Final Post

It has been nearly six months since Ann and I left Mozambique.  Our 15-year plan turned out to really be a five-year plan as the plans of man....well.....they aren't so reliable.  It is clear that we will not be returning and we have many more questions than answers about our time there but at the same time, we know we were faithful to His call on our lives.

We will continue to search our 'what is next' through prayer, reading, study, and seeking.  We are not at this time inclined to return to overseas service.

But regardless, it is time to end this blog since this particular journey has ended.  I offer the following summation:

1.  Our Call was real, it was specific, and it was for a purpose we may never fully understand.     The reality of that Call has never changed.  It was for Mozambique, and there was urgency in the Call but just as quickly as it came, it was removed.
2.  It was truly a privilege to work in Mozambique for the time we did and to work side-by-side with our dear Mozambican brothers and sisters.  We were given a love for them that was not something we could have ever generated in our own hearts.
3.  Blessings came from the most unexpected places as did the challenges.
4.  The things we thought would be hard turned out to be very easy or even not needed, whereas the things we thought would be easy, turned out to be hard and in some cases impossible.
5.  We were privileged to have the most incredible team of people who went with us, stood by us, prayed for us, sent us notes, called us, hosted us, visited us - the graciousness of God's people is beyond measure.  We could never say 'thank you' enough.
6.  With great gain comes great heartbreak.  But our life experience tells us that God will help us to remember the good with great joy and to cast aside the dung, for life is always full of both and we gain character from both.  Kind of like the movie - wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.
7.  God loves us and is with us in the good and the bad.  When our hearts break, his heart breaks, for He has walked the same roads as us through His Son.
8.   God is less interested in what we 'do' than I had ever realized.  When we arrived in Mozambique, He was already there and to think that we are 'bringing something' is really kind of silly.  He allows us to participate in what He is already doing.  Everything has to come from being WITH Him, from being open to that leading from deep inside that comes from that Pure spirit deep within us that is His presence.  At 58 years of age, I know so very little of the things of God, for they are in many ways unsearchable and unknowable - but I can know Him and there is great peace in that.
9.  Sometimes the things we do in our compassion and strength are not the things that God would have us do.  Sometimes they even do harm rather than good because of our own frailties, insecurities, and presuppositions.  People need to see the love of Christ in our eyes and our actions.  Our money, our time, our lives are of little help if people cannot see Christ in us. Like those in the medical profession, perhaps we in ministry should also take the vow to 'do no harm' as a guiding principle.
10.  Lastly, we know that God will finish what He has started.  For we believe He is who He says He is.  May we learn how to simply 'be' with Him and trust Him.  There is no other way that makes any sense.

Thank you for standing with us.  May His name be praised and His will be done - on earth as it is in Heaven.

Much love,

Dave and Ann


"Hear O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give to your today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."  Deuteronomy 6:4-7


"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  "Love your neighbor as yourself."  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."  Matthew 22:36-40


May we love Him.

Book Recommendation

I don't recommend a lot of books on the blog, even though I tend to read quite a number of different ones.  One of the better ones recently that I recommend is "Bad Religion" by Ross Douthat.  It is more or less a history of 'religion' in the United States since about World War II, although it reaches back quite a bit.  It is current and ties a lot of things together in a thoughtful way.

Personally, to me, it reads a lot like my life....yup, did that, and that, went to those, attended those, yup - watched that, as I would kind of shake my head at some of my foolishness.

The subtitle is 'a nation of heretics' or something like that so if you are easily offended or so entrenched in what you think, maybe you won't like it - because not too many come off unscathed.  But if you wonder about Penn State, you wonder about the increasing division in the country, you wonder about the decline of America, or maybe you are one of those who sees the parallels between America and pre-exhilic Israel - this book will give you some things to think about.

Fundamentally it is a call back to orthodoxy - or at least that is what I got out of it and that has been kind of in our hearts through this 'dark night of the soul' we have been going through.

Maybe I could start a line of jokes:  "If you think that you have all the answers - then you might be a heretic" - Sounds like the old 'you might be a red neck' jokes.

Anyways, it's a great read that emphasizes the mysteries of the faith:

"What defines orthodoxy from heresy....is a commitment to mystery and paradox...."  Maybe that will 'wet your whistle' along with the quote below that I was surprised to see in a church bulletin last Sunday.

It's available on your ibook / kindle, etc. for a very reasonable price.

Blessings.

Dave

"Thus orthodox Christians insist that Jesus was divine and human all at once, that the Absolute is somehow Three as well as One, that God is omnipotent and omniscient and yet nonetheless leaves us free to choose between good and evil.  They propose that the world is corrupted by original sin and yet somehow also essentially good, with the stamp of its Creator visible on every start and sinew.  They assert that the God of the Old Testament, jealous and punitive, is somehow identical to the New Testament's God of love and mercy.  They claim that this same God sets impossible moral standards and yet forgives every sin.  They insist that faith alone will save us, yet faith without works is dead.  And they propose a vision of holiness that finds room in God's kingdom for all the extremes of human life - fecund families and single-minded celibates, politicians and monastics, queens as well as beggars, soldiers and pacifists alike."  Ross Douthat, Bad Religion

Dead Sea Scrolls

While we were in Pennsylvania, we spend a weekend in Philadelphia.  Our daughter treated us to the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Franklin Institute.

The dead sea scrolls were found in 1947 (coincidentally same day when Israel became a nation again) by a shepherd boy who threw a stone in a cave that broke a clay jar that contained an invaluable treasure:  some of the oldest manuscripts we have of Biblical and extra-biblical books.

Great effort had been made to make the exhibit politically correct so-as to not offend, some of it seeming a little over-the-top actually, but that is the world that we live in today.  The exhibit kept building in emotion as an old testament history lesson, that corresponded beautifully for me in my 'read through the bible chronologically' program that I do each year.

