What is home?
We could spend hours with dictionary definitions and not find a true understanding of home. Words like “a permanent dwelling” or “where one is the member of a family” fall short.
For the past several months we looked for a place for our church to call home. Countless searches throughout the densely populated neighborhood of Parcelles Assainies yield numerous short-lived prospects. Houses and buildings of all shapes and sizes filled with potential disappeared once we revealed we are planting a church. The Jim Reeves melody “This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through” echoed in my ears with every rejection. So we kept looking and kept returning to our rented hotel room.
In that upper room we found our core identity. We received our church vision to “Experience the Presence of God Among the Nations.” We felt the hands of the Lord building us together as His spiritual house made of living stones. We raised our hands in rented rooms and grew in heart, embraced in the love of our Father.
In that hired hall we confessed Jesus as our Lord and were joined by a new brother who laid his life at the foot of the cross. He is now joining several more young people who are preparing to be baptized. We lifted up our voices in intercession for the lost around us and our neighbors began having dreams of Jesus. For one, Jesus opened a door before her and washed the room with radiant light. For another Jesus stood before Him in holy fire with arms outstretched. For another young woman suffering with sickness Jesus reached down to her. Looking on his face she asked him who he was. He said, “I am Jesus, your healer.”
These are lost men and women comfortably fixed in families. They have four walls that shield them. They have tightly held membership under family names. But the revealed presence of Jesus exposes the discomfort of Christ-less houses. Their hearts cry out for something more. Not just a place to sleep and eat and share physical similarities. They are searching for home because home has to be more than where we live. Home must be where we come alive.
The last Sunday of June we celebrated our final service in the hotel. In our hands we have a brand new contract for a home in the heart of our community, near a large market and on a main road. The day we dedicated our building we were just a few; 52 men, women and children. A core group. A core family. A home of 52 surrounded by millions. Millions who are waiting. Millions who have yet to hear the love of our Father God and see the risen face of our Lord Jesus. Millions who have yet to experience home.
Thank you for making it possible for us to plant a place where unreached men, women and children can hear the Father’s call to come home.