FINE

Today was truly one of those days for me. I felt nerotic and emotional, homesick and overwhelmed. I questioned what God would use me for and why He would ever call me to such big things that require a big faith which I continuously doubt I have.
Luckily the Spirit moves great friends to share the right words at the right time. This word comes via my dear friend Emma in Uganda......


You were put on earth to make a contribution. You
weren't created just to consume resources -- to eat,
breathe and take up space. God designed you to make a
difference with your life. This is one of God's
purposes for your life, and it's called your
"ministry" -- or service.

The Bible says, "God has created us for a life of
good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to
do" (Ephesians 2:10b, TEV). These "good deeds" are
your service to the world. Whenever you serve others
in any way, you are actually serving God and
fulfilling one of your purposes. You were placed on
this planet for a special assignment.

The apostle John said, "Our love for each other
proves that we have gone from death to life" (1 John
3:14, CEV). If I have no love for others, no desire to
serve others, and I'm only concerned about my needs, I
should question whether Christ is really in my life. A
saved heart is one that wants to serve.

Another term for serving God -- one that's
misunderstood by most people -- is the word ministry.
When most people hear "ministry," they think of
pastors, priests and professional clergy, but God says
every member of his family is a minister.

In the Bible, the words servant and minister are
synonyms, as are service and ministry. If you are a
Christian, you are a minister, and when you're
serving, you're ministering. God has a ministry for
you in his church and a mission for you in the world.

Serving is the opposite of our natural inclination.
Most of the time we're more interested in "serve us"
than service. We say, "I'm looking for a church that
meets my needs and blesses me," not "I'm looking for a
place to serve and be a blessing." We expect others to
serve us, not vice versa.

But as we mature in Christ, the focus of our lives
should increasingly shift to living a life of service.
The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, "Who's
going to meet my needs?" and starts asking, "Whose
needs can I meet?"

Do you ever ask that question?

At the end of your life on earth you will stand
before God, and he is going to evaluate how well you
served others with your life. Think about the
implications of that. One day God will compare how
much time and energy we spent on ourselves compared
with what we invested in serving others.

At that point, all our excuses for self-centeredness
will sound hollow: "I was too busy" or "I had my own
goals" or "I was preoccupied with working, having fun
or preparing for retirement."

To all excuses God will respond, "Sorry, wrong
answer. I created, saved and called you and commanded
you to live a life of service. What part did you not
understand?"

If you're not involved in any service or ministry,
what excuse have you been using? Abraham was old,
Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was
abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was
codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair
and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal,
Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was
a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the
least, Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered, Martha
worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had several failed
marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts,
Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid.

That is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each
of them in his service. He will use you, too, if you
stop making excuses;

His NAME BE PRAISED, AMEN AND AMEN

A prayer for the coming of the King

Although much of me does not want to believe in hell, I truly believe that we cannot live in this present day and age and deny its shadows. For many, their present reality is living hell. There is a promise, however, that this shadow will one day disappear and only light, hope, and peace will remain. I pray for that day to come sooner then later. Remember Felix in your prayers tonight, Christ died for him, his killer, and you.

From Associated Press
October 14, 2007 1:17 PM EDT

NEW YORK - A homeless man torched outside a church where he had bedded down for the night has died from his injuries, police said Saturday. Felix Najera suffered burns to 40 percent of his body after being set on fire while sleeping in front of Bethany Christian Church in East Harlem, police said. He died Oct. 9. Police had called the torching of the 49-year-old one of the most severe and senseless attacks on a homeless victim in recent memory. Residents said the victim was a heavy drinker who would bum cigarettes from passers-by, but otherwise was a harmless fixture on the upper Manhattan block. Najera was burned while sleeping in a cardboard box around midnight.

Modern day Adoniram Judson

Atrocities are being done in Burma today and have been for years. Although once very dangerous to even conceive of entering as a missionary, today there are men, women, and children living out the call of the Gospel in some of the most harsh and terrifying conditions. Below is a Newsweek article about such a family. Pray for this team and pray for Burma. May all Christiains have such courage.
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Oct. 5, 2007 - Those living in the badlands along the border between Thailand and Burma know the lean and lanky American as Tha-U-Wu-Pa. Given that he is an active player in the struggle against Burma’s thuggish military regime, one might consider the name a nom de guerre. But he’ll have none of the war talk, insisting that he’s merely a Christian man driven by love and a desire to help relieve the suffering among Burma’s oppressed ethnic minorities.

