Finishing Well

Jim and Andrea,
with Katherine and Luke

Andrea and I have been living in Central Asia since 1996. My main role during these years has been working with a team to help translate the Old Testament and revise the New Testament for one of the languages in the region. In December our team will have its last official meeting with the project consultant when we will check the translation of 2 Corinthians, 1-2 Timothy and Titus. Once we’ve completed this check, the translation will be essentially completed. In 2013 the team will work on finalizing the text and adding supplementary materials leading up to the publication of the whole Bible in this language for the first time.As the end of this project draws near, I’ve been reflecting on the challenge of “finishing well”. I have a mixture of feelings. Recently a friend commented to me what an amazing accomplishment it is to stay with one task and focus for such a long time. It was encouraging to recall the Lord’s grace in enabling us to continue in this work overs so many years. He’s been faithful to provide all that we’ve needed as a family so that we could live and work in this region for many years, despite numerous challenges. So there’s a feeling of satisfaction and the desire to keep running to the finish line.

But in the past six months we’ve personally experienced many difficulties. It’s been said that often “things go wrong” when a translation nears completion. It seems we’ve had a lot of “things go wrong” in our personal situation since we returned to the field in January. Nothing major, but one small stressor after the other: things breaking down suddenly (seemingly all at once) and needing to be fixed, minor injuries that need attention, a robbery, new conflicts arising, close friends leaving the field…etc. We’re even more aware how much we need your prayers lest we be overwhelmed by whatever tests and challenges lay ahead on the road to the finish line.

There is also the challenge to not grow complacent. As the project nears completion, it’s easy for me to lose motivation. The future after this project is unclear at this point. That uncertainty is something that can become an encumbrance to staying in stride. I need to remind myself that my life and career are not coming to an end, just one phase of it. I feel the need for fresh motivation and guidance for the next “chapter” God has for me. So I’ve been reminded that “finishing well” is a metaphor that relates to much more than simply one project (even one that takes 17-18 years to complete!). I want to finish well in life. I want to keep serving God faithfully all the way to the end of my time on earth, wherever and however he leads.At times I need to remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing. First, because God called me to do it. I believe He’s led me all the way and I can count on His leading me into the future, even when I can’t always feel it. Second, because I believe in the fundamental importance of people having God’s word in their own language if they are to be truly impacted and transformed. The local church cannot grow to maturity without God’s word in the mother-tongue of the people. Finally, because of the privilege of being a part of God’s plan. God is redeeming all nations from the fall, giving them a taste of the age to come, when all will be remade and all will worship Him and know his presence with them forever. I want to be a part of that!

Thanks for praying for us and supporting us through your gifts to the missions program at Park Street. We, together with you, want to stay on course and finish well. Without the support and encouragement from the body of Christ, none of us can do that.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

Click Here for a thought-provoking poem which is a prayer to finish well see

Jim serves as a missionary in Central Asia

Jonah was Not Crazy

Today I confirmed something yet again:  Jonah wasn't crazy.  No, I'm not talking about his hatred of his ethnic rivals in the city of Nineveh -- nor about his madcap attempt to run away from God's direct order.  I'm talking about that All-Important shade-tree...

Okay, I admit it:  I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for some other way to say...IT'S TOO HOT HERE!  "When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life." (4:8)  You know, I used to hate on Jonah and all his drama:  I mean, after all, what's a little heat and sun?  Well, living here, it's no longer so simple to me.

Don't get me wrong:  Jonah's disassociation of himself with the people of Nineveh -- his inability to extrapolate from his own personal discomfort, to their narrowly-averted total destruction -- was selfish in the extreme.  But...still...it was just TOO HOT!  And that shade-tree or plant or whatever it was...well, it meant a lot to him. Poor Jonah.  He was just hot.  (Cue the tear-jerking violins...)

When walking into a too-hot room, my sister once exclaimed:  "What y'all done set the thermostat on?  Hell?!"  I fell out laughing. But her irreverence only makes sense as it recalls to us Something and Someone to be revered, feared...

Please keep us in your prayers.  It is awfully hot here -- in the 120s regularly -- but God was/is right:  My discomfort is nothing compared to the lostness and suffering experienced by those living without Hope.  The pain from the too-hot sun is barely a hint of something far, far worse.  Pray that our city would experience a longer-lasting awakening than did the people Nineveh.  The Lord said, "Should I not have compassion on..that great city...?" (4:11)  May God fill us, and you too, with this same compassion.

We look forward to being in Boston this summer, for 2.5 months, joining many of you as you minister to that great city.  If your Small Group or Christian Formation class or other fellowship has the time/space, we'd love to come by and join in your prayers.  Thanks for always being there for us.

