Salt

We are called to be salt in the community.

Salt spread through a cake or casserole or any kind of dish enhances the flavour, lifts it, deepens it, helps it achieve what it otherwise couldn't. Think of the king's daughter in the fairy tale.  When the old man asks each of his three daughters to proclaim how much she loves him the older two are extravagant in their imagery.  The youngest simply says, "I love you as fresh meat loves salt."  The king casts her out, disappointed in her seemingly stingy feelings for him.  Later she gets a job in his kitchen where she asks the cook to cook the meat without salt.  Only after eating the tasteless meal does the king realise how truly his youngest child loves him and what a difference the humble condiment can make.

There have been occasions when I wasn't as thorough in stirring the salt into my pancake mix as I should have been. It didn't make the pancakes taste better as my family will vouch, but on the times I forgot to put salt in at all there was a dullness, something missing.

We can't do what salt should if we spend all our time in a huddle with other believers. It might feel more comfortable but unless it's properly mixed in, salt does not make anything better. We need to spread out, to be stirred into society to help others become what they could be, to carry the amazing, life-enhancing, eternity-saving characteristics of Jesus into the mix of confusion, darkness and hopelessness which makes up so much of this world.

You can't always spot salt in a dish like you can see carrots or rice but you certainly notice its absence.  Be the Jesus-salt at your work, in your book/walking club, at the school parents' meeting, in your class. Salt makes a difference but doesn't stand out: you don't need to do something ostentatious to change lives.

Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth.....

November 2nd was our one year anniversary in South Africa.  We've been greatly blessed in the people we've got to know and the things we've experienced. We've seen God's hands clearly in so many things that have happened and grown so much.

November 3rd was the day our house was broken into for the second time in six months. We'd joked about how the robbers would wait a while after the first theft until we'd replaced everything and then would return. So they did, getting in by completely removing a window, checking out the fridge and freezer this time but not finding as much of value - not possessing designer clothes/shoes can be an advantage. They did take the ring that my aunt, who died of cancer a few months ago, had left me and a non-smart phone with my UK sim (so don't use that number, or if you do, let me know if anyone answers it) but we've come to expect that this is what happens in modern South Africa.

Ever since leaving to follow God's call to Nigeria I've had to learn to hold earthly possessions lightly. Yes I've got some boxes stored at my parents but so much has had to be given away. When we arrived in South Africa we had two large suitcases each and hand luggage. God provided everything we needed and still does. When irreplaceable memories are stolen it hurts; when IT equipment goes the hassle of changing passwords is extremely annoying but it all helps to concentrate the mind on what is lasting and important.

It's tempting to walk around town casting suspicious eyes on everyone who passes, especially the street-sleepers, but love and forgiveness are choices; waiting until you feel like loving or forgiving doesn't really work. Not easy but necessary: why should I allow the actions of someone else dictate how I react? (This doesn't mean I believe that wrong choices/actions shouldn't have consequences, that's how we learn after all,  only that an unforgiving and unloving attitude can cause more harm to yourself than the person unforgiven.)

At least it gave me good material for the Bible studies I led in a local prison this week and reinforced Fraser's belief that it's never wise to save a bar of chocolate for later - if you put it in the fridge someone could well break in and steal it before you get a chance to eat it.

"Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:20-21)

Desensitisation

What do we do when violence becomes everyday?

How should we react when the stabbing of a young boy is announced as straightforwardly as the weather forecast, or a holdup on the road?
When a criminal advocate is shot in front of his young son and other pupils at the entrance to a school?
When a mother of five doesn't know what to do one day as all of her sons are appearing in different criminal courts?
When armed robbers target a church on a Sunday as they think there'll be rich pickings?
When you've been in prison for twenty years, had your life turned on its head by Jesus but fear that your son is being drawn into the gangster world and don't know how you'll react if someone hurts him?

It's easy to say, "Trust in the Lord, ask Jesus what to do" but ....

I have learned that God can easily cut the Gordian knot of logical self interest, he can reconcile the seemingly disparate, but the lesson's taken a few years. What about those in the thick of it who haven't been granted that time? What do we say to them?  What do we do?

One church in Wellington is having a go.  Their Drugs and crime awareness film festival is planned for the beginning of December.  Films with storylines about the effects of drug abuse and gangsterism will be shown, young people and their parents will be encouraged to watch and stay for the discussion groups, reformed gangsters will share testimonies and insight. 

