That They May Sing

The cuckoo clock, wedding gift to my parents, ticks peacefully in the shadowy corner. I hunch over my Bible, open before me on the carpet. In winter the world wakes slowly, and I’m trying to let Romans seep into my soul before the day begins in earnest. My sister is curled up on the rocking chair in an effort to stay warm. She speaks.

“Hey, we could make this into a song.”

There are things I love about Joanna. She is my little sister with the big smile and bigger heart. Her faith and humility inspire me. And – she loves music. Together, we’re taking a songwriting course. Trying to figure out how to voice our heart-throbs.

So I look up. “What do you have there?”

“A poem you wrote…and that I copied. It’s the one about ‘up, sheep!’.”

“I don’t remember that one.”

She begins to read it. Morning stillness. Shadows. Words from the past. That clock keeps obstinately ticking away, but I know that time stands still.

She reads. And I remember. The aching soul, the kneeling and crying out. When there was no answer. “Do you think we could really put that in song? How would you find a melody? It’s so…raw.”

“But it rhymes.” Ah, yes, there are things I love about Joanna!

I smile.

Next day, walking into a blustery wind, sloshing through the unending slush puddles, and Jesus is speaking to my heart.
I’m thinking again of that raw, unfinished poem. Joanna told me that the one thing it’s missing is a resolution. But there was no resolution for me that night I wrote it.

He speaks, “Give those raw moments to me. I want to make them into a song.”

I clap my mittened hands together, filled with joy at the thought.

Yes! Yes, give it to Him! Yes, that I may remember the soul-agony! Yes, that I may rejoice in His faithfulness!

Because now I know there IS a resolution.

Him.

Funny how it took me so long to figure that one out, isn’t it?

And yet, as Congo is on the news and Congo is on our hearts, voices from the past sometimes penetrate our present world with suprising honesty. There was pain. Ache. Those times when heaven seemed mute.

What do we do with that?
Where is the resolution? There is only one.

Him.

Resolved in Him, the past doesn’t loose it’s potency, but it changes for us. It doesn’t fetter us, because we are free in Jesus. And there’s only one thing to do when that happens –
SING!

Sing, so that the broken past can become a beautiful testimony to the present faithfulness of our God!
Yes!
Pray that God gives His people a melody for Congo’s heart cries. That they may sing.

News from Congo

It gives me joy when I hear that God’s people are praying for Congo. When Jesus moved us to Canada, I knew that He had a reason. What joy to discover that one reason is so we can enlist the prayers of His people for Congo! Some people who will read this have taken prayer cards for some young ladies in Congo who are involved in Bana Basi ya Kopela (a discipleship group for young ladies). Recently, Jesus gave us the awesome gift of speaking with Nono and Anyesi over Skype (some kind missionary friends helped set that up!). There has been so much to catch up on. One young lady who was part of our leader’s training died in childbirth. That was a shock. A group of around thirty girls have been meeting regularly since August (when we left Congo), led by Nono and Anyesi, and sadly another girl from that group passed away this month after receiving severe burns. Please pray for physical protection for these girls, as well as spiritual.

We praise God for the faithfulness of Nono and Anyesi. Those two are good friends! I am so glad that they don’t have to do it alone. I praise God for your prayer support! The group in Congo is nearing the end of the lessons Anna and I prepared before leaving the country, so pray for inspiration and Spirit-led wisdom as we collaborate from Canada and Uganda to prepare more lessons.

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!

Barefeet and Congo, Part 2

How many Sunday School children have repeated this verse?

 

What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Who lives it?

This is the barefoot life. We are free. How shall we walk? Humbly, with our God. To go barefoot, in Jesus’ times, was the sign of a slave. Our God was barefoot when He took the sin of the world on His shoulders. In ultimate humility, He took the nails. This is the God we walk with. How shall we walk? Love mercy. We do not hide from the pain of the world. We do not distance ourselves from the brokenness. We are moved with the same gut-wrenching compassion that moved Jesus as He reached out and touched a leper, as He forgave the sins of a weeping prostitute. How shall we walk? Do justice. It is a hard truth, yet if we say we love God but do not love our brothers, we lie and the truth is not in us. Humility and compassion drive our hands – faith without works is a sorry thing. We feel the pain, we break with the brokenness, but that is not the place to linger or stop! Our Jesus touched, healed, forgave, blessed, restored, renewed, transformed! If I walk barefoot, if I walk free, it is for one purpose: to follow in His steps.

