Category: Other Page 57 of 181

Everything Good

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On November 22, 2014

In Other

So we’re new to this Reach Tanzania thing.  You know, the pastoral training program we just joined a few months ago.

But last week, we got to join in the celebration of the completion of the 2014 Certificate Program.  It was one of those days of Everything Good.  When you see God working and you know you are doing what you are supposed to be doing.

And this is what our students (all who are currently serving in church leadership) are saying:

My life is changing.  I came here like I was blind and now I see.  In the area of my marriage, before it was bad, but now I enjoy my marriage.

I learned how to prepare a sermon.  Before I took these courses, I thought that the more Scripture references I used, the more spiritual I was.  But really I was just taking a bunch of luggage and throwing it at my congregation.  I have now learned how to preach and teach.  I came to realize that I can have just one point from the Scripture when I give a sermon.  

Life change as leadership is not the works but the heart.  God does not look at our works but the intentions of our heart.

Reach Tanzania is the place where lives are changed!  These teachings have helped me a lot to arrange my sermons.  I can use stories, I can use questions, and to teach using only one point.  

The teaching that really changed my life is the life of Christ Jesus of Nazareth.  (Gil taught that class!)

From the Life of Christ class, I learned about discipleship.  Discipleship is about leading and teaching someone through example.  

I always wanted to be noticed as a team leader.  I wanted many people in my ministry.  I have learned I can invest my time even for one person who is ready to grow.  



I have learned how to read the Bible.  When I used to read the Bible and I came to a part I didn’t understand, I would just jump to another place, or close the Bible.  But since I came here to learn, I have learned how to read my Bible.

What a blessing to know these faithful men and women!  In January, we start with a new group of students, and we get to start from the beginning this time instead of joining in the middle.  We’ve only just begun….and yet we already get to see the fruit.  God is good.


Do People Only Read Our Email Updates If They Think We’re Having Marriage Problems?

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On November 11, 2014

In Other

61.7%

That’s the percentage of people on our mailing list who opened our email prayer update this month.

In January, we started using MailChimpfor our email newsletters.  One of the benefits is that we can compare the overall “open rates” of our newsletters over time.

Though this is interesting information for us, it was actually kind of discouraging at first.  An average of 60% of our 500 newsletter recipients (who all signed up voluntarily) open our emails.  And that’s how many open it….we don’t know the actual percentage of how many actually read it.  I’m guessing that’s a lot lower.

This information has helped us to write better letters.  How short can we make it and still say what we need to say?  That’s our goal.  We figure we have approximately 30 seconds of reading time to get our point across before people move onto the next email.

It’s also made us better at our subject lines.  We’ve learned that if the subject line is interesting, people are more likely to open it.  The newsletter with our highest open rate had a subject line of “Marriage Problems.”  We rejoiced when 76.6% of recipients opened that one.

Then we got kind of depressed when we realized that probably most of those people opened it because they thought we were having marriage problems (when actually we wrote about the class we taught on marriage and family).  Great.  Should we be more depressed that 76.6% of people wanted to read about our marriage problems, or that 23.4% of people on our mailing list didn’t care?

Now, before you go thinking that I’m putting a big guilt trip out there, hang with me.  If you are on our email list, please don’t read our letters out of guilt.  Or open them just to get our numbers up.

But I have been thinking about this.

Sometimes I wonder why we should even expect people to be interested enough in our ministry to read about it every month.  Should we have that expectation?  I do believe that the western church has idolized overseas missions and missionaries.  How are we any better than the animator in Hollywood who is living out the gospel in his own mission field?  Why is what we are doing more important than the family who is church planting in San Francisco?

We aren’t any better.  It’s not more important.  And yet you are not expected to read newsletters from those people every month.  They don’t get prayed for in front of the whole congregation, and their pictures are not on your refrigerator.

I am often uncomfortable with this.  I don’t like getting so much attention for what we do, when really we are simply living out our calling and passion for the glory of God–which is what millions of Americans are doing in their cities and neighborhoods.  There really shouldn’t be a whole lot of difference–and I think it would actually be pretty cool if the Church started treating ordinary laborers the same way it treats overseas laborers.

So.

Is there a purpose in reading missionary newsletters?  In inviting missionaries to speak at your small group?  In following and supporting their ministries?

…you will be my witnesses….to the ends of the earth…



…go and make disciples of all nations….



…with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation…

God cares about the nations.  He cares about the gospel going out into all people groups.  So we should care too.  And that’s pretty much all there is to it.

We shouldn’t care because missionaries are more important, or more spiritual, or because their ministry is more fruitful or significant than anyone else who is laboring for the kingdom of God.  We should care because God cares about the nations.

However, I totally understand the dilemma of too much information in this generation.  We are bombarded on a daily basis, an hourly basis, with information about everything and every place.  We receive dozens of emails, Facebook posts, Tweets, and Instagrams, every day…every hour!  There is no possible way we can absorb all of that information.