Tom serves in North Africa

Is There Something you Will Not Do?

Usually, when I think of an idol or idolatry, I picture some kind of statue from the Old Testament or even some good things in my life that I try to seek fulfillment from instead of God.  But recently, during one of my times with the Lord, he used a question to probe my heart and reveal a subtle, yet deeply imbedded “idol” that I often overlook.  “Is there something you will not do?” was the question he asked.  As I reviewed my life one constant theme or pattern arose: fear of rejection and ridicule.  I would often make decisions or choose NOT to do something based on this fear.  After becoming a follower of Christ, I experienced growth in this area and even saw many clear examples of God’s hand helping me make decisions based on faith rather than fear.  The fact that I’m on the mission field is just one small example of God’s faithfulness in the midst of my fears—his loving, gentle guidance bringing me to a place I wouldn’t have chosen to go to on my own.  BUT, in all honesty, there were many, many other examples where I clearly said no to God in response to the grip of this fear—there were times when I wasn’t free to obey him because of it.

Recently, God brought to mind an incident from my childhood that I believe contributed largely to the formation of this fear.  I immigrated to the States when I was 8, and less than a year later, during the fourth grade, I experienced something awful.  During the first day of school, my new teacher, Mrs. McNiece, unaware of my status as a new immigrant with an English vocabulary of a 2-year old, doled out some instructions to the class.  We went up in groups to the front (probably to introduce ourselves) and when it was time for me to speak I froze, uncertain of what I should do.  After some silent, awkward moments with all eyes fixed on me, she impatiently lashed out, injecting what felt to me like deep terror, crushing my already fragile confidence.  I felt helpless and idiotic, small and worthless.  I don’t remember what happened next, but I’m guessing one of my classmates from the previous year came to my rescue and explained my situation to our new teacher.

By bringing up this memory, God helped me see that, not only did I allow deep fear to grow in my heart, I also made an unconscious resolution to do everything I could to never experience the excruciating sting of humiliation and rejection again.  I never wanted to be found in so vulnerable and helpless a position where I could be exposed and belittled.  A smile to cover my insecurity, a thin façade of strength and competence, and avoidance of potential failure were all in my bag of tricks.  In effect, I had come up with a self-made defense mechanism against any future hurt by minimizing the chance of rejection by others. Even after coming to Christ, I didn’t realize that I often trusted more in this protective mechanism than I did in him.  God uncovered this subtle form of idolatry in my heart and helped me see that I don’t always trust him as much as I say I do.  At the same time he reminded me of the rejection, isolation, humiliation, and hatred that Jesus faced, even to the point of death.  He was willing to endure all the pain of complete degradation and debasement because he loved me so much.  He understands my fears and my pain, and asks me to give up my own ways of dealing with them.  He calls me to trust him and find complete acceptance in him instead of trying to find it in other people’s perception of me.

So, I share all this as a means to beseech your prayers.  As a person still in process I still have so many weaknesses and I certainly need others’ help in seeing Jesus more clearly.  I also share this to encourage you in your own journey.  Are there things you refuse to do because you trust in something else more than Jesus?  Do you have any “idols” or self-made means of protection that prevent you from saying yes to God and experiencing more of his security and love?

Lord, please help us trust you more each day.  Please reveal the hidden things in our hearts and free us from our fears.  We want to rest in you and experience the fullness of your grace.  How can we ask others to trust you when we don’t completely trust you ourselves?  Please change our hearts, Lord, so that others may see Jesus’ life in us.

Andrew is our missionary working in Asia

Pray For Sudan

Okay...so it's now happening...what I honestly thought would never happen in this city. In case you didn't hear yet: Hate-possessed Muslims (Islamists?) went to a church school and boys' home this past Friday, vandalized the buildings and tried to burn it all down -- in our own part of town.

After prayers on Friday afternoon, a mob from a rabble-rousing mosque stormed toward a small compound, on which the Catholic church had built a dormitory for poor and orphaned boys; a Bible school to educate them and other potential leaders; and a small prayer chapel. While reportedly shouting (in Arabic), "No churches any more -- No Christianity anymore," the mob set fire to the little buildings and burned everything -- clothes, books, Bibles... everything. (Apparently, someone got word to the inhabitants in time, and they fled.) For four years I have repeatedly asserted that nothing like this would ever happen here, in this city. Even while churches and schools are routinely bombed and burned in the rural areas (as the government claims they are "potential rebel hideouts"); I have never seen nor felt this kind of anti-Christian sentiment here in the city, a seeming oasis of popular (if not political) humaneness. This weekend, I was proven wrong. (At least somewhat.) The ever-present minor faction of psychotic extremists have obviously been emboldened by recent events. They did all this evil in broad daylight, apparently without fear of punishment. Local fellowships are trying to collect clothes for the boys, and money to relocate them...somewhere. (I am struck dumb by the banality of that sentence. God help me.)

