Too Stupid to Quit

I have often joked that I would write an autobiography one day and call it 'Too Stupid to Quit'. I think it sums up my life pretty well. You see, the smart man knows that the odds are against him, that he should give up and go home, it isn't safe, it just won't work, no sense in beating your head against a wall. But the stupid person is oblivious to such well rationalized thoughts and keeps going. Well, that's me. Here is a story to prove it.
When we first came to Middle Earth we went to Rohan and stayed in Edoras for a year and a half. Our company did not have anybody in Gondor and really did not know how to get anyone there. I remember going into the head office back home and speaking to our area director. I had a ton of questions. How were we to get to Gondor? What would we do there? If we went with an aid agency which one? With the banking system down because of the civil war how would we get funds? How would we communicate? I had alot more questions than that but these are just a few. He looked at me across his desk and said, "We are looking forward to your going there and then calling us and telling us the answers to these questions." It was of course, the very best answer he could give. Only somebody really stupid would take on a job like that and he knew I was the man for the job.
So, once in Edoras I began making short term trips across the border (which I described in an early post) and began making contacts that would lead us to join an aid agency and go to Gondor. There were three routes to Gondor. We couldn't fly in from Rohan as they had no flights so we had to cross by land. But, with a civil war going on the borders were not pleasant. I had tried them all and those are some great stories that I have yet to tell here. The Southern Border was full of young guys with guns who acted rude and irresponsible. I didn't want to take my wife and two young girls that way. The Middle Border was just plain mean. They hastled me and tried to turn me back everytime I went so I did not want to put the girls through that. The Northern Border was not bad. Trouble was, it only led to the northern city of Cair Andros. It was a long way and two high mountain passes from the capitol city of Minas Tirith. But there was a flight. So, we decided to go that way. We taxied up to Meduseld- Capitol of Rohan- then spent the night with friends. The next morning the guy that we had arranged to take us across the border didn't show. So, we spent an extra day there. The next day he did turn up and he drove us to the border. We then walked across the border with our two small suitcases and got in another taxi to go to the airport. It was only about a four hour journey. We got to the airport and found that the plane had left an hour before. The next one would not be until tomorrow. But why did the plane go early? "Oh, we changed the schedule," she said. When? "Yesterday." Great.
It was mid-July of 1997. It was hot. It was darn hot. I went over to the hotel next to the airport. "You guys have any rooms?" I asked. Oh yes they did. "Electricity, water, fans, anything?" Nope. So, we could sweat here all day long and spend a sleepless miserable night fighting fleas or..... what? Just then a taxi driver came up to me and offered to take me and my family to Minas Tirith for a mere $150. That was thirty dollars cheaper than the plane. Then it occured to me. We could sweat here all day and be miserable and still be... here or we could taxi over the mountains all day and be miserable and then be there. But would Arwen, my lovely wife, buy it. She had seen my video of that second pass before. She might not want to do it. I pitched it and she went for it.
We climbed into the little taxi which was a small car- kind of like a 1970 four door Datsun only brand new- and headed off down the road. We made great time all the way to Argonoth. Argonoth is an ancient city in northern Gondor. Why people have wanted to live there for the last three thousand years is a bit of a mystery to me. Hot, dry, nothing green in sight. We stopped there. Why? "Oh, my brother has a much better car for going over the passes than this little thing. Oh no, you don't want to go to Minas Tirith with me, you want my brother and his wonderful car." Said the not very honest taxi driver. So, around the corner came his brother in a .... well it was... a .... I don't know how to describe it. It was like a 1956 four door Chevy after my cousin had got a hold of it for a few months. It wasn't nice. We had no choice seemingly and got in. It backfired, belched and guzzled down the road toward the first pass. A mere ten thousand feet up and over the mountains of Gondor.
The mountains of Gondor are unique. They are rugged and tall and completely barren. If you see anything green you know there is a village there. We swerved back and forth and back and forth up and up and up the winding road. The car was not up to the task. We stopped more and more frequently at small springs to cool the tired motor. It was clear to me the points were pitted and it was equally clear that the driver didn't know what points were. Finally however, we crested the top and then coasted down and down and down to the river valley below. It was beautiful and majestic and I was stressed and irritated. At last we reached the bottom where there is a small village and a militia post. We stopped at the militia post where the car died for the last time.
I was not too concerned at first. There are four bridges over the river that the road to Minas Tirith crosses over from that point and they are always in bad shape. The first one was closed for repair so no one was going anywhere and the cars were backing up at the post. Surely someone would give us a ride. But no, they were all full. We sat there for most of the afternoon. Just before six I began to get concerned. There was nowhere to spend the night if we were stuck there and if we traveled over the pass at night that could get nasty as there was still a civil war going on. I was not so much concerned about rebel soldiers as I was about difficult militia post who would welcome the opportunity to hassle foreigners traveling at night.
My two girls Luthien, who was seven and Goldberry, who was six complained that the two young men who were building a mudbrick wall near the post were making faces at them. I went over and talked to them. "Anyone in this village have a car?" "Yep, we do. The only car in the village." Great. "Could you take us to Minas Tirish today?" "For $80 sure. We get off work in twenty minutes then we can clean up and go."
We walked to their house where they got cleaned up and then got into their car. It was sort of like an old Volkswagon Beetle without the comfort or charm. It probably was not as big as a VW bug either. But it ran. And the bridge opened up. And off we went. The twenty year old kid driving, his friend in the passanger seat and Arwen, Myself, our two daughters, and two suitcases in the back. It was kinda cozy. I knew there were seven major post from there to the City. As we approached the first post the kid sped up, put on a big mock salute and blew right through it. I thought we were dead. But as the militia turned and looked startled they realized who it was and laughed and waved them through. Apparently, being the owners of the only working car in the valley meant that they knew everyone and more importantly had given everyone rides from time to time. I was encouraged.
Then up we went. Back and forth up the winding roads up and up toward the Great Pass. 11,600 feet is not the highest of passes in this world but this one is unique in that you leave anything like a road, pavement, guardrails, or your mind behind long before you get to the top. Just before you get to the final push to the top there is a little valley and a pretty little stream. It was ten o'clock when we reached it and my head was killing me. We were wearing all the dust of Middle Earth and we had not eaten anything since the morning. I was really concerned that I was torturing my daughters after we had planned so hard to make this trip easy for them. Luthien got out of the car and looking at the pretty little stream she began to run up and down next to it. "Look at at the river! Look at the river! It's beautiful, it's beautiful! Look Daddy, look Mommy! It's beautiful!" Ok, so the girls were not having that rough of a time. The moon was shining in the river and through the fog of my headache I could vaguely make out that it was a pleasant scene.
Up we went. Now the going gets rough. We got as much speed as we could get and went as far up as we could and then as the poor little car lost power and could go no further the kid's friend and I got out and pushed the car up over the steepest spots. Then we would run behind until the road flattened out enough for the car to slow down and for us to get back in. We did this several times. The last time was the longest and we walked about a kilometer before we found them. It was an odd feeling watching that kid drive away with my girls and leave me and this young stranger in the middle of no where but there was no need to fear. He couldn't get that much farhter without needing us to push him again. It was also disconcerting to see the wrecks of vehicles that didn't make it. They were strewn along the road from where they had rolled down from the switchback above. It was good that it was dark but there was still way too much moonlight for Arwen.
Finally, at about 11:00pm we were up and over the top. As we came down into the valley that leads to Minas Tirith I thought maybe now there would be some problems. Surely these kids didn't have friends on this side of the pass. We were sure to be hassled. And we would reach the City at about midnight which was not a safe time to travel there. We came up on the biggest post. I was dreading this one. There was always a big tank and lots of obnoxious soldiers there. We pulled up and the driver jumped out of the car. He put a small bill worth about 25 cents into the hand of the first soldier he saw and said, 'Sorry friend we don't have time.' Then he jumped back in the car and we took off. Another soldier waved his gun at him and called out but he just shouted out the window, 'Hey, I paid that guy back there.' We went on and the kid said to his friend, 'There's just a bunch of women at that post.' Arwen said to me, 'Were there women at that post?' I said, 'No, the guy on top of the tank with a machine gun didn't look like a woman to me.' I think we just learned another slang word.
Anyway we did indeed arrive at the City gates at midnight. The kid jumped out of the car and did the same stunt again. As he drove off suddenly he stopped the car. As I turned and looked it seemed that the whole post had come out after us. Leading them was a big guy with a white shirt uniform and gold on his sleeves- the commander. He was carrying the 25 cent note in his hand. Our driver jumped back out of the car grabbed the money out of the commander's hand told him thanks and got back in the car. He knew him. Unbelievable.
We finally reached my friend's house just after midnight. Celeborn was waiting up for us. I asked him where his roommate was and he said, 'I knew you were coming. When you didn't come on this morning's flight my roommate said you would wait and come tomorrow but I told him no way. I knew you would get here today no matter what you had to do.' I always appreciated him for that.
You see, this is a too long story to make an important point. There are lots of characteristics in the Kingdom. Holiness, honesty, creativity, humility and dozens more maybe. But the one that you HAVE to have, the one that will get you there in the end is endurance. You just can not quit. Ever. This has become a defining principle on our team. We never quit. There is a lot that we could do better. There is so much I need to learn. But what sets our team apart is the fact that we will not quit. Endurance is the premium characteristic for making it in the Kingdom of God.

