Euthanasia in America

Terri Shiavo is being euthanized.

A feeding tube is not therapy, nor is it some "heroic means" of keeping someone alive. It is simple patient care, and the obligation of every hospital to its patients, including the dying. If a feeding tube IS life support, then my dinner this evening qualifies as a medical expense.

Furthermore, if Terri is vegetative, then she is not suffering. So where's the harm in feeding her? If she is suffering, that's a form of cognition, and she should be fed.

This is not about someone's right to die. It may well be about Terri's husband (who has been fathering children with another woman for ten years) and his attempts to keep her quiet. At the very least, it's about euthanasia in America.

Welcome to the pro-choice slippery slope.

The Littlest Macedonian

Mr. X wears a black leather jacket and even blacker hair, with a stoic demeanor to match. To be honest, he feels more like a shadow than a host, and I think that’s why he dresses this way. It’s a subtle reminder that Beijing is watching. But it’s also the man, himself. A twenty-year Red Army soldier turned bureaucrat, he has become his job. That jacket is his skin.

Today is our last in China before a long journey home, and Mr. X is showing us the sights around Dandong, a city of two million in the northeast that is mainly known for bordering North Korea, one-third of President Bush’s unholy “Axis of Evil” trinity. Sure, we want to learn a bit more about Dandong and have lunch with the Vice Mayor. But we mainly want to stare across the Yalu River into hell-on-earth and pray.

As in virtually every other Chinese city, Dandong’s skyline seems to change with each sunrise. It’s a vibrant place, especially compared to dowdy, sad Sinuiji, North Korea, just across the river. In fact, the lifeless view east from the promenade might as well be a giant freeze-frame from some worn-out, flickering war documentary. Even the sky looks sad over there, as though the sun has been banned from shining. And knowing Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s mad, troll-haired dictator, he may have tried.

Kim’s macabre touch is definitely on display at the shoreline’s northern end, where a large, motionless Ferris wheel transcends trees and buildings. It’s Kim’s weird way of saying “Hey, we’re having fun over here,” but it’s as out of place as the Coke bottle those bushmen fought over in The Gods Must Be Crazy, the only available bauble to display from some otherwise inaccessible world.

“We will take the riverboat into international waters,” Mr. X mumbles characteristically. “Please refrain from picture-taking once we reach the middle.” No problem, I think as I fiddle with my lens cap. The Holy Spirit is already burning every image into my heart anyway, and they can’t stop Him.

“International waters” to me means the river’s middle, so I’m surprised when we start nearing the other side. Eventually I’m staring in amazement at an east bank no more than forty feet away. At first there are a few faces staring back, then dozens, maybe a hundred, as we coast along the forbidden shore. These are gaunt, sullen faces, most of them dirty, with sad, empty eyes. The rifle-toting soldiers look healthier but just as forlorn. And I can’t touch any of them, can’t talk to them, can't pray with them. They are forty feet near and a world away.

Then my ray of hope appears, my little two-foot tall, very own “Macedonian call.” No older than two and clad in a grimy yellow sweater, she stands on the dock, her mother kneeling protectively beside her. She waves both hands wildly, and grins broadly, little almond eyes disappearing into dimples.

It is the first and only smile I will see from North Korea today, but it is enough to set my soul afire. She is not yet old enough to know fear or to have learned to hate. And if she survives her childhood, she will be a member of the first generation of free North Koreans since the early 1940s.

Kim Jong Il’s reign of terror cannot last. Nor can Kim, himself. North Korea will open to the Gospel, and when it does South Korea’s Christians will be ready. But I want to be a part of God’s advance guard.

Even if we go and are not allowed to speak to anyone about God, we can still speak to God about them. And we can walk on North Korean soil, which is Christ’s rightful possession and our inheritance in Him.

Back to Jerusalem

Originally written on 10/10/04

National security concerns often dictate that Vice President Dick Cheney spend his day in an “undisclosed location.” He’s not exactly in hiding, mind you; he simply moves about unannounced from one appointment to the next, without the team of reporters that would otherwise match his every move. I've been doing a bit of the same lately, not for my own safety, but for the protection of some very brave young Christians twelve time zones away in China.

They are students in a secret missionary training school, the one type of institution that can get them into even more trouble with the communist authorities than an underground Bible school. Thus they meet, study, eat, and sleep in an undisclosed location...for six months at a time. That's right: They walk into the building and don't go outdoors again for six solid months. Not only so, but drapes cover the windows much of the time, to muffle the sounds both of their fervent worship and of the voices of teachers they are watching on videodisc. And that's where we come in.

