The Gray and the Black

The Gray and the Black--that’s what I decided to call the session when it was about to begin. Why? Because both of us guests—Brent Ropp and myself—were clearly the only ones in the room with silver-gray hair while the other thirty people there had jet-black hair, primarily because they were a group of young leaders who were all native Nigerians.

Meeting with Prosper Isichei, MANI's Director for the
Emerging Leaders Networki

When my friend, Prosper Isichei learned that I might have a free 12 hours in the capital city of Abuja before departing on an evening flight, he asked permission to recruit a group of his young “emerging leader” friends to gather for an informal time of learning exchange. “We would simply like to sit at your feet and learn anything from your years of leadership experience,” he claimed. Not really knowing what I was getting into, but feeling intrigued by such an open-ended request, I accepted.

What followed was about four hours of some of the most meaningful time I’ve spent in my years of ministry in Africa. With such freedom on presentation content, I prepared a PowerPoint covering eight “Life Lesson” that included such things as how to write a personal missions statement, developing a model of balanced personal growth, ministry and marriage, and the difference between being a leader and knowing how to lead. I felt that I was addressing a room full of thirsty sponges. Rarely have I experienced an interaction with 20 and 30-year olds where they hung on to every word I shared and followed up with deep, penetrating questions for personal application.

My guess is there are two reasons for such a positive reaction. One is that younger African generations tend to be regarded more as a threat by the established older leaders preventing healthy mentoring relationships from happening. A second reason is that what is often presented as leadership training tends to either be a highly academic lecture, a Bible Study sermon or some other top-down experience with little chance for interaction. Instead I paused at the end of each point to allow for plenty of personal application questions plus further insight to be shared by my colleague, Brent Ropp.

 At the end of the day, I asked for feedback about which topics were most relevant. It seemed to be a tie between balancing ministry and marriage and that of being a leader but not really knowing how to lead. The later was shared via a TED Talk video clip which was the first time any had seen such a thing. As a result, we brainstormed a bit about creating a similar TED-Talk-type ministry designed to share worthy ideas for the global mission world, something my son, Nathaniel is thinking seriously about doing. They were enthusastic about it. And, at the suggestion of returning to Nigeria with a prepared weekend seminar on balancing ministry and marriage, not only did every hand in the room go up but several seriously wanted to put their names on an advance sign-up list.

There was something amazingly refreshing for me about this one day interaction with these young men and women. It is even more fulfilling to think that some of the Life Lessons I’ve passed on to them seem to be worthy topics and truths that can help them become a generation with the capability to significantly advance God's Kingdom in their own continent and around the world.

A Retreat to Advance

Twenty-two have complete Bibles (green), fifty-three New Testaments (yellow) and forty-seven some portion of Scripture (orange.)  But the rest of the 350 languages of Nigeria do not have a single word of God’s Good News translated into their own language (red.)

 That’s why the challenge of the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust  (NBTT), the principal national translation entity in the country, is so daunting. Eclipsing the number of all other African countries in language translation needs, Nigeria actually is second in the world in terms of remaining languages that still need a Bible translation project initiated.

Since last January, NBTT has been led by a new executive director, Yakubu La’ah, a man short in height, but certainly not in vision.  Soon after stepping into his role, Yakubu contacted me asking if I could lead his new management team through another organizational development seminar similar to one I gave last year. But, this time, he decided to do something different—invite all 34 of his national staff to the first part of the workshop for purposes of restoring a new sense of excitement and commitment in their ministry task.

When I arrived in Jos, Nigeria, where NBTT is located, I learned that Yakubu had decided to move the workshop an hour out of town to a beautiful retreat center on the grounds of an MK school built by SIM missionaries back the early 1900’s. As the staff arrived, I learned that this was the first time in over twenty years that NBTT had offered such a retreat. That made it a double privilege for me to be the facilitator of the event and lead them in an animated review of their vision, mission and values.

The second part of the weekend involved a focused time with the new five-man NBTT management team going over basic leadership principles of strategic planning, organizing, teambuilding and accountability. Because this was the first time for several of them to be managers, they were intently interested to know exactly how to apply each of the topics discussed. It was particularly exciting for me to see that part of the motivation they had for ramping up their leadership efforts was a new commitment to advance Vision 2025--an attempt to initiate a translation project for all the remaining language of the world that need it. 

One evening, I decided to show the classic movie, Apollo 13, as an example of how to lead in a crisis situation.  It was so cool seeing how the team really connected the dots from our workshop and pulled out so many great lessons from the film.

