What can a reformed pirate can teach us about suffering?

"Near the beginning of A. S. Peterson's fictional novel, The Fiddler's Gun, a reformed pirate and two young orphans have an interesting discussion about pain and suffering. They open up a wooden case revealing three objects: a fiddle, a bow and a pistol. After examining each of the elegantly crafted items, the former pirate tells them,

'"Now, see here, you got to put that hurt someplace, and this is where old Bartimaeus learned to put his." He lifted the fiddle out of the case and caressed it. 

"It's beautiful," whispered Fin. 

"Aye," he said and crooked it into his neck. He drew the bow across the strings and the instrument moaned a forlorn note. "Beautiful, that's what you've got to do with that hurtin', you got to turn it beautiful." (p. 33)

... '"What's the gun for?" asked Peter.

Bartimaeus' face darkened. "That's where all that hurtful stuff ends up if you don't get rid of it. Got to get rid of it. You don't and it might just get rid of you, see here? I keeps it there to remind me. I put it down the day I got this fiddle. Swore I would never take it up again. Done too much hurtin', got to turn that hurt to beautiful, see? Otherwise the hurt turns hateful and the ole hand-cannon there like to wake up and do terrible things...terrible things." (p. 34)

This fictional conversation illustrates well the stakes involved in possessing an effective response to pain and suffering. We all end up doing something with our pain.  If we cannot frame suffering in an instructive or constructive way, it will become destructive - harming those around us as well as ourselves.

For close to ten years in northern Mozambique I’ve witnessed the effects of mis-appropriated pain: family members become isolated, people live in fear, neighbors are cursed, and there is no rest. Years ago, as we first began to learn the language and culture of the Makua-Metto people, there was one word that I was surprised to hear over and over again in conversation: 'uhuva'. It’s their word for suffering, and our friends talk about it  all the time.

The problem is that their folk religion does not give them tools to deal with suffering constructively. The majority of the Makua-Metto people would consider themselves Muslims, but at the core they are shaped by an animistic worldview. This folk religion binds them and their pain to a witchcraft system crammed full of curses, counter curses, spirit possession and divination. To borrow language from the fictional conversation above, they lack the ability to take their suffering and "turn it beautiful."

Coming from my American cultural framework, I slowly came to the realization that their primary question is not "why" this suffering happens. Instead, they consistently personalize the evil they experience. They want to know "who" did this to them. Their quest to determine the identity of the culprit leads them into divination, which, when indicating a human target, encourages them to reach for that "ole hand-cannon" - directing all that pain and anger at another. Human beings must do something with their suffering. If they are unable to do something constructive, or interpret their suffering in a way that is instructive, then they ultimately will do something destructive.

As an American I could see that there are different ways to pick up the “gun”. Generally those in my home culture tend to turn this destruction inwardly. We self-medicate with drugs, escape into television/film, experience depression or practice self-mutilation. This contrasts with my experience with Africans, who when unable to do something good with their suffering, generally tend to turn the 'gun' on each other. It seems that this orientation affects the way both cultures approach scripture as well. The American Christian will focus on texts about personal sin and forgiveness (internal), whereas the Africans I know are more likely to concentrate on texts about suffering, deliverance, and protection (external)."

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The above quote is an excerpt - if you are interested in reading more about responding to suffering - and specifically how that plays out here in the context of northern Mozambique, please check out my recent article, "Turning it Beautiful: Divination, Discernment and a Theology of Suffering" in the International Journal of Frontier Missions here.

Grace and Peace,

Alan

May 2013 Howell News

Hello from northern Mozambique!

It's hard to believe that it is May already; the past couple months have flown by quickly for us, and the next few months feel like they're rushing at us pretty quickly too, so we are buckling our seat belts and holding on to our hats.  

The rainy, hot season is over, and we're into the beginning of our cool, dry time, which is nice.  Several mornings a week we find ourselves digging through drawers to find our seldom-worn long sleeve shirts because of the cool temperatures!  Two weeks ago our town/district had a visit from Mozambique's President Armando Guebuza to celebrate the opening of a new clinic in the rural post north of town (the area where Alan and I spend most of our time).  We didn't see the president himself, but we saw his entourage, but the great side benefit for us personally was that road crews worked to widen and smooth the dirt road going north before his visit, so now our drive north is much less painful!  

