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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 15-18: Great People and Great Stories!

Posted in Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I am always hesitant to tell other people’s stories because I believe it is really their story to tell, but in this post, I want to introduce you to some great people and at least hint at their stories enough that you might want to find out more about them. You will be blessed if you do–as we have been.

After leaving Chemnitz and Leipzig, Sherrylee and I drove to Mainz, home of Johann Gutenberg who invented the printing press and very near Worms, where Luther was accused and tried for his reformation heresies. (Remember that the Diet of Worms was the event, not the punishment!)

But our reason for going to Mainz was to visit with Alex and Cass Huffman. We saw them last almost two years ago just after Alex had accepted a research fellow-type position at the Max Planck Institute, one of the most prestigious research institutes in Germany. They were looking forward to exploring Europe, to an adventure for a couple of years–which is what they have had, but not the one they anticipated.

Not long after we saw them, they became pregnant, and about five months into the pregnancy they found out that their baby’s heart had not developed; in fact, only one side of it was fully formed.  That began for them a journey that has taken them through difficult medical choices, difficult ethical choices, through mountaintop moments of faith as well as valleys of angst and despair. 

Little baby Noah Autumn Huffman was born seven months ago, has already had two major surgeries to re-construct her heart so that it could function adequately for several years. She has at least one more major surgery looming–but having held her myself and watched her play in the Huffman’s small German apartment last Tuesday, I just want to say, she is a happy, precious little person–and Alex and Cass are people of great faith.

Alex and Cass have lived each day of Noah’s life, knowing that she could die at any minute, yet they see the hand of God in everything. Their move to Germany brought them into a medical system where their insurance completely covers the huge bills they have incurred. The procedure for treating little Noah is called the Giessen Procedure–because it was perfected at the Giessen Medical University, just one hour away from Mainz by some of the world’s leading children’s cardiologists, all of which they have had access to because God led them to Germany–not for the adventure they imagined, but for a faith journey that has transformed the rest of their lives.  If you want to read the details of their story, you can find Alex and Cass on Facebook and read their blogs.

We picked up Cassie, our granddaughter,  in Frankfurt on Wednesday, thrilled that she is joining us for the last week of our travels.  Our first stop with her was lunch in Cologne, Germany, with Bill Wilson and the Uli Steiniger family.  Bill has served as a missionary in Cologne since 1969. His wife Deanna died five years ago, so Bill is retiring and moving back to the States sometime this year.  He has been–and will continue to be–one of God’s great and faithful servants.  The church in Cologne has elders, so he is leaving behind a mature group of Christians.

Then we drove to a little Belgian town south of Eindhoven, Netherlands, to visit with Hans and Aans van Erp, two of our dearest friends in Europe. Thirty-five years ago, Hans visited the church in Hannover that we had planted, which started them on a faith journey. They were baptized by Tom and Dottie Schulz not long thereafter. In 1988, they invited Let’s Start Talking to help them plant a new church in Eindhoven, a church which has thrived and continues to thrive until today. The church has 50-60 members, lots of young families, and great diversity which reflects the general population in the Netherlands.

For the first twenty-five years, Hans and Aans carried the burden of leadership in this new church alone, but in the last ten years or so, other Dutch Christians have stepped forward to share the responsibilities.  We have shared the joys and struggles of three sons, one of which is part of a mission team in Ghent, Belgium. We have shared their hospitality many, many times and each time seems a little sweeter. That is just the way it should be with Christians, isn’t it!

Yesterday, we drove to Antwerp and had lunch with lifetime friends and long-time missionaries Paul and Carol Brazle. They have been faithful in Antwerp for almost 30 years–maybe longer–and I was impressed in our conversation about how they continue to find new ways to reach out to their community. As with many places in Europe, a large group of African Christians now meets in their building and they are exploring ways to nurture and grow the relationship between these two churches, spiritually of one spirit, but culturally vastly different.

And, finally, then last night we had supper with Luk and Holly Brazle–yes, related. Luk is Paul’s nephew and the son of Mark and Jill Brazle who worked in Belgium as missionaries for over 15 years.  Luk is one of the very special breed of second generation missionaries.  They are four years into a new church plant in Ghent and doing a great job.  I was impressed to find that Luk had just sent out a fairly lengthy assessment questionnaire to many people who are connected to his work, trying to help him know what his own strengths and weaknesses were.  What maturity it takes to be willing to ask others to evaluate your work.

