The Irelands in Africa

The Silence of God

2011-08-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Last night we had to let Charis cry herself back to sleep in the middle of the night. She has been waking up at 2 a.m. every night for last few weeks, mostly because we have been on the road, and now that we are at home we want to get her back on schedule. It wasn’t easy though. As I lay in bed and listened to her go from whimpering, to wailing, to moaning––as though she were in the throws of some terrible agony, I wanted so desperately to go and pick her up and give her a bottle, which was all she really wanted. But I knew, because of the advice of countless friends, that if we continue to let her do this we would be getting up with her at 2 a.m. until she was practically in high school.

And so, I lay there and did nothing, except pray for her (and for us) that we would all soon go back to sleep. And it occurred to me that this is probably the way it is with some of the things we adults pray for.

Often, I suspect, we ask God for things that are neither good for us in the short-term nor that bode well for our future. We are infants crying out in the night for another dose of formula, for more food in our bellies, when in fact what we need is rest and the discipline that comes from learning to wait patiently for the Lord. Even as my not responding to Charis’s cry, was an intentional act on my part, done out of my love for her and concern for her future, so too is God’s silence most often an act of grace and compassion. By not giving us what we want, God often gives us something much better––namely, what we need. Or, as David Platt recently put it in a sermon, “What a terrible thing it is when God gives to sinful creatures exactly what they want.”

My encouragement for you today is to remember then, that no matter what it is you are crying out to God for, be assured that He is listening. Though, like Habakkuk we may say “O Lord, How long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?” (Hab. 1:2), we can rest assured that not only does God hear, but that He is ever at work in the lives of those who trust Him. And it may very well be for us, as God said to Habakkuk, “Look among the nations and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your day that you would not believe if told.”

Less than Perfect

2011-04-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

Wow...its been way too long since my last post! Sorry for that! By way of a quick update, we are back in the US, and full-swing in the itineration process. Last Sunday we were with Daniel McNaughton and the folks at Spring Valley Community Church in eastern PA. We had planned on showing our missions video, but somehow the video we brought with us was a family Christmas video! Imagine our surprise when that came up on the screen! Anyway, we are thankful that the folks at SVCC are gracious and could just roll with it. No one freaked out, and in fact someone said we should have just gone ahead and shown that video! I like that! After all, we are all family anyway––right!

I sometimes struggle with, and internally want to rebel against the "performance" aspect of ministry. I don't even like to use the word "performance" but there is a sense in which that is exactly what it is. There are times in ministry when it is easy to feel the pressure of needing to convey a sense of our having it all together. And often, I think its healthy to be reminded that we really don't have it all together, that no one does (but Jesus), and that our humanness––rather than a false perfectionism, provides the greatest potential for connectedness with those around us. Would love to hear your thoughts on that topic though!

Also, some new developments are afoot in our ministry while we are in the US for itineration. We will be helping out with Africa AG Care–-a new ministry in Springfield, MO that focuses on compassionate ministry in Africa. We will be especially helping out with a magazine called Embrace. This is not a full-time thing, but just something we are lending a hand with until we get back to Zambia. We are exited about the opportunity, and will have more details in the coming days. Thanks for sticking with us, and being a part of the journey!

Jerry

Release of my book, "Embracing the Baobab."

2010-12-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,
I wanted to let you know that Life Publishers has published my book "Embracing the Baobab" and that it is available for purchase either on our website www.keepingupwiththeirelands.com or by emailing me directly (jerry.ireland@agmd.org).
The book is basically a collection of blog entries arranged in devotional format. The book also contains some additional material not found in the blogs that I hope will be a blessing to you!
Let me know if you would like to order a copy (or several) and I will get it in the mail right away. There is still time to order for Christmas presents.
Paula and I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas and experience the joy and peace of Immanuel, God with us!
Also, we would like to request prayer for a new court date for the custody hearing of our recently adopted daughter Charis Jordan. The hearing is scheduled for Monday morning and we are praying that all goes well, that the birth mom is able to make it to the hearing and that there are no complications. Thanks so very much and God bless!

Child of God

2010-12-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

It has been two weeks now since Charis Jordan entered our lives and hearts; two weeks since our world was gloriously and wonderfully turned upside-down, or rather, turned right-side up. We are continuing to wait for a court date, though, for a custody hearing that will finally allow us to go home to Springfield with our new daughter.

I’ve never been good at waiting. I’ve at times been said to have patience, but having patience and being good at waiting are not really the same thing. A patient person is just someone who is perfectly happy to never be anywhere but where they are and never do nothing but what they are doing. People who fish are patient. But waiting, putting everything on hold until some event transpires that releases you to get moving once again, that allows you to resume life as you know it, that I am sure, is something hardly anyone really likes.

But, we wait. We wait, and we wait because what we wait for is worth waiting for. Not everything is. Babies, though, are because of what we know they will do and are doing to us and in us. We look at a baby and wonder about not only the life that awaits them, but also the life that awaits us because of them. A baby has a way of reordering our world and our priorities that seem to so often get out-of-whack.

I have struggled a lot this week with the waiting part. I have wanted so badly for this part to be over, for the custody to be official because in the waiting there is a degree of uncertainty and that uncertainty, if you let yourself dwell on it, can be terrifying. That’s because there are few guarantees in life and the possibility that things might turn out far worse than we hope always looms large, perhaps especially so after the loss of Josiah. And I’m not sure I could survive the loss of this little girl who has so captured my heart, who at 19 inches and some 8 lbs. or so, stops the world.

Since Charis came into our lives, my favorite time of day has come to be around 3 a.m., when it’s just me and her and the stillness of the night, when nothing is there to call me away, when I can dote on her and talk to her—not baby talk, but adult talk, daddy to daughter––about life and about diapers and Binkies––all the things that really matter. Of course, its not all glory and good conversation. There is another side of those 3 a.m. moments and I know now why they call it the “wee” hours of the morning.

During one of those times recently, I looked down at Charis, and overwhelmed by how much I love her, said out loud, “No one will ever love you as much as I do!.” And I meant it too. Immediately, though, I knew that it wasn’t true. Immediately I knew that God loved her more than I do and I could hardly fathom that. I knew too that God loved me more than I loved Charis, and that too was something I found impossible to get my head around.

And as I sat there on the couch with Charis, I couldn’t help but think about the twin realities of both God’s love and his waiting (and perhaps for Him, waiting and patience are the same because for God the outcome is never uncertain). I was struck by the fact that because we have a loving God, we also have a God who waits to finally bring us home. And, free will being what it is, there are no guarantees that all of us actually will come home. Some will choose to turn away from the One who loves them most.

As Christmas approaches, I find it overwhelming to contemplate that God sent His only Son to die on a cross, and finally lead us all home. I find it overwhelming to contemplate that God became an infant, and in doing so said truly, “No one will ever love you more than I do.”

For God so loved the world…!

This Christmas, I am reminded that in Christ we have all been given a Child who, if we allow Him, will gloriously and wonderfully reorder our world and our priorities as only He can. Because in Christ being born we see the love of our Father most fully expressed. In Jesus, we find hope because in Him we become God’s children (John 1:12).

Merry Christmas everyone!

Grace, Flowing Down.

2010-12-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

Even though I feel very much at a loss for words, and very certain that I will not come close to expressing all or even most of what is in my heart right now, I have to at least try. I have to try because—one, I want to follow the advice of a friend and not let this moment slip by. But also, I have this sense that there is more to this moment than I understand, that it is beyond even the miraculous event we know it to be.

Monday morning at about 11 a.m., we got a call from the adoption agency we have been working with. They wanted to know how soon we could get to Tulsa because a baby had been born at 8:30 that morning, and her mother––a single mother of four, was not going to be able to care for her and would be placing the baby for adoption. The mother had left it to the agency to choose an adopting family, and that family happened to be us. After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we rushed home, through some clothes in a suitcase and headed for Tulsa.

Three hours later we arrived at the hospital in Tulsa, and were met by a friend from the adoption agency. They took us in, and in a matter of minutes we were holding the most beautiful little girl we have ever seen—a perfect little baby, wrapped tight in a blanket––a baby burrito the nurse called her. At a glance, this would seem to have been the most simple adoption to ever take place. We woke up that morning expecting just another November day. We went to bed that night as the parents of beautiful Charis Jordan.

The truth is, though, this process has been anything but easy. It has been a tumultuous roller coaster of a ride. Several times it appeared an adoption was coming together, and yet it never quite seemed to work out. That in itself was emotionally draining and left us despairing that an adoption might never happen. We were to be in the U.S. now for only a short time, and we had an acute awareness that if something didn’t happen fairly soon, it would not happen at all. Our window of opportunity was very narrow.

Recently, we had been feeling the combined pressure of this narrow window and past disappointments (including the loss of Josiah), very acutely. Our hope was fading and we both were beginning to grow weary of trying to hang on to hope that never seemed to materialize into reality. It began to seem as though it might be better to simply abandon hope all together and just give up. Before doing that though––which was never what we wanted to do, only what we feared we would be forced to do––we decided to spend some time really seeking the Lord. And so, in the week just prior to our receiving Charis, we both committed ourselves to a several days of fasting and prayer specifically for God’s guidance and direction regarding adoption. Our prayer was that God would either close the door completely, or that He would throw it wide open and make it clear what He had planned for us. We felt we really needed to hear clearly from God in order to continue in this process.

One of the things we were wrestling with was that we had lately begun to consider embryo adoption as a possibility. After looking into this, and meeting some wonderful people involved in it, we thought this might be something that could work for us. In some ways, it seemed safer than traditional adoption. Paula would carry the baby, and so we would know that the baby was not being exposed to drugs or alcohol. So, we starting moving forward with this, and made an appointment to see an embryologist in St. Louis. Long story short, there was a medical complication that brought that whole plan to a screeching halt. Another dead end, another disappointment, hope deferred yet again. It was feasible that a simple procedure would have had the ball rolling again with embryo adoption, there was no guarantee. We just began to get overwhelmed by the choices and decisions to be made, and felt we completely lacked the ability to make those decisions. Hope was starting to feel like a ball and chain that we drug around with us wherever we went, rather than something to look forward to. And I was starting to think that the best thing we could do was to cut hope loose and just move on.

But after our time of prayer and fasting last week, Paula and I both sensed peace in a way we hadn’t in a long time. Paula one morning during her devotions felt the Lord speak to her specifically when reading the story of the birth of Samuel, when Eli said to Hannah, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him” (1 Sam. 1:17). After that morning, Paula felt sure that God would do something, and that we would have a child. As for me, I wanted to be sure, but I found myself bogged down with past disappointments.

We had no idea that in less than a week’s time, we would be holding a precious baby girl––our very own daughter, Charis Jordan. We are still in shock somewhat over all that has happened in the last three days. But we marvel at the impeccable timing and guiding hand of God that has brought us to this moment. If we had gone ahead with the embryo adoption (which we continue to believe is a wonderful program!), we would have had to close the door on traditional adoption. In other words, if were not for a medical complication in that process, we would have gone ahead with it right away and in doing so we would have effectively shut the door on becoming Charis’s parents.

And so now, as I write this and contemplate all that we feel God has taught us over the last two years, several things come to the forefront. First, the one truth and hope that we must cling to always, is that God is good and that His plans endure forever. “I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him” (Eccl. 3:14). Difficult and challenging times will come when it seems that God has completely forgotten us. And though that is never the case, most of the challenges and difficulties we go through (perhaps all of them) cannot be solved simply with a clever Tweet.

Hope is not a ball and chain that we drag around, but it is of utmost value because it carries us through the darkness and tells us that a brighter day is coming. It tells us that a brighter day is coming, not because we deserve it (we don’t!), and not because we’ve earned it (we can’t!) but because God loves us, and desires to give us that brighter day. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” Jesus said. I don’t for a moment pretend to understand the darkness, or to know why the valley’s can seem so incredibly low. But this I do know. The valley is not where we are meant to stay. It is a part of the journey, but it is never our destination. And the key to getting through the valley is not to abandon hope, but to hold to it with all that we have, with prayer and fasting, with tears and crying out to God because it is God Himself that we need to encounter, it is God Himself that is our hope. Our hope is really not that our prayer will be answered, though God does that too, but our hope is that we would in clinging to hope, cling to God.

Charis means “grace” and Jordan means “flowing down.” As we look back over the gift of Josiah, and the journey of the last two years, we can think of no more appropriate words to describe our situation, both then and now. Grace. Flowing down.

Traveling Songs

2010-09-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

There’s only one good thing about driving 25 miles across the city of Lusaka at the peak of rush hour traffic. And that is having a car packed full of Zambian men and women singing high praises, in rich harmonies, from the bottom of their hearts. Your all-time favorite worship CD doesn’t even come close.

I remember the first time I came to Africa, and entered a worship service in progress. Acapella voices filled the tiny mud structure and transformed it into a holy place. Though I didn’t understand a single word, my eyes filled with tears, and I was sure I was hearing the music of heaven.

Many times since then have I tried to comprehend the rich dimensions of African worship. Is it the sweetness of hearts that have learned to prize Jesus above earthly treasures? Is it a familiarity with suffering that has laid hold of things eternal? Is it the song of those who, amidst great darkness, have caught a transforming glimpse of Christ? Is it the timbre of those who desperately long for and confidently expect His coming? Or is it just a special gift from heaven?

I can’t say. But I do know that pure worship can only flow from a heart that has grasped the infinite worthiness of Christ. And the response to that Worthy One is the unconstrained outpouring of the heart to Him, whether in joy or in pain. And that is something of the majesty I hear in Zambian voices raised in worship and in prayer.

Today I am leaving Lusaka and its traffic behind as I fly to the USA to join Jerry for a season of itineration. Every missionary understands the tearing of the heart that is felt as we say goodbye to those we have come to love and be loved by in the land of our calling. It’s yet another thing I can’t explain.

The singers and songs of Zambia will remain in my heart. Reminding me that the open doorway into the presence of our Great God is entered with a worshipping heart.

Twatotela

2010-08-05T04:49:00.001-07:00

This morning we had our bags packed and were heading out the door to Chirundu, a small border town about two hours from Lusaka. Jerry and I visited Chirundu’s newly planted church for the first time a few months ago, and were struck by the remarkable spiritual hunger of the saints there. They sat on crude benches made from mud, and insisted we continue teaching from morning til evening.

We weren’t invited to the pastor’s home for lunch, and later discovered why. They were destitute – taking only sugar-water for their midday meal.

This same church has started a community school for sixty-something local children who can’t afford the government school. No trained teachers, no textbooks, not even a chalkboard – but a heart for children. Seems to me that’s something like faith, hope, and love.

With grand plans for several days of ministry to children, youth, and adults, some friends and I were heading out the door to visit our Chirundu friends when the phone rang. The pastor’s twenty year old son had just died of cerebral malaria.

We knelt to pray for them – Mrs. Mulenga, Linda, and I. I found myself starting to weep, and asking, “How long, O Lord?” How long must things be as they should not be? How long these assaults, this suffering? Mrs. Mulenga was weeping also. Mrs. Mulenga, who buried her husband a year ago.

She led us in the song, “Twatotela Lesa” – “thank You Lord.” In that moment, it was hard to sing that song. “Thank You Lord” – for what? For another needless death, in this land where life is so fragile? For unspeakable heartache, for this dear pastor’s family struggling to do Kingdom work? We prayed for some time, inviting Jesus’ presence into this sad situation, crying out for His Kingdom to come, for His sustaining mercy, for His name to be magnified. And as we poured out our hearts, His peace came.

Afterwards Jerry and I were reflecting on how much our prayers, and our praying, have changed over the past two years. “We pray differently, don’t we?” “Yeah – we feel so much more acutely.” And that brokenness, we are coming to realize, is the heart of prayer.

“Twatotela” began rising in my heart again. We are thankful – not for the dark circumstances, but for the presence of Jesus, and the unfailing love of God, in the midst of them. There is a “fellowship of sharing in His suffering,” an intimacy with God that is found only in deep brokenness. In this sad place, and for this life-giving and transforming communion with Christ – Twatotela Lesa.

Some Thoughts on Hope

2010-05-31T02:33:00.000-07:00

One might expect that in Africa, where life is wrought with hardship and uncertainty, hope would be in short supply. However, the very opposite is true. Here hope, at least among those who follow Jesus, is one thing that can be found in abundance.

And I think that in this, the African Church has understood something of hope that most of us miss. Over the last two years since we lost our son Josiah, we have simultaneously grieved and tried to maintain hope that all of it would somehow be redeemed. But the challenge in such a loss is that one can become quite afraid of hope. This is simply because hope plants seeds of expectation, and if those expectations are not met, then one inevitably reaps a harvest of disappointment. In order to avoid more of the overwhelming disappointment with which we had become all too familiar, we learned to keep hope at arms length.

As human beings living in a temporal world, we tend to be event driven. We measure our lives as a procession of events and we tend to face life’s challenges through the simple knowledge that time, as they say, marches on. What we are experiencing today will not last forever, and we look to have our present disappointments eventually eclipsed by things we anticipate in the future. Tomorrow’s expectations are the shelter under which we weather today’s storms.

The problem with this approach, though, is that we end up building hope upon uncertainty. Tomorrow is always only a potential. It can never be a promise. Because of this, I have come to believe that God uses disappointments, suffering and catastrophe in our lives to move us out of an event oriented hope, and into a Person oriented hope. For as long as we hope in things that are tenuous, then we will never have genuine hope at all. We will only have the illusion of hope.

Yet, our lives themselves are inherently tied to the clock and to temporality. From the day we’re born we begin our slow march toward the grave. Time is our constant stalker. And so nothing we can do can cause us to move from that illusory event-centered hope to a God centered hope. Only God himself can bring about that transformation. And the whole process begins with the loss of the events themselves. Only when the event in which we had hoped––whatever it may be––has been lost, and we have surrendered ourselves to its oppressing blows, do we begin to discover hope in God Himself. We are hoisted out of an event-centered hope only be being totally and desperately cast upon the mercy of Him who was hoisted on the cross. It is there at the cross that all our hopes find life, because it is there, and there alone, that we ourselves find life.

At the cross, we truly begin to discover that, as the song says––“our hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. We dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.”

In God alone, do we find hope that is worth having. This is because goodness and mercy are His very nature and therefore it is God’s nature––not some event that may or may not come, that is the promise to which we cling and the essence of genuine hope. And so, James’ sometimes perplexing admonition to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds”––begins to make sense; “because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Anonymous

2010-04-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Anonymity can be hard to come by for an American living in Africa.

As we drive through the shanty compounds, kids shout “Mzungu, mzungu!”––which roughly translates “hey what’s that crazy white guy doing here?” Here, there is no disappearing into the crowd, no blending into the scenery. We stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Thankfully though, Zambians are as gracious as a people could ever be, and make us feel right at home. They kindly ignore our ineptness with their language, forgive our social faux pas, and generally treat us as one of them even though we come about as close to being one of them at times as we come to being a hippopotamus.

It is strange to me that here in Zambia, where we Americans are often something between an odd curiosity and something curiously odd, I find myself longing for something I have seldom longed for in my life––namely anonymity!

For the most part, when I day dream (and I often do), I dream of rather grand things. I dream of saving the world, or of discovering a cure for professional wrestling, or of harnessing a natural form of clean energy, like those gigantic blasts of wind generated by certain elected officials. I have big dreams!

But I don’t ever really recall dreaming of anonymity. I remember in fifth grade, when our teacher had us all write down what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said I wanted to be a comedian. She thought that was pretty hilarious. I guess it was.

The whole idea of anonymity though, seems completely contrary to human nature. Facebook, if it is anything at all, is the ultimate anti-anonymity device. Through the magic that is Facebook, we can now make public our deepest and most underdeveloped thoughts, to a bunch of people we hardly know. And they will very likely, “like” it.

We watch American Idol, not to see who will be the “next big star,” but because that show has a way of breathing life into our own clandestine hopes for notoriety. Because if it could happen to that guy…

The truth is, all of us are like Jesus’ disciples James and John, coming to Jesus with our hat in our hand, asking for seats at the head table (Mark 10:37). We are pretty attached to the notion that significance and status go hand-in-hand. And so, we make our way through life trying to maintain that ever-so-delicate balance between outward humility and inward ambition.

But the reality of the matter is that true significance never comes from our achievements. Significance comes only because Jesus gives it to us. He gave us significance at creation––when he created us in His image. And, he gave us significance at the cross, when he died for our sins. None of our achievements would ever matter in the least bit were it not for the fact that we were created in God’s image, and redeemed at the cross. Because apart from those two events, man is but dust, destined for the waste bin.

Our only hope for true significance, that is––significance that will endure throughout the ages, significance that is not faddish, or fading, but that is both fixed and forever, is to lose ourselves in the plans of Christ, and to embrace anonymity.

As Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39).

Stuck in the Mud!

2010-04-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

God always knows precisely where we are.

This was illustrated quite dramatically for me recently after preaching a sermon on Jeremiah 38. In the passage, Jeremiah is lowered into a dry cistern by some unsavory characters who don’t like what he is preaching––even though he’s only preaching precisely what God had told him to say. The key verse reads:

So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud. Jer. 38:6

In the end, Jeremiah is rescued and hauled out of the cistern, and his time in the cistern ends up shaping his future ministry. For he later prophecies to the King saying:

All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you: “‘They misled you and overcame you — those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you.’ Jer. 38:22

After the service, we found out a most incredible thing that had happened to the pastor and his family.

A few years prior, the pastor of this church and his wife had been living in a house that was situated sort of in a gully, at the bottom of two steep hills. During a particularly heavy rain one evening, the pastor, his wife, and their four children were all sitting in their living room. Suddenly, there was a loud crash of lightening outside and the power went out. A few minutes later, they heard a loud noise, and a massive wave of water and mud caming crashing through their front door. Within minutes they were up to their chests in water and up to their knees in mud and garbage that had washed in from the street. They were completely stuck and were unable to move. The could do nothing but stand in that water and mud all night long, until morning when someone came and rescued them.

That night was a night of both miracles and misery. Had the power not gone out, they would have surely been electrocuted. But, because of the mud and water, they lost everything! All of their money (most Zambians can’t afford banks), all of their clothes, all of their furniture, family pictures, keepsakes. All of it, gone.

In preparing for my sermon that week, I had no idea how relevant it would be to this pastor and his wife. I could not have possibly known. I had only recently come across this passage in my daily devotions and was moved by it and thought it would be an encouragement to those going through hard times.

And now that I know what this family went through, I am vividly reminded that God does not forget, that he always knows precisely where we are, even when we’re stuck in the mud. And just like Jeremiah, God often uses our time in the mud to shape our life and our ministry for the future.

And perhaps, that formation could never really take place if our feet always stayed firmly planted on solid ground.

Today the family is in a new house. A lady who saw them being rescued on television gave them her furniture. The pastor’s wife was recently healed of what appeared to be a terminal illness. A few months ago she was in a hospice, and thus today, they are out of the mud, in more ways than one.

It is likely, that they, like all of us, will be in the mud again some day.

But I am increasingly convinced that truly effective ministry flows from primarily two things: our time with the Lord, and our time in the mud. And we should be careful not to neglect the importance of either one.

The Hope of Heaven

2010-03-07T01:56:00.000-08:00

We often see and hear about the ugly side of Africa.

Turn to your favorite news source, go to the international section, and under “Africa” you are most likely to see stories about Jacob Zuma dancing around in a loin cloth or Robert Mugabe declaring his willingness to have free and fair elections (so long as “free and fair” mean he is free to have the opposition arrested whether they think its fair or not).

News outlets give you the idea that the whole of Africa is an endless parade of war, corruption, famine, and AIDS when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Even up close Africa sometimes seems like a place seething with despair and tragedy, where beauty has all but vanished. Every time I drive through the shanty compounds, and see children hauling buckets of water on their heads and women bent over sweeping the dirt around their tiny mud-brick homes, I wonder if these people have ever seen anything truly beautiful in their lives. Their whole world seems blanketed in brokenness. It seems all they know, and all they have ever known, is a world of dirt and disrepair.

But these are the thoughts of an outsider.

It takes about five minutes with a Zambian to realize that they know beauty in ways we probably never will. Today while teaching a class on the second coming of Christ, we had taken our morning tea break, and as the students were getting their tea and slice of bread, they spontaneously broke into song about heaven.

They sang in vernacular, and at first I wasn’t sure what the song was about. But I knew it was a joyful song. One young pastor started it all. With a toothy grin, he just started singing as he was pouring his tea. Without hesitation, and without waiting for an invitation, the others immediately joined in.

I sat in rapt amazement as eight students suddenly became beacons of joy and seemed to comprehend something of heaven far beyond what I ever have. And my earlier question then and there turned on me, and I wondered If I had ever really known the meaning of true beauty. Because beauty was right there in front of me, and I had almost missed it.