And he points out that those minorities need as much help as they can get—and a great deal more. While the world has been outraged by the Burmese junta’s recent crackdown on monks and civilians protesting peacefully in big cities like Rangoon and Mandalay, away from the spotlight the people in the ethnic enclaves have been enduring the generals’ persecution for decades. And for 10 years from their base in northern Thailand, Tha-U-Wu-Pa and his Free Burma Rangers have been slipping past Thai patrols and eluding heavily armed, trigger-happy Burmese Army units in order to bring emergency medical care and other assistance to people in the Shan, Karen, Karenni and Arakan ethnic states.

The 47-year-old expatriate, who grew up in Thailand and speaks the language fluently, has himself roamed across a thousand miles of Shan, Karen and Karenni territory on relief missions, often with Burmese soldiers no more than a few yards away. The Americans he leads are mostly Christian, and the man himself—let’s call him Don for anonymity’s sake—is a kind of modern missionary on steroids. He’s seen some of the worst atrocities of the Burmese military. “When you think about terrible things, it’s hard to quantify,” he says, two days after returning from a cross-border relief mission. “What’s terrible? People shot and killed instantly, tortured slowly, blown to little pieces, stepping on land mines …”

And yet Don displays the missionary’s faith and optimism. “The love that ethnic people have given us has struck me most,” he says. “This love gives us the strength to keep going and not worry about who wins and who loses.”

By any practical measure the ethnic minorities are losing. While the protests in the big cities went on for several weeks, the government’s campaign against ethnic people has been raging nonstop for 50 years, and some operations are ongoing right now. In Karen state in eastern and southern Burma, the State Peace and Development Council—which is to say the junta—began an offensive in February 2006 that had killed more than 300 men, women and children and displaced 25,000 people by February 2007, according to the Free Burma Rangers.

The group, founded 10 years ago by Don, compiles its numbers via the teams it sends into Burma on humanitarian missions. It says the Burmese Army built 33 new camps in the area, seeking to solidify its control. The military’s 2006 campaign was the largest offensive in Karen state since 1997, says Don. The army’s goal, he says, is to crush anyone living in those areas.

“Their objective is to eliminate all resistance, to keep a tight grip on the population,” explains a 25-year-old American volunteer whose Karen nickname is Wee. “And they do it quite brutally, with no regard for basic human rights. Last month they burned down at least two villages in northern Karen state with no concern for whether they were harming men, women or children. They’ll take whatever they like, shoot the place up, burn down the village and set land mines on the trails leading to farms. People are regularly maimed or killed.”

After the army loots and destroys villages, any villager seen is shot on sight, witnesses say. The soldiers’ slow pace, coupled with security provided by the Karen National Union (KNU), means most people are able to escape. The KNU has tried to set up an early warning network in the state. Villagers flee into the jungle, often to hiding places prepared in advance. Once the soldiers leave the area, ethnic Karen try to return to their villages and farms—or at least to somewhere nearby. Often the devastation is such that they can do neither, and they become internally displaced people.

At the Rangers’ headquarters, the young American volunteers mix with Thai and Burmese colleagues, putting together videos, care packages, educational supplies, information packets—whatever it takes. They see their mission as providing “help, hope and love.” And they are not here in any kind of paid capacity. Each volunteer is responsible for his or her own upkeep, and they all have people or churches or businesses back home supporting them. As Wee speaks the TV flickers with images of distraught Karen villagers recounting atrocities committed by Burmese troops. The video shows a man burying his face in his hands, crying as he tells about his children being captured by soldiers, killed, and then burned. They were so young, he says incredulously, between sobs. How could they have been any kind of threat? “They didn’t even know their right hand from their left hand,” he wails.

Watching the video, Wee says quietly, “When there are babies and moms and others around you and you’re all running in the jungle to get away from the SPDC troops, it kind of takes away your fears for your own safety.”

