Planning for growth in 2010

Well, I'm back from the holidays and they really were a meaningful time of celebration. We of course missed all of our friends and family who are far away from us, but we still found joy in this season.

Our year began with not only the first water well rehab for the Dagara mission, but also our first major planning conference for Dagara evangelists. The leaders of all the churches got together and hand picked 8 individuals who came for an intense 4 day seminar. During that 4 day seminar I tried to teach them about holiness from idols, lust, anger, drunkenness, and gossip, how to study the bible and develop lessons from a specific scripture with an emphasis on life application, and gave them lesson series to use for evangelism, and another for church maturation, another lesson on service, one on involving new members and one on family counseling.

We talked about how their evangelism strategy should be different from mine. If I drive into a village, it doesn't matter how many years I've tried to assimilate, there were certain levels I was not able to reach. So I still drive in with my big noisy truck and I still have my white skin and I still have more money and education than they do. They're used to seeing foreigners from Europe and America like that, but I speak Dagara, a MIRACLE in their eyes, and that always draws a crowd. At first I thought this was a good thing, but I'm beginning to reassess the downside, which is that I get whomever happens to pass by that day. If it's a woman and her husband is not there or a man and his wife is not there, that causes division in families from the beginning. Here we are years later with 25 churches but most of them still have split families. The leaders and I talked about a two pronged strategy for dealing with this. On one hand they are praying about split families, particularly families where the wife comes but her husband does not with whom they can hold family evangelism meetings. On the other hand, as they go to a new village they will not worry about drawing a large crowd. In fact they will be seeking almost the opposite. They will start small with heads of households that are willing to call their whole family together for evangelistic meetings. The result, we hope, will be churches with whole families that will be stronger than the churches we currently have.

Both the teacher and the students were overwhelmed by God's grace and wisdom as we learned alot about him and each other. The leaders found the training on how to apply scriptures in lessons particularly helpful. One of them asked me, "why has it taken you so long to teach us this?" This response was both an indictment and an encouragement to me. Pray that these leaders will be able to take all this material and expand the kingdom in the areas where they live.

Because I believe that prayer is more than "psychological self-manipulation," (thanks Randy Harris) that is, I believe it actually works, I'm going to write here the names of new villages being targeted for the good news (Mogae, Nabalae, Na-irae-don, Yarfiin, Penza, Kpankpar, Nawn-marae-bagawn, and Nakpier). Here are names of heads of families that you can also be praying for that they receive the good news with peace and gladness (Zinyaw, Kofi, Duoru-ziyae, Gunu, Domoyaw, Kono-yaw, Kuon-irae, Kola, and Taku Sibiri). Don't worry about the pronunciation or spellings. I probably missed them too, but God knows for whom you are praying.

One small step . . .

Earlier this year everyone was making a big deal about the anniversary of the first man to walk on the moon. There is always a first and it always takes bravery to be that first. Sure the scientists had all their theories, but how could we be sure . . .

My teammate, Andy Johnson, has written a series of lessons challenging Dagara Christians to greater holiness. All the missionaries on our team have always emphasized that true discipleship to Jesus means leaving behind all claims for power and relying entirely on God. In America we struggle with not relying too much on our bank accounts or at least we should. In Dagara culture, they have physical idols and amulets of power that are supposed to save them when they hit hard times. With that understanding, let's get back to Andy's holiness series.

In Nawile, they've been latched on to a discussion of idols for three weeks now. Andy's ready to move onto "holiness in marriage" when they've processed the idolatry stuff, but for now they keep asking questions about getting rid of idols. Many Dagara believe that if once putting their trust in an amulet they throw it away they will die. So Christians in our churches have always said with their mouths that they had gotten rid of all their idols, but we missionaries have never seen it. On this third week, Andy had promised he would bring gas and matches, and that if they were ready they could bring their idols and we would get rid of them together in the power of Jesus name.

I was both excited about this possibility and concerned that this step be taken in prayer. I prayed as we led up to this meeting that Satan would be unable to scare God's people and that Andy would be able to speak boldly but gently and in love. I even asked Andy if I could come with him to pray over him during this lesson. Well I feel God really answered my prayers. Monique is one of the main leaders of the Nawile church. She kept claiming that the reason that not many had come to this meeting was that all those present didn't have idols. Those who didn't come were scared to get rid of their idols, according to Monique. That seemed to me to be a pretty bold assertion, and I continued to pray while Andy taught. Andy read from Acts about the Ephesians burning their magical books. He used an analogy. Often when we come to start a meeting in a village, we sit under the meeting tree. The first church member that walks by says, "well, since it's just you for now, I've got some work to do at the house. I will go get that done and be right back." Twenty people sometimes walk by saying basically the same thing. If just one or two of them had sat down the others would also have done so. So when Andy asked if anyone had come prepared to destroy their idols, Sylvan said "I want to be the first." What bravery! What faith! What an answer to prayer that, after seven years on the mission field and knowing that there would be loyalty issues between faith in idols and faith in the living God, we see a man willing to throw his amulets into the fire. The church prayed over him several times and we all sang the song, that may not translate directly to American culture, but that I love in this one: "Crying, crying, Satan is crying, brothers. When we got salvation, it made Satan mad, because he doesn't know how he'll ever get us back." Praise God! This may seem like one small step for a Dagara man, but it is a giant leap for the kingdom of God here among the Dagara.

