Thursday, November 4, 2010

Just a Bar of Soap













Location: The ministry base in Sighisoara, Romania, at about 9:35 on the evening of November 4.

A flurry of emotions.

Yes, life seems more emotional when you work with seven women. Jokingly, that is why I posted this photo of me--I'm surviving!

But no, in reality, it is a huge blessing. Sure, sometimes I wish there were more men around, but when my supervisor maternally brought me a lemon-juice-and-honey-blend to fight my cold and cough, I thanked the Lord for my compassionate coworkers. In fact, they are very patient with me, as the Lord has been using these autumn months to teach me about grace and joy, some of the very things a close friend of mine asked for in a prayer request. Not only is the Lord teaching me grace and joy, but He has also been teaching me from Hebrews 12. Mix grace and joy and Hebrews 12 together with a cough and cold, child evangelism on a team with godly women, and the challenges of culture shock and unknown future, and you get HUMILITY. Humility hurts sometimes, but the world around you is blessed when you learn it. I thank the Lord for the humility He is teaching me in this season, for the beautiful setting in which I have to live and learn, and for the faith He gives me to survive His lessons.

Today was another one. My cold symptoms pretty bad, I finally agreed to go to the outreach; we had two young men from an organization in Targu Mures as guest observers. When we arrived in what has traditionally been our toughest village, we found another missionary friend of ours already there with some short-termers from the U.K. The kids were thus overwhelmed by attention and were wild as ever. I shook my head as our two Romanian guests pulled some of the Gypsy boys aside and gently chastised them for attacking the car (as they always do), and then sending them to go wash their hands and faces; welcome to A.! These fellows had no idea what they had entered into!

But to my surprise, they were veteran youth workers, and the children listened to them. We had a great day in the outreach, and the Lord dried up my cold symptoms while we were there. All of that was humbling, but wait . . . there is more.

As usual, we played a game (this time with the velcro balls in the picture above), and the winners got to pick out prizes. One of the boys was probably about 9 years old. Do you know what he picked? Not toys or clothes. A bar of soap. A BAR OF SOAP! Can you imagine living in a situation where as a nine-year-old boy, the best prize that you can choose is a bar of soap? Imagine being that poor, that dirty, that desparate! That is how the Lord teaches me humility.

You might laugh at my marmaliga (corn mush) and peas cooking on my wood stove--that was the first successful hot meal I have made in my house since I moved there in May. I realized I did not have any utensils, so I stirred the marmaliga with a teaspoon--you know, the tiny spoons you use for suger for tea. But I am rich! I have something to eat, and wood for my stove! I am sick, but I have a bed to lay in and people to check on me and money for medication. I am far from family and friends and in another culture, but God gives me new family and friends everywhere I go.

As I was thinking about this today, I realized that "garbage" is relative. What you see as garbage might be worth an awful lot to me, or to this boy who chose the soap. For example 100 RON (a large cash bill in the local currency, worth roughly 30 American Dollars) is not worth nearly as much to me as three 1 RON bills (equal to about 1 American Dollar), because I can use the 1 RON for anything I need, but many times people do not have change for 100, rendering it useless. One of my friends offered me a refrigerator and something else, but I do not have a place for it and cannot use it, meaning it would be garbage for me. However, I save my plastic bags and bottles and glass jars, because I use them all of the time!

Some people consider these Gypsy kids to be like garbage, while they look at people like me (a "rich" foreigner) and see someone at a restaurant on Tuesday celebrating a collegue's birthday. Do you know what God taught me on Sunday? We are all made out of mud. God created the human race out of mud, according to the Bible. Yet the God of the universe chooses to reflect His glory in and from mud-beings like us! Is that not amazing?

So this week, today even, this is what a lesson in humility looks like for me.
1. Being prayed for by friends and strangers.
2. Fighting cold symptoms and trying to use a "fourth" language to buy meds in a pharmacy.
3. Having wrong perceptions about our guests.
4. Loosing in (Romanian) Hannah Montana Monopoly to an 11 year old who recreates the rules.
5. Redefining friendship with someone I care about
6. Learning that my grandmother went home to Jesus this morning
7. Being blessed by patient coworkers when I was overly negative and frustrated
8. Filling my house with smoke when I misjudged the barometric pressure as I lit my stove
9. Realizing that we are mud-creatures who reflect the glory of the Almighty God
10. And watching a young boy choose a bar of soap as his prize.

Fellow Mud-Creature, I invite you to join me in choosing humility as our bars of soap this week, that our God might be more highly exalted!
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A Rose From Home

A Rose From Home

My Story (As prepared for my church congregation this spring--2009)


I have a story to tell you. I am the main character, but the story is not about me. I have traveled several parts of the world, but my adventure has been closer to home. I am twenty-six years old. My story begins like many of yours…

I grew up going to church. I had been born into a family who labeled themselves “Christian,” in a country that labels itself “Christian.” Every Sunday found me attending a worship service and Sunday school in a mainline denomination church. I served as an acolyte, attended Vacation Bible School, helped my dad count and record the offering money, sang in the youth choir, was a leader in the youth group, and occasionally served as liturgist. Baptized as an infant, I was confirmed at the age of twelve, thus becoming an “official” member of the church. Then, hurt by the church, my family left to find another.

Have you ever been hurt by the Church?