Don remembers a report by a television crew that accompanied the Rangers on a mission. The presenter suggested that under attack the Rangers had run away and left some people behind. It still angers Don, even now, a couple of years later. “We have a rule that we don’t run if people are there,” he says. “You know, when people want to join us, we look for moral courage. Well, that’s the moral courage. You don’t run if the people can’t run.”

He says that in 10 years there have been fewer than 10 situations in which he has come under indirect fire—mortar, rocket-propelled grenades and such—and only twice has been “under direct fire, nothing between them and me.” In one incident he “could feel their bloodlust at the back of my head,” he recalls.

And he remembers a battalion “firing everything it had at us” for 30 minutes. “I wasn’t even scared, because I knew we were doing the right thing.”

Each time the Rangers go on a mission, they spend a month or two in the bush, getting around on foot and hiking 10 to 40 miles a day. “You’re not going to get fat,” Don observes wryly. “We don’t know how long we will hike, and we don’t know how far. It depends. It’s either, the attack by the SPDC was over there and you have to get there, or someone’s chasing you and you have to keep moving.”

Ranger teams consist of four to five people and include at least one “medic,” typically a native person who has gained some medical experience working with one of the ethnic militias. “A lot of people are interested in joining our teams,” Don says. “They love their people and they see something terrible is going on. A lot of them have had experiences, and they’re angry. A lot of these emotions are motivating factors for our teams.” As a result, the Rangers don’t have to recruit. The various ethnic groups, each with its own acronym, send volunteers. “We just tell them the qualifications,” Don says.

Don’s Karen name, Tha-U-Wu-Pa, means “father of the white monkey.” That’s a reference to one of his two daughters, herself nicknamed “white monkey.” He also has a son, his youngest child. His wife works with him in the effort to, as Wee put it, “remind these people that they are not forgotten.” Don’s family helps provide perspective. Last year Don took a photo of a nine-year-old Karen girl wounded in a Burmese Army attack in which her father and grandmother were fatally shot at point-blank range. The picture shows a large, bloody hole where a bullet exited the abdomen of the girl, who survived. “It struck me that this could happen to me,” Don says. “I thought, ‘Wow, man, that’s my family right there.’ I said from this day on, this is my family.”

Che

Although I disagreed with Che, that revolution is only possible if violence and weaponry are involved, I believe in things he desired – justice for the poor, rights for the indigenous to have land, and a fair and social order. Communist or not, I believe Jesus would have wanted these things and still does. However if we live by the sword, ultimately we die by it. If only Che believed that Another World Was Possible….
The following is the BBC article on this week’s anniversary of his death.
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This week marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine-born doctor who fought alongside Fidel Castro during the Cuban revolution.

He died in Bolivia trying to foment a similar revolution there.
To this day he remains one of Cuba's leading "heroes of the revolution" whose image can be seen on posters and walls across this communist island in the Caribbean.

Gen Villegas told me of his first encounter with Che Guevara. At the time he was a young peasant farmer living close to the Sierra Maestra mountains and had decided to join Mr Castro's guerrilla fighters who were hiding from government forces."Che was already a legend in the villages here. He was known as a formidable fighter, who took the art of guerrilla warfare to new levels."

"My first impressions were of admiration and respect for a man who was capable of giving his life for a people he didn't know, us Cubans."

But once Che had got to power why did he give it up? Had he become hooked on guerrilla fighting? No….

"I think Che was a revolutionary at heart much more than a guerrilla fighter," Gen Villegas said.

"For Che it was about social change and justice. A revolutionary fights to change the whole structure of society at once, not some gradual change. Given the conditions in Latin America at the time, Che considered the only way to achieve this was by the armed struggle.

"It was imperialism which defined Che. He wasn't a violent man, or one who liked to assassinate or kill. On the contrary, he was a loving man who wanted build socialism. That's something very difficult for capitalists to understand"

In the West Che image has become largely de-politicized. For many he has turned into an almost rock star like figure, a romantic rebel icon, far removed from a committed Marxist revolutionary fighter.

