it feels good to be in Africa

From the moment I touched land in Uganda on my long (4-day) journey to Sudan, I felt good. I flew Kansas City – San Francisco – Dubai (where I spent 12 hours) – Entebbe (2 days in a hotel because 1 airline flies to Yei, Sudan and only 3 days/week) – Yei. It was a tiring journey, but I knew it would be. There was a lot of favor with baggage, and no troubles along the way...save a marriage proposal from a Muslim man, in full garb, in Dubai. It was comical, and annoying...I just told him Jesus loved Him. I was excited and nervous the whole way here. I was taking a massive leap – moving to a foreign land, where I knew no one and nothing, but I had a solid assurance that this was God. I have now been here one week, and it feels a lot longer than that, but at the same time not longer at all. Some of the kids are teaching me the language, which is Juba Arabic (a simple Arabic spoken in south Sudan). The older children and adults who've received schooling know English, but the younger ones and many adults do not. I know a few phrases, some verbs, and can form simple sentences, but I understand very little when spoke to. They keep telling me not to be discouraged, that I will learn in a few months. The Iris Ministries compound is beautiful. It is a 40-acre piece of property on the edge of the town of Yei...a huge field, basically. Most of it is yet to be developed. The children all live in small houses, about 12 to a house (we currently have 90 kids). There's a kitchen, an office, a well, and a primary school.

I love it here. It has been a struggle, too. Michele (director) is traveling in the States until the beginning of February, so I don't have an official job as of yet. This means I don't have anything really to do all day. This is hard for someone like me, who likes to be put to work and feel useful. But it's given me the opportunity to spend time with the children, to get to know them and talk to them. Many of the younger kids are a little afraid/shy around me. I'm still a stranger to them, and they haven't seen many white people in their day. Some of them will come up to me and poke at my skin, wide-eyed.

The kids' stories are incredible, revealing how cruel the world can be and how beautiful and powerful Jesus is. Many of them do not know their age, and most (if not all) have no idea on what month they were born. Let me introduce my friend Kafi. He is 26 and still in school because the war disrupted all education. He was born into a devout Muslim family, 8 siblings, all of whom are Muslim to this day. His father died when he was young of sickness, his mother was taken as a slave to Khartoum during the war. she returned after several years, only to be beaten to death before his eyes. He met Jesus through a man who was doing outreaches in his area (Nuba Mountains) and returned with this man to Iris Ministries. He said he was so heartbroken, but when Jesus came, his heart was healed. He loves Jesus so much, and refused to deny Him when pressured by his family. He is one of the kindest people i have ever met, so gentle and meek. It is evidence that the Lord has truly met him and transformed his heart.

Then there's Safari, who had a dream when he was 5 years old of a man dressed in white robes. The dream was in English, which he did not speak at the time, so he couldn't understand it. God is funny the way He works sometimes. It was years later when someone explained the dream to him that he got saved.

There's Justin (25) who is Congolese and grew up in the midst of the war in Congo, fleeing to various bordering countries. He had a dream where Jesus came to him and asked him what he wanted; he said he wanted the war to end and to know God. He woke up surprised because in real life, he had no desire to know God and had even attended church disinterested. But this dream piqued his interest, and he gave his life to Jesus.

There's Pamela (14) who was abducted by the LRA, escaped, and lived outside with no food or shelter for days. Someone found her and brought her to Iris Ministries.

All the kids have stories like this, meeting Jesus either through dreams or divine appointments with people who God used to rescue them. I can so vividly see how much the Lord loves us through these kids and their stories. In spite of all they have been through, unimaginable pain, they know that they know that God is good and loves them. For He truly has healed their hearts; it's tangible to them.

My favorite part of the day is evening devotions. We gather in the center of the compound, under the open sky, with sticks and empty plastic water containers for instruments, and worship the Lord. The drumming is astonishingly rhythmic (it's in their blood) and the singing is beautiful, the smallest to the oldest lifting up a song of love to their Savior. After 20-30 minutes of worship, the group breaks out into prayer. Most of the children go to their knees, in the dirt, and cry out to God, for a solid 10 minutes.

I am learning the simplicity of faith here. The Bible means what it says - He comes to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives. And He REALLY does it. The heart being set free is a real thing, it's not just something we Christians invent to make ourselves feel better, a crutch. if someone who has lost both parents, witness horrendous atrocities, can smile and laugh and rejoice and say God is good...He truly is able to reach into our hearts and heal us.

update from dubai

well, i'm on my way! i'm in dubai international airport right now. it took about 15 hours to get here, and i've been here for 12 hours, ahhh! i'm pretty tired, and dirty, and still have a 2-day journey ahead of me before i land in Sudan. but i am spending 2 days in a hotel in a uganda, which will be more restful. i do just want to get there and get going. right now, i'm in the nervous stage because it's all so unknown. i don't know what it's like to be in Sudan, to work for Iris Ministries, i don't know the staff or their personalities, i don't even know what the mission base looks like. i'm having to trust God right now that there will be a place for me there, that i'll be a fit. i am preparing myself to encounter some culture shock, to miss the US and be sad, and to understand that this is all emotion and it will pass. i know i will need time to adjust. but there is nothing else i would rather be doing right now. i am so grateful to the Lord that i get to have this calling.

