Newtown’s Child, Bethlehem’s Child

Dr. Scott Rodin is a good friend and a fellow participant in a small men's group here in the Spokane area. He also has his own blog (http://wp.kingdomlifepublishing.com) and from time to time we do "blog sharing."  This morning, Scott's message was so powerful that I asked if I could share it here on my website.  I hope you are as impacted as I was by is words of both encouragement and admonition.

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In this brief blog I use the term ‘Newtown’s child’ to refer to all of the loss we suffered in Newtown, Connecticut one week ago today.

I’ve heard people say that the tragedy of Newton’s child was made all the worse because these children died so near Christmas.

I disagree.

The hope, the peace and the comfort for the families of Newtown’s child are embodied in the coming of Bethlehem’s child.

To every child whose life was ended in Newton, Bethlehem’s child says, ”Your story is not over, for because I live, you will live also.”

To every grieving parent who laid Newton’s child in a grave this week, Bethlehem’s child says, “I am the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me will never die.”

To a nation and world that grieve for Newtown’s child and are overwhelmed by the presence of evil in our midst, Bethlehem’s child says, “In this world you will have trials and tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

If ever there was a year for us to draw nearer the manger and kneel in wonder and adoration at Bethlehem’s child, it is certainly this Christmas.  Only there will sorrow be turned into hope, and grief give way to comfort and peace.

But there is more.

There is no ‘silver lining’ in this tragedy. We will look in vain to find one.  Evil offers no such thing.  Evil is evil to the very edge of its influence and presence.  This Christmas must remind us that Bethlehem’s child came not to help us find some good in the presence of evil, but to execute its utter destruction.

As we cry out, ‘when will this evil be ended?’, Bethlehem’s child cries out, ‘it is finished.’  Evil’s fate was sealed on the cross.

How can this be in the face of this demonstration of evil’s growing grip in our nation?  The defeat of evil happens through the small, daily victories of God’s people, who live and pray and minister and work in his name and with the power he promised us.

Our response to the loss of Newton’s child must be to claim the promise that is ours in Bethlehem’s child, and with that promise, to change the world where we live.  We are the hands and feet of Jesus.  We are the ambassadors of Christ, called to be salt and light wherever we go.  We have been given the authority to drive evil out of our homes, our schools, and our communities.  Will we claim it?

We are not left defenseless in this battle.  Our weapons against the enemy are forgiveness, love, generosity and truth. Against these, all evil is rendered powerless. And they are each available to us in unending abundance because of Bethlehem’s child.

Today we look back and remember the lives that were lost, six adults and twenty children who will never be forgotten.  All of us will ponder Newtown’s child in our hearts this Christmas.  But we must even more look forward to Tuesday, to the coming of Bethlehem’s child, believing that the final victory over evil and death that is the promise and product of this divine birth, will one day in some unimaginable way swallow up the grief and overwhelm the sorrow of the loss of Newtown’s child.

This one tiny birth brings to the world the truth of the real state of evil, and empowers us, even in the shadow of Newtown’s child, to proclaim with the deepest conviction, ‘O death where is your sting?  Oh grave, where is your victory?’

Oh come, let us adore him.

Dr. Scott Rodin | December 21, 2012 at 8:36 am

Korea Reflection #2

During the past few years, my impression of the state of the church in Korea was one that typically put us here in the United States to shame. Huge mega-churches attracting tens of thousands, 5:00 A.M. prayer meetings every day of the week attended by all members, incredibly dedicated “saints” of the faith spending weeks and even months fasting on prayer mountain retreats—all were reasons why I have held Korean Evangelical Christians in the highest esteem.

One of the impressive church structures in Seoul, Korea

However, I was quite surprised during my visit there last week to learn that all is not quite as positive as I thought. More than one Korean church leader affirmed that the church growth trend in their country has not only slowed but is in serious decline. Ten years ago, the Operation World Handbook estimated the Protestant population of the country to be mostly Evangelical, near 30%. Today, the Handbook claims Evangelicals are more like 16%. I was also surprised to learn of some mega-church not keeping up with mortgages paying the price for impressive yet complex architectural designs of their massive buildings. On top of that, church leaders admit they are losing the battle of attracting the younger teen and twenty-something generation of Koreans.

Why the changes? Here are some of the conclusions I heard expressed:

• A preoccupation with a “bigger is better” mentality has begun to back-fire as a people become disenchanted with big buildings and big programs that are not always impacting them personally.
• A national increase in materialism, fueled by the successes of corporate giants like Samsung and Kia, have wooed interest away from spiritual things to what you can do instead on the latest cellphone or automobile GPS system.
•  Authoritarian leadership, buoyed up by a deep cultural respect for elders, has prevented appropriate mentoring of younger leaders or healthy succession planning.
• A shallow personal holiness has been the result of folks maintaining appearances of piety (prayer vigils, meeting attendance, etc.) instead of maintaining a commitment to a true, inner spiritual transformation.

