starting small

There once was a young man who lived on the edge of the village.  His house sat alongside a forest and one day, he saw something moving in the bushes.  Was it a dog?  Was it a goat?  No, it was a lion cub.  The curious cub wandered up to the house.  Surprised, the young man approached it and touched it gently before the animal ran off.  And every afternoon afterwards, the lion cub would return to play with the young man and share his food.  As the days passed, he failed to notice that this young cub was growing into an adult lion.

One afternoon, the young man’s uncle stopped by to visit.  They sat in the shade of the house and the young man smiled, anticipating his uncle’s surprise.  Sure enough, the lion cub approached the house.  The older man jumped to his feet, reaching for a spear.  He was ready to kill the animal, until the young man stopped him, intervening to explain that the lion had become his pet.  The uncle put down the spear, warning his nephew that if he didn’t kill this lion while it was young, it would someday turn and eat him.  But the young man only laughed, disregarding the counsel. 

When I ask my Mozambican friends how this story ends, they say that the lion will return and kill both the young man and his family.

I’ve been telling that story to help explain a story found at the beginning of the Bible.  

Genesis tells us that after Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden, they gave birth to two sons (chap. 4).  Cain, the eldest, was a gifted agriculturalist.  He seems to have possessed the world’s first green thumb!  His younger brother, Abel, on the other hand, was good with animals.  Now when I tell this story to our Mozambican friends, we notice that their parents must have thought, “This is great - we've got it made! Our two sons will produce all the food we need.  They’ll provide all our xima (stiff porridge) and matapa (beans, greens or meat to dip it in).  Things are looking up!” 

Now as good parents, Adam and Eve taught their children to give: "You boys need to take some of the bounty that God has blessed you with and give it back to him as an offering."

We picture Cain staring into his grain bin.  It seems like he’s thinking, "God doesn't really need to eat this, does he?  I can just give him the food unfit for human consumption and it won't matter a bit."  So, his offering is made up of all the rotten grain and corn that he doesn’t know what else to do with.

Abel, though, does the opposite - he chooses the best and fattest of his flock to offer to the Creator.

Not surprisingly, God was pleased with Abel's sacrifice, but expressed displeasure with Cain's.

Maybe Cain had always felt like his younger brother enjoyed showing him up.  Or maybe the trouble all started that day.  But whatever the case, God quickly points out the anger and jealousy beginning in Cain's heart, saying, "Be careful, Cain.  Sin is crouching at your door - you need to deal with it or it will devour you."

Unfortunately for everyone in the story, Cain chooses to let the sin fester.  It grows and grows until one day he tricks Abel. "Come on out to the field with me,” he says. “I need your help with something."  There in the field, Cain murders his brother.  Abel’s blood slowly soaks into the ground.

God appears again on the scene.  He asks Cain, "Where's your brother?"

In a huff, Cain replies, "Who am I supposed to be? His bodyguard?”

God tells Cain that the same ground that blessed him with abundant crops is now testifying against him.  He murdered his brother and now Cain will wander the land, unable to produce food as before.

Cain’s sin grew into a monster that ultimately destroyed him.

In teaching this text lately, I've accompanied it with the story of the lion above as well as the following two stories:

There once was a young widow.  Her husband hadn’t left her much.  But, she did receive a small, sturdy, mud-brick house.  One day as her mother is there visiting, it begins to rain.  The mother points out to her daughter that the roof has a serious leak and water is eating away at one of the corners of the house.  She suggests that her daughter ask her brother to come and fix the roof.  Laughing, the young woman disregards the counsel.  “I’ll deal with it later…We’ll get around to it before next rainy season,” she thinks.

When I ask my Mozambican friends about this tale, they say that one night during a big rainstorm the house will come crashing down on top of her.

There once was a man whose garden sat next to a river.  A specialist came to look at his progress and pointed out a small thorn bush growing nearby.  “You should remove that plant today before it begins growing unchecked.”  The man thought to himself, “Oh, that little bush is nothing.  I’ll deal with it later.” 

My Mozambican friends and I imagine how this man will return home one day in the future rubbing the scratches on his arms and legs caused by all the painful thorns. 