 

Fortunately, in what the enemy means for evil, the Lord is already acting for Good. By the next day (Saturday), outraged and dismayed by these sick acts of their countrymen, 400-500 Sudanese people (mainly Muslim, it seems) had mobilized via social media and word-of-mouth. They went en masse to try and clean up the compound; salvage whatever they could; document the atrocity with pictures and video; and formally protest this violent bigotry. Here are a couple of the many statements from the mobilizing Facebook pages:

"When I heard yesterday that some people here had burned a church..., I didn't believe it. I never imagined it was true. I thought it was a vicious rumor. To have had it confirmed today was tremendously disappointing. Worse, I heard this action was planned in a mosque. Is this what Islam is? Burning a church that provides services and programs? Becoming hateful toward Southerners because of South Sudanese government's actions? I am disgusted."

"We condemn the attacks on churches in Khartoum and I suggest on this Sunday we join our Christian friends in church and worship with them in solidarity."

"I apologize for every Christian, Muslim, , not religious, and everyone in my country against injustice and dreams of a real homeland ... I apologize to both carry my identity and the identity of the humanity of what happened in the compound of our churches yesterday from the burning and destruction by the tourniquet of the Islamic Conference and the national and those who supported it."

"I refuse this shameful behavior which does not resemble the behavior of Muslims right!!!!!!!!!!!"

Those last two statements are computer-generated translations from Arabic to English; I'm sure you get the gist. There are also intelligent debates by Muslims about whether the perpetrators can/should be considered "real Muslims." (Such discussions are familiar to Christians when faced with the un-Christ like behavior of believers.)

I myself am not ready to move past outrage. I am very angry, sad, shocked and scared -- not scared for myself or my family -- scared of seeing just how devilish human beings can become. The Lord God is already far ahead of me, bringing redemption. But I myself just want everybody in the world to yell and scream and curse about these sick disgusting acts of violence against the hopes of innocent boys and young men trying to better their lives by faith in the Gospel and God's Word. How long, Lord, will you put up with this?! Where are these boys supposed to live now?! What are they supposed to do?! Anyway. Don't mind me. Just pray, please. 

 

AP News Stroy Link

 

From our missionaries in the Sudan

Hungering for God in Your Own Heart Language

It's not OK with me that pastors and churches try to make disciples without having the Bible in a language that gets under the skin and into the bones and muscles of their people.  They are like herdsmen  who think they are giving their herds good grass but are actually giving them indigestion and gas. Sometimes this happens within our own culture, where we have several sub-cultures and different ways of speaking about everyday things.  If you want someone to think you are from another planet, then don't learn to express the Gospel in new ways that are relevant to the way people around you think and speak.

This also happens outside of our culture, where the languages and cultures of the world without any part of the Bible number about 2,000.  If you want churchgoers in Africa or Asia or anywhere to see Christ as an alien from another planet (maybe named Israel) or someone else's culture (such as Western), if you want people to think there is magic in Christianity and they need to be initiated into how to make it work, then keep the Bible in a foreign language.  That's also a great aid to syncretism and sects.

But if they learn English, or French, or Spanish, or Portuguese, or Chinese, or Russian etc in school, they are already using those languages to study school subjects, get a job, learn a trade or run a business.  Isn't that enough with the Bible too?  Enough for what? For learning about love and sin and sacrifice and forgiveness?  For expressing trust and confidence and joy and forgiveness and love and wholehearted commitment?  Do we want disciples trained as though knowing Jesus and following him were a matter of acquiring skills and habits the same way they learn to become a carpenter?  Such learning may lead to success and getting ahead, but does it touch the whole person, created in the image of God?

Where does discipling happen? In isolated parts of life that do not touch the thoughts and emotions? So many are still waiting to know that their hungers, no matter how deep, are already known and provided for by the Creator God of the universe, and that He speaks the language of their thoughts and emotions.

Nancy Haynes is a missionary with Wycliffee bible Translotrs in Cameroon

Missions from Everywhere to Everywhere

Have you have ever heard the phrase "missions is from everywhere-to everywhere?" One of our missionaries Stuart Foster is representing southern Africa at  SIM (Serving in Mission) International Council meeting in Peru this month. Some 80 leaders will be gathering for a once-every-three-years event.  Please keep him in prayer. He writes:

SIM (Serving in Mission) is becoming more and more an everywhere-to-everywhere mission, sending people from 40 countries so far to over 50 countries, and there are many complex questions associated with this, from personnel to financial accounting. The underlying questions are of governance and structure: How does a big organization (with 1600 missionaries), born in another era,  be flexible and grow without fragmenting? 

