The Cure for Cancer

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Yesterday at school, I got the opportunity to have an in-depth spiritual conversation with one of my teachers, Gladys. She was very receptive and curious as I shared the Truth of Christ, and I´m hopeful that God will use those seeds planted in her and will give our team more opportunities to share with her.

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Pray that the Lord would move in the hearts of Brooklynn and Gladys and that He would continue to draw them both to Himself.

2. Continue to pray overall for the Quechua of the Chayanta province. As I learn more about this culture, it is so easy to see how the people have been frightfully deceived by our enemy (I´ll be sharing more about this in the next blog). Please pray that God would open their eyes to the Only Truth: His.

3. Back in Sucre, we just had four new believers added to our number by baptism. Praise the LORD that we have three new brothers and a sister, and pray that they would come to know Him more deeply and to serve Him in obedience.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I´ll go ahead and tell you now that this blog is difficult to post. The topic might be controversial for some of you, but I hope you´ll listen anyway. Here goes:

As most of you know, I used to be a pediatric cancer pharmacist. I loved the people I worked with, my patients and, most of the time, the job itself. :) As part of my training for my profession, I spent a year at St. Jude Children´s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a great experience that I´ll never forget, though there were more than enough sad days.

The other day, I was sitting at a restaurant here in Bolivia, and it surprised me to look up and see an ad for St. Jude on the television screen. Seriously, who knew that even Bolivians give money to St. Jude? And all of that just got me thinking.

St. Jude is an amazing place. It´s a hospital for children with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses, and the ads are true: No child is ever turned away because of an inability to pay. Every child there receives whatever treatment the doctor deems necessary, without a question of how it will be paid for. The health care professionals there are among the best in the world. And the research done there has dramatically improved the cure rates for childhood cancers. There´s a reason the name "St. Jude" is world-renowned.

And, basically, the majority of that comes down to money. St. Jude´s fundraising personnel are also among the world´s best. No expense is spared when it comes to research or the provision of care for children with cancer or other catastrophic diseases... nor should it be. The hope is always to find a cure.

Are you wondering where I´m going with all of this? Well, let me tell you.

Last year, the International Mission Board´s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering fell $29 million short of its goal. As a result, the IMB cut its short-term (2-3-year) mission programs completely and has reduced the number of long-term personnel being sent to only those who meet particular strategic needs. The Board has delayed or turned down numbers of people who are called and willing to go... simply because they don´t have the funds to send them.

Now you tell me: Which one is more important?

Please don´t misunderstand me here. My brother died from cancer at age 17. I spent nine years working with children with cancer, and I´ve seen many of them lose that fight. It breaks my heart every single time. There aren´t may things I´m more passionate about than helping kids with cancer.

But I am more passionate about taking the Gospel to the nations.

Why? Because finding the cure for cancer won´t give anybody eternal life, but giving them the Good News of Christ will. Because finding the cure for cancer may give a kid fifty more years on this earth, but it won´t keep him from eternal death. And because finding the cure for cancer may let a kid experience adulthood, but it won´t let him experience real joy.

I´m not telling you to not give to childhood cancer research. To my way of thinking, there´s only one cause around more important than that one.

But the Gospel is eternally more important.

The cure for our real illness has already been found. Don´t let the poor economy keep you from getting it to those who need it.

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The Work Begins... (8/29/09 - 11/10/09)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our European friend Brooklynn took a walk with me the other day and, in a completely God-ordained appointment, I was able to share my testimony with her. She was very interested and asked some excellent questions. She is coming to our house for dinner next week, so please be in prayer that God would give us continued opportunities to share His Truth with her.

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. There have been quite a few distractions for us this week, as both Amy and Misty have had to deal with the health problems of relatives at home. Please be in prayer for their families and for them, that God would guard their hearts and minds with His peace that transcends all understanding and that they would be able to keep their eyes fixed on Him.

2. Pray that God would improve our Quechua so that we can share more of Who He is with our teachers. We have gradually improved but still only have minimal conversation skills. If not in Quechua, please ask that God would enable us to share Truth with them in Spanish.


Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I finally arrived in Bolivia in early September, and it was a joy to be reunited with my team again (I´m pictured here with Misty and Amy). My fellow team leader, Leah, and I spent a few weeks furnishing our house (my not-quite-finished bedroom is pictured below) and getting to know people and places in Sucre, our new home.

