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Posts Tagged ‘missions’

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 – 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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November 6 and 7 – Turkey

Posted in Traveling Thoughts, tagged , , , , , on November 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

We arrived in Antalya, Turkey, at 3am, took a taxi to our small pension in the old part of town called Kaleici, then went to sleep.  About 5am–I’m not quite sure–I was slightly awakened by the call to prayer that is heard five times each day in Muslim countries. 

I’m not sure myself how they determine when to pray, but I do know there is a slight contest between the different minarets to be the first to call each morning.  I suppose in some parts of town you might only hear one call, but where we are staying, there are at least five different people competing over their very loud speakers to be the first, or the best, or something. Anyway, it is always an interesting cavalcade of sounds–especially at 5am after an all-night flight–as each chanter begins his liturgy.

About noon, A… and K… and their nine-month old son I… met us for lunch. We first met A and K before they were married in 2002. They were part of the first Let’s Start Talking team in Turkey. A couple of years later, they participated in the first LST internship in Turkey, and now they are full-time M….. in Antalya and great young heroes of faith.

A and K met each other first in Moscow, Russia, where both of their parents were missionaries–not working together, but putting their children in the same school. This background, of course, gives them great experience and perspective for tackling this very challenging work in Turkey.  A’s dad Tim was actually one of the last full-time workers in Turkey from churches of Christ before all were expelled in the 1970s.  Sherrylee and I are grateful to Tim for opening the door to LST in Turkey, but even more for instilling in A a desire to reach out to the wonderful Turkish people.

A and K have been in Antalya for two years now. They are already involved in leading a small Russian-speaking church–you never know how God will use you–as well as working in a college outreach effort near Akdenz University (which uses English classes, but is not LST). In addition, they have several young Christians they are mentoring.

Sherrylee and I took them to their favorite restaurant for lunch where we had a kind of mincemeat-stuffed hushpuppy with some yoghurt dip/soup and a delicious quesadilla-style entrée made with their wonderful pita bread that is native to Turkey. A and K did all the ordering, so I’m afraid I didn’t learn the names of their favorite foods to share with you. I’ll try to do better in the future.

The pita bread though and a small bottle of red wine that we ordered gave us the opportunity to break bread and remember the Lord until he comes again–something Sherrylee has started reminding me to do often at our many “fellowship meals” with people. We Christians have ritualized the Lord’s Supper so much that at first it was a bit awkward to just casually pray, eat and drink–but I suspect it is much more first-century than what we typically do on Sundays.

We talked a lot with A and K about their work, especially brainstorming how to more effectively use the LST workers that come every year. Turkey, though legally a secular country, is enough in reality a country of muslim culture and just enough of the religion to force Christians to be careful.  Turkey has the same problem with Muslim fundamentalists that the U.S. has with Christian fundamentalists. If you can imagine the challenges for Muslim missionaries in the U.S., then you will understand the challenges of Christian M…..in Turkey.

(The M……s in Turkey never even say that word because in the vernacular it conjures up the Crusades and extreme Christian oppression among the Muslims.  We will have to explore together soon the use of words like that in foreign countries.)

Saturday evening we had dinner with the A & K and their Russian co-workers M and T with whom we had such an interesting conversation that I want to write separately about that tomorrow–if that’s OK with you!

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Traveling Thoughts: DFW to FRA

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 4, 2010| 1 Comment »

Today Sherrylee and I are leaving for three weeks of extensive travel through Europe for Let’s Start Talking. From the beginning of this missions ministry thirty years ago, we have felt that it was important to know well the sites that we are sending LST teams.  It’s important also for them to know LST well.  If we don’t know them well, we might send a team to a site that was ill-suited to them.  If the mission site doesn’t know us well, their expectations of what would happen when an LST team came could be totally misaligned.  Either of these errors can lead to very poor mission projects!

For the next three weeks, we are making very short stops in Turkey, Romania,  Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. At the end of our trip, we will attend the Euro-American Retreat in Rothenburg, Germany.

