EXCEEDING ABUNDANCE

 [He] is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…  Ephesians 3:20  (KJV)

 

Our World Mission Department is rarely stumped with the requests that come from our international partners, so when Mama Phoebe asked about wedding dresses, Betty didn’t hesitate.  “When our girls in Uganda get married, they like to have white dresses, but they’re very expensive for us.  Can you help?” Phoebe asked.

Immediately upon her return from overseas, Betty went from store to store pricing dresses that we could deliver to the hopeful brides.  It didn’t take much shopping for her to realize that purchasing just a few dresses would totally exhaust our annual budget.  So Betty did what we always do when a problem seems to have no solution—she prayed.  “Lord,” Betty prayed, “there’s no way we can afford these dresses, but you told us to ask, and so I’m asking for your supply.”

Within a few days, Betty got a call regarding a parishioner who wanted to close her bridal salon and wanted to give away the merchandise.  Were we interested?  She was astonished but responded in the affirmative.  And within the week our maintenance director called Betty to come down to the loading dock where a sixteen-wheeler was unloading its cargo:  numerous bridal gowns, shoes, veils, prayer books, bridesmaid and mother of the bride and groom dresses—everything and more than she had ever asked.  In fact, after sorting out all the bounty, our Ugandan friends AND our Mexican friends were able to open up their own bridal salons, and a church on the Border was able to purchase a van with the funds they made by selling unneeded wedding items.

Anytime we begin to think in our ministry (or our personal lives) that the need is too great or that it would be presumptuous to ask God to answer a particular request, we remind each other of the Wedding Dresses.  We might have thought it was frivolous—for God it was a way to demonstrate his love and his abundance.

You have not for you ask not (James 4:3).

 

Father, thank you that you love to pour out your blessings on your undeserving servants.  Give us great faith to ask great things that you may be glorified.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

JOY TO THE WORLD

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.”  Luke 2:10  (NIV)

 

 

What must those humble shepherds have thought when they heard the angels proclaiming joy for everyone?  Did that include them, even them?  Did they anticipate freedom from Rome?  Perhaps relief from their hardships and marginalization?  How did those shepherds define joy?

As part of that vast throng to whom the message of joy applies, how do we today characterize joy?  Is joy a permanent fix for chronic physical suffering?  Is it the mending of broken hearts?  Is it the realization of a dream that has long eluded us?  How do we define joy?

We know that joy is distinguished from happiness, which is dependent on circumstances.  Joy is not temporary; it’s not based on emotions, relationships, or things; and it’s not egocentric.  Joy can’t be intimidated.  It is a gift from God and is a fruit of the Spirit.  We don’t produce joy; God causes it to grow in us as we love, obey, and abide in him.

This abiding in him in which our heart is turned to him produces that joy that strengthens and empowers us in all circumstances when happiness would abandon.  While happiness seduces us to look inward, constantly measuring personal satisfaction and comfort, joy opens our eyes to the eternal and God’s perspective of our world.  We see his hand, his care, his love, his provision, his opportunity, and so on rather than time-bound circumstances.

On our recent trip to Uganda, we took time to visit the Martyr’s Shrine that honors 45 Christians who died in the late 20^th Century when they acknowledged a King greater than the Kabaka (tribal king).  The young men refused to abandon their faith even when threatened with death.   Some were dragged, others experienced amputation of extremities, and still others were disemboweled.  Those brave Christians were next wrapped all around with sticks and then roasted on a huge fire.  For some it took three days to die.

So what does this have to do with joy?  Those young men are not honored every June 3 on Martyr’s Day simply because they would not denounce Jesus Christ or their faith in him.  The eyewitnesses who watched them suffer said that they all died while singing hymns of praise to their King.  Joy cannot be extinguished by earthly devices.  Perhaps they each experienced that Fourth Man in the fire (Daniel 3:25) who graced them with joy that overcame all pain.

The angel’s message of joy to the world is the gift of Jesus in whose presence is fullness of joy; at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:11).  REAL, never-ending joy that lasts forever.

 

Father, we are so easily satisfied with temporary, superficial things.  Awaken us to the eternal riches that are found only in you.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

COMFORT ZONES

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.  Isaiah 40:1  (KJV)

 

I’ve just returned from a mission trip to Uganda and am chuckling over the many ways “newbies” confess to being pushed beyond their comfort zones:  eating grasshoppers as a seasonal delicacy; participating in vibrant church services exceeding four hours; navigating treacherous Kampala (the capital) traffic with thousands of vehicles and few road rules; sweating through days of work with no air conditioning; and extravagant demonstrations of Christian faithfulness.  These “comfort zones” are usually defined with possessives: my, mine or our.

