We sponsor two Compassion children. A 20- year old Ethiopian with whom I would enjoy a long conversation and a 12-year old girl from Honduras. I don’t know how much a 12 year old knows about the caravan, but I would like to get her family’s perspective.

The 20-year old asked us to pray for his country. I wrote to him yesterday promising to do that. It seems my family has been praying for Ethiopia my entire life. My grandmother listened to missionaries and radio preachers who evangelized and served in that country. I ran across a news photo of Emperor Haile Salassie in my grandmother’s scrapbook. I was stunned when I Googled him and read that today is the 88^th anniversary of his coronation! He served Ethiopia 1930-1974.

We bought a share in a chicken farm in Ethiopia several years ago to enable a town to be self-supporting. I’m a little nervous that we will receive a notice informing us it is our turn to clean the coop.

During the latter weeks of the Midterms, I have reappraised the objectives of our ministries—books and blogs. Being a pundit is not my calling, but standing for truth and being prophetic is. Our ministry Mission is to embrace, encourage, equip and engage people. I talk about culture and society when they defy reality and truth or when history indicates a certain path leads to destruction. A female news commentator says, “White men are violent and a problem.” Is that our new assignment? How do we offset that prophesy over the not yet initiated boy?

The computer in your smart phone is more powerful than the computers that drove the space modules in the early editions of space travel. So, I ask, how do I utilize the increase in power to embrace, encourage, equip and engage people? More specifically, how do I encourage my 20-year old Ethiopian who is committed to Jesus to be positioned to engage his world?

I dreamed last night that I bought a structure resembling a school and a warehouse. An elderly woman said, “This will cost a million dollars to get it running.” I thanked her for giving the first million toward the mission. Baby pigs, chickens and kids ill-equipped to engage their world lived in the badly cared for huge building. And more came as the darkness gathered.

In my self-appraisal, I have been nudged to re-read “Genius of Guinness” and to read “Grace” who was one of the Guinness women. The Guinness dreams and work captured me in the first reading. One line…

“…Old Arthur’s second son, Arthur, had inherited what would become the quintessential Guinness flair for business.”

It is that entrepreneurial insight and gifting that Paul called, Apostleship, that is called for as we face the next season. “..flair for business.” The ability to assess needs accurately, provide solutions and the skills to sell to the multitudes.

The plants are indoors for the winter. One blossomed all summer. The blossom is big, orchid-like and ravishing. Now that it is inside it is still producing beautiful colors. It erupts with color and design which lasts one day. We had not expected it to continue the blooming. When I walk past it, it whispers, “I’m not finished, yet.” It has a flair for flowering.

Trey Gowdy received this counsel from Paul Ryan:

“Find what you’re good at it and do more of it. Find what you’re bad at, and stop doing it.”

Gowdy crafted his own mantra:

“Find what you’re good at, and be a decent person in the process.”

(Unified, Senator Tim Scott and Congressman Trey Gowdy, Tyndale ©2018)

It is with a cramp in my gut that I encourage you to find your flair.

©2018 D. Dean Benton–writer, wonderer, witness