I am one of several instructors from various parts of the globe who have been assembled to teach a curriculum designed to prepare Chinese Christians to be missionaries to—-get this-—the Islamic world! Here, in my words, is the way China's house church leaders see it: Over the past two thousand years the Gospel has spread from Jerusalem across the world in a mainly westward direction, reaching all the way to China, where it is now gaining a secure foothold. But the Gospel must not stop at the "Middle Kingdom," if the Great Commission is to be fulfilled. It must be preached throughout the Muslim (and Hindu) dominated 10/40 window, and taken all the way back to Jerusalem, from whence it came. The Chinese Church must grab the baton and complete the circle. Only then will Christ return.

To the American ear that may sound a little like a fund-raising promo, but believe me, advertising is the last thing these people are interested in. There is often a tremendous personal cost when they get caught. Yet they persist, so great is the fire that burns in their hearts to serve God. One school I visited was busted two weeks later, with the pastor and all of his students arrested. We don't know if they were beaten or not, only that they were held in jail for a few days and released. But we did receive one definite report: The school was back in operation in a new location within twenty-four hours of the pastor's release.

I have taught two courses thus far. The first is an introductory course on worldviews, the cultural "lenses" through which we interpret reality. Since the Chinese are raised with both Buddhist (animist) and communist (materialist) worldviews, I compared these two with the biblical worldview, which is the one the students must embrace in order to be effective in other cultures. The second course, Making Disciples, teaches discipleship through mentoring, that Jesus calls us to raise up spiritual sons and daughters, not merely religious adherents.

Both courses are being overdubbed into Mandarin. The video discs will have no identifying markers, other than the faces of the teachers. I don't know if this will jeopardize my ability to enter China at some point in the future, but my heart says to go for it. I figure the videos can cover more ground than I ever could anyway. In fact, even though China is specifically referenced in the courses, these videos will be quite useful in other languages too, including English!

There are numerous other ministries involved in "Back to Jerusalem" efforts, so you'll probably hear more about the subject soon if you haven't already. In the meantime you'll pardon me if I speak in the vague generalities of "undisclosed locations." In a world where shameful things are seen as good publicity, it's an ironic privilege to assist a little in a godly endeavor we dare not publicize.

His Wonders to Perform

Originally written on 12/21/02:

Russian worship bands tend to like a loud rock and roll sound. It fits their mindset to a tee: If King David said to use “high sounding cymbals” then they use the highest and loudest ones they can find. If the Bible says to praise God with a shout, then they’re going to shout louder than anybody else.

Much of this comes from thinking “if I strive long enough and loud enough God will bless me.” (Remember, most of these young worshipers are still new believers.) But a performance mentality isn’t the only reason. The Russian language, like the Russian soul, is large, loud, deep. The words are long and the grammar complicated. It takes, for example, about one third longer to say something in Russian than saying the same thing in English. And it takes a 39-letter alphabet to say it all!

Hence the various indigenous worship teams at Christ For The Nations’ worship leaders conference in St. Petersburg this past March seemed to operate on the principle that if God blessed fast songs in one session, then the next would see new speed records set for praise. For two days and nights the music seemed to grow faster and louder and longer, with choruses repeated ten, fifteen, twenty times, and spontaneous songs so long I was tempted to introduce an old parody we dreamed up at a worship symposium once: “I exhaust Thee, I exhaust Thee, I exhaust Thee, O Lord!” But better sense prevailed, and the exalt/exhaust pun wouldn’t translate anyway. Still, after witnessing two days of sweaty, ear-splitting effort to persuade Heaven to come down (with Heaven apparently refusing), I was starting to feel the same creeping sense of futility I used to experience in dealing with the Soviet bureaucracy.

Until, that is, one little dark-skinned lady in native costume from Tajikistan took to the massive stage with nothing more than a chair and her balalaika (a sort of triangular Ukelele on steroids).

She sang both in Russian and her native dialect, switching back and forth a few times I guessed, but I couldn’t really tell. All I knew was that she was teaching 2,000 people a lesson in what pleases God. Worship flowed from her voice, her fingers, her face, transforming her Tajik headdress into a halo of sorts. And though Russian folks often don’t approve non-Russian ways, soon they were crying, some on their knees, some on their faces, all in deep repentance and, finally, true worship to God.