However, there is still plenty to praise our Korean brothers and sisters for. Despite a slowing growth trend, South Korea is still the country with the second largest expat missionary force deployed around the world—over 20,000. People maybe skipping out on prayer meetings, but by in large, most Korean Christians still exhibit an incredible, dedicated prayer life. Regardless of political maneuvering, South Korean Christians are poised and ready to reach out to their brethren across the border in North Korea, just as soon as the doors are open for them to minister there.

There is certainly much we can learn from our Korean friends both from emulating what is exemplary in churches that are dynamic as well as how to avoid what maybe causing others to experience a downward trend in vitality.

Korea Reflections #1

Last week I attended an international consultation in South Korea.  I’m not allowed to share a lot of specifics about what happened and who I met because of security agreements. But there are some key facts, figures and information I can share.  Here are some of the highlights:

Key Information:

Despite the amazing effort of global missions during the past two decades, of the 16,565 people groups in the world, 7,107 are still considered to be unreached. The population of those UPGs is 2.9 billion equaling 42% of the world population.

Key Stories:

• Of the million-plus Beja people found in Sudan, there is not a single known Christian.
• In China, 250 thousand Kyrgyz-speaking people are living along high mountain passes on the border with Kyrgyzstan with no one attempting to reach them with the Gospel.
• The Cushitic people are a dominant people group in the Horn of Africa. In the past six years, over 6000 churches have been planted among these people, 85% of which are small house churches meeting at least once a week.
• Ministry workers in Islamic Africa have been shocked to discover that the “man of peace” they seek out to be the core of a new church plant is often a Muslim Imam.

Key Networks and Resources on Unreached People:

• PeopleGroups.org – Mobilizing interest in UPGs
• JoshuaProject.net – Statistics and data on UPGs
• CreateInternational.com – Source of online media and media training
• StoryRunners.com – Using storytelling for oral cultures
• Call2All.org – Network and resources focused on UPGs
• GCPN.info – Global Church Planting Network
• LinkingGlobalVoices.com – The network of networks

Key Book:

Miraculous Movements by Jerry Trousdale – documenting the amazing results that are occurring around the world with Church Planting Movements

Heading to Ethne 2012

I have just arrived in Seoul, Korea for a major consultation occurring this next week. Called Ethne 2012, it is the third major meeting of global mission leaders who are focused on strategies for completing the Great Commission.

What makes this particular meeting stand out from others I’ve been to, is that it was initiated and envisioned more by non-Western mission initiatives than by North Americans.  As their own literature states:

The Ethnê vision is to see “Peoples Glorifying God among All Peoples”. The Ethnê purpose is to Celebrate Great Commission Progress; to Assess (and Connect) Resources and Needs; and to Accelerate Progress in Reaching the Unreached

In fulfilling its vision and purpose, Ethne strives to exemplify two characteristics. The first is trusted relationships - many non-Western participants have said that this is the first global network where they feel like equal partners. The second is that Ethne strives to be practical - the goal is do something together, not just talk.

Previous Ethne meetings that occurred in 2006 in Bali, Indonesia and in 2009 in Bogotá, Columbia made significant progress identifying families of unreached people groups that were least impacted by evangelism and church planting efforts. As a result, key networks have now sprung up in those regions thanks in part to the partnership and dialog from these Ethne meetings.

At this event, the objectives will go further in identifying more regions of the world that need proactive mission activity plus provide plenty of workshops designed to develop useful plans of action. As it says above, the theme will be to DO something together and not just TALK about it.

For me personally, it will be fun to attend a meeting for once without a specific agenda or responsibility that I have to fulfill. Instead, I’m here to learn as much as I can about the latest dynamics fueling these indigenous mission thrusts and hopefully discover new ways that my role as mentor, encourager and consultant for national ministry leaders might be used. I also hope to become introduced to some of my key colleagues working with OC International as a means of getting to know them and their ministry work better.

Stay tuned to this blog for some further updates as the week goes on.

My First eBooks!

I’m excited to announce that I've just launched my very first eBooks that are now available on Amazon for down-loading onto any Kindle reader.

For some twenty years, I've had a tradition of writing a Christmas short story and then reading it to my family on Christmas Eve.  Often, I've taken settings from places I've visited during my mission visits to countries around the world. Others stories are from imagined scenarios surrounding the first Christmas in Bethlehem. All of these are great for reading out loud in a family setting, so I hope many of you will give them a try. And, of course, please tell your friends!

Below are my first three titles which you can find by clicking on the following links. Stay tuned for more that I hope to up-load to Amazon in the coming days and weeks.

The Boy Who Missed Christmas

A teenage shepherd boy encounters a young stranger near Bethlehem and recounts to him his bitter experience of missing the excitement of the first Christmas. To his surprise, the shepherd discovers who his new friend really is.

