Monthly Archives: December 2014

When The Mission Ruins The Missionary.

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Why does someone become a missionary? I suspect there are any number of reasons, but usually it involves God’s calling in one form or another. There are also all kinds of people who become missionaries. Some people have been Christians their whole lives. Some by God’s grace have lived lives that have been largely spared from sin and tragedy, while others have a long, tragic, and often sordid past. This post is written mostly to the former, the ones without a history, for reasons I’ll get into. Why does God choose the people He chooses for His purposes? This is a question that often perplexes people, on occasion myself included. Look through the bible and you’ll see all kinds of people God has used for His purposes, and the underlying theme found for almost all of them is that they were imperfect, some in profound ways.  Paul was a murderer. So was David, as well as an adulterer. Gideon was a coward. I could go on, but you get the point. So why is this such an underlying current? The answer is very simple. God is not looking for the über-capable, He’s looking for the über-faithful, and those who will act in love. People who have a history know what they’ve been saved from. People with a history know that it’s only by God’s grace that they are saved, and it’s only by God’s grace that they’re successful in their efforts in ministry. They give glory to the one to which it’s due, and unless they have a very short memory, they know it’s not them.

Now let me get to people who have followed God their entire lives. It is an incredibly blessed person who has not faced the darkness that some have, and are able to serve God faithfully. If you need to read that again for it to sink in, do it, because it’s that important. People who have always followed God are more prone to fall into certain traps. You wouldn’t think this was the case, but it’s true. I’m a missionary. I have many missionaries in my family, and many friends who are missionaries. I have seen the pattern enough times to know that this is not an outlier. Let me give you the chain of events. A person who has followed Christ all their lives goes overseas to the mission field. Initially it’s done with some humility, and a genuine concern for the lost. They are grateful for everyone who is backing them up financially and with prayer. They get overseas to some remote country with crushing poverty, and the depth of how they’ve been blessed is seared into them like a hot iron. But then time passes, and they begin to have success. People are coming to Christ. The church is growing. The sick are being healed, and all kinds of unexplainable things start to happen. That’s when the dangerous road starts. Without the humility that comes from a past away from God, it’s easy for pride to start. Where before there was humility, the missionary starts to see these successes as something they’ve done themselves. Further down the road, they start to see themselves as the only one who can do what they’re doing. The people who are supporting them financially are now seen as just a means to get them where they need to go. Other missionaries who are doing similar work are looked on with suspicion, even members of their own team. The mission becomes everything, coming even ahead of the God that sent them on that mission. In some cases, missionaries will neglect their own families to give to the needy outside their family. Without humility, they can no longer give the mission to God, and rather than leave it in His hands, a large amount of effort goes into attempting to control other people and situations.  A little further down the road, and they start to see themselves as some kind of superhero, a Christian Jason Bourne, if you will. The love they initially had for their supporters turns into glory-seeking and hubris, and that’s where it all falls apart. There are  some places in the bible that talk about this, and I’ll quote a couple.

1st Corinthians 13:1-3 says, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”

1st Timothy 5:8 says, “But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.”

The most direct and to the point passage is from Revelation. It’s a letter written to the church in Ephesus, and it speaks directly to a situation similar to what I speak of. “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands:

“I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.”

 I’ve started down this road on occasion, but fortunately I have a wife that is willing to point it out to me. I’ve seen the damage done, and believe me, I never want to wake up one day, look around, and find I’ve spend lost months or years walking down a different road from the one God called me down. Fortunately, there is always repentance. The question is, what damage has been done by the time repentance happens? I guess this is where prayer and leaving it up to God is the only answer. I’ve seen Him leverage sin on more than one occasion and turn it into something beautiful, and I know He’ capable of doing it again.

I used to think pride wasn’t a big deal. In the past couple years I’ve learned I was wrong. People talk about original sin like it’s something Adam and Eve did when they disobeyed God in the garden.  But people forget about the sin that happened long before that. Pride took an angel of worship and turned him into the devil. Pride is a big deal.

The humility that comes with a checkered history is a valuable thing. If you’ve thought about becoming a missionary, but thought you weren’t good enough, you are wrong. God uses all kinds of people, and many times the worst things that people have done become the greatest assets to God’s kingdom. This is what I mean when I say that God leverages sin. He takes the broken of the world and uses them to fix others. He takes those who are foolish to the world and uses them to confound the wise. Don’t let anyone tell you that your past keeps you from becoming a missionary. Current, un-unrepented sin will. Pride will. Unforgiveness will, but your past won’t.

A South Sudanese pastor weeps in prayer as he prays that God would make him in private the man he claims to be in public.
A South Sudanese pastor weeps in prayer as he prays that God would make him in private the man he claims to be in public.
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Let The Dead Bury Their Dead.

