Cold. Dry. Dead. LIFE!

Slush sticks to my boots and I slip on the icy sidewalk.

My nose is so, so cold.

I wiggle my fingers experimentally inside the mittens: where did the warmth go?

I’m walking along a highway, and there are so many noisy cars. Reciting loudly, I repeat the words of Mark; While He was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?”  But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.”

Already this morning I have beaten out on the sidewalk the thrilling scene of the Gerasene demoniac and preached the heart-warming recounting of a healed woman to the cold gray telephone wires.

This, however, is mine.

Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?

Yes.

Why do we take this dirge so often?

I think of a land more than an ocean away. That Congo-land, it will be dry. The hanging palm fronds will rest limp in the humidity; the roads will seethe red dust at every footfall,  dust that rising tempetuously around each bicycle wheel. Children will lie sick and feverish. There will be long nights of wailing by still bodies. Some will die so very, very young. Dry season will come as it has every year.

A snowflake falls cold on my cheek.

Heart of Africa, heart of darkness – that is what they call Congo. I read Congo in the news, and I read death.

Who says this to God?  Congo is dying. Congo is dead. Congo has problems no-one can fix. Look at how they’ve messed up with Kony and the LRA. If the whole world can’t get rid of a group of rebels that number in the hundreds, what can be done about AIDS, rape, starving people, broken families, traumatised hearts, hate that hides deep and corruption??

Too many have said it. Too many have thought it. Too many times Congo has been made synonomous with death. Too many times God’s people have not interceded.

After all, why trouble the Teacher anymore?

It’s a cold world. It’s a dry world. A dying world.

Jesus says, do not be afraid, only BELIEVE.

We serve a God who rose from the grave. We speak life to people who are walking graves.

I clap my cold hands together, and I speak loud on the street. God, I believe. I believe that You will bring life to Congo!

I keep speaking and keep walking and keep clapping, and I’m not so cold.

Snow will melt, green grass will grow.

Rain will come, grace to soften the cracked earth.

Jesus will come, bringing life, life, LIFE!

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

DAY FIVE

Saturday was the closing day of the conference. After a re-cap of the week and answers to questions given on Day Four, Uncle Rich preached for around three hours on purity. Sexual immorality is a huge problem. Of all the girls I know in Isiro (and there are many), I can name five who I know are not sexually active. Some people say that maybe one percent are pure till marriage.

Anna gave her testimony:

And so did Francoise. He gave some very clear details about the temptations in trying to stay pure. People were shocked…I know I was….but this subject is often taboo for parents and children to speak about together and it was good to get it into the open where it could be dealt with. Uncle Rich encouraged parents to support their children when they stand for purity.

His parents then talked about a purity ring program that is beginning for those who want to commit to purity. A few brave youth have pioneered this (including Anna and Francoise) and that day more committed to following the lessons and wearing the ring. Praise God! Yaya (also known as Bettina, she’s in the picture) has been praying for this for even longer than we have, and now her children (picture of their hands in the background) are giving courage to other youth to follow God’s way! Yaya and her husband have been a huge part of this conference: he does the summary and revisions in the mornings and she has done a great job translating for Uncle Rich.

At the end of the teaching there was a time for adults who wanted to make commitments to kneel in front in prayer…..it was incredible. Michelle (my little sister) said that she could feel something different in the air. People were crying. Repenting.

Pictures just don’t, can’t, won’t do it justice….

After the adults there was a time for the youth to come up and make commitments as well. I knelt with them, and it was incredible to be broken together with these youth, some of whom I have been praying for and talking with for years, all before our Awesome God.

Please pray now for the follow-up. So many people have caught a new vision, but now comes the hard part of living it out!

Thank you to all of you who made this happen: for those who have prayed, fasted, given, and read these blog posts. God used the conference and is using it for HIS GLORY!

DAY THREE

Day Three we talked about fathers. The attitudes and behaviour of fathers have deep cultural roots, and today some of the problems were revealed. After Uncle Rich’s talk about God’s design for fatherhood, we divided as usual into small groups: fathers, mothers, young men, young women, boys and girls.