There were other highlights too, one of them a true affirmation of the old “God works in mysterious ways...” saying. On Friday a group from Krasnodar, southern Russia, took the stage, and I must admit I was expecting another battle-of-the-bands march to Zion. But this time a petite, 30-ish woman with a harmonica sized grin bounded to the microphone and shouted something that made everybody else grin the same way. Then suddenly a galloping, semi-traditional Russian song was playing and about a dozen dancers were onstage doing that deep-knee kick dance their country is famous for everywhere outside the church. Joy erupted in the place, as religious pretense gave way to the Russian soul that often lies smothered by it. This was another lesson for the rockers, from a God Who loves sincere praise in whatever form it takes. And oh, what hilarious form it soon took!

Later the same team, back by popular demand to lead a second session, opened with a melody I recognized, but couldn’t pin a title on. At first the “Weird Al” disco accordion arrangement momentarily derailed me; then the dancers were kicking again and the grinning woman was rapping-—yes rapping-—furiously in Russian (which involved lots of spitting and shouldn’t be tried at home) and I was thrown off track again until the chorus. But soon...hmmm...the words were almost there. Yes, there they were... “Oh no, not I! I will survive! Oh, as long as I know how to love...” It was Gloria Gaynor’s old disco hit from the mid-1970s!

Yes, this was disco accordion, traditional kick dancing, and Russian rap. And now Russians worshiped! I laughed and clapped. And Heaven finally came down.

Somebody's Dad

Originally written on 4/24/02:

When Dolly and I married in 1976 we each had already been in full-time missions work, she for two years and I for seven. We were wholly committed to winning the world for Christ, or as much of it as we could reach, in the shortest possible time. And time, in our view, was running out.

Any teenager who’d ever been to a missions conference knew that "End Times" missions ministry meant sacrifice, of course: Hitting the road instead of setting up home, suitcases instead of dresser drawers, hundreds of drive-thru windows instead of a kitchen table. And no children. Definitely no children. After all, there wasn’t much time. And anyway, who’d want to bring children into a world where things were destined to get worse and worse?

That was the tough part. I had looked forward to being a dad ever since my twin sisters were born two and a half months shy of my seventh birthday. Then came a baby brother when I was almost ten, and I was totally hooked. We kids loved each other. There was no constant fighting like Bud and Betty on “Father Knows Best.” And Kevin and I were closer than Wally and the Beaver ever thought of being. Yep, being a big brother was great alright, but being a dad was going to be even better.

Then came my call to world missions, and everything changed. I promised God I’d go anywhere, pay any price, for the sake of the Gospel. No paycheck, no problem. No home, no car, no problem (no payments!). But I still wanted to be a dad, and marrying Dolly had only heightened that desire. (I had seen her childhood pictures, and wanted a daughter that looked exactly like her.) In fact I was a dad, through and through; I just needed kids to prove it. But missionaries were called to sacrifice, and what greater one could I make than to deny my heart’s deepest desire and take up Christ’s cross?

Dolly agreed, simply, sweetly, genuinely, and with all her heart. If anything she was even more committed to a life of sacrifice than I, which only confirmed to me that we were doing the right thing. As I saw it, by giving up our right to have children we were casting a crown at Jesus’ feet.

It took another fifteen years to realize we were just throwing His inheritance back at Him. We were meekly disinheriting the earth. By 1991 we started trying to conceive, but to no avail. In the meantime, since I couldn’t be somebody’s daddy, I just decided to be everybody’s dad. So I doted on little kids, big kids, nieces and nephews, college kids, McDonalds cashiers—anybody who looked like they needed a dad. And I kept hoping.

Finally, in 1997, we decided to pursue a surprise opportunity to adopt privately through a Christian lawyer in Gainesville, Florida, 150 miles to the north of our Clearwater home. But before we could even sign the papers, an apparent miracle stopped us in our tracks.

“I’ve got bad news and good news,” Dolly said when she came in from running “errands” one afternoon. My heart started to pound with fear as her face reddened and her eyes welled with tears. “The bad news is I’m sick all the time, and I feel rotten.” Panic started to squeeze the breath out of me. And then...“The good news is I’m pregnant!”
My knees almost buckled; air came back into my lungs. A flood of relief washed over me, only to be overtaken by a tidal wave of elation! I had a thousand thoughts and no thoughts! Laughter, tears, numbness, excitement: all were ariot in my heart at once.

