Twenty-Five Years Old

Today I celebrate twenty-five years of life and grace.  Considering that in the mind of God I was chosen and born and sanctified eternal ages ago, I am also celebrating myriads of ages of life and grace.

I don't entirely know what to say, but I feel responsible to communicate a Godward tribute for years of mercy given and wrath withheld.  And on a day like today I can't help but think of who God is and what Christ did and what life should be like because of it.

Most young American men my age would be getting drunk or getting high or fornicating (let's call it what it is) tonight.  And without a knowledge of God and His Son, that would kind of make sense.

But I know God, and I know His Son, and so there is a difference.  I didn't choose the difference, though.  I didn't make myself different.  The difference is grace.  Not intelligence, not self-control, not inborn morality, not life experience.  Grace.

And now, because of that grace, I have a crystal-clear view of what life is all about.  I know exactly what the next twenty-five years should be like.

I also know, though, that the last twenty-five have been like a breath.  So tonight I sense a tenacious longing welling up in my soul, a longing that says O God, turn the next twenty-five years upside down if you must, but use me in Your name.  Don't let a moment of it be wasted.  Please.

We are so deceived.  We stand in a line of countless generations that have all thought that they were invincible.  Now they are all gone.  And soon, we will be.  Like lined-up dominos, we all fall in an instant.  Generation after generation, man after man, day after day.  Twenty-five years falls in an instant.  This humbles me and it motivates me.  I don't want to think I'm invincible.  I want to consider my end.  And until the end comes, I want to live well.

So tonight as I climb in bed, I find myself praying Psalm 39:4-5.  Not so that I can be morbid or somber or pressured or sad, but so that I can be wise and driven and undistracted.

     Lord, make me to know my end
     And what is the extent of my days;
     Let me know how transient I am.
     Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths,
     And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight;
     Surely every man at his best is a mere breath.

     Selah.

No Glamour Here

I posted the following at FoolishBlog tonight and thought I would post it here, too.  The first paragraph is a bit redundant after what I shared here a few days ago, but the rest of it isn't.  We title our posts over at FoolishBlog.  I entitled this one "No Glamour Here."

I recently returned from a nine-day trip to Uganda, East Africa.  I was invited by fresh-off-the-boat missionary Shannon Hurley of Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries to help teach at a training conference for church leaders.  Because God is an incredible and gracious orchestrator of our lives, I was also blessed to be able to visit the Amani Baby Cottage, the orphanage that my wife and I are currently adopting from.  If you're interested in more about the trip as a whole, you can read more about it here.  For now, though, I'm interested in talking about just one aspect of the trip.

When I arrived, the missionaries I was serving alongside had been living in Uganda for less than two weeks.  They weren't on their feet, they didn't know the culture, and they were still wrestling through all the transitional issues.  Their forty-foot long container with all their possessions in it was still sitting on the Indian Ocean in Mombasa, Kenya; their new African food was still sitting in their stomachs attempting to wiggle its way through their American digestive tracts; and their vehicles were still sitting at a car dealership outside the capital city of Kampala waiting to be serviced by car salesmen who were trying to frustrate them into throwing money at the "problem."  I'm not exaggerating any of this.  And I could go on: families throwing up all night (and losing it out the back end when they weren't losing it out the front end), newly-bought vehicles breaking down, child safety seats (with children in them) slamming into the seats in front of them because of defective van seating, electricity going out every other night from 7:00-10:00pm, questionable businessmen charging thousands of dollars more than what was originally claimed, DSL costing fifteen times what it costs in the U.S., and language barriers that are low enough to toss simple English words over them but high enough to barricade you from any meaningful communication.  And all of this while bearing the weight of providing for orphans, training pastors, loving and leading and protecting your family, adjusting to a ministry team, getting to know the nationals, stepping into a wonderfully diverse yet completely different church, leaving your own culture and all you've ever known as "normal," and tossing your life into the arms of God with a sure yet trembling hope that He will never leave you nor forsake you.

There is no glamour here.

I'm afraid that foreign missions, especially in third-world countries, is viewed by the average American Christian as glamorous.  We read biographies of heroic missionaries, drooling over the trophies but ignoring the tears.  We sing the praises of the Adoniram Judson's and the David Brainerd's and the Jim Elliot's and convince ourselves that being a missionary means hearing the same praises we're singing.  We're not sure we want to give up what William Carey gave up, but we'd sure like to see our own biography on other people's shelves.  We suffer from Missionary Hero Syndrome, and we suffer by choice.