In my group of young ladies, I started out by asking them if there were any challenges/problems in the area of relationships with fathers. There was a unanimous cry of “yes! So many!” The girl next to me said, “I don’t know how to say this in Lingala, really….but what we’re really missing from our fathers is love. Like, knowing that he delights in us and is interested in us. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a lot of money, we just need to know that he loves us.” I asked if any of the girls felt loved in that way by their fathers. None. Except me, of course. (I am incredibly blessed to have my father, by the way.) One girl went on this lengthy praise of the uncle she was staying at because he provided for them well and they never slept hungry. “Do you ever feel like your fathers don’t let you sleep hungry in body but you do sleep hungry in your hearts?” I asked. Girls were nodding. I felt like crying. These girls feel like all the guys are out to use them, their fathers don’t show them love, and they don’t have a real living relationship with Jesus. How do they live? We had an opportunity to ask some questions for pastors to answer the next morning and the first question they wanted to ask was, What can we do to make our fathers love us?

The young children (below twelve) were never really a part of our plan for this conference. But I am so, so thankful that they are there. Every day they sit still, listening closely. They are seated up front, and they notice everything. Then when they are given an opportunity in their group to ask questions, they ask. This morning, a very wise Congolese pastor was answering some of the questions and giving a summary of the last day. The children had asked, “If our parents leave us hungry, refuse to clothe us and pay for our school fees, if they neglect us, is it a sin not to obey them?” There was a loud murmur of surprise at the pointed question among the adult sections of the church, and the Pastor in the front turned to them. “What do we need to do?” he asked. The answer: we need to ask forgiveness. So he turned to the group of children sitting at the front and said, “Children, all of us parents here ask your forgiveness.” That was my favourite part of the morning session!!! It is so rare to see an adult apologizing to a child here!! And then he turned and asked the adults again, “Once we’ve asked forgiveness, what must we do?” The answer: we must change. Yes! We must change. That is what is being said again and again this week.

Again, the little boys asked, “Why in the pictures is Pastor Richard holding his baby when none of the men here hold babies? They always give them to a woman or an older child.” That again has deep cultural roots, and the pastors are uncertain how to answer. Two boys under ten years old made commitments today that when they grow up and marry, they would take the responsibility of raising their children to follow God.

There is so much hope with the children. With the women groups, there is a lot more discussion of issues that have risen after years of bad decisions. There are polygamous marriages, split families, and widows.

The men, who are primarily addressed in each session, are the ones who have showed the most openness to change and to challenge their ‘Goliaths’ in their families and societies. I don’t know much more than that, because I was not in their small groups and I did not talk with their leaders.

So God is doing a great work, and we are amazed! Now Uncle Rich moves on to the topics of marriage and healthy sex, also hot spots in this culture. Pray, pray, pray!

DAY TWO

Today was another great day. There were a lot more people than yesterday. Uncle Rich preached on many important topics, including the responsibility of a man to protect his family from bad influences. He told the story of David and Goliath (and had some people help act it out) and how men must stand up to the giants in their lives in the name of the Lord. And….there was a lot of other things, but I’m about ready to fall asleep. Please keep praying, and enjoy the pictures below. God is doing BIG things here, and it’s so exciting being a part!!!!!

this is the group that just kept talking way beyond the time limit…. Pray for changed hearts and courage to follow through on the decisions the men made during their discussion time.

Dr. Des, who came with Uncle Rich

praise God for the men who came!!

these kids are excited by the camera…but really, it is remarkable how still they sit to listen, and how well they answer and ask questions afterwards!

this is before all the benches filled up for the music festival part of the day. It looks like nice Sunday picnic weather, doesn’t it? It was HOT! Praise God that He’s kept the rain away so far this week!!

the first choir that sang (I’m in there!)

this is Goliath and David

challenging and encouraging the men in between choirs

Pray for open hearts, clear skies, good health (especially for Uncle Rich), accurate interpretation, and for the Holy Spirit to work mightily….

 

There were many more choirs (and hence there are many more pictures!), but I think it’s time for bed.

We praise God for some Uganda missionaries who came to help with the audio recordings, filming, and picture taking. It’s amazing how God has brought together so many nationalities and missions and churches to do this conference!

