They Don't Know They Are Beautiful

"I am singing about all my relatives and friends living in the countryside in Mali and in Africa," Rikia Traoré says in the song "Sarama." "These women are simply amazing, because when I feel tired I imagine them in their life of every day. They never show that they are tired. They are like iron women: all the time working, but working and smiling and taking care of everything with nothing to support them.

"The amazing thing," she adds, "is that when I go back to my parents' village ... all these people telling me that they are impressed by me, it really makes me cry because they cannot imagine how beautiful they are in the middle of this very difficult life."
(Interview with Rokia Traoré. Sept 2013). Internationally famous singer from Mali)

Africa Us More Than Sickness And War

"But honestly, I mainly go to Africa because I like it. Africa isn’t all terrorism, famine and disease. It just seems like that because those are newsworthy topics. Outside of those stories, there’s art, kindness and beauty like I’ve never witnessed before. It’s a huge continent with all-night clubs, traditional ceremonies and everything in between." (Amy Maxmen)

We Just Don't Care

"Malaria causes more deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than car accidents, cancer, AIDS or war, even though the disease can be easily cured with an inexpensive pill. I find that fact incredibly disturbing.....” (Amy Maxmen Postcards from Mali
Sep 25th, 2013)

When It's Time To Go Home!

"Usually when I come home from a trip I feel like my life has changed, and everyone else’s has stayed the same, this time it’s the opposite. I struggled in Africa, too. I fought with malaria, I was broke almost the entire time, and I’ve never been so lonely in my life. After Cape Town, home was the only place that I wanted to be.

Though inspiring and beautiful, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t putting on a brave face for much of South Africa. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wanted to be home. I wanted to see family, drink with friends, and maybe even just spend a couple days doing absolutely nothing travel related.

In Durban, I sat in my hostel room almost the entire time like an enslaved worker waiting for his holiday. I forced myself to visit the waterfront, aquarium, and the town center. And well beautiful, my heart had long left Africa.

Maybe there is a time I’ll return. Maybe someday I’ll buy another scooter and drive up the east side. Maybe I’ll live there someday. Maybe I’ll never travel to another country in my life. The only thing I know, is right now it’s time to go home."

 (Brendan van Son is a travel writer and photographer from Alberta, Canada.
http://www.brendansadventures.com/struggling-with-the-end-of-africa/

Can Christianity Survive Modern Leadership?

"This frightening hour calls aloud for men with the gift of prophetic insight. Instead we have men who conduct surveys, polls and panel discussions. We need men with the gift of knowledge. In their place we have men with scholarship— nothing more. Thus we may be preparing ourselves for the tragic hour when God may set us aside as so-called evangelicals and raise up another movement to keep New Testament Christianity alive." (A. W. Tozer, Keys to the Deeper Life)

All Of Humanity Is Basically the Same....?

I wonder if we really believe this about all of humanity, in all of her cultures and diversity? We are basically the same?

"The physical world has been mapped; but in the last analysis the Peace Corps is an intellectual exploration, the chance (if you are patient enough) to enter in some degree into the hearts and minds and feelings of alien peoples with exotic cultures. The final discovery, that we are all ultimately alike, is a hard-earned revelation. And it is well worth the trouble."

(Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen.)

Missionaries to be Example to Nationals

This is a quote from over 30 years ago. Insightful!

“As missionaries we need to set the example and pace for the national churches and pastors. Our responsibility is to keep moving out to the cutting edge of the work. As new churches are planted, we will continue to break new ground rather than limit our efforts to organizing and training.”

Joseph S. McCullough, Our First Priority”, The Andean Outlook (Plainfield N.J.), Fall, 1971, p7

Wash Your Hands Or Rats Will Chew On Them

"Rio Verde was a seacoast town, and there wasn't a house, of course, that wasn't cursed with rats. A bamboo wall was no challenge at all; a good self-respecting rat could walk through one without slowing down. I had awakened several times, my flesh crawling, with rats running across my legs or over my arms, and the kids told me that they must wash their hands after having eaten fish or the rats would chew on their fingers while they slept."
(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 68)

Getting Rid Of Old Life.

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."  (Joseph Campbell)

Some Journeys Are Against the Flow.

"I know that I have life only insofar as I have love.....Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind." (Wendell Berry)

Romanticising Poverty

The poor have all kinds of relational problems, attitudes, and issues too, just like the rest of us. How true this is, we sometimes romanticize poverty by mistaking it for "Simplicity".....