We quickly called our friends in Gainesville and joyfully cancelled the adoption plans. I drove to Borders across the bridge in Tampa and spent $250 dollars on pregnancy books and baby videos. We were six weeks along! And for five more weeks we knew heaven on earth.

Then heaven crashed to earth. In early June we miscarried, and I penned the saddest newsletter of my life, closing with these words: “Please pray for us, but do not mourn beyond my signature. Birds still soared today. There are more flowers to be born and bought and given. And my (Father’s Day) card will not stay sealed forever.”

And it didn't!

Alexandria Hope Gilbert was born at a little past seven p.m. on Wednesday, September 12, 2001, in Gainesville, Florida. We learned of her birth the next morning, and on Saturday she became our beautiful baby daughter.

Most people don’t experience a 55-hour pregnancy, but that’s all the time we had (sort of like the Heimlich Maneuver instead of Lamaze!). We hadn’t been in contact with any adoption agencies, and weren’t on any waiting lists. But we had prayed since 1997 that our pastor would get a call to place a newborn. And then we waited. And waited. And moved to Gainesville, and waited.

Then, on Easter Sunday afternoon of 2001, a small inner voice said, “Your baby is on the way.” That was all, but I was excited enough to suggest to Dolly that we start choosing names.

And then we waited.

August brought my 51st birthday and a call from Deborah, one of our closest friends here in Gainesville. “I just bought a baby bed for you and Dolly! One of my girlfriends was about to put it in a garage sale and the Lord spoke to me that you’ll be needing it soon for a little girl. It’s got a pink canopy.”

“Okay, let’s surprise Dolly with it when the time comes. Just keep it at your house,” I suggested, hoping with all my heart Deb was right.

And then I waited.

Then on September 8th, I made my annual pilgrimage back to Tulsa, Oklahoma for Sunday meetings on the 9th and 16th, with too little time to visit too many friends in between. Dolly would work at home in Florida until Tuesday, and then join me for a whirlwind of reunions large and small, capping the trip off with Sunday ministry at our former home church.

But Tuesday was 9/11, the day everybody’s world changed. Part of me wanted to get home at once--emergencies bring out that instinct. But common sense said to go ahead and get Dolly to Tulsa where we could be together, find comfort with old friends, and still keep the important engagement with the church.

Getting her there, however, would be a challenge, since every civilian airplane in America was grounded for the first time in aviation history. So we spent most of Tuesday and all of Wednesday talking with each other and various airlines, trying to divine if and when she would be able to fly.

By Wednesday evening we decided Dolly should just stay home, and the conversation turned to getting me back to Florida. Clearly the airlines were going to be grounded for some time, and now car rental companies were waiving drop-off charges for anyone stranded away from home. We finally settled on a plan: I would stay and minister on Sunday, and then, if my flight were cancelled, I’d drive the eleven-hundred miles back to Gainesville.

My cell phone woke me the next morning. It was Pastor George. “Are you sitting down?” he asked, probably forgetting I was asleep in another time zone. “Well, yeah, sort of,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“A baby girl was born last night here in Gainesville. She's yours if you want her.”

And with that, the waiting was over. Five years of waiting, eleven years of trying to conceive, forty-four years of daydreaming. It all ended that Thursday morning.

Of course I was still grounded in Tulsa, but I felt like I could fly home without the plane! The question was: Should I leave in the car at once, or wait for flights to resume? Driving would take two days anyway. Maybe I should stay for the service and then fly or drive as soon as it finished. Yeah, that was the tack to take. Besides, I had prepared weeks earlier to preach the next morning on--no kidding--fatherhood! Needless to say, I had the greatest punch line ever, and the church went crazy cheering.

I didn’t even stay for lunch, but headed straight to the airport. Planes were flying again, and I boarded mine grinning from ear to ear, bragging quietly to the flight attendants that I was on my way, after more than 25 years of marriage, to meet my first baby girl.

I finally fell officially in love as I peered into tiny dark eyes at about five minutes before midnight. Everybody’s dad was finally somebody’s dad!