Those three fictional stories all have the same, simple message.  Allowing seemingly small sins to grow in our lives can have disastrous consequences.  As we saw in the story of Cain, anger and jealousy can blow up into full-blown murder.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is ready and willing to take up the spear to help us kill the lion crouching at the door.  He is willing to climb up on the roof and fix the leak before it takes down the house.  Jesus is willing to get in there with the clippers and help us take out the thorn bush.  Much of his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are about dealing with sin while they are small.  He is committed to helping us in that work.

His healing, repairing work may take time…but it may just save our lives. And as we see in the story of Abel – it may just save the lives of others around us.

Like a good guest, though, Christ is waiting for our invitation.  He will not address that sin without our permission. 

Some presentations of the gospel make it seem like Jesus came to save us from Satan or from the wrath of God.  It seems to me, though, that the most basic truth is that Jesus came to save us from ourselves.  Sin and death started with small choices - eating the forbidden fruit, hating your brother.  When these small choices or small sins grow unchecked, they have serious consequences.

The Cain and Abel story doesn't stop there.  Cain wanders the earth and has children of his own.  A few generations removed from him (his great-great-great grandson) is a man named Lamech.  Lamech boasts to his wives about all his devious deeds – he murders a man for simply insulting him, multiplying the spirit of revenge found in his patriarch Cain (4:23-24).

But, Adam and Eve are said to have another son, Seth.  Seth walked with God, following the path of his deceased brother Abel.  And Seth’s great-great-great grandson was a man named Enoch.  This guy walked with God so closely, that the tradition indicates that our God just decided to take Enoch on home with him, bypassing death (5:24). 

The choice to address sin and temptation when it first begins to bud, or to let it grow unchecked in our own lives, can have great consequences.  Those consequences will not only shape our own destinies, but also the future of generations to come.

May we choose to start small and deal with sin and temptation quickly.  May our choices put our children and our children's children on a path that gives them momentum to walk closer with their Creator.

Grace and Peace,

Alan

texting the Text

On Friday morning as I sat down with some Mozambican church leaders, I noticed that everyone was staring at two cell phones laying side-by-side on the table.  “What’s going on?” I asked.  In amazement, I listened as a subsistence farmer with little formal education explained in Makua how he was transferring the ‘Jesus Film’ from his phone to another church leader’s phone via Bluetooth. “Wow,” I thought, “I don’t even know how to do that.”

Earlier this year, I listened with amazement to recordings that a different church leader had made of himself teaching from the Bible on his cell phone.  He’d found that people in his village liked to listen to them.  So, I copied them onto my computer in order to share them with other church leaders.

It’s amazing how quickly new technology catches on!

Cell phone usage in northern Mozambique has exploded.  A new cellular service provider moved in a couple years ago and set up towers all over Cabo Delgado.  Now almost all of the villages we routinely work in have coverage.  More and more of our friends are buying phones and our contact lists are filling up with new numbers.

While being “connected” and available all the time has created some new challenges – some of our Mozambican friends like to call at 5 am (!) - it also has created some new opportunities for influence and ministry.

A few months ago, on a Sunday morning I had a few minutes to myself in the village of Newara and tried an experiment.  I sent a short text message to about 20 church leaders just letting them know that I was thinking about them and praying for the churches they serve.  I was pleased to get a number of messages back thanking me for the greeting and saying how they had passed it on to the body of Christ.

That got me thinking.

Most of the church leaders we work with have little Bible training.  Some weeks they say they just don’t know what to preach.

What if I sent them a text message with a Text they could share with their church? 

So for the past few months I have continued my experiment.  Early Sunday morning I use my phone to send text messages to about 50 or so church leaders.  It’s a text with a Text from scripture along with a potential application for the church.  Not all of my friends will receive it, of course.  A number of phones are turned off because of dead batteries.  Some of them probably ignore the message.  But, every week I hear back from about 10 of them.

They tell me how preaching from that text’s Text was received by their congregation.

They tell me how it spoke to a situation that they’re dealing with.

One leader told me that through the previous week’s text he felt challenged by God to plant another church in a nearby neighborhood.

Wow! 

Sending the text messages is a small thing.  It costs me almost nothing.  And it’s an idea that’s certainly not original to me. 

But even small efforts, seemingly inconsequential things, can contribute to something that will last.

