Easter in San Jose with my family:
My dad’s wonderful garden, a perfect spring day, an Eggcellent Eggstravaganza Cooking Competition (which Grace and I both won), eggs full of pennies….
Bundling this all up to take back with me to Tanzania.
Really the only reason he was excited about wearing a suit.
Cousins….all in the family by adoption.
Lily said that day, “Josiah is very handsome but he is also very weird.”
Oh yes.
If you could read my mind, you would know that I’m really not a very nice person.
I think I’m right way more than I should; I get irritated and intolerant; I am arrogant; sometimes I am too lazy to give my kids what they need. Fear keeps me from loving people. I can revel in seeing someone fail; I am selfish and inflexible; I stress out often and take it out on other people. Sometimes I shock myself with my lack of love and lack of forgiveness.
Actually, forget about reading my mind; you really just need to talk to my husband or kids.
There was a time in my life when I seriously considered all the major world religions.
But I discovered, that if they were true, I was screwed. All of them taught that the path to heaven or enlightenment was to be a really good person.
And I knew that I was not a really good person. Or even a sort of good person. Sure, I could smile and mind my manners and follow the rules and make people think that I was Such a Nice Girl, but I saw all that was sinister inside me. And I knew that had the circumstances been right, if I had lived in Germany in the 30’s or Rwanda in the 90’s, that I would be capable of all that was evil.
I also considered that perhaps there is no heaven or enlightenment, that everything I can touch and see is all there is. But that is even more terrifying, because then there is no answer for the evil inside me; I would be just a meaningless mixture of chemicals. It would mean everyone just makes their own rules and there is no true beauty and no true purpose or real soul.
I’m telling you this today because I want you to know why I believe in something as astonishingly crazy as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Of course, there was a time when I researched and I read literally dozens of books on the subject, because I didn’t want to believe what I wanted to be true, I wanted to believe what is true. And now I am convinced that the physical Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most verifiable facts of history, and I believe that it confirms that Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God was not just the ravings of a mad man.
But I also believe because I cling to it as a drowning man clings to a life vest, as a man in the desert runs to a spring. The Resurrection is Life; it is the assurance that despite the wretchedness of my heart, that God accepts me as His own, because the price has been paid. It is oceans of beautiful, astonishing, immeasurable Grace. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God.
And the Resurrection shows me how all of life makes sense, how I have no need to fear, how it’s all One Big Story and I (even I!) get to play a part in it. It rips apart my selfishness; it motivates me to love other people; it gives me hope and power to change. To change!
By the grace of God, I would give up everything for it; I would die for it; because I have already gained everything.
This is why I celebrate on Sunday. This is why I leave this country and these people that I love and move (again) half way around the world. Because the Resurrection is everything.
Watch this today. Because it’s awesome and I never get tired of it.
Photo credits: Gil Medina
There’s just no easy way to bring up the topic of money.
I tried to think of something cute and clever. I got nothing.
Do people get tired of missionaries talking about money? Nobody has actually told me that, but I wonder sometimes. A lot of times.
So can I just share a few things with you? I really hope you will get my heart in this.
(Note: My intended audience in this post is to our Church families and friends. Anyone else is welcome to read, of course, but this one is more personal than the greater blog sphere.)
We are fundraising right now. We will not be able to return to Tanzania until we have reached a certain amount.
Missionary fundraising is hard and awkward and wonderful.
It’s probably like the feeling a man gets when he asks a woman to marry him. When a politician puts his name out as a candidate. When a person hands in a resume for a job he really, really wants.
It’s a very, very vulnerable feeling.
Will people get behind us?
Will God confirm this is what He wants us to do?
Does anyone else think this is as important as we do?
Or are we just crazy?
We believe in what God has called us to do. We believe it is really, really important.
But we cannot do it without the Church. Literally and figuratively and spiritually and in every way possible.
No one ever wants to talk about money in our culture. It’s, like, one of the most awkward things to ever talk about. And yet, that’s our job right now. Ugh. Hard. Miserable, sometimes.
But then there’s the wonderful.
I remember that many years ago, Gil and I read a book on mission fundraising. It told us that we should analyze the financial status of the people we know–look at their houses, cars, jobs, and then make an assumption as to how much money they make and how much they could afford to give us. Then we should ask them, face to face, for that amount.
We decided way back then that would never be our approach.
How can anyone guess the financial status of a person by looking at their lifestyle?
Maybe it’s all on credit cards.
And who am I to “decide” how much they should give to our ministry?
Maybe they already give away so much, that they don’t have anything else to give.
And most importantly, where is the Holy Spirit in that approach?
If we really believe that God believes our ministry is important;
if we really believe that God is the one orchestrating all of this;
if we really believe that it is God who compels people to join our support team;
then who are we to “assume” who will or won’t join us, and how much they can give?
We are always, always surprised. And it is always wonderful.
Our biggest financial supporter so far is a couple that I had met twice, and Gil had never met, when they joined our support team. I barely knew them, and even if I had, I would have never guessed that they could help us so substantially.
There are three widows on our support team.
There are other missionaries on our support team.
People from all walks of life; some who are close friends, some who we don’t know well. Some in their 80’s, some in their 30’s.
We have learned to have no expectations. God always surprises us. He delights in that, and in these days when I am feeling awkward, and anxious, and wondering if we we be able to leave on time, and wondering if people are sick of us talking about money, and wondering where it will come from….well, I must remind myself of that, over and over.
It’s His work, His ministry. And He will surprise us.
Sometimes I stand in the street surrounded by spring beauty and orderly houses and I know I am safe, and the only thing I have to worry about is keeping Lily’s hand firmly in mine. It feels like this is the only reality and this must be how the whole world must be.
