Sunday, December 18, 2005

HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE OUR DECISIONS?

This is part of an article written my friends of mine who are missionaries inKendy, Mark and Sue Newton. It really fits with what this blog is about and so I wanted ot put it here for dialogue.

"We do not have time! I need to get back to the hospital because I have too many things to do back at Kijabe. Let's go, haraka (fast)." This was my initial response when one of my Maasai friends quietly hinted that we should spend some time in the Massai hut of a patient which we had just transported back to his home. I recall thinking, "I am a Pediatric Anesthesiologist who spends a seemingly large amount of time transporting patients to and from their homes. I do not have the time for these meaningless tasks".

Two weeks earlier a 66 year old Maasai mzee (old man) was riding his bike (he was wealthy) down a very dusty dirt path through the savannah when he suddenly became weak on one side of his body and subsequently fell off his bike and landed in a ditch. He pulled out his mobile phone, called 911 and within thirty minutes an ambulance transported him with oxygen ….I forgot that this was a real story! Actually, he was found three hours later by a shepherd boy who after sending messages by "Maasai Express", found the proper individuals to transport him to the hospital in the back of a truck eight hours after the stroke. He received the "Kijabe- full court press" treatment which may not be similar to the "Mayo Clinic- press" but we did our best. He was now ready to go home with the local chief who was his brother. Six Maasai men arrived early on Saturday morning looking for Daktari Newton to transport them the almost two hour drive back to the home of the old man who now had urinary incontinence, that means he dribbled and we are not talking basketball again!

I had a busy schedule this Saturday and I did not have time for "being nice" especially since I just bought new blue seat covers with special pockets for my truck. Does any of this sound familiar? As a super spiritual medical missionary who reads the Bible in the original language and has a wife who is an angel…..sorry, I was fictionalizing again! That is all nonsense except for the description of Sue. As we bumped down the road, my mind speeding in the direction of my day's disrupted agenda, I was merely pretending to fulfill the "Great Commission". I was acting the part but my heart was not engaged - I was doing my job! Have you ever called your pastor/minister to tell him/her about a person who needs help so that a "professional" can deal with the problem? "Not me, it is their job and I have a soccer game to attend." We all have an agenda and that homeless person down on "Tenth Street", who has not seen soap for many days, does not fit nicely fit into most people's daily planners. Be honest, I am!

As we, no I, was targeting the truck door to speed off without knocking off a few chickens or goats which flowed in and out of the hut "courtyard", my friend told me "we can NOT leave without a talk". Did you ever wonder how Peter felt when he looked into the eyes of Jesus after he had denied Him for the third time? This was a youngish Maasai Christian who was more in step with the plan that God had for this patient's family than I. My heart changed within seconds and God had me where I should have been when we started the trip two hours earlier. We huddled into a small dirt-floored room with all six men, two sons, and the old man's three wives who were hiding their faces as tears streamed down their beautiful, dirty cheeks. We were now on God's agenda and over the next hour, God's message of love and redemption was clearly communicated. We prayed, encouraged and relaxed with people whom HE loved enough to orchestrate these events so that a Maasai family in the savannah plains of Ewaso could hear His message of hope. As the men were wiping the tears back, the patriarch who could not move his left arm and leg, smiled and told us that he believed and had already accepted the message of Jesus while in Kijabe Hospital. Now, he said, it was time to tell his family.

The readers of this note will be primarily people with the western mindset of setting an agenda for the day or week and then getting something accomplished so that when someone asks us about our life we can reply "I am so busy". I trust that this story reminds us, this includes me, that God's agenda for the day may include a urine- stained blue seat cover with pockets, or a missed soccer game, or an evening in a shelter with the guy on "Tenth Street".

As I carefully drove away from the hut with all of the chickens still intact, I was thankful that we serve a God who is patient, full of grace, and busy orchestrating situations in every corner of the world so that His message can be clearly communicated.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

BEING SINGLE

I've been thinking about what John and Stasie Eldredge have to say about being men and women. They write in their books, Wild at Heart and Captivating, that a man's fear is that he is not enough, and that a woman's fear is that she is too much. A man easily thinks that he doesn't have what it takes, while a woman is scared that if she really makes the depths of herself known then she will be rejected because she overwhelming. And as I was processing that lately, I was realizing that we single men and women often relate to each other in ways that encourages our biggest fears. Men don't pursue women very often, maybe because they are afraid of failing, and then women feel like they must be too much since they aren't being pursued. And then women are scared that they are too much and therefore are going to be left alone, and so then they start nagging and manipulating and controlling. And then that makes the men feel like they are not enough, because the woman isn't leaving their job up to them to do. So our fears help us to tear one another down. How can we work against this and build one another up instead? I think that it has something to do with seeking to believe the gospel for our lives more and more. When we can trust more and more in the Lord then we know that we have what it takes and that we are captivating and not too much. We remember that we are created in the image of God and that we have all we need for life and godliness. That is something that we can continue to seek as it will bring more and more contentment to us all! Its easier said than done, but God wants us to be bathed in the gospel, so we know that it is something that is possible!