Sucre is in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, a city of about 250,000 people with an elevation of about 9000 feet. Though it has no American restaurants, there are plenty of modern conveniences, including a movie theater, a supermarket, and a small store where we can regularly get Reese´s Cups and Almond Joy (something that makes me very happy! :)). We have a washing machine, hot water, and high-speed Internet at our house (though "high-speed" is a relative term, so don´t go comparing it to your instantaneous YouTube downloads in the US :)). We are very grateful to the LORD for His provision and to Southern Baptists for allowing Him to use you to supply our needs.

In early October, Leah and I had to write up a master plan outlining the vision God has given us for the women´s team and how He has shown us to accomplish that vision. Writing that document really helped to clarify our work for us, and I hope that my sharing a little of it with you will help you to see and understand more clearly God´s work among the Quechua using our team. I pray that God will enable you to catch the vision for seeing this people group come to Christ and that you will be on your knees regularly begging the LORD to spread His Word like wildfire among them.

In order to engage a Quechua community where there is no evangelical presence, the plan is that our women´s team would enter that place after our Xtreme men´s team has already established a church there. But, because the Quechua are distinctly separated among gender lines, the likelihood is high that the women of the community will have never heard the Good News that the men´s team has brought.

The girls will make month-long trips into the communities, then return to Sucre for one-week rest breaks. While they are in the communities, they live and work with the women, seeking to develop relationships and to discern those who have an interest in the things of God.

They will share stories, in chronogical order, memorized in Quechua directly from the Bible, with the goal of having the women with whom they share the stories memorize them as well. Because the majority of the people, and especially the women, are unable to read, hiding the Word of God in their hearts through memorization is the only way to ensure they have it. (Incidentally, it´s the best way for you to have it, too!)

Our plan is to share 20-30 stories in order to evangelize the women. Then, once there are baptized female believers, we will share 10-15 stories in order to disciple them, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded and what it means to be the church.

From the start, they will be encouraged to share the stories they have learned with others who have not heard them and, once they have become baptized followers of Christ, that will be an expectation. If you learn a story from God´s Word, you share it with somebody who hasn´t heard it. Simple as that. You fulfill the Great Commission from the start.

We hope that, by implementing this "sharing God´s story" mindset in these new believers from the beginning, the LORD will call out missionaries from among those young churches to go to other Quechua communities and share the Gospel there. Because they don´t have to learn a new language or culture, we think the Quechua themselves will be far more effective ambassadors for Christ to their own people than we will ever be.

Are you wondering what your part is in all of this? Well, let me tell you. :)

In order to reach for Christ the 93,000 Quechua in our province alone, we need the help of Great Commission-minded believers in the States as well. We´re hoping to find seminary and university students willing to participate in summer or semester missions. We also have ideas for short-term volunteer trips which, though they would require great sacrifice on the part of the volunteers, would offer huge benefits as well. If you know of anyone who might be interested in directly participating in God´s work here, please e-mail me.

And, of course, the most important aspect of your involvement in the work here is your prayers. Please be lifting these people up to the Lord of the harvest.

"Then he said to his disciples, ´The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.´" (Matt. 9:37-38)

Opportunities Everywhere (8/7/09 - 8/28/09)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

The LORD has given us some amazing opportunities during our time here in Cochabamba for language school. In particular, we have met one young lady named Brooklynn, an 18-year-old girl from Europe. She is not a believer but, when we asked about her spiritual beliefs, she expressed that she was definitely interested in hearing about Jesus. We plan to have her over to our house this week to discuss things of the LORD. How exciting!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please be in prayer for Brooklynn, that her heart would be receptive and that her eyes would be opened to the Truth.

2. Pray for our team´s unity. While we are in language school, the four of us are living together in a small apartment and, of course, there are minor conflicts. Pray that we would learn to love each other selflessly and that we would serve one another in a way that would continually bring glory to Christ.

3. Continue to be in prayer for the Bolivia men´s team, as they begin investigating other communities in which to begin work. Pray that God would go before them and reveal where He wants them to go next.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

In August, I went on a European vacation... Johnson style. And, if you know my family at all, you know that´s very similar to National Lampoon´s Griswold family verson. :)

My parents currently live just outside London so, when my Xtreme Team training was completed, I took a few weeks to visit them. We spent half of that time in the UK and the other half touring through different places in the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, and Germany. I even got to see my old friend Adéla in Prague (she and I are pictured below). It was fantastic, as you can tell from the pictures!