On Being Apostolic

Balin tells incredible stories of what happens in his prison ministry. He is a little too charismatic for me and this makes me skeptical about some of his stories. In case you have not run into it before let me just say that charismatics generally have really poor math skills. So, when Balin tells me that he regularly gathers four hundred women together and preaches to them and that they have a small building that they call a church and that they have around twenty five or so women who regularly gather there to worship I don't take any of this at face value. One day I said, 'ok let's go to the prison together.'
Let me tell you some things about Balin. He is young. This means that in our Muslim society he has no respect because he is not married yet and has no children. He is loud and gregarious. This means in our conservative society that he must be immature, unintelligent, and ill-mannered. He is a mad man who meets everyone Jesus first and proclaims Christ in the most inappropriate ways I have ever seen in a Muslim Country.
We pulled up to the imposing prison gates and as we did the whole place came alive. Guards on top of the walls were shouting, "BALIN! Balin is here, Balin is here! Open the gates, call the director, Balin is here!" They were pretty excited to see this guy. We went in and I met with the director of the prison. He was one of the slimiest, most corrupt men I have ever met. He could not stop going on and on about how much he loved Balin and how much they appreciated his ministry with the women. We went in and gathered the women at the church. I played a couple of songs and Balin preached. It was clear these ladies knew the Word. There were a couple of really mature leaders there. Many of the guards crowded around to hear him as well. Then he called out, 'who wants prayer?' Many cried out different request. He prayed for all of them, blessed them, and we went out.

Let me add here that Balin has zero training to do what he does. But there is no one like him in the world. What he is is simple. What he does is anointed by the King. Not just anyone can get physically into the prison. Not just anyone can get permission to put up a room and call it church. Not just anyone can shine spiritual light into what I consider one of the most hostile spiritual places on earth. I believe that Balin is an apostle. An apostle specifically to the prisons of Gondor.

Well, now that we come to it what do I mean? What is an apostle? I could say that Balin is an evangelist and everyone would nod their heads up and down and say, 'hmmmm I think so too.' But he is not just an evangelist. The evangelist is a specially gifted person to be able to speak truth into the darkness of a lost soul and see it respond. I am not one and I appreciate very much those who are. I speak truth and sometimes it seems to bounce off the brick walls of men's hearts. An evangelist comes in and all of a sudden there are tears and repentance all over the place. We have all seen this. We understand this. But what then, is an apostle?

An apostle is a ‘sent one.’ He is given a specific task for breaking down barriers and he carries a ministry across the barricades that the enemy has erected to spread the light of the Kingdom in a previously dark place. The key difference for the apostle from the other ministries is the concept of barriers. Paul was sent to the Gentiles. This was cross cultural ministry. He went (physically) from where he was to a different place and culture with the Good News. Peter was an Apostle to the Jews. He was a Jew. He did not in one sense cross a barrier in that he was who he was sent to reach. But in another sense he crossed an important barrier. The Jews had rejected Jesus. Peter was ethnically a Jew but he became a citizen of the Kingdom and then was sent back to the Jews. He was in a sense re-crossing the barrier he had come across. Crossing barriers is important to apostles.

Another characteristic is the ministry. A preacher can preach anywhere. An evangelist evangelizes everywhere he goes. But they are not apostles. An apostle brings a ministry with him. He is not just a team leader. He is a team empowerer. Because he is called to cross the barrier he is given the authority to do the job that the King has called him to. As with all gifts in the Kingdom it only has meaning as it is given away. An apostle gives his authority to others that they may expand the ministry. I have seen this many times in my own ministry here in Gondor. I go out with the team. We meet with the local leaders in the village we go to. I bless them and give them my authority. Then I move on and get out of their way. If I don’t go in the first place the team is powerless to act. If I stay too long I keep the power to act to myself and leave the team ineffective. I need to go, bless, and get out of the way. We see this over and over again in Paul’s ministry. He lands in a place, shares the Good News, then (usually because of persecution) he gets out and leaves the work for Timothy, Titus, and others. In my initial story above this is Balin’s greatest weakness. He has trouble sharing his authority and acts alone too often. We are working on this.

In our Southern Baptist theology the role of the apostle is not understood or even rejected as unnecessary. This has hindered us greatly in understanding our roles as the King has assigned them. In the IMB we have guys called SC’s or Strategy Coordinators. The original seven SC’s were all apostles. Since that time I believe we have lost our way in appointing and training SC’s but I am probably exceeding my authority in judging such. Never the less, God is raising up apostles to cross the final barriers that exist on this earth. We live in exciting times as the Kingdom is expanding in unprecedented ways around the world. Apostles are needed. Let’s pray they rise to the challenge.

What I have written here I have not seen in print anywhere else. If anyone has better ideas please share them. If you have concerns with what I have said I would greatly welcome a dialogue in the comments section.

The Grey Havens

Sorry not to be posting more often but I am out with Arwen and my youngest son to the Grey Havens here on the edge of Middle Earth. We are in a conference with workers and nationals from across the region and it has been really great to see how the King has been moving in spite of great opposition.
We heard a story that I thought was funny. A church planter trainer in western Rohan was speaking to a group of persecuted beleivers. He said that God is training us through three important methods.
Theology- The study of God through His word
Parentology- The persecution we have through our families
Police-ology- The harrasment and imprisonment that they experience from the state.

He said the King used all these things to build them up and make them mature in Christ.

Don't you wish you lived in Rohan and had all those good discipleship tools?

Quick update

Frodo and the team spent the night and had a blessed time of worship and study with the Kili and Fili and their families.
Interesting story- It was cold down in Anfalas but Kili and Fili and their wives were shivering in summer clothes. The guys asked why and they replied that they had followed the Team's example and given their warm things away to all who needed them. Now they all have the flu. The Team told them that generousity was good but that they needed to look out for their own families too. I don't know- I expect the King will bless that kind of obedience. Frodo told them that unless the King was telling them to give stuff away they did not have too- it was not a law.
Anyway, Bomber and Dwalin are still sitting on the fence- don't stop praying them into the Kingdom.

Prayer is where the battle is won
Ministry is just reaping the spoils
-Anon.

Dwalin's Story

My name is Dwalin and I was born in the high mountains of Ithilian. We like to say that it looks like heaven but it is our hell. I love the mountain valleys and rocky peaks. I love the cold mountain streams and the clear starry nights. It is a hard life there. There is not enough good ground to grow food. Some folks here say that people down in Gondor can plant one seed and see ten plants grow up but if we plant ten seeds we may see one plant, we may not.
I am an Ismaili Muslim. The Khalifa in our village speaks for the Agha Khan who is our spiritual guide. The Agha Khan lives in the West but he is very rich and his organization cares for our people here in Ithilian. He provides as much as 50% of our food each year. He builds schools and he has told us that nothing is more important than education. That is why I became a school teacher. Growing up in a hard place where it is so cold all the time led me to drinking and, when I could find the money, taking drugs.

My life just limped along with no purpose until one winter we had an unusual amount of snow. Then in the Spring it rained day after day. The mountains began to come down on us. Many villages had landslide after landslide. My family lost our home. The government offered us good land on a flat plain in Gondor and 56 families took up the offer. They loaded us up in trucks and took us to the most amazing place I had ever seen. It was flat with the mountains many miles in the distance. And all was sand as far as the eye could see. They promised us water, electricity, houses, and land to grow crops. What we got was 56 tents in four rows in the middle of the desert. The Government called it Anfalas. We worked hard that first year even though the temperature was over 120 degrees through the summer. We were determined to make it work. But there were problems immediately. All of us came from different tribes in different valleys in Ithilian. We couldn't work together. My neighbor grew wheat and he had a good crop but the rest of us wasted our time and effort as we had never grown wheat before. Some began raising turkeys but again, we had no idea how and no one was willing to help anyone else.