Amazon price: $.99

http://www.amazon.com/The-Boy-Missed-Christmas-ebook/dp/B00A2YA2TI

The Tale of the Odd Soldier

A mysterious stranger, a magical tree and a set of toy soldiers combine in this Christmas fairy tale to teach the eternal lesson that it is better to give than to receive.

Amazon price: $1.99

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tale-Odd-Soldier-ebook/dp/B00A4TMBZ4/

 The Bridge

A heart-warming story of an orphan boy in nineteenth-century Paris who is searching for a clue to his lost family. His kindness to strangers pays off during a fateful encounter on his way to celebrate Christmas Eve mass at Notre Dame Cathedral.

Amazon price: $2.99

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bridge-ebook/dp/B00A8NGHYW

By the way - I want to give special recognition to my wife, Anita, who has done an amazing job of editing and cleaning up my stories to get ready for publication and also my son, Nathaniel, who has created all the cover art for the titles above.

eLibraries: Multiplied!

“We could use 200 more of these!”

That was the reply I received after supplying seven digital libraries on electronic tablets last August to a ministry leader working with house-church leaders in a key country in the Middle East (see blog post of Sept 16). Thanks to generous partnership help from Mission Aviation Fellowship Learning Technology Division and the Digital Bible Society, the basic content for these eLibraries has already been set up. So, fulfilling this new request should not be that difficult. It will mean acquiring the tablets, loading the memory card with the digital resources, and testing them out before sending them off for use.

 And the amazing thing is that I believe I can do it all for $300 each!

For that price, I can purchase a brand-new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, a micro SD card, a protective case, and a power adapter and still have enough to pay a young local geek to help me with the project.

One Challenge International (OC International), my mission organization, has already set up a special project account for me so that I can start accepting donations toward these units. To contribute, you first click on this link https://donate.onechallenge.org/, fill in the designation, “eLibrary Project #830451,” and submit your credit card information.  All donations will be fully tax-deductible.

Having been in mission work for some thirty-five years, I don’t think I've ever seen a ministry investment opportunity that has any more bang-for-the-buck than this project. Just think—for a $300 investment, someone can supply a turn-key, ready-to-use, personal digital library to a house-church leader that will contain two versions of the Bible, a Bible commentary, eight custom-picked books on Christian living, a lay-counselor’s guide, a hymnbook, two CDs of worship songs, an audio New Testament and videos of the Jesus Film, The Jesus Story (for children), and Magdelena (for women)—all in the local language.

Two hundred is a big number, but I intend to prepare these eLibraries for delivery in batches of ten to twenty as the funding resources come in. I certainly hope you’ll consider becoming an investor in this exciting project.

African Overachiever?

And I thought I was busy being involved with four different mission organizations!

But during the past couple of days, I learned it would be impossible to match the output of one particular Nigerian mission leader, especially one with the ambitions of Timothy Olonade.

With Timothy Olonade in Nigeria

This past Saturday and Sunday, I agreed to participate in a pastor’s conference that Timothy was presenting in the capital city of Abuja. I’ve known Tim for some time, meeting up with him here and there in various global consultation over the past twenty years. However, this is the first time I’ve had the privilege of seeing him in action—on his own turf. Passionate about getting local pastors to fully use the Bible in their own preaching, his practical workshop has taught them to use such resources as the Preacher’s Outline Bible. By the end of the conference, I was impressed how both pastors and their wives were capable of taking any passage and present a five minute mini-sermon complete with three or four points.

But this is just the beginning of Timothy’s impressive list of involvements. Summarizing all of it under the label of M2414 (for Mathew 24:14) here are just SOME of his activities:

·         BLM – Bible for Life & Ministry Workshop

·         Kairos: Connecting God, the Church and the World

·         GIST: Global Impact Strategic Training

·         EWI: Encountering the World of Islam Seminars

·         MDN: Mentor Development Network

·         PIN: Professionals into the Nations

·         EEG: Engagement with Elders at the Gate (encouraging senior leaders)

If that isn't enough, Timothy is also the Africa rep for Global Mapping International besides serving on the steering committees of the Lausanne Movement and the Ethne-To-Ethne consultation. Even his wife, Hannah has followed his example launching Women of God International and the SMILES Initiative, a ministry to widows and orphans.

I’ve learned that articulate national mission leaders like Timothy are usually in high demand on the international speaking circuit. That has certainly been true of him in the past. But what I really appreciate most about these two days of working together is seeing how Timothy is living out his new commitment to turn down international invitations and focus his remaining years on mentoring the next generation of pastors and leaders right here in his own country.

Overachievers or not, I'm praying that Africa can produce a lot more key leaders with that same kind of commitment!

eHarmony. . . Nigerian Style

While here in Nigeria this past week for a leadership training workshop, I've heard some amazing stories of the latest money-making schemes being concocted by creative scam artists.  Unfortunately, these are actually church leaders.