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I normally don’t quote mis-quotes, but there is one mis-quote commonly attributed to Henry David Thoreau that I find more truthful and complete than the original, accurate quote. The mis-quote goes, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them.” So why do men live lives of quiet desperation? The second half of this is where the mis-quote comes in, but I believe it is an attempt to complete the thought.

One of the greatest lies in western culture today is the notion that choice is freedom; the notion that if someone gives you two choices and you have the freedom to pick one, then we are empowered and life is fulfilling. Few bother to ask, “were those the only choices?”. Few bother to ask, “who gave me these choices?”  Many times, the correct choice is one that was not put before you. In economics, we have something called opportunity cost. In a nutshell, opportunity cost is the opportunity that is lost because a different opportunity was taken.  Take for example a person who takes a business opportunity rather than staying home with their kids. On one hand you have a financial gain, but on the other hand you’ve given up time with your kids that will never be regained. That is the opportunity cost of this particular situation. Secular western society gives us lots of opportunities to make money, and inevitably these are what the choices presented before us are based on. Should I go for the job that gives me the most pay, or the most benefits?  But what if God wants you to go with a third choice?  What if you’re called to a life of service? We need to weigh the opportunity cost before we blindly go with the choices put before us.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus was speaking to the crowds on one occasion, and a learned man came up to him, and said to Jesus that he wanted to follow him, but said ” Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.”  Jesus response was, “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”  This might sound really harsh, until you realize that it’s never said, or even implied that this man’s father was actually dead.

Let me give you a modern day equivalent.” I’ll live a life of service to God and to others, but first let me get through college.”  Then you get through college and say, “I’ll live a life of service, but first let me get married.”  Then it starts to change. “I can’t live a life of service, because I have a wife and kids to take care of. I’ll do it after the kids leave the house.”  Then it becomes, “I’ll live a life of service, but I have to wait until I retire and I can live comfortably off my investments.”  Then you retire, and it becomes, “I’d like to live a life of service, but I’m too old and tired.”  These are the opportunity costs we fail to consider. Financially speaking, most people let their income dictate the lifestyle they live. There’s a certain level of income people need to live if they live simply. Inevitably though, people making twice or three times as much, don’t have any more disposable cash than the first person. This is because people let their income dictate their lifestyle. “The more I have, the more I need,” is how it goes. If we took into account the opportunity cost of our lifestyle, we might live a vastly different, and more fulfilling life. We might not drive a new car every two or three years, but we also might live the life that God has called us to, if we were listening. After all, keeping up with the Jones’s tends to keep our ears stuffed full of other sounds. There is never a better time than now. My wife had someone very unhappy with her recently before she went to Africa. They thought she had no business going off to Africa and leaving her children behind. I understand their fear, but I believe that if she waited until the kids were out of the house, the statement would have changed to, “she has no business going off to Africa at her age.”  It’s just fear talking.  It’s just fear talking when we say, “I’ll go when such and such happens”. It’s time we acknowledged the decisions we make that are based on fear and/or greed.  Life is never secure, and anyone who tells you otherwise is likely selling something. So the time might as well be now.

If you’ve got a burden on your heart to go and do something that doesn’t fall within the bounds of “normal life”, get out and do it before that unfulfilled burden turns into the desperation that Thoreau talked about. Let the dead bury their own dead.

ethiopia-7854

Rocks In The Road Is Not A Business Plan

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Last time I was in Kenya, I was in a car with my wife and two of the Kenyans who are our good friends. As we neared the edge of Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, our car was stopped by two men who had placed a large rock in the road. Their “business” if you will, was to put a rock in the road and demand money from people as they drove by before they would remove it. What they got instead was a stern talking to from Jimmy, who had given up a fairly comfortable life to live in the slum.

I have to admit, I’m quite angry right now. One of our friends from the United States is currently helping Jimmy in Kibera. There is a small library there, and it’s not much to look at, but it gives kids who would normally be abandoned during the day a place to go. Outside the library is a festering cesspool of human waste that runs between the library and the next building. Yesterday Jimmy, our American friend, and a group of willing people built a platform over that gully, not just to cover the filth, but to create a small area for kids to sell goods so they can support themselves. On the first day, the children took in about $30, which is quite an accomplishment considering most people live here on $2 a day. It gave the kids a way to learn initiative and self-respect, and keep them from selling drugs.

Over night, some people came and destroyed the bridge they had built, for no other reason than misery loves company. This is the incredible difficulty in poverty alleviation. I’ve seen this happen in Kenya. I’ve seen this happen in South Sudan. I’ve seen this happen on the Indian Reservations in the United States. The attitude is, “I’m Ok with misery and lack as long as you have misery and lack, too.”  Confucius said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”  The same can be said for envy. You can’t sabotage someone else’s work and expect that the same is not going to happen to you. That in a nutshell is why Kibera still exists.  The unfortunate and politically incorrect truth is that no rich man is needed to hold down the poor. Given the opportunity, the poor man will do it himself. This is why it is impossible to separate the spiritual from poverty alleviation. Poverty is rarely just a lack of resources. It may start as a lack of resources, but quickly turns into poverty of spirit. That’s why it is so hard to lift a community from poverty once they’re there. This is the fundamental flaw in western understanding of poverty.