So this is my advice:  Choose one.

Choose one country.  Or one people group.  Or one missionary.  Or one overseas ministry.  And pay attention to it.  Read about it.  Pray for it.  Financially support it.  Get passionate about it.  Get your kids excited about it.  Advocate for it at your church.

Maybe over time, you can add more to your list.  But don’t get so overwhelmed by all of the information out there, and all of the missionary updates that fill up your inbox, that you just ignore them all.  Because you’ll be missing out on something important, and God wants to include you.

Listen, I really don’t expect all 500 people on our mailing list to read all of our updates.  I am really okay with that.  But I hope that if people aren’t reading them, it’s because they are so interested in a missionary somewhere else.

And one more thing–those people who are really into our ministry?  (You know who you are!) The ones who read every letter, tell us they are praying, send in a check every month, rejoice when we rejoice and cry when we cry?  Those people have a part in this ministry.  Someday, on That Day, when all is revealed, they will stand side by side with us and have a part in our joy.

Find a country, or a missionary, or a ministry, where that will be true of you too.

All These Children Are Confused

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On November 9, 2014

In Other

This morning, Grace was looking at her VBS picture.  They had attended in June at our church in California.

There’s a couple hundred people in the picture.  “It’s easy to find us,” she exclaimed.  “See, Mom?  We’re the only brown kids in there.”

She’s not bothered by it now.  But she was when we were in America.

Our church family, and everyone else for that matter, wholeheartedly embraced my children.  But they felt different and they knew they stood out.  Yes, it was hard for them, especially Grace.  Sometimes, she cried about it.  It was a difficult road to walk with her.

My children are thrust into the middle of several different worlds.  The Caucasian American world, the Tanzanian world, the international ex-patriate world.  And I worry.  As they grow older, will they be able to identify with us?  with Tanzanians?  Where will they fit?  Will they be able to bridge all these worlds?

And that is one of the many reasons I am thankful for HOPAC.  Half of the students are Tanzanian, and the other half are everything else.  Many, many of the children have no idea what they are.

There’s the group of kids who are half Dutch, and half Greek, but were born in Tanzania.  There’s all those who are half Tanzanian and half something else–German, Danish, Japanese–who speak multiple languages and may have a passport to a country they have never lived in.

I asked a little African-American second grader what state she is from.  She looked at me blankly.  “I don’t know,” she shrugged.  “I was born in China.”

I love it.  My children, being born and raised in Tanzania by American parents, can be confused here, and fit right in.  It’s beautiful.

Friday, we celebrated International Day at HOPAC.  Always the highlight of everyone’s year.  We sang and we ate and we waved flags, and some children represented two countries and some children represented more.  It was a day to celebrate the beauty of our cultures and our confused children.

Grace and Zawadi

(Photo credit for the pictures below goes to Abigail Snyder.  Gil was teaching so I had to borrow pictures from another great photographer!)

Photo credit:  Christine Liebrecht

These videos are for HOPAC alumni and former staff….or anyone who wants a real taste of what we get to experience!

Seven

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On November 3, 2014

In Other

“Piggy”

bottle caps

On Saturday night, I held my boy close.

I’m glad that you’re seven, I said.  But do you promise that when you get big you won’t stop cuddling with me?

I’ve made him promise it for years.  But this year, I’m guessing it really will be the last.  He used to come out every morning and say, Mommy, I haven’t gotten my cuddles today.  He doesn’t say that anymore.  And even though he’s only 40 pounds and I can still pick him up, now he doesn’t need me to.

So I hold onto these moments of him being little, even while celebrating seven healthy and (mostly) joy-filled years with my little stinker.

He is energy in motion, every day.  I think he cartwheels more than he walks.  He has a crazy sense of humor and he constantly tries to jump out and scare me.  He is small, but lightning fast, very strong, and obsessed with all sports.  And bottle caps, which represent whichever sports team he happens to currently be obsessed with.

On Saturday, we celebrated with a soccer party.  Which pretty much sums up Josiah.

celebrating Sunday with our Reach Global team (our surrogate family)

and these two….these two are inseparable.  and incorrigible.

Where’s the Logic in Helping Ebola Victims? And What Brittany Has to Do With It.

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On October 25, 2014

In Other

I’m not really sure why people are making such a big deal about Ebola.

Why should we even care what happens to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea?  Do these countries have anything to offer the rest of the world?

They are bottom-of-the-world poor.  They are war-torn.  Their natural resources have already been pillaged.

Even without Ebola, how long would these people even live?  Like 50 years?  Would they even have any quality of living anyway?  No electricity, no running water, very little education.  Who would even want to live in those circumstances?

Couldn’t this just be nature’s way of natural selection?  Don’t we already have a problem with overpopulation in this world?

Why not just seal up the borders and let nature take its course?  Why should we give our hard-earned money, or our government’s money, to this cause?  We’ve got our own problems in our own country. We’ve got our own poor, our own sick.  Why should we sacrifice our best doctors?