Nigerian young people worshiping in the church
 I attended this morning

Apparently one of the latest varieties of the “Name it--claim it” prosperity gospel is a way to tie the knot with that special someone you don’t have the nerve to propose to or whose parents you think would disapprove of you as a son-in-law. By simply handing over between 50,000 to 100,000 Naira to church elders, they will arrange a secret briefing with the pastor who will suddenly get a “word from the Lord” in the middle of a future sermon.

“God has just told me there is a young woman wearing a red dress somewhere in this section of the church who is supposed to marry a young man in a black suit over here,” he will say. “Come out, come out and be identified.  This is what the Lord wants you to do. If you disobey, you will pay the consequences of God’s wrath.”

And, of course... who would want to go against a "word from the Lord?!" For the scheming young man, wedding bells are just around the corner.

I’ve also learned this same technique is being applied in other ways as well, such as people wanting to get employed by a certain business or others needing to be forgiven an outstanding debt. Whatever the case, these false pastors are turning their Pentecostal-style churches into big business. 

However, in some recent case, there was such in-fighting between elders and pastor on how to divvy up their scam money that police had to be called in to settle the conflict, thus exposing their less-than-divine practices.

Guess the truth of Number 32:23 still stands: “Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Leadership Essentials Workshop

“This workshop has been a real eye-opener to what leadership is all about. I am much thankful.”

That was a typical comment I received after completing a three day leadership training on behalf of Wycliffe Associates here in Jos, Nigeria with members of the national Bible translation organization.  A result of an organizational capacity assessment exercise I conducted with them last March, this was the requested training workshop they wanted me to come back and conduct for them.

Workshop Participants (top) Teamwork exercise to build
the tallest paper cup tower (bottom)

So, for seven hours a day Wednesday through Friday, I presented a basic Management 101 type course based heavily on the Managerial Leadership handbook of Robert Orr, a Canadian friend who has been doing this sort of training for years with Brazilian and other national ministries.

What was particularly interesting for me was to hear the many responses from folks when I was talking about good practices in mentoring, job performance reviews,  and developing the next generation of leaders. “This is so foreign to our Nigerian culture,” they said. “So often, leaders are threatened by their subordinates and will actually try to keep them from being successful.” The chairman of the board, a retired Army colonel,  gave a dramatic example when a military superior assigned him a task that was virtually impossible to do. “I know he did not expect me to complete it, probably thinking it would prevent any further promotion for me,” he said. “When I worked hard and was actually able to finish the job, I could tell he was so surprised.”

Another topic that generated a lot of discussion was on how to help leaders finish well. Again, the amount of corruption among Nigerian business, political and even church leaders is so common here that it has come to be a regular expectation of anyone in leadership.

Working through these cultural differences is certainly a challenge for a ministry like the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust. But from the strong affirmation I received for the material presented, I certainly hope it will have an impact in spurring greater integrity, efficiency and effectiveness in future translation projects.  

eLibrary: Delivered!

Seven are now in the hands of house-church leaders in a restricted-access country in the Middle East! What are they? Something I have been dreaming about for a long time—a complete personal library self-contained on a personal electronic tablet.

For a number of years, I have been wondering how to supply pastors, Bible students, and ministry leaders with access to books, commentaries, Bibles, and other resources that are simply not available to them. I’ve met so many in the  Middle East, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa who desperately want more training resources, but cannot get them due either to cost or an inadequate supply of printed material.

Thanks to a great collaborative effort by a number of friends, on August 1, I delivered seven Samsung Galaxy Tabs (tablets) to the head of a ministry working with underground Christians in that country. Each is completely equipped with a custom-designed library of resources for house-church pastors—all in the local language! What a treat it was for me to bring together content from the Digital Bible Society, special software developed by MAF’s Learning Technology division, and generous funding from a Sunday School class at First Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton, California, to make this project happen.

When the Tabs where handed out at a special discipleship training event in a neighboring country, the recipients were shown how they could access such things as books on understanding Christianity by R.C. Sproul, two complete Bibles, the MacDonald Bible commentary, a layman’s counseling handbook, a hymnbook, an audio version of the New Testament, CDs of ethnic worship songs, and several full-length videos, including the Jesus Film, Jesus Story, and Magdalena.

Now my friend tells me he could easily use 200 more of the units for other house-church leaders in that same country!  If that isn't enough, after showing demos of this eLibrary to church leaders in Congo DRC, I'm now receiving requests for the same sort of resource to be supplied to them, except in French, Lingala and Swahili. 

I'm excited to see this dream come to fruition and hope more useful applications can be developed for it in the months ahead.

Road Trip

It was only 260 kilometers—about 150 miles. Back home, it would have been a trip of two and a half hours; but here in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it was different. VERY different! In fact, this road trip illustrated what an adventure driving can become when road maintenance is neglected for over ten years.

One of the many "adventurous" sections of our road trip!

