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Is The Model For African Missions Obsolete?

Posted in Christian Missions, tagged , , , on February 3, 2011| 6 Comments »

Urban Africa (Nairobi, Kenya)

The image of African mission work is that of walking dusty, impassable roads to get to villages with a dozen mud or thatch huts, no electricity, no running water, sometimes no well, working with illiterate people whose religion is animistic , pagan, and highly superstitious. And, in fact, much–maybe most–of the mission work done by American churches of Christ probably fits generally into this framework, even though specific works might not.

 
Read this paragraph from Wikipedia, which documents a major upheaval in African demographics since 1950.  It is this extraordinary shift that causes me to wonder if our paradigm for African missions has shifted along with it:

“It is estimated that in 1900 about 95% of Africa’s inhabitants south of Sahara lived from the primary occupations of farming, hunting & gathering, cattle nomadism, and fishing (Aase, 2003:1) meaning that less than 5% were urban. In 1950 (the start of the independence period) 14.7% of Africa’s inhabitants were urban, in 2000 it had risen to 37.2% and it is expected to rise to 45.3% in 2015, in effect 3.76% –3.35% per year (UN, 2002). The Nigerian city of Lagos that in 1963 had 665 000 inhabitants (Rakodi, 1997) and 8.7 million in 2000 is expected to become the worlds 11th biggest city by 2015 with 16 million inhabitants (UN, 2002). The urbanization of most of Africa is moving fast forward, especially south of the Sahara.”

My questions revolve around this growing urbanization of Africans and whether we Christians might be stuck in a strategy for missions in Africa based on the pre-1950 realities.
1. Are we training new workers for urban settings or is working in the “bush” still the primary assumption for preparations ? At a recent mission workshop, African missions was simulated so that students discovered experientially how missions were done and/or perhaps their own affinity for working in Africa.  Nowhere, though, was there an opportunity for talking about working with professional Africans in urban settings.  The entire experience was rural, fairly primitive Africa.

2. Do potential workers even want to go to cities, or is the African bush image that which draws them? We mission types don’t often admit that the exotic nature of our work is attractive to us—but it usually is. If a potential missionary is thinking about Africa, are they attracted more to a picture of themselves holding Bible studies for office workers in a downtown Nairobi high-rise , or would they rather see themselves preaching under African acacia trees to goat herders?
3. Are we defaulting to bush missions because it is perceived as easier or more receptive? Is the assumption that urbanized Africans might be more educated, more sophisticated, wealthier, and less superstitious a reason to head for the bush?  We mission-types often consider all of the above to be barriers to reception of the gospel message.

Even these assumptions about urbanized Africans are only true for a very limited part of the population, since so many of the Africans in cities are very poor refugees from the rural environs.

4. We know what to do for rural poverty. We drill wells and teach them to fish. We introduce drip irrigation and provide basic education. Do we, however, have a theology to share for urban missions in Africa that will address the wealth/poverty issues in urban settings where the two are in much closer proximity to each other? What is the word of the Lord for affluent and/or educated Africans?  And can a foreigner speak this word to them or should it preferably come from their own prophets?

I will be the first to admit that I know very little about African missions, so please forgive me if my questions are somehow offensive.  These are, however, my questions.

I would love to hear your response.

 

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African Questions: What About the Poor?

Posted in Christian Missions, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

Introduction

About a year and a half ago, Sherrylee and I were in Africa for Let’s Start Talking. We were visiting either sites where we regularly send LST teams or new sites that had requested teams, but with whom we had had no personal contact.  It is impossible to tell if a new site is appropriate and/or prepared for LST teams without these personal contacts, so site visits are a regular part of our life.

Though it may sound paradoxical to those only vaguely familiar with missions, Let’s Start Talking has not had much history in Africa.  Two factors have contributed to this: first, LST is an urban ministry and most of the mission work done in Africa by churches of Christ is rural.

The second reason is that most of the missions done by churches of Christ has been in the English-speaking part of Africa, which limits the attraction of LST’s offer to help people with their English—at least, that’s what we thought.

