By Suzie, CBF field personnel
I am a hands-on, highly relational person. I love people and connecting face to face at the table over a meal.
Two years ago, I agreed to an additional ministry role as Global Missions Asia Team regional director, and this means more time is spent at a desk, connecting by email or Whatsapp with field personnel serving here in Asia. I have sometimes struggled with feeling like I’m not serving in my gifting or wondering if “admin work” really matters for eternal purposes. At the same time, I have been challenged by the Holy Spirit to pray without ceasing for our teammates, partners, ministries and those with whom they are serving. Could the mundane admin tasks that seem to fill my days be transformed by a posture of prayer?
As I recently mulled over ministry stories to share this quarter, I was checking our field personnel’s monthly operating expenses, combing through receipts from Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Texas and Thailand. I started to reflect on the mundane and the sacred. Though a mundane task, line by line checking of receipts and reports, I can now find joy in a task I never would have expected— checking the monthly expenses of our Asia team field personnel!
As I looked through receipts, I pictured sacred moments and prayed for them… craft supplies for International Church of Kanazawa Sunday school, student “Sporty Saturday” events and Bible study pizza dinners in Indonesia, coffee meetups between field personnel and a variety of friends in need, dumpling delivery for English classes among Chinese Diaspora in the Philippines, rehearsal dinners for a multi-national musical troupe producing Christmas songs in Balinese form, ferry tickets for Indonesian students to help with solar panel projects on an island and the list could go on and on!
Sitting at my desk, I prayed through each receipt, the field personnel and their local partners in ministry. I chuckled at some of the restaurant names or when I’m trying to figure out the recipes reflected in grocery bills. I am reminded each month of the beautiful body of Christ at work in a myriad of ways all over Asia— around tables, picnic mats, traveling in buses or trains to serve, cooking alongside seekers or holding space together in beloved community. The mundane transforms into a beautiful opportunity to engage in prayer, encouragement, sharing of ministry ideas, bringing all these efforts to the throne of our Heavenly Father. The mundane becomes sacred!