A couple months ago, I was watching the news. Some member of a European royal family (which one I don’t remember) was in Africa with a large entourage and a film crew and reporters. This royal was touring a village and looking around at the poverty. He was interviewed by one of the reporters, and asked what he thought should be done. The royal responded, “They just need resources. They’re not getting the resources they need.” All I could do was sit and shake my head. It wasn’t the resources that were the problem, it was the poverty of spirit that keeps people poor even when the resources are there. You can give a man in the slums fifty dollars, and for some rare individuals he’ll take it and start a business.  But more likely than that is that he’ll take it and get drunk, then come home and beat his wife. This is the harsh reality of the slum. That’s why Kibera has been there for over 100 years. This member of the royal family’s heart was in the right place, but the understanding is not there. He’ll go back to Downton Abbey, and probably raise a bunch of money that will be sent back to this community. In ten years, there will be no sign that he was ever there.

What the slums need is people who are committed for the long haul. People who realize that change comes slowly, one person at a time, through personal sacrifice. What the slums need is leadership from within, not the white man to come from outside and fix all the black man’s problems. The slums need partners who will identify and empower the people and the human resources that already exist there. The slums need Godly men and women who are willing to sacrifice personally so that others won’t have to, and to be examples to people who wish ill to anyone who wants the slum to become a better place. This is all a lot harder than throwing money at the slum. I wish I could convey this concept to anyone who hasn’t been to Africa, but unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. After my first trip to Africa, I knew in my knower that you could throw all of the worlds financial resources at Africa, and if that’s all that was done it would bankrupt the whole world.  If you’ve ever thought about traveling and seeing the world, I want to encourage you in the strongest possible way, to go and see the developing world. Go the the slums. Go see what most of the world lives like. It will give you an understanding of the world, and an understanding of yourself that you didn’t even know you lacked.

For now, all I can do is pray for our friends in Kibera that they will have the fortitude to start over. I will also pray for those that put rocks in the road and destroy other people’s work, that God will break through to them and show them that all they’ve done is hurt their own communities and themselves. I’ll pray for those that think that tearing someone else down somehow lifts them up.  But tonight I’m just sad and angry.

A view of the sewage ditch from the library in Kibera.
A view of the sewage ditch from the library in Kibera.

The Continuing Adventures of Blurry Man

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Blurry Man in Ethiopia. Camera was auto-focused on the background, not the subject.
Blurry Man in Ethiopia. Camera was auto-focused on the background, not the subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A while back I wrote about the adventures of Blurry Man, the adventurer who travels the world and comes back with in-focus pictures of everything and everybody except himself. Well, I’ve been on a few trips since then, and I’m happy to say, that thanks to some great people I was with, I have some in-focus pictures of myself to prove that I was where I was. I’m not sure the people I handed my camera to will ever know how much it means to have pictures of myself in some of the places I’ve been, so I’ll just say “Thanks” right now to those people.

But you’ve come to this blog to see where Blurry Man has been, so I won’t disappoint. There are of course some things you can do to make sure your own blurriness doesn’t happen. The problem is usually the tools you’re using. The reason pictures look so good coming out of an SLR camera with a good lens is that there is control over the depth of field, or how much of the picture is in focus from front to back. The tools that make your pictures look great when used correctly also give you the ability to take really bad pictures if used incorrectly. A good portrait usually has a shallow depth of field, meaning only the portion of the picture with you in it is in focus. This works great when the focal point is You, but if the focal point is something else…. well, the results follow. There are a few ways to alleviate this. The first is to tell the person taking the picture for you to make sure you are in the center of the picture. While this may sometimes be a composition faux-pas, it will at least insure that the central focus point in your camera’s viewfinder will locate you and focus on you instead of the background. The second method is to use a wide lens and a large aperture number to insure a large depth of field that hopefully includes you. This may make you a small part of the picture, but at least you’ll be in focus so long as your shutter speed is long enough. (which is another possible cause of your blurriness.)  The third method, and the one I’m tending to go with lately, is to first stand where you’re going to be in the picture, focus your lens on the person who will be taking the picture, set your focus to manual, hand them the camera, and walk back to exactly the same spot you were standing. Since the distance from you to the person taking your picture is the same as the distance between the person taking your picture and you, you should be in focus when they take your picture since you’ve pre-focused for them. No matter where you are in the picture, as long as you stay the same distance from the lens, you’ll be in focus. This is insurance in case your shooter gets “artsy” The fourth method is to just have someone who is familiar with an SLR take your picture, which, wonderfully, was an option on my last trip to Africa. (Thanks Anthony).