How does this all apply when I read of the part my country has played in the death of all those millions in Congo? The part I play even as I type on my computer?

 “Eastern Congo defies comparison. The loss of life far exceeds deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Yet this is not some distant tragedy, not just another African horror story. The lives and deaths of these millions of Congolese are linked to us all. The mines that scar the verdant hills and mountains of eastern Congo produce a very small but very bloody portion of the tin and coltan metal that is critical to our modern lives. Each time we use a mobile phone, use a video game console, or open a tin can, we hold the lives and deaths of the eastern Congolese in our hands.”

Coltan is a black, tar-like mineral. Well over half the world’s supply is hidden in Congo. Refined coltan becomes highly heat resistant and can hold a high electrical charge, making it an important ingredient for almost all electronic devices as well other uses such as camera lenses and pacemakers. Coltan is in such high demand that people, even nations, will go to great lengths to get it – even if thousands must die in the conflict.

I cover my eyes with a hand, and try to make sense of this: Lord, what will Your judgement be on the West? We who blind our eyes to the exploiting of the heart of Africa, we who covet iPods and computers and let greed dull our consciences! Are our countries not blinding themselves? Again I ask, why is this not more spoken of? In a day and age where everything circulates on the news, keeping time with the incessant ticking of clocks, why is a disaster so huge and an exploitation so vulgar largely unnoticed? Why do our countries not take action? Why does no one stand for the truth? If we the West can rightfully condemn Lubanga for using children soldiers, what will our sentence be when the truth of our self-deception is exposed? The truth of our passivity? God, what do I do with what I am hearing, reading? What do I do? Where do I turn? Who will stop the mindless, cruel slaughter? Who will reconcile these people?

I know that there are many factors at play in Congo. I know that not one nation is to blame for everything. No. All stand condemned. Canada, America – we boast in freedom, in democracy, in the right of humans! Yet for the sake of a game, so that we might have our laptops and gadgets a split second faster, we shed human blood! Where is justice? Where is truth?

Where are the barefoot servants of a humble God? What is the justice that is required of us in this? I do not know. I do not have the answers. But I know that those who touch the heart of Africa touch the heart of God – and I plead with God: Where is the mercy to bring those men with seared consciences to their knees in fear and trembling and horror at the acts they have committed? Where the love that compels and convicts and transforms? God, when will You visit Congo? When will You rend the heavens and come down? When will You come to this blood-soaked, forsaken, forgotten land? When will You bind up the sputtering heart of Africa, and make it beat to the rhythm of Your own holy heart?  

Lord, have mercy!

 

For those reading this, take time to think of what it is the Lord requires of you. Will you pray? Even fast? Will you research and read and cry and be broken? Will you act? I want to do justice, but I am only a girl and I don’t yet know how. If you have thoughts, please feel free to comment on this post so that your wisdom can help me as well!

Passing It On

Today we stood before hundreds of people to openly and officially hand over the ministry of Bana Basi ya Kopela to Nono. The people knew her far better than they knew us; it was her church. We explained how the program had developed, and how we thought it could continue: each leader coming to Nono for training and then going out to start a group of five to six girls on her street/in her neighbourhood. Those girls would have to commit to finishing the twenty-five lessons we prepared.

We read our prayer/advice for Nono and all the other girls:

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit…but examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. Brethren, pray for us also.” ( 1 Thess. 5:16-25)

 

Over two years ago, as I prayed about starting this group in a few months, I wrote that big in my journal: Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass.

This morning we declared Him faithful in His dealings with us, and we stated faith in His faithfulness for their sanctification.

We told the church that there are many nice things you can teach, and much good advice to be given to young ladies, but the one thing we found these two years is that if you don’t give them Jesus, it’s all useless.

Everything.

Is.

Mpamba. (Vain/useless/pointless/empty in Lingala)

Jesus is the only One who can change people, and Jesus is the only One who will give Nono the strength, the courage, and the vision to carry on with this work.

Nono’s father, a Pastor, called up various other Pastors and church leaders and they surrounded us, joining hands. We knelt. Their prayers filled the air, and I remembered the last time we had knelt like this.

It was at the closing of the leader’s training. There we had been so many. Today, we were only three. And two of us are leaving. This would be impossible were it not that we serve God Almighty.

 

There are other girls who will work alongside Nono.

There is Anyesi, our neighbour. She has attended more lessons than anyone else, and is such a sweet, steady girl. She also is trained to be a leader and during that training she became good friends with Nono.