Nothing is more refreshing than to be in the presence of people of great faith! We all still live within a great cloud of witnesses and can be encouraged by them in our own daily struggles. Maybe you want to just go see one of your faith friends–or call one up today–just for the joy it brings.

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November 14-16: Can A Church Be Exemplary in Germany??

Posted in Other, Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , on November 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been computer-less for the last three days, so I know I’m a little behind, but you are going to forgive me when you read about the great church, I want to tell you about today.

On Sunday the 14th, while all of America was asleep, Sherrylee and I worshipped with the church of Christ in Chemnitz, Germany–a vibrant, thriving, encouraging family of God that I can’t wait to tell you about.

But the story begins in 1990 with our first visit to the same city. We traveled with Daryl and Gail Nash into what just a few months before had been Karl-Marx-Stadt. As we drove into the city, the big communist sign had butcher paper across it with the name CHEMNITZ in magic marker.

Daryl and Gail and their daughter Morgan moved to Chemnitz in1991 and began a wonderful experiment in tentmaking missions. We opened a private language school in Chemnitz named ABC English Language School which Daryl and Gail operated for almost a decade.  The idea was to provide them financial support AND to grow so that the school could hire more Christian teachers to come and support them as well, creating a self-funded mission team.

At its zenith, the school supported about eight people and opened a second branch in Zwickau, Germany. Of course, Gail and Daryl began worshipping in Chemnitz with one other person who had been baptized by Reiner Kallus in Oelsnitz–a small group of Christians who had migrated from the Lutheran church almost immediately after the collapse of the wall through Reiner’s efforts.

Mostly because of the potential and because of the Nashes in Chemnitz, it wasn’t long until Larry and Pam Sullivan decided to move to Chemnitz and focus their full-time efforts with the newly-formed church. Then just a few years later, Jack and JoAnn McKinney, former missionaries in Switzerland and retired from Harding University, moved to Chemnitz for about five years to help the new congregation mature.

Somewhere in all of this Clyde and Gwen Antwine, former missionaries in Germany and then teaching missions at Oklahoma Christian, befriended the Sullivans and began coming each year to help them and encourage them. Clyde became the head of the Helpers In Missions internship program at Memorial Road Church of Christ, so he began sending interns to Chemnitz regularly.

And, of course, Let’s Start Talking had been sending teams each year from the beginning. The LST teams worked mostly with students at the ABC English school who wanted the extra experience in English.

Now almost twenty years later, the church is 50-60 people, mostly Germans (which is sometimes unusual), lots of young people, young families with young children, and with German leadership–in other words, a very healthy, growing, and encouraging congregation. 

The Nashes left twelve years ago, ABC English closed, and the Sullivans have done such a good job that they are preparing to move to Leipzig in the next year to help with a new church plant there.  Karen Neel, who came as an ABC English teacher originally, is teaching at a private school and continues to provide an evangelistic spirit to the church, the Antwines continue to send HIM workers as the church requests, and LST is still a regular part of the church’s plan for reaching new people.

I couldn’t help but asking myself why Chemnitz has continued to grow and has become such a strong church while so many other efforts in Europe are either stagnant or have failed completely, and I keep coming back to one major difference. Of course the only real answer is that God has acted mightily here, but from a purely practical side, I think that the difference has been the fact that Chemnitz has been a large team effort–not just a team effort, but a large team effort, which is so rare in Europe.

I’ve written about this once earlier this year in the series on Great Churches, so you might look back and see a more exhaustive look at the idea, but I think Chemnitz is another example of what could be done in Europe with lots of people over a longer period of time with sustained efforts–and much prayer!

We left Chemnitz on Sunday and visited with Karen Abercrombie, who with her husband Mark and the Sullivans, are starting the new work in Leipzig. I hope many of you will find ways to join them in this work and that God will bless this new work.  Perhaps He looks down and says, “Well, they do care after all. Lots of my people care about Leipzig!”‘

We left Leipzig and drove toward Mainz where we visited with Alex and Cass Huffman and their baby girl Noah.  You won’t believe the story they have . . . .

PS. Don’t forget that I’m posting pictures as we go on my Facebook page. Sorry, I can’t get them off my phone to add to the blog directly.