A third reason that probably lies far behind the other two is that much of Africa is already Christian—at least superficially. LST works better where people come who have either little exposure to Christianity (Thailand or China) or they have had so much that they are apathetic toward the Christian message (western Europe).

However, we have tried to be open to where the Lord knows we should go, so when many invitations come from African national evangelists, we visit to see if we are called to work with them.  In the last five or six years, therefore, we have developed some deep relationships with certain national churches in Africa.

However, working in Africa brings a whole new set of questions and experiences for us personally and for LST. I shared some of this on Facebook notes before I started blogging, but I’ve been thinking more about these questions and wanted to share them with you.

 

My First Question About Missions in Africa

In the Gambia, we were told that it cost about $300/year to send a child to school. Many children don’t go to school because their parents do not have that kind of money. We met the same situation in Kenya.

Also the drought/famine in Kenya was heartbreaking. African ministers told about people in their communities who had nothing to feed their children, so they abandon them rather than watching them die.

Almost every day, we were confronted with some situation in which we felt like we should just pull out our wallet and fix somebody’s life–at a rather nominal cost to us personally.

We visited with Larry and Hollye Conway who are part of the “Made In The Street” ministry in Nairobi–a fantastic work btw. They have worked in Africa for about 25 years now. Sherrylee asked Hollye what the hardest part of her work was, and she said it was knowing when to give in love and when to withhold in love.

Jesus did not feed every crowd, raise every person who died, heal every sick person–but sometimes he did. I wonder how he made his choices.  Jesus is the one who said, “The poor you have with you always,” justifying the use of funds for something that seemed frivolous to others in the group.  But I always feel guilty if I am even tempted to quote that verse in any context!!

My experience is that it is often inappropriate for Americans to just walk in and start throwing money at every need they see, whether they are individual, institutional, or social.  But I can’t imagine that ignoring needs in the name of any philosophy of missions is right.

So that’s my question! How can we help the poor and needy, and how do we balance meeting their physical needs with meeting their spiritual needs.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that it is not either one or the other! Feeding them, housing them, and healing them does not change eternity for them. But not feeding them, housing them, or healing them may change eternity for us.

What are your answers?

 

 

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Stories of Wine and Romance!

Posted in Short-Term Missions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

I promised to tell some of the stories behind the LST Expectations and Commitments, formerly known as the Guidelines.

First, I want to say that almost all of the stories come from the 1980s when Let’s Start Talking was just beginning, and we were learning how to do short-term missions in a very new way!

Secondly, all of these stories revolve around people who were 19 or 20 years old and have since become very mature, responsible people.  These early stories should not reflect on them anymore than they do on Sherrylee and me and Let’s Start Talking now.

Too Much Wine

At the same time when most of the home churches of our students still preached and proscribed total abstinence from all alcoholic drinks,  Western European Christians virtually all drank beer frequently and had an occasional glass of wine.

Almost without exception our first workers were offered beer and/or wine during those early LST projects by their hosts!  One of our young women who had never even tasted wine before saw a glass poured for her at her host’s dinner table one special evening. Panicking a little, she decided that she would just down that one glass quickly and get rid of the problem. Of course, her host immediately poured another glass, which the student chugged as well!  She really doesn’t remember much of the rest of the evening.

After hearing this story, we decided it was just better to insist on abstinence, thus Expectation #7 – Protect the integrity of your testimony!

Too Much Romance

It was the very day their team was leaving for Germany on an early LST project.  They had been dating for some time at college and had come to a critical point in their relationship.  He was ready to ask her to marry him. She was trying to figure out how to break up with him!

As it sometimes happens, she found exactly the right moment to break up with him just before they boarded the plane for their six-week LST project together!  He cries for the entire flight, while she talks to a young Air Force officer that she just happened to be seated next to.

After this team had been on the field for about a week, Sherrylee and I get an emergency phone call! Come to Hildesheim! The entire team is engulfed in civil war, with the guys on His side and the girls on Her side!

Sherrylee and I drove up from Mannheim, met with the team, laid His and Her’s relationship out in the open and tried to bring some peace and harmony to the team. By the end of a very long evening, everyone is crying, everyone is hugging, so sorry for the trouble that has been caused. Everyone is going to do what is right. He is going to be stronger!

