My role at Capturing Courage International Ministries is a full mix of out-front edge of the wave activity and then behind the scenes nurturing of infrastructure and CCIM community.
I share quite a bit about the out-front elements of the work I do. I share about the ministry trips I take, the journey’s to many places, the beauty of staying with many families, the healing that we declare and see, the pastor’s conferences and many churches that I attend (often joking that I attend church for a living!) and also sharing the primary teachings we are compelled to bring.
But I rarely share much about the behind the scenes work — CCIM is slowly yet surely growing, we are now an internationally represented organization of twelve people spanning time-zones and four continents and so my role to grow us is taking on larger proportion each and every month.
More than half of my work is attending to our infrastructure of people, resources, communications, financial sharing, learning together, and purposing forward in like manner.
This background work is not nearly as exciting as the out-front work but it is in fact the most critical aspect of all that I do. While the out-front work establishes rapport, builds trust and facilitates lives freer to go forward together, the work behind the scenes ensures that we as a community and as team are leading forward on the same foot, working in sync, focused and prioritizing together, establishing our support structures that pave the way for all future expansion.
I’m heading to Uganda in less than two weeks. What is different about this trip to come is that it is the shortest ministry trip that I have ever taken. Not including my day landing or day flying out I’ll have only eight days on the ground (last fall I was there for three months – quite a difference!).
The difference can be explained by this out-front work (the work of last fall’s ninety days in the country) compared to the behind the scenes infrastructure work (that will be attended to during these eight days to come).
While it may seem a little crazy to fly all that way for such a short amount of time, it is all about the work at hand, the focus required at each time, and the results we are looking to achieve with each ministry trip.
This next time in Uganda is primarily for meeting with our team fellows who are CCIM hands and feet in the country full-time. The work they are doing is an incredible multiplication of anything we might accomplish from CCIM headquarters here in Canada. It is therefore important to take the time and effort to back them, to hear how they are, how the work is, what concerns there may be, and then to dialogue future and strategic movements as the Lord leads.
Of course, it is very hard to enter a country without multiple invitations to many places (even my three months in the country was not enough time to go everywhere I was invited), and so you can imagine the difficulty of being in-country for a mere eight days!
So, while my own focus is the behind the scenes conversations with our team fellows, with those carrying the bulk of the work in the country, every place I’ll be is arranging for speaking and prayer ministry to those who have been taking our CCIM courses, those I’ve been to before, and those who are new to our work and want to find out more.
Even though my personal priority is to speak with three people, those three people will be multiplied to audiences of some three-hundred (at my own most conservative estimates) as a few communities are preparing to host me.
In response, my spirit is resting in the Lord and asking what God might want to accomplish this trip in terms of ministry. Every trip is a little different. Each month in a country has a slightly varied focus and result depending on how the spirit leads. I am eager to uncover what God’s heart is for this next time in Uganda.
Back some years ago during my second time in Uganda I saw a vision of the country of Uganda from way up above, as though looking down on a map of the country. I saw that the country had a dark covering over it and yet at the four sides of the country there were angels lifting the edges of this dark covering, allowing the light of the Lord to penetrate, flood in, and to filter through; in his touch and presence we are vastly changed people.
In the grace of the Lord we carry on this work, for God’s glory as we partner with the Body of Christ in Uganda. Amen and amen.
Cyndy Lavoie 