After months of searching, we settled into a very large independent church. Things were different there, and I was quickly welcomed and at home among new friends that truly had a passion for Jesus. The Word of God was taught boldly from the pulpit, and I was introduced to a missions-aware lifestyle. So it was with regret that I said goodbye only a couple of years later to move with my family to another church. I purposely remained aloof, not wanting to make new friendships before I left for college a year later. Besides, I was loosing my faith—or so I thought—and I didn’t want anyone to know. I was asking scary questions like “Is there really a God?” and, if so, “Is He the Christian God?” and “Would I be Christian if I had been born in another part of the world?”

Have you ever asked yourself unsettling questions about what you believe?

So I headed into college under a cloud of confusion that only worsened for the next two years. Though I didn’t know what I believed anymore, I continued to go to church every Sunday, and to help lead worship in chapel. Most importantly, even during this questioning, I continued my morning habit of daily study of the Bible. I had begun at age twelve, reading at first a chapter per day, then ten minutes each morning, then an half-hour, and so on. So, only by the grace of the very God I doubted, I remained anchored in His Word and in His community, though I felt like a fake most of the time. Since then I have learned that “fake” is the worst insult the world can give us; that is why the label of “hypocrite” is so offensive.

Have you ever felt like a fake?

Six weeks with missionaries in South Africa followed by a year in France began to teach me what life with God is all about. I began rebuilding my faith, this time it belonged to me, in contrast to me borrowing the faith of my parents, church, or anyone else. In my parent’s basement in 2003, on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, I invited Jesus to live in me; perhaps I had done so before, but I didn’t recall—but since 2003, I have never forgotten that moment. Unfortunately, nothing changed. I continued to do my best to act like a Christian, as I had done for so long.

Have you ever found yourself “doing your best” to be a good person, or to act like a Christian?

Though I did not realize it at the time, I was quenching the Spirit, even though I had welcomed Him into my life. During the next few years, the LORD continued to nurture me, and slowly things began to change. Several tough months in Idaho birthed my prayer-life. I spent three years being humbled in a job that was my informal seminary training. In 2007, a short stint in Mexico helped me to see things as they were, and not long afterward, I was baptized by immersion. No baptism of any kind can save a lost soul—only Jesus can do that. However, this baptism was an important covenant between me and God, symbolizing not only my death and resurrection with Jesus and my public profession of faith, but it also my life change, the beginning of my bearing fruit. “For each tree is known by its own fruit…”according to Luke 6:44. During the past year and a half, the LORD has provided me with an informal pastoral internship in my church, teaching me every aspect of discipleship. Simultaneously, I have been studying unceasing prayer and worship. I am now very different than I was five years ago.

In the Book of Acts (which tells the story of the earliest years of the Church) every time a person decided to follow Christ, two things took place—though not always in the same order. Each person experienced a life change, which I call the “baptism of repentance,” as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which I call the “baptism of the Spirit.” Looking back, I realize that the Holy Spirit was living in me in 2003, but it wasn’t until I surrendered everything to God, as represented by my immersion, that I allowed the Spirit to have His way in me and transform my life. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)”

Have you invited Jesus to live in you? Have you allowed the Spirit to transform your life?

I tell you this story for two reasons. First, I tell this story in order to boast in the LORD! May God our Father get all praise and glory forever! Second, I tell this story because it is relevant to you. Likely you have heard that I am leaving the country: I have let my light shine before you; please let your light shine within the Church, too! This congregation is in revival, and as each of you allows the Spirit to revive you, the entire Church will be revived and utterly transformed, to the glory of the Most High God. And for His glory is the reason He created us; the reason He sent His only Son to reveal Himself to us; the reason He became Sin for us and died for us on the cross—while we were still sinners; and the reason that He conquered death and offered us eternal life with Him.

It will cost you a lot—in fact, it will cost you everything, your very life. But if you have never surrendered your life to Christ Jesus, if you have never invited Him to send His Spirit into you and to transform your life, then do it right now. Just let go of everything to which you are desperately clinging; stop trying to do it yourself! This is the very reason you are still breathing in this physical life—God has been delaying His judgment of this sinful world because He is waiting for you—2 Peter 3:9 says He wants none to perish!

If you have already invited the Spirit into your life, then live like it! Bear fruit! Anyone and everyone who meets you or knows you or sees you or hears you should know immediately and clearly that Jesus the Christ lives in you and loves them! That is how stark the contrast should be between your life and the world around you!

Have you immersed yourself in God’s Word and in prayer in the last twenty-four hours?

If you call yourself a follower of Christ, then there is no excuse for not communing with Him daily! Anchor yourself in the Word! God has revealed Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Bible is a complete and accurate record of that revelation. And prayer is humbly letting Him love us. Let Him love you! God doesn’t need us, but He wants us! God doesn’t need us to live for Him—He wants to live in and through us! Let us love and fellowship with one another, even when you disagree! Pray for each other—the names in the church directory are a great place to start! Church, we are not only the Body of Christ, but we are the Bride of Christ. We have allowed ourselves to get bedraggled and stained—now let us stand to the glory of God! Let’s let Him purify us, restore us, and love us!

My dear Brothers and Sisters, if you have ever once been blessed by God our Father at work in me, then I urge you, please, take seriously His desire to love and work in you, beyond anything you can ask or imagine! I have told you the beginning of my story—may it end in glory to the Father, in the Name of Jesus, by way of His Spirit.

Now, what is your story?