We leave, but before the second week is over, we get another emergency phone call from the team! It’s not working! He can’t eat; he can’t sleep; he is so heart-broken that sometimes he can’t even get through a conversation with His readers. She on the other hand is just having a great time—which makes Her team members mad who now almost all feel sorry for Him.

We drive up there and offer Him a little break—a few days away from the team so he can pull Himself back together!  He accepts, and we make the arrangements for Him and take Him to a friend’s home for a few days.

In the meantime, we learn that it makes all the guys mad that He is “punished” by being taken away from the team, when She is the problem!

Anyway, after just 24 hours, He calls us and says he feels so much better and has rejoined the team. Thanks for having given Him such good advice and support!”  So, we think, maybe they will hold together until the end of the project, which is now just three weeks away.

Three or four days later, we get the call and NOTHING is working right, so we drive back up to Hildesheim, move Him off of that team permanently, and place Him with another team about four hundred kilometers away.  It’s not ideal, but it is the best we can come up with.

The Hildesheim team seems to improve with some of the tension relieved. We visit the young man on His new team, who, in general, is better as well—especially since one of girls on the new team has started paying Him special attention!!

Well, two weeks later, all of our LST teams meet at a Frankfurt hotel for our EndMeeting before we fly back the next day. We meet together, pray together, and just celebrate what God has done during the summer!

After the meeting is over, He comes up and wants to talk to me privately. As He explains it to me, before He and She ever left the States on this project, they had planned to travel around a little together, visiting friends in Italy. He wanted to know what I thought He should do in light of the current situation.

I told him, “GO HOME! Are you crazy? After all you guys have been through—what are you thinking??

Against my advice, He and She traveled together to Italy.

Three months later, they were engaged.

In May of the next year I performed their wedding ceremony!!

Unbelievable!

But as we have pointed out to our workers each year since, what was the effect on the mission project? So, because of this incident—and many similar others, LST has a very strict no Romance policy—sometimes called affectionately our NO LOVE policy.  Today it is Expectation #5 – Use all of your time for developing spiritual relationships and none of it for romantic relationships.

Btw, He and She had many happy years of marriage until He died of a brain tumor just a few years ago. They were faithful Christians, leaders in their churches, all of their years together.

Lord, forgive me the sins of my youth!

 

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A Fifty-Pound Pink Suitcase for Short-Term Mission Training!

Posted in Short-Term Missions, tagged , , , , , on January 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Sherrylee and I have been traveling all day yesterday and today, visiting with LST board members and with LST leaders.  We are now in Santa Barbara—what a beautiful place—and finishing preparations to host an Intensive Training Weekend for several teams from Pepperdine University that begins tomorrow.

Intensive Training Weekends have been part of the LST training plan since the very beginning. The very first one was held in the winter of 1982. One of the team members had a cousin who had a “lake house” that they would make available to us.  My experience with lake houses was that they were luxurious recreational homes, usually in a resort-type setting.

This lake house was on Voss Lake in western Oklahoma, a man-made pond without a tree within 100 miles! The house did have plumbing, but it was separated from the main house, and the wind came whistling down the plains right through the outer walls of this lake house!  And it was in the single digits outside and sometimes in!

Nevertheless, we had a great time and most of the training elements that we still use would found their genesis at this first primitive retreat. We passed information about Germany to the team members, we did team building activities, we had very meaningful devotional time, and we built stronger relationships.

Thirty years later, our Intensive Training weekend is much better conceived, but quite similar to the original. Teams experience about 36 hours of LST project simulation, designed to help them understand who their team is, why they are going, and how they can have a successful mission project.

As team members come in the door, they are met by “customs officials,” who check their passports, their paperwork, and who see if they have brought too much luggage! At their orientation, they reset their watches to “LST Time”—about four hours later than local time—and the fun begins!

Because the teams are going overseas, no overhead projected songs are used for worship and  no checking email or texting is allowed; in addition,  a fifty-pound pink suitcase is awarded to teams that must carry  it around for a while, just to learn how heavy and burdensome too much luggage can be.