In South Africa many of the gangs are predominately black or coloured (not a pejorative term here).  The church organising the film festival has a mainly coloured congregation and will be able to speak to the poor areas of town but this is such a good opportunity to get congregations of al colours working together - all one in Christ Jesus. The issue affects everyone.  Some congregations can reach the people, others can help in the background.  What a wonderful witness it would be, and how powerful, if churches throughout Wellington united behind this attempt to break the cycle of crime and abuse and bring Jesus disruptively into the equation.

Hope Prison Ministry

This is Marvin.

He was brought up in a house of violence and fear with his extended family but without a father figure - no discipline, no love.
At seven years old he was raped close to his home by a man who is still known to him.  From then on he walked further and further into the darkness.  Soon the longest he'd spent out of prison was three months at a time.  Inside he was repeatedly raped but he joined the 28 prison gang, rose rapidly within their ranks and became a general.  No one can touch an officer but he can have his way with underlings: what men had done to him, Marvin now did to others.

Then Hope Prison Ministry organised a Restorative Justice course for the centre where he was being held.  The prison chaplains, who'd started praying seriously for him, recommended he attend and on the first day, cap pulled down over his eyes, arms crossed, face scowling, full of anger, hatred, mistrust and bitterness, Marvin sat and waited to see what it was all about.

By the third day he was broken.  He knew that he didn't want to continue the life that had dragged him so far down.  He was realising the pain he'd caused to others by his actions; he couldn't carry on in the darkness.

It's not easy to leave one of South Africa's fearsome prison gangs, violence and death are run of the mill to members of the 28s or 26s, but that night, back in his prison room, Marvin announced to the rest of the 28s that he was leaving.  They could kill him if they liked but he was no longer going to be part of the Number.

Obviously they didn't kill him as today he's an enthusiastic and vociferous advocate for the power of Jesus to turn lives around.  He now works for Hope Prison Ministries, taking part in Restorative Justice courses, sharing his testimony so others can escape their darkness too. With his wife he has four daughters, being a good father to them and breaking the cycle of broken families.
At one ministry meeting he called out to a man sitting at the back and asked him to come forward.  The man couldn't speak through his tears.  He was the detective who had arrested Marvin and seen him off to prison so many times.  Now they work together in Hope Prison Ministry.

Tips

I’ve had a relationship with Jesus for over 35 years.  Like any living relationship it’s gone through various stages but in all the time I’ve truly known him I’ve never regretted the day I decided to hand my life back to Jesus. He’s held me all the way. Sometimes I’ve had to ask, “Why? Why is this happening? Why am I here? Is this the right place, the right time, the right use of talents? I don’t understand,” but there have always been answers, not always coming as quickly as I’d like (perhaps because I’m a slow learner) but coming at the right time.

While visiting prison recently, one of the men who’d committed himself to Jesus three years earlier asked me for tips on how to stay the course. Many books and articles have been produced about the Christian journey with far more insight and depth than anything I’ll be able to list here but this is my attempt to answer his request.

Everything can be summed up by one sentence: nurture your relationship with Jesus. Talk to him; listen to him; expect him to communicate with you through the Bible, in the still small voice within, through other people.

Don’t automatically believe everything you hear or read by other “Christians”.  No one is infallible, people make mistakes, some mislead intentionally but God will never send a message to you or anyone else which contradicts what he’s said in the Bible. Some matters are open to interpretation but the fundamentals are not. Humanity rebelled against God and God responded by so loving the world that he sent his only Son, Jesus Christ so that all who believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. He provided the only way to restore our relationship with himself and sometimes that’s all we need to know – everything else will follow.

Think of yourself as a plant that needs food, water, sunlight in order to grow and be strong.  It is possible to survive alone but it’s been discovered that even plants thrive more when they’re growing together. We may find the company of other believers rather challenging at times but we need them for support and encouragement and to help us see our weaknesses, just as we can so easily notice theirs.

Read the Bible in a translation you find easy to understand – it’s God’s love letter to humanity and he wants it to speak to our hearts.  It won’t do that as effectively if you’re struggling with the language.

