Let the Little Children Show Us

I have three daughters.

As father to these amazing girls, I’ve found that two stories in the Bible consistently bring out the strongest emotions in me.

The first is a story of a dad named Jairus. He’s a religious leader who pleads with Jesus to cure his daughter (Luke 8). Jesus agrees to go with him, but along the road they keep getting interrupted.

I find myself in Jairus’ sandals, screaming inside for everyone to just get out of the way. Before they make it to the house, though, they’re interrupted again. It turns out they’re too late. Jairus is told that his beloved daughter is dead.

Jesus simply looks at this dad and tells him to believe. So they continue on to the house. Jesus interrupts the funeral preparations to promptly raise the girl from the dead and present her back to mom and dad.

Yikes – I have a hard time even typing that without choking up. What do you say to the man who gives you back your daughter?

The other story that gets-me-every-time is about a servant girl (2 Kings 5). I don’t like to think of what she went through. Torn away from all that was familiar, she’s a victim of child-trafficking. She’s enslaved and taken to a foreign land. I imagine her crying at night, struggling to learn a new language, longing for home, desperate for a friend...

to read more, check out a post I wrote for Story Warren called Let the Little Children Show Us.

Grace and Peace,
Alan

back to college

Like any job, I guess, there are parts of living in Africa that are really enjoyable and parts that I could do without.  Those challenges make this a work that is sometimes easier to love than it is to like. 

Trying to live as a resident alien, for example, adds its own set of challenges and difficulties.  Sometimes it feels like we're trying to maintain an outpost on mars!   

The best parts of my job, though, those ones that I love being here for, are the times that I get to help nudge and encourage someone who's hungry to be pointed in the right direction.

This past weekend was one of those golden times.

A young man that we've been discipling started college earlier this year.  His dad has been out of the picture and Armindo had cobbled together some jobs over the last few years to get himself through High School.  Now, a couple of our former interns are collaborating to provide a scholarship for him to get a degree in Agriculture.  And I've wanted to check in on him and make sure that he's doing okay.

So, on Friday morning I left Montepuez and drove about 8 hours (over a lot of bumpy dirt roads) to the town of Cuamba, Niassa.  I met up with Armindo and he gave me the tour of his campus.  He introduced me to a bunch of his classmates, roommates and friends.  Everyone was so kind and generous.  (His suitemates, though, seemed pretty shocked to have an American spending the weekend with them - I might as well have been an alien!)  We stayed up late talking in Armindo's dorm room and I slept there on the floor in a sleeping bag.

It was interesting to notice the things that are similar to a U.S. college experience: students sleep in on the weekends, they enjoy blasting their music and watching movies together.  But other things are different.  Instead of ordering pizza or going out for a burger, we ate rice and beans, xima and fish. For Mozambique, it is a pretty nice dorm, but students still have to go get water from the well for drinking and bathing.  And using the bathroom means having to exit the dorm room and walk across to one of the latrines.  "Use this one," Armindo told me, "it smells the least bad."

Over the course of the weekend, he and I talked about everything from God to girls to grades to goals.

He shared about the pressures of living in the dorm with people of differing faiths and ethics.  He talked about being disappointed in a fellow Christian student who failed to practice what he preached. I was pleased to see how Armindo has made strong connections with a local church, and has been very involved there.  And I tried to encourage him to follow through on his idea of helping that church form a youth group.

He talked more about his dream of moving back to Montepuez after his studies are over and working for the cotton company.  We talked about his vision for returning to Cabo Delgado and blessing the church through his future vocation. 

Developing people like Armindo is an important part of what our team can do to help.  It can serve to  stabilize the church and increase its influence in the community.

So, the trip "back to college" this past weekend was really good.  It reminded me of the past experiences Rachel and I have had in campus ministry...though, with a Mozambican twist!

While my goal in going to Cuamba was to encourage Armindo, it was so encouraging for me to get to do what I love.  Here in Africa, I've accepted the fact that those feelings of being an alien won't ever fully disappear, but they are worth it if they put me in a place to get to hang out with and pour my life into people who are striving to follow Jesus well.  Those times are a gift.

May God bless Armindo and other young people to faithfully grow into men and women who have a strong vision for his Kingdom.

Grace and Peace,

Alan

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