our mechanics training, I simply invited the mechanics to join the rest of the pastors for the teaching sessions that I did.

This actually worked to our advantage in a few ways. First, it allowed for some flexibility to work with Amy on the business part of the conversation whenever she was available instead of forcing her to work within a schedule that we only barely had a say in ourselves. Second, it allowed the mechanics to actually get something out of the pastoral training since none of the guys spoke English very well and we only had a translator for the opening session of our bike workshop and the business training portions of the project. I think the language barrier would have made working these topics into conversation an impossibility for this trip, but could be incorporated in future efforts by ensuring that we would have a translator on hand.

Showing off some of the tools

We finally set about the first session of the bike project with the great benefit of having Betty Oundo (Charles' wife) translating. Betty has a degree in economics and was going to be instrumental in helping Amy figure out the best path forward from a business standpoint because of her understanding of how local culture and business practice would influence the shape that the project would need to take in order to be viable.

The first session was very much a "getting to know you" session where introductions were made and some basic expectations were stated. The four gentlemen that we were working with were Michael (from Busia) and Luka, Benard and James (all from Bugiri). Michael said he had a little bit of experience with bike maintenance (which turned out to be an understatement) and each of the others had learned a few basic fixes from friends. Michael also was a bit older (probably around 40, give or take) while the other three looked like they were within a few years of 20. I showed the guys the tools kits we had brought with and acknowledged that some would get very little use, but that others were hopefully going to prove to be go to items in their tool kit.

They, in turn, went through the parts of the bike with me, letting me know the local names for the parts such as "horns" (handlebars), "arms" (fork), "engine" (crankset),  and "wires" (spokes). Little did I know how much this basic introduction was going to expedite some of our sessions by helping us overcome some language barriers as the week went on.

Amy did a short session on business with Betty's translation and we had an opportunity to hear from the guys about what they hoped to get out of the training for the week. For some, the business skills were obviously a much needed piece of the puzzle, but mostly, they just wanted to get a better sense of how to fix bikes.

The one skill that came up though that would be a limitation to our training was welding. One of the reasons that these cargo bikes have held on so long in this area is the ability to find parts from old bikes and to keep piecing the things back together. Case in point was that both of the bikes that had been secured for us to work on needed to have weld work done on them. I considered us fortunate that we had both a local cargo bike and a more standard mountain bike to work with because a lot of the skills we planned to cover would apply for both bikes. What was less fortunate was that both bikes were in such poor repair that they pretty much needed to be completely overhauled. Normally this would not be such a big deal except that in order to fix a bike, you need to have parts to fix and both bikes were coming up short in that category.

This bike needed everything except a new seat and frame

The cargo bike they set us up with needed new brakes, pedals, at least four spokes in each wheel, tires, tubes and bearings all around. To make matters worse, the weld had broken where the right brake lever would attach to the handlebars (horns) of the bike which meant that even if we had the parts to fix it, we'd have to do some welding, which is not a skill I have.

The other bike was only marginally better, but at least it would give us a fighting chance to have one bike that was ridable by the end of the week. It needed a ton of work and an equal amount of parts, but at least our success wouldn't be completely contingent on our ability to weld. To be fair, one of the front brake posts was missing and would require a new post to be welded on, but at least we'd be able to run the rear brake and have a ridable bike, even without the front brake.

In hindsight, I think we might have been better served by purchasing two new bikes to work with so that we would be able to show how everything was really supposed to work instead of taking two bikes and trying to come up with solutions that would make them work just well enough, but this was the hand we were dealt and we were going to play it. I think Amy and I both left that first session feeling a little underprepared and wondering what the next few days would hold for us.

I knew that it would be a few days before we would be able to get Amy back with the mechanics due to other projects that she was involved in on the trip, so I dove into some basic repairs. We started with tubes and tires before moving on to hubs and headsets since those were things universal to both styles of bike. The guys picked up on these adjustments very well with me demonstrating how to do it properly, misadjusting it again, and letting them readjust. We did discover that the mountain bike that I was placing so much of my hope in had a cracked hub on the front wheel along with three or four missing spokes. We tried adjusting things as best we could, but it was never going to work exactly like it should.