“So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” - Isaiah 55:11

May God use whatever technology is at our disposal to help further His Kingdom!

Grace and Peace,

Alan 

MacGuffins and discipleship

Last week, I spent some time with a young man that our team is discipling.  Amissi has consistently shown maturity and promise.  Unfortunately, though, over the past few months, another church leader has caused him (and us) a lot of pain.  As we bumped along the dirt road together, Amissi and I talked about the different ways he could respond.  This was his conclusion: "Some people are telling me that I should come to terms with the fact that this man is just always going to treat me that way.  They say I should just keep working with him, ignoring the problem.  Others are saying, though, that it may be time for me to distance myself from him and treat him like an unbeliever...But, I can't do either of those things.  He is my brother in Christ - I must be reconciled to him."

I appreciate so much that Amissi is committed to doing the hard work of reconciliation.  And I carefully expressed to him that while his goal is a worthy one, at some point he may need to let go of the possibility of real reconciliation if this other leader is unwilling to do the 'dance of reconciliation" with him.  But, I tried hard to emphasize that his spirit reminded me of Jesus' promise that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.  His desire for true fellowship is a good and a worthy goal.  While it would be easier to follow his friends advice and either abandon the relationship or accept a counterfeit reconciliation, Amissi is rejecting those poor substitutes for peace and holding out for genuine trust and cooperation.

The truth is that Amissi, Gamito and others are in a complicated, life-draining situation that has dragged on and is distracting the whole church from being a light in the community.  These two men feel that strain and deeply long for resolution.  So, as I've been praying and thinking about this scenario, I've asked God why this leadership problem continues to persist.

Why doesn't God just help us resolve it so we can more on?

What I've begun to realize is that by not taking shortcuts, Amissi and Gamito are being more fully formed into disciples of Jesus.  All this time of struggling and wrestling to figure out how to live in community is maturing them.  I don't know how well I expressed it or how it made them feel, but I tried to share my hunch with Amissi that it seems that God is using their difficult situation to prepare and refine them into better agents of the Kingdom for further service here in this life as well as preparing them for the age to come.     

In his book, The Idolatry of God, Peter Rollins introduces the concept of the MacGuffin and describes its use in the film industry this way:

"Hollywood has made billions of dollars playing into this human experience of the gap, providing myths in which the lost object we believe will make us whole is finally gained.  Film theorists call this lost object the MacGuffin, a term popularized by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s.  The MacGuffin is a name that is given to whatever object helps drive the narrative forward, providing the necessary tension to keep an audience interested.  The MacGuffin is that X for which some or all of the main characters are willing to sacrifice everything.  In this way the object they seek is more than something they want in order to make their lives a little better; it is something that evokes in them an obsessive form of desire.  The object might take the form of money, fame, victory, power, a man, or a woman.  The point is not what actually fills the role of the MacGuffin, but that there is something that has that role, something that people want in an excessive way.  It is the object for which everything will be sacrificed, the object that seems to promise fulfillment, satisfaction, and lasting pleasure." (p. 17)

"In life we find ourselves pursuing various MacGuffins - impotent things we falsely believe will make us whole.  What we see in the structure of Hollywood movies is but a clear reflection of this structure.  And just as Hollywood movies generally hide the importance of what we seek, so our dreams and fantasies do the same - ultimately covering over the fact that what we think will satisfy our souls is really powerless to do the same." (p. 19)

"What we see played out again and again is a situation in which the protagonist actually gets what he or she wants above all else - the kiss, the money, the bad guy, etc.  However, we rarely see what happens after the hero grasps what is sought, for if we did, the impotence of the MacGuffin would be revealed and we would not get the feel-good fantasy of fulfillment that so much of popular cinema offers." (p. 34)

One obvious application of this concept to discipleship is the need to identify MacGuffins (i.e. idols) that are keeping followers of Jesus from their true quest and fulfillment in God.  The painful truth is that humanity's longing for meaning and purpose is so powerful that we will accept a counterfeit substitute when a real one seems unavailable.  While in different cultures the specifics of those MacGuffins and the way they entrap people may be different, their essence and power is still the same - these false gods/ideals can cause us great harm.  (They can misshape our professional lives as well as our personal lives.  Let's be honest, mission work isn't immune.  It also has its share of potential MacGuffins:  holism, sustainability, publication, efficiency, working alongside a "successful church-planting-movement"... these are all good goals and potentially healthy pursuits, but they are not the ultimate reality that will sustain us.)