Yes, more and more we identify comfort as a state of personal entitlement and are disenchanted with those who make us uncomfortable.  Think of college campuses where students must have safe zones and where topics that trigger angst among fragile students are to be avoided at all costs.  Even in public discourse, we tend to shy away from anything that challenges our status quo or that would cause us to entertain new or unpleasant viewpoints.  Political correctness is the order of the day with the exception that PC goes only one way; dissenters are labeled with phobias or worse.  So much for comfort…

A cursory glance at a Bible concordance listing God’s view of comfort mostly flips our selfish comfort on its head.  God speaks of comfort residing in him (Isa. 61:2), in his forgiveness (Isa. 40:2), in his touch (Luke 8:48), in the ministry of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31), in the Word (Romans 15:4), and so on. It’s all about him.   Comfort resides in being surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ, his will, and his glory.  It’s not about us.

What an excellent opportunity we have during the holidays to enjoy the comfort of our Father as he guides us through the minefields of difficult relations, command performances, mandatory attendance, last-minute shopping, and all the other aspects of Western Christmas traditions.  Will we retreat to the need for safe spaces rather than moving into God’s grace as we encounter people and events that are not of our choosing?  Will we avoid those annoyances that typically ruffle our feathers or will we see how God’s comfort can stretch us to move in his love and Spirit and out of our egocentricity?

May God’s Spirit constantly provoke us each time we begin to say, “I’m not comfortable with…” or “I’m only comfortable when…”   Seems like a great gift this Christmas time would be to get us all out of our comfort zones and into God’s comfort.

 

Father, thank you for your infinite patience with us.  Grace us to trust you in all circumstances.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER*

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  John 15:12  (NIV)

 

Sermons are all around us—if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.  The totality of Jesus’ life was a seismic paradigm shift from the letter to the spirit of the law.  When he said, “Love one another,” he was pointing toward an internal work of the Spirit that would carry believers beyond the obligatory going the first mile and perfunctory forgiveness into abandoned display of God’s love through us.

That’s what we saw that twilight in Uganda.  I had asked our guide if we could please see some lions, a lion?  We traveled through miles of dusty roads cut through the game preserve, and then we stopped.  Just in front of our van was a gorgeous male lion at the side of the road under a bush only yards from us.  His tail politely, but effectively, stretched across the path blocking our further approach.  In his golden aura, he quietly surveyed us and his kingdom.

Momentarily, a second lion, as splendid as the first, arrived, and the lions embraced.  Their greeting was warm, full of affection, and deeply moving.  Not the National Geographic attack that we’d been programmed to see.

Four years ago when the first lion was found by park rangers, his leg had been caught in a poacher’s trap, and infection had already gone to the bone.  The resident vet determined that the leg had to be amputated to save the lion’s life.  And so it was that the king of the jungle was no longer able to hunt or protect himself.  But his brother appeared, and for four years the brother has walked with him and guarded him, and the females have brought him food.

We watched in silence.  Loving one another.  That’s what we saw.

 

Father, you’ve told us that the animals will teach us.  Help us to love the weak, the marginalized, the needy, and all those you’ve put in our lives—just as you love us.  In Jesus our Lord.  AMEN.

CHEERFUL GIVING

 

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  II Corinthians 9:7

The music begins, and people dance down the aisles to deposit their gifts and return, dancing, to their seats.  Another song begins, and another group repeats the process of dancing down the aisle to deposit a handful of treasure.  This will continue for up to an hour until everyone has an opportunity to dance and joyfully give his or her gift.

Offering time in Nebbi, Uganda, is something one must see and experience to believe.  These beautiful people who some might describe as economically challenged prove themselves to be some of the wealthiest in the world in their giving to their Lord.  With joy and thanksgiving everyone dances to the front as his or her zone moves forward in time with their special song.

I remember being in one congregation where the gifts were vegetables from the garden or bags that jumped around during the service as cherished small farm animals were given in thanksgiving.  The focus of the offertory was expressing gratitude for God’s abundance poured out in the lives of his children.

At home in Texas most of my giving is online.  My church, missionaries, and organizations that I support all encourage online giving.  I never get to dance.  The closest thing to Nebbi offerings that I experience here is when our church has our Noisy Offering:  all the children grab pots and pans, spittoons and buckets, anything that makes noise when change is tossed in.  One cannot avoid giving—the children are seriously in your face until you put something in their containers.  And they do dance back to the front to lively, joyous music.

