MY BRETHREN AROUND THE WORLD
I just got back from an amazing gathering of Christian missionaries at a conference in Niagara Falls. Christian Aid Mission is an agency I’ve supported financially for almost ten years. Rather than sending Western missionaries to Third World countries, they find legitimate missions agencies started and staffed by people in those countries, and serve as a conduit of money (from the West to the Third World) and information (from the Third World to the West).
My head is spinning from all the stories I heard, and my heart is full with joy at the depth of partnership I felt with these missionaries, who, unlike missionaries from the West, need no language acquisition, cultural adaptation, or furlough, and who can penetrate unreached areas and people much more effectively and at a fraction of the cost. (Not to mention the fact that their witness invalidates some peoples’ misconception that Christianity is a Western religion.) Here were people who were not the prettiest or most eloquent (or maybe they are eloquent in their native tongues, but most gave their seminars in English, their second or even third or fourth language), but they more than made up for it with their pure enthusiasm and unwavering commitment for loving people in the name of Jesus.
I left with a soaring view of God, who works in plain vessels in awful conditions with miniscule resources to do great acts of mercy, compassion, and salvation. I felt sorry for myself and my Western brethren, who busy ourselves with such trivialities as sports, property maintenance, and religious ceremony while my Christian brothers and sisters in the Third World are rescuing prostitutes, feeding street kids, and preaching the gospel. We are not the rich ones; they in their sold-out lifestyles and sacrificial ministries are the ones overflowing in wealth.
Some snippets from the speakers whose sessions I attended; all in all, I heard from citizens of Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Nepal, India, Kenya, Ukraine, Pakistan, Thailand, and Laos:
* My Christian brothers in the middle third of Africa are in the throes of a heated war for souls, as Muslim influence from the north converges with Christian influence from the south. Islam is winning so far, as the rich Muslim countries pour money into Africa to build schools and hospitals well ahead of any conversions (i.e. in villages that don’t yet have Muslim believers), while rich Christian countries fail to do the same.
* Those Christian agencies who buy enslaved Sudanese women widowed by the long-standing civil war are actually creating a market for more slaves and therefore increasing the incentive for people to capture and sell women.
* The “one child” policy in China means that kids are spoiled silly, as they have the affection of six adults (two parents and two sets of grandparents); a ministry there has targeted the children, then, for they know that one child coming to their service means six adults will follow.
* The Chinese government finally allowed a playing of Handel’s Messiah by a Chinese orchestra, after fifty-plus years of eradicating religion; I wept as I heard the Amen Chorus on a videotape of the concert, as I looked ahead to a final victory God will have over the nations that plot and scheme to silence His voice on the earth.
* Incidentally, when Western missionaries were booted from China fifty-plus years ago, their work in planting seeds was effective: the Chinese underground church flourished, from 1 million believers in 1950 to 100 million in 2000.
* A woman who wanted to reach out to teen prostitutes in India befriended the pimps, who told her if she tried to free the girls she would be killed; so instead she continued to visit the red-light districts to tell the girls of Jesus’ love for them and to encourage them to pray for God’s deliverance in the midst of their enslaved situation; miraculously, many girls experienced a drastic decrease in business, causing the pimps to tell the woman to just take the girls away, since they were no longer making them money.
* With practically no resources, faithful brothers and sisters opened their doors to orphanages in Nepal, Kenya, and India, and so cared for the multitude of children that came through that their respective governments are now giving almost all abandoned children to them to minister to; while in Ukraine, children’s ministries have been so effective that the government is asking the Christians to consult with them on how to best provides services to abused and abandoned children.
* I met the woman who runs the orphanage I’ve been supporting for almost ten years now; she told me that the five children I’ve been sponsoring (all for just $15 per month each) who were once six to eight years old are now sixteen to eighteen and ready to leave the orphanage, having been trained in job skills and ready to live on their own.
Though it was a grueling 6 ½ hour drive each way to Niagara Falls, after a long work week, how I left that gathering refreshed and energized. I hugged, sat at the feet at, and took pictures with people I’ve prayed for and supported for almost a decade. I felt a sense of partnership in a great work, one that is desperately needed in our developing countries today – both the spiritual void of not knowing Jesus and the material void of children, lepers, the blind, and oppressed women.
Bob Finley, who founded Christian Aid Mission fifty years ago, wrapped up the conference with two charges: that, like Christ, we must suffer from men, and we must suffer for men. To truly follow Jesus is to fellowship in His sufferings. He suffered, not that we needn’t suffer, but that we’d have an example to follow. Many of the speakers had spent many years and even decades in prison. At least one was tortured by his own father and brothers for converting to Christianity. They have all suffered social ostracization, loneliness, and insufficient resources. And they are the most beautiful, contented, and rich group of people I have ever met.