Pray for the Lord to bless the logistics of these meetings and to give His spirit of wisdom and peace to each delegate. Pray for outreach to new peoples, helpful policies, and great understanding to result.

Stuart Foster is missionary in Mozambique with SIM

Jesus our Forerunner

The second servant song of Isaiah, in chapter 49:1-6, has been a favorite passage of mine for the last 15 years. In particular I have reflected often on verse 4, in which the servant says, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.” Taking these words as a response from Jesus to God the Father, I have reflected on how Jesus felt discouraged during his earthly ministry—especially perhaps as he was hanging on the cross. From a human perspective, his time on earth ended in ignominy, pain, and defeat. Yet his seeming defeat on the cross won eternal salvation for the entire world. This has comforted me when thinking about my seeming failures. The values of the kingdom are not the same as the values of our culture. Even though some of my work and effort seem to have no tangible results, God can use them in ways I cannot foresee or imagine. As well, I was reminded that Jesus identifies with all my struggles, including the struggle of working without visible fruit.  Jesus’ cry of despair in this servant song showed me the truth of these verses in Hebrews: For this reason he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:17-18).

Jesus was also tempted to think that his labor in the Lord had been in vain, although in the second part of Isaiah 49:4 he shows us how we should respond to such a situation: “Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God”.

Recently I have been studying this passage again and have been concentrating more on verse 6: The Lord says, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light to the Gentiles that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

In Jesus’ earthly ministry he concentrated on preaching to his fellow Jews. Though a band of twelve disciples followed him, not many other Jews accepted his message. The statistics of his preaching ministry were not impressive. Still, the Lord does not rebuke him for this but says he will give him an even greater ministry, to be a light to the nations.

Jesus becomes a light to the Gentiles through his disciples. It was their task to spread out from Jerusalem and preach the gospel to the surrounding countries. He continues to be a light to all the nations as we in the present day are willing to go out and be his witnesses. So even in the servant songs of Isaiah we can see the development of God’s plan for cross-cultural missions. God’s plan from the start was for Jesus to train others and send them out to bring the kingdom to others.

During our year at home in Boston, many people have asked us to explain our work to them. I always feel apologetic when I explain that we are not actually translating the Bible into a minority language ourselves. We are helping other people to translate into their own language; training them to do it. This sounds so much less impressive! This servant song has made clear in a new way that God gave Jesus the commission to bring his light to the Gentiles, but this was a commission that Jesus could only fulfill by entrusting it to his disciples on earth, through the agency of the Holy Spirit. If this was impressive enough for Jesus, it is certainly impressive enough for me.

Paula is a Bible Translator in Southeast Asia

Its Not Okay to Give Up

Tom & Michelle,
Josh, Leo

It’s not okay that we often give up too soon.  Society today wants everything instantaneously and is not willing to wait on God.   We have found that when reaching out to normal working families that it takes time to build the relationship and see them open their hearts to the gospel.  It’s not okay that Satan frequently gets the best of us as we give up.

Recently we started a Family Life Homebuilders group.   The content focuses on strengthening the marriage relationship and tackles some of the common sources of problems in marriage.  It is a desperate need where we live.   Many people give up on marriage.  In our group two young men are already on their second marriage and are hoping things go better this time.  The group is designed for seekers and gradually introduces bible verses.  We had wanted to start such a group for a long time but it had never worked out (people moved away, an approaching major event, sickness, etc.)   One of the couples who joined our group we have known for several years and have made repeated attempts to invite them to explore the person of Jesus.   We first met them through an Executive Training Series we were conducting at the time.  We invited them to some holiday outreaches for Easter and Christmas.  Later we met and shared the gospel but there was something holding him back.   We invited them to church and several times they said they were coming but never showed up.   We tried to maintain contact from time to time but eventually lost touch.    We reconnected when a Park Street short term team came to teach a business seminar.  Then they disappeared again for a while.   During a listening prayer time, God placed them on Michelle’s heart but it did not work out to connect with them right then.  Then a few months later, we received a phone call out of the blue.  They wanted to visit our church.  Wow!  It was them initiating this and not us.  They came a couple of times and stopped.  We thought about inviting them to Story of the Soul outreach but then thought it might be better to invite new people.    A while later, we get another phone call out of the blue inviting us to her 30^th birthday.  We met family members on both sides and the relationship was rekindled.  We invited them to the next Story of the Soul and the wife’s heart was greatly touched.  Michelle began doing some basic discipleship lessons with her and she was eating it up.  Michelle could clearly see the Spirit working in her heart.  Then things cooled off a little bit.  When we started this group, they became active engaged participants.  It’s not okay when we don’t heed God’s promptings.  However, we are thankful that He gives us second chances.