Dr. Beverly Schmidgall, 1949-2001

Originally written on 8/11/01

On Sunday, February 25th at 9:30 pm, Earth time, a great missionary and friend, Dr. Beverly Schmidgall, made her last journey, one which brought her face to face with her Lord, Jesus, Whom she had served with both grace and tenacity, for all her life. And as one might expect, she did so in legendary style. This imposing lady was, if nothing else, gritty and determined, and would not budge from a position she held strongly. So it was vintage Bev who, on that last morning when death tugged at every breath, said to a nurse, “I’m waiting until Dolly gets here.” And she did just that, not surrendering her spirit until she and her cherished friend, my wife, had spent eight tender hours together.

Bev had traveled all the way to Chernobyl's Ground Zero, three weeks after the infamous nuclear catastrophe in 1986, to pray for pregnant women. (She prayed for more than two thousand in two weeks.) A subsequent "slow" martyrdom meant living with unspeakable pain, enduring a variety of tumors, spinal infections, and small strokes and heart attacks. Since suffering kidney failure last summer she had been on thrice-weekly dialysis.

The phone call so long dreaded came on a Friday night. Bev had been hospitalized in Derby since the new year, her doctors hitting one dead-end after another in the maze of sickness her body had become. Now, we learned, she was too frail even for dialysis. So she had redrawn her will, written a few goodbyes, and now was asking for Dolly. Two sleepless nights, an ocean crossing, and a train ride later, the two old friends were together again.

It was Sunday afternoon now and Beverly, though too weak even to speak, still welcomed Dolly with regal splendor. Sure there were the bed, the hospital gown, and the tubes. But there she sat, propped up by pillows, her hair done up, two-inch diamond earrings dangling from her ears, and a gold ring scotch-taped onto her skinny finger to match ten metallic gold fingernails.

Her lung capacity, already below 10 percent for several weeks, was virtually non-existent. But she was alert and made it clear she was glad to see the one she often called her “angel.”

Bev was borne away easily that night. For once, Dolly had done all the talking, delivering goodbyes and commendations. And then, at a little before 9:30 p.m., a small spoon of ice still on her lips, she simply forsook the Earth and flew to the heart of God.

Goodbye at Fifty-One

Originally written on 8/10/01

I turned 51 years old last week, and no it doesn’t feel much different from when the numbers were reversed; in my mind and heart I’m still 15. There are differences, of course, like the whiplash I got from bouncing my head off the right field grass last Monday during a softball game—a high-school me could’ve made that play, but the me of 18,630-something days lost his footing in a furrow of the erstwhile corn field.

Another difference 51 brings: Those “someday” promises start to come due, like the if-you-go-first pledge I made years ago to sing at the funeral of my close friend, Beverly Schmidgall, who died of renal failure on February 25th in England. We make such promises, hoping never to have to keep them, not only because we dread the pain of final goodbyes, but also because the death of a peer is a vivid reminder that there really is an end to life’s trail, one that isn’t such a distant “someday” away anymore.

Bev and I were the youngest of the young in 1969, when 13 students got together in an Oral Roberts University choir room to learn a few tunes for weekend ministry. But God had bigger plans than we, and soon an international missions ministry called Living Sound was born. By the late 70s we had sung and preached the Gospel in almost forty countries on five continents, and consequently had forged that kind of foxhole-family camaraderie with which only war veterans can identify.

In 1977 Bev launched out on her own, Dolly and I following suit two years later. My “big sister”—by 10 months—was proud of course, as well as reassured by the fact that she wasn’t “out there” all alone. Moreover in years to come Dolly and I, by virtue of our parallel calling, seemed to provide a spiritual and psychological mooring for our lonely, deliberately solitary missionary friend.

Bev moved to England in the late 1980s, partly because she loved the beauty of the British countryside, but also because she needed treatment for radiation poisoning she had suffered at Chernobyl in 1986. Such care was available both in the U.K. and in nearby France.

Dolly and I, though we were probably Bev’s closest confidants, never broached the subject of Chernobyl with her, never asked the question that haunted a thousand hearts back home: Are you sure God told you to go there? It had been, after all, a suicide mission if ever there were one, to travel all the way to ground zero just two weeks after the meltdown, and then spend another two laying hands on thousands of pregnant Ukrainian women. And if He did tell you to go, Bev, then why didn’t He protect you from the very radiation you went there to pray against?

No doubt Beverly, herself, had wrestled with these same questions many times during the past fifteen years, years filled to the very brim with unquenchable pain and suffering. So Dolly and I just never brought it up, figuring that when the time was right, Bev would.