It is true that in some ways Africa is a broken and troubled continent. But brokenness and trouble may not be the enemies we often think they are. For at no time do we put as much hope in heaven as when we are troubled and broken.

And, from watching my Zambian friends, I am increasingly convinced that the more we invest hope in the life to come, the more beauty we bring to the life we presently live.

Wall Fences

2010-02-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

As missionaries in Zambia, we live behind high wall fences. These barriers are somewhat of a catch-22. They provide a sense of security, and an equal sense of being an inmate. They are both protective and prohibitive.

Personally, I have a sort of a love-hate relationship with our walled fences. I hate them because coming and going is never as easy as I want it be. And, yet, I love them because frankly, there are times when I want to escape from Africa––from the kamikaze mini-bus drivers, from the poverty that seeps through at every seam and crevice of life, and from the needs that I know I cannot meet. I also want, I suppose, to escape from myself sometimes, because I realize that I don’t always want to meet the needs here. There are times, when my own needs seem more important.

There is a part of me that is forever gazing inward, focusing on my goals, my dreams, my hopes, my desires. And yet, Africa makes it very hard to think too much about any of those things, much less ask God for them.

Can I really pray, Dear Lord, help me find personal fulfillment, and by the way, help my Zambian friends have full stomachs?

Compassion is a wearying thing and it has a way of unveiling our selfishness in an irrefutable way. Visiting the sick forces us to visit ourselves. It reminds us that no matter how loving and kind we may think ourselves to be, our greatest love and kindness is ultimately reserved for ourselves. I suppose this is what Jesus meant then when he said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19).

Through the prophet Isaiah, God said:

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (Isaiah 58:10-12)

I can’t help but think, after reading this passage that my desire to retreat behind our walled fences, is in some way a reflection of my own broken-walled life. By that, I mean that it is my own shortcomings, my own failures (real or perceived) that are the driving force behind the “my” mentality I sometimes struggle with. Yet, the remedy, according Isaiah, is not to hind behind walls, but to become one who repairs them. And that we accomplish, in acts of compassion and service.

Somehow, as we loose ourselves in caring for our fellow humans, we find the wholeness we so desperately seek.

Guest Blogger: Jess Bousa "The Discipleship Dare"

2010-01-22T08:42:00.000-08:00

My friend Jess Bousa (he and I were in Teen Challenge together, and were room mates at Valley Forge Christian College) has written a book called the Discipleship Dare. Like Jess, I am convinced that discipleship––genuine discipleship, is perhaps the greatest need in the Church today. Many thousands of college students, in American and around the world leave the Christian faith every year, not because the arguments against Christianity are better than those for it, but because Christianity has never really become their faith. We hope to one day use this book as a resource in Zambia for youth discipleship. Check out the link for the The Discipleship Dare below, and consider if this might be helpful to you, your church, or someone you know. God bless you as you follow Christ.

Jerry

By Jess Bousa (Guest Blogger), author of The Discipleship Dare: Living Dangerously for God

The American Church is in the middle of a discipleship crisis. In Dallas Willard’s book, The Great Omission, he concludes that the Church is full of undiscipled disciples. Instead of making disciples, we have made converts and instead of baptizing them into the Trinitarian community, we have baptized them into church membership. When the discipleship process is reduced down to converts and church membership, it often takes the real challenge out of following Jesus through our everyday lives. Without the challenge to be pushed to the Biblical standard of discipleship, the world will be full of unChristian Christians, which is the general consensus of outsiders to the Christian faith the Barna Group discovered in their extensive research project reported in the book,UnChristian.

Marines are challenged to thrive not only survive at all times no matter the costs. Every year approximately 38,000 Marines receive their basic training, which is far more challenging than any other branch of the military. Most Marines testify that going through the twelve weeks of boot camp to gain entrance into the Marines is the most challenging thing they ever had to do in their lives. There is no such thing as an unMarine Marine. If the Marines were filled with such a person, they would not be known as being the most elite armed forces in the Military. Their reputation is the result of their training process. Without a training process that challenges every area of life, they would not perform the tasks necessary.

The process determines the product. What if the process of training disciples in the local church has been sidetracked as a result of mass producing discipleship for the crowds? What if discipleship starts and ends with the personal development of a few? Without a tool that builds a bridge from the preaching and teaching in the local church to the real life of a disciple through the week, “real disciples” will continue to be sidelined.

To combat the discipleship crisis in the American Church, I created an experience called: The Discipleship Dare. It is a journey that lasts for 40 days. It can be used alone or in the context of a group. I designed it to jumpstart the lifestyle of a new disciple or revive the lifestyle of a veteran disciple. It can be used as a companion guide for a sermons series, small groups or Sunday School classes. What if the biggest risk in life is not taking any risks for discipleship? I dare you to experience the 40 day Discipleship Dare challenge and dare others to do the same!

For Free Resources & To Purchase, The Discipleship Dare,

Please Visit @ www.TheDiscipleshipDare.com/

Friends

2010-01-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life.

—James F. Byrnes

Finding truly good friends can be like trying to find hope at a pessimists convention. Good friends are a true rarity. They are the diamonds of human relationships. They are usually forged under pressure, and often emerge from what was at one time as plain and common as coal.

So what is it about true, genuine friends that make them matter to us so much? The short answer is––they care. They care enough to listen, cry, mourn, and rejoice, even amidst their own crying, mourning and rejoicing. True friends have a way of setting themselves aside, putting their agendas on hold, in order to be with us. And it’s really that, the ability to be with us, that is the mark of true friends.

Pseudo-friends and wanna-be friends can be around us, near to us, in our vicinity, but they are almost never really with us. They tend to come to us with the desire to show us something of themselves. They want us to notice their learnedness, their eloquence, their strength. Genuine friends, though, come to us and bring only a desire to hear us, love us, and show us something of ourselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote:

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

True friends show us that we matter as people, that we have value inherent in ourselves. And, this is most often accomplished not in displays of strength, but in displays of weakness.

Our best friends, often emerge from our shared experiences. Recently we were in South Africa at retreat for missionaries, and I couldn’t help but feel an almost tangible––something, between all of us. Some of these other missionaries were close friends. Others, I had never met before. And, yet when we gathered for worship, or simply for a meal, there was a unity among us, a bond that was uncontainable in either our persons, or in the spaces in which we gathered. It was a bond that transcended us, and refreshed us.

And it wasn’t just that we were in the company of one another. It was that we were in the company of one another, and simultaneously in the company of Christ. Because only by encountering Someone—namely Christ, who can genuinely help us to become what we were created to be, can we truly find joy in being ourselves.

In his book “A Reasonable Faith: A Case for Christianity in a Secular World,” Tony Campolo argues that secularized man longs for humanness, for a sense of self-actualization. Campolo describes how as a sociology teacher at University of Pennsylvania he was constantly confronted with a single question by his students (sometimes in various forms). The question was, “What does it mean to be human and how can humanness be achieved?”

Campolo asked a student what he meant by being human, to which the student responded, “It means to be loving, infinitely loving; sensitive, infinitely sensitive; aware, totally aware; empathetic, completely empathetic; forgiving, graciously forgiving. I could go on but I would only be elaborating on the obvious.” Campolo then asked the student how it is that he came to have a knowledge of these traits even in a limited fashion. “Were you born with them? Were they part of your biological makeup?” The student grew agitated at the questioning, knowing that Campolo knew full well where the traits came from.

“You know that whatever qualities of humanness I possess are obtained by the process of socialization. If I am forgiving, it is because I associated with forgiving people and took on their traits and likeness.” The student argued that Campolo, as a professor of sociology knew all of this. So why the line of questioning? What Campolo was trying to do was to remind the student that “Socialization is the process whereby a homo sapiens becomes human.” He reminded the student that his entire being was the product of interaction with other people. Had he been separated at birth from all people and raised by wolves he would have none of the qualities that he possesses that mark him as human. Ultimately the conversation led to the student despairing that if his humanness, his achieving his full potential depended upon his ongoing interaction with someone who possessed in superior measures all the forms of humanness (love, compassion, emphathy, awareness of others) then he was doomed, because no such person exists. With this, Campolo directed the students attention to Christ, as FULLY human, fully present, and desiring just such a relationship. The student was converted to Christianity.

This, I believe, is what missions is all about. We go to places like Africa, with the message of God’s friendship (John 15:13-15), we go to share in the struggles of our brothers and sisters around the world, because in sharing the same experiences in the presence and company of Christ, we all are “born again.”

Apart from Christ, friendships can only help us to become like the person we are friends with, and help them to become like us. But in Christ, our friendships shape us all into the image of the One we serve. The imagio dei, the image of God, imprinted upon mankind from the very beginning, is revealed in our love for one another, and in our simultaneous love for God. It is revealed when we sacrifice for one another and give of ourselves because of the inherent value of one created in God’s image.

As Paul writes, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Cor. 4:10-11).

If we truly understand that we have friendship with God, through Christ, then we can begin to comprehend the immeasurable importance of being a friend ourselves. This is not only what humankind most desperately wants, it is what humankind most desperately needs. And Christians, ought to be the world’s largest supplier.

Poetic Justice

2009-11-06T03:37:00.000-08:00

There is a noticeable lack of poetic justice in the world.

It seems more often than not, bad things happen to good people, and even worse things happen to very good people. It mystifies me that the very best people I know have been through some of the most terrible tragedies. While on the other hand, very bad people, those who seem completely bankrupt of any sort of responsibility, love, or human decency, often are rewarded with financial success and good health.

Rarely it seems, do people get what they deserve.

I was reading an article in a Malawian newspaper today and the story was describing how foreign investors here are taking advantage of local workers by underpaying them and overworking them. The Labor Minister was interviewed in the article, and he mentioned that some workers are made to work in cold conditions (presumably food storage freezers). He said with apparent concern, “They can get a disease known as cold frost.”

Ok, so maybe his terminologies leave something to be desired. But, nonetheless, it was refreshing to see the government standing up for the downtrodden. That so seldom happens in Africa.

What is far more common in Africa, and elsewhere, is what the article was describing: unscrupulous and unsavory people becoming wealthy by exploiting hard working and honest people.

Some would say this type of thing points to the absence of God. If there was a God, they argue, then the tables would be turned and people would get what they deserve.

But, perhaps, people really do get what they deserve.

Psalm 73 describes a journey – a journey in which the Psalmist goes from anguish over the apparent prosperity of the wicked, to rejoicing over the reality of his own less tangible, but far more genuine and lasting prosperity. Psalm 73 is a poem that addresses an issue which most people who try to serve God probably struggle with at some point: that the righteous seem to suffer, while the unrighteous seem to prosper in everything. In the opening lines, the Psalmist says:

Surely God is good to Israel,

to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;

I had nearly lost my foothold.

For I envied the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

And later, he writes:

Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure;

in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.

All day long I have been plagued;

I have been punished every morning.

If I had said, “I will speak thus,”

I would have betrayed your children.

When I tried to understand all this,

it was oppressive to me.

We feel the heart anguish of the writer as he honestly struggles with his emotions, while simultaneously being uncomfortable with what he feels. He faces a conundrum. He feels what he feels, and yet what he feels does not feel quite right. Most of us can relate. He sees the evil perpetrated by the wicked, and yet the wicked seem to get everything, except what they deserve.

At some point in his wrestling, the writer finds his way into God’s presence, His sanctuary. In verse seventeen the writer says:

till I entered the sanctuary of God;

then I understood their final destiny.

It is here, in God’s presence, that clarity comes. The writer begins to realize that what we see is not always the greatest measure of reality, that there are other truths which we don’t so readily see – at least not on our own. That’s why Paul admonishes “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

There is just something about the presence of God. And the point of Psalm 73 is that only there, in God’s presence, can we attain a proper perspective on the world we live in, and a proper understanding of our own reality. When we are near to God, when we focus our attention and affection on Him, His divine Presence has a way of scattering the illusions that often plague our thoughts, and illuminating the truth about our existence. And we realize that the prosperity of the wicked is instead a prison; those things which seem to be sources of delight for those who reject God, are ultimately the source of their own destruction.

In God’s presence we discover the infinite value of an intimate God. We discover our own immeasurable prosperity in Emmanuel – God with us. And then, we begin to appreciate the fact that maybe the wicked really do get what they deserve, and that we have gotten far more than we deserve.

The wicked want a life free from God, and to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God gives it to them. But for the righteous, our infinite and ultimate reward is God Himself.

And in wrestling with his frustrations over the wicked, perhaps, the writer of the Psalm is reminded that

Truth is best found, with our faces to the ground.

The words of this Psalm then are for all of us who struggle with the reality of an unjust world. It reminds us to focus not on the seeming pleasures and ease of life for those who do not know God, but rather on the genuine joy that we have, because we do.

A Little Faith

2009-10-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

This week we have been reminded on a few occasions how much we take certain things for granted.

A few days ago, I woke up and turned on the shower, only to discover that there was no hot water. The problem, as it turned out, was our water heater, which is a home-made version, fashioned from a fifty gallon oil drum. The element and thermostat had gone bad, as it does about every 4-5 months because parts here are made in China, and apparently China doesn’t put quite as much effort into their elements and thermostats as they do into their Olympics.

And so, the morning had me scurrying around town (and smelling a bit ripe as temps in Lusaka are hovering around the mid 90’s lately), looking for the spare parts. The first place I went to had the element, but not the thermostat. So, they sent me to a place down the road that they assured me would have what I needed. When I arrived at that place, I was told they never carried that type stuff. Never had. Never will.

Then, in a moment of desperation, I contemplated breaking “Jerry’s Golden Rule of Driving in Lusaka,” which states NEVER EVER EVER, Under Any Circumstances, Go Downtown at Lunchtime On a Weekday! But, I was desperate though, and the thought of taking cold showers for the next few days (weeks?) was enough to cause me to seriously contemplate taking these very insane measures.

In a moment of clarity, I changed my mind and headed home to see if there might not be another solution. Luckily, one of our landlord’s workers was able to pilfer what I needed from some old parts in the garage.

The whole incident though made me realize how much I take showers for granted. I mean, most mornings, I wake up, stumble toward the bathroom and turn on the water, and then, while still standing, take a short nap while I wait for the water to reach a nice, even temperature. Most mornings, I don’t even think about being thankful for the ability to take a shower. I just take one, and go on about my day. But when something is just there almost every day of your life, and then suddenly it’s not there, it has a way of making you take notice.

In Zambia, there are often shortages of one thing or another. During droughts, there are shortages of maize and many become malnourished and susceptible to illness. Today, there is a shortage of petrol, and cars are lined up at local filling stations, reminiscent of the 70’s in America.

People who have mused over the recent and phenomenal growth of the church in Africa (in 1990 about 9% of the population in Africa was Christian; today about 45% are Christian!), have pointed to a variety of reasons. Some have said that Africans are inherently religious, and that Christianity provides a framework for relating to the increasing presence of Western influence on the continent. Of course, those who would say that, forget that Christianity was African long before it was Western.

Personally, I think that the reason for the rapid growth of Christianity in Africa, is because the nature of life in Africa lends itself to understanding biblical truths, far more so than the nature of life in America. Africa understands that we live in a broken down world.

In America, I think we have a very hard time living out the mandate to “fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,” and understanding that “what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” (2 Cor. 4:18). We think that by trusting in what we can see, feel and touch, that we are demonstrating our superior intellect. We tell ourselves that to do otherwise, is to believe in magic or fairy tales.

And yet, the world around us is constantly reminding us of its temporal tendencies. Tsunamis wipe entire villages off the map in an instant. Automobile accidents claim the lives of those we love without warning. Our trusted homes, in which we invest so much time and care, are easily reduced to ruble by a tornado, hurricane, fire, or two year old. And, we have all recently been made aware that our financial security is far less secure than we would like.

A casual glance at the evening news reminds us that the world is a fragile place. Or, as Paul says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time,” (Rom. 8:22). And so, is it really a demonstration of our superior cognitive abilities that we would trust in what is clearly untrustworthy? Is it really that smart to put stock in things that “moth and rust destroy” rather than storing up for ourselves “treasures in heaven,” (Matt. 6:19-20)?

It seems that we have a hard time grasping that until some unfortunate circumstance forces us to take a cold shower, or wait hours in line for gasoline, something that just a few days we accomplished on our lunch hour, along with forty thousand other things. Until those things that we have taken for granted have suddenly and unexpectedly vanished, we seldom consider their truly fleeting nature. But when our trusted comforts and assumptions suddenly get swept away, we usually become quite willing to go running from place to place, searching for the solution to our problems, and willing to break our golden rules in the process, whatever they might be.

Remember how churches, synagogues, and mosques, were packed on the days immediately following 9/11? And, how as soon as it became clear that the threat had passed, those places of worship returned to their former state of less than overflowing?

Maybe the best thing that can happen to us, is for things to begin to break down every now and then, for the wheels to come off the cart, so that we can be reminded that there are destinations that can’t be reached with cash or credit card, that reality extends beyond the tangible, that the vast majority of the iceberg will always be hidden to those who refuse to venture from the surface.

No, there is nothing foolish about faith. In fact, most of us have more faith than we realize.

We just have it things that don’t merit it.

Listen

2009-10-01T00:48:00.001-07:00

Recently, as I was driving to the Bible school where I was teaching, I had to drop Paula off at another Bible school where she was teaching, and we drove past a large, dirt football (soccer) field and a large dumpster that sits next to it. The area around the dumpster was strewn with litter and debris, and almost every day a half dozen children could be seen digging through the waste, looking for, who knows exactly what; possibly the makings of their next toy, or used plastic bags that can be wound together for a football, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe they were just looking because its what they see everyday, and their curiosity got the best of them.

These days, a good five months since the last rain, the ground in Zambia is as hard as concrete, and the winds are blowing up dust to almost blinding degrees.

Being in the shanty compounds of Lusaka always leaves me with an odd mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I can’t help but think how glad I am that I grew up in America, in a neighborhood that had clean sidewalks, and where all the houses had lawns that, if not pristine, were at least fairly well kept and quite usable for a game of tag, or hide–and–seek. Yet, at the same time, as soon as I think that thought, I find myself feeling guilty that things were so easy for us growing up, compared to what life is like here.

I try to imagine what it would be like to have lived in a neighborhood like these shanty compounds, my whole life; and yet, honestly, I find myself unable to do so. I find it hard to really imagine what its like to have always only ever known dusty, dirt roads, never paved ones, to have only ever had makeshift toys, never the store bought variety, to have pushed around old tires, rather than being able to ride bicycles. It seems that I just completely lack any common point of reference. There is no framework within my own experiences for such an existence.

And I’ve come to think that even though we can get in our 4x4’s and go where people are here, we can seldom, by ourselves, really be where they are at. We can drive the same roads they drive, we can walk across the same trash strewn streets, we can go to their churches, and we can teach in their schools, but it takes much more than being where people are, to understand who they are.

That, only happens when we pause long enough to listen.

Listening, has not always been my greatest strength. Maybe it’s ADD. I don’t know. And the thing is, I really do try to listen (most of the time), but somewhere between a person opening their mouth to speak, and those words actually reaching my ears, there are roughly 40,000 other things that are equally vying for my attention.

Now, in all honesty, I don’t think I am entirely to blame for that. Yes, its partly my fault, in that I have an attention span about as long as this sentence. But, that aside, many people seem to think that the point of a conversation is to win, and that one wins by saying the most consecutive words without pausing. Sort of the machine gun approach. What I can’t quite figure out, is why those of us who struggle to pay attention are often put on medication, while our rambling counterparts are left alone. But, that’s getting off the subject.

Truthfully, I think the ability to really listen is genuinely a human malady, something that few of us are really good at. I mean, think about your friends who are good listeners. Those that are, stand out! And the reason that person stands out, is because that quality is so rare!

I mean let’s be honest. The question, “How are you doing?” is most often simply a launching pad for “Let me tell you how I’m doing.”

And yet, listening is a crucial part of the Christian life. Our ability to know God, and to be transformed by him, begins with our ability to listen to Him. And our ability to serve God, is directly related to our ability to listen to others. John’s Gospel quotes Jesus as saying, “ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.” (John 6:45). And one of the first things we see in the life of Jesus, is him, sitting at the feet of others, and listening (Luke 2:46).

The degree to which we have listened to God, will directly determine the degree to which we become like him. Unless the word of God penetrates our hearts, unless we allow ourselves to believe it, not because we like it, or because it sounds nice, but because it flows from Eternal Truth, then we can never participate in a relationship with God. And unless we have begun to know God, then our own listening will always be filtered through our own agenda. We will listen, in order to have a chance to speak. Our objective will be to display our wit, or wisdom, to gun down the other person with our vast amount of knowledge and expertise.

But when we have listened to God, when we have, like Mary, sat at the feet of Jesus because we’ve understood the inherent value in doing so, then we become empowered to truly listen to others. Because then, and only then, are we able to hear, not with our own ears, or even our own heart, but with the heart of God, whose Spirit has come to reside within us (Rom. 8:9).

And even if we can’t fully relate to growing up in a shanty compound, we can hear the cry of those who have grown up there, a cry that longs to be heard, because we ourselves have heard from the One who really has something worthwhile to say.

Lost in the Shuffle

2009-09-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that in Africa, the purpose of an immigration office is to force you to consider how much you really want to be in that particular country. In fact, I’m pretty sure that some immigration offices sincerely hope that if they make things difficult enough for you, you will eventually just give up and go home and save them a lot of paperwork.

Yesterday I had to make a trip to the immigration office in downtown Lusaka, for what should have been a simple thing: picking up our work permits.

As it turned out, that “simple thing” turned into three hours of the most agonizingly painful test of endurance I’ve ever encountered. It was as though I was Lance Armstrong, and the immigration office was the French Alps, except that (thankfully) I wasn’t wearing bike shorts, and the immigration office was only breathtaking in the way that a canister of tear gas is breathtaking.

The problem, was that they couldn’t find my file. After standing in line for an hour, I finally was able to hand the guy my receipt, and he began looking through stack of folders piled behind him. When he couldn’t come up with my file, he put my receipt on the bottom of the stack. This is completely in keeping with standard government operating procedures in Zambia, which states that, “a problem is a problem only so long as you are aware of it being a problem, and you are only required to be aware of it, if you are looking directly at thing which is potentially problematic. Otherwise, it may or may not be a problem at all.”

After watching my receipt get shuffled to the bottom of the stack several times, I finally approached the guy to find out what the problem was. He said my file was not there, and then asked me a very important question.

“Is it in the book?”

You see, before you can pick up your work permit, you have to verify that it is indeed ready, and you do that by checking a log book that is kept near the front door of the office. I had done all of this (or, at least some friends had done it for me) and so I knew that our permits were logged in on August 25. Nevertheless, the immigration official was skeptical and escorted me over to the book to have a look for himself. When we found my name entered, the immigration official looked genuinely surprised, and immediately returned to the stack of files and began searching with a renewed commitment. Within minutes the file had been found, and I was on my way home, work permits in hand.

Looking back, I find it intriguing that nothing I could say to the official would convince him that my work permit must be there. Not until he saw for himself that it was “written in the book,” was he even remotely open to a possibility which he had not really considered before – namely, that it actually was there somewhere!

What amazed me about the whole incident, was the immigration official’s inherent trust in the integrity of the book! If it’s in the book, he clearly believed, then the work permit must be there!

Reflecting on this incident has made me think about my own devotional life, which lately has sort of been on a lull, and about my own views of the Book we Christians hold so dear. It seems I go through seasons regarding my time with the Lord, and some of those seasons are more often characterized, in all honesty, by a sort of going through the motions than by a wholehearted effort to hear and receive from the Lord. At times, I think this happens when my Bible reading has me at places in scripture that are more laborious to read – such as the lists of names in the opening chapters of Chronicles, or when the immediate connection between my life and that which the text is describing is not plainly obvious. But sometimes, I think this happens simply because I begin to lose a sense of the Bible’s inherent authority and ultimate importance. Not that I do this intentionally (or admit to it easily), but if I honestly evaluate the time I spend reading the Bible as compared to the time I spend reading other things, well, my actions speak for themselves.

But if the Bible is anything at all, it is inherently authoritative! And yet, I can only discover that authority if I approach it believing that to be so. The famous theologian Karl Barth once said that the printed pages of the Bible do not constitute the word of God by themselves, but that they become the Word of God when they are preached and believed. And I think what Barth was getting at was that when it comes to the Word of God, it all starts with our approach. Approach it as a collection of ancient writings ordered and arranged by men of antiquity, and you will find it to be little more than a fantastic collection of poetry, history and sagely advice. But approach it as it truly is, as the word of God, and you will be changed, broken, and empowered by it as the Spirit of God from whom those words originated, leads you into all truth. It’s very much like my friend at the immigration office. He would have never searched again through the mountainous stacks of folders, had he not had confidence in the authority of the book!