Another couple that has joined the group stems from a relationship that Tom has developed over the years.  They first met at a conference and Tom began meeting him regularly for life coaching.  They talked about Jesus as the life source that can bring real and lasting change but something was holding him back from completely giving his life to Christ.  They met several times and then became busy with other things and quit meeting regularly.   Then Tom received a phone call out of the blue inviting Tom to his birthday party to teach his friends how to play poker.  That evening Tom met a number of his friends who had also studied abroad.   Later we were invited to the wedding of one of those friends.  Now our friend is talking about inviting some of those friends to a similar homebuilders group.  He is very close to opening his heart to Jesus.

Many more examples abound of almost giving up.  It’s not okay when we don’t swallow our pride and keep initiating.  We had tried for a while to partner with the campus ministry but things had never worked out.  We were ready to give up and just move on but last year we had an opportunity to teach leadership classes to students and we brought in some campus staff to help.  As a result, one young man came to faith who now wants to join staff and work with students when he graduates.  That would not have happened if we had given up.

We may never know how many times we gave up too soon with a family member, a colleague, a distant relative.  When we stop and ask God to put people on our hearts and then wait for His reply, we might be amazed at what He does through us.  It’s not okay to start believing that it’s too late for God to use us.

Tom and Michelle are business people in Central Asia

God's Word Does Not Return Empty

Paula and Bill

During this year that Bill and I are at home in Boston, we had the opportunity to join in the bicentennial celebration of Adoniram Judson’s send-off to Burma at Salem Tabernacle Church. During the service we heard a short summary of Judson’s life. This reminded me that though we now celebrate Judson as one of the great missionaries of all time, during the course of his life his work could be judged a failure. Though he labored diligently, he made hardly any converts among the Burmese to whom he had gone to preach. But he did persevere in translating the Bible into Burmese. Even though there are still few Christian believers among ethnic Burmese today, the Bible that Judson translated was used to tell the gospel story to the many minority groups who live in Burma. The Karen ethnic group especially took the gospel message to heart, and today large numbers of Karen people are Christians. When Western missionaries had to leave Burma in the 1960s, the Karen decided it was up to them to continue bringing the gospel message to the unreached people groups of northern Burma. As a result, most of the people groups in this region have flourishing churches. Many of them come to us and our colleagues, asking us to help them translate the Bible into their own mother languages. This is the legacy of Adoniram Judson’s Burmese Bible.

As people who help in Bible translation, Bill and I spend a lot of time sitting at our desks, consulting books and deciding on questions concerning translation issues. Sometimes it is hard to answer the question, “How has your work impacted the people of Southeast Asia?” Often we don’t know. In many situations the impact is still to come. We have to keep on working in faith that God will work through his Word, changing hearts and changing cultures. The story of Adoniram Judson and the way his Bible translation into Burmese has impacted the faith of so many people is so encouraging, because it reminds us that God is in charge of results, not us. Isaiah 55:10-11 says: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 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.” This is God’s promise that we are trusting in as we prepare to return to Thailand and continue helping people as they translate the Word of God into their own mother languages.

Paula is a Bible Translator in Southeast Asia

Theological Education- Referencing the Karakeys Seminary

Thi

From Central Asia: It’s not ok!. . . or is it?



Damian and Grace, Moses and Gloryann



It’s not okay with me, seems a precarious theme for us right now.   In mulling over my thoughts, I have found that I tend to one of a few extremes.  On the one hand, there arises a substantial temptation to use this opportunity to try and impress all of you with how much we are daily sacrificing for the gospel.  In this case the intro would sound a little like,

“It is not okay with me that our often-faulty elevators forced us to trounce up and down twelve flights of stairs today on our way to our fourth different church location in two months where there was no heat or power for most of the service.  Oh, and by the way, it was -20° F when we left.  If you have not experienced -20° F, just know it is the point at which your nose hairs freeze together and begin falling out.”  



Notice how here I conveniently left out the part about grumbling most the way and beating on and kicking the elevator doors repeatedly for not working.  In fact, I didn’t even feel ashamed until Moses (our 2 ½ year-old son) mimicked my immaturity by releasing some of his own little fists of fury on the old hibernating dinosaur while exclaiming / repeating “stupid elevators!”  At this point feel free to think, “it’s not okay with me that one of our M’s overseas is modeling this type of behavior to his son!”