It all started when I was asked to visit the head office of ACOTBA-SUBO, one of the Congolese agencies handling Bible translation in the country. I had only two ways to get from Bangui, Central African Republic to their office in Gemena, capital of the far northwest province of DRC. The first choice was to wait around for several weeks for the Wycliffe Cameroon JAARS plane, which makes occasional trips to Gemena every couple months. The second was to cross the Ubangi River by dugout canoe, then hop on a chartered Hilux 4x4 truck for a nine-hour drive. Needless to say, I opted for the second choice.

What I didn’t opt for was the most incredible, jaw-jarring, seat-jolting, mind-boggling road trip I’ve ever been on! What is left of this stretch of the international African highway from Cape Town to Casablanca can hardly be called a road anymore. Deep ruts three- to four-feet deep cut across the route everywhere, and regular washouts force detours into the bush. The rainy season makes every single pothole a major mud hole or small lake.

Example of stuck truck--after two days of digging!

Fortunately for me, Luka, the full-time, professional chauffeur of ACOTBA-SUBA was driving the trusty Toyota Hilux; and a true professional he was! Navigating the slippery mud holes and gutted mini-ravines along the way, he quickly proved to me he knew what he was doing. At times, he would even stop in front of a mud hole and discuss with his assistant the best way to traverse. Nevertheless, there were still a number of times I really believed we would not make it and become totally stuck like the dozen or so other vehicles we passed along the way. Can you guess the average time it takes to dig out a vehicle along this road? Two to three days!

If I’ve impressed you so far, perhaps I will impress you further by reporting that I made this trip with Luka not once, but twice within a three-day period. Now that I realize how crazy it was to attempt such a tight schedule, I can only say how grateful I am that no significant incident happened both going and coming back.

Although my new knowledge might change my future travel planning, I can’t say I’m sorry for the experience. First, the time spent consulting with the director of ACOTBA-SUBA (reported in my previous blog post) was really significant and worth every mile. Second, I will always remember these three days as the time when I gained a brand-new perspective and understanding of what it means to be a contemporary Congolese living in a truly broken country. When provincial leaders consistently line their own pockets with the funds designated for road upkeep, it helps one understand why everyone here feels so used and abused. Nothing short of a moral and spiritual revolution that transforms worldviews and mindsets across this entire country will ever bring the kind of change that can make a difference—to roads and everything else.

Which, by the way, is exactly what God teaches throughout Romans 12. Maybe ACOTBA-SUBO’s labors to produce God’s written truth in dozens of local languages will help start that revolution! 

With Luka--a truly professional chauffeur!

Mother Tongue

Ever heard of a MTBTO?

I hadn’t either until I had a chance to visit two of them last week at the end of my visit to central Africa. It stands for Mother Tongue Bible Translation Organization. These organizations are revolutionizing how God’s Word is made accessible to people who have never read the Bible before in their own language.

ACATBA translation team in Bangui, CAR

Commissioned by Wycliffe Associates to check out to the best way to help MTBTOs develop organizationally, I had the privilege of spending some quality time with two exceptional local leaders and their respective national organizations. ACATBA in the Central African Republic (CAR) and ACOTBA-SUBO in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are separated by only 150 miles, but each organization is responsible for the primary oversight of key translation projects in their countries.

Having hung around mission circles for a long time, I thought I had a good handle on what Bible translation is all about. After the past few days, nothing could be farther from the truth! I have been amazed at how much I learned through my interviews with these men and their dedicated staff. Here are just a few highlights:

• ·         Gone, pretty much, are the days of highly-trained, Western-born, linguistic specialists who come to the African jungle to dedicate at least ten years to learning a local language and then another ten or twenty years to producing a copy of the New or Old Testament. That job has now been replaced by a team of three or four “mother-tongue” national workers who already speak the language and, with only couple years (or even months) of basic orientation, are generating first-draft translations in a third or fourth of the traditional time.
• ·         MTBTOs are effectively managing multiple translation teams at once, each focused on a particular tribal language. The only thing keeping them from deploying more teams is the lack of adequate funds to support them.
• ·         Far from being linguistic lightweights, project team leaders are capably parsing out original Greek texts while their companions do word-comparison studies in English, French, Lingala, Sango, or other existing Bible translations used by local populations.
• ·         Most often, teams are working at a common facility where they have ready access to electricity and V-Sat e-mail communications for their laptops. In the case of ACATBA, it’s in Bangui, capital of CAR. For ACOTBA-SUBO, it’s in Gemena, DRC, a major regional capital.
• ·         Teams regularly deploy on multi-week motorcycle safaris to check their translation work against the vernacular of local people throughout their target region. These visits take them to some of the most remote villages in all of Africa.
• ·         Far from being out of the loop, Western translation experts consult with each team to provide essential theological and linguistic accuracy for final drafts. At times, this interaction occurs during a two-week on-site workshop, but more and more it is happening via e-mail links that connect folks in real time across the globe. 