In fact, this is similar to the point Jesus was making when he was talking to those who refused to listen to him. He said, “And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life,” (John 5:37–40). And, “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God,” (John 8:47).

In this present age (which, is probably not unlike most every other age that preceded it), the truth often seems obscured by political agendas and personal interests. For instance, I am often amazed at how my friends on different sides of the political fence can see a particular current event in such vastly different ways. What is disastrous to one, is glorious to another, (in fact, I’m fairly certain that if all my Facebook friends ever ended up in the same room, WWIII would ensue).

But in this time of wearying banter in which the genuine truth seems lost in the shuffle more often than not, I am reminded of what a wonderful thing it is to have a source for truth that is never flavored by partisanship, or selfish ambitions, but rather flows from the One who himself is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and whose only agenda is my wholeness.

And when my devotional time is at a lull, what I need to be reminded of, is that I sit down, not with a book, but with the Truth, that what I read are not words, but a Way, and that what I receive is not information, but Life!

When He Comes

2009-08-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

This week Jerry and I celebrated 4 years in marriage – four precious years of zero regrets and immeasurable love and gratefulness for each other. This week also marks one year since we committed our son Josiah into the arms of Jesus. It has been the longest year of our lives. We know we are in the process of being redefined and resurrected by God. The journey is far from over, but we’re on the road.

Although we thought we already knew such things, what we’re really learning is this: “Trust Him at all times, O people, pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge” (Ps. 62:5). We’ve poured out a lot of things – pain, tears, anger, disappointment, and questions, but also, our faith, love, and worship. That faith and worship is of a different sort than it was a year ago, but not less sincere. Quite the contrary. We are more real, more weak, more broken and more alive all at the same time.

God in His goodness has both Jerry and I doing something we love this month – teaching at the Bible Schools. Jerry is presently at the Extension Training Center, and I’m at the Assemblies of God school. One of my favorite things about coming here to teach is the chapel services. There’s just an indescribable fullness and depth in worshipping and interceding with our Zambian brothers and sisters. Thursday morning there were just seven of us present, in that big church, and Pastor Mwanza led in worship. We sang the good old “Alleluia” song. And to the same tune we started singing “He is mighty,” a capella, in simple harmonies. We must have sung “He is mighty” through at least seven times. And in that big church, with a handful of people, singing that simple old song, the presence of the Lord came, and we began to truly worship.

How does one describe the presence of the Lord? He comes and lifts us out of our smallness, our heaviness, our weakness – and gives us a glimpse of His incomparable glory, a taste of His infinite love. And suddenly we find ourselves no longer mindful of “prayer requests” – but of the greatness of God.

And I couldn’t help but feel amazed at the wonder of it all. A small, struggling Bible College. Seven needy people (teacher included). And the glory of God.

His presence changes everything – our standards, our self-importance, our interests, our perspective.

Sure wish ya’ll could join us for chapel.

Healthcare Reform

2009-07-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

This past week I have been teaching a class on church history in one of the Bible schools we work with in Lusaka. And I love church history, because it reminds me that for every person who has ever represented a gross corruption of the Gospel, for every big–haired, dollar–eyed, televangelist who has confused “take up your cross” with “take out your wallet,” there have been thousands over the centuries who did indeed do the former, and gave everything for the sake of proclaiming Christ.

Yes, there have been the horrible chapters in Christian history of the Crusades and the Inquisitions, but there have also been many, many glorious chapters of transforming hope, and selfless sacrifice.

On the last regular day of class, after we had reviewed for the final, we decided that we needed to go to the home of two of the students and pray for them and their wives. Both of their wives have been very sick, one since February, the other, since 1987!

I had mixed feelings about the outing, because, my experience has been that God doesn’t always heal those we pray for. Now, some claim that that is due to a lack of faith in the person being prayed for, that If only they believed a little more, then God would heal them. Others say that God only heals through medical doctors nowadays. That healing in the New Testament was a mere sign, pointing to the arrival of God’s kingdom. And, they would say, since that kingdom has come (at least in part), then healing miracles are no longer necessary.

The problem with these two positions is that the first seems to make God a servant of faith. And if a miracle is dependent on my faith, then God hardly seems sovereign. The second position likewise, denies God’s character. It says that God only healed in order to make a point. Not because he loved people, not because he had compassion on them, not because he hated their suffering even more than they did.

But Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed...that is, really small faith...then we could do, or rather, he would do through us, rather amazing things. We could metaphorically move mountains, he said. And any arguments based on the New Testament text that miracles were for a limited time only, are desperately thin. One might achieve some (limited) success arguing philosophically or scientifically that miracles are a thing of the past, but to make such a claim based on the New Testament is a hard sell indeed.

At any rate, I had mixed feelings. I wanted to see God help these people, who unlike most Americans, have few other options. And yet, I was afraid of the outcome if nothing came of it. What if they weren’t healed? What would be the effect on the students? On those we prayed for? On me?

At the first house we went to, we prayed for a lady who for the last 22 years has suffered varying degrees of mental illness. In America, of course, we would promptly load such a person up on Prozac and whatever else is the anti–depressant du jour. And occasionally, we would do so with good cause. But in Zambia medical care for the mentally ill is virtually non–existent.

At the second house, we prayed for a lady who had been sick since February with fevers, headaches, coughing, bloodshot eyes and itchy skin.

As we gathered at the second house, which was in a busy compound just off the main market, in earshot of noisy bars and foot traffic, my fears about our prayers not being answered were quickly swallowed up in the reality of being there. In that tiny house, with its bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and its tin roof and chipped plaster walls, it occurred to me that we pray for healing, not only because God can and does heal the sick, but also because when we pray we become what we could never be otherwise.

By that, I mean that in praying for those who are hurting, we lose something of our earthly and fatal perspective – a perspective that fears prayer because of what might not be, and enter into God’s divine perspective – one that embraces prayer because of who God is. We turn from a temporal, results-centered living, to an eternal, Person-centered loving. And in that, we find that prayer for healing is never about us, and it is even only partly about the person being prayed for.

And this is what both of those positions I mentioned above get right. It is ultimately about faith, and it is ultimately about the Kingdom. But neither of those, biblically speaking, is ever about us. Faith comes not from our will power, but from God’s all power. And the Kingdom of God that has burst in upon the kingdoms of men with the coming of Christ, is not about God making a statement, but about God making us whole. It is in the Kingdom that we are healed because it is in the King that we “live and move and have our being,” (Acts 17:28).

This last year, it seems there has been an abundance of opportunities to pray for a number of our friends who have faced, and some who still are facing, major health issues. And at times, I have found myself wearied by the news of yet another beloved friend in desperate need of a touch from God. Because the truth is, to care, to really care, is exhausting and dangerous. It’s exhausting because it shatters all notions of a world in which things are just fine, and in which every malady is solvable with a Band–Aid or Ritalin. And its dangerous because it violently reminds us that despite our memberships at the gym, and our IRAs and 401Ks and all the degrees and placards hanging on our walls commemorating our accomplishments, that we ultimately are as dependent and helpless as little children.

And when we pray for the sick, I think somehow, we too find healing that we never even knew we needed. We might, I suppose, think of it as holy healthcare reform. When we come to God in faith and in recognition of our complete dependence on Him, we finally are able to, not only understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Unless you change (reform), and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” but more importantly, we are actually enabled to do it!

So maybe we need to be praying for the sick more often because, 1) God can and does heal, and 2) because it is in doing so that we ourselves are cured of our greatest ailment, the disease of self–sufficiency.

July The Fourth

2009-07-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

America is far from being perfect. We have our problems, no matter what political lens you chose to view the action from.

On the Republican side, we have the Governor of South Carolina, who seems to have borrowed his present political strategy from Forest Gump: stupid is as stupid does. The Democrats, of course, have their share of gubernatorial goofballs too, starting with Rod Blagojevich.

Now some among us have drawn some rather astonishing conclusions from these wayward politicians. The non–logic goes something like this:

Sanford had an extramarital affair and ran off to Argentina to hook up with a woman he claimed to be his ‘soul mate.” Sanford is a republican. Therefore all republicans, who claim to adhere to “family values” are really adulterers who secretly lust after Antonio Banderas and Charo. And this is why Hugo Chavez is so angry.

On the Dem side:

Blagojevich tried to sell Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. Blago is a democrat. Therefore, all democrats, who claim to be champions of the poor, are in reality greedy elitists who want the rest of us to be driving around on riding lawnmowers while they’re busy joyriding in a 747 doing photo ops over New York city, on their way home from a weekend at Martha’s Vineyard.

Of course, this is all nonsense.

We all know that Hugo Chavez is angry because his haircut makes him look like Herman Munster, bless his heart. Perhaps John Edwards can recommend a good barber.

So, yes, America has issues, just like the rest of the world.

But the longer I’m in Africa, the more I appreciate just how good we have it in the good ole’ US of A. Here is short list of some of my biggest ‘gratefulnesses”.

In America, I’m grateful for mostly honest policemen who aren’t constantly trying to con me, as one did this week in Lusaka when I was given a speeding ticket for going 4 miles per hour over the speed limit. The officer tried to claimed the fine was three times what the law says it is.
In America, I’m grateful that my tax money generally goes to important things, like roads or schools. In Africa, tax money can just as easily go towards a new fleet of Mercedes for government Ministers, presumably because the poor roads destroyed their previous ones.
In America, I’m grateful that a person can say whatever they want about the President, and not fear being tortured or killed. In many places in Africa, a person can say whatever they want about a president, as long as it is flattering.
In America, I’m grateful that loud explosions in the middle of the night usually don’t mean that we’re at war. Instead, it just means that Americans are celebrating their freedom, in the usual fashion, by blowing stuff up.
In America, I’m grateful that people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Franken can run for office, and win. If they can’t get laws passed, then they should at least be good for a laugh or two.
In America, I’m grateful that there is a Fox News, and a CNN, and that neither of them are as “ fair” or “balanced” as they claim. It makes us all think for ourselves a little more than we otherwise might.

I was sort of hesitant about posting this, because the last impression I wanted to give is that I think that everything about America is good, or that I think that everything about Africa is bad. Both places have their share of both.

But in America I sometimes wonder if we are losing a sense of our most valuable national treasure, and by that I mean our ability to celebrate both our unity and our diversity. It seems that more and more our differences erupt into bitter personal attacks and slanderous accusations. Little by little, we are losing the ability to respectfully disagree.

And if the Church, as possessors of the Spirit of unity (Rom. 15:5), cannot take the lead in changing this, how can we expect anyone else to?

Because, as we have seen in Iran recently, we are never really independent until we can celebrate the freedom of dissent.

Nature

2009-06-18T02:06:00.000-07:00

Nature takes many forms.

There is what we oddly call “mother nature,” and by which we usually mean severe weather or geological anomalies such as volcanoes and earthquakes. I’m not sure where that expression comes from though. I imagine some guy who had a rough childhood stood watching a volcano spewing hot lava, or a hurricane uprooting trees, and said, “Hmmm. Kinda reminds me of mom.” However it came about, it is an odd monicker. Mothers are usually nurturing, compassionate, and fond of nice, well–built homes. Nature on the other hand is often violent, disruptive, and fond of trailer parks. I fail to see the connection.

Environmentalists strive for the preservation of nature. And this, contrary to what some Christians believe, is a good thing. God has made us caretakers of this planet we are on and it is our responsibility to be good stewards of what God has entrusted us with. Now, granted, some take things a bit too far. This past week I read a story about a group that wanted to promote clean air by riding their bikes naked through New York City. The bike part I get. The naked part, I don’t. Yes, a large man on a bike instead of in a car lowers our human footprint, as they say. However, a large naked guy on a bike instead of in a car, does not inspire me to greater concern for nature. It inspires me to greater concern for my corneas.

And then there is what we call human nature. Human nature, of course, has many faces. There is the compassionate and loving side. There is the side that gives selflessly, that puts others first and that gives little thought to personal needs. That is the rare side of human nature. More often, though, we encounter the ugly side of humanity.

And perhaps one of the most common aspects of the ugly side, is that of corruption. Corruption can be found anywhere and everywhere, and Africa is no exception.

This week the big news story here in Zambia has to do with a government official who made off with something like 6 million dollars (US) in funds from the Ministry of Health. In reaction to the news, doctors and nurses went on strike claiming that if there was 6 million dollars lying around waiting to be stolen, then there was surely enough for them to get a raise. Then, teachers across the country went on strike claiming that it just seemed like a fun thing to do. As a result, students from local high schools began to riot by throwing rocks at passing cars, claiming that if there was 6 million dollars lying around waiting to be stolen and that if doctors and nurses and teachers could go on strike, then surely, rock throwing must fit into the picture somehow.

At times, when we hear things like this in Africa, we shake our head in bewilderment as though we know nothing of such things. Of course, this is far from true. My thoughts and actions frequently testifies to my own various forms of corruption. Granted, I have never stolen 6 million dollars. But my inclinations, my nature, is seldom faultless.

For instance, I find myself frequently jealous rather than joyous at the successes and opportunities enjoyed by my friends. And even when I do serve others in whatever way, I often find that I am motivated by my own need for significance rather than by genuine compassion and concern. And sometimes, becoming aware of these and other less than godly qualities that I possess, can be discouraging.

This past week we hosted a team from a church in Virginia. On the last day of the team’s visit we took them a few hours outside the city of Lusaka so they could rest and take in a bit of nature, Zambia style.

The Lower Zambezi River is home to an ample array of flora and fauna. And as we were speeding along the river, I couldn’t escape the sense that it was all put there for our benefit, that the beauty of nature is far too precise, far too harmonious to have been accidental. Perhaps this is why some prefer the term “mother nature.” Because nature, is intensely personal. It bears an unmistakable note of dedication that is far more than merely the signature of the Artist. Rather, it is a note from the Artist himself, to all who would appreciate it declaring that it is done for our benefit, from the Creator himself to us.

And in all of this, I am reminded that God is an intensely personal God who has come to restore to humanity the beauty of the divine imprint upon our human nature, an imprint that has long been lost (Gen. 1:27). And in the slow saunter of a Saddleback Stork, and in the quiet restoration of my own soul, I am reminded that what God does, is inherently good (see all of Gen. 1), and that what we do apart from his Spirit, despite whatever clever things we may dress it up in, is inherently corrupt.

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace,” (Romans 8:5-6).

Thus the hope for Zambia, the hope for an imperfect missionary, the hope for the environment, is not merely a greater appreciation for nature, but rather a greater seeking of the Spirit that changes our nature and makes us more like the One who created it all to begin with.

And best of all, no one has to get naked.

Jelly Island

2009-05-13T00:15:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had to take our puppy Allie to the vet. I am still undergoing indoctrination into all things doggie, and I suppose this was a necessary next step in the process. You may recall from previous posts that I have not traditionally been a pet person. Not that I dislike animals or anything, but rather that I simply prefer to enjoy them on either the Discovery Channel or the end of a fork.

Mostly my frustration with animals is that they tend to take far more than they give. Now, if they could do a few dishes or clean a bathroom once in a while, then my view of pets might be radically different. But so far, we have had a hard enough time training Allie to do…well, just to doo somewhere besides on the rug in front of the TV.

Those of you who are animal lovers are, I’m sure, protesting by this time, declaring, “But pets are wonderful because they love you unconditionally.” Which is true, if by unconditionally you mean providing that you feed them and rub their bellies for hours on end. If that is what you mean by unconditional love, then yes, they do that.

Anyway, my trip to the vet got off to a difficult start as Allie seemed to innately know what was about to happen because usually she comes right away when I call her. But when I tried to put her in the car, she began running around in circles, not circles big enough to make it impossible for me to catch her mind you, but rather small little circles that seemed to accentuate the fact that it was Allie and not me that was firmly in control. Our neighbor’s workers stood and watched in delight as this racoon sized dog eluded my capture and occasionally stopped long enough to mock me and let me catch my breath, in between my hysterically shouting, “Allie. Allie. Come–here, Allie. Allie Come. Come. Come...here. Allie. Allie. Allie. ALLIE!!!!! UGGGGGH.”

By the time we reached the vet, I was completely worn out and my self confidence had been greatly shaken. Its amazing how much self–confidence we derive from what we can (or, in this case can’t) do.

The receptionist at the vet’s office took my information, name address and phone number as well as Allie’s name, and made us an official file and we were taken right in. When the vet grabbed the thermometer, I immediately began looking for some reading material as I had no desire to see where she was going to put it. The only reading material nearby was the file that the receptionist had made and so I quickly grabbed it and began scanning the information.

Sometimes, people (like dogs) don’t always hear what we say and I chuckled out loud as I read the name on the file.

It read: Mr. Jelly Island.

You know, Jelly Island, that wonderful little fairy–tale place right next to Peanut Butter Bay, where the Doughnut Dolphins can be seen jumping in unison alongside the Gravy Boats as they head out to the Syrup Sea. Tra–la–la–la–la. Yeah for Jelly Island!

On the whole, the day thrust me into a major identity crisis as though the headline of my life suddenly became, “Gelatinous Land Mass Man Outwitted by 1lb. Dog.”

This week we just finished a seminary class on the History of Christian Missions. And one thing that I am reminded of as we have studied the spread of Christianity from the Middle East to Africa, to Europe, to Asia and eventually on to America is that the Gospel when properly understood, never robs a people of their identity, but rather it reveals it.

And I have noticed a tendency in myself to look for my identity in so many things, in my meager accomplishments, in education, in writing, or yes (sadly), even in really dumb things like clothes or gadgets. It seems my whole being constantly is crying out and asking, “Who am I?” And yet, any answer to that question that is not rooted in Christ leaves me in sorry state of affairs. Because when my identity comes in what I do, or what I wear, when it comes in things so fragile that you can wake up one day and find them simply gone, then the chief characteristic of your life becomes an endless desperation to cling to what perhaps you never really had to begin with.

And this is the trouble with postmodern thought. If there are no absolutes (which is preposterous – because then that statement itself could not be absolutely true!), then there is nothing other than the temporal and absurd to which we can cling, to which we can turn for life and hope.

Consider the words of the apostle Paul, who said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” (Gal. 2:20). As I meditate on that, and on what a profound sense Paul seemed to have of his life being “hidden in Christ” (Col. 3:3), I am reminded that what Christ offers us in our identifying with him in his death, is in reality the supreme entrance into the abundant life he has promised us.

And apart from that, we, and those without the gospel, will forever be mere Jelly Islands.

Easter Day

2009-04-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

I like humor as much as anybody.

However, I am disturbed (and at the same time, aware of the inherent “old foginess” in what I’m about to say), but It seems like more and more, funny is being redefined as simply crass.

Humor these days seems to have become little more than a bunch of feckless, personae non gratae whose sole talent seems to espousing the profane. As I was checking out the news on the internet today, I came across an article about a “comedian” who had himself crucified during Good Friday commemorations in the Philippines. And yesterday my homepage featured a “Family Guy” YouTube clip (which I didn’t watch) about a dog fetching a cross.

My initial reaction, because these people so readily trample on what I hold dear, is to want to lash out in a violent tirade of verbal abuse. I want to tell them in plain English that their banal attempts at humor are merely vapid repetitions of what has been around for centuries. People have been mocking Christianity since its inception and those who continue to do so offer nothing creative or original in the least.

That’s what I want to say.

But when I consider the way Jesus dealt with mockery, I’m reminded that there is perhaps a better way. When Jesus stood before his accusers, and they mocked and beat him, he didn’t lash out. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t tell those mocking him that they were insignificant peons. Because the truth is, they weren’t. In fact, they were the very reason he was about to die – so that they may have life, and have to the full (John 10:10).

And when I think about my outrage at those who have no respect for the cross, what really comes to light is not their waywardness, but my own. After all, the Bible clearly says that unbelievers cannot comprehend the things of God. They simply don’t have the tools to understand the Cross or the crucifixion or the resurrection or any of it (1Cor.2:14). Paul clearly explains this when he says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,” (1Cor. 1:18).

And so the real tragedy of the day is not that some people have no regard for the cross and go to the Philippines to have themselves crucified in mockery of the greatest act of compassion mankind has ever known, or that they make ridiculous cartoons about dogs fetching crosses. We should, according to the Bible, expect nothing less. The real tragedy is that despite that this is exactly what we should expect, I still find it hard to love these people.

And the message in that is that its not those people who need to better understand the cross. Rather, it’s me, who has professed to understand it, that is shown to be wanting.

And so this Easter, I am reminded not only of the profound rejoicing we should embody regarding the resurrection, but also of the need to at times, be simply silent and to love.

Maybe then those who would mock this day, might pause long enough to contemplate it.

Heroes

2009-03-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

I suppose we all have our heros.

For the people that were on flight 1549 this past January, Pilot Chesley Sullenburger was a hero. And from all appearances, a worthy one at that. Others of us choose somewhat less noble individuals at times as our heroes, such as athletes, politicians, and movie stars. And often we regret it later on when the person turns out to be about as smart as a walnut. Movie stars in particular are especially good at declaring themselves to be heroes. They emblazon their names on bronze stars, and embed them in the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard, lest we forget them and the great contribution they made to society, by pretending to be someone else and getting paid an obscene amount of money to do it.

The thing is, though, I think we all want to be thought of as heroes. Most of us want to be remembered for having done something significant with our lives and whether we admit it or not most of us wouldn’t turn down a star on Hollywood Boulevard. At least, I probably wouldn’t, though admittedly the chances of that are about as good as my being appointed the next Pope.

I’ve began to notice, though, that there is something about being a missionary that seems to make me think of myself at times in heroic terms.

The last few weeks, I’ve been teaching in a Bible school that has just gotten off the ground (and in fact, some might say is still firmly ON the ground). The school meets in a church with no electricity, and the principal takes a pew in the back of the church as her “office.” Our sessions start at 7:30 with a chapel service, which always consists of fervent and passionate prayer that is so typical of African believers, a lively time of worship, and a sermon, usually given by one of the schools five students. Mid morning, we take a break for a bit of tea and bread and butter. We finish at about one in the afternoon and then have lunch, which might consist of a boiled egg and some rice.

And one day last week as we were sitting down for our tea and bread, I couldn’t help but begin to think that it was quite noble of me to be there, giving of myself in such humble circumstances. My thoughts drifted back to my days in Bible college and to how much more lavish that setting had been, with the theatre style, cushioned seating of the chapel, the large projection screens, the sound system, and the clear plexiglass podium (I suppose that enabled you to always be sure that the speaker was wearing pants?).

I thought about our nice little coffee shop and my almost daily cappuccino that kept me from sleeping through whatever class I had right after lunch, and how lunch was NEVER rice and a boiled egg. And I thought about how our classes were, well in actual classrooms, with desks, and places to “plug in,” and a projector and a screen. And I remembered how some professors would go to great lengths to “wow” a generation of visual junkies with their technological acumen, like one particular professor who would act as though he were “throwing” the Greek words onto the screen, and we would watch them slowly replace the English words; and how much to his chagrin, we weren’t that impressed.

As I sat sipping my tea and eating my piece of bread, I happened to glance out the window, through the security bars that keep people from stealing the chairs, and I caught sight of a cross on top of a neighboring church and was reminded that for the Church, for those of us who follow Christ, there can only ever be one Hero.

Whatever small sacrifices we make (and, really, we mostly make small sacrifices), they all pale in comparison to the cross. And whatever notions I might have about how noble a thing I think I’m doing, my actions can only truly find meaning in light of the one truly noble act the world has seen. Namely, God dying on a cross for my sins.

That is the only really viable starting point for comparison. We can always conjure the hero within us when the starting point is ourselves because there will always be something or someone that we think is less noble than us.

But when we start at the cross, we are left to the inevitable conclusion that the apostle Paul came to, when he said, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” (Gal. 6:14).

And the truth is, the world will never come to know the significance of Christ on the cross, if we keep trying to take his place.

Upside Down

2009-03-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I woke up and shuffled my way to the kitchen and took a mug out of the cabinet, and then after placing it upside down on the counter, proceeded to pour coffee over the top of it, and then watched the coffee run down the sides of the cup and onto the counter.

Unfortunately, my reflexes and logic prior to those 2–3 cups of coffee also leave much to be desired, because even when I realized what I had done, it took a good 5 seconds before I actually did anything about it (like stop pouring the coffee).

My brain: The cup is upside down dummy.
My arm: Shut up, and go back to sleep.

On Sunday we attended church in a cornfield. The congregation met at a sight that will one day, ideally house a decent sized structure. But at the moment, its nothing more than a tin roof, supported by twelve iron beams. There is no floor, other than a rough concrete slab. A makeshift platform consisted of a nice piece of fabric spread out around a rudimentary, wooden podium. The church has no walls, and as I was preaching a light rain began to fall. A strong wind was blowing and my glasses kept getting covered in tiny droplets of water.