But the point of this blog is not to make you jealous, I promise. :)

Ever since I attended orientation with the mission board, I have been constantly reminded of the importance of knowing the worldview, the fundamental beliefs, of the people among whom I´m working. From there, I can address the barriers that keep them from coming to Christ.

For example, most Quechua have an animistic worldview. They believe that everything - people, animals, plants, rocks - has a spirit and that everything is a spiritual matter. They believe that there are good spirits and evil spirits constantly acting upon them and that, ultimately, evil is more powerful than good. Therefore, if anything bad happens to them, they must somehow affect the balance of power in the spiritual, either by appeasing the spirit they have angered or by acquiring the help of a more powerful spirit. As you can probably imagine, all of this leads to a superstitious and fearful people who live a life of bondage.

But the European worldview is vastly different. Their fundamental belief system is called postmodernism, and it´s one of the most difficult to overcome.

Basically, most Europeans are too "smart" to believe a God even exists and, if He does, He is irrelevant. Their intellect demands that they reject the very existence of a higher power in favor of scientific explanations for spiritual phenomena and, while they can see value in some religious teachings, they don´t really claim to be followers of any religion. Centuries of apathy and blatant corruption in both Protestant and Catholic churches across their continent, followed by decades of Communist-mandated atheism in certain parts of it, has led to disbelief in a holy and all-powerful God Who transforms lives.

But, while I was in Europe, God gave me various opportunites to demonstrate Who He is to the people there. I wanted to share about one encounter in particular because it still resonates with me now.

My mom and I were waiting for a bus one morning when we struck up a conversation with a British lady named Bev. When Bev discovered that I lived in South America, she was fascinated and asked why I had moved there. I explained that I was a missionary called there to share the love of God with the people.

Bev thought about that for a moment, then said, "I think that´s wonderful. The people here are too smart for our own good. We don´t believe in anything but ourselves. We don´t believe there´s a God, nor do we think we need one. But we´re all just terrified of death. We haven´t figured out what to do with that one."

Wow. The entire postmodern worldview, concisely summarized in five sentences, straight from the mouth of a postmodern. It was enlightening... and it made me terribly sad.

But the most telling part of what Bev said was at the end. Postmoderns haven´t figured out what to do with the problem of death, and they walk around terrified because of it. Just like the Quechuas, who also spend their entire lives in bondage to that same fear. Maybe the two worldviews are not so vastly different after all.

And that realization brought to mind this passage:

"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Heb. 2:14-15)

The whole reason Jesus came is to free all mankind - the Quechua, the British, the American - from that fear of death and the bondage that comes with it.

Rejoice, O Christian! The grave has no power over you! You have been set free!

Learning to Lead (7/10/09 - 8/6/09)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our whole team is making excellent progress in our Quechua studies, though we still have a long way to go. We have only been attending classes for two weeks, but we can speak in increasingly complicated sentences and understand a little more each day. The One Who knows all languages deserves all the praise!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

I want to try to give a quick summary update on Quchumi. After discovering how the men there were taking advantage of our guys´ team, their team leader, Trent, along with Simón, a Quechua believer, went to speak with the men of the community. They carefully explained that the guys were there to work but, more importantly, they were there with something far more precious, the Word of God, and that the people of Quchumi were refusing to listen to it.

Initially, the men of Quchumi were repentant and asked for the guys to stay, saying that they wanted to listen to the stories. But Trent asked them to think about it without the guys there and gave them a calling card so that they could call to ask the guys to return if they really wanted that.

The men have not called to ask for our team to return, so Trent and the guys have made the decision to investigate other communities in our province and to begin working there. This has been highly disappointing, but God has been faithful to encourage the men´s team and our team as well through this very difficult time. I am convinced that He is not done with Quchumi, but we do not know if we will be involved in the harvest there.

1. Please pray for continued encouragement for the guys´ team and their leaders. Pray that God would grant them wisdom on the next community where He wants His Word to go.

2. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we plan the next step for our women´s team as well.

3. Pray for God to continue to work among the people of Quchumi, particularly the women. Because of distinct gender separations in Quechua communities, most of the women there didn´t get to hear the stories our guys´ team shared. As a direct result of the men´s rejection, these women have not had the opportunity to hear the Truth. Pray that God will take His powerful Word to those women.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I´ve been a leader for as long as I can remember.