The famous photo of Che with his beard and beret is said to be one of the most reproduced pictures in the history of photography. I recently saw a doctor in Britain wearing a Che badge; on it the words "Join the stop smoking revolution". For cash strapped Cuba, Che's image has become a much needed hard currency earner. Havana is full of tourist shops and markets selling everything from T-shirts to posters, calendar key rings and fridge magnets.

"I don't think its right to commercialize his image but we shouldn't criticize it," said Gen Villegas. "I think the really important thing is that tourists want to use Che's image, whether they know much about him or not. If young people look up to him, there's more chance they will go on to learn about who he was and what he fought for, a more just society." 


Thoughts on Evangelical Culture and a Place for Women

A paper I submitted this past week.... I welcome your thoughts.

A professor recently made the in-class comment that, “The strongest voice against women in ministry are evangelical women.” This important thought is only one of many echoed in Noll’s chapter on gender in his book American Evangelical Christianity. Surveying the history of generations of Christian women who have been caught in the swinging pendulum of encouraged support and quieted veiling, Noll notes that the issue of gender has made a prominent mark on evangelical history. Research completed by prominent women in both the secular and sacred fields reveal that the role of women in the Church, public domain, and the arena of the Christian home and family, is a role everyone seems to care about – regardless of gender or opinion.

The pendulum effect can be seen throughout the history Noll presents. Although not the norm, Jarena Lee and Julia Fotte (both African American women) were placed in prominent positions of church leadership at the turn of the 20th century , while today 100 years later, women must actively seek out church denominations and faith communities that will openly support the calling God has laid on their heart.

Noll describes historical time periods where women were not only actively seeking the opportunity to lead in the Church, but also were themselves actively serving in the country and throughout the world in positions of church leadership. Today, however, many evangelical women have found themselves on the opposite side of the pendulum, submerged in a 21st century evangelical church culture that has segregated them from Adam, emphasizing a disproportionate understanding of submission and traditional gender-roles while focusing on the patriarchy of the Trinity instead of the unity found within it. This major swing throughout the last century has lead to what Canadian theologian John Stackhouse notes as a “speechless majority” , a majority of women in the church who are behind-the-scenes, out of the public eye, supportive or submissive to their male counter, and who might otherwise choose to remain “speechless”.

On this point I must interject. At some of the most critical points in history Christians have remained silent. While millions have lost their lives for the sake of Gospel, millions continue to live on with the opportunity to be apart of God’ s transformation of the world. For every woman in America that has the opportunity to speak out, take leadership, actively serve, participate in public affairs, and become engaged in life and ministry in and outside of the home– there are 3 women elsewhere in the world that will never have that opportunity. This ratio of 1:3 gives a true definition to the term “speechless majority”.

One of the challenges the evangelical church will face as it heads into a post-modern context is a generation of young people who will seek out the core of Christianity. At this core they will find Jesus and the dogma that has defined the Church for years. This generation will then hold a mirror up to the Church to see if it truly reflects Jesus and the answer will hinge on what is found in the mirror. If it does not reflect Jesus the Church will fail, as it will no longer be what it was intended to be. The role of women in ministry is not Church Dogma nor even doctrine, there was never any doubt, however, how Jesus treated women.

In his book Irresistible Revolution liberation theologian Shane Claiborne (my projection not his self-address) quotes the martyred Danish pastor Kaj Munk, “For what Christians lack is not psychology or literature….we lack a holy rage- the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.” He continues on to discuss how at times Christians need to not only care, but act in the face of human-made boundaries and injustice and that these things require us to use whatever we have, even if all we have is our voice, our prayers, or each other. For the Church in the 21st century, this is a calling that must be considered, regardless of gender, race, or class.

As is found in the book of Ecclesiastes, there are seasons for everything. There are times for silence and there are times when the speechless need to speak. There are also times when the silent need to let those who want to speak do so. Women make up the strong majority of Western evangelicals, and the opportunity to become a ‘holy rage’ and partake in God’s transformation with the unified Church, not a segregated, labeled, error-free social club, is very real. As the pendulum of history continues to swing, will it head dramatically in the opposite direction or settle somewhere in between? If the professor’s comment is true, the mirror might reflect a Church that has become its own worst enemy. Unfortunately for us, that is exactly what the enemy wanted all along.

Let us seek to be the unified Church that might be worthy to carry the Gospel.