There was something about the whole experience that made me feel like I had just been to church for the very first time. The idea, the very biblical idea I might add, that “the Church” is not in fact a building, but a people, seemed writ large in the glaring simplicity of the scene.

I am often amazed at how little attachment Zambians have to things. Things break, and people seem to shrug it off as though they expected that very thing to happen all along. Here when things get stolen, one says simply, “It went missing.” As though whatever it was might have just ceased to exist as easily as it could have been taken by a neighbor or passerby. What is noticeably absent in these instances though, is rage. In the two years we have been here, I have never seen a Zambian get all bent out of shape over the loss or damage of something they owned. And that to me is astounding, considering that most people here own so little!

As I looked at the piles of cinderblocks that would one day be the walls, and that lay stacked all around the perimeter of the church, I couldn’t help but feel that something beautiful, intangible and invaluable, would be lost when the building is eventually completed. And then, I realized what an easy thing that is to want for someone else. And what a nearly impossible thing it is to want for yourself.

What I want for myself is almost never simplicity. What I want for myself is usually more. I want more cell phone, even though I never use half of the features on the one I have, I want more computer, not because I need it but because it exists. Somewhere out there I know that someone is running around with a computer that makes mine look like a waffle iron, and it drives me crazy.

I’ve often thought that missions is a two way street. That we have as much to learn from the churches we serve as they have to learn from us. And perhaps this is one of those areas where we should take notes.

Because when I look at the way that Zambian’s view stuff, and at the way I tend to, I am more and more convinced that I’ve had my cup upside down for quite some time.

Shall We Dance?

2009-02-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

Jerry often jokes with our Zambian friends that he’s not as talented at dancing as they are. However, twice recently I have witnessed his unprecedented and inspired . . . choreography. The first incident occurred when, upon awakening, our eyes focused immediately on a large, fat lizard clinging precariously to the inside of our mosquito net, mere inches over our heads. We were up in a flash. And in the process of capturing that creature, Jerry made some most amusing noises and moves – the best entertainment I’d had for some time. The second incident took place in church last week. Wondering if the Spirit was descending on my husband in a previously unexperienced manner, I observed with interest as his body made strange contortions and an odd look came upon his face, as he sat beside me on the front row. Only after church did I learn the real source of his inspiration: a cockroach inside his suit jacket!

The truth is, we’re both longing to dance again. To lay down the weight of sorrow that clings so tenaciously, and sometimes seems just too much to bear. The other day we went for a walk in the sunshine, only to find ourselves caught in a rain that came up in an instant and left us soaked. So too our hearts can go from hope to despair, from peace to pain, with no warning at all.

We find ourselves daily engaging the Enemy in ways we have never before experienced. The issue? Trusting in the goodness and Sovereignty of God, trusting His love for us, submitting ourselves to His work of grace in our lives. So easy to say, so easy to preach about . . . so hard to own, in the midst of a storm.

Though we teach classes here, we’re actually quite engaged in learning ourselves. About praising Almighty God in brokenness. About listening intently for His voice. About being authentic before God, and also, with people.

Today as I sat in a classroom of Zambian pastors and leaders, I thought, “how amazing of God, to allow us to be under the care and tutelage of such gracious people in a time like this.” People who have suffered deeply, whose faith sustains them, and who amaze us with their capacity for joy. After class I sat and chatted with a friend, Pastor Beatrice. This humble lady is a church-planter, director of a Bible School, widow, mother, grandmother, and woman of grace. Though her own children are grown, she still cares for several orphaned children in her home, on a meager ministry income. She shared some of her story with me – losing several children, and then unexpectedly losing her husband. In a land where there is very little employment opportunity, let alone “Social Security,” widows struggle greatly to survive. Her words of encouragement were simple and gentle. “ You just have to trust God. There is a reason for everything He allows. Just thank Him, and praise Him, in everything.”

There was not an ounce of triteness in her words. With a glow on her face, and nothing but love in her eyes, she exalted the Lord as she spoke of His sustaining power and faithfulness to her. I sat there and drank in the humble joy, the precious peace, and love that flowed out of her “like rivers of living water.” It occurred to me that perhaps never before had I seen the fruit of the Spirit so beautifully on display, as I did in that moment. It was almost like having a conversation with Jesus. The sparkle in her eyes rekindled something inside of me, and I felt my heart saying, “Yes! Yes to what you say, yes to who you are, yes to Christ in you!”

Ah, the tenderness, the strength, the God-confidence of those who have suffered – and overcome. People like Beatrice. People like . . . Jesus. Jesus, who suffered for us, that He might turn our mourning into dancing.

Dust

2009-02-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

The other day I had to take my wife’s laptop to the repair shop because, as a wise friend once said, “In Africa, we have dust.”

Dust here is not just that sort of greyish film that settles as an unsightly coating on your old books and new exercise equipment. Here dust is second only to the British in its propensity to settle where its not wanted.

At any rate, Paula’s laptop fan had become caked in dust to the point that the “housing” melted (“housing” being a technical term for a little three bedroom ranch where the fan goes after it gets off work) because the fan was not able to spin at its normal capacity. The repair guy fixed the fan within a few hours (much to my amazement and skepticism). When I returned to pick it up, I turned the computer on to make sure everything was working properly. Immediately I noticed that those four little lights on the front of her Dell that tell you if 1) the power is on, 2) if the Wi-Fi is on, 3) if the power supply is plugged in, and 4) if the processor is running, were not lighting at all.

When I complained about this I was given an innocent shrug that seemed to say, “Listen pal, you should be happy that it even turns on.” Which of course I was, and considered leaving and just dropping the little blue light issue altogether. But just then a lady emerged from the back who seemed to be in charge (because for one, she had enormous shoulder pads in her blouse, and two, because she looked quite unhappy, as though nothing would make her happier than to fire someone right then). I stopped her and asked her what they proposed to do about the fact that my wife’s laptop was in no better (and in some ways worse) shape than it was when I brought it in.

She looked at the computer and looked at me, and said (and I’m not kidding), “I have a laptop too. Those lights aren’t supposed to come on.”

It took every bit of kindness I could conjure to keep from saying, “Oh, my yes. You are so right. These are the non–functioning, purposeless lights that Dell installed right on the front of their laptops to alert the user to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except that they could have placed SOMETHING QUITE USEFUL there had they wanted to.”

But perhaps she saw the sarcasm trying to escape because as soon as she said it she made a bee-line for the office and immediately summoned the clerk to join her.

Later, through the kindness of the repairman whom the store did eventually send to my house to fix the issue, I learned that the woman had informed the clerk that I was a “difficult customer.” Which is true, if by difficult she meant “wanting something for his money.”

The thing is, I was having a really good day that day, which I don’t always have in Africa. Sometimes Africa gets the better of you and by noon you’re ready pack everything up and move to Tulsa and open a bagel shop. But that day I was doing well, and was managing my frustrations fairly easily (or so I thought). But when I learned that the manager had labeled me a “difficult customer” I was quite upset, because I AM NOT difficult and it really drives me insane to be accused of things that I’m not! Even though a bit of reflection reminds me that not than long ago I blogged about a similar incident in a Staples store.

This week in the class I’ll be teaching on the Gospel of John, we will be studying Jesus’ trial before Annas, Caiphas and finally before Pilate. And today as I was reading those passages, it struck me what restraint Jesus embodied in the face of such arrogance, audacity and abuse. And what’s more, is that at every point Jesus’ concern seems to never have been for his own justification, or to be proven right, but instead to provide an opportunity for those who would destroy him to believe in Him and come into the Light.

And I can’t help but wonder if we as Christians don’t sometimes spend far too much time trying to “be right,” and prove the superiority of our position, and far too little time trying to “be light” that might lead someone out of their darkness and into the embrace of Christ.

As I think about this last week of class and the students I have the privilege to teach, I wonder if Africa will get it right. I wonder if the Church in Africa will be the one that finally, after 2000 years of (at times) sordid history, presents to the world a Christ that is forever reaching out to those that are hurting, disenfranchised and yes, even predisposed toward unbelief.

Or, will they, like we so often have, get caught in endless debates and defenses about, quite honestly, rather meaningless little blue lights.

Modern Inconveniences

2009-02-07T00:23:00.000-08:00

Love can be terribly inconvenient.

Of course, I don’t mean those kinds of love that we all are so fond of, like the love between a husband and a wife, a child and his dog, or a man and anything requiring internal combustion. No, those types of love come quite naturally.

But there is another type of love however that requires some real effort, some intentionality, sort of like that which you would need in order to actually eat Spam, or read a Danielle Steele novel (both of which, by the way, are nearly equal in nutritional value and I am certain one would benefit far more by eating the Danielle Steele novel and reading the Spam).

This week was my first week of teaching the Gospel of John, which many scholars believe to have been written by “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” which is not a matter of the writer bragging about being Jesus’ favorite, but rather a humble way of the disciple John saying, “me,” since in the first century the concept of American Idol (and its attenuating notion that the winner becomes the center of the universe) were only beginning to take shape due to the fact that Paula Abdul was still undergoing Botox treatment. Had American Idol fully evolved by that time, the writer would have identified himself, of course, by wearing a bikini.

The class has been a wonderful experience. And by that, I mean that I made it to class on time every day and hardly anyone fell asleep during the entire four hour session, which I attribute, primarily to the fact that the Bible is endlessly fascinating and relevant, and secondarily, to my wearing a bikini.

Plus, I discovered that when you’re the teacher and you don’t know the answer to a question, you can always say, “Well class, we have a lot to cover today, so let’s keep moving.” And everyone will just think you’re a neurotic workaholic. Which is much better than being thought a normal human being.

On Wednesday though, (on a far more serious and somber note) one of the students in class reported that a lady in her church had died after giving birth. She was “an older” lady, which by Zambian standards might mean 40. Paula graciously offered that after class we would take her to the funeral house (which would be the home of the lady who had died and where all the family, friends and relatives are gathered).

I have to admit, I wasn’t immediately thrilled by the idea, knowing that we could be there a long time. In Zambia, when you go the funeral house, you traditionally go and just sit with those that are grieving. You don’t talk much but just sit and be there. And I knew that in going we would cross from our reality into another, a reality characterized not by modern conveniences, but by the ancient inconveniences of poverty and despair.

In Zambia, we who have the comfort of good health care and nice homes live in sort of a constant awareness that the “other Zambia” is not so far away and will one day soon, often when we least expect it, intrude upon our lives and give us a healthy dose of a reality very different from the one in which we normally move.

I suppose my unstated personal philosophy has been to not go looking for this intrusion of the other reality, but to just know that eventually it will find me, upset me, and, of course, inconvenience me.

And I suppose a little inconvenience is a healthy thing. I mean, if we lived our lives entirely according to what was expedient, then we would have the depth of a turnip and former senators would get appointed to cabinet posts without having had to pay their taxes (as qualified as he may or may not have been, said Jerry in his most apolitical voice, ironically aware that I am using this story because of its convenience).

But if Jesus had only ever done that which was convenient (as I am sometimes inclined to do), He would have never entered human history and “pitched his tent among us,” (John 1:14). And one is left to wonder if convenience has any place in love at all. I mean, is it not the nature of love to sacrifice, to endure, to give?

So, while yes, love can at times be terribly inconvenient, it can also be uniquely, and wonderfully transformational and our job then is not to weigh the cost of love (as I seem so innately inclined to do), but to simply live it out.

And in doing that we enter, in a remarkable way, into the most universal and rarest of languages, a language in which Jesus spoke with perfect clarity in dying on the cross (John 3:16). And surely, there was nothing convenient about that.

It is that message more than any other that is capable of transforming the broken lives of this world.

And, more importantly, its a message that can be proclaimed without anyone ever having to don a bikini.

Broken

2009-01-26T00:38:00.000-08:00

Some days, it seems like everything in Zambia is broken.

Last night we had an electrician out to hook up our dryer and 30 minutes after he left the plug was melted to the outlet. Apparently, attaching a 30 amp device to a plug made to handle 13 amps is sort of like shaving with weed eater (its just a BAD idea). Now you may be wondering, why in the world didn’t the electrician notice this? And the answer would be that, well, the term “electrician” can mean so many things in Zambia, and doesn’t necessarily mean someone who knows anything at all about electrical stuff, but that simply decided one day, “I think I’ll be an electrician.” And thus, he became an electrician. Which is of course, the same way that many people in Africa, and around the world, have become presidents.

In fact, there’s an old missionary adage (and we, being missionary, often speak in adages) that says, the proper question to ask when hiring someone for a job, is not CAN you do this, but have you done it before. This morning as we were getting ready for church, our hot water suddenly was reduced to little more than a trickle (sort of like Michael Jackson). And as I went to unlock our front door so we could leave, the key would hardly turn and almost broke and I felt my love for all things Zambian beginning to drop faster the Dow.

The church we were ministering at was in Ngombe compound (which means cow, and is named that because originally it was settled by Timbuka people, although no one really knows what Timbukas and “cow” have to do with each other. Nonetheless, that is the reason we were given).

The compound, like most compounds in Lusaka, consists of make shift mud brick houses, many with only a sheet for a door. To get to the church we had to drive through the market, which after an all night rain was a mucky mess of mud stained black from charcoal sold for cooking and heating. It was before 9 a.m. in the morning and drunks were stumbling out the bars and half naked little kids were running around unattended nearly getting hit by passing mini buses.

And I thought as I looked at this market, and compared it to the place where we shop, a nice modern shopping center, with carts and pleasant music playing and courteous employees wearing matching smocks, I thought to myself, this world is broken! This strange world we live in, with worlds within the world, worlds that are as distant in realities as farthest galaxies.

Just before church I slipped away to the “facilities,” knowing that we might be here a long time, and found myself at nothing more than a hole in the ground, attended by roughly made walls and a wooden door that wouldn’t shut, and no roof and the rain steadily falling. I thought of what it would be like to live in this place and to never know the luxury of indoor plumbing. And I thought, this place is broken.

After church during a meeting with the board, we listened to the pastor, a lady, describe some of her challenges. She didn’t have a car and lived on the other side of town and her husband had recently had their only car confiscated by the police because it was “registered as a personal vehicle and was being used for business.” Likely nothing more than a matter of the police looking for a bribe. But the result was that her husband had been unable to work and had become depressed and they had been without food until friends came and helped them out.

And then another pastor shared about a 15 year old girl in his church that was being sexually abused by her brother–in–law and how he had been able to counsel her and her family, but the result was that the 15 year old girl was shipped off to live with other relatives, without any counseling, without anyone real help at all. And I thought, these people are broken.

As I listened to these stories I found myself not wanting to hear anymore, but just wanting to go and get back to the comfort of my quite unbroken home (by comparison) and my very unbroken life.

And so, yes, many things in Zambia are broken.

Some are too broken to be fixed. And others, like myself, are perhaps not broken enough.

Magic, Miracles and Martians

2009-01-14T11:07:00.001-08:00

Its amazing the cockamamie things people believe.

We were coming home from church on Sunday, driving through the Soweto market in dowtown Lusaka when we stumbled on a fascinating bit of African lore. The Soweto market, named after the South African township is a bustling sea of people, cars, and mini–buses. Along the roadside, I noticed several signs posted advertising the services of witch doctors. I asked our Zambian friend riding with us if he thought many people in the churches went to see witch doctors.

He said they do, and went on to explain some of the things they seek help for. One of them apparently is a charm that mothers put around a babies waist so that he or she will grow up to have (in plain English) a big booty, which our Zambian friend described as “big butticles.” I suppose sort of like tentacles, but...well, not.

Apparently, its not very desirable for an African to have a western style posterior wherein one’s legs and back just sort disappear into one another and people look a bit like a two pronged fork, like the kind you use for serving pickles. No, here protrusion seems to be the key and out of a deep seeded fear that their Zambian kids will grow up looking like us rumpless oddities of nature from the west, they go to great lengths to insure a healthy hiney.

Now, I know what your thinking. THAT’S THE MOST BIZARRE THING I’VE EVER HEARD! How could anyone think that a “magical charm” could give them a big butt? I mean, everybody knows that if its it rear–end real estate your after, then a steady diet of, well, actually no steady diets at all...but just you and Betty Crocker and the TV remote! But this is Africa, and here the supernatural is not relegated to the FOX network and O.J. Simpson trials. Here the supernatural is everywhere, and when it comes to your gluteus maximus, the thought I suppose is that the means justify the end.

Not everyone in Africa, though believes in the supernatural . I heard an interview on the BBC the other day where they were interviewing some scientist type guy who was espousing his love for all things Darwinian, in honor of the approaching 150 year anniversary of Origin of Species. When the interviewer said (with enough contempt in his voice to handily win him the coveted “Pretentious and Biased Reporter of the Year Award”) that people like “those creationists” would not agree on Darwin’s assertions, the scientist being interviewed responded by saying (about belief in the Bible) that “it just goes to show that when you are taught something at a very early age, how difficult it is to separate yourself from that belief despite it being completely irrational.”

He went on to espouse how belief in God was basically insane and how in the modern world we ought to have graduated from such folly of believing in highly improbable things. In other words, science is based on facts, religion on fairy tale. I’ve heard Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) say similar things. “Only an idiot,” he said, “would believe in the existence of God.”

Thus according to Dawkins, Galileo, Newton, Kelvin, Max Plank, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein – idiots all. Not to mention Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barak Obama, just so you know I’m not trying to float any political agenda here. By Dawkins reasoning, idiots every one.

Speaking of Barak Obama, I was listening to BBC again this afternoon as I was running some errands, and they had an Israeli poet (didn’t catch his name) who read an open letter to the President–elect. He talked about what an incredible thing it is to witness an African American becoming president of the United States. He said, “Generations upon generations of people have called things impossible until someone came along and did it, and then it became possible.”

And he’s right!

Belief in improbable things is not the mark of an idiot. It is the way that the world has always moved forward. Its the way we discovered the world wasn’t flat, and the way we discovered that the sun, and not the earth is the center of the solar system (which of course is why its called the SOLAR system) and its the way we put a man on the moon. And, sorry, but I get a bit annoyed when some scientist professes that he only subscribes to facts and logic and that scientists never pursue illogical ideas because they do it all the time!

All systems of belief, whether its Darwinian evolution or creationism or intellegent design require a degree of faith. Since science in the truest sense of the word is the study of that which is based on observable facts, it is impossible for any theory of origins to be rightly called “science” as no one can possibly observe the origin of the universe (for much better treatment of this than you’ll get here, see “Who Made God” by Ravi Zacherias and Norman Geisler).

In Ben Stein’s (who is Jewish by the way) recent movie “Exposed” he shows how the scientific community has closed ranks and “blacklists” anyone who even mentions the words “intelligent design.” He closes the film with an interview with Dawkins. And he asks him how he thinks life on earth began.

Dawkins answer? Aliens. Or in his words, “One very intriguing theory is that highly evolved, very intelligent life forms ‘seeded’ or planted life on earth.” They flew space ships here, opened up a petri dish and poured out some bacteria, and then went home to watch.

Now, I don’t have ANY problem with a person believing in evolution (or aliens for that matter). If that’s where you think the evidence points, then fine. But I do mind when people try to hide their animosity towards faith behind the pretense of intelligence, as if arrogant barbs will suddenly awake Christendom from its stupor and it will dawn on us that not a SINGLE ONE OF US in 2000+ years of the faith’s existence HAS EVER ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT WE BELIEVE OR EXPLORED THE VALIDITY OF THE BIBLE and we will finally pull our heads out of our butticles and come to our senses.

Like I said, its amazing some of the cockamamie things people believe.

Dog Days

2009-01-01T02:48:00.000-08:00

Back in the day when men were nomadic, hunter–gatherers (like in the 60’s), moving wasn’t such a big deal. Because back then the only thing anyone owned was a few sharpened rocks used mostly for stabbing bears, and a wife, used mostly for figuring out what to do with the bear once it was stabbed. When they had stabbed all the bears in a particular area, these hunter–gatherer types loaded the kids into the VW micro–bus and headed off to the next hunting sight, often conveniently located near a venue where the Grateful Dead was performing.

But in the 21st century things have become far more complicated. Moving, for us westerners (by which I mean people that know everything there is to know about the love life of Brad Pitt but that upon hearing that Russia had invaded Georgia, feared that Mississippi might be next), involves the concentrated efforts of a group of people roughly equivalent to the population of New Jersey and causes us so much stress that people who are otherwise quite nice suddenly become grumpier than a Russian President. Which is quite grumpy. Just ask any Georgian.

Take me for instance.

I’m usually a pretty nice, and pleasant guy. But put me in the middle of moving, and suddenly the slightest hick–up in “the plan” and I start to come unraveled as though I were being interviewed by Katie Couric.

For instance, we have a German Shepherd named Rambo that we thought we would have to have put to sleep on account of the fact that he is quite old, completely insane (which we know because when he gets stressed out he starts running around the yard with a cinder block in his mouth) and we hadn’t found anyone to take him off our hands. But at the last minute some missionary friends from Lusaka said they would take him, which meant we would have to make the 7 hr. drive with Rambo in the back of the car. I was not pleased as I was sure that Rambo would eat our Landcruiser before we got to Lusaka. And then what would we do?

I felt like running around the yard with a cinder block in my mouth.

But we finally got Rambo under control (with a little help from the local pharmacy), and were on our way.

Things went smoothly until we came to a police check point, and I misinterpreted the very vague hand signal of the officer to mean “continue on” when in fact he meant to signal us to stop. After which I was informed that I could have been given a very hefty fine for such an act of defiance, a fine which I think the officer was ready to give to me until he saw Rambo in the back.

“This dog looks like he wants to get out!” he said, and waved us on with the very same hand signal that five minutes prior was supposed to mean “stop.”

An hour or so later we got a call from some missionary friends who had hit a dog in the road (who I suspect was committing suicide over the discovery that he was in fact a dog) and had damaged their radiator. They would need us to tow them the 200 kilometers to Lusaka, and that would mean adding another 2 to 3 hours to our trip as we would only be able to travel about half the speed limit.

My love for dogs was increasing by the minute.

Soon we found our friends, waited for the local welder to fashion us a tow bar, and we were on our way. We arrived in Lusaka about 7pm last night, and by then my stress quotient had been fully reached, which I know because my prayer life by then had been reduced to, “Dear God, make it stop.”

But looking back my stress was entirely unfounded. Rambo did not eat the Landcruiser, and in fact probably kept me out of jail, as I was very close to telling a police officer that he needed to go back to hand signal school.

Rambo is now at his new home, with all the cinder blocks he needs for a happy existence. We are safely in Lusaka. And just as I was coming to the end of my rope, we came to the end of 2008.

Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself,” (Matt. 6:34).

Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t genuine reasons to worry. Surely, there are. In fact there are enough good reasons to worry that we don’t need to add to it, by worrying about what may happen (either tomorrow or today).

I don’t usually make resolutions because, well I hardly ever keep them. But today I am quite aware that I could do a better job of worrying less, loving dogs more (though you will have to pray for me on that one), and living a simpler life.

Not that I intend to take up bear hunting or anything.

Creatures Great and Small

2008-12-28T03:41:00.000-08:00

Africa is the land of creatures.

Our house is usually occupied by a variety of lizards whose special talent seems to be that they can deposit ten times their body weight in lizard poop into the crevices of our furniture on a nightly basis. There are also territorial spiders, called “wall spiders” (because, well they hang out on the walls) that are no more dangerous than a daddy longlegs (and no better named, either). They tend to simply look like a brown spot on the wall that scurries away into a dark corner if you come too close. Despite their being harmless though, I tend not to really care for any of these. I know that they are part of God’s creation but I suspect only in the way that a messy kitchen is part of a chef’s creation. Its simply an unavoidable part of the process.

And of course, there are the bigger creatures. There are plenty of elephants to be seen in Zambia if one goes to the right places. And last night on the way home from dinner we passed a couple of hippos grazing by the side of the road and it occurred to me when I saw them that I was barely impressed anymore.

And, to be sure, there are the human creatures.

Christmas morning I drove our night guard home and after dropping him off at his house, I started to make my way back home when just after crossing a one lane bridge an oncoming car full of drunks (it was 7AM) suddenly sped up and blocked me from exiting the bridge, refusing to back up. One guy got out and starting waving his arms and shouting, a sure sign that he was ready to take on me and my car all by himself.