I will not be taking my own computer, so my hope is to be able to get on the internet as we travel in order to keep you up to date.  This could mean that the blog schedule for the next few weeks is a little erratic, so I hope you will understand.

It’s going to be a great trip with many good conversations with great missionaries. I hope to introduce you not only to the cities and countries, but to the great heroes of faith that we get to visit on these kinds of trips.  You’ll enjoy it, I promise.

So, Auf Wiedersehen–well, not really.

The Germans actually not only use this phrase which means literally “until we see each other again”, but also Auf Wiederhoeren, which they use formally on the telephone to say “until we hear each other again.” I guess I’ll say Auf Wiederlesen–until we read each other again–or something like that!

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Raising Kids With A Heart For Missions: Teach Kids, Don’t Just Let Them Happen!

Posted in Raising Children To Have A Heart For Missions, tagged , , , , , , , on November 3, 2010| 2 Comments »

Several of you have commented on this series or have written with specific questions, and I just want you to know how much I enjoy hearing from you!  One of your comments that I have heard several times is how much you appreciate the concrete suggestions that I offer you for raising children with a heart for missions.

I have observed a certain reticence in many younger parents that we are around, a hesitance to be both concrete and confident in their own child-rearing ideas.  I’d like to just talk with you briefly about knowing what you are doing because I think it is pretty important if you want to raise children with hearts for the mission of God.

Post-modernism says that you can’t be certain. Most young couples are highly influenced, if not completely post-modern in their thinking, and so this worship of relativity has framed their thinking about child-rearing as well.  It’s suggested in all kinds of common remarks:

  • You don’t just want to indoctrinate your kids!
  • Each child just has to find his/her own path.
  • I don’t want to over-control my kids.
  • Who knows what they will become!

The best lies have a certain truth to them, and so it is with these comments! But for Christians, there are other Words that are more important than what we hear from our surrounding culture.  Try these Words and see if you can get comfortable with them.

Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.[a] 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

This does not sound hands-off to me!

Come, my children, and listen to me, and I will teach you to fear the Lord. Psalm 34:11.

This sounds like parents who know not only what they believe, but WHO they believe, and they want more than anything else that their children will be believers also.

Have you ever thought what a statement and commitment the act of circumcision was for both the parent and child? At eight days, the parents committed their child to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They physically marked the child to distinguish him from all the children who were not of Jewish families.  And circumcision was the command of God, so it wasn’t thought up by over-zealous, religiously, fanatical parents.

Here are now my words of encouragement to you about parenting your children so that they will have a heart for the mission of God.

  • Be confident in your own faith, so confident that you MUST share it with your children first! Youthful questioning and searching needs to give way as we become parents, not to dogmatism, but to confident faith—faith that doesn’t have all the answers, but knows that God is God!
  • God picked YOU to be the parents of your children; it wasn’t an accident. YOU were chosen to be the caretakers for one of His precious children, so He must believe YOU can accomplish with those children what He wants.
  • Of course, you have to depend on HIM for wisdom and help in child-rearing because you feel inadequate! But God has put ALL of His earthly treasures in earthen vessels. He is OK with our weaknesses and inadequacies. If we are fearful because of our weakness, we are confessing our own doubts about the power of God in our lives.
  • Enjoy the work of God! We are happiest when we are doing His work within His will. Teaching your children to love God and walk in His way is undoubtedly His work and His desire, so . . . delight in doing it!  Then your children will delight in Him also!

Letting children just happen is not the way of God! Your children are meant for Him. Your children were created for Him!  And God blessed your children with YOU! Be confident in your parenting and repeat the Word of God to them “again and again!”

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Raising Kids With A Heart For Missions: How Old Before They Go?

Posted in Raising Children To Have A Heart For Missions, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

We were sitting with friends last night and talking about mission trips–probably no surprise to you!  They are a family of four, with a boy of six and a girl of four.  This couple is very active in their local church, but also have a heart for foreign missions, so the dad asked me what I thought was a good age for their children to actually go abroad.