Main base for "mother tongue" translators in Gemena, DRC

As if this isn’t impressive enough, I also learned that these MTBTOs are thinking more and more about the need for sociolinguistic evaluation and research teams to determine how the changing dynamics of a particular tribal people might affect a translation project. Wycliffe/SIL veterans may have determined various translation projects as priorities ten or twenty years ago, but these projects have hardly remained static. Intermarriage, economic upheaval, and even rebel activity have totally changed, in some cases,  the dynamics of the languages people are currently using in a given area. ACATBA’s director, Bertin, explained, “We don’t want to plug away on a language project, only to find we have completed a New Testament for a language people really don’t use anymore.” ACOTBA-SUBO’s leader, Bolobo, alternatively suggested that smart, aggressive efforts of biblical exposure and literacy training with a local population can actually help preserve a mother tongue.

All of this has added a completely new dimension to the value of helping to bolster the organizational capacity of these worthy, national Bible-translation entities. After hours spent with each leader discussing (in French) everything from board governance and job performance review methods to efficient facilities management, I am returning home with a long list of potential ways friends and volunteers from America could come alongside these partners to make them even more effective and accelerate their strategic role of bringing God’s Word to the people of their countries.

Anyone interested in learning more?

Broken

No other word seems to more adequately describe the condition of this country of Congo DRC than. . . broken. From east to west, north to south, every aspect of how this place exists is in a state of brokenness. Let me just give a few examples:

1.       Police - There is no competent police force to speak of. Anyone who is somehow allowed to wear the uniform of a policeman sees it as a means of making his living by ulterior means. Multiple times on this trip, the car I was driving in was stopped at a check point that was set up simply to give a uniformed policeman a reason to check over our papers after which he wanted to know what we would pay him for performing his “important” task.

2.       Power – There is not a single city or large village that has any reliable, 24-hour electric power. In most of the bigger cities like Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, the power is on more often than not, but will come and go with no dependability. In places like Gemena, these is no longer any city power grid at all.  All this despite Congo DR possessing the most plentiful hydro-producing electrical energy in the entire continent. In fact, South Africa is negotiating with DRC for the rights to build out the rest of the Inga dam across the Congo River and install enough hydro energy to power all of southern Africa.

 Mineral Resource – Many countries of central Africa have few resources on which to build a national economy. Not Congo DR. Vast mineral pockets of copper, gold, tin, titanium, uranium and, of course, diamonds are found across the land. But unlike Botswana, were national policies allow all citizens to benefit equally, in Congo it’s a free-for all. Now international agencies are attempting to set rules for tracking and processing “conflict metals” similar to the agreement for precious stones made famous in the movie, Blood Diamonds.

4.       Taxes and Fees – As with any uncontrolled nation, everyone has to fend for themselves dreaming all sorts of taxes and fees. Besides my $200 visa for entering the country, I also had to be $40 to be stamped in and $20 to be stamped out.  I even had to pay $5 just to have my health card verified that it was up to date. Notorious among fee-mongers are the RVA airport officials.  An MAF flight from Bunia to Entebbe costs around $120.  The total Bunia airport departure tax? $140!

5.       The Church – Unfortunately, leaders within the church have tended to be more influenced by politics and tribal favoritism than truly caring about the growth of God’s Kingdom. Following the pattern of Africa, as soon as someone gets into a position of authority, the idea is to use it for personal and family benefit as quickly as possible – while the chance lasts. This poor example of leadership has significantly kept the church from becoming all it can be.

The scene is not totally pessimistic, however. I discovered a number of key people whose vision for improving life and conditions in the country were exceptional. They each deserve mentioning:

With Dr. Khato head of
University Shaloam Unversity

1.       Dr. Khato, Director of the University Shaloam Bunia (USB) truly desires to see a new kind of practical education available that will help the next generation of leaders bring a Christian worldview to all areas of life including business and agronomy. Accepting strong criticism from his missionary mentors, he transitioned the former ISTB Theological Bible School with 70 students into a full university with a student body of 800 all focused on holisticly designed courses.   

With David Kasali of the
Congo Initiative

2.       Dr. David Kasali, Founder of the Congo Initiative. With a PhD from Trinity Seminary, Illinois and a remarkable ten year history of leading the renown NEGST seminary in Nairobi, David left all of that behind to start remarkable training experiment in his home town of Beni. Focused around six major themes, the Initiative includes a Bi-Lingual University (French & English), a Center for Church Renewal and Ministry of Reconciliation. “Instead of pumping more facts and knowledge into people’s heads,” David says, “I want to help bring about a whole new mindset among my people that will truly transform they think and act.”

Dr. Mike in front of new surgery wing

      Dr. Mike Upio, Medical Director of the Centre Medical Evangelique. After multiple rebel attacks destroyed the famous Nyankunde hospital back in the late 90’s, Mike is back rebuilding it and designing a new style medical support center that will serve virtually the whole northeastern province of the country. Thanks to some help from Samaritan’s Purse, a surgery wing is almost ready for operations, complete with solar panels and new generator. What is most impressive is that Mike is today doing what it took a whole team of expats to do before.