Now I was driving a 4x4 with a diesel engine and a solid bull bar on the front, and this guy was in a beat up, old, Toyota Corolla that looked as weathered as the guy behind the wheel. For a moment, I contemplated just pushing the would be gladiators into the ditch with my larger and more powerful car, and heading home. But common sense (or something like it) got the better of me and I put my Landcruiser in reverse, backed up all the way across the bridge and let them pass. They were delighted in their victory, and as they drove past me they waved their fists and pointed to the stop sign just before the bridge as proof of their being in the right. Never mind that I had completely crossed the bridge before they ever got there.

The whole thing got my heart rate going and jolted me out of the half–sleep that I tend to stay in until my third cup of coffee. And as I drove away I was thankful that it hadn’t turned out worse, knowing well that it could have. But there was more to contemplate that morning than just my narrow escape.

There was also the nagging reality of my having somehow thought myself better than them.

The thing is, I didn’t want to back up. What I really wanted to do was drive them headlong into the ditch (as I mentioned) and gloat over my vehicular superiority (of which, by the way, I can take zero credit for) and over their drunken rediculousness. I wanted to put these guys in their place (which simply proves that their rightful place and mine are pretty much the same). I suppose part of it is due to the fact that most Zambians are the most gracious, kind and loving people you could ever meet. Until they get drunk and then they become much like any other drunk in any other country of the world: Obnoxious, overconfident and with far more swagger than is fitting mortal human beings.

I suspect the kindness of most Zambians, the abundant graciousness with which they treat us most of the time can lead you to believe that you deserve to be treated that way all the time. We would never admit it, but being called “bwana” (which is a swahili word meaning basically “boss” or “big man”) sort of grows on you, sometimes subconsciously and sometimes quite consciously.

And as I think about Christmas morning, and my little incident at the bridge, I am reminded again that Africa is indeed a land of creatures.

And that sometimes, the creature is me.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24–25).

The Problem with Poverty

2008-12-19T05:58:00.000-08:00

This sounds like a terrible thing to say, but its true. Poverty makes me tired.

Not my poverty of course, because truthfully, I’m not poor. At least, not by the world’s standards. At least not in the sense that I’ve missed a meal due to a lack of money or had to wash my clothes in a muddy river, or had to walk miles to get water because of not having indoor plumbing. Not poor anyway in the sense of living in a house made of mud with no electricity and no more hope than the dim bit of sunlight that illuminates the holes in the roof. No, my brand of poverty entails little more than settling for a refurbished MacBook instead of a brand new one and watching for the sales at Penny’s.

Oh, the horror.

At times (not always though, because we tend to live in a world quite removed from this reality in Zambia), but at times our world and that world, the world of poverty, intersect. Or rather, they collide because the two really can’t just cross one another’s path and continue on as if nothing happened. No. They meet and the result is a sprawling wreckage of shattered ideals and lofty perspectives.

Recently a pastor came to visit us whose shoes were so worn out that he could only afford to wear them on Sunday, and then only by putting cardboard in the bottoms to fill in where the soles had worn through. He told us how his wife was no longer able to work at the market because she had just had a baby. Now his family hardly had enough food to eat. He asked us for a loan so he could set up a small stand and sell a few things, some soap and other common household items, in his community in order to earn a few extra kwacha to help make ends meet.

Today one of our workers came to us and asked if we could help him repair the toilet in the house he is renting. The landlord is nowhere to be found and the family has been using the outdoors out of necessity, much to the embarrassment of our worker (and surely his family as well).

The thing is, I wish I didn’t know that these things were a reality for people. I wish I didn’t know that a man who had committed his life to Christ and was serving God in
full–time ministry as a pastor can’t afford to buy shoes, or that a man had to go to bed every night mulling over the reality that his wife and children were living not much better than animals. Thoughts like that could really haunt a man.

I wish I didn’t know, not because I don’t care about them, but because I do (at least I want to care, and sometimes that’s enough, isn’t it?) and more often than I would like, I find myself wrestling with this vast discrepancy in things, in the lives that people live because my life is so far removed from not being able to afford a new pair of shoes or not being able to call a plumber when the toilet is broken.

But I suppose it doesn’t do much good to wish that you didn’t know something. You know what you know and the world is what it is.

I suppose the heart of the thing, what wearies me about poverty, is that I’m uncomfortable with being uncomfortable; and being confronted with other people’s pain is uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable because I don’t usually know what to do and because I know that there is no really good reason that I’m not in their place and they’re not in mine, except that that’s just the way things turned out. Neither of us had a choice in the matter and sometimes when I look into the eyes of some of our Zambian friends I can’t help but think that it could easily have been me in their shoes, or lack of shoes rather.

Today I read an article that stated that, “for nearly two out of every three people alive today, hunger is not merely an occasional pang felt before lunchtime. It’s a lifestyle.”

The article also said that the amount of money needed to provide basic education, health care, and clean water to the entire developing world is equal to the amount of money spent every year worldwide on golf. 1

Ouch.

And in case you don’t play golf, its also equal to the amount of money spent worldwide on diets.

I know what your thinking. God does not care about my Slimfast! He wants me to be skinny! And you’re probably right.

As I try to process my aversion to the unpleasant face of poverty I think that the source is (and this sounds a bit trite and I hate to even offer this except that I’m sure its true), my American brand of Christianity that causes me to believe that my faith in God is mostly about me. I have become pretty accustomed to the notion that God likes me and that I have nice clothes and other things precisely because he likes me.

But I’m starting to wonder if its not poverty that makes me tired, but rather my own excess, and the vast amounts of effort required to maintain the belief that there is nothing wrong with the fact that I have enough clothes to fill two large suitcases.

Maybe my stuff is really what makes me tired.

And perhaps poverty just makes me see things a little clearer.

Journeys

2008-12-12T00:52:00.000-08:00

Well, its official. We’re moving again. Over the last month or so Paula and I have been praying and exploring the idea of relocating to Lusaka due to a sense that God was leading us to make the move. In the last few days, one by one the doors have opened for us to do just that and today we found a house in Lusaka. Between now and January 1st we will pack up all our things, say goodbye to Livingstone and relocate once again.

It seems that following the call of God is all about mobility.

I was speaking in church the other day and made the comment that as Christians we shouldn’t focus too much on the journey, but rather on the One who calls us, sends us and leads us. If we focus on Jesus, I said, the journey will take care of itself. It was a very churchy thing to say and I could tell everyone thought so because they all said “amen” just like I had hoped they would.

But as I was walking back to my seat, it occurred to me that that is so not true! At least not entirely.

Now I know that Jesus said, “seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). Which we take to mean that if we’ve been really good, everything on our list will show up under the tree on Christmas morning. When in fact, Jesus is talking about how unnecessary worry leads to unnecessary pursuits. Worry too much about clothes, and you will end up getting a third job just so you can afford a $200 pair of jeans that will never look as good on you as they do on the half-starved teenager who was hired to advertise them. Worry too much about your weight, and you’ll turn into Richard Simmons.

Frightening isn’t it?

But, to the best of my knowledge, Jesus never said, “Pay no attention to the journey.” He did tell the disciples what not to take on their journeys and later, what to take. But if we consider the record of men and women of faith in the Bible, we notice that often their journeys were as important as their destinations. Consider Israel. Forty years wandering in the desert after 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Why? Perhaps because arriving in the promised land was as much an internal thing as it was an external thing.

What I mean by that is that as I reflect on our journey, our ever changing, often challenging journey I am constantly brought face to face with who I really am, and often it ain’t too pretty. I am daily confronted with my own apathy, my own limited compassion, my own lack of grace. And I am starting to think our journey of faith, our efforts at being followers of Jesus, are meant to lead us to discover our own broken selves as much as anything else. Because if that never happens, the truth is we may travel far but we will never really go anywhere. A journey that doesn’t change us, that doesn’t lead us to wholeness, is ultimately a journey destined to be repeated.

Of course the journey is about a destination. When Jesus told the disciples to follow him, he was going somewhere! But the journey is also about transformation. Its about what happens to us as we go. Its about our failures and frailties, our frustrations and tears because those things more than anything bring us out of where we’ve been, and out of who we were. We leave Egypt not on foot, but on our knees. It is there that our hearts are poured out and set on the potters wheel where we can be plied into something useful.

Today was a hard day in Zambia. This afternoon we took a young lady named Prisca (pronounced Priska) to the clinic after her boyfriend had beaten her until she collapsed in the middle of the road. He then started kicking her in the head and ribs until someone finally pulled him away.

Prisca became a follower of Christ just a few days ago, led to the Lord by some missionary friends here in Zambia. The reason her boyfriend attacked her was because after she became a Christian, she told him she couldn’t see him anymore, that she wasn’t going to live the way they had been any longer. As Paula was comforting her, helping to hold an ice pack on her swollen, bruised face she spoke about her new found faith. She said, “I’ve made my decision. I’m not turning back now.”

Each of our journeys are hard in their own way I suppose. But it often takes someone like Prisca, who is welcomed into her Christian faith with a brutal beating, to bring a little perspective to our own journeys. Then we realize that there are some among us who are on t inconceivably difficult journeys, who know suffering and loss to a degree that is beyond the comprehension of the well–cushioned Christian lives that most of us live.

And though I’m tempted to complain about having to pack up our stuff, and though I really want to cry out to God asking, “Why do we have to go through this whole moving thing again?”, I tend to think now that the better thing is to follow Prisca’s lead and to say simply, “I’ve made my decision. I’m not turning back now.”

Faith, Feelings and Wooden Hippos

2008-12-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

It doesn’t feel much like December, let alone Christmas, here in Zambia. Its hot out, really hot, and everything is green and there are none of those wonderfully delightful and not the least bit annoying Salvation Army bell ringers anywhere to be found. Plus, there are no green and red lights lining the tops of peoples houses (which are, of course, meant to commemorate Rudolph safely leading the wise men to the baby Jesus). There are no giant inflatable snowmen or Candy Canes adorning peoples yards (which are, of course, meant to inform your neighbors that you are a raving lunatic – not that there is anything wrong with being a raving lunatic, mind you).

Worst of all its not cold, and Christmas without cold is like egg without nog. Whatever that means.

But despite the appearance of things it is Christmas (almost) and we are doing our best to have a sense of that. But I’m amazed at how much my state of mind is dependent on my surroundings because I find myself wishing that I FELT like it was Christmas more than I do. And I realize that, despite my best efforts to hide it beneath a healthy layer of Old Spice, feelings really do tend to run my life.

Of course I know that men aren’t supposed to even have feelings beyond a psychopathic attachment to sporting teams that leads some of us to wear giant blocks of cheese on our heads, paint our entire bodies blue and fly enough flags from our SUV’s that people might have mistaken us for the President had it not been for the cheeze whiz dangling from our beards.

Now any preacher worth his salt (by the way, how much salt is a preacher worth, anyway? I mean, is there a place where you can buy salt and can pay for it in preachers?), will be glad to remind us that as Christians we’re not to operate on our emotions, on what we feel like doing. No. We who follow Christ are to operate by faith not feelings. Right?

Well, sort of.

The problem with that idea is that we’re left thinking that feelings are our enemy, or as if Faith and Feelings are the names of a couple of Pro Wrestlers who hate each others guts and are forever smashing chairs over one another’s heads. But is that the way it really is? I’m not so sure.

I don’t think faith and feelings are opposite ends of the good/bad spectrum. Now they’re not the same thing, that’s certain. But I do think they compliment each other. I mean, imagine where faith would be without emotions. Imagine worship void of emotion. It wouldn’t be worship at all, it would just be, well weird.

The truth is I cherish my feelings because they tell me who I am. My feelings tell me that I hate poverty because every time I see a Zambian kid who’s clothes are nothing but tattered rags, and who looks like he hasn’t eaten in a day or two, I get mad and I’m glad that I get mad. My feelings tell me that I care. When I see a street kid approaching me and I know that he’s going to ask for money, even though I’ve seen all the billboards and read the books that say that giving to kids like this only encourages them to continue to live on the street, I still wrestle with what to do – because life is more complicated than billboards would have us believe.

But the problem with emotions is not that we have them, but that sometimes our emotions are ill-informed and therefore we react based on what we think is true, and not based on what is true. And so the problem then is not an emotional problem, its an informational problem.

Today I went to the Road and Transportation Safety Office in downtown Livingstone, which is the place where you go if you need to renew your driver’s license or pay your road tax (which of course, is never used for the improvement of ANY road: perhaps they are saving it up in case the roads should ever get REALLY bad). Anyway, after waiting in line for about 20 minutes I was told that the computers were down and I would have to come back later.

As I was pulling out of the parking lot a guy came up to the window of my car and knocked. I scowled at him and continued to pull out of my parking space because I knew he was going to try to sell me something – either bootleg DVD’s, or a copper bracelet (Zambia is known for its copper) or a wooden hippo, and having all the bootleg DVD’s, copper bracelets and wooden hippos I will ever need, I did my best to ignore him and give him the distinct impression that I had no qualms about running over his foot if he became too persistent.

Finally though as I was backing out, I did role my window down (mostly to tell him to go away). When I did he informed me that the my presence was being requested by the folks in the Road and Transportation Safety Office. So, I grabbed my paper work and thanked the guy that moments ago I was ready to run over, and when I got inside they informed me that the computers were back up and they proceeded to process my request and in a matter of minutes my 2009 road tax was paid and I was on my way.

Not only was it a miracle that the computers came back up, but it was truly a miracle that they sent someone out to the parking lot to see if I had left yet, and even more of a miracle that that someone actually went and tried to catch me before I drove away. Things like this NEVER happen in Africa!

And as I walked back to my car, I couldn’t help thinking to myself that its starting to feel a lot like Christmas!

A Rainy Season

2008-11-26T23:47:00.000-08:00

Its the rainy season in southern Africa, which is not, as you might expect the time when it rains, but when the ozone over this part of the world (in total disregard for Al Gore), goes on vacation to Canada.

As a result it becomes so hot that no one stops at traffic signals for fear that their tires will melt to the road (at least, I’m supposing that’s why they don’t stop).

Anyway, the rain is supposed to start any day now and in fact it should have started weeks ago but like most things in Africa its terribly late. The ground should be saturated by now and the dirt roads turned to mud, but instead its mostly just dust and heat and the occasional shower thrown in for good measure.

But the storms are approaching and we hear them every now and then rumbling like a good case of indigestion.

Sometimes though a storm sneaks up on you and before you realize it you’re caught in the middle of it.

When we came out of church on Sunday a strong wind was kicking up, bending tree branches and blowing debris everywhere. The sky was turning black and so we hurried to the car and it started to rain hard just as we climbed in.

We started making our way across town, dodging branches that were being blown into the road and people scampering for shelter, and I wondered, maybe this is the way it is with evil and suffering.

Perhaps sometimes, we just get caught in the storm.

One of the great mysteries of faith in an all powerful God is the honest but potentially toxic question: why? God why didn’t you intervene? God why didn’t you stop this? God why didn’t you answer that prayer? God why did you let this happen to those people?

And the truth is, I really don’t know and I’m not sure anyone does. Why does God intervene on some occasions and not others? Again, clueless. But I know this. I know that in our storms over the last few years (and we’ve had a few), the storms have been distinctly violent and distinctly not God. What I mean by that is that when I stared those storms in the face, when I trembled in the midst of them, I sensed not the wrath of an angry God but rather the fury of a menacing darkness. Each of them bore not the essence of a Savior who died for me, but rather the impending weight of something determined to destroy me.

I guess what I’m saying is that there is a temptation to want to look at the storm as though it emanated from God, as though it somehow flowed from His Being as all things must. But I don’t buy that. I think some things, like evil and suffering flow not from above, but from within, that they flow from the inevitable consequences of billions of people living in rebellion against God and the way He ordered His universe.

Evil and suffering are not the work of God as though He fashioned them out of leftover articles found in His attic; but rather they are more likely the aftereffect of things we have done (or not done). Evil and pain have emerged not from the process of creation, but from the overflow of destruction. Remember, in the Gospels, it wasn’t Jesus that created the storm; rather, He was the one who calmed it, who spoke to it and brought it into submission. And I wonder really if God is not patiently, lovingly, holding back the torrent of affliction that ought to otherwise be surging around us in far greater measure than we know.

And so the real mystery becomes not why we suffer so much, but rather why we suffer so little.

As I write this, a slow steady rain has settled over the part of town we’re in, the kind that you hope for on a Saturday morning, that brings in a cool breeze and the scent of freshly fallen rain.

Not all rain comes in storms. Sometimes it comes softly and lingers a while and then wanders off during the night leaving you to wake to a world rejuvenated. And many times even after a violent storm there comes sort of a resurrection of things as once dry fields become muddy cradles of life both for the seeds buried beneath the surface and for the hope that has lingered just above it.

And Africa has reminded me that all storms eventually pass.

And that Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid,” (John 14:27).

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

2008-11-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

Preaching has its own set of challenges in Africa. And it isn’t really a language issue. Though there is a bit of a barrier there. Here, the real challenge when preaching is primarily glandular. As in mammary.

You see, in Africa breast feeding is a very normal and natural thing (as compared to the US, where its very normal and natural so long as its done behind closed doors). Well, it can be a bit distracting when you’re coming to point number three of a sermon on Jesus casting the demons out of a guy, and you’re gearing up for the big close on what it means to be set free, and all of the sudden you notice a liberation of a different sort happening all across the congregation.

In Bible college they always told us to make good eye contact when preaching. And, well, that was what I was attempting to do on Sunday. As I was scanning the audience I turned just in time to catch a rather large mother removing what appeared to be a near life size model of the Hindenburg from beneath her shirt and begin feeding her baby with it.

And in an effort to stay focused, I began singing to myself, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face…”

I was sure I was going to say something really dumb, (like, “and the disciples got into the breast...BOAT, BOAT, they GOT INTO THE BOAT and headed across the sea of Galillee”) or worse, that I would look again and get consumed in a ball of fire right there in church.

Apparently though, things were just getting started. As I was attempted to finish my message, more of these uhm... biological lactose distribution devices were unveiled and I wished that in Bible college my preaching instructor had included a section on where to look when you can’t look at your congregation.

You know, the ubiquitous “Preaching Effective Sermons to Naked People” lecture.

I mean, how could he have left that out?

Sometimes in Africa I feel so far outside the cultural norm, that I wonder if I will ever really be “in the know” here. More often than not I feel like a perpetual kindergartner who gets sent back to preschool to relearn patti–cakes and how to share my toys. It seems like every time I think I’m starting to figure things out, something happens and I realize that I’m as clueless about life here as I am about life on Mars.

But I suppose that’s the essence of cross–cultural ministry, of any ministry for that matter. We don’t really have much to give until we’ve begun to give up our selves. Somehow, from that position of emptiness we find our greatest resource. Out of the hollows of our weakness and desperation we are perhaps as close to Christ as we ever get. Because its there that we find Christ in us. Jesus never seems quite so near to us as when our own resources have run dry.

In fact, Christ set the standard on this one: “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men,” (Phil. 2:6–7).

And this is something I think Zambians could teach all of us.

Gold medals

2008-11-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

I was feeling pretty self–congratulatory the other day for having made the 10 hour drive from Zambia to Malawi without any help (though it was offered) from my driving companions. After all, such a thing surely ranks slightly lower on the sacrificial scale than 30 day fasts and slightly higher than sitting through a Sandra Bullock movie (any Sandra Bullock movie).

I suppose it goes back to that whole traffic frustration thing and its resultant feelings of unworthiness. I think we Christians like to feel holy (aren’t we suppose to?). And when we don’t we sometimes go to great lengths to try and create it, as though holiness were as easily conjured as a batch of Rice Krispie treats. When the stains of human nature appear for all to see, we tend to try and blot them out with our best efforts of self-sacrifice. In light of our faults we declare, “Yes, I know that thing I did over there was terrible. But forget about that. That was yesterday. Instead, look at this! LOOK AT THIS AMAZINGLY SACRIFICIAL THING I JUST DID!

And so, I had been walking around for a few days with that 10 hour drive dangling from around my neck as though it were Michael Phelps 8 gold medals, trying to work it into as many conversations as I could.

Good Morning, Jerry. How are you?

I’m good...still recovering from THAT 10 HOUR DRIVE which I drove all by myself as a sacrificial act in humble service to my fellow man. Other than that, I’m doing O.K.

But then today over lunch I was given a healthy dose of reality. A friend conveyed a story to me that was told by one of the pastors traveling with us, a Zambian named Pastor Zulu, who started a church among lepers.

Yes, lepers. Which I’m pretty sure pegs out the sacrificial scale.

Apparently after our trip, he conveyed a story to a friend about Paula. When we had stopped to make the border crossing from Zambia to Malawi, we all piled into the tiny station to show our passports and sign our name in the log book – an exercise that mostly proves that we are willing to stand in line. Which is really all that is required of anyone in Africa.

Anyway, Pastor Zulu had said to my friend, “That Paula! She never fails to show me the character of Christ.”

He went on to recount how at the border crossing when he needed a pen and turned to ask for one, he noticed Paula was behind him. She had silently let the rest of us (gold medals and all), beat a path to the log book as quickly as we could. She waited and let everyone else go, and then took her turn.

I suppose a guy who plants a church in a leper colony, knows a genuine act of humility when he sees it. And in Paula waiting to be last, he saw just that. And the simplicity of it is dumbfounding.

Anytime service becomes about us, it ceases to be service and becomes merely impotent maneuvering. It is rarely the grandiose schemes that we conjure that speak the divine language of humility. Rather, it’s the little things. Humility is best heard, not from the mountain tops of life, but from the cracks and crevices of our daily routine. That is where an injection of sacrifice and service finds its voice because that is the place we least expect it.

In our daily routine, we expect others to try and best us, to jump in line ahead of us, to take the last cookie and then give us that helpless, “sorry...should have been here earlier!” look that in turn causes us to think things for which we could be imprisoned in most states.

Jesus said, “And whoever wants to be first, must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:44-45).

But its not always easy. Being a servant does not come naturally for me. I don’t want to get in the back of the line. I want to be first. I want recognition not obscurity. I want to be on the podium with my national anthem playing in the background and some famous athlete of yesteryear handing me flowers and putting a medal the size of clock around my neck (not that I’m so fond of flowers and medals, per se – but you get my drift).

But that’s not how it works with God. Servanthood is never the product of impulse. It doesn’t come by way of calculation or scheming but it flows from who we are. A servant doesn’t decide to put others first. For a servant, others are first.

And Pastor Zulu was right.

That Paula. She never fails to show me the character of Christ.

Elections and Grace

2008-10-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am painfully aware of how unlike Jesus I really am. Just before we left for Zambia Paula and I were in a Staples store looking for an external hard drive, and when we asked for help because we couldn’t find what we needed, we were greeted by clerkzilla – who looked much like a regular store clerk except that she was convinced that her job description was to make every customer feel as though they were intellectual fleas.

ME: Hi. I’m looking for a portable, external hard drive with a firewire connection.

CLERK: They don’t make those. They only make desktop external hard drives with firewire connection. Besides, you don’t need firewire anyway. USB 2.0 is faster.

ME: No it isn’t.

CLERK: Yes it is. I’VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR OVER 20 YEARS!

ME: Actually, they DO make them, because I HAVE ONE, and NO, USB is not as fast and did they EVEN HAVE COMPUTERS 20 YEARS AGO?!

Jesus wept.

And today, driving that favorite stretch of road of mine, the pothole laden Lusaka to Livingstone road (also known as The Highway to Hell), the dark side of Jerry reared its ugly head once again.

You see, I don’t do well in heavy traffic, and by that I mean that the way some people drive makes me wish I had a rocket launcher attached to the front of my car so that when someone cuts me off without the courtesy of a simple signal, I could blast them into a thousand tiny little slivers of rudeness.

Tomorrow is election day in Zambia, and elections here are not the multi-million dollar, finely tuned machines they are in the states where candidates, in the most civil fashion, pretend to debate one another by ignoring every question the moderator asks and instead blatantly lie about their opponent. After which they shake hands and call one another “a fine American.”

Though I’m not sure exactly which quality makes them a fine American, whether its the ability to dodge questions, or to just make stuff up, or that they are able to do it and call it a debate.

In Zambia election campaigns are conducted from the backs of pick-up trucks and mini buses, filled to overflowing with revelers payed to shout and dance and sing in support of a particular candidate. Its a bit unruly and you can’t help but expect a riot to break out at any moment, but then the same is true of our conventions. But as a result, roads in Lusaka, where sitting in traffic has begun to replace football as the national pastime, come to resemble a Wal-Mart parking lot on Labor Day weekend, except that Zambians are generally better dressed than folks at Wal-Mart.

And when caught in the middle of it all, I just become very unspiritual.

Did you see that IDIOT!

Honey, he’s just changing lanes.

There’s no lane changing in a traffic jam! You just stay where you are! That’s the rule! UUGGGGGHHH. Stupid lane changing...lane...changer! UUUGGGHH.

