66- Kadavu Island
March 26, 2008 on 8:17 am | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
The work along this island chain has been significant over the more than seven years since I first saw the empty horizon blur slightly and as I concentrated, a slight hump between water and clouds slid into focus and from an endless ocean, the islands of Kadavu pushed their way into my life. Our Easter focus this year includes a full seder feast and celebration of Passover late into the night with 20 something people at our home an hour west of the capital of Fiji… then out to the Islands of Kadavu.
A ‘missions’ trip for the Nazarenes from one of our churches on the island of Viti Levu results in a combined Easter service at the settlement of Vunisea, Kadavu where our latest work on this island is happening. Pray for Pastor Aseri and his wife La. Their vision for these islands has stood the test of time now for over 6 years as our missionaries away from their home island to this place. God is blessing their faithfulness. The effect of their lives has now been felt from West of Vunisea all the way to Dravuni in the East, running mostly the full length of these islands. God’s presence was very evident in Kadavu as we celebrated the victory of the Empty Tomb this Easter Sunday!!
65- Kingdom of Tonga
March 16, 2008 on 2:10 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
are speckled with hundreds of islands and endless coral reefs.Before long, Quinton (my 12 year old) and I are disembarking and stepping back into a different time and a very different place. This is the Kingdom of Tonga! The days ahead are filled with meetings with our Field Strategy Coordinator, James Johnson and the Nazarene missionaries here from Korea, the Kims. God has brought them here with a passion for reaching out to the handicapped of these islands. Pray for them as they are becoming the hands and feet of Jesus to these hurting people.
We climb into a smaller plane and head out to the distant Tongan island of Vavau, where we’ll be for a couple days. It takes longer to reach that island than getting to Tonga from Fiji. On Vavau, we meet up with Sione, together with NCM partnering with him for some time in a ministry of compassion and rehabilitation to hardened and hurting prisoners, deported back to these islands. The heart of Christ… ”I was in prison and you did not visit me” (Mat.25:43) compels us as we represent our Lord and the greater Body we belong to… these are your ministries out here.
64- God at work at a Hindu funeral
March 10, 2008 on 1:45 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments Off
Three days ago our neighbors called us from the gate - Cindy and I helped two of the women get ‘Ajji’, the grandmother of the community, over to the clinic that is called a ‘hospital’ near the river. She was not doing well, but there’s nothing they can do so they send her back home. Yesterday morning, shortly after dawn - they called us again. Something is wrong. “Come, please come, the whole family come… Ajji is dead.”
Role back 2 & 1/2 years - God directs us very specifically to move here and call this place ‘home’ - no outsiders here - very Hindu community with a major Hindu Temple immediately below our house to the right and another one a couple hundred yards down the dirt road. 99% of the entire community is Hindu, these are our neighbors now. The kids do not know strangers and quickly the barriers begin to come down for the kids. Soccer balls get worn out and Hindustani starts getting learned. The kids fall in love with the people who make up the families around us… no ulterior motives. Real relationships, genuine feelings. Cindy starts making cakes for any excuse she hears about and the women of the area fall in love with her and she falls in love with them… same thing happens. These are precious people, becoming more and more precious. Their lives are as complex as ours. Their feelings run no less strong. The government falls in another coup and crime starts to climb. As a result the police ask for help from the community and 80 to 100 men gather and I’m the only outsider. Amazingly they vote me onto the ‘Community Committee’ that will represent them. God gives us a deep respect for them as He grows our love. The men are proud and their beliefs are far more than just religion. It is their culture, their identity. It is all that they and their fore-fathers have ever known. It is their one and only frame of reference. Combine this with the fact that most everything they have ever seen or heard of ‘Christianity’… they hate… with good cause.
But the Kingdom of God is about relationships and the love of God is powerful… it took Him to an executioners cross the other day. Our job is never to judge, but to love.
Speed up to this last Sunday morning early. They bring us into their humble home and their hearts are broken - the air is filled with wailing and sobbing and suddenly our hearts are broken as well. These are not some strange Hindu people anymore, who look strange, act strange, dress strange, eat strange, sound strange… no somewhere along the line of the last two years we made the mistake of actually falling in love with these people and now it is costing us. The faces are individual human beings, with personalities and life to live. Our hearts are aching. We not only feel their pain, we are filled with our own pain. I watch two of the women, housewives who live close to us. One is holding on tightly to Cindy, the other to Danielle. They are sobbing like their world has now come to an end because it has. Through the sobbing and broken English, I hear… ”… you… made… the… cakes… for… Ajji… ”.
The old man, the patriarch of the area, calls me over to where he’s been sitting on a wooden bench, looking at the floor in silence. He looks up to me standing there. I have no idea what to say. Slowly he shakes his head and I can barely hear his broken English as one tear breaks free and works it’s way down his wrinkled cheek. “Ajji… Ajji… Ajji is gone… forever…” The woman he has lived out more than 50 years with, has left him.
The oldest son, maybe 50 years old, calls me to the side. “Brother… can you please help us?” ”of course”. We cancel our plans for ‘going’ to church this sunday morning. I tell Cindy we’ll be working on ‘being’ the church instead. I take the Church truck to the Hindu Temple and haul 3 loads of corrugated iron, then ‘borrow’ to them about 100 cinder blocks, all for the purpose of their very Hindu customs. A huge shed is built around 2 sides of the house and by night-time there are literally hundreds of people that have come from everywhere. The chanting and mourning is about all you can hear.
The next morning the Hindu funeral starts with the Hindu priest in charge. The incense fills the air and the religious customs are complex and there is great mourning and pain and it goes on and on and then the Hindu priest has another man doing something and he turns and works his way through the crowded people seated on the mats, over to where I stand to one side with most of men. “Brother”, he says to me. “The family is asking if you could please say a few words for them and also offer a prayer to the God?” … ”of course”.
Two of the different brothers have already talked to me. “Please, when all the people are here
during the funeral, can you please say a few words for the family and also offer a prayer?” I ask one of the brothers; “is it OK when I say a few words, if I speak just a little about the love of God for the family and these people… I have no desire to offend?”… ”of course brother, of course!”
By their insistence, amazingly I find myself in the center of a huge crowd of hurting Hindu people, asked by them to speak to them and pray for them. I am standing at the feet of the casket of their grandmother. I really am trusting God who loves these people so very, very much, to give me the right words… He does exactly that
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