It will take a long time before DRC’s broken nature is turned around—especially in the political sector. But I’m so encouraged to find some of Congo’s own “sons” who have put despair aside for now and are striving to model some ways of doing things right.

A Good Ol’ Gal

Early shot of Alpha Uniform when it still had the
original "N" number.

A real treat for me during this trip was meeting and getting reacquainted with an old friend. Niner Quebec Charlie Alpha Uniform is the oldest and, I believe, the most utilized Cessna 208 Caravan in the MAF fleet. I had the unique privilege of requesting this aircraft for MAF-Zaire back in the mid 1980’s when I was functioning as program manager.  And, not only did I watch it makes its first landing at the Ndjili airport after it’s long ferry flight from the US, but I was also one of four pilots that got the first check out in the plane.

So, it was really fun to see it again in operations at the MAF Bunia program and even sit in the right seat during a flight with a hand on the controls just like years ago.

Getting reacquainted after a landing at Nyankunde

What is particularly special about this good ol’ gal, however, is its amazing service history to missions.  

Here’s a snapshot of that history:

·          

1    1985 – Cessna Caravan Serial No.10 and registered N9314Fwas ferried to Kinshasa, Zaire to begin operations. It was one of the first of its kind to be seen in the continent.

After almost 30 years - a hand at the controls again!

·         85-93 – Operated in the Kinsahsa program regularly flying 1000 mile routes to the various corners of the country. We switched its registration to 9Q-CAU. In 91, it was sub-based in Brazzaville and used to evacuate missionaries all over Zaire during the first of several civil revolts.

·         93-96 – Operated out of the Nyankunde program in NE Zaire.

·         96-97 – Was ferried back to the US for some major spar damage repair.

·         90-2001 – Operated in Mali, Africa in the SAS flight program – a commercial endeavor of MAF.

·         2002 – Sent to Nairobi to prepare it for a new flight program in Afghanistan. (Never made it there.)

·         02-03 – Leased to Air Serv International and was sub-based out of Kisangani, DRC.

·         03-08 – Returned to MAF and based out of Kajasi, Uganda providing regular flight service into eastern DRC.

·         08-Present – Now back in Bunia, DRC, it is the flagship and workhorse of the base’s three plane fleet.

By the end of this calendar year, 9Q-CAU will have flown 20,000 hours and have made 22,000 landings!

Not bad. . .for a good ol’ gal!!

A Glossary of Rebels

One of the saddest and most disturbing facts I’ve learned during this two week trek across the Democratic Republic of Congo is how much rebel militia factions have taken advantage of the political instability of this country to savagely press their various agendas. Some are motivated by lust for gold, titanium and tantalum, amply found in the eastern provinces while others are no better than jungle thugs getting their latest revenge on neighboring tribes. As people shared story after story of recent atrocities, it took me a while to grasp just which rebel group was which. So here is just what you've wanted: a glossary of DRC rebel groups and their recent activities:

COBRA – Formerly a part of the old Zairian army, this group was later rejected by authorities and settled in the hills near the mission station of Nyankunde where raids have been conducted on neighboring villages. MAF pilots have seen their camps from the air.

New paved road through the jungle that is supposed to
reduce the threat of rebel activity.

M-23 – Staging their operations near the Rwandan border, this group is perhaps the largest and most well organized.  Thought to be secretly funded and equipped by Rwandan military, they recently captured the town of Rutchuru in a skirmish where 5000 government troops threw down their weapons and fled across the border to Uganda.

Nalu – Also working out of the jungle area near the Rwenzori Mountains, they have made raids on villages in the vicinity of Beni.

Morgan – Known by the name of its leader, this band of thugs in the deep Ituri forest were responsible just two weeks ago for savagely pillaging the Epulu Forest Station known for its research of the famous Okapi animals. Killing several guards and village people, they looted and burned the station and shot all of the Okapi being used for research.

LRA – The Lord’s Resistance Army now has several decades of infamy all across northeast Uganda, southern Sudan and northeast DRC.  Utilizing child soldiers they have kidnapped, the LRA has burned, pillaged and raped throughout the region.  Now even at the hint of their presence, people abandon their villages and gardens to seek security in larger towns.  As a result, there is a huge food shortage in the area.

Mai Mai – Meaning “Water, Water” this group was known first during the civil war in the 1960’s. Now the title has become the defacto name for any militia that uses witchcraft for personal protection. Believing that black magic will transform into water any bullet shot at them, they will charge well-armed troops with total abandon who, in turn, usually flee fearing the power of the magic themselves. A raid of a hospital in the Katanga province a week ago was the latest report of Mai Mai activities.