Making matters more interesting was that the bike had originally had a multi-speed freewheel of some type on the rear wheel that had been replaced with a single speed freewheel. Necessity is the mother of invention in Uganda and you do what you need to do to keep your bike on the road, but this particular fix managed to create a whole new set of problems as whoever had put the single speed freewheel into place had obviously hammered it onto the hub, destroying the threads that we would have used to put a new five speed freewheel on the bike. Because the threads were shot, we had no choice but to replace the rear hub (along with the standard 3-4 broken spokes).

We also were going to need new brakes, a new chain, new freewheel, new shifters, new front and rear derailleurs and all of the cabling to actually make all of the new stuff work. So, in other words, about the only things that worked on this bike were the frame, handlebar and cranks. At least we were a step ahead of where we would have been with the cargo bike.

If your shop doesn't have chickens, it's not a real shop

Thankfully, Michael proved to be more than a little experienced with bikes. It turned out that he has actually been working on bikes to one degree or another for 25 years or so, so not only was he the one that spoke the best English (which was still pretty limited), but he also understood bikes the best. This actually proved to be a huge advantage in the absence of a translator as Michael and I could usually muddle through a question or an explanation well enough to understand each other simply because we both understood bikes. So anytime I needed parts, I would ask Michael how much he anticipated the parts costing and I would send him to the shop to pick them up. He was always very good about his estimations and provided receipts to verify what he had spent. The added plus was that because the muzungu (white person/aka me) wasn't with him, Michael was able to get a good price on the parts that we needed.

Michael also proved to be a good trainer for the other three mechanics as well since there was no language barrier and he knew quite a bit already. I actually let him do the sessions on wheel building since we needed to rebuild both wheels with new hubs and spokes paired to the original rims. I was able to add a little bit of technique to tensioning the spokes and truing the wheels, but Michael was showing himself to be someone that had the capacity to do training in the future without us having to wait to send someone else from the US.

Over the next few days we gradually rebuilt the wheels, put on new brakes (for the rear at least), added shifters and derailleurs, and adjusted anything else that we could to make sure that the bike was rideable. Thankfully, some of the new parts also allowed me to demonstrate how to properly adjust them and how to use some of the tools that we had brought with where a hammer and screwdriver would have been the only substitutes available to them. By the middle of Friday morning, we took our first ride on the bike and even though there were things that I would have loved to have done better (mostly because of the quality of the parts), it was at least safe enough for someone to ride without having to fear for their safety.

Amy and Betty doing some of the business training

Amy had been working hard since the first session to try to put together a business plan for the project, incorporating some of the things she had observed during our first week in Uganda. I was incredibly impressed with Amy's ability to take the principles that she knew and adapt them to the things that she was learning about the culture. She did as much as she possibly could to prepare in order to make sure that things were organized while still having enough flexibility to change things as she received feedback from the mechanics or from Betty. Amy put together a rough draft of the business plan, took feedback from the mechanics and Betty and by the end of the project, had a working document that the project members all agreed to that included monthly meetings with Betty who could provide some continuing ed on best business practices, as well as an understanding of how shared resources would factor in and how things could be developed on a personal level should the project prove to be successful for individual members. I could not have been happier with the work that Amy did and was reminded of just what a special community of students we have at DWU.

The only thing in the business plan and member agreement that I had a hard time getting on board with was the name of the project. I had hoped they would come up with something that represented the more missional focus of the project or be more bike specific to speak to the general intent to provide good, knowledgeable service for anyone that would seek out the services of one of the mechanics. Instead, they really wanted a name that would help them remember their trainer. They were rather insistent, so I reluctantly accepted when they named it the "Matt Bicycle Repair Project." I don't know too many other people that have a bike shop named after them in Uganda, but it definitely makes me feel responsible to make sure that it gets established and grows over time.