That is when Strider came to see us. I call him 'the one who sees' because of all the government officials and relief organizations that came to visit our poor village only Strider saw us and our needs. As they worked with us they taught us to live together and to cooperate. Strider brought Frodo, Sam, and Merry. They gave us examples that even our Khalifa says we should live by.

But things got real bad. There was not enough food. My wife and I had one child in Ithilian and praise God she is healthy today. But my wife had three babies since we moved here and each one of them died. I think that my wife has died inside, if you know what I mean. She never smiles and she says she can 't live here anymore. But we are not allowed to go anywhere so what can we do. I started to drink more and more. Strider told me that it was wrong for a school teacher to be the biggest drunk in the village but I think there are others who drank more than me.

Two years ago Strider and his team came to our village to dig wells. Well, I don't know what they did because they made us dig the wells. But they helped us. You know when they were not there we fought all the time. We could not do anything together. Fili was always hitting people and everyone had to watch their step around him. One day Fili and his wife had a big fight. I thought they would kill each other. Then Frodo came. He began to meet with them and pray with them every week for several months. Today Fili and his wife are always together, always laughing. I don't know why. I just know that when the team is here they bring peace with them.

I know that Strider is close to God because two years ago when they were digging the wells he prayed for Bomber's dying son and he was healed. We talked about that for a long time. It really made me think about the things he said. I believed that he knew something about God that our Khalifa does not know. But last year something really amazing happened. Kili and Fili became Christians. They tell everyone they are followers of Jesus and you know what? Fili has not beat anyone since. That is a miracle but you will not believe what else. I started meeting with them and listening to them read the Holy Book and I stopped drinking. Jesus made me stop completely. I don't drink or take drugs anymore. Many of our young people think I am crazy but I don't care. Now I have not been drunk for over a year. When Frodo came to see us the other day I had to talk to him. I am sure that the reason that Strider is close to God and that Frodo, Sam, and Merry bring such peace is that they follow Jesus. I told Frodo that I want to follow Jesus too. I think that means they may want me to be baptized. I don't know what that means. And I don't know what the Agha Khan will think. Will he still think I am a good Muslim? I don't know. What do you think I should do?

Frodo and the team travel to Anfalas tomorrow. Lift them up as they deal with Dwalin, Bomber, and the small church.

CP and Humanitarian Aid

In a small departure from the story telling methodology of my blog here is a paper I recently wrote concerning the methodology of our work. Feel free to be critical.

Church Planting can have as many strategies as there are individuals whom God has called to implement them. All strategies have positive aspects and negative challenges to them. I will outline why I believe that a humanitarian approach is the best for situations that are steeped in poverty, conflict, and resistance to the Gospel. For the sake of oversimplification let’s break down the various strategies into three categories.

The I go alone approach is the first and has been tried. I will now dismiss it out of hand as lacking biblical support and being difficult to implement in the kinds of communities that we are facing.

Next is the Churches plant Churches approach. I like it. It has biblical support. The Church is the Body of Christ and this Body is given the gifts that will make the work of the Kingdom possible. Its strength lies in the fact that motives are clear and the message unmistakable. The ambassadors of Christ come to represent Christ. It is simple and uncluttered. Everyone knows why everyone else is there and what they are supposed to be doing. We have done the work like this for over 200 years and we have lots of history and tradition to learn from and draw on. We know there are pitfalls and we have seen them overcome.

There are some obstacles that might not be apparent with this though. This method pays for an outside worker to come into a new place and develop a national leadership that sends out inside workers to its own people. Money is always an issue in the emerging Church. Where do you find the funds? Can the nationals raise their own support? If a paid CPer comes to a village and shares his faith and someone accepts can that someone not expect to be paid to go share their faith as well? In a very poor or suffering village how will the church show compassion? Is just teaching enough? If they come to a village and help out a local family who is struggling and that family comes to faith do we know why they came to faith? Do they know why they came to faith? What will the other villagers think of this? Will this new believer’s testimony be credible? What about security in a restricted place? Can believers- national or expat- go to restricted areas and share openly? If they can not then what will they do to reach these areas? If they do get there how will they be heard in a hostile environment? How will disciples be made and grown before outside oppression snuffs out the new budding faith of a young believer? I could go on and on. These questions are not unanswerable and these situations are not insurmountable. But the problems must not be ignored. They must be addressed and tackled if we want to see healthy communities of Faith grow and mature.

Our team has chosen to answer these problems with a humanitarian aid organization. This is the NGO Approach. We began in 1997 and to date we have seen four church starts. Two of these no longer exist and two are doing very well. We have evolved in our understanding of what we are doing over the years. I will not recount that journey here. Instead I will list some principles by which we operate that will help give an idea of what we do and why we do it. Let me say right at the beginning here that I am a big believer in the ‘Walls of Jericho’ concept. What we have done here is unique and should not be repeated. The only lesson we can take from Jericho is to act in obedience to the Lord! Please don’t go marching around cities expecting the walls to fall down unless the Lord has commanded you to do just that. The same goes for any strategy to reach any new area. We must hear from the Lord and do it unapologetically. With that disclaimer here is our approach.

There are many disasters here in Middle Earth. I often joke that Gondor is the only country in the world where you can do disaster response full time. We saw that the people were suffering and no one was responding. So, we began responding to the needs. Principle number one: Walk into a place and asked the Holy Spirit what these people need. Then begin meeting that need. I am a Music Major with a Master of Divinity degree. This hardly qualifies me to be a disaster response expert. But God gave our team unqualified favor to do this work. We made many good decisions and we were able to offer real leadership to communities experiencing disaster. Principle number two: The Holy Spirit will gift you to do all that He is calling you to. Or, He gives you the authority to act where he is calling you to act. We were able to build a solid reputation in our country and as a result we have access to sensitive areas where no one else is able to go. We have worked in the remote mountains and along the very sensitive Mordor border. We have done a couple of projects in Mordor itself and in 1998 even opened an office there that is still there today. Our goal has always been to impact the entire country and the region as we had opportunity. I have been very irritated to talk to fellow workers who do not believe that we can offer the kind of large scale effective aid that the Red Cross or other large humanitarian aid agencies can provide. We can and should do much better than those agencies. We have the unlimited resources of the Father, the wisdom and compassion of the Son, and the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. Principle number three: No small visions. This is a very important principle for us as without it we remain in our own strength and forfeit the opportunity to see God work in our lives and ministries.

When we encounter a disaster we have a team of believing guys who go and do assessment. While doing assessment we listen to people and we pray with them and for them. This is culturally appropriate and introduces us to the community as men of faith. After the disaster we continue to witness through our lives as we work with the community to recover from the effects of disaster and return to normalcy. During this time we have found what I call ‘in your face’ evangelism to be utterly useless. People can not hear us and have no context with which to understand our words. So, we live out our faith very publicly. Everything we do is worship. We get up in the morning and pray together. We sing songs, read the Word, and serve others openly. It is important to be understood on this point: We unveil our personal lives with God before the villagers whom we serve. We never tell anyone that they must do this or that or that they must believe this or that. We tell each other in front of the villagers that Jesus is Lord and we encourage each other with scripture and discuss the Word and God’s plan in front of everyone we can. Principle number four: Everything you do must be worship to God. This results in a lot of joy on the team. We are quick to laugh, love, and serve. This sets an example to the whole village as to what a believer is and does. Principle number five: Discipleship begins when you meet someone. There are four national guys on the team and we have as many as two or on a rare occasion three expats on site as well. We model for the village a true Christian community. One day we pulled into a new village and as we unloaded the truck and set up the field office some village leaders came over to me and said, ‘who are these guys? Are they followers of Jesus?’ Ten minutes was all it took for them to see how different these guys behaved from everyone else. They had not said anything about Jesus. They had not passed out Christian literature. Their lives spoke of a love and peace that was foreign to the culture we are serving.

As people have come to faith through the work we have done I have been very pleased with the results. No one asks for money. Our guys work hard doing NGO work and that is understood as the reason they get a pay check. Everything they say and do for Jesus is out of love for Him not for money. Another big advantage to this work is that we serve whole communities. We give aid out to whole communities regardless of their coming to a Bible study or being baptized. This means that the ‘rice Christian’ issue has not really existed for us. The people who have come to faith through our work have gone on to work harder than ever at their secular jobs and have more money than they ever had before. Another great benefit that we have seen is the resulting new Christian community has a better organizational model than we can provide from the West. New believers are not given a ‘come to the building we call Church’ model. They are shown a living community that meets everyday and worships all the time. We have left them free to form whatever organizational model fits with their context. Principle number six: We share the Good News of the Kingdom and let Christ build His Church as He sees fit.