Leadership Training Ups and Downs

I got stood up the third week in a row. It gives me the opportunity to catch up on my blog though. I now have three leaders in training. My Thursday morning, Kpe-zuo, was nowhere to be found again. However, last Friday I had a great first lesson with So-dere. He's my nightguard, so I have the advantage of not having to go anywhere to teach him, but the disadvantage of him watching me live every day. I'm not yet to the point where I would feel comfortable, like Paul was, saying just do exactly as I have done. So-dere got married a couple of months ago. He's always asking me marriage advice. It's a good challenge to live up to the standard I set for us both in my lessons. He took the passage we studied from Acts 10 to deliver his sermon on Sunday.

Last Wednesday, I had a large sum of money that I either misplaced or had involuntarily borrowed from me. Distraught and searching for the money, I was not able to make it to my afternoon meeting with Romain. But Yesterday, we had a great meeting. I was able to challenge him as a leader to realize that he can't rely on Sunday morning alone to foster growth in the way of Christ. In studying God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, we discussed for a while why God changed his m.o. to come and let them know they would have the promised child that year. Up to this point in Abraham's life, God had no problem just communicating directly to Abraham . . . speaking to him audibly, but here God sends three guys to VISIT him. I wonder for whom God may have a message for YOU to deliver this week. Who can you be a blessing for by visiting them this week?

A Tale of Three Groups

The Mutori church hosted an all church conference at the end of August. We invited two leaders from each village church to the conference. About 50 leaders from 22 village churches came. The first item on the agenda was updates. We spent an entire afternoon doing these updates but they were well worth it. It was a cloudy but dry day so we all met under a tree. Each set of leaders who came to represent their village church came and stood before the rest of us. They told us what was going on in their communities. Some told stories of how numbers are decreasing at their Sunday morning meetings. Some told stories of how they have seen God answer prayers for the sick. Some told stories of new church plants they had started. After each report, those from the next village would come up and pray over those who had just told their stories. Then as the old group sat down, the new group would start to update all of us. Like I said, some reports were good news and some were bad news. But all were taken to God in prayer.

The next morning it was still drizzling from a night full of rain. So it took longer than expected (I don't know why I still have these expectations after 7 years in Africa) to get started. On this day we broke out into three groups. One group went with Chad to the new Dagara Christian Bookstore that has been opened in Dano. They discussed how they can keep everyone informed about what's going on in the movement. For now it seems they are going mainly with a bulletin board at the bookstore. Hopefully as people come into Dano on market day they can go by the bookstore and read the bulletin board for announcements. One group sat under the tree with Andy and Geoffrey who asked them their opinion about various ideas to help their communities. One of the big ones is Geoffrey's knowledge about well pump repair. As a result of this conference Geoffrey now has a list of folks that are willing to become apprentices or otherwise learn from and assist Geoffrey in a water project for the Dagara. The last group got stuck with me teaching them about trying to figure out God's will in prayer.

So I saw three different groups of leaders that day. We sat down together and studied a method of discussing and praying through problems / decisions that a congregation or movement might face. I stole this method from one of my mentors from ACU, Dr. Sonny Guild. I couldn't really give it justice here, but some of the steps involved include dreaming about possibilities, but also looking at the facts that need to be faced, and brainstorming. After we've gone through all of that, our expectation is not that we will have sussed out God's will as a group, but that we will have emptied oursleves of all our human wisdom and laid all our cards on the table. We recognize that all our best ideas and arguments are only human. We then take some time as a group in silent meditation guided by scripture to see if God has anything to say to us about all of this. Perhaps we will just be reminded of a truth from His word that we already knew but couldn't see. Almost always, we will be reminded that we all have equal footing before God. Then if we have anything to share with the group we share and try to figure out if God is trying to tell us something and decide together what our next move should be.

Well, there have been some large donations (to Dagara eyes) given this year to help out with famine relief. Being handed this large sum of money as a group could hurt the movement if some are tempted to use the money for their own power. Usually we missionaries get a donation like this and we decide what to do with it in our ivory tower (Note: we don't actually have an ivory tower, although our decisions might seem more impressive if we announced them from an ivory tower). However, we have recognized that if we're really going to hand it all over to the Dagara leaders some day, they are going to need to know how to handle partnerships with American brothers and sisters that have much more resources than they can imagine. This is an opportunity for them to get their feet wet.