I have already had some conversation with Alisha Vincent (founder of EEI) about next steps and we are in agreement that a good next step would be to get the guys some welding experience. Whether that comes through us sending someone on a future trip or us funding someone like Michael to be able to travel to get the training needed, I think we are recognizing the need for this particular skill set to round out the knowledge that the mechanics would need to have in order to be successful.

My hope would be that if we were to send Michael, that he would be able to return to provide follow up training to the others. There is the continued need for additional equipment if we are hoping to teach the mechanics to weld and we will continue to evaluate the needs of the project and address them through continued business development or micro loans as appropriate.

Regardless of the path forward, I was so glad to get the chance to share some skills with the guys in the project and have already talked pretty openly about my next trip to Uganda. My hope is that we are able to establish this project in such a way that it does not become dependent on our ability to send me for further training, but that we will be able to establish more localized training with supplemental instruction from anyone that we are able to send that has skills in bike maintenance.

The full bike project crew (L-R- me, Amy, James, Luka, Benard, Michael, Betty)

Ugandan Art

So, I just recently returned from two weeks in Uganda (which I'm sure I'll be writing more about), but I spent this afternoon remounting a piece of art that I bought while I was there and wanted to share both the piece and a few thoughts I have about it.

I should begin by saying that I had no intention of picking up any artwork on this trip. Being the son of an artist, I don't lack for pieces to display at home. Instead, I intended to simply buy a few gifts for family. So, when our team arrived in Jinja and began to do some shopping, I was looking primarily at soccer jerseys for Xander and dresses and skirts for the girls. I really didn't intend to buy any art. But then I met Ben.

Ben was an incredibly energetic, affable guy in his early 20's and he did a much more effective job than any of the other street vendors of getting my attention and getting me into his shop. Ben proceeded to tell me he was an artist and showed me some of his pieces that were pretty obviously pieces created to sell to tourists and to put some food on the table. I really liked the guy and agreed to buy a small piece thinking I could afford one small piece for my office to support a guy scraping out a living with just his charisma and a little bit of paint.

As I was settling up with Ben though, another piece in the corner caught my eye. This one:

I asked Ben if this was another piece he had done and he told me it had actually been done by his friend Mike. I asked him how much it was going for (more out of curiosity than anything) and he told me it was 170,000 Ugandan schillings (about $50). I was actually a little shocked at how cheap it was and I was genuinely interested at this point, but (again) I hadn't intended to buy any artwork on this trip, so I told him that I was going to give it a little bit of thought.

Ben began to panic and took my genuine intent to give it thought as some sort of haggling technique and called out to the street where Mike was hanging out nearby. Ben asked how much Mike would be willing to let it go for and Mike said 150,000 schillings (about $45). I felt like I almost had to buy it before they just gave it to me and so I wound up buying two pieces that night instead of the zero pieces I had arrived intending to buy.

Ben and Mike posing with a few pieces

Once I agreed to buy this piece, Mike started showing me other pieces of his in the shop. Mike is a self trained artist who makes his living by selling his art to tourists. The other pieces that he showed me are pieces I imagine he would have an easier time selling to a larger number of people, but I don't think any of the other pieces I saw that night came anywhere close to showing the talent and potential that this guy possesses like the piece that I bought. I honestly believe this piece is closer to his heart as an artist than any of the other pieces that he has to crank out to be able to earn a living.

I definitely considered myself lucky to find this piece that will not only remind me of my time in Uganda, but also give me plenty to chew on when it comes to the kind of work artists need to do to make a living vs what they need to do to continue to grow and express themselves creatively. My hope for Mike is that he'll continue to find people willing to buy the pieces that express his more creative side and that eventually he'll be able to create only the art that he wants to instead of the work that he needs to.

Lent and fasting

Today begins the season of Lent which is a season of purposeful reflection leading up to Easter. It's also a season where some people give up something. Some people give up coffee. Others give up social media or TV. Some might give up smoking or another bad habit they really know they should kick. But Lent is meant to be more than a second shot at New Year's resolution style behavior modification. 