I just got back from an amazing gathering of Christian missionaries at a conference in Niagara Falls. Christian Aid Mission is an agency I’ve supported financially for almost ten years. Rather than sending Western missionaries to Third World countries, they find legitimate missions agencies started and staffed by people in those countries, and serve as a conduit of money (from the West to the Third World) and information (from the Third World to the West).
My head is spinning from all the stories I heard, and my heart is full with joy at the depth of partnership I felt with these missionaries, who, unlike missionaries from the West, need no language acquisition, cultural adaptation, or furlough, and who can penetrate unreached areas and people much more effectively and at a fraction of the cost. (Not to mention the fact that their witness invalidates some peoples’ misconception that Christianity is a Western religion.) Here were people who were not the prettiest or most eloquent (or maybe they are eloquent in their native tongues, but most gave their seminars in English, their second or even third or fourth language), but they more than made up for it with their pure enthusiasm and unwavering commitment for loving people in the name of Jesus.
I left with a soaring view of God, who works in plain vessels in awful conditions with miniscule resources to do great acts of mercy, compassion, and salvation. I felt sorry for myself and my Western brethren, who busy ourselves with such trivialities as sports, property maintenance, and religious ceremony while my Christian brothers and sisters in the Third World are rescuing prostitutes, feeding street kids, and preaching the gospel. We are not the rich ones; they in their sold-out lifestyles and sacrificial ministries are the ones overflowing in wealth.
Some snippets from the speakers whose sessions I attended; all in all, I heard from citizens of Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Nepal, India, Kenya, Ukraine, Pakistan, Thailand, and Laos:
* My Christian brothers in the middle third of Africa are in the throes of a heated war for souls, as Muslim influence from the north converges with Christian influence from the south. Islam is winning so far, as the rich Muslim countries pour money into Africa to build schools and hospitals well ahead of any conversions (i.e. in villages that don’t yet have Muslim believers), while rich Christian countries fail to do the same.
* Those Christian agencies who buy enslaved Sudanese women widowed by the long-standing civil war are actually creating a market for more slaves and therefore increasing the incentive for people to capture and sell women.
* The “one child” policy in China means that kids are spoiled silly, as they have the affection of six adults (two parents and two sets of grandparents); a ministry there has targeted the children, then, for they know that one child coming to their service means six adults will follow.
* The Chinese government finally allowed a playing of Handel’s Messiah by a Chinese orchestra, after fifty-plus years of eradicating religion; I wept as I heard the Amen Chorus on a videotape of the concert, as I looked ahead to a final victory God will have over the nations that plot and scheme to silence His voice on the earth.
* Incidentally, when Western missionaries were booted from China fifty-plus years ago, their work in planting seeds was effective: the Chinese underground church flourished, from 1 million believers in 1950 to 100 million in 2000.
* A woman who wanted to reach out to teen prostitutes in India befriended the pimps, who told her if she tried to free the girls she would be killed; so instead she continued to visit the red-light districts to tell the girls of Jesus’ love for them and to encourage them to pray for God’s deliverance in the midst of their enslaved situation; miraculously, many girls experienced a drastic decrease in business, causing the pimps to tell the woman to just take the girls away, since they were no longer making them money.
* With practically no resources, faithful brothers and sisters opened their doors to orphanages in Nepal, Kenya, and India, and so cared for the multitude of children that came through that their respective governments are now giving almost all abandoned children to them to minister to; while in Ukraine, children’s ministries have been so effective that the government is asking the Christians to consult with them on how to best provides services to abused and abandoned children.
* I met the woman who runs the orphanage I’ve been supporting for almost ten years now; she told me that the five children I’ve been sponsoring (all for just $15 per month each) who were once six to eight years old are now sixteen to eighteen and ready to leave the orphanage, having been trained in job skills and ready to live on their own.
Though it was a grueling 6 ½ hour drive each way to Niagara Falls, after a long work week, how I left that gathering refreshed and energized. I hugged, sat at the feet at, and took pictures with people I’ve prayed for and supported for almost a decade. I felt a sense of partnership in a great work, one that is desperately needed in our developing countries today – both the spiritual void of not knowing Jesus and the material void of children, lepers, the blind, and oppressed women.
Bob Finley, who founded Christian Aid Mission fifty years ago, wrapped up the conference with two charges: that, like Christ, we must suffer from men, and we must suffer for men. To truly follow Jesus is to fellowship in His sufferings. He suffered, not that we needn’t suffer, but that we’d have an example to follow. Many of the speakers had spent many years and even decades in prison. At least one was tortured by his own father and brothers for converting to Christianity. They have all suffered social ostracization, loneliness, and insufficient resources. And they are the most beautiful, contented, and rich group of people I have ever met.
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