Great question, Dad! And the right question!  Let me try to answer it with a variety of insights for all of you whose children might be of very different ages.  Let me just say that I will be talking about mission projects like Let’s Start Talking projects that have always been pretty family friendly in that workers

  • go to one place and stay there for the duration of their mission project,
  • they have a pretty regularly scheduled day,
  • they are usually housed independently,
  • they are working with people in a pretty contained environment, and
  • they have a certain degree of control over their eating arrangements

Of course, if you are going on another type of mission project, you will have to weigh all of those factors in order to make your decision.

I don’t think there is a too young! Parents who take their very infant to school age children–and we have many–have great experiences that shape their children, even though the kids themselves will only have the vaguest memories of the actual trip.  What they remember though are the pictures you take and the fact that they have been to Japan or Germany or Argentina! And they have a passport!

Here’s how some parents with very young children make this possible!

  • The parents each work half with the children and half with the mission project. Of course, I would argue strongly that each parent is working full-time with two different mission projects, if you see your children as the most important mission God has given you!
  • Many parents recruit an older teen or college student to go with them as their helper. The helper gets to do some of the mission project too, but is mostly responsible for helping with the children.
  • Some families travel with other families with children and share the fun!
  • Many families recruit grandparents to go with them and be a part of the mission with the children. (I especially like this one!)
  • Sometimes both parents can’t go, so then the single parent definitely will need a helper–but he/she can still make it work!

Elementary school-aged children make the very best mission partners! They are independent enough not to need your constant attention, but still eager enough to please you that they really want to be a part of what you do!  This is perhaps the most impressionable time in their lives–and they will remember almost everything they do.  They can’t really “work” a full day, but they will be just fine if you can give them a couple of hours of good attention each day!  Here are some special ideas for elementary-aged children

  • They can accept certain “tasks” as their responsibility and this makes them feel like part of the mission!  I’m talking about things like playing with children that might come with their parents to your project, or even telling younger children Bible stories–not all day, but certainly some time spent “working” will be just what they want.
  • Playing with or spending time with the local missionary’s children. Forget about language barriers; children hardly even notice language differences.
  • They especially love preparing for parties or social events. If you need name tags or something special, perhaps your kids can help you make it.
  • Giving them private chronicling tasks, like journaling or creating a picture album of their mission, whether by drawings or a simple camera is something that helps make their mission project meaningful!

Teenagers are the hardest age–only because they have a mind of their own–which is, of course, what you are wanting for them–someday! Younger teens can be great mission partners. Until they are 14 or so, they probably want to work right beside you on your mission project–and you should let them.  But, by 15 and later, the mission project is competing with summer fun with their friends, Bible camp, summer school, summer sports activities–just lots of stuff, and I think you need to respect their needs, not just assume that they will continue to be ready to go whenever you call.  Here are some points to remember:

  • Teens are not the center of the universe even though they think they are! You can still set their agenda, but you may have to negotiate it instead of dictating it. This means something like what we did with our kids at this age: you have to spend six weeks with us in Europe, but we will send you to camp for four of those weeks.  Or you can stay home for two weeks with your cousins, then you can go to soccer camp for two weeks, but then you join us for the last three weeks.  Everyone needs to learn to compromise–teens and parents.!
  • Sometimes all it takes with teens is letting them have their best friend go with them!  Why not?
  • Whether at home or abroad, teens may think they are adults, but they are not, so don’t expect them to be! Once when Emily was about 16, she was staying with her brothers (18 & 20) at home for a week or two before we arrived home. Naturally, all kinds of household disasters happened: the dog chewed up the curtains and tore down a door trying to get to a bird that had come down the chimney, a squirrel got into the house and wreaked havoc, and then the hot water heater in an upstairs closet sprang a leak and dripped down through the ceiling. Emily called us in tears and said, “Please come home. I don’t want to be responsible any more!”  Of course not!

The best answer I can give you about when to take your children on mission projects is to start with them as young as you can and go often! The absolute worst answer is to wait until they are older and will appreciate it!  I promise you they will appreciate it when they are teenagers so much more, if they have already fallen in love with it as children.

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Raising Kids to Have A Heart for Missions: Teach Them To Read!