 

and some other girls….

back row, first one on the right is Marie (also trained as a leader), then Joanna, Gloire (trained as leader), Grace (trained as a leader), Nono, and then two random ladies. the front row is Anyesi, Anna, and Maaike

 

Nono will need all the prayer help you can give. Will you commit to praying for her and the others daily or at least weekly?
Thank you!

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!

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.

Impossible Revisited

He leaned forward, the wooden chair creaking mournfully.

Carefully he opened his mouth, fixing us all with his stern glare. Everyone stilled in anticipation of his weighty words.

“God is doing something here.”

I squeezed my hands together tight in my lap.

“We have prayed for this. We have areas in our lives that we have not changed, and now is time for transformation.”

Silence still fills the room, but heads are nodding. The curtain separating the Biblical view of the family and the current practice of the family in Isiro has been flung back in the last few months, and we are amazed at the gap in between.

“This is God’s time for our families. This is God’s time for transformation.”

He keeps speaking, but I’m just overwhelmed.

The fact that I. am. right. here.

All around me sit choir leaders, and we have come to discuss the “Summer 2012 Event”. This “event” has been one long string of miracles and unexpected revelations, of God working in hearts, and of people standing up with a revolutionary message.

It’s occupied a lot of our thoughts lately, with my parents especially sacrificing much time and effort to carefully think through all the issues and plans. It’s taken up our supper time conversations and our family prayers. I haven’t blogged about it yet because the plans were changing so crazy fast that Mom thought it wise to wait for everyone to be of one mind before I posted about it.

But now, in a few weeks, “it” will happen, and we’re excited….and we’re coveting prayers.

The (very) basic idea is as follows: during the morning we have a conference, during the afternoon, a music festival.

The overarching theme is this: CALLING MEN OF COURAGE!

Isn’t that great?? We all believe that this is what Congo needs. One courageous Congolese man who has totally caught fire with the vision of transformed families is showing the film Courageous almost every night all over town in different churches.  And as people hear about it, others want to see it.  That’s our publicity.

Other inspired, courageous men are taking the initiative to stand up and call others to hear the message, to answer the challenge, to accept the call.

It’s just awesome.

And best of all, it’s going to be combined with music. Sitting there in that church, listening to the words of welcoming change roll around me, I watched the faces of the people around me carefully and prayed hard that they would hear and understand.

Because I was sitting in the middle of a group of choir leaders – the people who, in my opinion, wield one of the most powerful weapons in Congolese culture – music. Many church choirs will compose songs to sing for the week long event (July 3 – 8, 2012). The songs of each afternoon will correspond to the teaching of the morning.

The teaching of the mornings will be as follows:

• Tuesday: Supreme Power, the Authority of the Bible, and Salvation through Jesus Christ
• Wednesday and Thursday: CALLING MEN OF COURAGE
• Friday and Saturday: Sex and Relationships, Family
• Sunday: A Call to Repentance

You see what I mean? This is great stuff.

The primary speaker will be my Mom’s brother, our Uncle Rich. This is the message of his heart, and the message we in Congo really need to hear. It is mind-boggling to think of how many years of preparation God planned before this conference/festival could happen! For years Uncle Rich has been developing this message and wanting to come to Congo.  For over a year pastors in Isiro have been praying that this subject would be addressed but their plans to organize a conference were always blocked, and for two years I’ve had this wacky idea of Impossible. I’ve posted about it. Well, God took that impossible and the prayers and….and now it’s a LOT bigger and a LOT more impossible!!

Which means?

I’m really looking forward to seeing this miracle!

There are so many unknowns. How are we going to feed two thousand people for a week? How are we going to sort out all the logistics, make sure people’s questions are answered, provide leadership, technical support, etc.?

My Dad had this awesome idea of recording all the teaching sessions and the music and putting it onto memory cards that the youth and others can buy to play on their cell phones.

We’re working with some Congolese pastors, trying to organize a team of small group leaders from different denominations who can lead discussions after Uncle Rich speaks.

We’re just praying that those choir leaders are inspired by God as they write songs on ideas and concepts that are still so new to them.

You see?

Impossible.

The meeting draws to a close after a long discussion of logistics. We stand, and the pastor at front who had triumphantly proclaimed the message of transformation is now singing low and soft….

Nkombo na yo, nkombo na yo….nkombo ya Yesu..