We love sharing with you what God is doing in this corner of the world, and we are happy to get to participate (most of the time!).  It would be so great if you could come visit and see for yourself and meet the friends here who are learning to follow God and live out life in his Kingdom in their different villages and neighborhoods.  You'd be able to see how they live - the challenges and the joys - and meet their children and see their farms and worship with the church.  But we know not everyone can come, so we want to paint the picture for you:  the good, the bad, the joys, the sorrows.  It is not all good news, but neither is it all bad news.  Churches here have problems like churches in your neighborhood,  but God is working here just like God is working in your neighborhood.

During January, February, and March the women's studies I usually participate in were suspended for the farming season, though each week I visited different women here in town.  But by the end of March and beginning of April all of the studies have started up again, which is so fun.  I alternate between four women's studies in a two-week cycle:  one study in town, one study in the Chipembe-Omeringue-Nkunama church cluster, one study in Nkororo, and one in Newara. 

All the groups are so very different; I wish you could come visit and know them all with their varying maturity levels and group personalities and learning styles.   This year I am regularly going out together to the village studies with women from the town churches (before it was more occasional); two or three different women from town each time I go out to a village study.  The brand-new women's group in Nkororo is starting the Sermon on the Mount booklet that the other groups have already studied; the other groups are going through different booklets that have selected stories, miracles, and teachings of Jesus translated into Makua-Metto (we still don't have the whole Bible in this language!)

I have two friends named Juliana from two different villages north of town that I have been studying with the past year and a half, and at the beginning of the rainy season both Julianas moved into town.  Juliana from the church in Chipembe moved to town with her husband and children because of her health (she had polio as a teenager and continues to have occasional problems from that) and to be near her mother.  She and her husband (who in the past has struggled with drunkenness) have alternated worshipping at the two different Churches of Christ in town when they're healthy enough to go, and they're currently in a really long stretch of good marital health.  She still goes with me every other week to the Friday women's study in Chipembe, and she also goes with me on alternate weeks to the new Thursday study in Nkororo.

Juliana from the church in Newara moved to town, also stating vague health reasons that I never fully understood, but it came out much later that she was also running from some family conflict back in the village.  She is single and very energetic and social, but when she moved to town she rarely worshipped with any churches and only showed up to ask for money, and we've had several conversations about participation and faithfulness.  Our first Friday starting up the women's study again in Newara she caught a ride with me but then skipped the whole scripture study to go to the field to gather food.  When she did show up right at the end of the discussion time, in the course of conversation I suggested that if she wanted to come up and get food from the family farm (and get a free ride for her sacks of corn and large bundles of firewood back into town), would she mind coming up the day before to gather up all the harvested crops and firewood bundles so she could also join the study?  She got a little defensive (but not nasty), and a passionate, whole group discussion followed that lasted nearly an hour but ended well with Juliana claiming to hear what the group was saying to her and promising to participate faithfully.  Group discussions here take me to my language limit - usually there are three or four people talking fast all at the same time, which means I get lost sometimes.  But it was beautiful to see the wisdom and kindness come out of the other women talking with Juliana, and I pray she chooses faithfulness.

Over the past few months our team spent a lot of time (especially Jeremy Smith!) finishing off a census of the Churches of Christ in Cabo Delgado.  We hosted a meeting of forty influential church leaders to present the data.  It was a really good experience to see these men wrestle with both the good and the bad that has been happening over the last few years in their churches.  At that meeting and in many other settings, Alan taught about the five giants that oppress the Makua-Metto people: drunkeness, witchcraft, unfaithfulness, ungodly leadership, and poverty. He worked to mobilize churches all over Cabo Delgado to fast and pray for a two week period asking God to defeat these giants, and we were encouraged to see so many people working together against the common Enemy.  Alan has been blogging more about his ministry experiences, so if you get a chance, poke around our blog and read some more about life, ministry and the giants.

A little over a week ago we sent off the Smiths to their furlough in the States to visit sending churches and family there (we miss them already!), but we also have only a couple weeks before six missions interns from Harding University arrive to live and work with us for six weeks.  For family news, Abby and Ellie love school and their teachers Miss Kara and Miss Bekah, and they have a couple weeks of school left before their break.  Katie loves being three and is already shaping up to be our little family comedian.

Our teacher teammates Kara and Bekah have both done a GREAT job teaching our kids and weathering the highs and lows of their first year in Mozambique - it is not easy at all, and it requires patience and perseverance through the hard parts of living here.  They will both be visiting family and friends in the States during the "summer," and coming back to us for another year of teaching.  Their job here teaching missionary kids is unique but vital to our team, adding many more man-hours (or woman-hours, really) to our team's time spent teaching, mentoring, and encouraging.  One teacher currently lacks the final $5,000 to complete her funding for living expenses here; please contact us if you can help with this need.