"It was a romantic conception, because at that time I thought that poor people were somehow better, more honest and more alive, than people with money, not realizing that the absence of money in a society built around it could be as corrupting as money itself. The little village was going to be romantic as hell."(Living Poor. A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen. Pg 24) 

New Website The Invisible Humanitarian

I'm now known as "The Invisible Humanitarian" Check out my stories and African Adventures at www.theinvisiblehumanitarian.com

Or twitter as "invisiblengo"

Church Has Changed But the "Church" Does not Know It Yet

Peter Wagner has had a large influence on the church over the past several decades from his focus on church growth to prayer movements.  While we might argue the merits of how some of his thoughts have shaped the contemporary church, he is, nevertheless, a senior voice at 82 years of age.
I would like to quote part of a recent article in which he looks at “The America of Tomorrow” and the future of the church.

“We are now experiencing the most radical change in the way of doing church since the Protestant Reformation. Notice the words, “doing church.” We are not talking about a change in the theology of the Reformation. We believe in the authority of Scripture, justification by faith, and the priesthood of all believers as strongly as did Luther or Calvin. However we are talking about the ways in which the church is beginning to live out these theological convictions day after day…

“In fact, of all the radical changes characteristic of the New Apostolic Reformation, I consider this the most radical of all: The amount of spiritual authority delegated by the Holy Spirit to individuals. Notice that the operative words in this statement are “authority” and “individuals.” We Protestants are not accustomed to individuals having much spiritual authority.  Traditionally, the final authority in our church bodies has resided in groups, not individuals. That is where we get such ecclesiastical terminology as “deacon boards” or “synods” or “sessions” or “congregations” or “general councils” or “presbyteries” or “vestries” or “state conventions” or “monthly meetings” or any number of similar terms-all referring to groups as over against individuals. The inevitable implication? Individuals cannot be trusted with final authority in the churches.

While I do not envision this “New Apostolic Reformation” the same way that Wagner does, I certainly agree with him on two fronts:

1. The church is re-defining Biblically what it means to be the church and, thus, what it means to ‘do church.’  There is no going back.  The implications of this are far reaching as more and more people truly understand that we are the church… period.

2. Spiritual authority is becoming highly decentralized (not non-existent) and we will have to step into the new wineskins in order to see how God will orchestrate His leadership throughout the whole body. 

Interesting times!

Let's Make a Show That Always Works

"Ten years ago, together with my Wife, Rae Ann, I set out to plant Life on the Vine Christian Community in the northwest
suburbs of Chicago. We had ten people join us in the effort. Shortly after, Geoff and his Wife, Cyd, came along. We joined together to figure out how to be a church amid these challenges. We had no idea of the difficulties we faced.

In a few years, We had thirty people and
decided We needed to reach out to the
community. We tried everything. We tried
doing a daily vacation Bible school in order to attract busy neighbors Who, you would think, would be happy to send their children to a recreational venue in the neighborhood. As it turned out, only Christians came. We tried providing a date night, offering baby-sitting services for families in the neighborhood who couldn’t afford it. Again, only Christians came. Someone proposed We do a fair on the grounds we had been given to start this church. The costs Were prohibitive. The chances of competing With the local school district or megachurch in offering these kinds of services were just about nil. Back then, these ideas were what was called outreach. What e learned quickly was that non-Christian people in our neighborhoods would not come to an event or service held at or associated with a Christian church.
Even non-Christians with friends who are
Christians will resist. The question, then,
was Why would we even try these events. In a culture that distrusts Christianity, a
society that no longer sees the church as
positive, Why do we seek to attract people to come to us? Why not instead use this time and energy to be in our neighborhoods, at our local park district gymnasiums and fairs, donating our time, getting involved, knowing the people, and bringing the gospel there? We were living in a culture that no longer wanted to do the things churches do, yet We were doing them anyway." (Prodigal Christianity)

Softy Cynics!

Our bark really is not meant to have a bite......

"My glass, while not necessarily half empty, is usually half full of sarcasm, 1 . And I need you to be gentle with me. We calloused cynics aren't as tough as we seem. That's the ruse. The truth is we build these emotional walls so dang high because we're hiding behind them. We're not strong like you, we're all soft and broken on the inside and the walls are our only defense." (Jessica Bowman)