Don’t put God in a box. Don’t expect him to work in the same way all the time. He is the Creator and creative beyond anything we can imagine. He wants a living relationship with you, not one that’s stuck in a Sunday straitjacket, whether that’s the formality of a conservative, liturgical denomination or the wildness of the Pentecostals. There is a season and a time for everything – exuberance, contemplation, admiration.  Be aware. Listen to him.  Expect him to do amazing things in seemingly impossible situations.  Following Jesus is only boring if that’s what you make it.

There is no “right” way to worship him, as long as our hearts and minds are dedicated to Jesus our Saviour.  Don’t let others imprison you in their own style and traditions but at the same time, respect your weaker brothers and sisters and don’t let your behaviour shake their faith. Always act in a loving and understanding way; in time they will grow and mature an so will you.

Don’t blame God when things go wrong.  If you examine the situation honestly, the root of the problem will often be your own pride, greed, laziness, disobedience, lack of love, trust and faith. It could be other people’s deficiencies in the same areas but it’s likely to have been made worse by your own bad choices.  Ask God to show you where the problem lies, to help you repent and change.  Remember that we live in a fallen world and the results of that are always with us: only through Jesus can things be made better.  God will not stop us doing stupid things, he will not always prevent bad things from happening to us, but he will never abandon us to face the consequences alone. Call on him humbly and sincerely and he will help. His way of helping may not be what we expect but it will always be what’s best for us. Ask what it is he wants you to learn from the experience and though the answer may not come immediately, at some point you will understand.

Choose to love, even when you don’t feel like it.  With our faults and failings we are often unloveable but Jesus loves us so much he died to make it possible for every human being to have a relationship with God.  God reached out to us first. When such love is shown to me, who am I to set conditions on the people I will love during my life? Love others as extravagantly as Jesus loves you.

Rejoice in the simple things. Recognise God’s hand in unexpected beauty, a kindness, a smile, magnificent mountains or intricately formed insects going about their business: there’s something to appreciate wherever we are. Join his fan club and feel his pleasure. It’s you he wants a relationship with; he wants to enjoy your company and wants you to enjoy his. Yes, it’s good to do things that please him but our actions should spring from the love in our hearts and not be seen as a way to move ourselves into God’s favour. There’s nothing we can do to change our status in God’s eyes as Jesus has done it all, but we can make him smile.

Sometimes we think life would be easier if there were a set of definite rules laid down for every aspect of day to day living.  Some denominations have tried their best to provide them.  Some religions (like Islam) are founded upon them. True Christianity is not a religion but a living relationship with Jesus the Saviour. A relationship cannot be developed bound up in legalism with laws and procedures to be followed under all circumstances.

Jesus confirmed only two laws for his followers: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. This is the foundation of life but how these laws are worked out in our own circumstances will differ from person to person – there is no “one size fits all” life.  There is one foundation but all our buildings look wonderfully individual.

To summarise the key points:

Love – for God, for those around us; vertical and horizontal

Communication – with Jesus, with each other

Examination – where am I straying from the path God wants me to walk?

Rejoice – in all that God’s done and made for you

Freedom – whether behind bars or in the world, freedom comes from within, made possible by Jesus

Humility – I don’t deserve any of the good things that God gives me but I appreciate how he provides them

Ultimately remember it’s all about Him and it’s awesome.

Two Laws

Marius is a vine farmer in Wellington who also happens to be Session Clerk of the church we belong to.  He's a man of great faith and humour, rarely seen without a twinkle in his eye, except when he's wrestling with how best to show the love of God to the workers on his farm and the street-dwellers in the town.

A few weeks ago he stood up in church to tell us about how laws affect the running of his farm.  The government is continually issuing stacks of regulations which pile several inches high.  Presumably their aim is to improve the lives of farm workers (and some workers are still kept in dreadful conditions) but to a responsible farmer these laws merely make life a lot more complicated to no end.

Marius contrasted this stack of laws with the two that he has found necessary to introduce to his workers.
Law number 1 (demonstrated by the raising of one finger): love the Lord your God.
Law number 2 (shown by holding up two fingers, being careful of which way round they are): love your neighbour as yourself.