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November 10 : Hotel Mistakes

Posted in Traveling Thoughts, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 Yesterday, Sherrylee and I had a good meeting with Yuriy Aniper, who is another of the young preachers working in Eastern Europe today.  He inherited the work when Rick Pinchuk, a long-time worker, died.  Yuriy has prepared himself well, having completed a degree at Kiev Theological Seminary and has good support from the States, so we pray that his work will be fruitful and he will be faithful for all of his life.

By the way, have I ever told you how hard it is to choose hotels in foreign countries over the internet.  I’ve always booked our own travel because I’ve done it so much, I think I can do it better than everyone else.  After all, you have to consider several important factors in choosing a hotel over the internet:

  • location – You don’t want to be on the opposite side of a city from the people you are wanting to see if it takes a couple of hours to cross by tram. You also don’t want to be too isolated when your friends are not around.  And, finally, you want to be relatively convenient to getting to the airport, preferably not a 50 dollar cab ride away.
  • cleanliness and comfort – All turkish hotels have hard beds because that is what they think is standard. All London hotel rooms are tiny, crowded, and have marginal bath/showers. You have to allow a wide range of acceptability here, but still you have to look for something that works for you. We have found that the date the hotel was built and/or when the rooms were updated are probably the only way to really tell anything about the hotel on the internet.
  • restaurant, internet access, and airport shuttle are all important to us, but not 100% essential
  • cost – Cost is the hardest.  I always try to balance the above factors with what I think is reasonable.

When I make a hotel mistake, it is always because I thought cost was more important than what I was giving up–and it never was.  That is exactly what happened with the hotel I had booked in Kiev.  It was a two-star hotel, which didn’t look too far from the center of town, but the only reason it won in the finals was because of price.  We took a taxi from the airport–it is always a bad sign when the taxi drivers don’t have a clue where the hotel is.  As he started slowing down, I started peering out the taxi window into the darkness–the eastern European darkness that is just a little scary. The only businesses anywhere near were the little tin sheds selling cigarettes, magazines, and whatever. 

As we got ready to stop, Sherry said, I don’t think we can stay here.  That is all it took for us to just keep on driving.  Hotel mistakes are expensive mistakes. Our only choice in the middle of the night was to ask the taxi driver to take us to a big name hotel, so we ended up at the Radisson–a very nice, but pretty expensive hotel.  So, anyway, my only advice to you about choosing hotels is that you may save money in the long run by not being quite so stingy when you are searching.

And, yes, I did look on Tripadvisor.com and I will be writing my own review as soon as we get back.  So my final words of advice on this subject are

  • Never believe the pictures on the internet. Just remember that they are all glamor shots.
  • Make sure you read reviews on neutral sites–and make sure those reviews are recent. (I almost chose one hotel in Kiev until I got to the fourth review that said something like, “Oh yea, if it makes any difference to you, the hotel is above a pretty loud strip club.” )
  • If your gut says “maybe not,” listen to it.

We are in the best hotel ever in Budapest, so I’m batting 3 for 4 so far.  I’ll keep you posted though.

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November 10 – Kiev: A Glimpse of the Harvest

Posted in Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , on November 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In 1991, LST sent a large group of students from Lipscomb University to Kiev, Ukraine.  One of those students was Chris Lovinggood, who later returned as a full-time worker. One of his accomplishments was to create what is called the Ukrainian Education Center (UEC), a center for reading, for study, for small groups to gather, in short, a place for Christians to build relationships with the community.  This building is where the Let’s Start Talking teams meet their Readers as well. 

Today, Sherrylee and I had the privilege of meeting Vitaly Samodin,  the director of the UEC.  He is also one of the leaders in the Nevky church, with whom LST has a fairly long history of serving.  We spent the morning talking about our partnership and how we might serve the church here better.

About 11am, we were joined by Kostya K–, the minister for the church of Christ in Bila Tserkva, just outside of Kiev.  Kostya’s story is classic!

Kostya was an LST reader about 1994 in Kiev. David Skidmore was the American Christian who read with him. David says that they sat under a statue of Lenin as they read.  But Kostya was not that interested. So David went home.  Fifteen years later,  David is walking by the missions bulletin board in a Memphis church and sees a picture of Kostya and couldn’t believe his eyes.  He read the caption under the picture and was convinced it was the same Kostya that he had read with under the statue of Lenin, but now Kostya was the preacher for the church in Bila Tserkva!  David had not even known that he was a Christian.  Heaven is going to be full of people discovering each other and never dreaming that one had influenced the other towards eternity. 