I really do believe God loves cheerful givers, and it’s so much more fun.

 

Lord, our hearts burst with gratitude for your generosity that never seems to end.  Remind us that “all things come of thee, oh Lord, and of thine own we have given thee.”  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

REJOICING ALMOST ALWAYS

 

Rejoice in the Lord always.  Philippians 4:4

 

Paul tells the church at Philippi that they should rejoice in Christ.  No excuse.  No exceptions.  He repeats himself and says that they should always rejoice in the Lord.  Paul was in prison when he wrote this to the Philippians, and he said that he’d learned the secret of contentment in every circumstance:  he could do all things through [Jesus] who gave him strength. Everything that he couldn’t do, God could do through him.

 

I was working in Uganda and heading north from Kampala for a huge celebration and time of thanksgiving.  I invited Jennifer, a missionary friend, and Bea, a clergy wife.  And Bea invited a friend.  Four of us prepared to leave early in the morning in order to complete the eight-hour trip before dark.

 

I arrived at the meeting place to load up and leave.  No one was ready.  The van arrived, and we discovered that the back door for loading stacks of equipment wouldn’t open – it has just broken, according to the driver.  So we lifted everything over three rows of seats and got off an hour or so after our scheduled departure.

 

Finally, we were moving.  I led the group in a series of praise songs.  I remember that we were singing This is the Day That the Lord Hath Made when the inside of the van began to fill with smoke.  Eventually, our driver decided we should stop and see what might be wrong.  Bea said to me, pointedly, Why did you stop singing?  Woops.  We tried another half-hearted song as our driver checked the engine with a puzzled expression.  And then we sat.

 

There in the middle of a banana plantation, villagers gathered to sympathize and to teach us how to play one of their games.  After all, it looked like we might be there for a while, and they wanted us to be entertained.  Jennifer pulled out her cell phone and called everyone she knew to see if they could send another van.  After numerous calls, she was successful and joined me in playing corro.  Then Bea’s friend asked Jennifer why she hadn’t called so and so because she knew they were nearby and would help.  You can understand why Jennifer didn’t respond at that moment.  Should we have begun singing again?

 

An hour and a half later, the second van arrived; we carried all the equipment back over the three seats and loaded up for our drive north.  By then we were friends with the neighbors and thanked them for their hospitality.  On the road again, we began singing.  This is the day…  Perhaps we had gone ten miles.  Perhaps.  The second van began sputtering and came to an abrupt stop.  Whatever could be wrong this time?

 

Our driver politely told us that when we called, we said we were in a hurry, so he hadn’t bothered to stop for fuel.  I forked over the 100,000 shillings necessary to fill the gerry can with fuel once he found someone willing to part with the precious liquid.  Our driver headed down the red dirt road, hoping to find someone who could help.  Jennifer quoted her oft-stated phrase:  TIA, This is Africa.  And we laughed.  And then we prayed, thanking God for safety and for his provisions of friendship, fuel, and funds.

 

Rejoicing is so much easier among friends.  And the trip north?  A smashing success and another opportunity to experience God’s faithfulness.

 

Lord, we can always rejoice when we remember who you are and whose we are.  We embrace your call to find our joy in you as we ask that you be glorified in us.  AMEN.

SAM IN GOLI

…a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6

I was assigned to serve in Uganda for about seven months. For years, Grandson Sam had accompanied me to work in a church community center, so it wasn’t unusual for him to accept my invitation to spend the summer in Goli. Sam was about to turn eighteen, and I’d gotten a placement for him in the village clinic with Sister Kim.

That summer Sam worked in the tiny lab peering at slides of native bacteria and local diseases, learning more than he would have from a text. He worked in the pharmacy dispensing drugs, and he accompanied doctors on their routes around the district and watched them perform surgeries. (He even picked up some of the local “bugs” on his visits.)

The business director of the diocese was a regular morning visitor in our little cinder block house and loved to share our hot tea and chapatti (local flat bread). When Rev. Martin discovered that Sam played an unusual instrument, a violin, he asked if he would play for Sunday service in the cathedral. Sam was thrilled and practiced a lovely Beethoven selection. He was already a local favorite, so when everyone learned that he would be playing a “western” instrument for church, there was great anticipation. That Sunday, the music stand was set up, Sam tuned his instrument, and began to play. Not a sound was heard other than the beautiful notes from Sam’s gifted fingers. And then the giggling began to ripple through the congregation. No one had ever heard such an instrument. Sam played on and on and finally ended to great applause and laughter.