This leads to another principle. I hate extraction evangelism. The idea that we go somewhere and share Christ with one person and disciple him or her apart from any community is very foreign to the New Testament. Pretty much you have the example of Philip and the Eunuch and that is it. Paul shared openly and discipled openly even in hostile situations. We can not have house churches until we have reached households. We must focus on the existing community- as Paul did- and then see how God will redeem it and bring about a new community of faith. Western methodologies are utterly bankrupt here. We must recover real community in our own life and learn to live it in a contagious way before the communities we serve. Principle number seven: You reap what you sow. Sow to an individual, reap an individual, sow to a community, reap a community. I believe that the NGO doing humanitarian aid is the best way to do this among communities that are hostile to the truth and are politically restrictive.

There is more that I could say. We have a whole different set of principles that go with how we provide humanitarian aid. But I think I will conclude here and let you ask questions as you need to. Thanks for this opportunity to share what God has been doing in us and through us. It has been an exciting ride.

Feeling Blue?

A few years ago a container of humanitarian aid was donated to the organization I was working for. We distributed a lot of aid in those days to many people who were suffering from the ill effects of the very destructive civil war. The contents of the container surprised us somewhat. It was a twenty foot container stuffed completely full of Fruit Loops Cereal. Not your normal flour, oil, and beans mix. Normally we had a very strict policy on humanitarian aid that was donated. We never used it for ourselves or our families but since no one here in Middle Earth eats cereal or even knows what it is we gave ourselves- and our children- several boxes each.
We noticed that the Fruit Loops had a big sign on the front of the box saying that this box contained the new 'Blue Ring'. We ate it up. I wondered why someone would donate an entire container of Fruit Loops. Who in the West thought, 'Hey, let's send a container of Fruit Loops to feed poor hungry villagers'? It was an odd thought.
Several days later we had our answer. Our children ate the cereal gratefully and gladly. They then went to the toilet in due course and what resulted literally glowed bright blue. I am not exaggerating! Bright blue that looked as if it would glow in the dark. Well, there seemed to be no other side effects so we kept giving it to our kids. We also distributed it to the nation as we could. I remember one hospital was especially grateful for us donating cases of the stuff for their patients.
I am sure that whoever donated the cereal was just getting rid of a mistake by giving it to a country with no litigation options. We were grateful to be singing the blues.

Friends of Daniel

The call was quite unexpected. Bomber had heard the truth many times and had seen the King work in his life first hand but had never shown any sign that he had the courage to follow Jesus. In the end, faith and courage are close brothers. Indeed they are many times inseparable as the enemy's chief weapon is fear. Bomber called Frodo and asked him how he could become a follower of Jesus. Frodo's answer was not surprising. He told him to go back down to Anfalas where he was from and talk to Kili and Fili. They knew what to do.
Two days later Frodo and Sam traveled down to Anfalas to see what was up. For those of you who have not read back to the Anfalas story, Kili and Fili came to faith this last March and they and their wives are the only believers in the small village of Anfalas. Bomber's son had been miraculously healed- and later his daughter as well- but he had not the courage to follow Jesus and indeed I doubted that he would ever find such. When Frodo and Sam reached Anfalas they went to Bomber's home. He had not gone to Kili and Fili yet but he still wanted to accept Jesus. When asked why the answer was that he was going to travel to Agmar soon and he wanted to make sure that he was in the good graces of the King before he went. Many men here travel to Agmar to work but it is dangerous for them and they don't like it there. So, Frodo asked why he was going and he replied that he was in debt and had to. What debt? A local 'humanitarian' group had leant him money for last year's crop and even though the crop did not do well they still expected payment.
Frodo and Sam took him to the neighboring village and talked to the agency. Frodo and Sam can speak quite boldly when needed and they convinced the agency to give Bomber more time.
Bomber would not have to go to Agmar.
When they returned to Anfalas there was a huge meeting of the entire village. The Government appointed leader was there and he gathered everyone to discuss with Frodo and Sam the canal project that they were working on. Grima was from Ithilian originally as were all of the residence of Anfalas. He was appointed by the Government to oversee the village and he did not miss much of what was happening. He was also a firm follower of Islam and often went behind our team telling people not to listen to us. Of course, to me he was always thankful for our help and very gracious. It was easy to see however, that he had another side.
During the meeting he looked at Kili and asked him in front of the whole village, "Are you a Christian?" He did this to intimidate Kili and humiliate him in front of the village and make an example of him to Frodo and Sam. As Frodo related the story to me he was amazed at Kili's answer. "Yes, I am" he said. "Why" came the reply of Grima. The next answer was even bolder. "Because Jesus is God and he died on the cross for our sins." Fili not wanting to be left out added, "And he rose from the dead and is coming again." I wish I had been there to see that. Daniel's three friends were not any braver in their day than Kili and Fili were.
The next day Bomber went to Kili and Fili and asked them to help him pray to receive Jesus. I asked Frodo what Bomber's wife thought of this and he said that she has been waiting for him to make this decision for some time now. I expect that they will both become followers of Jesus in Anfalas. I go next week to see them. Pray that their courage extends to their being baptised soon.
As I have said many times, fear is the chief weapon of the enemy. He uses it to keep us bound to his lies. "Yes, it is right to go this way, but better be safe and go that way." "Don't do this, do that instead... not now, later may be more strategic...best to keep quiet... you don't want to offend anyone... people might misunderstand... it is not worth the risk." Yes, the enemy's wisperings never seem to stop. Sometimes we are afraid and we don't even know why. When I feel fear I get angry because I know it is the voice of the enemy of our souls and I hate that voice. I have lived in fear, so have you. So have Kili and Fili. Never again.

Joy in the Journey

Many freinds have commented recently on how much I travel. So, not surprisingly here is one of my favorite songs from Michael Card. Ponder and enjoy.

Joy In The Journey by MICHAEL CARD

There is a joy in the journey

There's a light we can love on the way

There is a wonder and wildness to life

And freedom for those who obey

And all those who seek it shall find it

A pardon for all who believe

Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who've been born in the Spirit

And who share incarnation with Him

Who belong to eternity stranded in time

And weary of struggling with sin

Forget not the hope that's before you

And never stop counting the cost

Remember the hopelessness when you were lost

There is a joy in the journey

There's a light we can love on the way

There is a wonder and wildness to life

And freedom for those who obey

And freedom for those who obey...

A Ride Through Rohan

Rohan is not such a happy place just now. Most foreign workers have been kicked out and the nationals who live there live under seige from the Government who seems to think its main task is to make life unbearable for as many as possible. I used to live in Edoras. Our family moved there eleven years ago this week. When I lived there I was under a constant cloud of fear. It is the prevailing weather pattern in Rohan and has been for a long time.
I took my two daughters to the airport in the capitol of Meduseld to send them off to boarding school. Nothing flies East from Gondor these days so I had to drive 16 or so hours to Meduseld to see them off. After our cheery goodbyes my driver and fellow follower of Jesus, Faramir and I headed back down to Edoras. I spent a couple of hours walking over old familiar territory. It was pretty bleak. So many people meandering around in such hopelessness. No one I saw looked happy or content. Face after face was lined with stress. Lips tight, brows furrowed, shoulders hunched. As if the director of some depression era film had got a cast of thousands to all act in character for a really grim scene.
Over the last few years the hard ground has begun to crack and many small groups have emerged. They have untrained leaders whom they call shepherds. Last night we met with around eleven people from 5:00pm until 10:15pm. It was a fantastic time. They told us about the hardships they are facing. All of their mentors and disciplers have been thrown out. They are only allowed one Bible per person in their homes and they are registered. Their every move is followed and chronicled. We sang some songs and praised the King for a while. Then I spoke some hopefully encouraging words. Then Faramir spoke for a long time. We took questions and gave some answers. We listened. We prayed for them and they went out. I was very encouraged by their faithfulness in the face of such persecution. They were not brilliant scholars. They were not bold men and women of deep conviction. They were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and the King was enabling them to stand.
I guess I could say something about how pathetic you and I are as we complain about insignificant things in our lives but I think I am learning something else. We all face stuff. Stuff that tears our hearts out, that makes our faith look silly and shallow. That causes us to question what and why if there is a God what the heck is he up to. As I remember the faces of those few hopeful happy people in that sea of despair I am reminded that the same King is helping me to stand. I will stand and so will you. In days of plenty and in the day of disaster He will be there and we will stand. I am sure of it because I have seen them stand in Rohan. Pray that tonight they will know joy and that their faces will burn with radiant smiles that push back the darkness of a city choking with fear and suspicion.