Another potential MacGuffin in the life of a church, though, maybe one we seldom consider, is that of "Artificial Peace."  The process of real reconciliation is painful and difficult.  But, we must deal with the termites chewing through the wood, otherwise slapping on a fresh coat of paint only puts on a false front and serves to push our problems down the road.  Peeling back the thin layer of plastered-over-reconciliation often reveals the emptiness beneath.

I am thankful that Amissi and others are willing to reject the MacGuffin of insincere reconciliation and hold out for God's best.  That's the quest that, no matter what the results, should lead to a better end.  And along the way, rejecting that MacGuffin will help form him into a person that fits the image of Jesus.

The good news of grace is that we are all offered mulligans on our MacGuffins.   

We have a chance to choose anew the worthy quest we will devote ourselves to.

May we be a people who reject false substitutes both in our personal lives and in our communities.  May we chose to give ourselves to the One who is real and life-giving.

Grace and Peace,

Alan   

August 2014 Newsletter

Greetings from Montepuez!

 The past few months for us have been VERY full, so we sat down today to share a newsletter to catch you up on what's been going on in our part of the world.

It was SHEER JOY to have my parents, Larry and Evelyn Wilson, come visit us back in March.  My Mom blessed our team immensely by staying for two months and teaching kindergarten in our Montepuez team school, and my dad came for the last two weeks of that time.  It was so special to have them here with us, but the time flew by so fast.

 

Also in March I started studying again with women in different villages as the rains usually slow down in March and the harvest begins.  This year's abundant rains were record-setting, though, and continued strong through April, so I spent more time driving in water and mud than I'd expected!  This year I've been studying with women in three different clusters outside of Montepuez, and each group is at a different level of maturity and understanding.  I've been trying to encourage leadership by asking others to do the reading and the teaching, and that has been interesting and exciting. 

Another major event on the calendar in April was the annual women's conference for our province, which was held in Balama this year, and the teaching and worship and testimonies all went well.  There were a couple difficult conversations during the three-day seminar, one about one particular woman's treatment of the other women in her church, and another about the difficulties of the organization of the women province-wide (town church women vs. village church women).  And while it can be discouraging to see our friends struggle through disagreements with each other, it also struck me as growing pains that are to be expected at this stage of development as Jesus' Kingdom Gospel continues to sink in and challenge the hard areas in our hearts.

Over the past few months, Alan has continued with his regular schedule of visits with different church clusters.  In this stage of our work, he is not involved directly in planting churches but is focusing his attention on discipling and equipping emerging leaders.  He has continued teaching a series of lessons on leadership that are specifically geared for this context in different clusters, and the series of lessons he developed on how to respond to poverty have been very well received.  Besides teaching on poverty to our regular groups of churches, Alan has also presented the material on poverty at a Christian Women's Business Seminar and to the debate club at the local High School here in Montepuez.

What will undoubtedly be the highlight for the whole year, though, was a visit from Evertt and Ileene Huffard and Monte and Beth Cox (former missionaries who currently serve as professors of missions (and more!) with Harding University). They spent the last week of May here in Montepuez meeting with our team and Mozambican church leaders in order to evaluate the state of the work.  Currently the Smith, Westerholm and Howell families have all committed to stay in Montepuez into 2018, and as a team we are committed to doing our best to prepare the churches for our eventual departure, whenever that may be.  So, the major goals of the "consultant visit" were to discern the strengths and weaknesses of these churches and our work with them, and also to help us figure out how long we should stay here as well as forming a healthy exit strategy.  We've begun chewing on their suggestions and will spend some time over the next few months reflecting on how best to put their suggestions into practice. 