On the other hand, we face the temptation of casting a similar faulty image of super-sainthood, but from the opposite perspective.  That would be to insinuate that we’re actually “okay” with things that most people would not be “okay” with because God has called us, equipped us, and empowered us to overcome by walking in the Spirit, claiming His blood and victory, and / or using every other Christianese cliché we can think of.   This kind of entry would probably begin,

“It’s not okay to be not okay with all the temporary and miniscule struggles we face here designed to help us identify with Christ’s suffering on the cross and to grow us in faith, character, and hope so that we more accurately resemble and reflect His glorious image.  We are at peace with it all!”   

The problem here is that we sometimes are not even“ok” (or “at peace” as we say in church) with basic normalcy.  Little things do bug us – cultural misunderstandings, constantly being treated like outsiders, corruption, lack of common courtesy and politeness, horrible air quality, fireworks blasting outside our window all night for weeks before and after new years, etc.  Don’t get us wrong, we love our calling, but as humbling as it is to admit, we are still learning how to live in it with the courage of faith to love this culture well. 

The last extreme temptation is to exclude the things we are not okay with that we are still trying to figure out ourselves.  For example, we have no idea how to love our neighbor after having stumbled upon him physically abusing his wife in a drunken stupor outside our door.  We still don’t know how to respond to repeated racist remarks when people hear Grace and the kids speaking Chinese.  And we are perplexed and grieved for our closest national friend – who is like a grandmother to our kids- being blinded by a sham eye operation and repeatedly manipulated, coerced, and scammed for money while she desperately tries to recover through a corrupt and inept medical system.   We know we are not okay with these things, but honestly we are still trying to figure out what God is calling us to do about them and how.  We desperately need your prayers for how to incarnate the love of Christ in these difficult and scary situations.   

In short, it seems we are not okay with some things that maybe we should be, okay with some things that we probably should not be, and certainly not okay with things we still are not certain about.   How’s that for an inspiring peek into the life of your Park Street M’s life?  However, in all this we can honestly testify to the fact that we are grateful for our calling.  And we are in good company.  Though Jesus was grieved with exactly that which grieved the Father’s heart, his sweating blood in the garden demonstrates that he did not have some kind of magical peace about going to the cross.   Thank You Lord for not being okay with our lives apart from you!

    

Damian serves in Central Asia

The Sanctity of Human Life and the Gendercide Crisis in China

http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. (Luke 10:33)

It's not okay with me that China's girls are being murdered by the millions while the world--and the Church at large--stands idly by.  Ii China today, there is a gendercide--a genocide of girls--as a result of traditional preference for sons and the limits imposed by the One-Child Policy, which is still enforced and more brutal than ever.  Under the One-Child Policy, most Chinese couples are only allowed to have one child.  Women are under immense pressure to get rid of girls through sex-selective abortion, infanticide, abandonment, and even child trafficking.  Get pregnant with another one by accident, and you may be forced by the Family Planning Police  to have an abortion, forced to undergo sterilization surgery, forced to pay a fine several times your annual income, and the list goes on.  That pressure has led to over 35,000 forced and coerced abortions every single day in China--a government statistic!

Martin Luther King Jr., our beloved brother whose life we remembered this week, loved a particular parable that Jesus taught:  Two thousand years ago, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was known for being dangerous, as robbers could easily hide along the path and ambush travelers.  It’s with good reason that neither the priest nor the Levite wanted to help the man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead.  It could have been a trap, or they themselves could have been ambushed as they stooped down to help.  Instead, they passed by on the other side—something that I have done so many times in the face of great suffering.  Isn’t it so much easier to distance ourselves from human suffering?  And yet the true neighbor was the Samaritan, who at great risk and cost to himself rescued the suffering man.  I am daily reminded of the risky love that so many have demonstrated to girls and mothers in China.  These include the workers of All Girls Allowed (www.allgirlsallowed.org), who are daily risking their lives and their livelihoods to rescue girls and mothers from gendercide and forced abortion.  I am inspired by people like Chen Guangcheng, the blind lawyer who has been jailed and beaten repeatedly for representing forced abortion victims.  Even actor Christian Bale was beaten and chased when he tried to visit Chen in his home.  Being a good Samaritan requires risking suffering to be generous towards somebody who may never repay you, trusting that we have a Father in heaven who sees and will repay generously.

Will you take a risk today and join All Girls Allowed in our goal to rescue 5,000 girls from gendercide today and lift up their mothers' heads?  Just $20/month will rescue a girl and give an example of God's love for women everywhere.  You can give at our website, at www.allgirlsallowed.org/donate.