A Walk in the Dark

Sometimes our lives are like a walk in the dark. We know we are supposed to go forward but which way forward is and what it will look like when we get there are pretty fuzzy. It was like that for us when we started doing disaster response. We were challenged with a lot of questions from our friends who asked about our methodology. How was this going to get us to 'church'? How were we supposed to build big lasting relationships with people when they might be hours away. In some people's minds the only way to impact people was to go and live with them. I suppose that would be impactful for my family but we wanted to do something positive.

In October of 2000 there was an earthquake down in the south-central district of Gondor. Lasarnak sits just across the river from Mordor to the south and Ithilean to the east. This makes it politically sensitive and difficult to access. We drove the seven hour drive down to check it out and Gimli and Bilbo went from house to house assessing and praying for each family. We came up with a plan to recover and eventually helped the community to rebuild 230 homes. We partnered with another agency to do this and my good friend Beren oversaw the project on the ground.

It was not long before Beren was frustrated. He helped the people rebuild but all they could do was ask when Gimli was coming back. This, my friends is an important principle. If you are there on the day of disaster they will never forget you. You can come with truck loads of aid tomorrow and a multi-million dollar budget but the people will never forget the guy who was here today. Even if all he did was pray. But Beren prayed and worked hard. He tried to share his faith with those around him but the ground was hard as rock. The people were cold. No one wanted to listen.

The next year a small church in a town not so far away distributed over 200 Bibles in the same village. The year after that another friend of mine began a community development project there. He developed a Lasarnak local council to deal with problems and dream of development opportunities for their community. I went and saw them. They were still strict Muslims yet, they had changed. My friend had managed through stories and his own lifestyle to change their perception of reality. The good citizens of Lasarnak were developing a Christian world view. The new world view was complete with the idea that God cared about them, that sin was bad and needed to be atoned for, that they could not by their good works gain favor with God. These ideas and others were new to them and they were transforming the way they thought.

Then another friend of mine -the driver of our aid organization- began going down periodically. He has relatives there and he is very convicted about this dark unreached area. This last weekend he went down and two ladies, his neice and her mother came to faith. He was quite excited. So am I. I didn't have plan six years ago when we responded to God's call to go and help Lasarnak but God did. If we are obedient to all that He calls us to we might feel like we are walking in the dark but there is a light at the end of the tunnel- and no, my pessimistic friends, it is not a train.

Going Left to Get Right

I arrived in Edoras in Rohan in 1996. There were a couple of guys working there already. They had a big fight that Spring. I didn't know much about it. There was some girl named Finuel who had accepted Jesus and wanted to follow Him as Lord and Saviour. The rub came in that her parents found out about it and refused to let her meet with any foreigner or study the Bible. Young Short Term guy said forget the parents meet in secret and teach her anyway. The Team Leader said no. Finuel's defining characteristic was rebelion. If Jesus had made a difference in her life then we dare not encourage her to continue to be rebellious. I didn't know her or what to think so I did something truly remarkable. I kept my mouth shut.
Young Short Term guy left after a few months. Spring turned into a blisteringly hot summer. 115 or so in the shade, and precious little of that. There was only one building in town that had air conditioning and it was a fancy hotel built by Southrons and then abandoned. The local authorities picked it up and it was a decent place to hang out. It was cool and quiet. I found a guy who worked there and we did language lessons a few times a week. Yes, in spite of all appearances I am not a complete fool.
One day as I was standing in the hotel lobby waiting for my friend to come in, a beautiful woman came up to me and started talking to me. I was concerned for two reasons. One we were in a hotel and a strange beautiful woman that I had never seen was suddenly talking to me. I was concerned what my friend would think if he walked up just then. Secondly, the first thing out of her mouth was, 'Do you ever feel that God has left you?' Rohan is not like Gondor, where I live now. They are very hostile to any display of any faith. So, I said something insightful like, 'I guess maybe.' Then as she began to pour out her troubles I suddenly realized that this must be Finuel. I didn't know her but since there were only four expatriot families in town (Edoras was around 600,000 folks) she could easily guess who I was. My brain kicked in then. I listened to the Holy Spirit. Spoke words of encouragement and even got to pray for her before my friend showed up. I saw her one time more before I left Rohan the next year.
So, what happened? Well, her parents were astounded at her transformation. She was obedient and respectful. After a year they allowed her to study the Word and meet with a few Christian women. Much later some in her family came to faith also. A house church was started. Another house church. Then she got married to a Christian man and they felt called to go to Mordor. I have never heard if they made it there or not. But I am sure that where ever they are they are bold witnesses for Jesus in their community. In fact, I heard the husband was too bold a time or three and has been in jail.
My point? Well, after this I became convinced that we must respect the family authority lines as we share the Message. Our team has slogans like, 'We will only disciple someone in their parent's living room.' That is not literally true but figuratively true. Of course, principles can go wrong. We follow a living God and he wants us dependant on Him and not a list of principles that make seeking His ways obsolete.
Two years ago a young girl approached one of the ladies on our team and asked how to be saved. We went to the mother (father was dead) and then the grandfather out in the village. She said yes, he said no. We didn't go forward with her. We took our time and worked with mom and grandfather for months trying to build up trust and work our way into the family lines. Then Summer came around. She went out on a paddle boat on a small lake in the city and she drown. We determined several things from all this. One, people are more important than principles. If the King was telling us to work with her then we do not need anyone elses permission. Two, time is short. Jesus is coming soon. But sooner than that many are going up to see Him. They are not ready. We have not told them the truth. We have not loved them deeply. I don't work myself into a big guilt trip over this. The Judge is Just. I trust in that. But if he has given me breath to breathe truth today then I had better be breathing it. If I have the strength to serve today then I had better be serving.
I believe in family evangelism not because it is a neat strategy. I believe in it because the King created the family and we can not be doing His will and violate His creation. But the big secret to obedience is not a clever strategy. It is a determination to worship the King with our whole life every minute of every day. If our lives consist primarily of family relationships then an encounter with the King will shake us up and our relations. If we can compartmentalize our relationship with God so that we can keep family, friends, and coworkers oblivious to our faith then we have shut God out of our lives all together.

The Road Too Often Traveled

Tinuviel has one of the most compelling smiles you have ever seen. She was working with a lady doctor as a translator here in Gondor about ten years ago when she first heard about Jesus. She had been born and raised in Minus Tirith by strict Muslim parents. She knew that she needed to keep the fact that she was studying the Word a secret. After about six months she accepted Jesus as her King. She studied and went to church with friends for another six months when her doctor friend discovered that she had been lying to her family about where she was going on Sunday mornings. The doctor did not realize that Tinuviel's parents were clueless as to her new faith. She challenged Tinuviel to be honest with her family.

Finally, she told her mother and father the truth. She had not been going to work on Sundays, she had been going to church. This was seen as a great betrayal to the family. She was forbidden to see any of her Christian friends and she was forbidden to see the doctor again. When she slipped out to see her friends and go to church again her parents, and particularly her Grandfather went berzerk. She was beaten badly and locked up in her room for days. Then, everyday for weeks she was beaten and her Grandfather read the Koran to her. She tried to contact her friends but was unable to get out or get a messagae to them.
Her best friend was able to smuggle a Bible to her once but she suffered terribly with no end of pain in sight. She cried out in despair to God. After weeks of this she was praying and asking God why she could not hear Him. Why had he abandoned her. She heard an audible voice whisper in her ear. He said, 'I am always with you and I am here now but you can not hear me. You can not hear me because of your fear. Fear makes you deaf to my voice.' Tinuviel's family is originally from Rohan and the voice was in her native Rohan language. Apparently, the King speaks Rohan very well. The beatings went on. But her smile brightened each day and she expressed her love for her family more each day. Finally, her father came home determined to kill her. Her mother talked him out of it but the next day Tinuviel was able to contact her friends and they smuggled her out and hid her in a village for several months.
She really did love her family and after several months she went back to them. They received her warmly. The father was away on business and the mother and Grandfather were very grateful to have her back. When the father came back a few weeks later there was another beating but in the end they did not want to drive her away. They let her stay if she did not mention her faith.

Now the father had asthma very severely and it was not being treated well. The doctor was called back and I beleive saved the father more than once. During this time it became clear to me what some of the issues were. The family, except maybe for the Grandfather, were not that upset about her changing her religion. They were devestated that she had embarrased the family in the neighborhood. She had left her parents teaching and disrespected them.
The doctor felt terrible about this. She had not understood that Tinuviel was lying to her parents from the beginning. She thought that they knew what was going on.
The father eventually died- not coincidentally after the doctor left the country. Tinuviel married a nice young Christian man and they are serving the King down in Belfalas.

