I remember my year and a half sojourn in the United States in 1989 - 1991, especially the last few months before i went back to the Philippines. Then i had stayed in Oceanside, California with my aunt and cousin's family, helping watch over the kids and the house while my cousin's husband was doing Desert Storm duty in the Persian Gulf. I remember the ministry opportunity with a church called New Venture Christian Fellowship.
The fact that I appreciated was how they recognized their mission judging by the name they chose to be called - New Venture. By definition, Venture conjures images of risk and danger, an even chance of failure and disappointment, together with the plausibility of success and achievement. to venture means to risk, to gamble regardless of the odds.
While the life of faith carries with it a stable reassurance backed by the unchanging Word of the Almighty God, it nevertheless involves a measure of "jumping into the unknown", trusting in no one or nothing else other that the words lifted from the pages of the Scriptures. In scenes reminiscent of Indiana Jones leaping off the cave into a gaping chasm not seeing the seemingly invisible rock bridge, the believer gambles on the one on whom he has persuaded him "he is able to keep what he has committed against that day".
While the process is one repeated day after day, that scenarios are new, a splash page every time the site is refreshed. One day it may be an SMS of bad news, another day it may be financial reversal, and on yet another day it may be in the form of turncoat friends. All these scenarios testing that journey of risk - a venture of faith.
More often than not, these scenarios break rather than make us. our finite minds (regardless of what "reputable educational institution" we have received our training from) cannot understand (wait, let me rephrase - finds it difficult to understand) WHY? "Why do they keep doing this to us", "Why do the creditors come to us just when we ran out of money?". And the splash page keeps refreshing and refreshing and refreshing.