While changing bad habits is always a change I would encourage in people, if it becomes the end goal of Lent, then we've lost the path somewhere along the way.

I did a devotional during Lent several years ago with the subtitle, "Fasting from the world and feasting on God." I think that's a great perspective to bring to the season of Lent. Anything that I give up for Lent should, in some way, help turn my thoughts toward God in more intentional, reflective ways. A social media fast might mean that instead of spending a half hour (or more) on Facebook, I spend a half hour (or more) reading the Bible and in prayer or committing some of that time to volunteering somewhere. Fasting from coffee or from a particular kind of food might mean that when the craving hits, I take a moment to acknowledge in prayer that I want God more, that God is sufficient for me, that He is my food and my drink and that no sacrifice I make compares to that which was made for me.

If observed this way, Lent can be a powerful time of communion with God that makes the culminating celebration of Easter that much more meaningful because we've changed our normal rhythms for the new, God centered rhythms. I would love to invite you to consider whether God would have you fast from something in order to feast on Him during this season. 

Changing Seasons and Growth

Copyright Bruce A. Morrison

Adjusting to new seasons seems to be a theme for me over the last several months. Adjusting to a new community, a new home, a new church family (that we love, by the way), a new church role, new schools, new hangouts, new friends... Seasons like this can leave you with a feeling of being a little unsettled at times. Have you ever experienced that?

I know that our church is experiencing a similar season of adjusting. New pastor, new worship leader, new school year where we've seen new faces join us while others that we love have graduated and moved into their own new seasons... My sense is that while the core of who we are as a church is solid and secure, God is still preparing us for a new thing.

Life with God is always one of change and growth because living things grow, and if we're alive through the Spirit of God, we should grow as well. Sometimes growth is easily evidenced through externals like the four inches that Maia grew between the beginning of May and the end of August. Sometimes that growth is harder to define and discern, but the ripples of growth are disturbing the surface waters enough to let us know somewhere, deep down, something is happening.

My prayer for us as a church is that in this season of adjusting, that we'll be seeking growth as we seek God. Growing in our own faith, growing in how we do what we do, and growing in who we are as a church are all hopes that I have for us all because living things grow.

Last day in Sioux Falls Schools

It's crazy to think that today is our last day with kids in the Sioux Falls Public School system. With our move to Mitchell coming up late next month this is the first last day of school that has carried this kind of emotion for me. For starters, it's our last year at All City Elementary which is a place that our kids have thrived and where we feel like a part of a community. We've spent time in the classroom, know the staff, know the families and have worked alongside them all in service to the kids that we have grown to love as we've watched them grow. It's an experience we wouldn't have traded for anything and knowing that we would have been moving on to middle school anyway makes it a little bit easier to say goodbye.

Xander is also wrapping up his freshman year at New Tech High School which has been a place that he has enjoyed and will miss a ton. We know that he'll get a great education in Mitchell and that he's the kind of kid that can succeed just about anywhere. It'll still be hard to see him have to say goodbye to this great school, especially knowing that it was our call to make the move. Unfortunately, God doesn't always call when it's convenient and sometimes we're asked to sacrifice in ways that we don't enjoy and that don't seem fair. We just continue to pray that God will bless Xander through relationships, opportunities and experiences in Mitchell that he wouldn't have experienced had we stayed in Sioux Falls.

Thanks, Sioux Falls Schools for taking such great care of our kids, introducing them to great opportunities and for giving us a chance to know so many great people in ways that have left us changed for the better.

A New Chapter- Mitchell Fusion

Making a major, life changing announcement is always a challenge and while social media has a lot to offer by way of dispensing information quickly to a broad audience, there are so many things that can't be captured in 140 characters or less. My hope is that this post will give a clearer picture of our latest, life changing announcement as we transition into a new season of ministry.