And then I almost ran over a poor fellow hawking “Beware of Dog” signs and “Certificate Frames.” You have to understand, certificates are very big here.

Anyway, all of this though, just reminds me (rather painfully) how much I’m a work in progress. In one sense, I feel I should have by now risen above such trivialities, that obnoxious clerks and insane traffic should affect me about as much as does the social life of Brittany Spears (which by the way, is not at all).

But it does affect me and at first, it makes me a little depressed because I start to think that I am a terrible, traffic hating, clerk bashing Christian, which maybe means that I’m not a Christian at all. And where then does that leave me?

But then I realize what a false version of Christianity that’s based on. After all, God doesn’t accept us on our merits, but on His merits. He doesn’t redeem our lives based on our holiness, but based on His. As Jesus says in Mark 2:17, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.”

And so, I’m reminded today of that amazing thing called grace – God’s unmerited favor, and that God has saved me not because of who I am, but because of who I might become as He works in my life.

And when my own clerk bashing and traffic neurosis has me feeling quite unlovable, the realization that God’s love for me has neither been diminished nor repealed, causes me to be overcome with a desire to do a better job of extending some of that grace myself.

Even to people who CLEARLY deserve to be blown to smithereens.

A Vision of Hope

2008-10-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes God shows up at the most unexpected times, and in the most unexpected ways.

Yesterday as Paula and I were driving back from Lusaka, and just as we were approaching a police stop, I had a waking vision of our son Josiah. He was in heaven and it was as if we were arriving there. I didn’t see Jesus, but I knew he was there, because his presence was unmistakeable. Josiah was tall with sandy brown, blondish hair and blue eyes. He wasn’t a baby. He was grown, yet he had a sort of baby like quality to him. It was as if the infant and the man were one, and we could look upon both of them at the same time.

In the vision, Josiah stretched out his arms toward us and said, “Mommy, Daddy. Welcome home.” I immediately began to sob.

What struck me about it all, was the joy in Josiah’s eyes and in his smile. It was pure joy and I instantly realized that I had never seen pure joy before. I had seen only partial joy, only joy laden with the certainty of being temporal, always marred by its finitude. I didn’t realize this until then, but all the joy I had ever known seemed to be riding a wave that was certain to break. But this joy wasn’t riding a wave. Rather, it was the ocean that carried the wave, that contained the wave and that would forever absorb and resurrect the wave.

Josiah’s joy had a permanence to it and it became the source of our joy. It was as if his joy radiated and produced ours, which in turn increased and amplified his own joy. And I think that’s what made the joy so, so joyous, was its sharedness, its reciprocity. It was joy produced and realized in communion with God and with one another and because we had an endless future, so did our joy. It was a joy that we immediately recognized as being far beyond what we could have ever imagined joy to be. I realized that all that we had considered joy to be before, had only been a facsimile, a latent image, a faint shadow.

The other thing I noticed in this vision, was that our joy wasn’t a feeling or an emotion. It was something more tangible than that. It was part of us and it came from our love for Josiah, as his joy came from his love for us. In the vision, Josiah’s face radiated with pure happiness and love – love uncorrupted by pain or by sin and I knew that we were experiencing just the very beginning of things. I knew somehow that all that we thought we had lost, was there waiting for us only in greater measure than we could have possibly conceived of. In Josiah’s welcome, we were stepping from the insignificant into the magnificent and all of this world so paled in comparison to what lie ahead.

It is a strange thing to share with others that you’ve had a vision from God and I hope that you don’t take this to mean that it happens to me often. It is biblical though. Joel 2:28 says, “ Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.” And having just celebrated my 39th birthday, I am delighted that if nothing else this officially qualifies me as a young man.

But as I contemplated sharing this (and I was leaning toward not) I decided that I would on the basis, not that it should make me seem more spiritual, but that it should help us all to see God as more faithful than perhaps we sometimes imagine.

It is difficult to sum up what this vision did for me, because it did so many things that are difficult wrap up in nice and neat little phrases. But I suppose, in essence, it stirred up hope in me in a way only God could do. It was able to reach inside me and find a remnant of hope, and stretch it and enlarge it and cause it to begin to grow once again.

In giving this vision, God gave me what I so desperately needed to continue on the path he has placed us. He gave me the hope of knowing my son in a real way someday, both as a baby, and as a man. As one of our friends has said, “Josiah is not only a part of your past, he is also a part of your future.” God gave me a vivid reminder that, “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18).

But really, it is much more than that, though I’m not sure the much more can be conveyed. Maybe its not meant to be. Perhaps that part is mine and Paula’s alone.

This morning during a time of worship and prayer, after months of wondering and asking, “God, where are you in all of this,” Paula and I had an incredible encounter with the Lord, right in our living room. As we sang and worshiped, God began to give me a prophetic word to speak over Paula’s life. In that word, God spoke directly to many of her specific struggles, and in doing so, I think a similar hope was stirred in her.

In a span of two days, we have found ourselves comforted by God in ways we could have never imagined. That is not to say our sorrows are all swept away, and that all is well. But rather that they have come once again to be mingled with hope. And I am convinced that this in part, due to the sovereignty and grace of God, but also in part due to the prayers that have been offered on our behalf.

The many of you who have prayed for us have had a vital part in all of this. Your prayers have been essential threads in this magnificent tapestry. And just as you have shared in our sorrows, I also am convinced you will share in our joys – and that your joy in turn will produce greater joy in us, and...well, you know the rest.

So I don’t know why God allows bad things to happen. I don’t know why our friends Andrew and Christie are having to watch their newborn twins struggle for survival. But I know God is not far from them, that he is not far from any of us, and perhaps especially near to those who suffer. And I also know that all that we do as the church when we pray, makes a tremendous difference.

And finally, I know that in the end, all of this, will pale in comparison to what awaits us.

(Please join us in praying for Andrew and Christie Lundgren and their twin boys, Luke and Caleb. Luke is especially critical and in need of a miracle to reduce swelling in his head, and that his seizures would cease).

Crossing Canyons

2008-10-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

I hate airports. In fact, I am pretty sure that hell will be very much like an airport, only with no departures (in the same way that I think heaven will be much like the Olympics, only with less spandex).

Our trip a few days ago from Kansas City to Baltimore as we began to make our way back to Africa, set those feelings in concrete. Upon our arrival we set about to accomplish the monumental task of getting all of our luggage checked in. This was no small endeavor and the curb-side-luggage-check-in-guy was less than enthusiastic about our appearance at his station, and he let us know that by saying no less than twenty times, “It would have been cheaper to send all this UPS.”

Which made me want to point out to him rather forcefully that WE ARE NOT AT UPS AT THE MOMENT, AND SINCE THERE ISN’T A UPS STATION IN THE AIRPORT IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE STUCK WITH YOU! I refrained, and fear I will forever regret that I did.

These days airlines are charging for everything, they say to make up for the rising cost of fuel. Which seems strange to me because I thought the ticket price increases were to make up for the rising cost of fuel. But apparently airlines can no longer afford to fly you AND your luggage to the same destination unless you pay them roughly the equivalent of what it would cost to repurchase everything in your suitcase when you reached wherever it is your going. They just hope you don’t figure this out until after you have already paid, which they accomplish be stating, “My computer won’t show a total figure until AFTER I have scanned your credit card,” (yes, we were actually told that!).

When curb-side-luggage-check-in-guy finally had our charges all tallied – like the fee for oversize bags (which is not dependent on our bag being too long, but on the total dimensions of your bag when they’re all added together- huh?), and the fee for overweight bags, and the fee for bags with pockets, and the fee for bags with wheels, and the fee for bags that look old, our total luggage cost ended up being four times the cost of our tickets, which means that I could have flown to Baltimore and back twice for what it cost to get my luggage there. Or for that matter, I could have sent them to Baltimore by limousine for less than what our airline charged.

When I protested, curb-side-luggage-check-in-guy informed me that he didn’t actually work for the airline I was flying, but that he actually worked for a private security company hired by the airport. Which when translated means, “Listen pal, nobody at this airline really cares that you are unhappy because they know you don’t really have a choice since you have already paid for your tickets, and since I don’t actually work for that airline, I care even less than they do.” And then he informed me, “It would have been cheaper to send it UPS.”

It seems being on a journey is often a costly experience. We move from place to place, season to season, from joy to sorrow, from life to death. As a missionary I sometimes struggle with the state of somewhat homelessness we live in (and I hesitate to write this less I be perceived as one unhappy with the journey I’m on). The truth is though I am happy with this journey, just challenged by it at times. Sometimes I long for more permanence than we have, for more stability and sameness in our lives. But the landscape seems to forever change. We go to bed in calm, and wake to chaos. We cross the creek, only to be confronted by the canyon.

But there is also something wonderful in that as well. And that is that simply, in the unknown-ness of our journey, in the midst of unforeseen challenges, we also find unexpected delights. As we crest the mountain, we witness the setting sun paint orange and pink streaks across the sky. As we emerge from the wood, we stumble on a field of wildflowers. As we pause by the roadside, we marvel at the multi-colored coat the forest dawns in mid-October. Just as there are unexpected obstacles, there is also unexpected joy. And without one, we would never have the other.

And the thing is, when we can’t see the whole road laid out before us we tend to expect more of our present terrain, whether it be good or bad. But often the move from struggle to success is as close as the next bend in the road – a bend we will reach only if we continue to travel.

The night we arrived in Maryland to visit Paula’s sister, we were getting settled in the house where we would be staying while here and were being welcomed by our nieces and nephews, when the youngest, four year old Hope, came up to me and said with a hint of concern in her voice, “Uncle Jerry...you don’t look like Uncle Jerry.”

Realizing that Hope hadn’t seen me since I started wearing glasses, I promptly removed them to see if that might change her mind about my not resembling myself. When I did, she beamed and dove into my lap with a hug, exclaiming jubilantly, “Uncle Jerry!” – as though the offensive Hyde had once again become the affable Dr. Jekyll.

Apparently, the resemblance had been restored. And with it, my own hope that joy and revelation might be closer than we think.

On the Way Home From Kansas

2008-09-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

The thing I hate about grieving is all the grief involved. I wish it was more like a MacDonald’s hamburger (which has about as much actual beef as a Greenpeace luncheon). No. Grief is the real deal. There’s no way to get around it, under it, and certainly no way to get over it, except to simply go through it.

I guess before going through this, I didn’t realize that there were certain types of grief that are inconsolable, that can’t simply be unlocked by the right combination of words (whether they be human or Divine). Grief sort of grabs your heart in a choke hold, planting a foot firmly on your stomach for leverage, and requires that either you completely surrender to its demands or be destroyed by its relentlessness. So the process then of grieving is sort of like going to jail for what was done to you, rather than for what you did. For the loss that you suffered, you must pay a price. The loss itself was costly, but grief extracts a further penalty.

The easiest and maybe the most common mistake we make in grieving, is in trying to make sense out of it all, trying to find answers to our questions. This is not to say we shouldn’t ask the questions. We should ask them. We should shout them with tears and beat our fists against the ground (which I have found is quite therapeutic, as long as you’re careful how hard you beat and who sees you do it). But we tend to want to extend the comfort of reason. This happened because. Yet without fail, anything that follows those three words is sure to not be comforting. That’s because grief is not interested in answers. It is interested only in pain. And this is where the problem begins for most of us.

I think its easy to reduce our grief to a need for answers. We tell ourselves if we just knew why, then we might be o.k. But if we look honestly, answers probably are not what we need or what we want. I mean, suppose the “why” is answered. This happened to you because. Would the pain be gone? Not likely. But for some reason we think that it would. The truth is though, we really don’t want answers. What we want is for things to be the way they were before all this happened. We want our lost loved ones back. We want our lives back, our dreams back, our joy back. And its difficult to imagine that anything as difficult as that could be found in a simple explanation of “why?”

Grief forces us to confront the pain. That is grief’s job. This can be problematic though because everyone around us wants to do whatever they can to help alleviate the pain. Our friends and our families see us hurting and they want to rescue us. They look at us and see that we have fallen in a deep, dark pit and so one by one they come to us, and lower a rope made of good intentions, at times bad cliches, and often the sincerest of hopes that they will finally be the one who rescues us; perhaps hoping that in rescuing us, that they too would be rescued.

But the stark truth is, that what we need is not to be rescued, but only to be recognized. What we need is to have our pain acknowledged, not resolved. What we need is for those we love to be o.k. with our pit. Because for now, we need the pit. We don’t need pity, and its important that we don’t confuse the two. But in the pit, since we can’t look out, we are forced to look in. We are forced to experience our anger, our despair, our outrage and not run from it or minimize it. The pit is not a place of explanation or enlightenment, it is only a place of experience. And those who grieve need friends who will see them and not pretend the pit is not there, who can acknowledge – “yes, you are in a dark and difficult place.” It is amazing how much comfort one finds in a tearful, and silent face that doesn’t know what to say.

When Paula and I were traveling home from a short trip to Kansas recently we stopped for lunch at her aunt’s house. During the meal we were talking about some roof work she had done to her house after a recent storm. Then, Paula’s aunt very matter of factly slipped in a story about some salvia she had planted in front of her house years ago.

A terrible storm that summer had done much damage and had flattened the salvia. They looked pathetic, but before she could pull them up, her dad commented, “I’ve seen sicker dogs than that live.”

She decided not to pull the plants, but left them as they were.

“That fall,” she said, “they bloomed more beautifully than they ever had before.” She concluded, “You see, they were stripped, but not dead. Their roots were still good.”

Paula and I both looked at each other, wide eyed as though we had just encountered a burning bush, and somehow we knew, our fall will come too.

Thank You...

2008-08-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

Paula and I want to express to all of you how grateful we are for the incredible outpouring of love over the loss of our son, Josiah David. You have ministered to us in countless ways as you have shared our burden and grief. We had a beautiful funeral on Saturday and during the service Rev. Terry Yancey, District Superintendent of the Kansas District of the Assemblies of God shared a journal entry that Paula had written in her journal five years ago! It has ministered to us in many ways, and many of you have expressed that you also were touched deeply by these words. We wanted to make them available to all of you, that you too may be encouraged by them. with heartfelt love and gratitude - Jerry and Paula.

June 2003
This morning I ministered in Scott City. At lunch with the pastors, the idea came to me to go and visit the cemetery on my way out of town. They told me where it was and I went. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon – clear skies, pleasantly warm but a cool breeze, and birds singing everywhere. The grass was green from the recent rains. There was such a peacefulness there! I wanted to find Stephanie Lynn’s grave, but upon seeing how large the cemetery was, doubted if I could ever locate it. I called mom and dad (remarkably, phone coverage in that remote area!), and dad gave me an idea of the general area, but he wasn’t able to be very specific. I headed that direction, parked under a shade tree, and approached a section of graves to see if they were in the children’s section. Amazingly, the very first stone that I came upon and read, was Stephanies’!

All I can say is, I felt a strange and special connection to my “big, little sister”, one whom I never met. I didn’t want to leave that place, it was just so serene, and I felt I was supposed to be there. Kneeling beside her headstone, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Lord had taken her in order to make a place for Rhonda. Did the Lord choose to bring Stephanie straight home, because there was another baby girl, who didn’t have a home, and who would need all the love and grace and prayer that Ron and Pauleta could give her? And isn’t the exchange of those lives another expression of God’s design to bring Rhonda into His wholeness?

I could just imagine a 24 year old Pauleta and 28 year old Ron, kneeling there at the headstone, on a freezing January day, devastated. How could they have known that 40 years later, they would hold 3 daughters in their hearts, and 3 grandchildren? At that moment, their hopes and dreams were crushed and the future was far away.

That tiny baby, was as a seed planted in the ground. Her life, of course, was never buried – it was released into the arms of God. What was buried in the cold ground that winter was a mother and father’s hopes and dreams. They buried joy, and love – their very hearts!—but they buried in God. And in the perfect and unfailing heart of God, every seed planted there must spring to life again. It was a very bad winter, but what a springtime, what a summer, what a harvest! In a lifetime of raising a family and shepherding God’s flock—what joy, trust, and love has flourished in those deeply plowed hearts.

Grace me, Lord, to bury every disappointment, every loss in You. To accept and embrace what You do and what You don’t do, what you give and what you take away. And to respond in faith, recognizing that with You, the resurrection far surpasses the natural life; the harvest greatly exceeds the seed planted; the latter is greater than the former.

God spoke to me today, in the stillness of a cemetery, through my baby sister. He reminded me, that though life can be desperate at times, seasons change. Things are not always as they seem. His ways are infinitely higher than ours. And He is causing all things to work together – and accomplish His work of reconciliation, restoration, and perfection. Hallelujah!

Forceps and Fatherhood

2008-08-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Paula and I attended a birthing class to help us get ready for the baby and while I knew this whole having a baby thing wasnʼt gonna be easy (for Paula that is), I have to say, truthfully, I was pretty clueless.

I learned more about amniotic ﬂuid than I EVER wanted to know and we watched videos that were apparently made by folks who feel deeply that there should be no secrets about anything that happens during a birth and that in fact we who are about to have a baby should actually see it happen up close and personal – you know, salad tongs and all.

Despite the initial shock – (“Oh my. Why, thatʼs a....Oh my!”) I found all of it quite helpful. I mean, I have had my apprehensions about actually being in the room during the labor because truthfully, I am sort of on the squeamish side and I could just imagine myself passing out and hitting my head on a stirrup or something and having to be carted off to the E.R., leaving Paula with nothing to comfort her but a “Songs of the Dolphins” CD and a cup of ice chips.

But now that Iʼve had an 8 hour class giving detailed (very detailed, I might add) descriptions of everything that is supposed to take place, I feel like maybe Iʼll be O.K.

I suppose more than anything, this class reminded me what a miracle life is, that life doesnʼt just happen and that when it does the ﬁngerprints of God are all over it.

Something the nurse said towards the end of her presentation though I thought was particularly profound. She pointed out that when the baby is born they immediately place the baby on the motherʼs chest. She noted that they do this, even if the mother isnʼt breast feeding, because as she put it, “this will help the babyʼs temperature and breathing to stabilize.”

You know, the same is true of us. Our nearness to the heart of God is what more than anything will cause our lives to stabilize and ﬁnd rhythm. Our nearness to the One from whom we came is the ultimate source of our peace and comfort because as it says of Jesus in the book of Acts, “For in him we live and move and have our being...we are his offspring” (Acts 17:28).

And truthfully there are times when my life gets out of synch and I ﬂounder about looking for something to validate who I am and to give my life signiﬁcance. I think if I just preach one more good sermon, or write a profound blog, or get another degree, then my life will have the order and peace I long for. But the truth is, during these times what I am really thinking, perhaps without realizing it, is that my life belongs to me, when in fact it doesnʼt.

And so as I contemplate that weʼre about to bring a life into the world who will be totally dependent on us for everything, and as I contemplate becoming a father, I am reminded again of my own infancy and dependency.

And Iʼm reminded that peace is not about how we perform or what weʼve achieved, but about our nearness to the One who gave us life, so that we might sense His heartbeat and know the comfort of His breathing.

Not to mention that I am sure that after Saturday, Iʼll never look at salad tongs quite the same again.

TV or not TV

2008-07-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

We don’t watch much TV in Zambia and truthfully I don’t really miss it. But sometimes you find yourself at one of those unfortunate junctions in life where TV is about all you can muster. You’ve read yourself cross-eyed and it’s a Sunday afternoon, and those Old Testament passages about resting on the Sabbath suddenly seem particularly inspired.

Today was one of those days for me.

I hadn’t really watched much TV in a while and I didn’t really know what I might find, though recent mini-surfings had been hopelessly disappointing.

As I scanned the channels, I came across a couple of guys beatin’ each other senseless (the Testosterone Channel I think), and wasn’t sure what was scarier, their seeming determination to kill one another, or the crowds equal determination to encourage them to do so. There was Joel Osteen, preaching about letting your praise flow and let the blessing flow with it or something like that and I thought it sounded very much like the one other sermon I had heard Joel Osteen preach, but then again, what do I know.

There was of course the news talking about they young guy and the old guy and the soon and coming election. I think they were taking a poll to see who would win if the election were held today and everyone had to vote blindfolded with one hand tied behind their back while eating a Twinkie.

There was some show about deer hunting and how you can kill a butt load (can I say that?) of deer with some kind of acorn powder, which for deer is second only to eating Twinkies while voting for president. None of these interested me in the least (do we REALLY need one more poll!??), but for some reason I had to go through all the channels about 17 times just to make sure.

In the process, I stumbled across a show on the Animal planet that almost had me. It was about bandit mongooses (which has nothing to do with thieves on bicycles), but was about a herd – yes a herd, of bandit mongooses (surely, its not Mongeese) that ate dung beetles and scorpions, and it was just adorable until one little baby mongoose got separated and was in danger of being eaten by a lion. And then one Mongoose named Odo (or something) ran over to save the little stranded baby Mongoose from the lion, and IT GOT EATEN TRYING TO SAVE THE POOR LITTLE BABY MONGOOSE!

I was so angry wondering why they had to go and name the little critters if they KNEW one of em was gonna get chomped on? I could have enjoyed the show just fine if they had said, “And then one of the random Mongooses in the herd of many mongooses who all look pretty much the same ran off and got eaten trying to save one of the many unnamed baby mongoose. Up until then I was pretty much committed because the show was so African I thought I was on a game drive and almost started taking pictures of the TV. Plus, it was weird that I felt more at home watching rodents running around Tanzania than I was watching Fox News. Which is mostly about rodents running around Capitol Hill.

But TV bliss was, in the end, finally achieved and I found it on an old faithful standby that has come through before – The Food Network. The show was “The Next Food Network Star” and its (you probably know this because I ‘m pretty sure it was a rerun) a reality TV show where the winner gets their own show on The Food Network.

So what was it, I’m sure you’re wondering, that I liked?

For one, I could watch the whole show and not have to repent once because nobody ever got naked, cussed any body out, or shot anybody during the whole show and that says a lot these days. Second, it was about food. And the simple fact that food is apolitical and that Paula Deen was on the show as a judge and she just makes me want to go out and eat something fried and be glad I did, all made me love it. It had everything you could possibly want in a TV show. It had drama, suspense, humor and chipotle peppers which by the way, I learned are just smoked jalapeños. Therefore, it was also educational.

But more than that, it was nice. That sounds terribly second grade-ish as in “Be nice and stop putting your brother’s toothbrush in the toilet.” But it was nice and I loved it. It was so nice that when one girl got voted off, they did it without ever telling her that she should consider becoming a greeter at Wal-Mart. And the girl that got kicked off hugged the others and agreed that they deserved to go to the next round. It was very Hallmark.

And the truth is, I like nice. I like nice people and I like nice TV. So from now on, when a Sabbath is in order, its me and the Food Network.

And by the way, I’m thinking of not voting for the old guy or the young guy. I’m thinking of casting my vote, for Odo, the bandit mongoose.

Donkey Pancakes

2008-07-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

Families are sort of like belly buttons. You tend not to appreciate them until you can’t see yours anymore.

While we were in the states before leaving for Zambia I tended to take for granted that there are people in this world who actually know just about everything there is to know about me, and yet who still love me anyway, people that are fully aware that I tend to forget things and that I can be self-absorbed and impatient and that I’m not usually the chattiest fellow around.

Families have a way of accepting us, quirks and all, simply because they love us and because we’re a part of them. Despite our many and varied weirdnesses they realize that they are incomplete without us just as we are without them and its very easy to forget that acceptance like that is hard to come by.

With our baby on the way, I’ve thought a lot about family lately. The last two weeks for us have been a great time to re-connect with our families and we are trying our best to push any thoughts out of our heads regarding having to say good-bye once again this fall. We’ll cry that river when we come to it.

I heard a great story the other night over dinner at the Cracker Barrel. A friend, who raises miniature donkeys (and I admit – I had never heard of miniature donkeys) was telling us about a mother donkey who had rejected her baby (and forgive me for not being up on the technical mother/baby donkey terms).

As the story goes, our friends had washed the baby donkey with some iodine because it had a rash. Afterwards the mother rejected the baby and would have nothing to do with it. They tried everything to get the scent off the baby donkey, including covering him with molasses. Nothing worked and after their failed attempts the donkey was not only orphaned, but in danger of being put on someone’s pancakes.

Until one day the mother donkey and the baby donkey got caught in the rain together. After being stuck in a downpour, apparently the human/iodine/breakfast table smell was gone, and the mother took the baby back, as if nothing had ever come between them.

All because of a little rain.

I thought about all the storms our family has been through together and realized that we weren’t much different from those donkeys (now that’s a sentence I never imagined I would write!). We’ve had our share of rain, but in the end we seem to be better off for it, simply because we were in it together.

And that’s the way it is with missions.