Brian Lee works with All Girls Allowed

Remembering Haiti

It's not okay with me that approximately 200 people a day are diagnosed with cholera in Haiti, and over 7,000 have died since the outbreak began shortly after the earthquake.  It's also not okay with me that, 2 years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and killed an estimated 315,000 people, over 500,000 people are still homeless and living in tent cities, with limited access to clean and safe drinking water.  Both times I have visited Haiti I have witnessed living conditions that are not okay with me--rubble piles strewn throughout the streets, garbage mounds as high as two-story buildings, 30+ children in an orphanage run by a pastor and his wife with only 2 bedrooms for all of the children.  While there is no denying that some progress has been made, the people of Haiti still have many mountains to climb in this journey to sustainability, jobs, and proper living conditions.

 However difficult the journey ahead may be for the people of Haiti, I have personally witnessed that through God all things are possible.  Sharing the love of Jesus & praying together put a smile on the faces and hope in the hearts of the children we had the pleasure of interacting with this past July.

I will leave you with an experience from July that deeply affected me.  After Bible study one day we asked if any of the children would like to pray.  A teenage girl stood up and began to pray in Creole, and one of our translators repeated her prayer in English for us to understand.  Instead of asking God for things, her entire prayer was filled with thanks.  She thanked God for us, for the pastor and his wife, for the food in their bellies, and God for sending Jesus to save us from our sins.  She proved to me that even when faced with conditions that most of us could not even begin to imagine, she thanked God for what she had, instead of asking for what she did not.  She is a part of the future of Haiti,  and it is our responsibility to pray for the people of Haiti and show them the glorious truth of God's love for them.

Marie Sill has volunteered down in Haiti the last two summers 

Loving Children in Kenya

It’s not okay with me that there are children in Kenya that do not know the love and power of Jesus Christ in their lives.  Many of them don’t know any love at all because their parents are dead from AIDS or are abusive or just absent.  I love teaching children about Jesus and loving on them as much as I can.  Most of the children I work with live in the Kibera area of Nairobi, a massive slum that is split in half by a muddy, disgusting stream that turns into a raging torrent during the rainy season.  It’s muddy, dirty and smelly in Kibera.  There are few toilet facilities so most people do their business in plastic bags.  They come to my house and exclaim at how large it is for one person (I’m embarrassed because I find it hard to cram all my junk in my tiny townhouse).  We have Bible Club on Saturday mornings in a ‘hall’ made from aluminum sheets.  The kids have a great time playing games, singing, hearing a Bible story, coloring a picture and eating a snack.  Many of them go to the mosque in the afternoon for more food.  It’s a tug of war for their understanding and allegiance, so I pray everyday that the Holy Spirit will breakthrough to their hearts and guide them into the Kingdom of Light.

That’s the little kids.  Then there are the vijana (youth, they hate being called boys).  They are the future soccer stars of Kenya.  They work hard after school practicing their soccer skills on a make shift field next to the railroad line that runs through Kibera.  One time the train fell over just at the field, killing a few people.  But they keep playing there because there aren’t many open spaces, level or otherwise, in Kibera.  They play in competitions where sometimes the refs and organizers abuse them for being slum kids.  That makes them really mad, but determined to play better than anyone else.  It’s tough being a kid from the slum, and it’s tough to convince them that Jesus has the answers.  Pray with me for their hearts and minds, their health and their safety.  Pray that they will rise from their poverty and live lives pleasing to God.  And that they’ll win all their soccer games (and quit wearing out their sports shoes…we could use a miracle there!)

Carolyn Cummings serves in Kenya with AIM

The Good News for the Lomwe, Mkhuwa, and Takwane Peoples

Stuart and Sindia Foster

It’s not OK with us that over one million Lomwe people of northern Mozambique do not have the Bible in their language. Or that the three million Makhuwa people and the Takwane people don’t have Bibles yet. Hearing God’s Word speak to one’s heart is one of the most empowering experiences a person can have. Working with a team of Mozambicans to bring that to reality is exhilarating, frustrating, and incredibly complex, all at once.

We are glad of your prayers and the Lord’s faithfulness in answering at every step.  Pray as we get ready to go back, to finish the Lomwe Bible and start on the Makhuwa one. Pray with us for the peoples of Mozambique to have the Bible in their heart languages. 

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12

Stuart and Sindia Foster are missionaries in Mozambique with SIM

Investing in the Latin American Church

It's not okay with me that 75% of pastors / church leaders in Latin America do not have adequate biblical or theological training. In normal parlance, we would call this a crisis of leadership! While we can rightly celebrate the revival of the evangelical church in Latin America in the last 40 years, the growth of well-trained leaders has not kept pace.  

Gustavo and Rochelle Karakey

The results of this dearth of theological preparation have been alarming for the Latin American church:  cultural evangelicalism, superficial exegesis, cultural hermeneutics and preaching, shallow discipleship, a stifling legalism, a proliferation of anti-biblical (sometimes syncretistic) practices and a host of heretical movements.  Thus, in Latin America, we have fallen short of the only imperative within the Great Commission, which is to "make disciples" teaching them to obey everything the Lord commanded.