At the end of January an opportunity was presented to me to consider taking on a new ministry role a the Lead Pastor of Fusion Church in Mitchell, SD. After several weeks consisting of prayer, fasting and seeking counsel from trusted friends and mentors, we decided to accept the offer and we will be making the move sometime this summer. The Lord continues to make me more and more excited about the opportunity and I can't wait to meet the people of Fusion and to see where God will have us journey together.

While there were many things that factored into the decision, the first thing I want to make absolutely clear is that there was absolutely nothing negative impacting my decision to move to Fusion from Embrace. I have been on staff at Embrace Church in Sioux Falls since August 2010 and have been able to be a part of a growing, thriving, innovative church and served alongside people that I love deeply and will miss terribly. In fact, Adam Weber (my Lead Pastor) has been a huge source of encouragement and one of my biggest cheerleaders in making this move, not because he's glad to see me go, but because he wants to see me grow.

Embrace has provided me a place to engage in different ministry areas (care, prayer, service/outreach, small groups, missions, worship) and to grow in my capacity as a leader and to heal and mature in ways that were incredibly necessary in order for me to be able to pursue an opportunity like this. I'm sure I'll continue to learn from what Adam and Embrace are doing and you can bet that I'll be one of their biggest outside supporters as the church continues to work to reach the next person for Jesus Christ.

So, the next natural question would be that if Embrace has been such a great place to work, why would I choose to leave? If I was being completely honest, I would say that the role of senior pastor is one that has been in the back of my mind for some time. I have had people ask me if I'd ever thought about being a pastor many times over my 18 years in ministry. Sometimes the question would come from people that I had only briefly encountered and sometimes it would come from people that had worked closely with me who had the time and proximity to see things developing in me that I hadn't seen myself.

Over the last few years my role has been as the Care Pastor for Embrace which has allowed me the opportunity to exercise certain areas of pastoral gifting in ways that have confirmed a sense of pastoral calling, but have not necessarily afforded me the opportunity to explore others. I have been incredibly honored to be able to provide counsel to people in crisis, help people to connect in areas of discipleship, walk with people through health scares and to help people during times of loss and grief. These have certainly confirmed my heart for people and are some of the most cherished conversations that have ever been entrusted to me.

While those pastoral roles have been important for this season of ministry at Embrace, I have also had a growing desire to teach and to be more involved in big picture decisions in ministry. Both are areas that I feel I have some gifting in, but both are also areas where Embrace has great people already in place. In fact, Embrace has been gifted with some great leaders that fill these roles in a way that has made it one of the fastest growing churches in America. Because of this, I have put those desires on hold and have sought to learn patience and humility until such a time as God would allow me to step into a role where those gifts would be needed from me. I believe that the opportunity at Fusion is one that God has been preparing me for and that this is the right time and place for me to take on such a role.

Much like our move from Hanfield UMC to Sioux Falls 10 years ago, this is a move that is incredibly bittersweet. We leave a church that we love with people that are among the dearest friends we have ever had in order to pursue something that we believe God is calling us to do. Thankfully, this move will not take us as far away and will actually put us closer to some of our family (Amy's dad, brother, cousin and step-grandmother all live in Mitchell) which should help ease the transition some.

We're excited to start a new chapter on a journey we never expected to be on. God has been so incredibly gracious to allow us to experience the things that we've experienced along the way and our hope is that the lessons we've learned and the things that we have seen would make us more effective in ministering to the needs of the people of Mitchell.