We pick it up after him, and I thrill through and through to the beautiful singing, the rounded words flowing gently around me, the strength of the melody, the gentle drumming drawing it all out. Your name, Your name Jesus…Your name is my hope, Your name is my success, Your name is my beauty…..

His name fills the church, His praises vibrate the brick walls. In His name we claim the impossible. In His name we will do valiantly. In His name the hearts of the fathers will be turned to their children, and the hearts of the children will be turned to their fathers. In His name, we will be transformed…and the curse will be lifted from this land.

- Malachi 4:6

A Congolese Love Story

“For us, it is during the planting season that people get engaged.”

She looks at me over the head of her little sister and grins.

“During that season, when the mornings are cold, if a young man comes to ask you for a drink of water – “

She breaks off and we laugh as realization hits. People don’t drink water when the sky is overcast. It’s too ‘cold’. Obviously, this young man would have something else in mind….

“So our Mom told us to watch out for the young men who come knocking in rainy season – after they’ve come a few times, then you both know something’s beginning.”

But later as I’m on my own, mopping floors, that conversation comes back to me.

I remember the Samaritan woman at the well.

Jesus asks her for a drink.

She gets confused – what would such a holy respected man from her, a Samaritan sinner? What God would want to drink her filthy water?

No young man in his right mind would ask for water on a cold morning. He would not need it, he would not want it. It is contrary to his lifestyle.

And how can God ask for our lives when they are broken and cold and we know that He has no need of it? That He cannot even want it? It is contrary to His very essence of goodness.

There is something more. God loves us.

He pursues us right to our dirty home, and asks gently that we give Him our our words, our deeds, our thoughts, our dreams, our lives. He takes it from our hand and drinks it all. He can drink it and atone for it because He sweated blood and suffered terrible.

And He comes again and again and again. He follows us and drinks, drinks, drinks. He fills us again with His living water, and we find that something is beginning.

As I walk the red roads of Congo, I pray that that something is beginning in the girls of Bana Basi ya Kopela.

I pray that this love-story is theirs.

I pray that we might learn together the joy of being transformed from prostitutes with cracked pots and terrible testimonies to being the radiant bride of Christ….

I Know That Doctor!

“But how can we change?” She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. Annie was recovering from a sickness and I had come to see her and rattle out a dozen theological questions that had been brooding in my mind. Her answers were vague, and the more I questioned, the more she would look up at the mango leaves above her in serious thought.

“We can leave our bad ways, and be good,” she finally responded.

“But that’s just what we were talking about! We said that it’s impossible to please God by anything we do with a dirty heart – just like you can’t serve a guest anything if the plate is full of mud. And if we’re leaving our bad ways and “being good”, that’s just trying to please God with a dirty heart. How do you change the heart?”

She paused here again and her eyes sought refuge in the dancing leaves above us. I watched her little siblings roll metal bicycle rims down the dusty driveway, and her older sister wash dishes.

Finally I offered, “I was talking about this with some other young people. You know, that we have to change the heart. They couldn’t figure out how we can do that – I mean, do you know of a doctor who will do an operation to give a new heart?”

She laughed, but then grew sober. “Actually, I heard of a doctor who did that. But I always said it was all rumors and lies. He would take the hearts of dead people and put them into people who had bad hearts.”

“But you don’t believe that that doctor really did that?”

“Of course not!”

The little kids come rattling past us again, in a cloud of dust and flying pebbles. The metal hitting stones was loud, and I waited for them to pass.

“Well, I know a doctor who does that operation.”

She stared at me in surprise, and I had to grin as I continued, “When he came, he said that he came for the sick people, not the healthy. He came to heal people’s hearts. He said that everything evil – slander, hate, envy, anger, etc. – all comes out of the heart of a man, and he said that if we would let him do the operation he would make our heart be one that gives streams of living water, not the evil mud.”

She was listening with interest, but she still didn’t totally believe me.

“And you know how you said that the other doctor was taking hearts from dead people? Well this doctor knew that the only righteous heart was his own. So he died. And he took that righteous heart and now whenever he does the operation, he takes out our wicked heart and puts in his own. I asked him to do the operation in me, and he did.”

Her eyes were big now at this news.

“Annie,” I said and smiled, “are you sure you don’t know this doctor’s name?”

“No.”

“His name is Jesus.”

Total silence while that sank in, then she suddenly burst out into laughter as she realized what I had been saying.

Please keep praying that more and more people will be coming to Doctor Jesus here in Isiro, and then that they will have a life filled with the good works pleasing to God – not the other way around!