They seem to have a death wish anyway.  They already have murdered health workers and ravaged Ebola clinics.

What about just shipping over lethal drugs that would allow these people to put an end to their misery?  Most of them are going to die soon anyway, so this would allow them to die peacefully, on their own terms, instead of dying a horrific death.

Wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion?

Really, it would just be like Brittany Maynard.  I mean, she’s a hero, isn’t she?  She is so brave to choose to end her life instead of living through suffering.

We are a schizophrenic society, my friends.  Americans would tar and feather me for the notion of “peacefully exterminating” west Africans, and yet the media darling right now is a woman who is choosing “peaceful extermination.”

Do we not realize that the line between the two is paper thin?

How did we get here?  And is it really possible we could get there?  Of course we could.

Listen, I can understand why non-Christians are frustrated with Christians who declare that Brittany should not end her life because God says so.  That would be like my neighbor telling me that the fairy in her backyard told her I shouldn’t go to the store today.

Uhhh…..thanks for nothing, crazy person.



If you don’t believe God exists, then you could care less what He thinks.  Point taken.

So instead, let’s try this:

Brittany should not end her life because the people in Liberia deserve to live.  And this is why those two statements cannot be separated.

Secular worldview wants us to believe that we are nothing but evolved chemicals.  Human life is an accident.  There is no purpose to it other than what we pretend is purpose.  There is nothing that makes humans more inherently valuable than any other type of life.  There are no moral absolutes. Morality is created by the needs of society and is constantly fluctuating.

“Morality is a collective illusion of humankind put in place by our genes in order to make us good cooperators.”  (Evolutionary psychologist Michael Ruse)

Morality–good, evil, love, hatred–is an illusion.  Human life really means nothing.

In this worldview, assisted suicide makes absolute sense.  We put our dogs down when they are sick, don’t we?  So if Brittany is just an evolved animal, why can’t she be put down?  If there is no transcendent purpose to her life, if she does not have a soul, and if life is just about eking out as much pleasure and happiness as possible, then there would be absolutely no reason for her to choose to live a life of extreme suffering.

But this is the problem:

Once we give one human the authority to choose the death of a human (even oneself), then we are opening the door for anyone to choose the death of anyone for any multitude of reasons.

If you don’t think that is possible, then just think about what is happening in women’s wombs all over the world.  And why then would philosophers say things like this:

“Pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty has seriously suggested that rich nations may end up engaging in ‘economic triage’ against poor nations…The idea that human rights are universal, Rorty notes, was a completely novel concept ushered in by Christianity…Because of Darwin, Rorty notes, we no longer accept creation.  And therefore we no longer need to maintain that everyone who is biologically human has equal dignity.  We are free to revert to the pre-Christian attitude that only certain groups qualify for human rights.”  (Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo)

And that, my friends, is how choosing euthanasia for our society would eventually lead to government-sponsored genocide.

Let me assure you of this:  I have the utmost compassion for Brittany.  Her story brings me to tears. Why God would allow such a thing is a discussion for another day.  But I cannot, and will not, concede that it is morally acceptable for her to take her own life.

The Christian worldview tells me that God is the ultimate authority over His creation.  Man was created by God in God’s image.  This means that we have a soul (an immaterial and unseen aspect to our existence that goes beyond our physical bodies); we have ability to reason, think, create, and imagine.

Thus,

Human life is inherently valuable, in whatever form, whether unborn, suffering, orphaned, handicapped, Muslim, Hindu, poor, rich, homosexual, American, or African.

and

It is morally unacceptable for anyone other than God to take a life in any form for any reason.

This is why I am staunchly pro-life.  This is why I am anti-euthanasia.  This is why I am anti-slavery. This is why I am living in Africa.  This is why I believe we need to be doing everything and anything we can to help our fellow humans in Liberia.

But isn’t Brittany’s decision a personal choice?  Why should it affect me?  Why should I care?

This is why I care.  This quote is about abortion, but euthanasia can easily be substituted:

“Liberals sometimes say, ‘If you’re against abortion, don’t have one.  But don’t impose your views on others.’  At first, that might sound fair.  But what liberals fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like–on a worldview.  When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it.  That’s why abortion is not merely a matter of private individuals making private choices.  It is about deciding which worldview will shape our communal life together.” (Nancy Pearcey)

If you don’t believe in God, and you believe that Brittany should be allowed to end her life, I won’t throw God into the discussion.  But be consistent in your worldview.  If Brittany has the right to choose her death, then we don’t have any moral obligation to help Ebola victims.

Worldviews have consequences.  Know why you believe what you believe.  And be consistent about it.

So if you accuse me of being cold-hearted, or uncompassionate, or cruel when I say that Brittany should die naturally, just know that it’s because I believe in the God-given, sacred value of life.  And that’s why I care about Ebola victims.

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