Ways you can be praying:
-Pray for Xander. In many ways, we feel like Xander is giving up the most in this move. He leaves behind friends, a high school that he loves that is unlike anything Mitchell has to offer, and his FTC robotics team that he's been a part of for several years (Mitchell has no FTC team). Pray that he would be able to find meaningful activities and good friends in his remaining three years of high school. I've told him that if God is calling our family to Mitchell that God has something there for all of us, including Xander.
-Pray for Maia. Pray for a good transition from elementary to middle school while also adapting to a new community. Pray for great friends and opportunities to continue to engage in all things artsy in a community that actually has quite a bit to offer her.
-Pray for Fusion. Pray that God would lead and guide this community of believers into a greater understanding of who He is and who He has created Fusion to be for Mitchell and the surrounding area.
-Pray for Brandon Vetter (the founding Pastor of Fusion) and his family as they make the move to Bismarck Legacy in Bismarck, ND. Brandon did a great job in establishing a solid foundation for the future of Fusion and we're excited to see how God will continue to use him in his new season of ministry as well.
-Pray for Embrace. Pray for new leadership in the area of pastoral care and that the right person/persons will emerge to provide for this growing area in the life of Embrace.
-Pray for Amy as she determines where to engage in things in Mitchell. Our thought right now is that she will still be teaching voice at the University of Sioux Falls once a week (it's only an hour's drive), but she will be closing her home studio and assessing how to best use her gifts and talents in our new community.
-Pray for me. Pray I would be faithful, humble and effective in carrying out the call that God has given me and that I would continue to remain teachable so that I can grow to be the leader that Fusion Church needs.

Great Things and an Unexpected Worship Moment

In 18 years either leading or serving in worship ministry, I have had a lot of moments where I have seen God clearly at work. I've seen him at work in churches, in fields, in pole barns, and in living rooms and I've watched him heal past hurts, answer prayers, give encouragement, and breathe new life into hopeless people in ways that leave them forever changed. Even so, with everything I've seen, there are still moments when he does the unexpected and surprises me.

Have you had these kinds of moments? These are moments when He completely captures your attention and puts a living, breathing testimony to his faithfulness in your line of sight and reminds you that these are not just words that we sing, but they are our prayers, hopes, dreams and stories as well as our testimony of who we know God to be because of the ways that he has met us in the depth of our need.

Sunday we introduced the song Great Things (Worth it All) by Elevation Worship. We had already played three services, but at our 605 Service I looked across the stage to see my beautiful bride Amy with one hand on the keyboard and one hand in the air. This is not an uncommon thing as we're both pretty demonstrative in our expression of worship, but this moment is one where God spoke to me so clearly through her worship that I encountered him in completely unexpected ways.

Photo courtesy of Jason Currie-Olson

For those that don't know, Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly two years ago. She caught it early, but it was a fairly aggressive form that necessitated a summer's worth of chemo and surgery. She handled it with strength, grace, humor and a lot of prayer and every check up since has been a reason for us to celebrate. You can read more about her journey on her blog. It's worth the read.

Most days, we wouldn't even think about the cancer if it wasn't for the scars left by a bilateral mastectomy and subsequent reconstruction surgeries. They are scars that are prominent and scars that she finds ugly, but they are also signs of life and reminders of the journey that we've been on.

The moment that I saw Amy worshipping, hand in the air, we were singing:

Thank you for the scars I bear

They declare that You are my healer

How could I have seen Your strength

If You'd never shown me my weakness

Amy personified this lyric for me and I was immediately brought to tears as I was reminded of God's faithful presence with us through her cancer. I was reminded of how he answered prayers for provision through friends, family and strangers when she had to take the summer off from teaching. I was reminded of how he answered prayer for improvement in her platelet levels even though they had dropped throughout the course of her treatment. I was reminded of the countless times that his presence brought encouragement, strength and peace as I pleaded for her healing. God's reminders to me were so strong that I could hardly see through the tears and could hardly sing as my voice broke in thanksgiving.

I'm sure that Amy had been expressing her heart to God all day during that song. I'm not sure why it took me all day to see it. Maybe I was caught up in trying to play the right chords. Maybe I was too focused on the function of leading worship to pay adequate attention to the One I was intending to worship. Maybe it was because I needed to open up my eyes and look for the work that God was doing in our midst. Maybe it was because I needed that moment in that moment so that I could fully take it in and allow it to do the shaping that God intended. No matter the reason, I'm so glad that he surprised me.

I'll leave you with some of our beautiful Embrace Church family singing a simple version of Great Things. Hope it's an encouragement to you.