We visited with Kostya for a while, then he took us to the UEC since we had never been there.  As a true serendipity, Tim Archer, a man we had worked with in Kiev in the early 90s was also visiting the UEC, so we got to have lunch with Tim and Kostya.  See what I mean about our being so blessed to constantly meet people of great faith.

Churches of Christ in Kiev seem to be doing well. There is sustained work, there are many young leaders, there is vision beyond just conducting church services, and there is a strong sense of serving the community.  It has been an encouraging day.

The weather in eastern Europe is unseasonably warm. Sherrylee and I can’t decide whether it is a blessing or a curse. Very cold weather as we expected would have been bone-chilling, no doubt, but the extra warm weather has made it very, very warm in all the buildings because they had already turned on the heat.  It is apparently unreasonable to cool anything in November.  Oh well. Stretch those rubber bands.

Tomorrow we have a morning meeting with Yuriy Aniper and then we fly to Budapest.  Thanks for going along with us.

Look for pictures of the people we meet on my Facebook page.

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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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November 8 – Two Different Stories

Posted in Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , on November 9, 2010| 2 Comments »

On these kinds of trips, Sherrylee and I get to talk to lots of different people. That’s a funny sentence actually. First, there are only different people, and secondly, the differentness of the people is most of the reason why we make the trip, so why should it be unusual. Well, as the French say, vive la difference!

As we are talking to these different people, one of our favorite ways to get to know them first is to ask them to tell us the story of how they became Christians.  On our last night in Turkey, during a visit with A and K, they introduced us to M and T, two Russian Christians that are their co-workers in Antalya.  As they told us their stories, I was reminded again that God’s ways are not our ways, or as the old hymn says, “God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.”  Read the short version of their stories and delight with me in the different and unexpected ways God finds people who want to find Him.

M’s parents were atheists, so he had no religious thread to his life. He was, however, brought up with a sense of morality and a tender-heartedness towards people–not traits highly regarded among his peers. When he entered the Russian army as a very young man, he says he was beat every day. If it was not other soldiers taking advantage of him, it was instructors or officers trying to toughen him up. For the most part, they just humiliated him.

Of course, he left the army as soon as it was possible, but then he decided he needed to be tougher, so he started drinking more, carousing, confronting people and picking fights whenever he could in an effort to be a tough guy.  But M, as much as he tried and as depraved as he could act,  was not a tough guy at heart, so when his conscience would catch up with him, he said he would just lie on his bed, cross his arms over his chest, and wish to die–right then and there. He had lost his soul!

One day after lying all day on the couch and wishing to die, he got up to go outside and get something and a complete stranger came up to him and began talking to him and being friendly–pretty unusual for M who really only had friends who humiliated him. Out of the blue, this stranger invited M to church with him.  That’s all it took.  M went and found God and was found by the love of God, and now he is spending his life serving God!

T, his wife, has a very different story.  Her parents followed the party line under Communism, not believing in God and not teaching her about religion, but her grandmother was different. Everyday, her grandmother would go into the sitting room in their house and shut the door for a while. When T was about seven, she followed her grandmother into the room and discovered that her grandmother was reading the Bible and praying to God during these secret times.

From that moment on, T believed in God–in her own way. God became her secret friend, she says. She would talk to God but not in a religious way, rather in a child-like way, not really knowing anything about him. But He knew her, so the story just gets better.

As was pretty common in Georgia, when T was about 15 or 16 years old, her mother took her to a fortune-teller to have her future told.  As T tells it, the fortune-teller looked at her hand and used her cards, but then did not want to tell them what she saw. Mother insisted that the fortune-teller tell them even if it was bad, but eventually all the fortune-teller would say was that she could only see until T was 21 years old and then everything went black.

T was baptized when she was 21!  The seeds that her faithful grandmother had planted grew into a beautiful Christian young woman who was among the leaders in her church group. The devil had lost claim to her soul–no wonder the fortune teller’s powers could see no further. Tamoona belonged to God now!

T was at the church that M first visited–another providential act. They married and have promised to give their lives in God’s service–and we got to have supper with them in Antalya, Turkey. 

Tomorrow, I will tell you about our visit in Bucharest and about our friends and hosts Albert and Lavinia Cook.  The story just gets better!

PS. I have not figured out how to get pictures from my phone into this blog yet using public computers in Eastern Europe, but if you want to see pictures of the people I’m talking about, you can find them on my Facebook page–eventually.

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