Anyway, I presented this issue as the issue for discussion to each of the three groups that met that day. What's interesting is that I believe that each group was truly submitting themselves to God's will, that each group received a message which was unifying for the group, but that each group also received a separate message. The first group came to the realization that each community's needs may be different and that before a dime is spent, we need to get each community to discuss their needs and send those in for a discussion. The next group recognized the value of the method (and it should be noted, usually this is something that a community takes on over a series of meetings, not all in one hour and a half chunk like we were doing for teaching purposes). However, they also recognized that they were still not getting a clear message as to what to do next and learned that this is when you go back through the steps. The final group reacted completely differently. First, they wouldn't really get into it. During the time where they were supposed to lay all their cards out on the table they just all acquiesced to one of the more dynamic leaders who said that they should just give us back the money so that we could buy corn and distribute it. While that may be where God is leading us, it seemed like they were missing the point. However, I finally got them going when I asked them to whom should we give the corn - just to Dagara villages where a church had been planted or to all Dagara villages, or to just Dagara villages where church plants were starting, etc. After they started to argue it out, I realized we were almost out of time and we hadn't even prayed. So I stopped them and although we went way over time we spent the same amount of time in meditation as the other groups did. What came out of this was the most surprising of all to me. I had not seen this coming. Several of the members of the group shared how the same basic idea in really different ways had come to them. They felt led as a group to evangelize more. They said, "You know, food is great, but you can't take it with you, and we need to be praying for and talking with our neighbors and family members that are still in the darkness about our faith." Wow! Sometimes as a missionary in one of the poorest countries in the world you worry that you focus too much on teaching Christ and not enough on just helping people. It took a group of Dagara Christians to remind me this week that those things aren't necessarily separate and that fellowship with God really is our deepest need.

Catch up update

We are relieved to come back to life, back to public life, online life. The craziness of our life has pushed the Blog to the back burner. But I'm going to attempt to give you some of the highlights here.

PERSONAL STUFF: Our family spent the first couple of weeks in July in the capital city, Ouagadougou. Andrea needed her gall bladder removed. Another missionary family, the Greys, whom we've recently befriended were going on vacation. So when they heard we needed a place to stay, they let us house sit for them. Our baby sitter Koro is originally from Ouaga and so this was an opportunity for her to let her son spend time with his grandmother. This way she could watch Daniel and Dylan while I was at the hospital with Andrea. The surgery went perfectly, and Andrea enjoyed all the extra care she received from me and the nurses, mostly the nurses. The kids really enjoyed playing with the Grey's kids toys. We also enjoyed getting to video skype with family and friends in the states thanks to the Grey's high speed internet connection.

After a brief recovery time we where already getting ready for the annual trek down to Ghana for the West Africa Missionary conference. This took three days of driving and almost 25 hours in the car each way. I don't know whether it was all the travel or the change in climate, but I got a nasty sinus infection starting from the day before the conference up to today. I'm finally starting to feel a bit more normal after over two weeks with this thing. But the worst thing about it was that I passed it on to the rest of my family. I'm also afraid that despite our best efforts we also passed it on to many at the conference. We also missed much of the conference and time at the pool and beach being quarantined in our hotel room. The parts we did experience, Randy Harris's words and worship led by the Burnams, was very encourging. One of the highlights of our trip, oddly enough, was going to see the new pixar movie "Up" in the mall (seriously, an honest to goodness mall fully air conditioned and with a real movie theatre with popcorn, and cushy seats and cup holders in the armrests, etc.). We also really enjoyed getting to know the Kennels better and spending time with the Ruffs in Tamale, Ghana (pronounced tah mah lay not like the Mexican dish). Then while we were waiting in Ouaga for Andrea's followup appointment, Daniel had a sleepover at Josh Grey's house. They had a great time playing video games and then pretending their own live action video games.

One more funny story. Dylan was playing guns with me. He kept shooting at me and saying, "bang, bang . . . Your dead, Daddy!" I decided I would try to channel his gun play into more appropriate pretend activities, so I said, "Let's pretend that we are hunting rabbits, o.k.? So, let's find some bunnies!". Without missing a beat, Dylan says, "Daddy you're a bunny. Bang, bang. You're dead!"

MISSION WORK: As you could imagine, we've had a few interruptions in our village ministry. However even in between two long hiatuses from our home in Dano, I've been able to facilitate one church leader, Romain, in starting a new preaching point and help another one of my students, Kpe-zuo, to take a new student under him and explore another preaching point. We're also making lots of preparations for the leaders conference scheduled for just a little over a week from now.