The highlight of the weekend may be the field training, when each team is given about fifteen tasks to accomplish on their own (This is why we try to get away from their home city, so that they will be unfamiliar with local sites and resources). They may be asked to interview a stranger and ask them what people in their country think about Jesus. They likely have to find out how much it costs to take public transportation for the retreat center to the local airport, or they may have to find the address and phone number of the nearest American embassy—without using the internet.  Every task has some parallel to either a task or decision that the team might be confronted with on the mission field.

They have a very small budget for lunch and they have to all agree on what they will eat. They also have to all try some food that they have never eaten before. It’s all fun, but it’s also a little challenging.

As the hosts of the weekend, we are not only hoping to create an environment where teams get to know each other better, where they catch the LST spirit (which we pray is the same as the Spirit of Christ), but we hope also to  observe which teams might have issues.

For instance, one year, a student arrived at the weekend who had totally disregarded the luggage limit that we had imposed.  When he was told that some of his stuff was going to be “confiscated,” he got angry and left!  Better to deal with that kind of spirit in training than have the same spirit create an incident with the mission church in some foreign country!

We often have interpersonal team issues that have been mostly ignored when people are not together every day, but that surface pretty quickly under the pressure of sitting together, eating together, and sleeping in the same room in sleeping bags on the floor of a church building together. Better to deal with them here than in the pressure cooker of the mission field.

At most of our Intensive Training weekends for students, we gather at 6am on Sunday (10am LST time!) for multi-cultural worship. We start with a Herzlich Wilkommen, and then proceed to a song in Portuguese.  Scripture may be read in Spanish, followed by a prayer in Japanese.  At some point, where we can arrange it, someone preaches for 10-15 minutes in a foreign language, followed by an English explanation of the lesson.

Communion is often taken by coming to the front as a team, praying with your arms around each other, sometimes sharing one cup—or a few! This hour is precious and one that impacts everyone!

The only major element of the weekend that I have not described is our session on Expectations and Commitments. That particular session comes with so many stories that it deserves its own post!

Look for the next post on “Stories Behind the Expectations and Commitments”.

 

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Expectations and Commitments

Posted in Christian Missions, Other, Short-Term Missions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

A couple of days ago, I asked you to help me with word choice for a revision of what we used to call “Guidelines.”  I received many good suggestions, so I thought you might like to see what the current final product is.

I went with Expectations, which was by far the most popular suggestion.  I like expectations too because it carries some weight while not feeling as negative or authoritarian as rules. Several suggested great words like covenant and promises, but expectations won!

I don’t know when the idea of a two-part entry hit me, but I thought it might be helpful to separate the principle from the concrete actions. By separating these, it certainly allows us to appeal to the principle even if a corresponding action has not been mentioned specifically.  We were desperately trying to avoid any attempt to capture every possible situation or every possible disruptive action that might occur on an LST project. We did not want to become Scribes and  Pharisees!

Feel free to ask questions or comment on any of these expectations and commitments. There is a story behind each one. If you will apply to go on an LST project, you will get to hear the story, though I suspect if you read enough of these blog posts, you will hear the stories as well.

EXPECTATIONS AND COMMITMENTS!

 

EXPECTATIONS COMMITMENTS
1)      God first! 1) I will begin each day with my team devotional and put God first in all I do and say!
2) Put others before Yourself! 2) I will put the needs of my project first and my teammates next. I will not insist on my way!
3) Be affirming, not critical. 3) I will affirm my missionary, my team members, and the local church. I will not criticize, correct, or debate with anyone, either in person, or in my communication to people at home!

 
4) Serve those you came to serve 4) I will not use electronic access to keep me from engaging and serving. I will not be distracted or disengage from the project to which I have committed.
5) Develop spiritual relationships 5) I will not get involved romantically in any way with anyone. All relationships will be pure and not perverse, chaste and within God’s boundaries for single and married Christians.
6) Adapt in culturally appropriate ways.

