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?