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We Will Wake Up to A New World

window looking out to lake and mountain scene
This plague will end. There will be more death and struggle along the way. Yes, it will change us, but it will end. And when it does, we will be different. In homes around America, families are connecting in ways that are new. My daughter is conducting homeschool for her three little ones …
By Seth Barnes

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This plague will end. There will be more death and struggle along the way. Yes, it will change us, but it will end. And when it does, we will be different.

In homes around America, families are connecting in ways that are new. My daughter is conducting homeschool for her three little ones that begins with devotions and exercises and moves into classes that they they all helped create. They draw, they read, they play in the backyard.

In Gainesville, our group of 24 college-age Global U students may be self-isolating as a group, but they are continuing to learn. Their day is a lot like my daughter’s homeschool.

They begin with worship, prayer, and Bible study. They exercise. Mentors call in daily and talk with them about how the world is changing and how to respond.

In a week, when they are certified virus free, they will begin to reach out to a world in pain and offer the hope of a Jesus who was wounded, but beat death.

This virus has already completely changed my life. At Adventures In Missions, the organization I started 30 years ago, we learned of the danger, realized we needed to respond with urgency, and in one week, brought nearly 600 young people and leaders home from around the world.

Along the way, our courageous staff worked around the clock. When one airport would shut down, they would talk to the airlines about other routing options.

Knowing how traumatic the sudden change would be, our staff drove to airports to meet them and do the best job of debriefing them they could. And when even that became impossible, they scheduled Zoom calls.

At present, America doesn’t have enough virus tests and the world has no vaccine. The markets have crashed and panic is in the air. Whole countries are shut down. There is talk of another Great Depression.

But a new world is on the way. A world where people find entertainment in card games and puzzles and conversations instead of on their iphones. Where we learn to tend gardens again.

We will learn to do church in our homes. The optionality and entitlement that has plagued our young people will be a thing of the past. We will have to reconnect with one another and ourselves.

So much will die along the way. But we will wake up. And when we do, we’ll discover that we are alive and the world is new.

This poem by Kitty O’Meara captures this so well:

 

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened,

and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games,

and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened

more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.

Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

 

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in

ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began

to heal.

 

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,

they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new

images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they

had been healed.

 

Yes, we will wake up. And the world will be new. And we will be new in it.

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