 

 6) I will dress, speak, and act in ways that the host church holds to be spiritually and culturally appropriate
7) Protect the integrity of your testimony! 7) I will abstain from tobacco, alcoholic drinks, illegal drugs, bars, discos, nightclubs, and any other activity or situation which I, my team, LST, or the host church believes will diminish my witness for Christ.
8  Be responsible for yourself! 8  I will make only myself legally, financially, and morally responsible for my own actions, and I will not blame others.
9) Submit to the local host. 9) I will cooperate completely with the local host. I will bring all Readers asking about salvation to the local host, and I will only help local people financially through the local host, so that the most good can be accomplished. I will not try to be independent of the local host.
10) Submit to the Let’s Start Talking Ministry I will cooperate fully with the Let’s Start Talking Ministry by following the letter and the spirit of these expectations, as well as all other instructions given by LST. I will not commit LST funds, LST teams, or the LST ministry unless specifically authorized.

 

 

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Do You Like Rules or Commitments?

Posted in Short-Term Missions, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 7, 2011| 4 Comments »

My task this weekend is to re-write what we have long called the Let’s Start Talking Guidelines. They are a list of non-negotiable behavior expectations that have grown up over the thirty years of our history.

For instance, we do not wish our workers to get involved with anyone romantically while on their mission project, so we have a No Romance policy.  I hope this seems reasonable enough to you, but because we work with many college students and because being away from home creates an exotic ambience even for adults, this is one problem area that seems to surface every year!

There are only sixteen such guidelines in their current form, so it is not cumbersome,  but over the years we have continued to revise them to the point that sometimes the primary expectation is no longer obvious.  For instance, our No Romance guideline now reads:

“Dating team members is a major distraction to the commitment you have made with LST. Spend that love, time, and attention on those who need it in order to find Jesus. Romantic relationships with Readers will block their ability to find Jesus. Involvement with church members will create undesired problems. From our years of experience, this area is one of the most sensitive. Keep your focus on spending all of your energy sharing Jesus.

See how mushy this is!  So let me tell you what my biggest problem is in this assignment. Maybe you can help!

I cannot find the right word!   Which word or phrase will describe this important document in a way that is neither offensive nor condescending to both our college and church workers? Which word might perhaps even motivate or inspire them to full ownership?  HELP!!!

Rules of Behavior is too authoritarian, but Guidelines sounds like The Ten Suggestions, which has no teeth.  Standards does not ask for commitment, but Commitments is a pretty strong word that makes people run for cover!  A Code sounds military (just think about A Few Good Men), Pledges makes me reach for my wallet, and Promises evokes strains of The Wedding March! Where is Shakespeare when you need him??

As we talked about this in our office common room today, it was interesting to notice which personalities went for which words!

Wait a minute! Therein lies a clue! Outside of gross criminal actions, we live in a society where no one really wants anyone to infringe on their own right to make their own decisions about their own behavior!!  Everybody wants to choose their own word!

How can we live in such a community? How can we live and work together?  How can two walk together unless they agree—on how to describe the mutual expectations to which they are willing submit?  I begin to think my semantic problem is a symptom of a spiritual problem!

After I finish my assignment, I’ll tell you some of the stories behind our guidelines, so you can consider them for your short-term mission project.

What word or phrase would you suggest I use?

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November 22-24 : Last Stop!

Posted in Christian Missions, Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , on November 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The city of Rothenburg ob der Taube was first settled in 960 A.D.  OK, stop and think about that for a moment. That is 532 years before Columbus discovered America.  I hardly know how to relate to dates like that.  But here is the date that really caused me to pause and think:  the first Christian church was built in Rothenburg in 968. 

Now I know that the 10th century is 900 years after Paul started churches in Turkey, Greece, and other places, but what that means is that people in this valley next to the Taube River have had some exposure to the name of Jesus and the story of Jesus for over one thousand years.

One thousand years is time enough for many things to happen, for instance:

  • the simple story of Jesus can morph into a complicated, unknowable story, one that only seminary-educated people are supposed to or expected to know.
  • the community of Christ can evolve into a state-organized community listed primarily on rolls for tax collection purposes.
  • the faith of those that would leave the civilized world to build a church in the middle of paganism can evolve into a kind of Christian paganism–a phrase that to me means simple disbelief of the real story but a disbelief described  in words that were formerly Christian words.
  • the buildings constructed on the backs of and at the expense of several generations of peasants, a sacrifice made because of very simple faith but devout faith, these buildings are now museums, some museums of culture and others museums of faith–not much difference really.
  • the values preached and practiced by those earliest Christians have had time to simply be absorbed into the culture–no longer recognized as Christian values, just good values.