Latin American Christianity is at an historic crossroads.  To reach its full potential, it must develop its own scholars, professors, textbooks and theologies to critically engage with the problems native to its own soil and culture.  This can only occur with a generous transfer of intellectual capital and theological resources, both of which the North American Church has in great abundance. Additionally, Latin America is experiencing a historic continent wide missions movement to other parts of the world, particularly the 10-40 Window and the Muslim world.

The training, mobilization, and sending of missionaries from Latin America represents one of the most important missiological opportunities of our day. Here, once again, the North American church is uniquely poised to play a critical and historic role in the development, training and mobilization of the Latin American churches for the global missions endeavor.

In an era of missionary enterprises, which has often produced an unhealthy financial dependency vis-à-vis the majority world church, the sharing of our intellectual resources with the majority world church carries no such burdens.  It's not OK with me that 75% of pastors / church leaders in Latin America do not have adequate biblical or theological training.  We as the North American church have an opportunity to make a dramatic change in this statistic, and with it, the potential to impact the culture and the institutions of Latin American Christianity.

Gustavo is a LAM missionary teaching at the Bible Seminary of Medellin [http://www.karakey.com/]

A Word from the Mercy Ship in West Africa

Greg and Becca Kulah

It’s not okay with me that every day over 26,000 children die of preventable diseases related to poverty.  Hearing these numbers can be overwhelming and actually mind numbing.  Many sad statistics are told everyday and different pictures of malnourished children shown but until you see it the numbers seem so distant.  Sadly it wasn’t until these past few years of living in Africa that this number became a personal reality to me as I have seen many children die.  Aminata, Annicette, James, Emmanuel, to name a few.  These numbers became names, each of whom I had grown to know and love.  Recently I read a great book called “The Hole in our Gospel” by Richard Stearns.  One conversation from the book that stuck with me was:

“Person 1: Sometimes I would like to ask God why he allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when he could do something about it?

Person 2: Well why don’t you ask him?

Person 1: Because I’m afraid he would ask me the same question.”

1 John 3: 17-18~ If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion – how can God’s love be in that person?  Dear children let us not just say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. We have the means to help.  We have the skills to help.  We have the wisdom to help.  But will we? It’s not okay with me that so many of our brothers and sisters die every day of things that I could help prevent. 

Becca Taylor serves as a nurse and health educator on the Mercy Ship

Heartbreak in Africa

Tom & Terri with Trey

It's not okay with me that people here have insufficient strength to even register their heartbreak with their government. Recently, a significant number of people asked -- yes, asked -- their government if they might stage a short march to the presidential palace to protest the state-sanctioned killing of innocents in border areas. The government said "No, thanks," and the people shamefacedly called off their march and went home. Unlike other areas of the world you've seen on the news -- with citizens flooding various city squares by the thousands -- the many would be protesters here barely have enough to eat and live. With no food reserves in the homes of extended families, to protest is literally to risk the starvation of one's children, not simply harm to oneself. This is not okay.

We continue to hope that our work in translating the Bible will serve to form a critical mass of people who have the personal salvation and inner resources (faith) to trust in the God of the Incredible. (These people are called Believers, and more of them are coming into being every week.) In our experience, it is the real, flesh-and-blood Messiah, Who feeds thousands with a few loaves and fishes, that gives individuals the hope they need to stand for human dignity in the face of threats. It is the Lord of David Who enables a young person to stand against an stubborn Goliath; the God of Gideon Who empowers the humble against the mighty and well-armed. It's not okay with me to see any people held down and struggling to get up, struggling to live as full human beings in God's world. But I guess it would REALLY be not okay with me to give up helping them, and just shamefacedly go home. I pray that God would inspire others to join with us. "The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few."

Tom serves in North Africa

Our Response to God in Missions

Missions is our participation in God’s plan to reconcile his creation back to himself in Jesus Christ. We battle to advance God’s kingdom in a world that is sinful and broken. We all experience things in life that break our hearts and anger our souls to the point of declaring, “It’s not okay!” There is no shortage of injustice, corruption, oppression, disease, genocide, gendercide, starvation, homelessness, persecution, and evil in our world. Not only is there human suffering here on earth, but we live with the reality that there is the future eternal suffering of hell for too many people who are without salvation in Jesus Christ. We send missionaries and support partners all around the world as part of God’s mission because we are not okay with these facts. We are also not okay with a church that remains self-centered and indifferent. Believers who remain apathetic and powerless are not okay! Our lack of discipleship and disobedience to Jesus is not okay. These are not okay with God. This blog is a response to the question- What are we going to do about it?