If somehow affirmation is proportional to the brightness of the appreciation gift, the orange caftan I received at the end of the workshop has certainly made me feel that my weekend contribution toward helping NBTT accelerate Bible translation in Nigeria has definitely been worth it!

Madagascar's Explosive Growth

Church Planters equipped with GPS units

One of the more fascinating reports I heard at the recent MANI conference I attended in Nairobi was on mission outreach currently happening in Madagascar.  Off the coast of southeastern Africa, Madagascar is the fourth largest island of the world, about the size of the state of Texas.  It’s also one of the more unreached areas of the continent, especially in the rain forest area which dominates the entire eastern seaboard of the island.

Villages in the Madagascan rain forest now identified
for church-planting outreach

Sharing all this with me at the conference was Dinah Ratsimbajona, Director of the Islands Mission and also MANI Regional Coordinator for the Island countries of the Indian Ocean. He claims his mission has seen explosive growth in new churches thanks to an aggressive strategy called CPM (Church Planting Movements.)  Three generations of trained national workers, 480 in all, have been deployed with GPS satellite receivers to map out where unchurched villages are located in the forest. Then, using the CPM strategy to seek out the “man of peace” in each village and initiate a Discovery Bible Study in his home, the workers have successfully started over 2000 churches in just 20 years!

Twelve-year old boy already a veteran church-planter

One of the amazing stories Dinah shared is that his third generation of church planters includes a young boy only 12 years old.  This lad has actually been the key to getting three different Bible study groups initiated, all which are on their way to becoming house-churches.

There are most likely over 15,000 villages in the rain forest, most of which are not even known to the government. “The GPS information our church planters have gathered on the villages have actually given us better data than any of the authorities have to date,” Dinah said. “Now, our plan is to expand to both northern and southern regions of the rain forest where there is still much work to be done.

Island Mission has benefited extensively from the help of both Mission Aviation Fellowship and Hellimission, a Swiss helicopter mission, that have tranported church planters from the capital of Antananarivo to remote areas in the rain forest.

What an encouragement it is to learn about an indigenous ministry like this one that is making significant progress in advancing God’s Kingdom in the mission fields found right in its

own country.

On-going Movement

During the closing days of the of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement in 1999, veteran New Zealand missionary, Ross Campbell, gathered a cross-continental team of aspiring African leaders and together committed themselves to continue encouraging African mission outreach.  That commitment became a new movement by the name of MANI. Now, fourteen years later, MANI is a mature, proven network of outstanding contemporary African leaders honing their strategy to catalyze a new generation of African mission endeavor.

Why all this interest in MANI? Because I’ve been invited to participate in MANI’s three day leadership forum held here in Nairobi, Kenya. Using the facilities of a Catholic guest house in a quiet, wooded area outside of town, our team of 30-some folks are engaged in back-to-back meetings from 7:00 AM till 9:00 PM at night. Reuben Ezemadu, a key Nigerian mission statesman and long-time friend, is the continental coordinator leading our sessions. He has each day focused on a different theme: 1) leadership transitions,    2) ministry focus and 3) strengthening partnerships.

As I listened to the first full day of regional reports, I was given a strong reminder that Africa’s demographics is a lot more diverse than I usually think. Leaders from West, Central and East Africa may look alike because of similar Bantu heritage, but when you add in an Ethiopian from the upper Nile, a Dutch Afrikaner for South Africa, an islander from Madagascar and even a Chinese-background citizen of Mauritius, I have to remember that all these folk have equal right to call Africa their home continent.

With this richness of perspective, I am anxious to see how these three days will unfold and look forward to learning how this team of men and women are helping to promote MANI’s three key objectives: 

1. To Catalyze an African Mission’s Movement
2. To Redefine the African Mission Field
3. To Mobilize an African Mission Force.

Stay tuned for some follow-up reports. I’m sure there will be some neat things to pass along about what God is doing through this important network called MANI.

Under His Wings

Every once in a while, something happens that reminds vividly how much I must depend on God's upholding power to make it from day to day--especially while flying different national airlines.

This morning, I borded my flight in Singpore and picked up the newspaper only to be greeted with this picture of a Lion Air plane that had missed it's landing and crashed into the shallow waters off the Bali International Airport.

What made the story doubly impactful for me is that I was flying the exact same kind of aircraft on Lion Air the very day this incident happened. Departing my daughter's home in Papua, we made several stops on the way to Jakarta, one being very close to where this incident happened. The story is even more tragic when you read that the plane was a brand new 737-800 New Generation delievered to Indonesia just last month--again, just like the one I was on that day.