All of these thoughts, rather than being reason for discouragement, can also be taken as a challenge for the Christian warrior–not an image we really use very much any more.  At the Euro-American Retreat in Rothenburg, there are about 135 people from twenty different countries, many of whom qualify as Christian warriors though.

There are American missionaries from Albania, from France, from Belgium, from Austria. There are national evangelists from Romania,  from Ukraine, from Italy, from Germany. Then there are the foot soldiers, not missionaries or preachers, but Christians who live in the middle of pagan, of secular, of formerly Christian and formerly Communistic societies, who are here to be encouraged and strengthened, so that they can go back and fight some more!

That’s one of the reasons we love being on mission fields with people who live in mission fields. They know they are in a battle, they know that they are fighting against immense odds. Nothing would suggest that they will win the battle–nothing except their absolute faith in the Victory of Jesus. 

Thanks to Phil Jackson from Missions Resource Network for keeping this retreat alive. It began as an American military retreat when Europe was full of American soldiers. Phil has developed a quality program for all Christians and a growing number now recognize the benefit of spending these 4-5 days together.  Let me recommend it to you!

Tomorrow, Sherrylee, Cassie, and I leave for home via an overnight in London. We are going to take Cassie to the Tower of London and to Phantom of the Opera.  She may remember London more in the future, but I believe she will be shaped more by the conversations with Bill Wilson, with the van Erps, with the Brazles–both couples–and with the workers in Hildesheim. I’m so glad she is with us in Rothenburg; I want her to be a true believer in the Victory for the rest of her life!!

Thanks for going with us on this journey.  We will talk again next week after we recover from Thanksgiving.

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November 19-21- A Northern German Homecoming!

Posted in Christian Missions, Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , on November 22, 2010| 3 Comments »

We left Hans and Aans van Erp on Friday to drive to Hildesheim/Hannover, Germany.  Going to these cities is like going home for Sherrylee and me.  Hannover was our home from 1973-1979 and the place where all of our children were born.  But as is often the case, going “home”  to a place you have left is never really possible.  The conflict between nostalgia and reality brings with it some pain as well as a lot of joy.

The painful part is that the church we planted in Hannover in 1973 no longer exists. It grew from nothing to perhaps 80+ in the first 25 years and was truly one of the largest and best churches of Christ in Europe, but then the devil got a foot in the door. I don’t know whether it started with jealousy in the leadership or in the failure of some key marriages, but within about five years, the church fell apart.  Most of the members are in other churches, so they did not lose faith; nevertheless, the sudden demise–even though we had not been a part of the church officially since 1979–makes me sad.

The good news is that the church of Christ in Hildesheim and the church in Peine were both daughter churches of Hannover, and the daughters live on and are doing very well.  Randy and Katie Smelser, sent by the independent Christian church,  have a wonderful group in Peine, which includes several former Hannover members.

The story of the work in Hildesheim starts many years ago when we lived in Hannover. We actually organized some attempts to make contacts in Hildesheim during the 1970s. Then in the 80s, we worked together with the Hannover church to conduct yearly LST projects in Hildesheim. No group was meeting there regularly, but several of the Hannover members began a Bible study group in Hildesheim with some of the LST readers and their friends.

I don’t know which year it was that Don Roehrkasse and Randy Smelser  both left their work in Hannover to begin the works in Peine and Hildesheim, but it has been probably about 15 years ago–maybe twenty.  A great spirit of cooperation existed then between the three churches and continues today between Peine and Hildesheim who have quarterly combined services to support each other.

Sherrylee and worshipped in Hildesheim on Sunday, Sherry teaching the children’s class and I preached. I used the story of the possessed man in Mark 5 and set it parallel to our own story described in Ephesians 2.  One German man was telling me afterwards that the healed man in Mark 5 was the first missionary sent by Jesus. I had never thought of that, but Jesus did send him to his home to tell his family and friends what Jesus had done for him.  Check that thought out and see what you think.