That time came last November, on the next-to-last day I ever saw her alive. We had been Christmas shopping at the Chatsworth Palace garden shop, followed by evening tea at a country hotel on the way home to Alfreton. Now we were back in Bev’s living room, looking through mementos and, for the first time, discussing who should get what when the time came. Suddenly, in the midst of talking about everything and nothing, the unmentionable at last was mentioned.

She knew people wondered about why she went to Chernobyl, Bev said. Knew they questioned her wisdom, her judgment, her ability to hear the voice of God. She paused and stared at the wall for a moment. “Well, Jimmy,” she said—and very few folks are allowed to call me that—“I guess most martyrs die a quicker death, don’t they?” And then she never mentioned it again.

She was right, of course. For every question whispered about Bev had surely been whispered two thousand years earlier by a forlorn little group of friends, as they made their way down the hill from Golgotha to a nearby graveyard. “Did God really send Him? And if He did, then why didn’t He protect Him? Why send Him here just to die?”

If you can answer that last one, then you understand the late Dr. Beverly Schmidgall.

The Miracle of Cali

Originally written on 10/10/2000:

Eight years ago I spent Thanksgiving in Bogota, Colómbia, as one of the speakers at a “Congress on the Kingdom of God.” My assignment was sticky: I had to speak on the biblical relationship between church and state, and on the duties of civil government according to Scripture. Until now most Colómbian Christians were of the mind that political and social involvement by believers was highly unspiritual, if not evil. Such was the blindness in a nation wracked by crime, unrest, and corruption at all levels. On the Sunday of my arrival there had been forty-four murders in this sprawling city, whose entire name, ironically, is Bogota de Santa Fe, i.e., Bogota of Holy Faith.

Julio Ruibal, a pastor from the southern city of Cali, stopped by the podium after one of my sessions to offer a word of affirmation. We had met previously in 1986 at Cali’s inaugural worship symposium, and I remembered liking this outgoing, forward-looking man of God.

His hometown, of course, was better known as headquarters to the world’s most powerful cocaine cartel, than for holding worship conferences. I also remembered giving one of the most preposterous prophetic words of my entire life at that conference: “God is going to replace the harvest of cocaine in these mountains with a harvest of righteousness and peace. And all of South America will sing the songs that come from Cali.” Seeing as the cartel raked in $500 million dollars per month, such a word seemed ludicrous. But I had already blurted it out before common sense took hold in me. Now, six years later, it stilled seemed crazy.

Julio was a welcome sight this afternoon at the conference in Bogota, and his toothy smile, a flash of white neath a brilliant black mustache, became a permanent photo in my mind a few minutes later as he turned to walk away.

It was the last time I would see him alive.

Julio and Ruth Ruibal had moved to Cali in 1978, convinced that a unified, praying church was Colómbia’s only hope. But it would take nearly seventeen years for that simple conviction to become widespread, until at last, in early 1995, Cali’s first, city-wide, all-night prayer meeting took place. It was a momentous event, not only because of the mayor’s bold declaration that Cali belonged to Jesus, but because of what was to follow. Forty-eight hours after the last “amen,” the local headlines blazed with startling news: No murders all weekend! This in a city that averaged 15 homicides per day. The trans-formation of Cali had begun. Ten days later, the first drug lord was arrested, and within nine months the world’s most powerful, profitable crime syndicate had been smashed.

As the year progressed, tens of thousands regularly packed the downtown soccer stadium, and a powerful sense of God’s presence settled over Cali. But a spiritual battle was also brewing.

By now death threats had become common for Julio, and with hindsight, his murder that December seems no surprise. Yet he had always responded, as his wife would later recount, with quiet confidence, insisting, “I am immortal until I finish God’s work.” Indeed he was.

Julio’s assassination was, in fact, the holy straw that broke the devil’s back. It only made the prayer vigils, and the boldness of local Christians, grow. Five years later Cali’s transformation continues. Believers are now given the stadium and other public arenas rent-free by a thankful government, and the all-night meetings have burgeoned to include as many as 80,000 believers at a time. Churches struggle joyfully to tend the harvest, reporting attendance figures more in keeping with urban population statistics than with church membership. (How would you handle seven Sunday services for 35,000 people?)

This ongoing miracle of Cali, and of three other cities from California to Kenya, is featured in a wonderful documentary called, appropriately, “Transformations,” produced by George Otis, Jr., and the Sentinel Group. We’ve included an order form at the end of this letter. You can not only support The Nehemiah Project with your order, but this incredible story may also be the best, most encouraging, Christmas present you’ll ever give.