FARDC – You might wonder why the official Congo DRC army is on this list. Unfortunately, I’ve heard of multiple incidents where instead of protecting the population from wild militia groups, disgruntled and poorly-paid army members have actually allied themselves with rebel groups for their own advantage. Sadly, after the Morgan raid on Epulu mentioned above, the FARDC showed up almost on queue and finished the looting themselves taking all remaining equipment and destroying several other buildings.

The bottom line of all this is a country that truly feels like a Wild West where everyone does what they want and there is no rule of law let alone a national deterrent to such incredible expressions of evil. This is today’s normal context of the DRC. 

As I said above, disturbing and so very sad!

Congo's Clock

Typical Kinshasa street scene

Sometimes it feels like the clock stopped back in 1990 and nothing has really changed since. That was my first impression of Congo DRC this week during three days in its capital city, Kinshasa. The rundown, 1960’s-look of the Ndjili International Airport, the thousands of people lining the main boulevard into town, the slum-like dwellings everywhere except in the central city, the unreliable and inconsistent power and water service, the potholes and, of course, the policemen still using their authority to extort a “gift” from you in order to feed their families.

But after several days of interviews with a number of national church and mission leaders, I now know how much has changed.  And except for a few nice avenues being built by the Chinese, most of it is not good. From the days of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to the present, Congo has had a penchant for attracting strife, conflict and corruption. During the eight years my family and I lived here, the theme was president Mobutu’s incredible ability to line his pockets while keeping the rest of the country from enjoying its vast wealth. Unfortunately, Mobutu’s legacy lives on today in a myriad of mini dictators who use the “Wild West” nature of this country to personally profit from its mineral and natural resources.

On top of that, reports are rampant about the resurgence of the occult. The practice of “traditional medicine” has been around for centuries, of course, but leader after leader reports how much it is growing in the pop culture, especially among youth. Then there’s the new breed of missionary showing up everywhere with aggressive evangelistic methods--spreading the gospel of Islam! With ample funding from the Gulf States, these expats from neighboring northern countries are building mosques everywhere as well as hospitals, schools and universities with free tuition for all.

Meeting with Rev Nyamuke, national director of evangelism 

This has brought a new level of sober reflection from church leaders I have met with. “We cannot compete with Muslims’ economic tactics,” says Rev Nyamuke, vice president of the Eglise du Christ au Congo and national director of evangelism. “Instead, we must collaborate as never before to prevent the loss of impact and influence of the many Christian churches all over this land.” Leading the way, Nyamuke has helped author a comprehensive plan with five key strategies designed to unite all Protestant churches in evangelistic outreach endeavors while simultaneously strengthening Christian families and the 18,000 church-sponsored schools. Having interacted with a lot of church leaders in this country every since 1982, I have to say I’m impressed with this humble man and his strategic plan for breathing new life into the Church.  As I continue for another week in both Lubumbashi and Bunia evaluating the ministry service of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), I will definitely be thinking about how a strategic application of appropriate air service could become a key part of making this plan a success.

My good friend and former assistant in the MAF Kinshasa office, Bob Fish, used to say about Congo, “It’s all a game—and you lose!” Sadly, much of that commentary still seems to be true in this country. But with quality leaders like Nyamuke modeling both humility and vision, I believe God’s people here still have the opportunity to be true winners.

Continental Crisscross

Last summer, a friend of mine was asked by a Christian foundation to conduct a study of mission aviation service and create a statistical picture of how that service is impacting the mission world.  Surveying the six largest missison aviation organizations the final result was presented in this interesting pie chart graph. Obviously over the last couple of decades, there has been a significant shift from serving just Western missionaries to helping outher humanitarian organizations and the general commercial population as well.  What is most telling about this graph, however, is the small percentage of national or Non-Western mission organizations that are using air service.

It is partly because of this reality that Mission Aviation Fellowship has asked me to spend the next two weeks in the country of DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) conducting a program evaluation of their operations. In particular, I’ve been asked to focus on interviews with national church, mission and government leaders to get a better sense of their current situations and how they envision their potential need for MAF flight service in the future.

It’s a treat being able to return to the country where I flew as an MAF pilot during the 1980s. I’m sure I’ll find much has changed. But I suspect that I also will find many things that plagued the progress of development in the DRC years ago to be no different today.  The key will be to determine how an organization like MAF can and should reshape its mission service in order to maintain strategic relevance into the future.

Taking advantage of being in the “neighborhood,” I’m also tacking on a third week to this trip to spend time with two national Bible translation organizations on behalf of Wycliffe Associates.  Located in Bangui, CAR and Gemena, DRC, these two agencies alone are responsible for some sixty potential language projects in their two countries. My goal? To help them assess any areas of organizational development that might help accelerate their Bible translation efforts.

I will appreciate your prayers for health, safety and wisdom as I crisscross the entire region of central Africa during this trip. This map will give you a quick glimpse of all the places my trip will take me from July 7 to 29.

Stay tuned.  I hope to share my next few blogposts with observations made along the way.

Under His wings,

 Jon