This story is important to me because it helped me make up my mind about extraction evangelism. That is, evangelism that pulls an individual out of their home and community to share the Gospel with them. In the West this is the normal mode of evangelism. In the Word it is remarkably unusual. When did Paul share with one guy? He found ways to share with whole communities and as a result we often see whole families - 'households'- won to faith. I think we reap what we sow. Too often we don't sow much and then blame our circumstances on why we don't see much happening. Too often I hear someone talk about sharing with a college kid but when it comes to the kid's 45 year old father we just don't think he will ever change. He is set in his ways and wont listen to what we say. We think hey, I bet I can talk this 20 year old kid into believing the Word, but we have less confidence in our ability to confront a 50 year old man. So, God is where in this scenerio? Exactly nowhere. We are leaving him out. It is no harder for God to save a 50 year old than a 20 year old. The reason we don't see it is because we don't have faith to believe it and so we never sow the Word in the first place.

On our team we have determined to share with the entire community and to never do any kind of 'secret' or behind the scenes evangelism. We are still learning. We are still growing. I believe that the King was honored in the way Tinuviel kept smiling. I believe that she is exactly where the King wants her today in spite of whatever we might have done 'wrong'. But I want to increase my faith and increase my ability to see the King at work here in Gondor. I know he loves all generations and if we have the faith to walk in it I think he has a plan to reach them all.

How to Love

I have written several posts on the humanitarian aspect of what we do. The most notable is 'A Gift of Hope'. Our team does disaster. We have responded to more than sixteen significant disasters since 1998. We have learned lessons in all of these, some from our sucesses but usually through our mistakes. The following story belongs to Gimli who lives in Ithilian in the high mountains of eastern Gondor.
Global warming is a reality. I know many want to dispute it. If it is not happening we don't have to do anything about it. But for us this reality has already impacted our lives. Our glaciers are melting. High in the mountains above Ithilien glaciers have sat for thousands of years- ok, if you are a 'young earth' adherent just a few of thousand years. Now they are melting and that is impacting the lives of those below. Almost four years ago now a glacier high up above the little village of Andros formed a lake on its lip. No one knew about it as it formed, grew, then began to edge toward the lip of the glacier. One night the edge gave way. Suddenly. The water spilled over the edge of the glacier down the valley. Because of the unusual warmth the permafrost in the valley had begun to melt. As the water rushed down the valley it picked up speed and tons of mud. It came toward a narrow gap in the mountains which is where Andros sits. The village is built on the steep slopes on either side of the gap. When the water and mud hit the gap at three o'clock in the morning the villagers heard a mighty roar and the ground shook. They hurried up the sides of the mountain as fast as they could. The water and mud squirted out of the gap like water out of a garden hose with your thumb partially covering the end. Twenty four people were buried instantly.
The Emergency Services notified Gimli and his wife that morning. The jumped into their truck and headed up the valley to the village just a couple of hours away. There was a young lady who needed a ride up the valley so they picked her up. As they wound around the bend of the valley and came within sight of the village the lady cried out. It was her village- but it was gone. The entire landscape had been changed. Where there had been a village next to a river there was a huge mud flat. A few houses up the sides of the mountain were all that were left. The Emergency Services moved into action. Rescue was tried but everyone was either safe or buried beneath fifty feet of mud. They are still there today. The displaced were sheltered in the few remaining homes. Gimli called me to see what resources we had. We had two avenues of aid that should be interesting to you. First, the IMB provides very well for disaster response. In an emergency we on the field can spend up to $5000 before we even asked for it (this number has recently been moved to $10,000). The money comes from the Hunger and Relief Fund that the SBC has had for years. Quick Plug- Give generously! We use this money in our ministry constantly. Secondly, we had just loaded up our truck with relief supplies for Mordor. We called our folks in Mordor and they confirmed that they did not need the supplies urgently, we could divert them to Ithilien. So, we sent the truck the next day to Andros. Gimli, who works well with the Emergency Services people, went back up to the village the next day with the truck. Many trucks of aid had been sent by Government agencies and some other NGO's. They were lined up on the opposite side of the river from the village. The Government was not allowing them to cross. It had been decided by the central government that the people would be relocated and thus all aid should go to the new location. The trouble was that the people did not want to be taken away. A forced relocation is one of the most difficult situations for an NGO to work. We are here at the invitation of the Government and if we interfere with the Government we could jepardize our presence. If we do nothing people suffer.
Gimli didn't need my advice to decide what to do. He did asked me first though. I told him to go and distribute. But he should make it a distribution not to the displaced but to those who were keeping them in their homes. Those folks have precious little in the mountains and extra mouths to feed in their homes was a real burden. As soon as our truck crossed the river many of the other trucks crossed as well.
The next week the Government made a plan to ship out about 500 people. They were to be moved to the southwest corner of the country to a terrible spot which I will call Harad. Harad has very little water, the ground is salty, and it is 120 degrees in the summertime. Not my favorite vacation spot.
So, After a couple of paragraphs and a few hundred words here is the scenerio: 500 people relocated to an area that can not possibly support them and forty or so families left in the washout of what was their village. Due to the fact that the relocation of the families was forced most international aid agencies would have nothing to do with helping the people (because aiding these people would be tantamount to aiding the Government to be unjust).
Enter Gimli and his wife Galadrial. They are deeply moved by the plight of these people and the King had given Gimli and I the mandate and authority to intervene in the lives of disaster victims years ago. They were ready and they went to work. First, Gimli did the distribution of food to the families who were still in Andros. He met with the village leaders. He met with Government officials. He knew the score. Then he went out to Harad. He visited the people and the local governmnent officials there. The local mayor did not want these people as they were an extra headache for him. Gimli distributed food to those who were starving at night. Then he went back up to Andros. What was next? The village made the call.

In talking to Gimli about writing this post I asked him about the projects he did. He said, 'The people were the project.' The individual humanitarian works that he did were not the important thing. He assisted and they themselves built a canal, a flour mill, a bridge but the real work of aid was the people themselves. They were grieving, hopeless, in despair about the disaster, their way of life changing, the injustice done to them. Several families moved back- without documents or permission. What was to be done? Some of these issues are yet to be resolved.

The bridge was the biggest and most ambitious project. The Government and one of the largest aid agencies in the country both looked at the bridge and said, 'no way.' There had been a bridge that was fit for cars and trucks that spanned the river between the main road and the village. The steel span was 30 meters long and four meters wide. It had been swept down the river and was more than three quarters buried in the mud in the middle of the river. But, this bridge was a key source of identity for the community. It was of huge psychological and emotional value to them. With it they were important and connected. Without it they were isolated, alone, and backwards. Gimli told them that if it was that important to them that he would help. The men of Andros worked tirelessly in what is a very long and dramatic story. The river ran shallow during the winter. The men dug in the frozen mud for weeks in a project that stretched into months and finally more than a year. There was no crane or heavy machinery available. They moved it out by hand. Gimli made frequent visits. He stood up in front of the whole village as they worked and told stories from the Word. He prayed frequently for the project. Today the bridge is complete and I had the privilige of walking across it this last summer.

The men of Andros credit the King and Gimli's intervention for them for the completion of the bridge. Gimli did not merely build a canal, a mill, a bridge. He was used by the King to build a community. And in all of this the King has been glorified. Has a church been started. Not yet. That ground is hard and this post would be interminably long to tell you all the issues we face living in a muslim country. There is reason to hope. Because all that I have told you about is not the result of University training or correspondance courses. It is not the result of some expert somewhere doing what he has been trained to do. Gimli and I firmly believe that we are doing precisely what the King has asked us to do. People were suffering. We shared compassion in the name of Jesus. It is obedience to the King and not training or clever strategy that will bring down the walls and take the city.

This is a long post to try and illustrate how we care for people in the name of Jesus. We continually assess how we can serve Him and the people better. My hope is that you will do the same. No small visions.