Posted in Raising Children To Have A Heart For Missions, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2010| 3 Comments »

Our  seven year-old granddaughter Anna was dressed for Sunday a little early last week, so she sat down with her Bible and started reading Psalms.  Then I heard her start singing Psalm 1, just making up a melody as she went. It was actually pretty good. When finished with Psalm 1, she went on to Psalm 2 and so forth until her sister got ready and we could leave.

We got into the car to drive to church and Anna was still singing. I noticed then that she stopped, flipped the pages in her Bible, then burst out into “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.”

I didn’t slam on the brakes, but I did look over and see that she had opened her Bible and was beginning with Chapter One to sing the Song of Solomon. Yikes!  I said, “Anna, what are you singing?” She stopped and said, Well, I’ve never read the Song of Solomon before, but if he wrote a song, it must be beautiful, so I wanted to sing it!”

No matter how precocious she is, I did not think her ready for the fawns and gazelles, so I diverted her attention from the Song of Songs—only temporarily, I’m sure.

Sherrylee and I will not have much to leave to our kids when we are gone, but we will leave with all of them our love for reading. Our parents gave it to us as a special gift—and we are both very grateful.  Both Sherrylee and I were the kind of kids who would check out ten books at a time—the weekly limit—from the Bookmobile that came through the neighborhood during our childhood summers.  I don’t read that many anymore, but I did just get a Kindle for my birthday.

When we were taking our younger children to Europe each summer, one of the most pleasant pre-departure tasks we had as parents was to find and pack enough books for the 8-10 week trip. We often took a whole suitcase full of nothing but books for the family—back before the airlines charged for extra luggage.  We would buy them at the half-price book stores, or we would check them out of the local library.  We may still have some lost book fines to pay in Edmond—don’t anybody check, please!

Now Philip and Emily both got into reading pretty easily, but Benjamin was more of an outdoors kid, so he didn’t really want to slow down long enough to read much. We worried a little about his reading—not his skills, but his love for reading, whether or not he would develop it.  The summer before third grade though, however, was the breakthrough. Before he had only been reading the simplest little books to satisfy his teachers at school, but that summer, I remember walking up to the attic room in Hannover, Germany, where we were housed and finding Ben totally absorbed in Lord of the Rings!  He read the whole book—and has continued to be a great reader to this day.

Rarely do our grandkids come for anything that Mimi (Sherrylee) doesn’t pull out a book or two to read to anyone who will listen to her!  But what does this have to do with raising children to have hearts for the mission of God??  I think you know, but let me just remind you.

  • Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path!(Ps. 119:105) If children grow up loving to read, they will also learn to love to read the Word. With the Word in their hearts, they will have a lamp for their feet and a clear path in front of them.  Don’t you want that for your children?
  • How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.(Ps. 119:9) Purity of heart is part of knowing and fulfilling the mission of God. Purity of heart is not an accident. Purity is a result of the Word in the heart of your child, and at some point, what they read will become more important than what you tell them.
  • Then I will answer the one who taunts me, for I trust in your word.(Ps. 119:42) The taunts of children and/or teens are devastatingly damaging to the desires of our children. Reading gives them both the shield they need and the trust they need to win those battles.
  • Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. (Ps. 143:8) Confidence! Self-confidence is what we are tempted to desire for our children, but much better is God-confidence and they will only get that from knowing Him and how He has dealt with His creation throughout history. Past experience is what builds confidence.  Reading is a way to gather all those rich experiences and make them our own.

Our grandkids are just like yours or your own children: some like to read, some would rather watch movies, some only want to play outside, others are struggling to learn to read—just normal kids like yours. But their grandparents are praying that they will be children, then teens, then adults who love to read. Their grandparents are giving them books, reading to them, and reading in front of them.  IT’S VERY IMPORTANT!

Over and over again, Jesus raises the question during his ministry:  Haven’t you read . . . ? Just look up the word read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and be amazed at how often Jesus assumes that people should have known God’s will because it had been written for them.

I think he was saying, you are going to live in the heart of God’s Will so much more easily if you love to read . . . His Word!

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