Sam’s popularity grew, and he was often assaulted by the children who loved to pull him into their games. He hung out with the bishop’s children, and they all became fast friends. When he came down with malaria, despite taking his preventive meds and lathering himself with Deet, the whole diocesan compound was alarmed. Malaria was not something muzungus handled well. Sam was confined to his bed with fever, weakness, and all the dangerous symptoms brought about by the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. Nurses from the clinic came to treat him, and Sister Kim directed her cook to make special broths for Sam. Villagers made enquiries about him. But two of my Ugandan friends did even more. Evaline and Esther sat up all night praying for him. No fanfare. No big deal. They prayed until they sensed Sam would get better. No one was surprised when he made a full recovery.

The time passed too quickly as we worked throughout the warm days and read to each other late into the night. One day we sat together in our little cinder block house sharing a companionable meal in silence. The doors were left open to catch any passing breeze, and our dogs and an occasional goat wandered in and out. I had given up on teaching our sweet cook how to prepare some of our familiar dishes, so we learned to take advantage of the fresh fruits and vegetables growing all around us.

In the middle of this idyllic situation, Sam spoke up. “Grandma, these people have nothing.” I waited. “But they’re happy,” Sam added. I had to agree. Did Sam recognize that the faith they had was worth more than any material blessing we Westerners value so much? “I’m so happy,” Sam went on. “I’m glad I’ve learned this at my age.”

How soon that summer was gone, and Sam left, taking with him the treasures he had gathered in Goli.

Father, you told us a little child would lead us. Sam saw and lived with God’s joy evidenced through the lives and love of our Goli friends. May he never forget, and may we always cherish those eternal things that can never be taken away. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.

HELLO, GOLI

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
I was sitting in my living room with my mom and pastor. We were completing the arrangements for my husband’s memorial service. I’d selected Scripture passages, hymns, and friends to read. There was one final thing that was most significant to me.

“I want my friend Debbie who’s chair of the University music department to sing I Know That My Redeemer Liveth from Messiah. It’s a beautiful statement of faith, and I know Peter would have liked it,” I told Momo and my pastor. With that settled, my pastor prepared to leave.

And then Helen came in. “Marthe, the bishop has a conflict for our upcoming trip to Uganda, and he’d like to know if you can go?”

Without pausing for breath, Momo said, “She can go.” Just like that. Without asking me or without thinking twice. And that’s how I made my first diocesan mission trip.

Goli, our mission base, is a beautiful little village stuck off in a remote corner of northwestern Uganda. One does not accidentally arrive in Goli. It is too far off the beaten track. Standing on Prayer Mountain and looking north, the mountains of Sudan are visible. Looking west, the jungles of Congo are within a few short miles. The Nile is not far from Goli and offered protection from the Lord’s Resistance Army in past years.

On that first visit I noticed that electricity hadn’t yet reached this remote outpost nor had indoor plumbing. Most of the floors were dirt, and the houses had beautifully thatched roofs. Community buildings were constructed of cinder block with concrete floors. Although the people of Goli lived far below the international standard of poverty, they were some of the richest people I had ever met.

Our small team of six traveled up and down the Nebbi Diocese for three weeks over red dirt roads pitted with holes large enough to swallow small animals or do serious damage to vehicles. We saw school children in lively memory verse contests, spoke at countless village churches, conducted Bible studies, visited women’s groups, met local missionaries, and made friends.

The Sunday before we left was Easter. It was not lost on me that my first Easter without Peter found me on the mission field among scores of new friends who loved Jesus as much as we did. After the first service at the village “cathedral” the Korean missionary, Sister Kim, invited us to brunch at her house. We stood in a circle, holding hands for the blessing. As soon as we finished, Sister Kim reached over to a shelf and pushed the button on a battery-powered tape recorder. Out of the small plastic machine rolled the words, “I know that my redeemer liveth…”

Coincidence? British composition on a recorder played by a Korean missionary in a modest unelectrified home for American missioners in a tiny African village. Hardly a coincidence. Instantly, I knew God had a plan for me, to give me, a newly minted widow, a future and a hope. What the future held, I had no idea, but I knew God was already there opening the door. Peter’s death was not the end of my life. One era had ended; a new one through Christ had begun.

Hello, Goli.

Sweet Lord, you do walk with us through the valley of the shadow to take us through to the other side. And I know that your plans are beyond anything we can think of or imagine. THANK YOU. AMEN.