God really helped me the other day as I read this Psalm in my daily Bible reading. Serving the Lord in a different culture, especially a Muslim country, can be nerve racking. If you are experiencing some actual physical problems from the stress of ministering in a different culture and language, maybe my take on this chapter can be a blank.

Psalm 16

Who’s job is it to keep me? : God’s. I trust in him. Vs 1

            How many times have I feared for my “work” or my “safety”?

The end of those who follow another God is sure vs 4

            God owns this land. He is the King. Those who do evil now will live for only a little time. Don’t talk about and focus your thoughts on their names. Their names are the powers of darkness and fear. But God’s name is to be on our lips and our hearts.

The Lord is my portion and cup vs 5

            Jealousy and a deep emptiness arises in us when we look at those who own homes and have a stable life. Those in our home country or working on other mission fields. They have the opportunity to be “legal” and think very long term. That is where we realize like the Levites that the LORD is our portion or that thing which we call our own. Instead of looking down and seeing our small plot of land we can look up and see the greatness of the creator as ours. He is our cup or our sustenance. God is that which makes us satisfied on the inside. This is a better inheritance as it says in verse 6.

Take your counsel from the Lord vs 7

            THE greatest problem in missions to Muslims today is that men start from logic and modern methods and not from the counsel of the Lord through his Word. To take counsel from the Lord is to bless him. To ignore his counsel is to curse your Lord. The wisdom of “persepectives” or any other books or advise from men is vain if it contradicts what we read in our Lord’s commands and the history of the church in Acts.

Put the Lord before you and you will not be moved vs 8

            Countless times I have had nightmares about a police crackdown.Not all of these nightmares were at night. These are a natural result of working as an illegal agent of the Kingdom of God. Satan wants to move us in our inward most parts. He wants us to be like a constant earthquake, never at peace. What can you do about this? Is the Lord your first thought in the morning? Is he your last prayer at night? When you hear threatening, do you immediately speak to him or worry inside yourself.

My flesh lives in hope vs 9

            Anyone who has ministered on the mission field, maybe especially the Muslim field, knows what it means to have despair effect the flesh. The book “Culture Shock” talks about how missionaries can experience real physical sicknesses and pains because of  the “stress” of ministering in a cross-cultural situation. Sometimes it displays itself as a nagging stomach pain (which I have had) or back pain (which my wife has had) or an exaggeration of other physical problems you face. If the cause is spiritual the cure is as well. To put the Lord before your eyes continually will give your flesh hope. Hope is the opposite of worry and despair. Do you live in hope? Are you trying to be a constant source of words of hope for your spouse and co-workers?

Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell vs 10

            This verse is a prophecy of the Christ but it also has implications for the Christians. This verse has been the hope of martyrs and prisoners for Christ since the first martyrs of the first church to Ignatius of Antioch who traveled the length of Asia minor on his way to death by lions in Rome. Our suffering is for the present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Rom 8:18) In the midst of jail and torture we can hold to this promise. How much more if you are not in jail but only the prison of your fears?

Fullness of joy and life are in His presence vs 11

            How many times have you thought, “I have no joy because of this situation!” No! We have no joy because we walk not in the presence of God for in his presence is life and fullness of joy. If my joy rests in my security then I have made myself and my comfort ultimate. No matter the trial or country, I can always be at the right hand of God. 

So Jesus trained twelve apparently uneducated men. Those men turned the world upside down with the gospel. What he didn’t train, however, were lazy, undisciplined, passionless, wimps completely willing to spend their lives on trivial pursuits. We have way too many of those men. Jesus took uneducated men and educated them in the most intense of educations by the best of professors covering areas of philosophy, theology, economy, and most importantly a lesson covered in no school: Real life faith. 

I am currently working with three men of low education. One finished only the 6th grade and the other two barely scraped out a high school diploma. It is quite a feeling of responsibility to know how far they have to go and I am the one God has chosen to get them there at this time. I feel very inadequate so I have to run back to my professor, Jesus, and make sure I am following passionately in his steps. I pray that it will not be in vain but that God would use these men to change this country and shake it’s foundation.

No, we’ve been married longer than 1 year. So what happened one year ago? 

One year ago today my family and I made an emergency flight home soon to find out that I had a large lung tumor. Thanks to God the healer that I am back here continuing to serve in this place one year later. I am glad to not be in a hospital today. If I learned one lesson in this last year, almost 8 months of which were spent in and out of the hospital and recovering from surgeries, I would say that it is to trust that ALL things are in God’s control and work together for good for me. It’s easy to say but God brings these trials into our lives so that we can say it and live it. 

We are not out of the woods with this problem but are prayerfully optimistic. In celebration of this one year anniversary, I had an old friend come visit with his wife and son. Jordan and Tiffany were good sports to dress up in this traditional outfit.

Patlabor: The Movie

Traditionalists

We had a great time on Easter Sunday. The word Easter doesn’t mean much to me so I love calling it “The Celebration of the Resurrection” as it is in Arabic. It was by far our biggest meeting yet. We had a total of 21 people in attendance and the majority were North Africans. For one family, it was their first time in a church service. 

We are currently working on starting three home groups in three different cities that are all in their infancy stages. Why are we doing this? One is the city we have been living in since our arrival two years ago. One is four hours south of us in the main population center where we have the most contacts. The other is 3 hours southeast of us and is being started as a result of a friendship with a national brother who just returned from Seminary overseas and has a desire to start a church. He brought three to the group along with he and his wife and we made up the rest. 

All in all we were together for about 5 hours including a two hour service, lunch, and then the Lord’s supper. Please pray for the two lost people who were present: Fatima (Jamal’s wife) and Karim.

When a man and woman divorce while his children are still young, the court forces on the man obligatory support for the child called child support. That’s well known and easily understood in any culture. What I was shocked to find out on Thursday night from my friend Suffian is that here in this culture a man is equally legally responsible to support his parents.

Suffian and I are talking about him quiting his job so he can go full time into studying for ministry and also doing ministry. He’s extremely excited about it. For almost 2 years he has been serving the Lord with us and growing without accepting one cent for his work. He is already taking off three days every other week to go traveling on his follow up route. He is getting a lot of flack from his family. They are worried that by his neglect of work that he will not be able to support his mother. Now, she had nine kids. It turns out that he gives her more than any of the others and sometime it’s close to a quarter of his income. Upon further investigation this is what I found:

A parent has legal grounds to take their adult child before the court for not giving monthly support. The logic is that after the parent puts all kinds of money into the child and is due for that money to be returned when the child goes to work. Suffian has more than one friend that has a court order to pay their parents $120/month (about 1/2 minimum wage)! Now, Suffian said his mom would never do something like that.

So if your old and you’ve raised a few kids you might want to send this post to them …and maybe a letter from your lawyer too! (don’t get any ideas, dad!)