The Hildesheim church is full of young people, has several complete young families, and there were at least two different sets of seekers that had begun attending recently.  I had the feeling that the group was alive and reaching out–that’s probably redundant, isn’t it!  Alive churches are always reaching out. 

Just as we were ready to leave a German couple who are dear friends of ours wanted to talk with us unter vier Augen (under four eyes= privately).  I thought to myself, “Oh no, what is going wrong in their life?? Please, Lord, not them!”  I gladly repented of my Euro-pessimism as they talked to us about wanting to use their retirement years for God and what opportunities did we know of and what would we recommend.  I loved that conversation because it represents a boldness and maturity of faith in these German Christians that we don’t often see in Christians anywhere.

God is working in Germany and in Europe. He is working slowly and patiently, but if we abandon His work here, then we will miss out on the opportunity to be His servants, His vessels here. I’m glad that we have been a part of the European work for forty years now. In spite of the heartache and the wish that the harvest would come sooner, I’m glad that we and the Roehrkasses and the Smelsers and the Brazles and the Sullivans and the Wilsons, and the many others of our time, and those who came to Europe before us–and especially for those who are coming now after us, I am thrilled to have been used by God in Europe.

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November 9 – Bucharest: Bullet Holes In the Walls

Posted in Christian Missions, Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , on November 10, 2010| 3 Comments »

The first time I was in Bucharest, Romania, was Spring of 1990, just months after the revolution. The streets were empty, the stores were empty, the people were friendly–but empty, and there were bullet holes in the walls of many of the downtown buildings.  One of my strongest memories is of how the main road from the airport to  the city had to be navigated through huge potholes.

Well, the potholes are gone, the streets are full of cars, the stores are full of stuff, the bullet holes are gone except for the museum pieces, the people are still friendly–but as in much of Eastern Europe, the emptiness of 1990 has only been filled with materialism, not God.

One of the earliest LST workers in Romania was Bubba Cook–he goes by Albert in Romania, but I noticed that most of his friends still call him Bubba, so I will too.  He did short-term work for four years in several cities in Romania, and after completing his Masters at Harding Graduate School in Memphis, he was invited back to Bucharest to work full-time.  He married one of the young women in the church Lavinia and now ten years later, they have two beautiful children Bogdan and Lara. (See their picture on my Facebook page–I can’t figure out how to get to these pictures from public computers!)

But their road has not been easy. The main church in Bucharest is typical of many “post-war” churches in Europe.  Feeding on the brokenness and emptiness of the Communist era, the immediate impact of the love of Christians and the gospel story touched many post-revolution lives, so at one point in the first ten years, the congregation numbered over 300 members here in Bucharest. As people recovered economically, however, they began filling their lives with things other than God, so the numbers are down to under 50 in this same church. 

It is an old story in Europe. Frankfurt had at least three congregations that built buildings to hold 1000 people after WWII; all the buildings emptied and now have been sold, and the body of members continues to shrink with each year–and it is one of the better churches!  The same story unfolded in Japan after WWII, so this is not a country-specific spiritual disease, but one that threatens every congregation in its own story.  You can probably think of some great American churches of the past that are struggling to keep their doors open now.

As this kind of slow death begins to occur in a church, the macro-struggles of the church to survive only reflect the micro-struggles of individual Christians in the church–and often on the mission field, the missionaries or the national evangelists receive the brunt of the frustrations the church feels as it declines.

Without getting into the details of their story–because it is their story–Bubba and Lavinia shared with us many of their frustrations and their struggles. We talked and we prayed for them and know that God will continue to lead them, but they are still dodging the potholes in the roads in Romania.  Bubba is actually enrolled in doctoral studies at a seminary here in Bucharest and doing very well. I think God has great plans for him and Lavinia.  Our advice to him was simple:  “Don’t quit!”