Peace--on earth!

Estonia, 1999

Originally written on 4/20/2000:

In November, 1999, I was invited to speak at a small conference hosted by the Prime Minister of Estonia. The following is an excerpt from a paper I prepared for the occasion:

When the ancient Israelites broke their covenant with God, He allowed them to wander through a fairly small desert for forty years, enough time for the older generation, the actual covenant-breakers, to die off. It was their children, born in that desert, who would go on to inherit the land originally promised to their fathers. Being born and raised in the wilderness had made for a hard life, but it worked in them a quality of endurance. God in His grace took that toughened group, made them His own people, and turned them into a nation of conquerors.

But even in giving them the “promised land,” God worked slowly. Why? The Bible records His reasons: “I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run...But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land” (Exodus 23:27, 29-30).

Indeed, when a large inheritance—such as your many new freedoms—comes quickly, it is difficult to know what to possess first. Should first priority be given to national defense, economic reform, education, industry, agriculture?

This same Bible provides answers to these questions, both in principle and by example. But there is one guiding principle for all others: A new nation must be built by new people, and only God can transform people. Just as the walls of Old Tallinn were built stone by individual stone, so He builds a new nation, one person at a time. He then moves to unite new people into new families, and new families into new communities. Just as a building cannot be erected from the roof down, so a nation cannot be structured from the top down by bureaucracy.

A little deaf, blind, and dumb girl named Helen Keller, who became one of the great servant-leaders of the twentieth century, once said, “The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.” She easily could have been speaking about one week in 1991, the week of candles in the dark. Of course many Estonians stayed in their homes, afraid to become involved. But for once, enough people cared to make the difference.

Just like that generation born in the desert thousands of years ago, you who hear my words today were born in the barren steppes of foreign occupation. But you were tough enough to endure the wilderness experience of the old system’s failure. Just like those desert children, God can turn you into a generation of champions, and through you transform Estonia into a land of promise. But He will give you such an inheritance “little by little,” as you grow into possession of it. For all forms of growth, economic, cultural, and all others, are designed to be the product of ethical growth.

A nation’s wealth is supposed to grow at the same rate as her character.

You can have an utterly transformed Estonia, one which honors its historical beauty and strength while developing new beauty and strength. But this can happen only if you have a generation of servant-leaders who lead by personal example. Jesus Christ said that the greatest person in His kingdom was he who would be willing to be the servant of all, and then He proved it by becoming history’s greatest servant. The result of such leadership?

“Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign…over His kingdom, establishing it and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever” (Isaiah 9:7).

Florida, the Plywood State

Originally written on 11/19/99:

Every Floridian knows two weather-related facts: First, that only a fool would live here in hurricane country without batteries, bottled water, and lots of plywood and sandbags; second, that Florida is full of such fools. So when a big storm actually comes along, we swarm the streets like a horde of sneaker-clad locusts, stripping grocery stores, Home Depots, and Walmarts of everything from bread to beer, peanut butter to plywood.

We first-time fools are especially vulnerable. When Hurricane Georges started threatening the Tampa Bay area a few years back, Dolly and I didn’t even know a hurricane watch had been issued until Channel 9 reported that stores were already empty. We had to buy plywood and water from Gainesville, 150 miles to the north, and call on a few compassionate friends to drive them down to us.

Confusion and pride were our other rookie whammies. If the Smiths next door and the Joneses across the street weren’t out there pounding nails into their stucco, why should we? Or were they peeking back at us through their blinds, muttering the same question? Were we all just waiting for someone else to go first? I could almost hear an unspoken taunt blowing softly through the palms lining peaceful Shoreline Drive: Who’s gonna be the “fraidy cat,” the first one in the neighborhood to board up? Everybody wanted to be second.

On Thursday morning one big decision was made for us, as mandatory evacuation orders were issued for our neighborhood. We had to be gone by six a.m. the next day. All day long I took short strolls to the curb, peering up and down the street to see if the neighbors were preparing for Georges’ arrival. Nobody was. I even timed an evening walk to my empty mailbox so as to meet up with two spandexed joggers, in hopes they’d say something like, “Better get those boards up. We did ours this morning.” But they just smiled vacantly and nodded one of those lovely-evening-isn’t-it nods. Stepford Joggers, I thought, and nodded blankly myself.