my friend said this to me in an email a while ago: "in this life we experience pain, suffering, sorrow, but this is not the place we LIVE in." i am learning to not live in the place of suffering. it's easy for me to get stuck there because of my familial situation, and the road i feel is marked out before me, but pain is NOT my portion. the struggle is NOT my portion. it is joy and Jesus. the Lord revealed to me some Father heart issues that i have over my time at home and back at ihop. i don't have an understanding of God as a good Father who loves to give good gifts. when i envision Him, i can't picture Him hurting when i am persecuted. i know He is with me, i can feel that, but i view it more as Him allowing the persecution and sitting with me, comforting me through it. but it actually hurts Him to see it, He hates when His children suffer. i don't comprehend this. so i've been praying for a revelation of the Father's love, and also asking for joy. as Jesus called us blessed to be persecuted, to suffer for His Name's sake, it means there's great joy available in this place, and i haven't been able to tap into it.

these are my prayer requests as i go to Sudan, knowing that there are real hard times ahead in ministry, but pressing in to understand the Father's heart for me, that NOTHING can separate me from Him love, and that neither good nor bad are my portion....JESUS is.

reflections - family and derek loux's passing

well i haven't been here in some time, i don't know what to talk about. much has happened, not in the sense of events, but in the sense of thoughts, questions, lessons, challenges...home is tough. my eyes are always opened to something new when i visit - a new lesson from the Lord (usually revolving around humility, boldness, and loving those who persecute you), new brokenness in my family members' lives. but mostly i am flat out confused when i'm here. not "why is this happening to me"..that's easy - Jesus said the world would hate us because we're of Him; Paul called it the fellowship of His suffering (Phil 3); he says that it's been granted to us on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake (Phil 1); Peter tells us to not be surprised when we're persecuted, as if something strange were happening, for that to this we were called, because Christ suffered for us and left us an example to follow in His steps (1 Peter 3, 4). i could go on and on, but the point is if you follow Jesus, those who don't are gonna hate you for it, and these ones happen to be my family. my confusion is how do i act, what do i do, when do i keep silent and when do i speak truth. i've wrestled with so much condemnation because i never know whether the way i behaved/what i said in the last moment was the right thing or not, and when i fail, i feel the fear that now they're never gonna get saved because i'm a poor witness of Jesus. God's bringing me to a place where i completely let go of all control (a big struggle for me), where i stop analyzing and over-analyzing every move i make and rest in the freedom that even if i do everything wrong, God is moving upon their hearts...because He wants them saved more than i do, and He doesn't need my help. i need to stop diminishing His power down to my abilities and see that He's a lot better at what He does than i am, and stronger than my weakest weakness. so i've said, "God, i don't know how You're gonna do this, but i commit them into Your hands, and trust Your ways."

another permanent contemplation of these past few weeks has been the death of a man who restored hope to me - Derek Loux. he was a leader at ihop and died in a car accident Dec 23, leaving behind a wife and 10 children (8 adopted). i'm not gonna go into all he was and did at ihop, but his main mark was pure and undefiled religion - caring for the orphan and challenging the Body to do the same. he preached a message of adoption and the Father's heart - our identity as sons and the calling upon the Church to adopt and help the orphan. he spoke at a conference we held at zhop in '08. i wept the whole time because i realized it was actually possible to be a missionary and adopt children (costs minimum $10,000 per child), to just be crazy and take them in one after the other, that if you say yes first then God brings the money in. he was living proof that God was raising up fathers and mothers after His heart. and then he just dies, in a seemingly senseless way. i couldn't/still can't understand why, when there are so few fathers and so few who say yes to this call of loving the orphan, God would raise one up and take Him away from us...and was it God who let him go, or did the enemy steal him from us. i can't understand why God would provide a father for 8 orphans only to leave them fatherless again. i can't understand why a man who was so influential in stirring the Church to adopt and had so much more stirring ahead of him would be snatched so tragically and suddenly. i grieve with the Loux family.

that's what i feel, here's what i know. Jesus is good. Jesus weeps with us over the earth's loss. His ways are just and true. the other theological questions we shouldn't even entertain because we're not gonna figure it out anyway. one day (soon) it will be clear. John 12:24 says "if a seed goes into the ground and dies, it bears much fruit", no matter the manner of death. God's gonna multiply Derek's life and use his death to cause thousands of fathers to arise and tens of thousands of orphans to be brought into the Kingdom. those 10 children he had are not fatherless, because through Derek they have come to know the Father Himself. they will never be orphans. and most importantly, there is a day in the ever so near future when He will dry every tear, and He gives abundant grace until that day.

please visit www.randybohlender.com for an excellent article putting to words the emotions surrounding this situation. also see www.josiahfund.org to read and donate to Derek's vision.

in conclusion, a lot has been reeling in my mind, a lot more than usual. even though i have many questions, i feel a strange clarity. not a clarity that comes in the form of answers, but a clarity that comes from the presence of Jesus, a clarity in the Spirit. i don't know what or why or how, but i feel His nearness, and so i have peace that it's all ok.