Ebola

The mission community is small. There are thousands of Christian missionaries around the world, but if you stay with it long enough, you start running into friends of friends all over the place.

So I wasn't surprised when some close friends started posting prayer requests for Nancy Writebol, an SIM missionary and one of two in Liberia just diagnosed with Ebola. My friends know her, love her and, obviously, are deeply concerned.

As I think about Nancy, I worry for my friends living in West Africa, one of them also working with Ebola patients.

Christians get a lot of bad press. And we should. So often we try to impose our agenda, values and politics on our communities. Often we do it without integrity or wisdom and completely devoid of love and grace.

At the same time, there are thousands of Nancy Writebols in the world. They are people who run to tragedy to comfort and care for victims. They staff hospitals, dig wells, negotiate peace, bring justice, provide jobs, educate and liberate.

Family, safety, comfort and affluence are sacrificed for a humble commitment to service. As I look at the world map on my wall, I can see their faces all over the place, some of them in the most violent and oppressive places on earth.

So often we miss the point. Nancy Writebol hasn't. But as we tell her story, we should make sure it challenges ours. 

Humanity

In the airport today, my passport slipped out of its cover and fell to the floor. Thankfully, a thoughtful young woman called to me to let me know I dropped it.

As I picked it up and turned to thank her and her husband, the looks on their faces really struck me. They were concerned for me and relieved I had heard them. They knew the implications of a lost passport and you could tell they were grateful I recovered it.

I wasn't surprised to see, they were Muslim.

They were dressed in traditional local attire, complete with head covering. I was dressed in traditional American tourist, complete with shorts and flip-flops.

That wasn't important to them. There was a guy who needed help and they helped him. That was it.

There's a lot of chaos in the world , much of it revolving around religion. The news is a cacophony of violence. Still, most of us just want peace.

Yes, there are evil men and those who allow themselves to be used by them. And, sadly, sometimes evil has to be met with violence. I think if we dug deeply enough, we'd realize the majority of the conflicts have more to do with power than faith.

Most of us just want to live our lives, work, feed our children, live in a good home and die old, holding someone's hand.

A sweet couple, who happened to be Muslim, demonstrated that today. And we could all learn from their example. 

Team Dynamics

I've been spending some time with our team in the Asia Pacific region lately. One of our families has four boys, five and under. No twins. Yep.

They've just completed their first term and it hasn't all been a cakewalk: illness, childbirth, travel, childbirth, visa issues, hospitalizations. And they seem to have weathered it pretty well.

Walking down the road with Becky and her four boys the other day I was wondering, “how have they done so well, when their time hasn't been ideal?” Then I looked over and saw Lisa (one of our teammates) carrying 80 pounds of children’s gear while Lisa’s daughter, Thisbe, carried one of the little guys, with another one in tow.

It was at this point I realized I should probably be helping.

What I also realized is this family joined a healthy team. There were people on the ground who welcomed them, loved them and loved their boys. They plugged into a church which has also cared for them when life has been a struggle.

There are a lot of factors in missionary longevity. Pre-field preparation is import. Support from your home country is crucial. And there is no substitute for a team of people, who are as committed to you as they are to the work.

I love this couple and their four precocious little guys and can’t wait to see how God leads them. I’m thankful they've been able to benefit from working in a healthy team. I pray that’s always the case for them. In fact, that’s a good prayer for all of us. 

Clash of Clans

My boss Pete is trying to get me to play Clash of Clans. It’s a fun game for your phone, where you build your little town and other players come and steal all your stuff. You spend your time upgrading your weapons, your village and raiding other players.

It sounds like lots of fun, but I refuse to download it. I get addicted to games like that. The world could blow up and I wouldn't notice for three days.

For me, one of the saddest sights is when we turn the church into a bad game of Clash of Clans. We get hurt. Then we wall ourselves off and begin recruiting our clan. We fire cutting remarks like arrows, hidden in dark comedic wit and lob gossip like a boulder filled trebuchet.

Never do we consider the person, their pain or the damage we're causing. Rarely do we take the time to fully understand their story. We just know we've been hurt and that's enough to begin the war.

It's natural to lash out at folks who have hurt us and to rally people who will affirm we've been wronged. It's just not Christlike.

Christ had the ability to see through the action and into the heart of the offender. He could identify the brokenness, twisted motivations and fear. It's the only way he could have said, "Forgive them, Dad. They don't know what they're doing."

It's nice to have a clan, people who love and support you and want to protect you. But we need to remember, they aren't weapons to be used. It may make us feel better, but it's addictive and destroys the hearts of others, the body of Christ and ourselves.

Stopover Relationships

I landed in Tokyo the other day. I've been there a LOT. Enough to draw some conclusions about their highways, their farms and the general infrastructure of their communities. I could tell you about their customs, their customer service and the efficiency of their society.

There’s only one problem, I've never left the airport.

As I've flown in and out of Asia over the past eight years, Tokyo’s Narita Airport has been a stopover for me. It’s always been on the way to somewhere, but has never been my final destination. I've looked down on their farms and power lines, interacted with the ticket agents and food service providers and looked at the setting of a cloud-defused sun over and over. But I've never stayed.

I wonder how many relationships in our lives are “stopovers." A friend we don’t really invest in, we’re just there to have lunch, spill our guts and bail. Coworkers at a job where we just mark time, never fully engaging because we’re looking for the next thing to come along. Neighbors who we wave at while we work in the yard but have no real connection to. We think we know them, but we never really do.

Church was like that for me. I could tell you the order of service, when we’d have communion, teaching style of the pastor, what time things started. I had a bunch of the facts, but I had never really “stayed” there.

Church was just a place I stopped over each Sunday then got on with my week.

I get it, there are too many countries in the world to truly know them all. There are too many people to have true relationship with. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have any. Countries should be explored and people should be known. You can't truly learn anything on a stopover.

Loved Anyway

I had no idea what I was doing. I was 18. My girlfriend was pregnant. And we were getting married. Of course we were, I was a good Christian boy who had done the wrong thing and I was going to make it right.

And we loved each other. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, lots. But lots went right as well.

My family loved me anyway. I’m sure my parents, were hurt, embarrassed and heartbroken by my decisions. But I never heard, “What were you thinking?” How could you do something so stupid? Do you know what people are going to say?”

In their disappointment, they chose grace. They chose to invest, to mentor… to babysit. At a time when they could have said, “You made your bed…” instead they pushed through the pain and loved.

My church loved me anyway. Much like my parents I know there was heartbreak. People had poured their lives into me. Throughout my childhood they loved, taught, encouraged, corrected, challenged and supported me. I’m sure their sense of “failure” was second only to Mom and Dad’s.

Still, we were never shunned, shamed, made to feel dirty, outcast or lesser. They loved my boy. They loved us. And they were committed to restoration, not condemnation.

Nancy loves me anyway. She learned pretty quickly, I can be selfish, inconsiderate, needy, demanding, self absorbed, manipulative, arrogant, condescending, intolerant, jealous, impatient, impulsive and whiney. Still she loves me.

She sees me, knows me and chooses me still. For some reason, each morning, she wakes up and says, “I’m going to love him today.”

Today marks 27 years since that 18 year old boy stood mesmerized by the beauty walking down the aisle toward him. I’m mesmerized still, by the grace of God and the kindness of his people, throughout my story. And that this beauty would still choose to walk toward me, is a daily source of wide-eyed wonder.