Missions is really just a matter of us realizing that we and the churches across the pond are the same church, the same big, weird wonderful family, and realizing that if the church over there is caught in the proverbial rain, whether it be the rain of poverty or of disease or simply a need for training and education, then we ought to go and help them out. It simply won’t do for us to pretend as though we don’t recognize them or that they’re not us, because they are – and we’re them.

As Paul says regarding the collection for the famine struck church in Jerusalem, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality” (2 Cor. 8:13-15).

And we just might find that when we stand together in the rain, that we too come out smelling a little better than we had before.

Not to mention it’ll save us from having to pick donkey hair off our pancakes.

The Fourth of July

2008-07-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

We arrived back in Springfield on Wednesday night after a very long flight. I say we arrived, but should note that our arrival is only partial. Physically, we are in Springfield. Emotionally, mentally, and gastronomically, I think we are still in Africa and the journey from that world to this one won’t be completed I suspect for a few weeks. Although, trips to Taco Bell are being planned to speed the process.

On Thursday Paula had an appointment with her doctor and that meant plenty of time sitting in a waiting room for me; time to think about what a diverse world we live in and what it is that so sets this American world apart from the African one we just left.

There are the obvious things. Here we drive on the right, and there it’s on the left. Here we have paved roads, there, they mostly don’t. In America things are quite tidy. I can’t help but notice how clean and organized everything here is, as though Martha Stewart were made sheriff in our absence. In America, we have Wal-Mart. In Zambia they have outdoor markets. In America, we have stuff, lots of it and Zambians have virtually nothing by comparison.

But it’s more than those things really that make us so different.

For one, in Africa, chaos seems to lie just beneath the surface of everyday life, waiting like a lion in the tall grass of the savannah, hidden from sight, and anyone with any sense at all in Africa is aware that they are as likely as the next person to be devoured on any given day. Even in peaceful nations like Zambia, micro-disasters seem to flourish and shortages of everything from food and water to opportunities and optimism rob the days of their tranquility.

In Zambia the world seems to groan a little more than it does here and arriving in America fresh from being there almost a year brings to light how very blessed this country is. Yes, gas here is hovering around $4 a gallon, but in Zambia it’s around $12. And as we made our way from the plane in Dallas via the monorail that taxis you over the tarmac and across the freeway to the main terminal (very George Jetsonish) I noticed in me a self-confidence, or perhaps a national-confidence I hadn’t felt since I had been away.

Here, there is a tendency to feel like there’s not much we Americans can’t create, fix or resolve. I mean after all we’ve built a giant arch in St. Louis that seems to do nothing more than say, “Hey. Look what we can do.” I mean if you can build a giant arch just to build a giant arch, then the world is surely at your beck and call.

In itself this isn’t such a bad thing. After all, I do believe America is the greatest nation on the planet in part because of the God-given ingenuity of its citizens. The problem is we all too often forget the God-given nature of our abilities and too easily come to attribute our success to ourselves.

Already since I’ve been home, I have noticed a profound tendency here to trust more in my debit card than in prayer and when I do pray here, my prayers sort of take on an ATM nature, as I try to figure out what sequence of buttons I need to punch to get what I want from God. And time here seems always to be nipping away at my heels like a dachshund with something to prove.

And that, I am starting to realize, is what I love about Africa. The church there is a church that depends on God for virtually everything and they gather on Sunday morning to worship because they NEED to worship. Not because it appeases their conscience.

And the truth is, I think we in America truly want what Africa has. We want with everything that we are to have a genuine encounter with the Living God. We want to be in the presence of God and to experience God first hand. Our problem is that we just don’t know how to get it. We don’t realize that as long as we seek first the Kingdom of Macy’s that we will never know the blessings of desperation, of so agonizing for God to intervene in our lives that we’re willing to let go of all that we have to find Him.

Granted there are some real obstacles to the presence of God in America. There is that movement among us that wants not a sovereign God, but a pocket-sized god that we can take out and put away at will. Not a God whom we must serve, but rather a god who will serve us and grant us all that we want if we would only have enough faith and send in $50 a month.

America is indeed a blessed nation. But spiritually, I think we have been hijacked. In some ways, our churches mirror our culture, and tend towards brevity, selfishness and apathy.

And this fourth of July, I find myself wondering what our churches might look like, if that same indomitable spirit that declared independence from the most powerful nation on earth over 200 years ago, would rise up and declare our independence from the present tyranny of consumerism and complacency?

Then, we might discover independence as we have never known it before.

Pictures

2008-06-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends! Just a note to let you know we have posted a slide show of some of our favorite pictures from this first year on the blog. You can double click on the images and you will be directed to the picasa web page, where you can view the photos full screen.

Sunday Morning

2008-06-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Some mornings, I’m not particularly in the mood for church African style. I know that sounds horribly unspiritual of me and would get me kicked out of many missionary circles, but its true.

In some ways, as wonderfully vibrant as the worship is and as profound as the preaching can be, sometimes church in Africa can be quite taxing for us who are still adjusting to the way church is done here. The services can often run long, 3-4 hours usually, and the truth is some days I have a hard time fighting my way through choruses that I don’t know or even understand the words to. As hard as I try to be engaged, there are times when I’m painfully aware that I’m not and as a result an uneasiness settles over me as though my malaise has brought my salvation into question. And some mornings I long for the familiar, even though comparatively tame, atmosphere of an American church because there is sense of safety in the things you know.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not making a comparison of African church and American church and saying one is better than the other. The are both wonderful. But they are very different and I’m simply saying that I am at times very aware that I haven’t been in Africa long enough to always feel at home during services here.

So, it was with these thoughts chiseling away at my peace of mind that I dutifully made my way to a church in one of the shanty compounds in Livingstone on Sunday morning. The service started at 8 a.m. and we arrived just as the first chorus was getting underway. We entered and were escorted to the front, as we always are because Africans are so gracious and honoring of their guests. As much as I admire them in this, again, there are times I long to enter a service anonymously and take a seat and worship the Lord, just as another member of the congregation.

As the service began and the first few songs finished, a man began to make his way to the exit that was near where we were seated on the side of the church. He was weeping, and was having difficulty walking and I wasn’t sure what was going on. The pastor, seated next to me, got up and helped the man out and quickly returned without saying a word.

Then as the next song started what had happened to the man that walked by, began to spread. First the worship leader, a sort of big lady, just fell to the platform floor right in the middle of a song. Other members of the worship team started toward her, as if to help her, and then backed away realizing that she had collapsed because the power of God had come over her, and not due to illness. They draped a cloth over her legs to preserve her modesty and continued with worship.

Then, within seconds, a second person on the worship team went down, and then a third. Soon, people in the front two rows of seats began to be overcome by the power of God and fell to the floor, some weeping, some convulsing violently as though a struggle between light and darkness was being fought within them. All over the sanctuary member of the congregation became overwhelmed by the power of God and for two hours this whole scene repeated itself to varying degrees.

I have seen some real abuses of what some have called “being slain in the Spirit,” a term that refers to a person collapsing under the power and presence of God. Some say it is all a show and would say that the practice is not found in the Bible. Others would go so far as to say it is of the devil. I have seen ministers who in their zeal to see a move of God have resorted to practically pushing people over so that the person being prayed for would “go down,” as though God wanted them to go down, but needed a little help to make it happen.

But this was different. No one was laying hands on any of these people (though laying on of hands is certainly biblical). One by one, they were falling to the floor, many weeping hysterically, some convulsing violently and there was no doubt that the Living God was among us. There was no one to point to and say “ahh, this person is stirring up this hysteria by getting everyone all excited.” No. It was a sovereign move of God and no one could take the credit for it because it happened all on its own. At one point I looked over at Paula and she too was crying and when I sat down to see if she was ok, she said “Yes. I’m just getting blessed.”

The church we were at that morning normally has two Sunday services. One at 8, and the other I think at 10 or 10:30. What was beautiful about what was taking place though was that the pastor didn’t stop what was happening because there was another service. By the time the second service was supposed to start, we still hadn’t concluded the worship and prayer time, because obviously God hadn’t concluded the worship and prayer time. Instead of shutting everything down though, the pastor at about 10:30 invited those who were waiting for the second service to come in and he just rolled the two services into one.

As the worship time began to wrap up the pastor had called another person from the congregation to come up and lead in worship and he began to lead us in the most joyous praise I have ever been a part of. People knew that they were in the presence of God. That reality was inescapable, undeniable. We all knew that something truly Holy had happened that morning and the whole church erupted with dancing and singing and one couldn’t help but join in. I tend to be pretty conservative in my worship, at least by Pentecostal standards, but I found myself dancing and singing as I never had before. Rarely do my feet leave the ground in church. I tend to do most of my dancing on the inside, but that day, it was impossible to keep my feet still.

As I reflected on the thoughts I had left home with that morning, and my longings for the familiarity of the church back home, I thought about what a privilege it was to have been in an African church on this particular Sunday. I realized that sometimes that longing for the safety of the familiar can keep us from the discovery and experience of the wonderful. And I realized, or maybe just remembered, that church isn’t about style. It’s about being in the presence of God. It’s about the fellowship of believers and about encountering the One true God and yet it so easily becomes about so many other things. It becomes about the style of music we love and cherish or it becomes about being with good friends or about hearing good preaching, nothing of course being wrong with any of those things. But I’ve noticed that if I’m not careful I can become a church critic picking apart this and that aspect of the service and all together missing the whole point of being there. Because the truth is, all of those things are secondary, and in fact are subordinated to the purpose of our church services, which is to bring the people of God into the presence of God.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been the pastor of that church on Sunday morning, if I in my western worldview, would have dogmatically stuck to the program (because after all there is a schedule to keep and people are depending on me to keep it), or if I would have thrown myself wholly into what God was doing, as Pastor Kobella did.

And sometimes here, I really wonder who is teaching who.

Call Me Humpty

2008-06-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

I spent most of last week nursing my wounded ego back to health by singing “Jesus loves me this I know…even if no one comes to my seminar.” I realize that this doesn’t rhyme at all but that’s ok because I’m about as musical as a stick of celery. Anyway, I’m thinking of publishing the song in a book called Hymns for Him. You see, men have egos roughly as fortuitous as eggshells and we occasionally need a little affirmation. The truth is, we’re all Humpty Dumpty. I say that more to just hear myself say it, rather than to actually inform anyone because most women are well acquainted with this fact (it turns out), and so are most men.

It’s just more fun to pretend we aren’t.

We had the second of our youth seminars on Saturday, and I am delighted to inform you that we had 17 kids show up and consequently I sort of felt like Benny Hinn preaching to the multitudes (only minus the white suit, the big hair and the dispensational theology).

The whole thing has been educational for us. We have discovered some challenges that we hadn’t planned on, and begun to see what works and what doesn’t.

One of the most interesting things we discovered was during the very first session of the first day. We were talking about dreams. The idea was to get the kids talking about their dreams in life and then to talk about what kinds of things might prevent those dreams from becoming a reality – things like sex before marriage, or drinking beer or not going to school. What really shocked me though, was that everyone’s dream was virtually the same: to have a stable job. It was that non-descript and that simple. Not to be an astronaut or a doctor or a firefighter or anything like that. Just to have a job. Any job that you could go to day after day, week after week, year after year so that you could take care of a family.

The most sobering moment of the seminar came during one of the activities that reinforced a lesson. It became apparent that one of the girls, who looked to be about 14, couldn’t read. She didn’t tell anyone, and was clearly wanting us to think that she could. I imagined how hard life must be for her and it occurred to me that illiteracy is probably more widespread than we know. This reality will create its on set of challenges as we plan future events.

The best thing that happened though was that we seem to be inching toward becoming friends with these kids. I think at first we were just a couple of weird white people doing the weird stuff that white people do and were looked at with a mix of curiosity and skepticism. But after the first session we had a wonderful little discussion on soft drinks. We had tried to explain to some of the guys that in some parts of the States, soft drinks (called “softies” here in Zambia) are called “pop” while in other parts they are called “sodas” and in still other parts people just call them “cokes” no matter what brand you want.

To which one particularly bright guy named Elvis said, “in that part where they call everything cokes, how do you order a Sprite?” Smart kid.

Another of the kids came over to our house earlier this week and was helping us with some stuff, and he casually mentioned, “I really love your teachings. They’re so practical.”

And as quickly as he had fallen, Humpty was back on the wall.

Life is good.

Big Ten

2008-06-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

All week last week I was looking forward to this weekend. Partly because I was excited about doing our first youth seminar. I was excited about the seminar itself, but I was also excited about the idea of being able to sit down afterward and write the mother of all blog entries. I had it all planned out. I was sure I would be reporting on hundreds of people getting saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, among them the town witch doctor, the owner of every bar in Livingstone and the mayor (not that the mayor should in any way be associated with witch doctors or bar owners, mind you). I was sure that by Sunday I would be writing to tell you that during our seminar a revival had broken out and that the anointing of the Lord had so come upon Paula and I that people were lining up outside our home hoping that our shadows might fall on them as we passed by.

But, as it turns out, that’s not quite what we have to report.

We didn’t exactly have the100 people show up that I had hoped for. In fact, we didn’t exactly have 50. Or for that matter, 20. We had ten. Ten people. Oh, and one lizard who just lounged in the sun for about half an hour right in front of our little group(you know the way lizards do), looking as if he might launch into a Geico commercial at any moment.

I’m pretty sure he was sent by the devil to mock me. “Hey, this looks like a GREAT seminar. Sorry nobody showed up. Guess you wouldn’t mind if a lizard sat in would ya?”

So, we had ten people show up, and none of them were witch doctors or mayors, and our shadow ministry is well, it’s non-existent.

And ok, I admit it. My ego was a little damaged. We had secured the biggest church in town, which is practically a cathedral by African standards, and we had spent all week preparing and planning and then, the day of the seminar…8 people from the church that hosted the seminar showed up, and two from another.

It was ten people though. And these weren’t just any ten people mind you. These ten young people, I’m pretty sure, are THE MOST AMAZING young people in all of Zambia. No, in ALL OF AFRICA. Seriously, they are. And we had a great day. Paula and I alternated teaching, each of us doing two lessons each. And once we got going I completely forgot about having a complex about nobody showing up and started to have a really good time.

So maybe our first time out wasn’t akin to Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost when 3000 got saved. And I’m fine with that. Really I am.

But then again, maybe it was. And maybe we just have a tendency to count the wrong things sometimes.

I mean after all, Jesus started with only twelve. And no lizards.

Brokedown Palace

2008-06-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

We arrived back home last night about 8 o’clock after being away for six weeks. We were very excited about finally being in our own home, about sleeping in our own bed, and about getting a little rest. The road to Livingstone is worse than ever. I don’t even know if you can say the road has potholes anymore, as there are more potholes than road. I guess a more accurate description would be, the potholes have a little road left. And for much of that last 60 kilometers, it was faster to drive on the unpaved shoulder than on what’s left of the road.

When we got to the house, feeling as though we had been for a ride in a washing machine, we discovered what looked like the Zambezi River flowing from underneath our kitchen door. A steady stream of water was running out of the kitchen and into the backyard and the wooden door was all the way open. The outside security gate was still pad locked and shut tight. We turned to our guards with a puzzled look, who until now had not said a word about any impending catastrophe. Its sort of African to let your friends discover bad news for themselves. I think the idea is not to cause anyone any grief until it becomes unavoidable. For instance, when a persons mother has died, and her friends find out before she does, they will tell her, “You must travel home right away. Your mother is very sick.” They know the mother has died, but they reason its best to let their friend travel with a little hope rather than in total despair.

“Uhhh…there’s a river coming out of our very open kitchen door!” I said to our guards. “How long has this been like that?”

“About three weeks,” they said, trying to look as shocked as we were.

Three weeks! I thought about that for a second, and made a mad dash to the front door. As I stood sorting through keys and matching them to the right lock, I imagined a veritable lake in our house, our furniture floating around like big cushiony buoys, some guy paddling a dugout canoe down our hallway, casting for Tiger fish. Small children diving off our countertops, using large pots and mixing bowls for make-shift boats. I got the door open and rushed into the kitchen. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, but bad enough. A pipe joint had come loose under the sink and so for three weeks, water had poured out like a fountain; like a big, fat, watery, kitchen-hating, fountain of evil and destruction.

So, after a trip atop a washing machine and after what seemed like an eternity away from home, the vision we had of a relaxing evening quickly vanished. We shut off the valve and started the massive job of cleaning up the lake in the middle of our kitchen. We pulled the now warped kickboards off the bottoms of our brand new cabinets and found more standing water and mud.

When we finally got to bed, I think we were too tired to sleep and I lay away thinking about our youth seminar that begins this weekend. With lots of planning and preparation to do, this was about the last thing we needed. Although, I guess nobody ever needs something like this.

So, we’re working on getting back to normal, although “normal” is a rare commodity here. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe missions is best done, when we come to the end of ourselves and say in desperation, “God, I really need your help!”

I have been meditating on John 6 lately, and the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand. I think the lesson Jesus wanted to teach the disciples that day, when He asked Philip where they should buy food for all these people, was he wanted them to realize that their own resources would always be insufficient. Their money, their wisdom, their reasoning, their fears. All good things, but completely insufficient by themselves. Instead, if they trusted in Jesus, and turned to Jesus, they would find that He is more than enough. And so, at the start of this week, our bodies are shaken (not stirred), our purses are empty, our bones are our tired, and our floors are wet.

And the multitude is approaching.

So, Lord – here’s my tuna sandwich. In my hands, it just a meager lunch. In yours, it’s an abundant feast. Do in our midst, what we could never do on our own.

And may the next river we find ourselves confronted with be of the living waters variety!

Odds and Ends

2008-05-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I go home. It has been a great time here at seminary, especially eating the EXACT SAME MEAL TWICE A DAY FOR 30 DAYS, but I’m not complaining. I’m a missionary and that’s what missionaries do. We eat stuff we hate because we love Jesus. We are very spiritual.

In all seriousness, I can’t wait to be back together with Paula. We have decided we will never, EVER do this again. That is, be apart for a month. I would rather EAT THE EXACT SAME MEAL TWICE A DAY FOR 30 DAYS than go through being away from my wife for a month again. Even seeing each other over a weekend half way through, it has been really tough. I don’t recommend it.

We are both really looking forward to getting back to Livingstone. We were in Lusaka for two weeks before I came to Malawi with the church planting boot camp and so its been over 6 weeks since we’ve been home. We’re anxious to get back.

By the way, the church planting boot camp was incredible. We had over 40 pastors go through the training. Daniel McNaughton, lead pastor of Spring Valley Community Church taught the seminar and did an amazing job. Plus, he dances as bad as I do, and that made me feel good. Thanks for coming Daniel! It was great to see you.

Paula and I are both exited about what’s coming up in June. The second, third and fourth Saturday of June, we will have our first youth meetings. It is sort of small scale, about 100 kids from five churches. We will be using a great curriculum that has an HIV/AIDS component, but that primarily focuses on teaching kids to make good choices, and to seek God’s plan for their lives. The material is very interactive, since as you know, kids have the attention span of peanut butter.

If you want to know more about the materials, check out www.kerusglobal.org. We will be using their “It Takes Courage” curriculum.

A final note. We had announced in our last newsletter that we would be going to South Africa to have our baby. That has changed. We had some friends in the medical profession advise us that maybe we should go the states. We explored that with our leadership, and they gave the thumbs up. With all the violence that is going on in South Africa right now, I really feel it was God guiding us in this direction.

So…we will arrive in Springfield MO July 2 and will be in the states until about mid October. We will be available for a few missions services and conventions in the Springfield area, and Kansas. We are open to the possibility of other locations as well. Send us an email if you might be interested in having us come (is that all we missionaries EVER talk about is itineration?).

And, no – we don’t know yet if it’s a boy or a girl. We are just praying the baby looks like Paula, and not me!

We welcome your prayers for our youth services in Jun and for safe travel in July. God bless!

Jerry Gets a Clue

2008-05-24T12:25:00.001-07:00

Hey folks...guess what? I just found out how you can be notified by email when we post something. I knew this grad school thing was going to pay off! Just use the box to the right. Follow the directions. Sing the Hallelujah Chorus. Do a little dance (go on...nobody is watching).
But wait...there's more. With the little black box thingy (technically called a widget!) you can post a mini version of this blog into your Facebook acount or or igoogle acount or about a dozen other things that I don't have clue about yet. Just click on options button. And then, just like magic, something will happen. I don't know what though. But praise the Lord for widgets!

This Jesus

2008-05-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week one of our classmates, Gille, left to go back to Ethiopia, where he pastors. Gille is a soft spoken man who walks with a slight stoop, and you would never know that beneath his gentle manner is a giant of a saint. At breakfast the day he left, he shared his story with us.

During the years that communism controlled Ethiopia it was against the law for two Christians to be together. So, “church” would be conducted between two believers sitting at a public restaurant having tea, as though they were just friends having a casual chat. That was the way they shared the gospel with one another and prayed for one another. Gille said even then you had to be very careful because the government was aggressively persecuting believers and if someone overheard you , they would report you. Amazingly, the church grew rapidly during this time. And in fact it was under communism that Gille became a believer.

Through the communist propaganda that was part of the public school education, he was thoroughly convinced of the communist/Marxist system and believed that all religion was destructive. However, one day he overheard a guy sharing the gospel with someone in a classroom as he passed by. He stopped and listened. As he listened to the story of how Jesus died for our sins, he became intrigued and went into the room and said to the man, you must tell me about “this Jesus” also.

Gille believed in Jesus and went on to become a pastor and under communism he was thrown in jail several times for preaching the gospel.

“But it was wonderful because every time they put us in jail, we preached the Gospel and all the prisoners would get saved. Even the guards got saved and eventually they had to send us home.

“Sometimes they would take us and beat us after we preached, but we just laughed because we were happy that we were preaching the Gospel.”

And I listened and was reminded of how many times I had sat in church, half listening to the sermon, and half thinking about a dozen other things and completely taking for granted the very thing Gille was beaten for.

Today in class our professor, Dr. Lwysha shared a story about some seminary students who were studying the book of Revelation. During their lunch break they would go outside and play basketball, and while they played, the janitor would sit in the stands and read his Bible. One day during one of their basketball games, the janitor erupted into shouts of joy and began jumping up and down. When the students interrupted him and asked him what he was doing, he looked at them and said, “this Jesus, He wins!”

While these seminary students were consumed with the meaning of the seven trumpets and the seven seals and the beast and the woman and arguing over pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib and whatever other theories there are on the tribulation, this janitor picked out the very heart of the story:

This Jesus, He wins!

I was so reminded of that when Gille told his story. How in the midst of the oppression of communism in Ethopia, the Church did so much more than survive – it triumphed! And I’m reminded today, that in the midst of a world that seems to be crumbling down around us, where violence and destruction are rampant, where stories of sexual depravity and natural disasters rule the evening news, I’m wonderfully reminded that in the midst of it all – this Jesus, He wins!

In the midst of our sickness and our loneliness, our struggles in life and in ministry, the heart of our Christian lives, the one truth that makes it all worth while and brings resolution to it all, is that this Jesus, He wins!

Consumed

2008-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made a quick trip to Zambia. Paula flew up from Lusaka and we met in a small town on the border of Zambia and Malawi. We hadn’t planned on this at the start. Originally we had decided that I would stay in Malawi for the whole month while taking my classes and Paula and I would see each other when I got back. Turns out though that my capacity for being apart from my wife is about equal to my capacity for pickled eggs. I think I’m starting to sort of understand what it means that the “two become one” because it seems that the one of us were never meant to be in two separate countries at the same time. I know this because when we are apart the whole cosmos seems to get disordered (starting with my underwear drawer and working its way outward in the general direction of the de-frocked former planet, Pluto).

And for you men reading this, I have to warn you: parts of this blog entry are very mushy. Maybe one day I’ll write a blog on “Deer stands, Tractors, Band Saws, and other Godly Things,” to make up for it.

But I was very aware of a couple of things this weekend. First, I was reminded how consumed I am with love for my wife and what a great thing it is to be consumed by a thing like love. Second, I also couldn’t help but notice how in the busy-ness of life how I often get consumed by a gazillion little things and become unconsumed with the few really important things. And finally, I was reminded of how much of the world is both consumed with things and being consumed by things.

The town of Chipata is a center of Muslim activity in Zambia and a place where several worlds collide. As I waited for Paula at the Chipata “airport” (which is just a tiny two room building on the outskirts of town), I watched a boy precariously perched atop an ox cart steering it with his reed whip along a dirt road next to the runway. It was as if in Malawi yesterday never noticed that today has come. As I walked into the outdoor “waiting yard” for arrivals and departures, I noticed that most of those who were waiting to fly out were Muslims. They were all dressed from head to toe in the clothing of their faith, the men in their galabias and some of the women draped in black from head to toe. Even the children wore donned in Islamic attire, with the girls wearing hijab head coverings. I was reminded of the calls to prayer we hear daily in Livingstone coming from the mosque down the street from our house. Every morning around five the imam’s chanting rings out across the city via loudspeaker. And it seems that those who practice Islam are consumed by their faith; some might say, devoured by it.