I´ve held offices in various organizations. I´ve directed my high school band. I´ve led band groups in college.

Over the course of twenty years of employment, I´ve also done lots of things that made me a leader. I´ve been a manager and a teacher. I´ve supervised employees of all ages. I´ve taught all kinds of medical professionals. I´ve precepted students who wanted to learn what I had to teach and students who didn´t. I´ve made decisions that could improve or worsen a patient´s health.

And, for the last three years that I spent in the US, I had the privilege of being a Sunday School teacher. Each week, as I shared the lesson, ten to twenty women listened to what I taught and, hopefully, used it to apply God´s Word to their lives.

So I know how to be a leader... at least according to the model I´ve always seen. I just never realized how far that corporate American model of leadership is from the example Jesus gave us.

It´s funny to me now how ready I thought I was for this job. I do believe God used those past experiences to prepare me, but I learn every day how inadequate my methods are for His work.

A few years ago, the LORD taught me a very important lesson. He had laid a particular section of Scripture so heavily on my heart that I prayed over it for twelve hour straight, but I had no idea how to implement the things I was studying. I said, "LORD, this is all well and good, but I don´t know what You expect me to do about it."

What He told me was profound: "What I expect is for you to obey Me and to teach others to o the same."

Oh. That sort of made the task manageable. Obey God, and teach others to obey Him. Sure, it would be difficult but not impossible. God doesn´t call us to an impossible task.

That still sticks with me, even though it´s been three years since the LORD revealed it. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it while I was in the States. But then I moved to South America, and the LORD showed me just how far I had to go to become the kind of leader He wants me to be.

When I got to know the women (pictured above) who now comprise my team, I began to struggle with being their leader. I mean, REALLY struggling. Because I realized that I had always tried to lead in a different way than Jesus taught and, after 20-plus years of that, trying to conform to a Biblical model was just flat-out HARD.

But I continue to learn daily how He wants me to lead, and I pray that He uses my life and my feeble efforts to bring Himself increasing glory. Here are a few of the lessons I am learning:

1. My primary responsibility to those I lead is to serve them.

"Jesus called them together and said, ´You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.´" (Mk. 10:42-45)

I have always had authority by virtue of a title - manager, pharmacist, teacher. Even here, my title of "team leader" gives me authority, and the LORD showed me how I was lording that authority over my team, demanding their obedience with my words and not with my actions.

But Jesus´ approach was entirely different:

"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples´ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him... When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ´Do you understand what I have done for you?´ he asked them. ´You call me "Teacher" and "Lord," and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another´s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.´" (Jn. 13:3-5, 12-15)

The very God of all creation washed the dirty feet of twelve nobodies. Why? To set them an example. If I want my team members to obey what I ask of them, I must serve them. I must first be slave of all.

2. Being a leader does not mean being perfect.

I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but just hear me out. How many of you have put on an act when you went to a church service? Seriously, haven´t we all? I remember so many days when I drove home after being with the church, and I was just exhausted from my Miss Perfect Christian act. I mean, I was a Sunday School teacher. I HAD to be perfect, or I might lead someone in my class astray.

Then I moved here, and I lived with these women on my team... in the jungle... 24/7... for months. There was no hiding the fact that I wasn´t perfect.

But do you know what happened? I began to realize that being honest with them about my struggles gave me a level of accountability that forced me to submit to the LORD´s work in those sinful areas of my life. And that ultimately made me a better leader... and closer to that perfect believer I had always pretended to be.

"We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." (Col. 1:28)

3. Every member of the body truly needs every other member.

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Rom. 12:4-5)

Just because I´ve been given a title of "team leader" does not mean I´m more important, and it doesn´t mean that I should never follow the example of the young women on my team. Just because I have the spiritual gift of teaching does not mean I have all the answers or that I can learn nothing from the others.

"But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be." (1 Cor. 12:18)

God has designed our team exactly as He wanted it, and each of us needs all the others in order to complete what God has called us to do. If I could just get over myself and realize how desperately I need the others, we´d all be a lot better off.

I hope these lessons I´m learning will be beneficial to you as well. Do you realize you´ve also been given the command to obey and to teach others to do the same? We call it the Great Commission.

"´Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surey I am with you always, to the very end of the age.´" (Matt. 28:19-20)