I’ve included a couple of old Blurry Man sightings in this blog, as well as some new ones. I’ve also given the reason why each picture is out of focus.

Blurry Man in Kenya. The subjects are constantly moving either toward or away from the camera. Should have pre-focused on one spot, then clicked the shutter when the subject was the right distance away.
Blurry Man in Kenya. The subjects are constantly moving either toward or away from the camera. Should have pre-focused on one spot, then clicked the shutter when the subject was the right distance away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry Man in Georgia, USA. Where to even start. Wrong focus point, wrong shutter speed, motion from the shooter.
Blurry Man in Georgia, USA. Where to even start. Wrong focus point, wrong shutter speed, motion from the shooter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry Man in Nassau, Bahamas. Camera motion with too slow a shutter speed.
Blurry Man in Nassau, Bahamas. Camera motion with too slow a shutter speed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry Man in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wrong focal point. Should have pre-focused for the shooter.
Blurry Man in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wrong focal point. Should have pre-focused for the shooter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry Man in Switzerland. Wrong focal point again.
Blurry Man in Switzerland. Wrong focal point again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry Man in South Sudan. Wrong focal point again. Nice tree though. There's a story behind it. I might talk about that in another blog.
Blurry Man in South Sudan. Wrong focal point again. Nice tree though. There’s a story behind it. I might talk about that in another blog.

The Giddy Prophet Of Doom

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One of the great things about going to Ethiopia with Petros recently was the interviews with the indigenous pastors, and the stories of their lives that circled around the group. Much as I’d love to tell some of these stories, I think people with a western paradigm, even in churches, would have a hard time believing some of them. This is actually a sad thing for me, because I know that western Christians are dying to see God move, but if He did move, it’s unlikely they would believe what they saw with their own eyes. But this is an aside.  The thing that was impressed upon me over and over again by the Ethiopian pastors was their unwillingness to give details about the hardships they were going through. This puzzled me, and I’ve been thinking about it since. If it were me, I would think I would want to tell the first person willing to listen about the troubles I’ve been going through.

Now cutting to the story of Jonah. For those who are unfamiliar with the story of Jonah, it’s found conveniently in the book of Jonah in the Bible. Jonah was, to say the least, a reluctant prophet. He was sent from what is currently Israel to a city called Nineveh near the modern city of Mosul, in Iraq. His initial reaction was to go in the opposite direction. After some not so gently coaxing, he ended up going to Nineveh and delivering the message God had given, that in forty days Nineveh would be overthrown because of their evil. After delivering the message, Jonah went to an overlook to watch the ensuing destruction. But the people of Nineveh’s reaction was not what Jonah had expected. The Bible says that the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sack-cloth and ashes (a sign up humility and brokenness), from the greatest to the least of them, even the king. And the king put out a decree that everyone should cry out to God, and let everyone turn from his evil ways and from the violence that is in his hands. God saw their repentance and humility, and he relented from the disaster He said He would bring.

This made Jonah angry to no end. I’m not sure what happened to Jonah to make him this way, but as I said before, he was a reluctant prophet. It seems that the only thing that would have satisfied him was the destruction of a city of 120,000 people. I guess sometimes you’re able to deliver a message without actually learning anything from it yourself. So the only one in this story who was actually lost was Jonah himself.

This brings me back to the pastors in Ethiopia. Their reluctance perplexed me. I interviewed a pastor, and one of the questions I asked him was, “what opposition and hardships have you had where your church is?” His initial answer was, “Nothing”. I knew this was not true, because we’ve heard the stories over and over again, and seen what’s happened. But the pastors are reluctant to tell it themselves.  So I pressed a little further. The only detail I was finally able to get from him was, “Yes, we have opposition, but God takes care of it.”

At first I though that it’s just the humility of the pastors that keeps them from saying more, but then it occurred to me that there was much more to it than this. In Matthew 5 Jesus is speaking, and he says the following; “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

These verses hit much closer to home for these pastors than they do for us. Someone says to us, “Happy holidays” and we think we’re being persecuted. Many of these pastors have been stabbed, stoned, beaten or chased out of town by angry mobs. But they come back again, and it’s their forgiveness and compassion that eventually breaks through to people. It was realizing this that awakened me to the truth. It’s virtually impossible to love your enemies if you’re simultaneously complaining about them. If you truly love them, you realize that God loves them as well, and it’s only His forgiveness that’s made you any different from your enemies. This goes for me as well. I need to learn the balance between confronting lies and just being a complainer. I will learn from these men (and women) how to be a man of action who is quiet when quietness is prudent. I will learn not to simply complain because complaining never did any good, and because I can’t love someone when I’m complaining about them.

Some of the new pastors in Ethiopia.
Some of the new pastors in Ethiopia.