They had various artifacts, money, common household items, and some of the pots the documents had been found in.

We were not allowed to take pictures or touch anything (for good reason) where there were pieces of the parchment.  Guards were posted everywhere to watch the exhibit.

In the large room at the end of the exhibit, they had some of the scroll pieces on display and their translations, comparing to the books of the Bible today.

 In this same room, an exhibit of the scroll of the 10 commandments was highlighted and as you pressed a button, the commandment was highlighted and read aloud - so the entire time we are in this part of the exhibit, we were hearing the 10 commandments.

Near the end was a three-ton stone block from the temple in Jerusalem.  It was affixed in a mock-up of the Western wall.   This was the one thing we were allowed to touch and touch it we did as people were brought to their knees - there was something very holy about all of this - like a gift from God - a linking of the dots from the past to the present - I am here, I AM who I AM.  People were praying, touching the rock, sitting on a bench by the rock, and many writing prayer requests to put in the cracks on the mock-up of the west wall in Jerusalem.  We all want to know Him better, to feel His presence and it was a moving time.

The prayer requests were to be gathered from the exhibit and taken to back to Israel - for there is something about Jerusalem....

Ann and I lingered together for some time, hands on the rock, praying, thanking God for His presence, and His working in our lives.

Great exhibit - I think it is one of those traveling deals so if it comes to your city - it is worth going to and cheaper than air fare to the middle east!

We give it five stars!

Much love.

Dave and Ann

"I did not see a temple in the city (the New Jerusalem), because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it....Nothing Impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life."  Rev 21: 22-27

In Honor of Jim

I my last blog entry, I reported on my trip to Xavier's graduation and then went on to visit friends and family in Idaho as a part of that trip.  The main reason for stopping in Idaho was to visit my friend Jim (photo).  Jim is one of the finest men I have every had the privilege of knowing and he has been battling an aggressive brain cancer for quite some time.  We have been friends for thirty plus years as have Ann and his wife Marcie. They were big encouragers for us on our journey to and from Mozambique.

On June 28, Ann and my Anniversary, Jim went to be with the Lord.  In that one last visit at his home in Idaho, we agreed to meet again and sit and talk more on the other side of the River Jordan.  I will see you again then my friend.

We just returned from his internment in Mount Union, PA - one of the most beautiful places in the Nation.  A lovely service, a lovely and full but too-short life, a loving family, and glorious assurance of eternity.  Jim was faithful and an inspiration to all who knew him and I will miss him very much.

It is the journey we all must make one day, or the other, and may it be hand-in-hand with the One who has placed a bit of Himself in our souls.  May we all be as faithful.... Come Lord Jesus come....

Seek Him while you can.  He knows your name - but do you know His?

WIth love,

Dave and Ann

"So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.  Now it is required that those who have been give a trust must prove faithful."  
1 Corinthians 4:1 & 2

Reflections on Graduation

Xaiver at special brunch for students
receiving doctorates

Bakke Graduate University 2012 Commencement reflections:

Things I heard at the ceremonies where my friend Xavier received his doctorate (Doctor of Transformational Leadership):

What is your city?

Go love and serve your city in the name of Christ.  (the charge each doctoral graduate received).

Theology is the science of being blessedly loved for eternity.

I am from, Holland, Ethiopia, Philippines, Myanmar, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, California, India, Pittsburgh, Liberia, Hong Kong, Sierre Leone, Washington, Florida....(there were more!)

My dissertation was the Theology of Work and the Alleviation of Poverty in Mozambique.

Service in progress

Work came before the curse, work is not a curse.  The word for 'work' is often translated 'worship'.  Whatever our work, we need to do it well for God as it is a way of serving Him and worshiping Him.

We were created to work.

Christians are embracing their humanity in new ways as God did through Christ.

Xavier being hooded - my camera chose this
time to freeze up on me.

Evangelical Christians try to climb a ladder to God but they need to learn to go down the ladder as He did and find peace in that journey.

We need to love every church because God loves every church.

The CRU Global Church Planting Program through a global alliance plans to plant 5 million churches by 2020.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

A pair of Docs

Homes are shattered throughout the world.  Leadership begins in the home through Christ and extends into the community.

There are 10 million overseas workers from the Philippines.

As graduates you need to:

1.  Love the God of Jesus and continue to mine the scriptures as you go forward.
2.  Love your family and friends in a fresh way.
3.  Love God's mission and His church.
4.  Improvise.  Love God's projects in history but improvise into the future.

We need to improvise missionally:

1.  The world will always be changing and we are today in a new context; we are in a post-secular, post colonial world.  We to learn to live in these new contexts.
2.  'ONLY live your life in a manner worth of the gospel of Christ...' Live in this manner so that there is  NEW context for the world to see.
3.  We need to know God and see him in the missionary context (He sent Jesus to us).  We need to love this missionary God and follow him into pain and suffering.  
4.  We need to live the new Gospel, which is simply stated:  "Jesus is Lord".  A lord has a reign and is a king we should follow into the cities.
5.  We need to remember that the church was always intended to be mission and we need to improvise missionally so He gets all the credit, to God BE the Glory.

We need to learn to simply 'be'; to be in His presence.  Everything else flows out of this, and thus, Him.

Dave and Dr. Massingue

Congratulations Dr. Massingue and vai com Deus amigo caro.

Blessings

Dave

The completed table where each graduate (Masters
and Doctorate graduates) lighted their candle from
the staff's three candles

"Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."  1 Philippians 2:9

"Take my will and make it Thine, It shall be no longer mine.  Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne."  (Hymn, Take my Life)

What is YOUR city?

This is the balcony of the church where the graduates
went after the service and together sang to the
audience.  It was beautiful.