A Story will Follow

I have been putting off writing about humanitarian aid for a long time. In truth I think about it everyday. As the director of a humanitarian aid organization in a very poor country (9th from the bottom on a recent UN list) I live and breath aid. But what kind of aid is 'humanitarian'? Does it distract from our goal of spreading the Gospel? We have all heard the guilt sermons that end promptly at 12:00 that caused us to weep and mourn our selfish ways but somewhere between the front doors of the church and the 'all you can eat' buffet line our resolve was lost. Many of us give money generously. Many of us are concerned for the plight of our fellow 'man'. Most of us don't know what we are supposed to be doing about it or even if it has anything to do with the assignment that Jesus has given us.
Brent Myers in his very excellent book 'Walking with the Poor' says that the nature of poverty is relational and the cause of poverty is spiritual. This means that we are poor because we don't relate to each other well so as to work together, and our relationships are broken because our relationship with God is broken. For example, down in a village that a friend of mine was working in they complained that they walked five kilometers to get water. They wanted him to do a water project and get some wells dug. Seemed simple. But my friend is smarter than that. He did some investigating. It seems that they used to have a water system in place. A couple of years ago they had a fight with the village upstream and they cut off their water. The village did not have a water problem, it had a relationship problem. To take it home to the West you see in the midst of an affluent society men and women on the street. They are homeless with nowhere to go and live miserable lives. The governments and societies of the West are wealthy. Why not just give these unfortunate individuals lots of money? You already know the answer. It won't help. Money does not solve the real problem. They are poor because all their relationships are broken. Sure that guy lives under a bridge, but he has a brother with a condo in Florida that he hasn't spoken to in years.
So, how do you help him? Firstly, I do believe in humanitarian aid. If the guy is hungry we have got to feed him. But we need to realize that that is not real help. The guy is messed up. His relationships are really broken and he has no idea how to fix them. Usually he doesn't want to fix them. There is a village south of Minas Tirith near Belfalas that was heavily hit by the civil war here ten years ago. Another friend of mine went to a wedding there. As he sat at the table with the whole village in attendance one of his local friends explained the situation. "That guy over there killed my father in cold blood one night. The family over there stole all the furniture out of that other family's house when they fled the fighting. We are all sitting here at this wedding together but we will never trust each other. We will never work together."
What would you say to that?
Well, I hope you do know the answer to that question. Jesus. We hold in our hearts the only one who can give forgiveness. And friend, if you don't have forgiveness you can not give forgiveness. His love is the only thing that can break the lies that hold us down. The enemy has been about decieving for thousands of years. He is pretty good at it. That is why we believe that we can not trust. We can not forgive. We can not love. We will get taken advantage of. Who will look out for me if I don't look out for myself. We have to stand up to those who are against us. We can't let people take advantage of us. We believe all this. And then Jesus comes along. He doesn't insist on his own way. He doesn't condemn. He is not afraid of what others think. He loves unconditionally and when he is threatened he dies rather than raise a single fist.
Everything in me tells me it shouldn't work. But love alone is what will conquer death and hell; Even your own death and the hell we have created right here in our own communities. This is why humanitarian aid is beyond formula. If we give selfishly we accomplish nothing even though our project is flawless on paper. If we choose wrongly at every turn and mess up the whole project yet we love people deeply the project becomes a success. He has protected us from ourselves many times- when our hearts and motives are right.
I will try and tell some stories that illlustrate what I am not saying very well. The bottom line is we must love others. How we get to the bottom line is a long and terrible ordeal some call sanctification.

On Being Grateful

It is the eve of Christmas Eve and I am very grateful. I am very thankful for each of my friends who pray for us. I am thankful to Southern Baptists and others who support our work with finances and prayer. I have talked to many of you who think that we are suffering for the Lord here in Middle Earth. I have talked to many of you who are terrified at the idea that the King might would ask you to come to a place like this. Well, Minas Tirith is not my favorite city. There are unique problems here that no one faces anywhere else. My boss says, "Exotic places always are until you get there." He is a pretty wise guy.
A few years ago there was a big famine. Many in the south of the country were facing critical food shortages. We partnered with the World Bank to distribute more than 1000 tons of wheat seed and fertilizer to farmers who had ground up next years seed and ate it in desperation. It was a challenging project for us but I was very proud of the work we did. We went to village after village for two weeks and distributed the grain. One day Gimli and I took sixteen metric tons of grain into a very remote valley. We gathered the whole village together, prayed for them, and distributed the grain. It had snowed that week and the whole world was white as we climbed out of the valley in our jeep at the end of the day. We crested the ridge and looked back over the white valley with the beautiful river snaking through the middle of it. In the distant East huge snowcapped mountains caught the setting sun and shone forth in a glorious display. Gimli looking back over the scene exclaimed, "Who GETS to have a job like this?"
Most days this is how I feel. Not everyday. But most days.
I love travel songs and poems. In keeping with the theme of the blog here is an offering from JRR Tolkien

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Thanks to all who give through the Lottie Moon Christmas offering and the Cooperative Program which enables me to live out this very full and joyful journey.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Two Stories from Prison

Hey both of you who still check on this blog! Sorry for not writing more but I have been a bit overwhelmed with work and life. I have my two girls back from Boarding School this last week and they will be with us until the end of January. Yeah!
So, for today I have two prison stories for you. I have not discussed our prison work yet which is a shame. We started a local NGO (NGO stands for Non-Governmental Organization) for prison ministry about six years ago now. We had the idea for sometime but needed a director. Eventually the King brought Balin to us. Balin is a madman. He was saved up in the northern reaches of the country and was so excited he went straight home to his village and told everyone. His parents and the other villagers threw him out of town. He came down to Minas Tirith and that is where I met him. He got real excited about prison ministry and called the NGO Love to Prisoners. He meets everyone Jesus first. He shares Jesus as a part of every conversation. He is a rabid evangelist and more than a little charismatic. But here is the weird thing. The prison director and the guards of all the prisons we work in LOVE him. They think he is great. I don't know why. Except that he is annointed by the King to do this work.

Three winters ago it was very cold. Most of our humanitarian work in the prisons happens in the sick ward of Prison number one. There are as many as 120 prisoners in the sick ward at any one time. They usually go there to die. Many die of TB others of pnumonia or various other illnesses. Balin prays for them all. He prays for their healing and their salvation. He sees results regularly. Anyway, back to three winters ago. He led many people to faith that winter. I think around thirty. Almost all of them died. He was very discouraged. One day as he was pouring his heart out to the King and weeping over the fact that nearly everyone who came to faith would die soon after of the illnesses they had the King spoke to him. He said, "Balin! What are complaining about?" Balin replied that all his disciples were dying. The King said, "I am using you to snatch these men from the jaws of Hell. Stop complaining!" When he told me this his face was shining. God was using him. It was enough.

Later Balin went back into the sick ward and prayed for two men. One listened to his testimony about Jesus and the other rebuked him and said that it was wrong for him to listen and it was wrong for Balin to be doing what he was doing. Balin prayed for them both. The next day he went back into the prison. The prisoner who had listened to him had died. The other prisoner was completely healed. When Balin heard this he was sure that he would get an earful about how this proved that Jesus was not the way. Balin was surprised. The healed prisoner apologized for not believing him. He gave testimony to how the other man died in peace and that he wanted the same peace he had had. Balin led that man to faith and he became a great witness in that prison.

Balin worked with a small team for a time but has always had trouble keeping anyone for long. He says that the spiritual atmosphere in the prison is harsh and most people can't handle it for long. One day one of his helpers went into the prison to disciple four men who had made professions of faith. He reported that they were in serious discussion when he came into the room. They were discussing the fact that all four of them were seriously ill and would likely die soon. What were they going to do to help their fellow prisoners find the truth before they died? How could they disciple some one who would get well and get out of prison some day and become a witness to their people in their country? They prayed a long time about this that day. I know that they are all dead now. I do not know what seeds they were able to sow in the hearts of any of their fellow inmates. I do know that they sowed seed in my heart that day.

