When he wakes

One of my favorite movies when I was younger was Sister Act 2. I cannot really say it was great cinematic achievement, but that was not why I loved it. I loved the singing in it. The version of “O’ Happy Day” in Sister Act 2 is a favorite of mine. There is also one scene in it that was a little inspiring. Lauryn Hill’s character is struggling with what she wants to do and what she has to do. This led to a conversation with Sister Mary Clarence, aka Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi quotes a poet, Rainer Maria Rike. “If when you wake up in the morning and can think of nothing but writing…then you’re a writer.” I doubt that we all look to this quote for inspiration, but I think we use this line of thought more often than we think. “Do what makes you happy” is a mantra that we are all familiar with. We do not make all of our decisions by this saying, but we make many. We as people want to be happy so we make decisions to help us be happy. Is this a way to live, should we be making decisions based on what makes us smile? While this can get us in great trouble, I met a man that this philosophy makes the angles sing praise.


The trip that gave me the incredible opportunity to be challenged by the faith of a young boy and to be heart-broken by a family’s lostness also introduced me to a man that would share his faith with a tree stump. The volunteers and I had been trekking for a few days at this point. The night before one of the guys on the team was eating rice and it became stuck in his throat. I do not know how this works but basically the man could still breath but could not swallow. The decision was made that him and me would hike back down the mountain and then head on motorcycle back to the city. After walking down and then a short bike ride before we made the long trip back the food became dislodged, but now we were separated from the team and it was the middle of the night. We made the decision to stay the night in that village and would catch back up with them the next day. We left mid morning and caught up with them in time to eat lunch with them. After eating we all left to hike up a small hill and meet some believers that the nationals with us knew. This was a larger village than most of the ones we encountered on this trip, but luckily the house we were visiting was only a short walk down from the main trail. I know it probably is not true but every time you enter a village it seems the house you want to get to is at the top of another mountain. This time the Good Lord smiled on us.

The house was like all others we encounter in the villages. They are typically two stories, both with dirt floors. There are big windows that are used to let the sun in and also let the smoke out. The houses always have a fire pit in the middle of the floor on the first floor. There are always things hanging on the walls as everything they own seems to have the perfect place to go.

When we first arrived at this home an elderly woman who began to make us tea greeted us. She told us that her husband had gone to gather firewood and would be returning shortly. The man did not take long to return and he was excited to see us. The man began to yell Jamic and raised both of his hands over his head in a praying motion and continued to yell Jamic. This was an awesome moment, it was one of those moments that no matter how tired and hungry you are it is all forgotten. The blessing only continued. He was a short man probably less than five feet, but he spoke with such passion you could only feel small in his presence. He began to speak about his love for the King, and if ever joy has been written on a man’s face this was that face. I thought about how when Moses came down and the people could not look on his face. This man’s face was truly a sight to behold. Once he had calmed down he began to speak about his village. He told us how he was the first believer in his village. He talked about sharing with the people in his village. A question was then posed by one of the men in the group. Have you shared with this house next to your house? Now this would have been the equivalent of asking a lion if he enjoyed meat, or asking Pete Rose if he missed baseball. The answer the man gave was partly expected by me, but his reaction was not. He said I have shared with the entire village with an expression of “what kind of question is that.” Then he began to jump up and down. This tiny man was doing a Kris Kross impression as he spoke about witnessing. He told us how there was now another believer in the village. He spoke with expectancy about others in his village coming to faith. He continued to jump raising his hands of his head and clapping. This man was excited about witnessing. He woke up in the morning and could think of nothing but witnessing. He existed to spread the word and everything else was just necessary until he could share again. He had found what made him happy and that is what he did.

Have we found that joy? Do we wake early thinking about who we may encounter that we can share with? We usually do not. While I enjoy telling other about the King, I often do it as an afterthought. What if it was not? What if instead of the worries of the day we thought about making his name great? I realize that we cannot go from our current thought process to evangelism being what makes us happy in the matter of a night. There is an answer to this problem. Hitting a baseball made me incredibly happy, there were many days I woke desiring only to make the bat hit the ball. The more I hit the more I was consumed by it. Hitting baseball was like a snowball storming down a hill, bigger and bigger, faster and faster. What if witnessing has the same effect? What if the more we witness the more we desired to witness? The Bible clearly states that our great task is to go and to tell and to make disciples. We should fall in love with this. We should make telling others our passion. We should think of nothing but sharing the truth, we should think of nothing but his glory. Then just like the writer that thinks of nothing but writing, we will be the follower who thinks of nothing but following. This will not happen overnight, but today is a good day to start.