Kara and Bekah have committed to two school years of teaching; this will take them through May 2014.  We are already praying for God to provide two more teachers for the following year: August 2014-May 2015, but it would be great to find teachers for another two-year stretch through May 2016.  In addition to the very important role this fills on our team, it is also a great intermediate step for anyone who feels a desire to live and work in Africa but is still looking for a team or a location.  Please share this information with anyone you know who might be interested!

As we close, we ask that you join us in prayer for:

•   God's Kingdom to come here among the Makua-Metto
•   Health and safety with lots of travel going on 
•    Teacher fundraising
•   For God to provide 2014-15 and 2015-16 teachers
•   For God to provide for our transportation: either truck repairs or new trucks

With love and peace,

Rachel and Alan Howell

Story Warren and Encouraging the 'Why'

One of the most challenging things in the life of a parent of young children is the dreaded word 'why.'  As parents, we know we want to encourage that question, but it still can drive us crazy.  I wrote a post on turning 'whys' into something enjoyable for Story Warren. Please check out the article and poke around their website - they have some great resources for encouraging creativity in children.

Grace and Peace,
Alan

On improving teams - a proverb, a metaphor and a question

Being a sports fan and living in Africa has been a little complicated.  Unfortunately, I have no affiliation for soccer - the most popular (or only?) sport for the majority of the world, including Mozambique.  So, websites, podcasts and phone calls with my father-in-law have been the life-lines keeping me connected to the American sports scene. 

One of my favorite NFL commentators was Mike Lombardi, who regularly appeared on Bill Simmons' podcast before taking a job in the Cleveland Browns' front office.  Besides having a great football name (!), Lombardi used a number of memorable phrases on the podcast in evaluating the different teams. 

I enjoy the way sports can make helpful connections to life and ministry and have written about connections between missions and baseball and basketball.  Here, I wanted to share some thoughts about how Lombardi's diagnostic tools for football teams could serve to increase the effectiveness of cross-cultural mission teams.

A proverb - "Don't confuse hope for a plan."

This is my favorite Lombardi-ism.  He would often talk about football teams whose whole strategies or long-term vision would be based on the 'hope' that player 'X' would develop into a star.  Lombardi would belittle that approach saying that while hope may be a good thing, there still needed to be plans in case that hope never became a reality.

In missions, it can be easy to fall prey to false hope.  We may invest time and resources in immature and unfaithful people with the hope that eventually they will figure it out and turn their life around.  While hope and a reliance on God's power to transform are foundational, we still need to take seriously the powerful forces that keep people from moving forward.  In working towards long-term goals we need to plan for the fact that many we work with will fail to meet their potential.   

A metaphor - "A great team's playbook looks like a first-class French restaurant menu: a small selection of dishes that are all excellent."

So, while good teams do a few things well, Lombardi would contrast that with an underperforming football team whose playbook looks like a gigantic menu from a mediocre restaurant.  Sure, they serve a bunch of dishes, but are any of them really good?  He emphasized the need to pick a few things and do them consistently with excellence.  In evaluating a team's playbook, one should look for quality over quantity.

In missions we can sometimes get pulled into doing lots and lots of activities, all of them are good and there are needs all around us.  But, I think we should draw from the example of successful teams and businesses that do only a few things really, really well.  Teams should concentrate on the things that they are: the most passionate about, the most qualified for, and would have the most impact.

A question - "Who are the 'blue chippers' in your organization?"

For a number of years, Lombardi made lists of the elite players ('blue chips') and near-elite players ('red chips') at each position across the NFL.  Then he would add up the number of those great players on each team and use that as a way to predict how well that team would perform that year.  Lombardi said that most teams don't do a good job of evaluating their own talent.  They tend to overvalue and overpay them to the detriment of the organization. Great teams, though, are skilled at making objective evaluations about their in-house talent.  His counsel would be to know who your elite players are and how to use them well. 

In missions, especially working with multiple churches on a regional level, it is extremely important to know who the blue chippers are and how to help them be most effective.  It is challenging to objectively discern the intersection of capacity (what is this person capable of?) and craving (what is this person eager to do?) in a church leader.  Like Jim Collins example from Good to Great, we must make sure that the right people are on the bus and that they are in the right seats on the bus.

