The mission

Where ever we go, those that care and love us, come up with good plans for our future.

Stay here! We miss you and without you nobody ever gets together anymore. You're always the one with the good ideas and the one who is able to get the crowds together. We seldom have fun anymore without you. Please stay here. There is such a need for people like you in this area. You can really earn big bucks if you came to stay here.

This we hear in South Africa and this we hear in the USA and we heard it in Mozambique. Always the second approach after the initial - What? Why would you want to go there? Have you not been reading about the place in the news papers? What about your family? Don't you care about their safety? Everyone is leaving the place and you want to go there. What's wrong with you - do you have a death wish? First extreme sports and now this?

The final plea is more from those who believe that they still own the right to order you to stay away. "You have to grow up now son. You have a daughter now and your first responsibility is to your child. You can't continue just doing as you please, you need to settle down and take your responsibilities more seriously. You're not going to be young forever you know."

In no way would I ever presume to compare myself with Jesus, but in this instance I almost think there is a correlation between the experience He had in the desert and my experience now.

First He was tempted with His immediate need to stuff Himself. Like Eve's temptation to try the fruit that would be good for taste and provide knowledge. I too am asked if I have considered the knowledge of the information out there. Eat of the fruit of knowledge and surely you would be changed. The promise to Eve was that she would be changed into a god. Like Jesus was told to look over all He could see and take it for Himself as a kingdom with a simple bow to His tempter. In the same way, I too am promised that I would have kingly status amongst my friends if only I stayed. ( Now for those of you that have said these thing to me, please don't be offended. Gleaning these little illustrations between my reality and my spirituality is what I am all about. So know that I am not implying that you might be the Devil even though I use your words to say just that.)

Finally I am ordered to disregard the sacred words of the promise and follow the new teaching. For Eve it was the order to disregard the promised consequence of eating the fruit - "you'll surely not die". To Jesus it was - "surely You wouldn't even bump your toe if you only jump from the top", and to me the order is to not believe that He calls those He calls and that I should conform to the ways of this established society. I have no right to place my daughter in the hands of the One who gave her to me. I have to trust only that which is familiar and never seek out the unknown. I am to hold on in my own strength and not trust the illusion of a God that feeds the birds of the sky and clothes the flowers of the field, but rather to believe in a God that helps those that help themselves.

For myself and all those that wonder about my sanity I write this: Men are often honoured with purple hearts and silver crosses for their acts of bravery. They ran back into the flames that enveloped a building to save a child, or they swam the rough seas to safe a drowning man. Recently a man was honoured in his death. He jumped onto a live grenade and protected his comrades in arms by shielding them from the explosion with his own body. We celebrate these men and woman and animals for their great courage, but to the lowly missionary that travels across the globe to take a message of hope and life to a village bound in its superstition, we have little respect. When they lose their lives we think only of the uselessness of their endeavor. The idea of them flying all the way out there to be the main course on the local menu the day after they arrive, seems like such a waste.

I would like to put my whole endeavor in a different light. Often we watch movies where multiple men die in the process of saving only one. You watch because the theme is about bravery and courage, but if you were to do a simple mathematical equation you could easily see that it doesn't make sense. After all, all men have the same worth so why would you sacrifice 3 or 4 lives for just one?

Jesus' equation made much more sense. One died so that many could live. Yet we keep watching how many give their lives to the purpose of saving only one. How do you feel about this? Is it not stupid? I believe it is not. Because it is always a worthwhile equation when free men freely give their lives so that bound men - no matter how many - could be free.

So if you heard of 35 children in a foreign country bound, chained to their circumstances, and you were asked to go there to fetch them and bring them home - would you not go? You as a free man or woman, given these circumstance, would you find reason to pass on the other side of the road? I'll bet you that most of you reading this post would believe that they would go if asked.

Now let us raise the stakes. If you'd be asked to go and there was a possibility that you might die while doing this rescue mission would you still go? Put it in perspective. Do you have any guarantees on life. I mean, you could die in your shower (slip and fall), die in your car on the way to work (just ask my friend Claire @ mymemoirofyou.blogspot.com) or even die in your sleep (heart or brain clot). So death or life is not really in your power, but what is in your power is to go or to stay. Now to fully appreciate this situation you need to add the fact that it is not your boss telling you to go, nor your general, or even your parents, but it is God the Lord of all that is, that is asking you to go. Now put that into the equation. Would you go now? He who holds life and death in His hands asks you to go and retrieve 35 children. Now this mission might take a bit of time, may be that it would take the rest of your life. Are you still wanting to go, did you have other plans then? O! You want to do more than just save only 35 children - then complete this question: Why do you celebrate when a movie character succeeds in extracting a singular individual after sacrificing several of his fellow men in action and in the odd case,that draws a few tears, loses his own life almost in the very end? All he did was save that one person. It is because the human spirit is always touched by the heroic selfless action of another person. We also like the lead person to do fantastic acts that distinguishes that person from the ones that try to prevent him from succeeding with his mission. In realistic terms we can also see that the supernatural aspects of any person are revealed when, they that are free, chooses to go set free, they that are bound.

I have accepted such an opportunity. I plan on serving 35 orphans with my knowledge, energy, problem solving skills and my leadership. And as God is my leader I will strive to succeed in saving 35 lives by introducing them to my loving Father and showing them what it means to have faith enough to go where He leads. Setting free 35 more to go to set free many that are not free.

These orhans are located on the eastern boarder of a Southern African country called Zimbabwe. They live in a village called Murange and they need our help. They will die, but it will be better if they die free and if we could schedule such terminating events far in the future. So if you want to walk on the same side as the suffering then drop us a note.