Now when there's a disagreement between workers, instead of escalating the fight, someone will raise two fingers in a silent reminder of law two.  Sometimes the occasion demands a reminder of the first law. Sometimes Marius himself has been on the receiving end of, as he admits, a necessary reminder of the laws.  It may sound a very simple and perhaps odd thing to introduce to a working farm but it has brought about a great change in the atmosphere.  Very simply, in a non-threatening yet effective way, people are being reminded of their responsibilities and relationships, to each other and to God. 

A taste of heaven

I arrived at the Wednesday night Bible study last night to discover we were having a party.
A foretaste of heaven?

Retreat

How rooted are you?

I recently took part in an online retreat run by Velvet Ashes (//retreat.velvetashes.com) and designed particularly for women in mission overseas (although anyone in Christian ministry could benefit). The theme this year was Sustain; the image an air plant which has no roots and only requires light and water to survive. 

Moving away from the country and culture you've grown up in, following where God leads across the world, brings home very effectively that, though it's always so painful to tear up roots, all we really need to thrive is the light and water of Jesus Christ.

Whichever country I've found myself, in the only firm and constant realities are God's love, Jesus' sacrifice and the Holy Spirit's indwelling guidance.  That's all that's really needed and if we hold onto that knowledge then God brings everything else; many things that make life pleasant, many challenges that help us grow into the people he wants us to be.

The air plant needs no roots to survive but sometimes it grows one anyway, reaching out to connect with its environment. Just like us. It probably hurts when it's torn up too.

One of the messages of this retreat reaffirmed to me that God doesn't need our efficiency or us to be in the position where, in our opinion, our talents would be best used; he wants us. In vulnerability and availability.  That's what he's chosen to use to reach the world with the good news of Jesus and that's how he chooses to shape his children into the best they can be.  His idea of best, not the world's. So, don't feel guilty for feeling inadequate, don't think you have to be able to do it all, don't feel bad for actually enjoying many aspects of where God's put you and for accepting the periods of rest he offers. God's perfectly able to fill in the gaps, to see behind the scenes, and to make amazing and beautiful things grow from the shrivelled up seeds we can offer him. His strength is made perfect in weakness and it's wonderful.

Make me a mento in a bottle of cola

Have you ever dropped a mento sweet into a bottle of cola?  It's not something to do inside (unless you really don't like the person whose house it is). The reaction is great fun, a spectacular energetic fountain of bubbles firing high into the air which can even persuade the sceptical that science can be fun.  It's joyful; it's expansive; it definitely reaches the parts that an ordinary glass of cola wouldn't reach.

The image occurred to me this week.  Isn't that what followers of Jesus should be praying for?  Asking that the Holy Spirit will drop like a mento in the often closed bottle of the church?  Bringing joy, bubbles and refreshment.  Shaking things up.  Covering the ground.  Not allowing the complacent to sit there saying there's no point in trying as nothing ever changes. 

Shouldn't we also, as followers of Jesus, be praying that we would be mentos in the cola of our localities - bubbling up over injustice, hardship, despair ?

After the outpouring the bottle's half empty.
What do we do then?
Go back to sit at Jesus' feet, asking to be filled up again, ready for the next mento-experience.

Opportunity

Thursday is laundry day when I take our bag of washing down the street to Cheryl at the waserie. I was getting ready to leave with it when a coloured lady appeared at the open half door.

"Can I speak with you?" she asked.
I went outside and sat on a bench with her.
Her name was Charline. In January her husband had died after being bedridden for over two years, leaving her with three teenage children. She had no job, though she was proactively looking, her landlady was threatening to put her and her children out of the hut they lived in and onto the streets unless she got some money that day, her children went to school without eating; she wasn't asking for money but did I have work for her?

This week I'd been convicted by the actions of one of the students at Hugenote College.  He's from a township in Cape Town so not flush with money, but he'd taken a homeless man into the local Spa, bought him food, talked to him and trusted God for his own provision.

That morning it had struck me that though we were giving regularly, it wasn't up to ten percent for God. It's all very well to say our whole lives as overseas workers are for him but I don't think that excuses us from sharing what he's graciously provided for us with those who are in greater need.  I'd asked him what he wanted me to do. When Charline turned up at my door that morning saying she didn't know why she'd come but she prayed every day that God would provide, I thought it might be connected.  What would you have done?

I was curious so asked how she'd survived previously as she'd had no job because she was caring full time for her sick husband.  She told me that then many people had helped by bringing food and other necessities.  Once he'd died nobody came; she and the children were forgotten and left to care for themselves.  Another lesson perhaps?