The Leeches are too Big

I recently returned from another trip from the mountains. It was a hard trip, but also incredible. We had eight hour walking days, leeches, waterfalls and landslides. We climbed mountains, got lost in jungles, endured monsoon season and slept on dirt floors. There were also great times of worship, fellowship, breaking bread and training. While mostly the trip was incredible, there was one moment where I almost lost it on a pastor and his apathy.

The first day my supervisor, a national and myself started trekking about seven in the morning. We arrived at our destination around three in the afternoon. The day had been a long one, and it was one of the hardest days of trekking since I have been here. About two and a half hours in we climbed up around 800 meters. That was hard but the hardest part of the day was the brute of a hill we begrudgingly trudged up at the end of the day. I really don’t know how high it was, but it was probably a couple hundred meters less than the first. Needless to say at this point, but it was a challenging day.

Once arriving in the village we spent about thirty minutes to and hour walking from house to house trying to find believers. We finally located some and we were treated with the local hospitality that we have come to expect. They brought out some fresh plums for us to enjoy. These plums were by far the juiciest sweetest plums I have ever had the joy of eating. They made some salt tea and handed us a few glasses. While this is not even close to my favorite way to drink tea, it ain’t bad, and if you drink while it is still hot is goes down pretty smooth. After sitting around doing nothing for an hour or two we were shown to the church. The church was a small ten by ten room with a six-foot ceiling. The church also had the ability to second as a small child’s birthday party with the bright streamers that were used to decorate. We hung out in the church for a few minutes talking amongst ourselves until two pastors showed up. One was the pastor of the church we were in and the other was from about an hour and a half walk away. We introduced ourselves and then cut straight to the chase. We had walked all that way not only to find a people group, but also to see what the believers there were doing. We asked if they had baptized anyone or led anyone to faith. We asked them about how receptive people were in that area. This is when things got interesting.

The pastor from the neighboring village told us how there was a village close were people wanted to hear about Christ. We then asked him if he had gone to tell them. He said that he had not. We responded with the only possible next question. Why? Why in the world are people that want to hear about the Truth being left in the dark? What in the world are you doing? He then responded with a very typical answer that we all like to use in such a situation. “I am to busy.” Now, at this point I was a little frustrated with the guy, but I was willing to hear him out. I had another question lined up though. Why haven’t you sent someone from your church to share with them? The next response almost resulted in lighting thundering down from the very hand of God and striking us dead. He said that the reason no one from his church had went yet was because it is monsoon season and this time of year the leeches are very big. The leeches are too big!!! I wanted to give the guy another second. I knew that he had to misspeak. There is no way that a harmless creature is keeping people from hearing the Gospel. I admit I hate leeches. They latch onto your leg and when you pull them off you leg will bleed for a solid thirty minutes. Leeches though preventing people from hearing the Gospel is erroneous. You want to stand accountable before God and say that you did not go because of the leeches. I do not think so. I told this man of Paul and Stephen. I made our translator tell him that it was embarrassing and he should be ashamed. I had just walked for eight hours. I was tired, I was hungry, I was bleeding from the leeches I had just pulled off my leg. I was also heartbroken, but then I remembered myself. I remembered my sin. I remembered my laziness and I could not forget the apathy I have often been consumed with.

Leeches were not the main problem here, and instead of bashing this pastor should we not look inward first. In that moment sitting in the dim light reflecting on the dirt floor I began to reflect on my own sin. I have made excuse after excuse in my life. I have been defiant of the King. I have denied people the chance to hear truth. I have made excuses. We have made excuse, and you have made excuses. We do not cower down at leeches, but nonetheless we have them. We have our reason for not sharing. We hold back the breath of life, the never-ending fountain, the saving grace of the Sovereign Lord. We say we are to busy or that we or at work. We talk about the weather instead of The Christ. We go on vacation instead of to the harvest fields. We continually justify our apathy.

We are more concerned about the leeches than His eternal Glory! There is no excuse you can muster that will prove of any worth when standing before the Creator. The blood of many will stain our hands, we should do all we can to make it one less. We should do all we can to in pursuit of His Name!