Five Minute Friday - Light

These people are the friends of our friends and colleagues. We've met some of them... Some of these men have been to the studio to record... A few have even been to our home...Tim spent time with them when he was up in Timbuktu for a recording project. This doesn't feel like all of this is happening in some far-off, distant-all-the-way-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-place. It feels like it's happening right next door...

Watching our kids play, a friend and I were talking this week about current events in our part of the world, and I don't exactly remember the context, but this verse (or a similar one) came up: 

"It behoveth me

to be working

the works of Him who sent me

while it is day;

night doth come,

when no one is able to work"

 John 9.4, Young's Literal Translation

It is Easter weekend... Good Friday...

I wonder if they wonder why all of this, this, this or this is happening?

I do.

I wonder where all of this is going to lead.

Has the night come, is it descending on this part of the world?

And I wonder at my self-centered muttering over an inability to sleep (the lights - and fans - were out at our house, but on all around) instead of thanking God for the reminder... and the gift of sleepless, quiet time to fall on my face and pray.

"While ye have light, believe in the light,

that ye may be the children of light.

These things spake Jesus, and departed,

and did hide himself from them."

John 12.36

I cannot begin to speculate. Is this "the night" coming? Is Jesus "hiding Himself" for a time?

I'm thankful that my All-Knowing Father knows, that He is good all the time, that in Him is Light and no shadow of turning... and that I don't have to know all the ins and outs of this story because I try to trust completely the One writing it. 

I'm thankful I do know Resurrection Sunday is imminent.

I'm sure our Malian brothers and sisters are thankful for that truth, too.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are interested in reading up on these current events, most of the links (except in the first pararaph) are different, individual links. They do not represent our exact views of/on the situation in all cases (not that we'd claim to be experts... or even particuarly knowledgeable), however they are a place to start if the Lord should lead you to pray.

If you believe the Lord is asking you to give or to help tangibly in some way, contact me directly.

What does it mean to be racist?

You can't live and work in sub-Sahara Africa without running across this topic. Last year, while reading  Half the Sky, a medical worker in a rural hospital interviewed matter-of-factly reported that they don't test/screen blood for HIV before giving trransfusions... they only give transfusions if it is necessary to save the patient's life... and so even if the blood is tainted, at least the patient's life will be prolonged some years instead of immediate death... and I didn't know how to respond or what to think. But it has been one of those things that has stayed with me as I continue to think about that reality, especially for those living all across this continent and trapped in poverty.

Just this morning, I picked up another book discussing AIDS in Africa... its purpose is awareness, a goal of helping the rest of the world to see the very human face of this epidemic disease, to help mobilize a greater response from Europe and the West...

The author's own words:

"...When I talk to people at home about the pandemic, I get the sense that they feel a dying African is somehow different from a dying Canadian, American or German -- that Africans have lower expectations or place less value on their [own] lives. That to be an orphaned fifteen-year-old thrust into caring for four bewildered siblings, or a teacher thrown out of her house after she tells her husband she is infected -- that somehow this would be less terrifying or strange for aperson in Zambia or Mozambique than it would be for someone in the United States or Britian." Stephanie Nolen, p. 28 of 28 stories of AIDS in Africa

Could that be me? Could my words and actions... could my lack of words or lack of action... show my own racism and prejudice?  Do I demonstrate the belief that someone who is different than me can't understand the depth of my feeling because he or she different? Or that distance and the problems of a people an ocean away are less pressing because they don't touch me?

And can that line of thought begin to line up with Bible teachings such as:

• we are all sinners in need of a Savior,
• Christ died for each soul who has lived, lives, will ever live on this earth,
• God is impartial
• His Son understands the deepest cries of each human heart because He wore the cloak of humanity and has experienced the extremes of all that could touch us,
• whatsoever I do unto the "least of these-" it is as if I have done that to/for my Lord Himself.