I think that was when it hit me. This was what denial looked like. It wasn’t loud and boisterous, like the kid who yells “nuh-uh” to the charge that his mom wears combat boots. No, it was quiet, nonchalant, and a little too peaceful, like the warm feeling that settles over someone freezing to death in a blizzard.

This was denial, and we were all in it, the Gilberts, joggers, Joneses, all of us. Ours was a covenant of inaction, as though doing nothing about Georges meant Georges could do nothing to us.

Eyes thus opened, Dolly and I had to act. Thursday night was spent lugging books, computers, and video equipment upstairs to the walk-in closet. Then the guys from Gainesville arrived and we watched the Weather Channel over a midnight supper.
We were up again at five, tools charged and ready to go, when the good news came. Georges had turned westward, taking our prospective flood tide with him. Instead of boarding up the house, we needed only to tape the windows to guard against wind gusts.

Now we’ve got our plywood supply, a fridge full of bottled water, and enough batteries to send the Eveready bunny to the moon. Even better, we’re no longer afraid of what the neighbors might think. Next time, we’ll act.

Grace Works on People Too

Originally written on 9/12/99:

The value of a faraway soul seems greater than that of a nearby one, mainly because it requires elaborate planning, and thus is more expensive, to extend one’s reach a long way from home. A second factor, psychologically related to the first, comes into play as well: “Heathen” don’t look like me. For one thing they’re naked, or nearly so. Plus, they live oceans away, are a different color, speak strange languages, practice weird rituals, and smell awful. Of course any Indonesian could tell you we “long noses” are pink, talk funny, put rolls of paper near our toilets for the most disgusting reasons, and smell like sour milk.

Yes, sour milk.

There are no heathen in my neighborhood. No, that divorced alcoholic next door is a “non-Christian.” It’s true that she’s never heard the Gospel, calls psychic hotlines, and believes we all create our own reality. But she shops at Walmart, speaks with a familiar accent, and her kids go to school with ours, so she can’t be a heathen. No, she’s simply a non-Christian, like her live-in boyfriend.

Amazingly though, I’ve discovered lately that some of my highly specialized, heathen-reaching evangelism strategies actually appear to be working on select non-Christians here in sunny suburban Florida! Yep, it’s a mystery to me too.

For example, yesterday on my way home from the post office, I stopped for a bowl of chili and a house salad at the Texas Roadhouse. My waitress was named Ann, definitely not a heathen name, and unlike your typical pagan, she was fully clothed. A few missionary alarms went off when I noticed five or six silver studs piercing her left ear, but I relaxed when I remembered that several kids in our youth group have virtual chainlink fences stretched up the sides of their heads, as if to guard their ears from break-ins.

I waited for a few minutes before springing into action, to give Ann time to see that my main agenda concerned the hot, doughy rolls the place is famous for. Then, when she came by with my first Diet Coke refill, I made my move. Deftly disguising my ministerial motives by acting like a typical customer, I said, “Ann, I was just about to say grace over my food. So while I’m at it, is there anything you want me to pray about?”

“Yes,” she said. “Pray for my friend Sean. He’s really depressed, and it’s very hard to help him.”

I nodded, and cupped my face in my hands as she walked back toward the kitchen. I gave thanks for the food and prayed for Sean for a couple of minutes, while listening in my spirit for guidance on how far to take this encounter. A little while later I said I was a minister and offered to call Sean, but Ann told me he’s pretty turned off by organized religion, so it’s better just to pray for him. Too bad, I answered, that we Christians are perceived more as being against stuff than for supplying answers.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “My church back in Ft. Lauderdale was great. They accepted everything. It didn’t matter whether you were straight or gay. They just accepted everything. I miss that church.”

I didn’t challenge Ann’s answer, or tell her she’d missed my point, or what a reprobate her former pastor must have been. I just shrugged and asked her how long she’d lived in Gainesville, and the conversation moved on. When I walked out a few minutes later, she came to thank me again for praying.

It might take awhile for Ann to start asking questions about Jesus, if I’m her only customer who ever offers to pray without preaching a sermonette and asking for a commitment. But I’m just one in a church of 1,600 whose common interest seems to be eating. What if all of us offered our waiters “free” prayers at grace time? What if lunch and supper became times to give grace to people and not just food? What if Gainesville, Florida experienced a “grace invasion”?

Oh, you say, it could take years to evangelize a community if we all go about it that way!

Precisely.