Library

Wellington Public Library

A town with a public library is a wonderful thing. The whole world can be opened up to anyone through books and now free internet access.  Membership is a way of belonging to the community yet can also be a means of escape from it.  At the moment I use my membership to withdraw children's books in Afrikaans as that's about my reading level.  It's also helpful to be able to get out dvds in Afrikaans: it's not wasting time watching films, it's language learning and cultural acclimatisation.

All libraries need rules.  At university I had to promise not to kindle fire within the library before I was allowed a card. Getting a membership card from Wellington library wasn't quite as dramatic (though I did need to ask a resident friend to guarantee me) but there are a few things you're specifically forbidden to take inside.  Not all of them would appear on an equivalent poster outside a library in the UK.

Leaves

Last Sunday Fraser and I went to the evening prayer meeting at our church in Wellington. It was made up of the two of us and three others sitting on benches in the evening sun outside the church building. We chatted and prayed and joked about how nearly anything could be turned into a sermon or kids' talk illustration. Watch out for several of these in the next few posts.

At the moment the oak tree at the side of our flat is starting to decide that autumn's coming (it's a bit topsy-turvy season-wise for me in South Africa). Leaves are turning brown and falling. They have a propensity to gather just outside the back door. I can sweep a pile away in the morning but by evening you'd think I'd done nothing and they're again waiting for someone to tramp them inside.

Then it occurred to me that's what happens to us. We can sweep away a bad habit, a persistent temptation or attitude but unless we change our environment, circumstances or way of living, the thing we're trying to overcome or get rid of will always keep finding a way back into our lives.

Those leaves will keep coming back as I can't change the prevailing winds. If I were to cut down the tree that would solve the problem but would seem rather radical. Sometimes the radical is what we need, painful though it is. I pray that we'll be able to discern what it is that needs to be changed in our lives to bring us closer to God and have to courage to do it.

He knows what he's doing

It's amazing how many coincidences happen in a life lived for God; it's almost as if someone's taking an interest and arranging things.
I'm not saying that everything happens smoothly and there are no problems as we live in a broken world, but from time to time you do get a glimpse behind the curtain. It's not always life-changing (though it could be, if not for you then for someone else) but it is exciting.

I was encouraged to find a Christian organisation in Paarl (a town about ten miles from where I'm living in South Africa) which is involved in peace and reconciliation work and community development. This will be a place to which I can bring my experience with BRiCC in Jos, I thought. It wasn't an issue when the CEO asked to rearrange our meeting from Friday afternoon to Tuesday but then I got a glimpse of the reason when I was asked to join a meeting on Friday afternoon for students at Hugenote College who are interested in forming (we haven't got a name for it yet but something like) a Christian support/discussion group. 

A mixture of male and female, theology and social worker students came. The ease with which we agreed a time to meet regularly truly showed God's hand was in the venture and the topics they've suggested as subjects for discussion sound as if we'll have a very interesting time together.

This came at a good time for me as yesterday I was having one of my periodic attacks of the "ought-to s".  I'm sure you're familiar with them. "I ought to be able to do this; I ought to go to that meeting; I ought to spend my time doing what I don't particularly feel I want to or should be doing merely because I'm able to and it's in a good cause." 

God gives us skills and he gives us talents.  The vital thing is to offer them back to him and listen to his direction in how to fulfil them. Surprisingly to some, God doesn't want us to live miserable lives doing tasks that we're not suited for.  What parent wants to see their child as an unhappily round peg in a square hole?  However, there's always the poisonous whisper of the ought-to.  I'm learning to recognise it for what it is, an enemy.  Don't be lazy, but don't miss the best because you're fretting over the good that you "ought to" be doing. As Jesus said, he came so we can have life and have it to the full (John 10:10).  It's a wonderfully freeing feeling.

There's always hope when people want to talk about the important things in life - forgiveness, trust, purpose, calling, faith.  Too often it's too painful or difficult to bring up subjects that dig beneath the surface of the everyday.  God gave us all brains.  We all have the potential for independent thought but too many people neglect this gift and unthinkingly follow whatever they're told because it's easier.  Thank God for the difficult subjects.  Thank God that when we ask he helps us find the answers, even if they're not what we're expecting or particularly wanting.