A Lesson in Bravery

photo credit: Rachel Pieh Jones | www.djiboutijones.com

The story, A Child of Two Worlds, was published a couple of years go in the New York Times, but I just came across it today. It really resonated with me. I don’t know if it’s because I sometimes think that if I’m to live in Uganda for the rest of my life I might be too scared to give birth, or if it’s because of the description Rachel Pieh Jones gives of her daughter at the end:
“Except for when I woke her to nurse, Lucy slept through the first night, her face serene and flawless. I kissed her rosebud lips and smoothed her hair and sang lullabies. This was my Djiboutian American daughter, a perfect combination of my two worlds. Born to American parents, in a Muslim country, on a day of infamy, she epitomized the people and places I had come to love.”

She has a video on the Desiring God website. I don’t have kids and I have never done anything as dramatic as give birth in such conditions, but before I moved out here people, even those who didn’t really know me, kept telling me how brave I was. It’s a weird feeling because so many times you feel anything but brave. I think that her video sums it up perfectly. We are not brave because being brave indicates that we have summoned up some kind of courage from within. But rather, we are desperate, breathless, and fully dependent of God. It would be a huge mistake to think otherwise.

If you enjoyed this, check out the post: Bless Her Heart (And Other Reactions)

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The Trouble With Love Is...

 I have been thinking about love as an emotion a lot lately. How much this emotion can control you and how it can make you do things you would have never dreamed of doing before. There is the love you feel for another person, the love another person feels for you, the love that you see other people show to each other and even the love that you wish you were receiving from someone. I come in contact with so many people in a day and I show love to them, or fail to show love to them in many different ways. Some of those people are easy to love and I can’t get enough of them and other people take a little more effort to care for. 

 

But, regardless of how lovable the people in our lives are, we are expected, required even as believers, to love them. We are to love those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), love those who sin against us (Matthew 18:15), and love those who have nothing to offer (James 2:1-7). We are to be patient, kind, humble, thoughtful, sacrificial, joyful, and persevering in love.  

When you are reaching out to love others you are putting a lot on the line. You are allowing yourself to be exposed and put in a position allowing someone to possibly take advantage of you. Sometimes the return is wonderful and will lift your spirits and other times it feels like a slap in the face because you quickly realize that the other person does not have the same interest in loving you back.

Why does God want us to experience this? Why does he want his children to abandon all and reach out to others in such a vulnerable way? The answer is always Christ. Christ knowingly showed love to those who had no intent in loving him back. He loved those who might have been a bit needy (Luke 9:10-17), selfish (Luke 18:23), hypocritical (John 8:1-11), backstabbing (John 18:2-3), cowardly (John 20:19), and just simply hateful (Luke 22:63-65). Christ loved the unlovable. 

But he also loved those who would wash his feet with their perfume, hair, and tears (Luke 7:36-40), give as much as they have in offering to him (Mark 12:41-44), humbly prepare the way for his ministry (Matthew 3:1-12), listen to his words with complete abandon of all other things (Luke 10:38-42), defend him (Luke 22:50), give years of their lives to follow him (Luke 5:1-11), and even die for him (Acts 7:54-60).

Not to even mention the love he has for the rest of the world outside of those recorded in the Bible. When we sit down and seriously think about all the offenses that we have against Christ and how he still gave his life for us, how can we say that someone else is too difficult for us to love? I’m not saying that I am perfect in this regard or I don’t have times that I avoid walking past someone trying to keep from hearing their next request for help, or I don’t become frustrated with people who aren’t what I think they should be. I fail so many times in this area, but God is quick to convict my heart and he is teaching me to consider how hard I am to love before I pass judgment on someone else.

I praise God for his patience, kindness, generosity towards me. I am thankful that God’s love truly does bear all things, hopes all things, and believes all things. His love never fails even when mine often does.

Burning Down My Kingdom

Our second Pastor’s Conference of the year has just come to an end. It was a time of worship and growth for the pastors that were able to attend and also those of us from Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries. The Lord was faithful and gave us great opportunities to love and challenge the pastors to love their churches with the deep love of Christ. 

We were so blessed and thankful to have Dr. Mark Tatlock from Grace Community Church as our speaker for the week.

   

The President of the Baptist Union of Africa sharing with our pastors about how the Church is God's chosen family.

The focus of the conferences this year is on the Invaluable Church: Seeing the Church from God’s Perspective. A challenge here in Uganda, as well as many other parts of the world, is the issue of ministers being consumed with title and respect and not humbly serving their church without any recognition or benefits. This is not just a temptation for leaders in the church; it’s a temptation in the life of every Christian. So many times we are focusing on serving our own kingdom and not humbly and sacrificially serving the Kingdom of God. It was so encouraging and challenging to see the pastors respond to the teaching, and also have my heart and motivations for ministry challenged and strengthened.

It took some time to get this little guy to smile, but when he did it was totally worth it.

 Conferences are always fun because they give a chance to interact with people from different parts of the country and live a little differently for a week. I am pushed out of my comfort zone when I work conferences. I’m not used to bathing in a basin or using a pit latrine to go to the bathroom, eating rice, beans, and posho (almost like grits) for each meal. It’s always a little unnerving to share a room with a rat the size of your forearm, or have a cow walk in on you while you are trying to bathe, or to even find a green mamba to be resting outside the latrine when you finish going to the bathroom. But all of these things remind me that loving God and loving people can get you through many things and even bring joy into those little moments when you feel so far from what is familiar. 

Edgar, Christine, and Ojulu are just a few members of our fabulous SOS team that worked so hard at this conference.

Sometimes it’s hard to serve people when you are tired, smelly, and hot. I become quickly annoyed when I am uncomfortable and people are coming to me with needs and concerns. At the conferences, I am the one in charge of registration and medical, so when people have issues with small things like water, pens, books, questions, toilet paper, I am the one that they are sent to. And when the pastors who haven’t played soccer in 15+ years come from sports time and their bodies are aching, I am the one who is supposed to work a miracle to bring their youth back. Satan uses these times to tempt me to be unloving and quickly disturbed by their needs, but the Holy Spirit convicts my spirit and reminds me that I am to deny myself and my time and my comforts and serve others before I serve myself. It is an experience that always brings me back to the purpose of ministry and Christianity in general. Paul tells us in Romans 13 that all the commandments of the Law are summed up in this one saying: love your neighbor as yourself. This saying is bold and essential. How many times I fail and love myself and serve my kingdom more than the Kingdom of God.

Everyone plays football. No exceptions.

The love for the game never grows too old.

My prayer is that the pastors from the North East and Eastern regions can repent for loving themselves more than the people that God has entrusted to them and that we as believers can repent for not humbly serving others in order to advance the Kingdom of God. I love Africa, I love Uganda, and I love having the opportunity to serve these people however I can, even when that means that I am pushed far out of my comfort zone. It’s in those moments that I am forced to remember why I came here, what is truly important in life and ministry, and how much I need strength and satisfaction from God alone. 

The little guys always find ways to have fun at the conferences.

All you need is a big rock and a jerrycan and you have your entertainment for a few hours.