In the news in South Africa this week there was a story about sectarian violence. Residents of some of the shanty compounds around Johannesburg attacked many of the foreign residents in their community, many of whom had fled the desperation that has engulfed Zimbabwe. People who had left the nation they had lived in all their lives and had come to South Africa hoping for a new beginning found only a tragic ending. The attackers set people on fire and beat them with sticks and rocks. We hear about that kind of violence and we tend to wonder how people can be consumed with such hatred. And, we wonder, if it can happen in South Africa, is there in place on this continent that is immune from the consuming fires of animosity and racism.

I get consumed with a lot of things in the course of my life. Sometimes I get consumed with good things like Bible study or prayer, but probably not as often as I should. But a lot of times I get consumed with stupid stuff like my hair (hey - let him who is without hair gel cast the first stone) or with my tee shot or with what's going to happen to Jack Bauer.

And as I thought this week about what it was like to recapture the wonder of being consumed with love for my wife (and sort of shocked that it got away from me for a while), I am also reminded of my great need to over and over be recaptured, re-burdened and utterly consumed with a passion for those who don’t know Christ. It will never do for us as Christians to look at Muslims and mock the futility of their rigorous prayer life and to decry the outward appearance of a religion that offers not a glint of hope for the human ailment. Because while we are busy scoffing, Christ is busy weeping and praying that someone among us would have the courage to go and bring these people the Gospel.

All around the world this week the news seems to shout at us a reminder that people are being consumed in a thousand different ways. They’re being consumed in earthquakes, in genocide, in famines, wars and disease. And many, many of them are being consumed without ever having heard the name of Jesus. And just as I was reminded of how great it is to be consumed by something wonderful when Paula and I met in Chipata last weekend, I am also reminded of how essential it is to be consumed by something eternal.

Lord may it be said of us, as it was said of you, that “Zeal for our Father’s house would consume us!” (John 2:17).

Lessons in a Time of Malaria

2008-05-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

Higher education has a way of turning perfectly normal people into buffoons . Before we started this program we're in, my classmates and I used to talk in such a way that the people around us could actually understand us. But now that we’ve entered the strange and bizarre world of “graduate studies” ( sort of like entering “the twilight zone” only without the cool music playing in the background) we’ve started talking in a sort of scholar-babble that even we don’t really understand. It seems if you write a few thousand words on “How an Indigenous Church Might Propagate a Missional Worldview Among its Adherents” and suddenly we’re all running around using twelve syllable words to say what we used to say just fine with two syllable words.

For instance, a week ago, we were saying things like “man, sure is hot out.”

Not any more.

Now, its “I was thinking of saying that it’s hot, but that won’t do. One can’t just say its hot because, you see, “hot” is a non-specific quantity and thus to classify something as hot is to not really say anything at all. I mean at exactly what point does something stop being warm and start being hot?”

Oh, shut up and turn on the fan.

Resultantly (and “resultantly is another of those words that sounds like it means a whole lot more than it does”), we all sound like a bunch of kokamamie ninkumpoops (and I am certain that “kokamamie ninkumpoops” was coined by a professor reading a bunch of graduate papers. “Why do these kokamamie ninkumpoops keep using such excessive verbiage!”).

So...the week ended with me getting malaria, which by the way if your planning a trip to Africa, I don’t recommend. It sort of feels like all of your body parts are trying to escape through your eye sockets. You hurt all over, you can’t sleep and you can’t eat because your stomach (or is it your liver, I cant’ remember) has been turned into a global village for parasites.

Lovely.

But one great thing did come out of it all . Somehow my suffering did seem to get that high-falutin’ jibberish nonsense out of me and my friends at least temporarily.

“Man, Jerry. You alright? You look terrible!”

“Uughh.”

“Alright my brother.... Sure is hot out.”

My “uughh” was perfectly intelligible to these new friends of mine, because they have all been where I am, many times before and knew well what I was feeling.

As my roommate said, “When I read that question on the application, ‘how many times have you had malaria,’ I started to laugh!” Apparently, posing that question to an African is like asking an American “how many Doritos have you had – ever?”

My grunting and groaning spoke volumes that were extremely intelligible to those around me and none of us needed an English to Malaria, Malaria to English dictionary. Everyone in Africa is fluent in Malaria.

Today was Sunday and I had yet another wonderful experience with language. We went to a small church on the outskirts of Lilongwe here in Malawi. It was a typical compound church, unfinished with tin sheets for a roof, and in one corner a pile of corn just prepared for grinding. The floor was unfinished, still mostly dirt.

The service started around 10 and at just after 12 the pastor asked for people to come forward who had not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Most of the church responded and about 30 people came and stood at the front of the sanctuary. There were old men and women, teenagers, and even young children. And then the pastor led those gathered in a simple teaching from the Gospel of John and Acts on the Person of the Holy Spirit and how Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to his followers before he was taken up to heaven.

And then he prayed.

For as long as I live I will never forget what I saw this afternoon. Almost every person there was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues, and among them was the village headman (sort of like a local chief) and another was a six or seven year old boy. The little boy stood in the front of the sanctuary with tears running down his face, his hands raised toward heaven, speaking in tongues!

I guess what really fascinates me in all this, is that our own attempts to elevate ourselves through the use of language end up as nothing more than blubbering nonsense. I mean nobody actually says things like “the day is soon to wane” unless you’ve been stuck on a desert island all your life with nothing but the complete works of Margaret Mitchell to keep you company.

No. Real people say, “its night!” And then eat some Doritos and go to bed.

But when we entrust our language to God and speak to Him from a place so deep within us that it can not be mined with the languages we know and trust, we find ourselves being elevated not by way of pompousness, but in the simple and profound mystery of God. We find ourselves lost in the presence of God, as we “declare the wonders of God.”

And the sight of a six year old boy worshipping the Lord with every ounce of his being today reminded me of what a precious gift that is!

Pray With US

2008-05-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

We have recently received some horrible news regarding some good friends of ours here, and we ask that you join us in prayer for this family.

A Zambian family that are friends of ours recently sent their 9 year old daughter to the market to buy cooking oil. When she arrived at the market, she was pulled into a vendor’s booth, and raped.

She made it back home and was finally able to convey to her parents what had happened and they immediately went to the police. The police took the girl and her parents back to the market; the girl identified the man and he was arrested.

Then, incredibly, the other vendors began to threaten the parents for having their friend arrested. They have threatened to burn this family’s house down. So, in the middle of all that has happened to their little girl, they are having to move out of their home and find a new place to live.

The girl has been put on ARV’s in case the man has AIDS. It is likely that he does, because witchdoctors here tell people who have AIDS that if they have sex with a child, it will cure them.

This whole thing makes our stomachs turn. It fills us with rage, and we find ourselves looking to the Lord, and crying out “God, unless you do something…”

Please keep this family in prayer, that God would heal this little girl in every way, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Pray with us that she will not be infected with HIV and that there will be no long term effects. We know that only the Lord can accomplish these things. But we also know that “with God all things are possible.”

Also, please pray for this family, the Mundia family that God would protect them and truly be their fortress, and place of refuge, that they would find comfort and peace in His presence.

And join us in prayer that such a mighty revival would sweep across this land that the forces of darkness would be destroyed for good.

Thank you and God bless.

Family Matters

2008-05-04T06:56:00.000-07:00

Africans have a wonderful sense of family and our discussion at the breakfast table today was an education for me on this.

My friend Pastor Zulu was getting ready to tell my something about my wife – particularly how wonderful he thinks she is (he’s a very smart guy this Pastor Zulu!) and then mid sentence he paused after saying “your wife.”

He then began to correct himself saying, “In our culture, if I’m talking about my wife, I would never say ‘MY wife.” I would say ‘YOUR sister-in-law. And if I were talking about your wife, I would not say “YOUR wife, I would say My sister.”

Sounds confusing, but stay with me.

“You see,” he continued, “if it was someone close to ME, I would give them to YOU by saying YOUR not MY, so that you have a sense of belonging to US, of being a part of US. We wouldn’t use language that separates us from you, but that brings you closer to US. If they are very close to me, I would “throw” them to you. But if they are very close to you, I would “throw” them to me.”

I snickered as I tried to imagine this 5 foot tall Zambian man that weighs all of 95 lbs hurling my pregnant wife through the air, like a big bellied Frisbee (A very cute big bellied Frisbee I might add)!

He went on. “If my brother has children, I don’t refer to them as ‘HIS children’ but ‘as ‘MY son’ or ‘MY daughter’ because it brings them closer to me. He would do the same with my children. They would call both of us Dad.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about family these days, with baby Ireland soon to enter the picture (a reality that fills me with equal amounts of joy and terror). And I’m reminded in our discussion (which we later christened “Pentecostal Dining Room Church”) of how much I tend to want to own things, and of how much effort I exert in the pursuit of individuality, often to my own detriment.

But also, I am struck by how biblical the African perspective is. After all, it was God Himself, who “threw” HIS Son to us, so that we might be brought close to HIM. And all that energy I spend trying to find MY purpose, or MY destiny because MY identity has become completely wrapped up in what I do, might be much better spent simply loving other people and letting those relationships be the source of who I am.

So, if I can, I would like to throw this thought to YOU so that YOU might throw it to those YOU love and care about so that we all might know a little better what it means that “in HIM we live and move and have OUR being.’ for, ‘We are HIS offspring” (Acts 17:28).

And here in Africa you and I have some pretty great siblings!

The Classes

2008-05-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

We are three days into our first month long session at All Nations Theological Seminary, also known as ANTS. Our professor for this first session is a brilliant Malawian man that learned to speak English from Texan missionaries and so he talks with a twang, sort of like John Wayne and Charles Wesley rolled into one.

The class we are currently enrolled in is meant to explore current trends in missions and how those trends might affect the future of missions. We are looking at things like short-term teams and their increasing frequency and how they can be made more effective.

We are also discussing the issue of who’s vision do we pursue in missions? Do we have a right to dictate to a national church what they ought to be doing and how they ought to do it? As Dr. Chakwera put it, “You shall receive power when the Americans have come upon you.”

I get up around 5 each morning, not because I’m particularly a morning person, but because every day we’re expected to read something like 27 books, write a couple of papers and then teach ourselves how to make baskets out of porcupine hair (because you just never know!).

But when I climb out of bed feeling rather proud of myself for having accomplished such a monumental task as actually getting up before sunrise (as though God were at that moment placing a gold star next to my name for a job well done), as I make may way to the showers I am slapped with a good dose of reality.

I hear coming from the chapel just a short distance away, the voluminous cries of students at the undergrad school here calling out to God in passionate and fervent (which I think in the Greek means “really, really loud”) prayer. Every morning at 5 am they are already at it. Now, it could be due to the fact that they are in the midst of finals and final exams tend to make the most heathen among us lift a cry to heaven. But I think it’s more than that.

I think here in Africa people really depend on God for nearly everything (sort of like we in America depend on Wal-Mart). They know what it means to trust in God, to seek God, to have Him meet their every need (and they never have to worry about not finding a parking place!).

And so I am finding that here at seminary, my classes begin long before the teacher arrives and never really seem to end.

And I can’t help but think that the Lord would have it no other way.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pluck a porcupine.

In Malawi

2008-04-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Had a long and bumpy drive today from Lusaka Zambia to Lilongwe Malawi. The drive is far from boring and you have to be careful not to hit the mélange of creatures that share the road. My companions for the trip were a Zambian pastor, Pastor Zulu, and a missionary friend named Steve. For fun, we came up with our own way of establishing the intelligence level of various members of the animal kingdom by the speed with which they got out of the way of our vehicle. Goats did the best. Humans, cows and dogs were tied for a distant second. Pastor Zulu deduced that Zambian goats were smarter than Malawian goats, who were sluggish in their efforts to avoid being hit.

I arrived at the seminary today to begin working on a M.A. in Intercultural Studies. It is an incredible opportunity to study missions along side African brothers and sisters who are out there doing the work of the kingdom. I am bit overwhelmed at the work load that lies ahead, but excited about what might come from it.

More and more here in Zambia I feel like I have far more to learn from Africans than I have to give them. With the struggles they face and the obstacles they overcome to start churches or to reach the lost in their community they truly seem to me to be giants in the faith. They seem like modern Paul’s and Barnabas’s and next to them I sort of feel like that cow we almost ran into today who couldn’t seem to distinguish between our 4x4 going 70 miles an hour and its own dear mother.

There are something like 20,000 pages of reading sitting on my desk right now, so I need to end this. First, let me add that my wonderful, sweet, wife Paula is in Lusaka this week – unable to make the trip as she is pregnant with our first child. She’s probably working harder than she should, probably not feeling as good as she would like, but she’s undoubtedly missed more than she knows. It will be a long month.

Gotta go.

Remember, love deeply.

"My food is to do the will of Him who sent me!"

2008-04-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week here. We had a former professor of mine from college, Daniel McNaughton, visiting this week and he taught a seminar on starting new churches. It was great stuff.

As often happens to me here, throughout the week I was challenged by nearly everything the Zambians did and said. One guy told of how he had planted 100 churches in about a 12 year period. He started when he came to Christ at the age of 18, and then immediately wondered if his mother, who died giving birth to him, had ever heard the Gospel. He decided he needed to go his home village and start a church there. He did, and the church was a success, and soon neighboring villages were asking him to start churches there because they saw a dramatic change in peoples lives. In 12 years this guy started 100 new churches in as many villages.

I thought about what things I had started in the last 12 years.

Not much. A few arguments. A lot of books. Many of them still unfinished. I’ve probably started 100 crossword puzzles. Not sure if I’ve ever finished one.

This guy started 100 churches.

Another guy talked about how when he was first starting out in ministry he prayed and fasted – FIVE days a week, for TWO YEARS! He said he only ate on weekends in order to have enough energy to preach.

I was expressing to another Zambian pastor how amazed I was at that, and he looked at me rather puzzled and said, “In Zambia you must fast a lot if you are going to overcome the spiritual attacks you face.” He then added, “I fast 22 days.”

“Wow. 22 days a year is a lot,” I said.

“No. 22 days a month,” he replied.

Its been a long week, and I need to get some rest before a long drive tomorrow, and then an even longer drive on Tuesday to Malawi. I am excited, I’m challenged, and I’m getting hungry just thinking about the idea of fasting for 22 days a month.

Can’t wait to see what the Lord does here next!

Brian's Story

2008-04-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is Brian’s story.

He pastors a small church just up the road from where we live in the small town of Zimba. Zimba, according to Brian, isn’t known for much, except beer drinking and prostitution. Brian came to this small town just north of Livingstone two years ago called by God to revive a church that had been started almost 15 years prior but that had been torn apart by various factions. Two of the groups that left the church started two separate churches – one called True Vine, the other Future Hope.

Shortly after he arrived, the pastors of these two churches showed up at his home in the middle of the night, demanding to know who he was and what he was doing in town. It seemed they were threatened by his presence; probably afraid he would take members from their churches.

The next night, the police showed up at Brian’s home, and arrested him. They took him to the police station and asked who he was and what he was doing in town. Turns out the pastors of the other two churches had gone to the police and told them (falsely, of course) that Brian was there to stir up trouble and that he had come from Congo for the purpose of destroying their churches. They also accused him of being a Satanist. Amazingly, (or maybe not so amazingly – after all, this is Africa) the police believed the story and had Brian brought in. He was eventually released after proving that he was in fact from Lusaka, and not from Congo, and after he had secured a letter from his district officials.

Brian had come to a small town, where he had no friends or relatives, to revive a church that had no members and who’s former members in a fit of jealousy immediately tried to run him out of town on trumped up allegations. How’s that for a first job right out of Bible college? Had it been me, I probably would have been on the first mini-bus back to Lusaka, shaking the dust off my feet the whole way and praying that a meteor would fall on both Future Hope and True Vine.

Brian stayed.

He stayed and little by little, he built a church. First one person. Then two. Then five. And for a while, just five people. Today he pastors a church of about 40, with a separate branch that meets in a local boarding school and ministers to about 60 students.

His challenges though are still many. Prostitutes show up at his home in the middle of the night under the pretext of wanting prayer. They offer him gifts of cooking oil and beans, and try to seduce him. Brian is a young, handsome, single man, and when he was telling us this, he lowered his head into his hands, and told us it wasn’t always easy to say no, but that he always did. He has since instituted a policy in which people who want prayer are to call him and arrange to meet him at the church and not at his home.

Before Brian came to Zimba at least four pastors had been sent before him to try and revitalize the church. None of them stayed.

Not too long ago someone asked that perhaps we could include in our blog some of the more beautiful aspects of Zambia. And their point was a good one for there is certainly more to Zambia than potholed roads, corrupt officials and knife wielding maniacs. We have seen some spectacular sights since we arrived in Zambia. We have gazed upon the breathtaking and “leaves you speechless’ splendor of Victoria Falls. We have stood at the top of the Royal Gorge as the sun was setting and watched as the last light of the day slipped over the serene African horizon and gave birth to a million-star nighttime sky. We have stood under that same night sky and seen that very distinct (and only viewable from the Southern Hemisphere) constellation known as the Southern Cross. We have watched elephants feasting on acacia trees along the roadside just a few kilometers from our house. But in all of the many wonders of God’s diverse and vast creation that we have seen here, none have inspired me as much as Brian did one afternoon last week when he sat in our living room and told us his story.

All the colors of the spectrum, all the majesty of nature, all the intricate and detailed designs that God has carved into His creation, are no match for that most intricate of designs that He carved into us His children: namely His very own image. We don’t see it too often I don’t think. In fact, we’re far more likely on an average day to run into the images of Hollywood or of Wall St. or MTV. But when we do encounter the image of God in an otherwise ordinary person among us, it is unmistakable. You feel as though you are standing on holy ground, not because you’ve elevated that person to the rank of deity, but because you become acutely aware that God is alive and well and very much present in His people. In the divine image we are reminded that God moves from the pages of the Bible and from the songs and prayers of our Sunday morning services and He travels to the streets of a small town of prostitutes and drunks, and in the life and faithful ministry of a young pastor, he still pitches his tent among us.

And man, what a sight it is to see!

Give a Little Ground

2008-04-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest adjustments to life in Zambia is that often things don’t go as planned. Actually, its not so much that things don’t go as planned, as much as it is that they often don’t go as planned and nobody seems to really care! Life here sort moves along like at its own seemingly unconcerned pace.

For instance, when you schedule an electrician and he tells you he will come at 9 in the morning, he may show up two days later with no explanation and may even express total dismay that this would strike you as odd. I suppose the notion being, that “in the morning” really was meant to indicate “some morning” and not necessarily “tomorrow morning.”

Or, for another example, the other day I was at the grocery store and was thrilled when I walked up to the check-out and found that there was not a single person in line. Surely, I thought, I will be out o’ here faster than a safari guide can point out the many uses of elephant dung (which is quite fast, by the way).

It was not to be, though, due to the fact that the checkout girl was busy flirting with the bag boy. Now, I know that as a minister, I should be constantly concerned about whether or not people are going to heaven or hell (and mostly, I really, really am!). But what I noticed in the minutes that followed (and please - pray that the Lord will forgive me) was that I began to care less and less about where this cashier would spend her eternity because it started to seem as though mine would be spent standing in line to buy some apples and a can of shaving cream (which I was not planning on using in conjunction with one another in any way – in case you were wondering).

And I have noticed, that if I’m not careful, in situations like these, grace can tend to get away from me. (I know you find that hard to believe, but its true!).

Grace, is that wonderful thing that Jesus so abundantly showed (and continues to show) to us – when he died for our sins, every one of them, without waving them around and shouting about them and telling us what idiots we were for not being more obedient. He simply stood silently, and took the abuse that He didn’t deserve, and the insults of people whom he could have squashed, so that he could give us what we could never earn. And yet somehow, still, when people don’t meet my expectations, and when things don’t go my way, I often don’t want to show them any grace at all. I want to show them wrath. Yes…even the wrath of Jerry.

I want them to know that they have let me down, and I want them to know that they are inefficient and that they should invest in a calendar or a watch or a sundial or something. And here in Zambia I often find myself needing to be reminded, that every day of my life the very ground I walk on, is the ground of grace. The very fact that I have something solid on which to stand, is an act of grace, because I ought to be sunk in the deep mud of my own failures. And so, rather than kicking up a bunch of dust over little things like late electricians and overly friendly cashiers, I ought to share a little of that ground called grace with everyone I meet.

Its so easy to see the fallacies of people, and yet to overlook the challenges from which those fallacies usually flow. People most often are who they are, because of where they come from. And yesterday, a drive through the shanty compounds of Livingstone reminded me that in my 5 pairs of shoes, air conditioned, ipod-ed, well-fed world, I really know nothing of the challenges that Zambians face. And as I consider that, I am reminded that Zambians are probably far more deserving of my grace, than I am of theirs. And yet THEY seem to offer it in abundance.

We’ve put together a little video that does very little to convey the severe poverty of life in the Zambian compounds, but perhaps it will give you a glimpse into that world, and a little peek at the joy (and grace) Zambians seem to have in the middle of it all. So, as you watch this, please pray with us for those who live without running water, without electricity, without enough food, that the Living God would walk among them, and that He would meet their every need – above all they could ask or imagine.

And, don’t forget to give a little ground yourself today.

You Just Never Know

2008-03-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

You never really know what you might come across in Zambia.

The other day, we went into a used clothing store in downtown Livingstone and they were blaring this music by Dolly Parton and some other country/western/probably-dead-by-now/Waylon Jennings-ish guy singing a duet that went, “If I were a carpenter and you were a lady, would you have my baby?” And then Dolly would sing, “If I were a lady and you were a carpenter, I would have your ba-a-by.”

The Zambian guy next to me thumbing through the racks of used clothes was singing right along as if it were an old favorite of his. “If I were a lady and you were a carpenter…”

Then he pulled a ladies Speedo off the rack and grinning like a two year old on Christmas morning waved it at his wife at the end of the isle . “Honey, look!” She scowled at him and I made a beeline for Paula.

Like I said, you never really know what you’ll come across in Zambia. Sometimes you see a guy riding a bicycle down the street with a live goat tied between the seat and handle bars (and it can be hard to tell who is peddling, the guy or the goat). Or, you might see a guy standing at a bus stop waving a live chicken (or a dead fish) at passing cars in hopes of catching someone on the way home for dinner. Sort of an African style drive-thru. In the newspaper you find stories about people who turn themselves (according to the article) into hyenas or crocodiles or snakes. And just outside Lusaka there is a tiny, 4ft. or so by 4ft or so mud brick shack along the main highway with a familiar sign on it. It reads, “Walmart.” We haven’t stopped to check it out yet.

Every once in a while, though, you come across something that really surprises you.

Our days these last few weeks have focused mostly on that essential (and yet not very newslettery/ bloggable) aspect of ministry – relationship building. We’ve been spending a few days a week just meeting with pastors over a Coke and letting them share their hearts, describe their burdens and challenges, and discovering their visions. And the other day Paula and I met with a local pastor by the name of Smart Kobela. He has a church in a local shanty compound that is doing some incredible and surprising things.

The church is involved in skills training so as to help people become self sufficient. They also run a school that goes up to grade 7 and provides free education to orphans in the area. The school has enlisted the assistance of tourists (yes – tourists!), through an organization called Africa Impact, as part time workers. Not only are they educating the students, but they are also feeding them. The church provides one meal during school hours and sends some food home with each student so their care-givers can fix them something in the evening. The pastor’s office had been taken over by a bunch of ladies learning how to sew and when we arrived we found the pastor threading an “automatic knitting machine” that had been donated to the church by an organization in the UK.

In a place where there seems to be an overabundance of problems and a shortage of answers, I am reminded that not only can God do anything, but that He often does.! I am reminded that we serve a big God who still takes the five loaves and two fish and turns it into an all you can eat buffet. He still turns the waters of lack and want into the wine of joy and abundance. He still is the One in whom there is life, and His life is the light of men. And, apparently, He’s been at work in Zambia long before we ever came.

I suppose that perhaps I had this notion that I was bringing Jesus to Zambia with me in my carry-on luggage. But Pastor Kobela and his church have reminded me that God is already here and that we would be wise to simply “hitch our trailer” to what He’s already doin’ (as Waylin-what’s-his name might say).

You know, maybe Dolly Parton (is she still alive?) could do a duet with Michael W. Smith. It could go, “If you were a carpenter and I was sin-ner, would you come to my house for din-ner.”

That would be a really nice song.