The good part of the story, however, is that because of crashing in such a shallow area, all of the passengers were evacuated safely, although a few had some minor injuries.

Last month, in Congo, Al Hawthorne and I were forced to fly on the local CAA airline which also had sustained a cargo plane crash the week before.

All these experineces are valuable simply for the one reason of never taking for granted our need to trust in God's sustaining grace every step of the way--especially in international travel.

Papua Perspective

I’ve just completed four days of very special time with my daughter’s family in Meruake, Indonesia, located on the far south coast of the island of Papua. When you’re grandkids live 7500 miles away from you and it takes four days and six airline flights to get there, you can understand why every minute together is so special. From building rocket darts and having toy tea parties to watching Winnie the Pooh and reading bedtime stories, I did my best to cram as much grandpa experience as possible into this short time with Juile, Tom and their three kids, Christopher, Elizabeth and Brennan.

As I now wing my way homeward from these two weeks in Indonesia, I can’t help but wonder, however, about the current state of the church in Papua reported to me during my visit. Without question, the “hot button” of the mission world these days is CPM—Church Planting Movements. These rapidly multiplying  communities of churches are indeed exciting trends to witness in various areas of the least-Christian world.  But what happens to these CPM areas 20, 30 or even 60 years later?  Is Papua a possible example of one answer to that question?

Before 1960, Papua (then known as Irian Jaya) was a wild, untouched land with hardly a single Christian among its indigenous tribal populations. But within a few short years, missionary endeavor produced one of the most dramatic church planting movements in recorded history.  By the end of the 1980s, churches of multiple denominations could be found everywhere and the last remaining untouched of the island were being systematically reached by the first generation of indigenous missionaries. So successful was this evangelistic effort that by 2000 most Western missionaries felt their job was done and were leaving Papua to be guided by new national leadership.

(Curtesy of Google Maps)

However, what I’ve learned now is how much of a reversal  this positive trend has taken in the past few years. Sadly, the Papuan church today is known more for its materialism, infighting, lack of strong leadership and inability to positively reach out to non-Christian neighbors. Thanks in part to a large gold mine that has flooded the economy with wealth and a huge number of Islamic-background transmigrants moving in from Java, Papua today seems once again more defined as a mission field than a mission force.

One example of this was hearing about several Bible schools and seminaries with student bodies that included many who had never made a profession of faith before let alone understood what it meant to lead others to Christ. An even sadder story was learning about the rampant pornography now flooding the local culture. A friend who has lived in Papua for years said she was shocked to discover how much porn is normal TV content in most homes, even for housewives and young girls. Most people now want to buy their cell phone already pre-loaded with “the stuff” as porn is called in the local shops.

My perception is that many mission groups have been somewhat blindsided by this turn of events in Papua and are now scrambling to find meaningful ways to help their national church partners regain the solid ground they had twenty-some years ago.

 Does every CPM need to have this sort of future? Of course not. But what is today being experienced in Papua should be a sober reminder that Christ’s Great Commission to disciple the nations must be a life-long commitment and not just a flash-in-the-pan missional strategy.

No Missed Turns

This little proverb has been at the center of our discussions here at the Indonesia manager’s conference for Mission Aviation Fellowship.  Depicting the need to make course corrections when the environment changes, this theme has helped us discuss how MAF can adapt to the new state of global missions. From new technology, like glass cockpits and diesel fuel aircraft engines to alarming negative trends in the state of the national church, MAF-Indonesia has plenty of reasons why it needs to think carefully how to apply its service ministry in the years ahead.

Thanks to a generous Christian Indonesian businessman who owns this hotel and offered free rooms and meals to MAF, we’re enjoying a lovely venue in an upscale suburb of the capital city of Jakarta. But a heavy schedule with long hours of discussion and dialog have precluded much opportunity to try out the swimming pool in the tropical gardens or the world-class golf course next door.

My particular role has been to facilitate several sessions on program effectiveness and relevancy. To do that, I’ve proposed to MAF leadership a “strategic framework” that involves the three contexts of Kingdom Effectiveness, Cultural Relevancy, and Organizational Fit. By asking key questions from each context, field programs can quite easily evaluate their various ministry thrusts, such as air transport, IT support or radio communications. So far, I’m encouraged by the positive response I’ve received from everyone participating in my sessions, even the MAF wives. The next challenge will be to turn these discussions into practical evaluation tools and processes.

For sure, our dynamic world environment is forcing all sorts of new bends in the road for world missions. But if MAF leaders keep a sharp eye on their course, as they are doing at this conference, they can be assured no bend will be the end of their ministry service any time soon.