This morning our family got up and got ready to go to church in the village of Sanda Te.  A couple of years ago Sanda Te was having a hard time.  Their attendance was down, and the leaders didn't feel like the church had much direction.  They were trying to share their faith, but no one seemed very interested.  Mark started going out on a weekly  basis to talk and pray with the leaders.  He wasn't necessarily teaching them what to do, he was just sharing in their struggles and praying with them, and studying scripture together for their mutual encouragement.  Over time, Dau and Tchalo regained a vision for their ministry, and the church regained vitality.

When we arrived this morning we could hear them singing from where we parked the car (you have to park, and then walk a little bit into the village to get to the church.)  The worship with filled with joy and overflowing praise.  It was as if they were erupting in worship as a volcano erupts.  They shared a passage from 1 Peter, and then one from Luke, and many people participated in the discussion.  There was a man who has shriveled legs and has to drag himself around with his arms, sitting on the floor in the back of the church who was actually dancing as he sang.  There is a woman who has been suffering from an illness which causes a lot of painful inflammation all over her body, and she was smiling and lifting her hands in gratitude to our Lord.  There were some new elderly women from the village who have expressed a desire to be baptized.  The church was at maximum capacity.

After church, we got in the car to drive the 40 minutes home, and we talked about what a beautiful and exciting transformation we have seen in that church.  God has been faithful and we are blessed to witness it.

As we were reveling in the joy of what we had just experienced, a small group of people on the roadside caught our eyes.  They were making a hand gesture for us to stop, which is very common.  People will oftentimes try to flag us (and all vehicles) down for a ride, but there was something about these people, perhaps the way they gestured or the expression on their faces, that conveyed a sense of urgency.  Mark stopped to ask what was the matter, and they stepped aside to reveal an older man lying in fetal position on the ground.  They said that he was very ill, and they had carried him to the road in hopes that someone would give them a ride to the hospital a little further down.  We said that we could help them, so they lifted the man into the back of the truck.  He was conscious and his eyes were open, but he was not responsive to anything.  As we drove, the mood in the car had changed drastically.  I was rejoicing in one moment, and then shocked by the reality of the desperate circumstances of so many of those around us in the next.

When we arrived we let them out of the truck, and gave them the little amount of money that we had with us (about $2.)  They were so grateful for the small help we gave.

It blows me away how such joy and suffering co-exist in life.  They are sometimes just minutes away from each other.  This is true everywhere, but I think that the extremes are just more evident in Africa.  The comfort in this day has been that God's presence was in both of those places with each of those people.  Mark always says that we are not here to do anything, but to witness what God is doing.  This morning I feel like we witnessed him in two very different ways.

Please pray for this man and his family.

obedience vs. sacrifice

"The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2."
-Oswald Chambers


Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

People often approach missionaries with the assumption that they are living in obedience to Christ.  After all, we have made "great sacrifices" to share God's Word and love with the world, and surely these sacrifices gesture to the fact that we are submitted to God's rule in our lives.  However, I know that this is not true in my own heart.  There is so much left inside of me to relinquish.  Going to visit a woman who has taken in 8 children who are HIV positive, offering her encouragement, support, and helping her to get the medicine one of her children needs is easy.  It's a simple task- a no brainer.  Helping a widow by giving her clothes and helping her children to go to school is easy.  But loving someone when I feel like I have been treated unjustly is really hard.  Keeping my thoughts from being critical of those I love or being prideful, those things keep me awake at night.  

I love this quote from Oswald Chambers because it exposes a myth that we commonly believe.  The truth is that "To obey is better than sacrifice."  The beauty of sacrifice is found in its obedience, it's what makes sacrifice pure.  When we try to use sacrifice to compensate for our lack of obedience we rob the sacrifice of its beauty.  

I am working on "offering my body as a living sacrifice" "by the renewing of my mind" on a day by day, moment by moment basis.  One thing I know is true is that this is much more challenging than moving to Togo, West Africa.  I thank and praise God that he is my strength and my help, that he has made me "more than a conqueror."