Well, thanks for indulging my inner sports fan for a few minutes. My hope is that these three football diagnostics - the proverb, the metaphor and the question - may be a helpful addition to our toolboxes, aiding teams in becoming better at fulfilling the mission.

Peace,

Alan

Irrational Confidence and Missions

Growing up in Houston in the '80s and '90s was a great time to root for their NBA team, the Rockets.   Those teams won a couple of titles and were a fun bunch to cheer for.  As a kid, one of my favorite players to watch was Vernon Maxwell.  Although not a star, he was a fearless competitor.  He was never the best player on the floor for either team, but if the score was close at the end of the game he was never afraid to take a big shot.

 

Basketball commentator Bill Simmons introduced the concept of "the Irrational Confidence Guy -- the guy who isn't one of the team's best players, but he'll have stretches in which he THINKS he is... Vernon Maxwell was the best Irrational Confidence Guy ever -- he had so much irrational confidence that his Houston teams fed off it."  In another article, Simmons notes that, "Maxwell helped the '94 Rockets win the title and was so irrationally confident that, more than once, he tried to start fights with Michael Jordan because he really, truly believed that they were on the same level." 

Simmons noticed something in this player that I couldn't have articulated as a kid.  Vernon Maxwell was irrationally confident and that characteristic served to help his team succeed on basketball's biggest stage - twice.

Sports can give powerful insights into different areas of life and ministry and over the past year or so I've been thinking about the connections between 'Irrational Confidence' and Missions.  I've become convinced that 'Irrational Confidence' is an underrated and exceedingly necessary characteristic for cross-cultural missionaries.

Most cross-cultural missionaries have job descriptions that fall somewhere on the continuum between audacious and ridiculous.  Our team, for example, moved to Mozambique with the 'irrational' objective of helping a church planting movement start and flourish among an unreached people group to the point that those churches have established and faithful local leaders (elders).  We also hoped to see a good chunk of that accomplished within our team's 10-15 year commitment!

As our family started fundraising and looking for a church to sponsor our work over here, I realized just how crazy my 'pitch' sounded.  Ultimately, I was asking churches to send me to do something that I had never done before... in a culture where it had never happened before... using two language that I didn't even know, yet!  I would say that certainly takes a high level of 'irrational confidence'.  (And praise God for the Donelson Church and their willingness to believe in Rachel and I!)

'Irrational confidence' is a necessary characteristic for cross-cultural missionaries.  Some have an irrational self-confidence, while others have an (ir)rational confidence in the power of a certain Resurrected Lord.  But, my hunch is that cross-cultural missionaries who are able to survive on the field over a sustained period of time will have a healthy dose of both.

So, where does that 'irrational confidence' come from?

Interestingly, three of Simmons' top five all time 'Irrational Confidence Guys' were part of those two Houston Rockets championship teams ('94 and '95).  The other two guys (Sam Cassell and Robert Horry) didn't emerge as irrational confidence guys until later in their careers, though.   It makes me wonder if something about the health or make-up of those specific teams contributed to those three ultimately succeeding in those roles. 

Having done absolutely no research whatsoever(!), I would like to suggest that spiritually healthy cross-cultural missionaries tend to draw their 'irrational confidence' from one or more of three different areas.

1. Rachel and I never imagined living in Africa, but we both had strong, stable families of origin and healthy home churches that provided us with layers and layers of confidence.  It seems like a good portion of missionaries we interact with could tell a similar story - a confidence that comes from supportive parents and churches that consistently modeled a solid faith in the power of God.

2. A second group of long-term cross-cultural missionaries actually grew up on the mission field.   They might say that their 'irrational confidence' comes in part from the fact that they grew up in a similar scenario and have seen the faithfulness of God to bless even tiny mustard seeds to grow into large healthy plants.

3. I would guess that the rest of cross-cultural kingdom workers would fall into a third group that say their 'irrational confidence' came from a dramatic calling or experience that led them to the mission field.  When they experience challenges, they find solid footing in a knowledge that they were meant for that particular service. 

No matter how we attain it, though, I believe a healthy 'irrational confidence' is a necessary characteristic in order to serve long term as cross-cultural missionaries.  We need to be able to stand in the face of extremely long odds and be willing to take the shot.

May God raise up more and more people all over the world who, whether or not they are the most talented or qualified, have an unshakable and irrational confidence in Christ and his coming Kingdom.

Grace and Peace,

Alan