Immediately following the Huffards' and Coxes' departure, our team again hosted college student interns this year.  The four of them spent six weeks job-shadowing us and experiencing what life in Mozambique can be like.  They went with us on village visits, learned to speak some basic Makua-Metto, harvested rice and carried water on their heads as well as learning to cook xima.  Each of them also tried spending a weekend with a Mozambican family without any other English speakers.  And of course they were celebrities with our kids, who thoroughly enjoyed having a new audience to entertain!  The internship is an opportunity to give students interested in missions an experience of what serving as a missionary actually looks like on the ground.

On the same day that the interns left to return to the U.S., our family flew south to Maputo.  We crossed over into South Africa and spent the first few days visiting the doctor, the dentist, and the orthodontist before heading into the mountains for a few days of vacation.  We spend our vacation days hiking, sleeping late, eating broccoli and ice cream (not together!), and being followed by our new friend Gerry the extremely social, half-blind Giraffe.  When we crossed back into Mozambique, we spent Abby's eleventh birthday renewing Ellie's and Katie's passports at the US embassy.  She appreciated Alan's joke about spending her special day on U.S. soil, but said it wasn't nearly as good as being with our friends and family in States.  We've been back home in Montepuez for almost a week now and are settling in to regular life again.     

The other development and side projects that Alan has been involved in are moving forward as well.  We have had a good response from the sustainable agriculture project this year - it looks like a good portion of association members are beginning to implement what they've been learning in their personal farming plots.  Also, all the funding that we need for the bridge project has come in, so, Lord willing, construction should begin within the next few weeks.  This bridge will bless thousands of people in the region who are cut off from Montepuez during the rainy season each year.  To read more check out this blog post.

Our team works with about fifty churches of Christ here in Cabo Delgado with a total of around one-thousand members.  One of the challenges  we are facing for long-term sustainability is in the area of organization.  So, every other month we've been meeting with a group of men who are respected as leaders in the churches in order to build a better sense of unity and figure out how to work effectively together.  This same group met with Evertt Huffard and Monte Cox while they were here, and in a few weeks on August 29th our team will present the consultants' recommendations to these church leaders.  Hopefully by implementing a plan together we will be able to move forward in a process of naming deacons and elders and setting up healthy structures to serve God's Kingdom.  Please be in prayer about this meeting that God's spirit would give us wisdom to know how to best serve His purposes.

   

Mission work and ministry in general can often feel like the waves of the ocean - flowing in an out.  One place where this dynamic has been felt recently has been in the cluster of churches in Chipembe.  Last year, they experienced some growth and we felt like the churches in those villages were gaining some real traction.  Unfortunately, over the past few months two men in the church died of illness, another man divorced his wife and then another fell back into drunkenness, and it feels like some of the momentum has been lost.  Those kinds of experiences are discouraging, but we're praying that that cluster and others can experience more sustained growth.

Our team has had multiple transitions lately; we were sad to say goodbye to Kara Tobey in early June; she taught in the Montepuez team school for two years and became an important part of our lives and ministries - she is certainly missed!  Also in June the Westerholms moved out of their rental house and onto the land, and then two weeks ago after about eight months without a vehicle, the Smiths have received their new truck and have begun their drive back to northern Mozambique.  In a little over a week I am starting graduate school working towards an MA at Harding School of Theology.  AND, thankfully God has provided us with two new teachers, Rosemary Perry and Amber Roe.  We are grateful for the blessing of receiving teachers to come help educate our children; it is a vital part of our team ministry - it greatly increases the hours we can spend teaching, training, and mentoring.  They will be moving to Montepuez in just a few weeks, but both of them still lack funds to complete their total financial needs for their time in Mozambique.  If you or anyone you know could assist them please contact us.

Our other big news is that our upcoming furlough in summer 2015 will be extended so that we can serve as Visiting Missionaries-in-Residence at Harding University in Searcy, AR for the 2015-16 school year.  We're excited about this new opportunity to influence and recruit students to missions, and hopefully even to Mozambique.  We know, though, that by the time that year is wrapping up we will be very anxious to get back to our home, friends and teammates here in Montepuez. 

Thanks so much for keeping up with us and keeping us in your prayers.  Please be sure to pray along with us about the following things:

• upcoming leader meeting Aug. 29 where we'll be presenting some of the consultant's recommendations.
• peace in upcoming Mozambican elections in November
• teachers transition to Mozambique and blessings for this school year

Grace and Peace,

Rachel, Alan and the girls