Dictionary.com tells me that "glamour" is "an air of compelling charm, romance, and excitement, especially when delusively alluring."  Indeed, with regard to missions, we are often delusively allured.  We think of Africa and we think of cute black kids, viewing elephants and lions from the safety of a Land Rover, and long colorful robes.  I love those things about Africa, and I think they're wonderful gifts from God.  But that's not missions.

Jonah wasn't comfortable in Nineveh, Paul wasn't welcome in Lystra, and Jesus wasn't at home in Nazareth.  When these men left home, they were embarking on an adventure that was risky and perilous and adventurous but was by no means glamorous.

I think that if I understood foreign missions better, I would pray more fervently for our missionaries, give more sacrificially to the cause of Christ both here and abroad, count the cost of true daily discipleship with more accurate calculations, and be more honest with my own sinful and lie-believing desires for Christian heroism.

Uganda is not Utopia.  I loved it there, but the transition I watched the missionaries make wasn't easy.  And it's not going to be easy.  The fact that it was hard isn't wrong.  It's reality.  For first-world Christians to realize that would do a world of good for the cause of missions abroad and evangelism at home.

We do not do missions to get glamour but to give grace.  "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Dr. Robert Thomas: Servant

I'm sitting in a classroom at The Master's Seminary right now, trying to make the most of a 45-minute break between classes.  I'm still trying to catch up on life after Uganda.  The trip was well-worth the after-effects of compacted busyness, but it's busy nonetheless.

A few minutes before 1:00pm this afternoon, I walked briskly into my New Testament Introduction class, chose my seat, and instantly split open The Text of the New Testament to review the 9-10 pages that I was about to be quizzed on.  It's amazing how much information you can review and solidify in a semi-panicked five minutes, and equally amazing how badly you can do on a quiz directly afterwards.  I don't recommend studying like this, but comprehensive quiz preparation and effective study methods aren't the topics of this particular post; I'm just passing along the ugly facts.

Near the end of my five minutes of precious review, the dignified Dr. Thomas spoke up and asked if there were any prayer requests (which is how he always begins class).  No one shared anything immediately, so he said with a sober, selfless, non-sensationalistic tone:  "Please pray for us; I lost my brother yesterday."

The most common response to a life bordering on chaos is self-centeredness.  It is cross-bearingly hard to maintain even a meager sense of care for others when your own life is splitting at the seams.  Yet there are times when the Lord is so gracious as to provide us with an eye-opening view of what others are going through.  And this is one way to avoid a crippling and Christless self-focus which always rationalizes itself with a self-affirming glance at the schedule and the To-Do list.

Oh, I know that anyone who reads this probably feels pretty busy because the people who read this are probably Americans.  I'm assuming that most of you are Christians, too, which means that what you're trying to fill your lives with is good and profitable and of eternal weight.  I'm trying to do the same thing.  But as I was studying for a single 15-minute quiz and being tempted to pity myself because of my seemingly hectic circumstances (which I myself chose and which are really good), Dr. Thomas (in his 80's) was preparing to teach one of his many classes while thinking about the death of his older brother (whom he has known and respected and often leaned on for almost a century).  He leaves for the funeral tomorrow, and he's going to have to catch up when he gets back just like I'm having to.  The difference is that I'm a 24-year-old student.  He's an almost-90-year-old professor.  And I got to go to Uganda.  He lost his brother.

I think it would be unbalanced to say that when we encounter people whose trials are greater than our own, we should just tell ourselves that our own hardships are insignificant and don't matter.  This approach denies what Scripture clearly affirms: that a sinful person living among other sinful people in a fallen world is going to face real and undeniable difficulties.  Acknowledging the hardship, trusting God, and persevering with joy is a far more biblical option than simply comparing your trials with others' and trying to pretend that yours don't hurt because they're not as big.

That being said, God does use the manifold suffering and endurance of others to humble us out of our self-focus, to stir us out of our self-pity, to pull us out of our "woe-is-me" wallowing, and to enable us to see that serenity and peace and joy and protection is possible even in the darkest night because our God is a sun and a shield.  And sometimes for us to see that, we need to see someone whose night is darker than ours.

James pointed us to the past, telling us about the faithful prophets who persevered through more pain and agony than almost anyone before or after them: "As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord" (James 5:10).  Peter pointed us to the present, informing us about our fellow-saints who are fighting off the same enticing temptations (fill in the blank with your specific temptation) to give in to the devil when affliction comes: "But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world" (1 Peter 5:9).  And Paul and Barnabas pointed us to the future, encouraging the new believers in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch that "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:21-22).  Each of these men pointed to the difficulties that believers had faced, were facing, or would face.  And they did it as a means to encourage those who were being tempted to give up in the present.