THANK YOU to all who are praying! This conference is more than what I hoped for! It is bringing transformation! As a last picture….. here’s one of the many reactions to the teaching/singing today;

 

Blessings! And keep praying!

DAY ONE

Today was awesome.

Uncle Rich kept everyone’s attention and used a bicycle, such a common tool here, as a powerful illustration. Many people said later that it had touched their hearts. A pastor said that when he asked the crowd of children who had been standing at the door questions, he could tell that they had been listening well.

Men were challenged. Uncle Rich’s message was powerful and the men responded with transparency and a desire to change. When we split into smaller groups (men, women, young men and young ladies), the men were talking the longest. Uncle Rich told me later that some were confessing how they had been involved in sorcery to get money or revenge on a murder. One spoke about the problems of having married two wives. Watching from a distance and waiting for them to finish, I saw them kneel. Pastors circled them, hands joined in prayer. I felt like bursting with joy! Here was the answer to our prayers!!

God is working.

It’s so exciting!

And the thousand?

Well, they didn’t all show up for the conference….but they were there for the music festival in the afternoon. The choirs sang well, and Uncle Rich gave a twenty minute challenge to the men. He did bike stunts again – which had everyone screaming and clapping and cheering! – and, like I said at the beginning, it was awesome. (I’ll put the pictures up another day.)

So keep praying for this conference. For tomorrow. For the rest of the week. This is all God. Only God. People are saying that, people are seeing that, people are hearing that.

God gets all the glory!

Pray that it will be that way right to the end……

Tomorrow Uncle Rich is going to speak about the way God created men and women to be different. Pray for soft hearts again….

Today’s Promises and Pews

Today was the opening ceremony of the Conference/Music Festival.

Mom talked Sunday about Abraham’s faith. He was told that he would inherit the whole land and he didn’t have enough space for one foot to call his own. He was named by God ‘father of nations’ when he had not one child.

He believed the promises.

We are Abraham’s children. I gaze up at the high vaulted ceiling of the cathedral that will house our conference. There’s an almost solemn hush over the rows of empty pews. These pews so unlike most Congolese church seating arrangements, yet such a blessing to us people looking to seat a thousand this week.

A thousand?

The seats are almost all empty. Only in the front row are a few scattered people sitting. Behind them the still void is like mocking laughter.

Where are the people?

While the opening ceremony was only for the important state and church leaders, it was still a chilling shock to realize how many of them were missing.

So many empty plastic seats in that cold, large cathedral. So many yawning pews stretching far to the back.

Although Abraham only saw Isaac, the promised multitudes of Israel were eventually born. And one day a man piled twelve large stones together. The representation of the fulfillment of the promise – the twelve tribes of Israel – he arranged into an altar on top of a mountain.

He dared the followers of Baal to prove the supremacy of their gods. They were many, and Elijah was one.

Out of all the chosen race, only one stood by the promises.

In that echoing church, the music begins to swell and I feel like Elijah. I feel like my family and Uncle Rich and these few Congolese pastors, we’ve all banded together and laid our dreams and hopes for these people on the altar. It looks pitiful. It looks foolish.

There are so many empty chairs. So much wickedness in this town. So many unrepentant hearts.

And we are not Elijah. I am not Elijah. I stand there knowing that I am asking for a miracle but I do not have Elijah’s faith nor his powerful prayer nor his righteous testimony.

I am not Elijah but God is still God.

When we go through with the program and the chairs are still mostly empty, I can feel the cold water being sloshed all over our slaughtered dreams and waiting hopes. So much water.

And it seems foolish, but I believe that God will come down. I believe that tomorrow the benches will be full, that the thousand will be there. I believe that hearts will be transformed. I believe that this conference will be used mightily by the Holy Spirit.

Because God is still God and His promises hold.

This is His promise; I will heal your faithlessness. (Jeremiah 3:22)

The faithlessness of my own cold heart, the faithlessness that has resulted in bitter marriages, splintered families, passive men and rebellious children.

God will come down and His Spirit will work and He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers that this land may be healed.

Uncle Rich speaks and I know that this is the message Isiro has been waiting for. That somehow God’s plan is always right, and this is His plan.