We visited with two of the Romanian leaders of the church of Christ in Bucharest–wonderful young men, full of the love of God, and as we talked about LST in Bucharest and how we might help, they began raising the same kinds of survival questions that Bubba and Lavinia had raised. We talked about how churches plateau in Europe at about 50, then they reach a point where it takes all their manpower to sustain the church, so they quit reaching out to new people. First, they just level out, then they start to shrink. When they start to shrink, they get scared of shrinking, so they throw all their energy into trying to rescue each other, which brings them closer to each other–but makes an even more closed group for any new people to try to enter–so eventually they settle into a comfortable number–and they stay comfortable until they die.  To survive, not just to grow,  a church must continue to reach out to new people!  That is true everywhere!

We left Bucharest yesterday hopeful! All of the people we talked with were eager to reach new people, to once again offer the Great News of Jesus to the Romanian people in a way that they can really see Jesus, not just as a flat-faced icon, but as the One who loves them and died for them, the One who can really fill the emptiness in their lives.  Pray for the work in Romania.

Today, we are in Kiev, Ukraine.  I can’t wait to see what God has in mind for us today!  I’ll try to tell you tomorrow.

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Tips For Planning Travel Abroad

Posted in Christian Missions, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , on October 4, 2010| 3 Comments »

Sherrylee and I are planning LST travel to Europe soon, so I am buried in airline, train, hotel, and rental car websites!  I’ve done this a lot—especially in Europe, so I thought I might share some tips with you.

Know what your priorities are for your trip! I usually am juggling two or three different elements:  number of travel days, places that we need to visit, and costs are the big ones. In the last few years, Sherrylee has made me also include rest—probably pretty smart on longer trips.

Here are some questions to help you rank your priorities.

  • Are your travel dates fixed or are you flexible? If fixed, rank this high; if flexible, you can move it down your list.
  • Where do you have to be? For us, this means surveying potentially new LST work sites or maintaining relationships with established LST sites.  For this next trip, our dates are fixed, so we are limited to how many places we can go to. For that reason, I have already had to make hard choices between established sites and new sites.
  • How much money do you have to spend? If you have more money than time, your answer will be different from those people on smaller budgets or shorter agendas. For LST trips, the answer is always small budget and long agenda—which is why it takes lots of time and research to make it work.  Yesterday I was looking at the cost of trains versus flights between Zagreb and Budapest—which is also a question of how much time we have as well.
  • What are the non-negotiables? We must be in Frankfurt on Wednesday the 17th because we must pickup someone at the airport who is joining us there!  We must be in Rothenburg on the 21st for the start of the American-European Retreat!  Almost everything else is subject to change.
  • What pace can you sustain? We have actually begun allowing ourselves at least a day of rest after the transatlantic flight if at all possible. In addition, rather than trying to be in another place every day—which is how we used to plan these trips—we now allow an extra day in some places, mostly just to pace ourselves.  People who don’t pace themselves often either exhaust themselves to the point they can’t complete their agenda, or they arrive home so exhausted that they lose a week or two recovering from their trip. Your trip will be more enjoyable, if you will pace yourself.

I then work in concentric circles, from the BIG details to the smaller details. For me, this means buying tickets to Europe and back first!  That sets the boundaries with exact dates of travel.  The only tickets I have bought to date are the flights over the Atlantic.

Next, I try to book the non-negotiables. For instance, I have made hotel reservations only in Rothenburg so far.  Today, I intend to nail down whether we will spend the night in Frankfurt on the 16th before our guest arrives early the next morning. We probably will, so we will need a hotel not too far from the airport!

Then, I try to plan an affordable route. Usually it is least expensive to travel in the same direction as opposed to crisscrossing . If you are scheduling meetings with people in lots of different places, this can be challenging, so you have to work on it early, before you start purchasing any of your other travel. I like to fly to the furthest point, then work my way back to the place we will return from.  For this trip, that means flying from DFW to Frankfurt, but going to Turkey first, working our way back through eastern Europe and finishing in western Europe.

After all of the transportation is set and purchased, then I go back and book hotels and rental cars, where necessary. These seem to be easier to cancel than flights, if something changes—and  something always changes!!

Next, I’ll talk about useful websites and travel information that might help you, as well as strategies for using them.

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