When you think you have it bad, look around.  Lots of people have it worse.  We all know it's true.  But don't look around just so that you can compare yourself with others and thereby find a way to downplay your difficulties.  Rather, look around so that you can humbled into selfless service towards those whose backs are burdened with more weight than your own.

When all I could think of was how I was going to get done what I needed to get done today, Dr. Thomas shared the simple fact that his older brother had died and that he would be leaving for the funeral tomorrow.  Then he prayed and went on to serve me by teaching my class with unfeigned self-forgetfulness.  These things help me to realize that his doctorate is not the only reason why he's the teacher and I'm the student.  There are some things you can't put in the syllabus.

Lord, open our eyes to see the hurting going on all around us, especially when we ourselves are hurting.  Guard us from the blind selfishness that believes that our problems and our busyness and our lack of sleep and our damaged relationships and our bad health and our tight finances are so much more important than anyone else's.  Help us to see, help us to care, and help us to serve.

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Uganda Update

It's been ten days since I arrived back from Uganda.  On the one hand, it seems like it's so much farther away than that.  On the other hand, there are experiences and images and lessons that God so deeply imbeds in your mind that you don't know how even time and busyness and human forgetfulness could dig them out and carry them away.  They are simply there to stay.

However, I still know that with the flight of time comes the flight of most memories and life lessons.  So before that happens, I'd like to share (as briefly as I can) about the trip.

At the beginning of January, Shannon Hurley (Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries) invited me to help teach Anglican Church leaders at a week-long conference.  He and his family left Southern California a few days later to live in Uganda as missionaries.  They have an open door to operate an orphanage and do serious and needed pastoral training in an area called Mukono (a diocese [district] of the Anglican Church).

I left for Uganda on Friday, January 27, flying through London and Nairobi (Kenya) on my way to Entebbe Airport in Uganda.  When I arrived (on Sunday morning), the Hurley's (all five) picked me up.  On our way back to the SOS property, we drove through the capital city of Kampala.  Shannon wanted me to be able to see the city, and Danielle (his wife) also needed to pick up some groceries.  Since they had only lived in Uganda for a week or so, this was a big deal.  This was just one of many transitional issues that the Hurley's and their fellow missionary family (the Atherstone's) had to begin to work through while I was there.  I was blessed to be there at this specific time and to see the inconveniences, difficulties, adjustments, sacrifices, and frustrations that missionaries face (at least at the beginning).  A wife and mother doesn't know if she should shop in the city or in the village, what things should cost (in both places), if people are trying to rip her off, how to deal with vendors in the village market who change the price of their pineapples every time she walks up, if her family will get sick off of the food she tries to make, what doctor to take them to if that happens, when her American recipes will arrive on the 40-foot container being shipped from the States, if stores will have the ingredients that her recipes demand, how to get the kids to take their malaria medicine, and how to fit her food purchases into the unknown family budget.  And this is just one category of life: food.  Imagine adjusting to and making decisions about these kinds of issues in all categories of life and all at the same time.  This is incarnational ministry.

On Sunday evening (at the SOS property), I went outside to play soccer with some of the orphans from the orphanage.  I needed to do something to keep me from giving in to the time change and going to sleep too early.  The native language is Lugandan and the national language is English, so I could communicate with the kids (5-15 years old) just a little.  As dusk settled in, I sat down on the dirt and a young boy came over to me.  I asked him some basic questions just to get to know him.  I asked him how long he had been at the orphanage, and about his mom and dad.  I can still hear him say, in a thick African accent, "My mom and my dad are dead."  It wasn't just what he said that struck me.  It was the normalcy with which he said it.  Like, "Hey, this is just reality.  No big deal.  I'm used to it.  You asked."  I realize that there are plenty of children in the United States whose parents are dead.  It's not just an African thing.  But the prevalence and the normalcy of it is stunningly African.  I knew that something had probably happened to his parents or else he wouldn't have been at the orphanage.  But to hear a seven-year-old say it is different than already knowing it.  What do you do when you're sitting on the dirt in the middle of Uganda listening to a young boy tell you that his mom and dad are dead?  What do you say?  I don't know that you say anything.  I think you talk to the Lord on his behalf and you do your best to show him the reflected love and compassion of the Father who never dies or leaves or forsakes His children.

I went to bed that night under a mosquito net and a pile of thoughts.  Since there's no air conditioning there, the windows are always open.  Sleeping with the windows open on a green property in the heart of Africa makes for a thoughtful environment.  I like it.