For years different people have been praying for something like this, for years God has been preparing individual hearts…..

And now I wait to see the glory of God descend among His people.

When we came to Congo and I started speaking Jesus to Congo-girls, I painted out God’s promise to hang on my wall as a reminder:

I will be their God and they will be My people.

God always fulfills His promises. Even if it is only the generations after that in looking back see the transformation that came from this week, I know that there will be transformation.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Photo credits to Mr. Desmond who came with Uncle Rich.

Finding My Life in His

This post is kind of a summary of the last months, I suppose. There are the pictures – the moments of joy and beauty and colour that we tend to isolate and hang on our walls. But there’s also the string of words, the unbroken prayer, the daring to live in the hard, hidden times that weaves it all together. 

I found this beautiful Puritan prayer… and I marvel at the mystery of how He really does fill all of our lives: the boring, the repetitious, the terrifying, the sorrowful, the difficult, the stressful are all just opportunities to be filled to all fullness in Him. I marvel at how He doesn’t stop at being the Father of good gifts (and we get such good gifts here – just look at the beautiful faces below!), but He creatively involves Himself even in the messes we make to form this glorious radiance of holiness in everything….

acting out Palm Sunday

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high,

Let me learn….that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

Passover: we “killed” our lamb puppet and applied the blood

let me learn….that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;

let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley.

Amen.

Path of Purity

June 30, 2011 I wrote this in one of my posts;

The sowing was hard, but we had a faint taste of the joy that will come in the harvest yesterday. I can’t wait for it – can’t wait for the harvest. Can’t wait to find out what fruits all those little seeds bore. Can’t wait to see how God was working it all for the good. Can’t wait to see how the tears we shed in the planting were used to water and soften the hard soil. Can’t wait for the joy that will be on that day….. so much joy!!

I was writing about the leader’s training we had done.

Now, all these months later, we had another taste of the joy.

Under the evening Congo sky, seated on wobbly chairs, surrounded by old and young Congolese, we listened as Grace committed herself to purity before God, before her parents, and before her future husband; purity of mind, of heart, and of body so that she can enter marriage with a clear conscience. We listened as she told us that she would not be doing this by her strength, but by God’s.

The tears, the dead-ends, the worries and wonderings during our friendship, they were all worth it. To see her face radiate joy, her finger flash silver of promise, her lips stammer the desire for holiness, her eyes shine hope – it was all joy!

Yes, she has made mistakes, yes, she is not perfect, yes, she has difficulties ahead.

But she has placed her hand in His, she has chosen the high road, she has lifted her head and planted her feet on the promises, and she is looking more like a daughter of the Most High than ever before!

This is Grace's father. I am so, so thankful that he is doing this with his daughter and that he is the one who put it on her finger and who also put his name to her resolution... pray that their father-daughter relationship continues to deepen!

Grace’s testimony is already challenging other youth, but pray that she stands strong and falls more in love with Jesus every day.

we all prayed for her - and now we ask you all to join us....

Pictures!

Thank you everyone for your prayers! Every Saturday is a new challenge, a new adventure. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like….

this is where we meet - that whole building is one long room. Behind us is a radio station (see the tower?).

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. – Augustine

Her name's Rithe and she's everyone's friend! This puppet is such a huge hit with the girls....

My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what He has done, and in what He is now doing for me. -Spurgeon

(The above picture is ONE side of the room. The other side has around the same amount)

If you want to see more pictures full-size, please check out our “photo album” at

http://www.shoutofjoy.wordpress.com

Please Pray!

Our computer crashed about a week ago, taking with it the revised Bana Basi ya Kopela lessons that we were hoping to use in the Christmas school break. So far, the attempts to take things off the hard drive have failed. PLEASE PRAY that the computer would work again so that I can continue revising, rewriting and recreating our lessons as Christmas approaches!!

A rather different topic… Anna just finished reading through the WHOLE Bible, a project she started while here with us. Praise God!

* a few days later… Thank you for praying!! The computer couldn’t work because the fan couldn’t spin. The fan couldn’t spin because there was a cockroach inside the computer!!! Our wonderful big brother Jeremy took care of the cockroach and now our computer is working again. Oh, how I love Congo….!