But I look up in the sky and I think about all those 7 billion people standing under the same sky, yet living in such different worlds.
And am I thinking these days about those in North Korea, who are also made of the same flesh and blood and bones that I am made of, and looking up at the same sky, and yet living in a world I cannot even comprehend.
I readthis book a couple of weeks ago:
I learned that in one small country, all 25 million people are living as prisoners, starving and hopeless and beaten and frightened and desperate.
And I stand in my middle-class neighborhood and I am struck by the absolute absurdity of how it is even possible that those of us crammed into this tiny planet and looking up at the same sky can live in such vastly different worlds.
We know it’s there. We know it’s there, right? We know that people are suffering, we know that we are the richest people in the world, and we know that as followers of Christ, we are supposed to care. We are supposed to care, and we are supposed to do something, and we do care, but we don’t know what something we are supposed to do.
So we wring our hands and we share articles on Facebook and we get all teary when we read them. And maybe we’ll send money or shoes or a Christmas shoebox. But then we go back to our TV shows and washing the dishes and cutting out coupons and going to the gym because what else can we do? And sometimes we want to forget because thinking about suffering people is just too hard.
But as I thought about North Korea this week I was forced to consider:
Do I care?
and
Do I believe in the power of God?
If I answer yes to those questions then the next logical question has to be:
Then why am I not praying more?
And I started thinking about the way that I pray and how I pray and how much time I pray about which subjects. And I started thinking about all the prayer meetings I have been to and all the things that we pray about in them.
Please pray for my husband’s safety on his business trip.
And another North Korean Christian is dragged off to be tortured for owning a Bible.
Pray that God would heal us from these colds that are running through our family.
And a 14-year-old sex slave in Thailand spends another night chained to a bed, being raped by 40 men.
Pray that escrow closes on our house.
And Saeed Abedini is beaten in prison in Iran.
Pray that my daughter gets into this college.
And a baby is aborted for having Downs Syndrome.
Pray that God would heal my back pain.
And a South Sudanese family is once again forced to run while their village is bombed.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Of course, we are to pray about colds and escrow and back pain. Of course. He numbers the hairs on our heads; He cares about the details of our lives; nothing is too small or too big for Him.
But may we look up into the sky and think about all the people under it, people who are living so very differently than our neat, orderly neighborhoods.
Do I care?
Do I believe in the power of God?
Resolve with me, my friends, to pray for the world like their lives and souls depend on it.
Because they do.
Photo credits: Gil Medina
In Tanzania, women don’t have photo shoots of their pregnant
bellies.
They don’t name their children before they are born.
They don’t have pregnancy-announcement parties or even
announcements on Facebook.
Usually, they don’t actually even talk about their pregnancies. Strangers don’t ask them how many weeks they
are. Family members don’t usually ask
either. They don’t talk about their pregnancies with their children.
When the baby is born, it’s not often named for days or even
weeks.
Toddlers, sometimes, are ignored. Other than their basic needs, ignored. Sometimes, they are even named Not Wanted or Undesirable.
As an objective observer, someone from the West might assume
that Tanzanians don’t care about babies or children, that they are not
important to them.
And then you read the statistics:
In the U.S., there are 5.
In Tanzania, there are 460 maternal deaths (mothers who die during pregnancy or childbirth) per 100,000 live births.
In the U.S., there are 21.
In Tanzania, 54 children out of 1000 won’t make it to their 5th birthday.
In the U.S., 7 won’t make it.
I spent this week in Washington with my wonderful friend
Janelle. Janelle is mom to a little guy
named Jeremiah, who was dearly wanted and dearly loved. Janelle and her husband Rudy live in Central
Asia, but while they were visiting Thailand two months ago, their beautiful
Jeremiah died from a tragic accident. I
wrote about it here.
Janelle and Rudy are in the States now for a few months,
regrouping after their loss and awaiting the birth of their next child. It was my privilege to spend time with her
these last few days.
How does a mother bear the loss of a child? The one she carried next to her heart, the
one born through pain, the one who is knit with her soul? How does she bury the child, the dreams, the
expectations of who he would have become?
How does she get up in the morning and allow life to continue?
I wonder if this is why Tanzanians don’t talk about
pregnancy, don’t wait in anticipation, don’t name their child before he is
born. Perhaps they wait in dread instead
of hope. They know too many children who
have died, too many mothers who have died.
They hold their breath and hope for the best, but are not surprised at
the worst. Is that why?
Or is it also their animistic worldview, the idea that the
spirits are in charge but they are evil, that they must appease them to keep
them at bay? So the mamas must keep the
attention off of their pregnant bellies, and away from their precious little ones. They ignore their bellies, and ignore their
little ones, or give them an ugly name….in hopes that the spirits, too, will ignore them. Could it be the bond of
love….and the fear of loss, that causes some to act like they don’t care?
How does a mother bear the loss of a child? As one who is rooted firmly and completely in
Christ, Janelle taught me this these days.
The pain is excruciating, and yet she has hope. The despair seeks to overwhelm her, and yet
she presses on. She knows who she
belongs to. She knows who Jeremiah
belongs to. She knows where he is. Her eyes bear light and her voice bears
confidence, despite her exhaustion and never-ending sorrow.
I watched her minister to others, to me! in the mist of her pain. She has helped me not to fear. She has
deepened my trust in my Savior, as she has given testimony of His power. She is a beacon of God’s grace.
Oh, that the dear mamas in Tanzania would be granted the
medical care and education they need so that they are able to celebrate the
lives growing inside of them, that they can be filled with anticipation instead
of fear.
But even more, that they would come to know the hope and
grace that God has granted my friend Janelle.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed….
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4)
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