I woke up on Monday morning feeling great, and three of us promptly left for the Sufficiency of Scripture Conference (15 minutes away).  The conference ran from Monday through Friday.  There were about 40 men there in all, which doesn't sound small to me even though I'm sure it sounds tiny to you.  These men serve in the position of "Reverend," which means that each of them oversee around 10 to 20 churches and/or some schools or orphanages in their allotted areas.  The three messages I preached were (1) Psalm 1, (2) how not trusting God's Word is at the heart of sin, and (3) "How to Study the Bible."

What stood out to me about the conference was the men's humility and teachability.  Most of them were over 40 years old and had a lot of experience in their positions.  The three of us teaching them were 31, 26, and 24 (me).  The messages I preached were like normal chapel messages at TMC or like the expository sermons we hear in our local churches week in and week out.  And they were thrilled by them.  I'm not a great preacher, and I rarely preach.  Yet they were so receptive to what God was saying through me and the other teachers.  Those who are starving love any food they can get.  Those who are spoiled turn up their noses at everything but royal cuisine (and often dig up things to criticize even in the royal cuisine).

Remember, I'm a white, 24-year-old American student who's visiting Africa for the first time and who looks like he's 18.  Some of the men I was teaching were retired from Anglican Church ministry because they had hit the mandatory retirement age.  But they were still giving up their week to be at this conference, sitting on hard wooden chairs in the heat and humidity, sleeping in (African) dormitory-style rooms, taking copious notes, and listening to a kid talk about the Bible.  And then they'd stand up and confess how ashamed they were of how they'd treated the Bible all their lives (which is exactly what one retired pastor said after my "How to Study the Bible" lesson which I had only had a few hours to prepare).  This is what I call spiritual hunger, manifest teachability, Christian honesty, and raw humility.  If they learned the Word from me half as well as I learned soft-heartedness from them, they will have learned much.

On Friday night, we returned from the conference, tired and grateful.  I spent the weekend running miscellaneous errands with the missionaries, playing with the orphans, going to an Anglican church service on Sunday morning, talking about the needs and opportunities in Uganda, and soaking up Africa.  Then the last highlight of the trip came on Tuesday morning.

Cindi and I are in the process of adopting a baby orphan from Uganda.  The orphanage we're trying to adopt from is called Amani Baby Cottage (ABC).  Because it's located in Jinja (only an hour away from SOS Ministries), I was able to spend two hours there that Tuesday morning.  There are 55 kids there currently, ranging from newborns to about three years old.  The orphanage is big on adoption, so 40-50% of the kids I saw were already in the process of being adopted.  Considering that ABC has existed for less than two years, I was thoroughly impressed.  While I was there, I met lots of precious babies.

"Josiah" had been discovered just a few days before.  Some kids were playing a few blocks away from the orphanage and had heard a baby crying.  They discovered Josiah abandoned in the bushes.  He hadn't been cleaned up, so he still had the afterbirth all over him.  As I write this, he's about two weeks old.  They'll take him into town and get him tested for HIV, and go from there.  I don't have mental categories for this kind of thing.  Usually when I experience things from day to day, I automatically house them in their appropriate mental categories.  But I had to add a slot for this.  Yeah, I could've told you that there are Josiah's out there.  I'm not that naive.  But seeing him and hearing his story is different.  It doesn't fit any of my constructs.  It stretches (and rips) my paradigm.  And it should.

"Jeremiah" is one year old.  He looks like he'll be a linebacker if he ends up being adopted in the U.S.  Which would be amazing since he was found in a pit latrine.  I can't paint you a precise picture of what a pit latrine is, but I can tell you that babies should never be found there.  And I can tell that if they're found there and rescued, God must be very kind.

"Howard" has curly hair and big, curious eyes.  Howard's being adopted into a family in Tulsa.  That may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me.  I grew up in Tulsa.  Howard will never know this (even though I told him), but he's going to grow up in the same city I grew up in.  He'll know the same streets, the same restaurants, the same landmarks, some of the same churches, and hopefully the same Gospel that I know.  That's incredible.

All in all, it was a privilege to visit Amani, especially since we're trying to adopt from there.  Most families see the orphanage for the first time when they're arriving to pick up their child.  But the Lord orchestrated my circumstances so that I could see many of the children and meet some of the staff and observe the workings of the orphanage long before we actually pick up our child.  This is grace upon grace.

Tuesday evening, I got on a plane and flew back home, through Nairobi to London to Los Angeles.  Here I am now in my study almost two weeks later, looking up to my right to see my wooden Africa cutout that I bought in Kampala.  It will remind me to remember, and to pray.

I don't know if I would say my life is changed because I went.  It probably wouldn't be fair or wise for me to say that until six months or a year from now.  But I know more, and I see more, and I think I love more.  May the impact and the lessons and the perspective and the passion not fade, even though many of the memories will.  And may Christ reign in Africa like the rising of the sun in its might.