How to Love

I have written several posts on the humanitarian aspect of what we do. The most notable is 'A Gift of Hope'. Our team does disaster. We have responded to more than sixteen significant disasters since 1998. We have learned lessons in all of these, some from our sucesses but usually through our mistakes. The following story belongs to Gimli who lives in Ithilian in the high mountains of eastern Gondor.
Global warming is a reality. I know many want to dispute it. If it is not happening we don't have to do anything about it. But for us this reality has already impacted our lives. Our glaciers are melting. High in the mountains above Ithilien glaciers have sat for thousands of years- ok, if you are a 'young earth' adherent just a few of thousand years. Now they are melting and that is impacting the lives of those below. Almost four years ago now a glacier high up above the little village of Andros formed a lake on its lip. No one knew about it as it formed, grew, then began to edge toward the lip of the glacier. One night the edge gave way. Suddenly. The water spilled over the edge of the glacier down the valley. Because of the unusual warmth the permafrost in the valley had begun to melt. As the water rushed down the valley it picked up speed and tons of mud. It came toward a narrow gap in the mountains which is where Andros sits. The village is built on the steep slopes on either side of the gap. When the water and mud hit the gap at three o'clock in the morning the villagers heard a mighty roar and the ground shook. They hurried up the sides of the mountain as fast as they could. The water and mud squirted out of the gap like water out of a garden hose with your thumb partially covering the end. Twenty four people were buried instantly.
The Emergency Services notified Gimli and his wife that morning. The jumped into their truck and headed up the valley to the village just a couple of hours away. There was a young lady who needed a ride up the valley so they picked her up. As they wound around the bend of the valley and came within sight of the village the lady cried out. It was her village- but it was gone. The entire landscape had been changed. Where there had been a village next to a river there was a huge mud flat. A few houses up the sides of the mountain were all that were left. The Emergency Services moved into action. Rescue was tried but everyone was either safe or buried beneath fifty feet of mud. They are still there today. The displaced were sheltered in the few remaining homes. Gimli called me to see what resources we had. We had two avenues of aid that should be interesting to you. First, the IMB provides very well for disaster response. In an emergency we on the field can spend up to $5000 before we even asked for it (this number has recently been moved to $10,000). The money comes from the Hunger and Relief Fund that the SBC has had for years. Quick Plug- Give generously! We use this money in our ministry constantly. Secondly, we had just loaded up our truck with relief supplies for Mordor. We called our folks in Mordor and they confirmed that they did not need the supplies urgently, we could divert them to Ithilien. So, we sent the truck the next day to Andros. Gimli, who works well with the Emergency Services people, went back up to the village the next day with the truck. Many trucks of aid had been sent by Government agencies and some other NGO's. They were lined up on the opposite side of the river from the village. The Government was not allowing them to cross. It had been decided by the central government that the people would be relocated and thus all aid should go to the new location. The trouble was that the people did not want to be taken away. A forced relocation is one of the most difficult situations for an NGO to work. We are here at the invitation of the Government and if we interfere with the Government we could jepardize our presence. If we do nothing people suffer.
Gimli didn't need my advice to decide what to do. He did asked me first though. I told him to go and distribute. But he should make it a distribution not to the displaced but to those who were keeping them in their homes. Those folks have precious little in the mountains and extra mouths to feed in their homes was a real burden. As soon as our truck crossed the river many of the other trucks crossed as well.
The next week the Government made a plan to ship out about 500 people. They were to be moved to the southwest corner of the country to a terrible spot which I will call Harad. Harad has very little water, the ground is salty, and it is 120 degrees in the summertime. Not my favorite vacation spot.
So, After a couple of paragraphs and a few hundred words here is the scenerio: 500 people relocated to an area that can not possibly support them and forty or so families left in the washout of what was their village. Due to the fact that the relocation of the families was forced most international aid agencies would have nothing to do with helping the people (because aiding these people would be tantamount to aiding the Government to be unjust).
Enter Gimli and his wife Galadrial. They are deeply moved by the plight of these people and the King had given Gimli and I the mandate and authority to intervene in the lives of disaster victims years ago. They were ready and they went to work. First, Gimli did the distribution of food to the families who were still in Andros. He met with the village leaders. He met with Government officials. He knew the score. Then he went out to Harad. He visited the people and the local governmnent officials there. The local mayor did not want these people as they were an extra headache for him. Gimli distributed food to those who were starving at night. Then he went back up to Andros. What was next? The village made the call.

In talking to Gimli about writing this post I asked him about the projects he did. He said, 'The people were the project.' The individual humanitarian works that he did were not the important thing. He assisted and they themselves built a canal, a flour mill, a bridge but the real work of aid was the people themselves. They were grieving, hopeless, in despair about the disaster, their way of life changing, the injustice done to them. Several families moved back- without documents or permission. What was to be done? Some of these issues are yet to be resolved.

The bridge was the biggest and most ambitious project. The Government and one of the largest aid agencies in the country both looked at the bridge and said, 'no way.' There had been a bridge that was fit for cars and trucks that spanned the river between the main road and the village. The steel span was 30 meters long and four meters wide. It had been swept down the river and was more than three quarters buried in the mud in the middle of the river. But, this bridge was a key source of identity for the community. It was of huge psychological and emotional value to them. With it they were important and connected. Without it they were isolated, alone, and backwards. Gimli told them that if it was that important to them that he would help. The men of Andros worked tirelessly in what is a very long and dramatic story. The river ran shallow during the winter. The men dug in the frozen mud for weeks in a project that stretched into months and finally more than a year. There was no crane or heavy machinery available. They moved it out by hand. Gimli made frequent visits. He stood up in front of the whole village as they worked and told stories from the Word. He prayed frequently for the project. Today the bridge is complete and I had the privilige of walking across it this last summer.

The men of Andros credit the King and Gimli's intervention for them for the completion of the bridge. Gimli did not merely build a canal, a mill, a bridge. He was used by the King to build a community. And in all of this the King has been glorified. Has a church been started. Not yet. That ground is hard and this post would be interminably long to tell you all the issues we face living in a muslim country. There is reason to hope. Because all that I have told you about is not the result of University training or correspondance courses. It is not the result of some expert somewhere doing what he has been trained to do. Gimli and I firmly believe that we are doing precisely what the King has asked us to do. People were suffering. We shared compassion in the name of Jesus. It is obedience to the King and not training or clever strategy that will bring down the walls and take the city.

This is a long post to try and illustrate how we care for people in the name of Jesus. We continually assess how we can serve Him and the people better. My hope is that you will do the same. No small visions.

Bound

We learned early on that when choosing a house to rent having a landlord you can live with is more important than having a nice house to live in. Gimli came to Minas Tirith a couple of months after I did. We found a great house for him just down the street from us. It was a really nice home with an indoor toilet and bath. Most homes did not have this wonderful feature back then, though many do now. The landlady was an elderly woman with a bitter disposition. That house was in reserve for when her grandson got married. That house was what she had to give him. It was very important. It was all she thought about day and night. Now she was renting it out to strangers and who knew what they might do to it.
She came around to the house every day. Every single day. Daily. She would come into the yard and look in all the windows to see if everything was as it should be. One day she came to my house in a panic. The silver plate was gone! It was gone, gone, gone. I tried to calm her down. Perhaps Gimli or his wife just took it down and put it some where safe? No, no, no, it's gone. They have lost it. I talked to Gimli later. He said that that silver plate was the ugliest thing he had ever seen and they had put it up in the closet. It was fine. She insisted they put it back on the wall. She came by once or even twice a day with complaints like this.
I was annoyed at first but then I became quite concerned for her. Her whole life was this house. It was quite clearly her god. But here's the thing: She received no pleasure whatsoever from this house. It was purely a burden to her. A burden she could not, or would not put down. But the situation got worse. A lot worse. A water main that ran next to the house had leak. One day Gimli found his basement flooded. This is always a bad thing but when your house is made of mud bricks it is a serious bad thing.
This began a saga that Gimli has written up and it is several pages long. I will not tell it all. I am too lazy to type it all up. Gimli dug a small canal to drain the water away from the house and considered that good enough. You can imagine that the landlady was not satisfied. She got the water department of the city to come out. They are underfunded and notoriously incompetent. They dug to fix the problem and the long and the short of it is that there was fifteen foot deep swimiming pool that eventually swallowed the entire road next to the house for the best part of four months.
During this time her health began to deteriorate. She became more and more ill and her disposition became more and more bitter. The house. It was all she thought about and it gave her nothing. She would bad mouth all the neighbors on the street and eventually Gimli had to move. He decided that he could put up with her but that everyone he came to minister to could not, and should not have to. He found another home. A home whose owner lived in another country.
All during this time I would talk to the old woman. I think she liked me in as much as she was capable of liking anyone. I listened to her and I counseled her. She never listened to me but she knew I cared. One day I challenged her attitude about the house. I told her it was just a thing. A material object that would pass away. She should not let it bind her the way it did. She agreed. It was a thing, and a temporal thing at that. But she could not let go of it. It was everything to her. About a year after Gimli moved she died of stomach cancer. She never did go and see a doctor. It would have cost money that was needed for the house. Her son eventually sold it.
I have thought a lot about her. How much she is a caricature of all of us. We are bound.
Bound to sin and selfishness. Bound to the lies that hold us down and keep us in spiritual and relational poverty. She lived her whole life in a misery of worry and disatisfaction because of that house and now she is spending eternity in hell for it. It is such an unthinkable evil that surely someone should do something about it. Fortunately someone has. Jesus died to set us free from this bondage. He calls us now to be free. Are you free?