Not For Sale - Stop Paying for Slavery Tour |
Our team has recently found out about Not For Sale, which is a Campaign to fight the global slave trade and end human trafficking. Not for Sale is conducting a tour called Stop Paying for Slavery which is a multidimensional, multimedia, multi-day experience aiming to bring together education, law enforcement, faith communities, corporations, consumers and all justice seekers in the fight to end modern-day slavery.
It seems that the emerging generation is becoming a lot more aware of social justice issues such as fair trade, traffiking and slavery. That's a good thing - however It doesn't take much to feel overwhelmed by the transformation that needs to take place. We're going to be attending a Stop Paying for Slavery Tour event in our area and we're hoping it might give us some practical ideas on how we can make a difference. Below is an extract from the Not For Sale web site, which gives us an indication that each and every one of us has a part to play:
"Every coin in your pocket and dollar in your bank has a face value – a precise amount that is listed on your bills and coins. But for every coin and dollar you have there is another, more significant face value. The face of the young boy mining tantalum in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the face of the little girl farming cocoa beans in Cote D’ Ivoire, the face of a father making bricks in India, the face of the mother selling her body in Cambodia. These faces are hidden behind company logos, corporate brands, and even “Made in the USA” tags
“Stop Paying for Slavery Tour” educates corporations and consumers on the true face value of our dollars. Our everyday actions can have monumental repercussions for those in captivity. We will see change once we not only address the supply side of the equation, but also the demand side: the corporations using cotton harvested by small children forced into labor, and the consumers who complicitly purchase the t-shirts.
Each of us has purchasing power that can perpetuate or end the modern-day slave trade. The “Stop Paying for Slavery Tour” will educate, enlighten, and inspire to that end. The tour illuminates each of our invisible connections to the slave trade, revealing the true face value of our dollars. Every person has a role in the modern-day Abolitionist movement. Come ready to be engaged, and leave ready to take action."
Check out the links below to find tour dates and locations in your area.
Stop Paying For Slavery Tour 2010 | Dates & Locations| Promo Video
-AW
During a recent trip to India's centre we met Frank, a lively German man with grey hair and wisdom lines around his eyes. For every story of God’s impeccably timed faithfulness in the past forty years he’s also got a joke that will make you laugh (or roll your eyes). His journey with God has resulted in nearly a thousand children currently living and learning in three locations, and thousands who have come before. Prem Sewa.
The kids speak for themselves - they love school, the day's structure, eating three meals, and space to play marbles, cricket and to skip rope. They regularly meet for worship and prayer with eyes tightly shut and arms lifted high. Simply coming to Prem Sewa for some is their biggest dream fulfilled - and then they’re offered education and are encouraged to go even further. Frank has handed over the school’s directorship to Bapu, who once showed up from a village as a shy nine year old and is now a well-educated and compassionate man who understands the childrens' needs and has great aspirations for the school.
We spent three weeks capturing the stories of Prem Sewa on film: a man who followed God to the desert and saw flowers and schools emerge, a large work passed on to indigenous leadership, and the endless stories of boys and girls given opportunity to see anew. The story absorbed us as well - we left Prem Sewa impacted by God's faithfulness and generosity towards His children.
For more information check out: www.premsewa.org
-BD
When I was about 5 years old and in kindergarten I showed my teacher a drawing I had just made of Goldy Locks and the Three Bears. At first I was a bit frightened by her response because she made this long-winded and loud gasping noise like I had created something blasphemous. She then told me how good she thought it was. I was relieved. It was a bit like this growing up.
I've always loved to draw, paint and create things and it came pretty naturally for me. I continued to develop drawing skills throughout my childhood and teen years. It's quite sad to admit but probably 50% of the time i spent learning to draw was during Math, Science and English class. I had this idea that I was going to be an animator or a children's book illustrator someday and figured I didn't need to worry about subjects that weren't relevant to my future.
In 2006, I got connected with a ministry called Create International. The goal of this ministry is to communicate Jesus to unreached people groups around the world using audio/visual tools. It's a sobering truth that the west is continuing to re-evangelize itself while spending very little effort in comparison on places still needing to hear the Gospel for the very first time! This had always been a concern and burden on my heart since I left high school and I was so excited to hear of a ministry with a passion to reach the unreached using media.
Create was primarily producing videos when I joined, but was slowly integrating visual arts into their ministry as another way to communicate. It's been a privilege to work in an office with some really talented and committed people. Since joining, I've been able to make comic books, posters and viral videos all with an evangelistic message for various language groups found in the 10/40 window.
It's been a huge learning curve for me as I've taken on these various projects not necessarily knowing how to tackle them. The process starts with a long-term missionary who expresses a desire to have evangelistic tools custom-made to assist them in their ministry in a particular nation. In one situation, we decided to make a short comic book about the prodigal son for young people in an unreached area. I went back to this story told in Luke and prayed about how to make this story contextual for a teenager living in there. I researched their city, their way of dressing, how they relate to one another culturally, etc. Then I came up with the characters and sketched them out, inked them, scanned them and then coloured them in photo shop. Next, I added the word bubbles and then the English text. Finally, we sent the files back to our contacts and they had them and retyped in the local language and professionally printed out. And now this simple comic which illustrates the Father's love, is being distributed all over the that country by the thousands, inviting them into a relationship with the Father through Jesus.
Every project I have had the privilege of working on has been unique in style and format because each one is tailor-made to speak to a different cultural audience. I've done projects in PhotoShop, or hand painted with water colours, and right now I'm working on something that is combining hand painting, photoshop and video. The projects are always different, but I guess one thing I'm continuing to learn and grow in is being sensitive to hearing God during the process and allowing Him to give me input and direction as I research and create things.
Its awesome to think how God knew what He was doing in my life while I was growing up. He was the one that gave me artistic ability and a desire to be a part of bringing His Kingdom to earth. As I've awkwardly followed His leading, he's brought me to a place where I can be creative in the context of missions. It's amazing and humbling to look back and see without a doubt that God actually took time to think about me and who I am, and find a place that I can do what I love for His Glory.
-NM
Ywam New Zealand Ship Tour - Testimony |
The YWAM NZ Ship tour - what an experience! For most, the visit from those involved in the tour was short. It was exciting, inspirational, encouraging and informative, but still brief. However, for a small, lucky few it was like a dam opening up. I am privileged to be one of those few.
You see for the last (maybe) three years, I have been consumed by the thought of evangelism - the excitement, the experiences, and of course the prospect of spreading the gospel to the ends of the Earth. But I'm not going to lie, I'm intelligent and the idea of University is strong. I would absolutely love to enter that swarm of academia, intelligence and people that have the same drive and spirit to expand their minds. This actually suits missionary work perfectly; doctors are always needed, team management people and such, people who have the skills not only to deliver the word of Christ but to deliver some sort of assistance at the same time. So what was the problem? Well I don't want to be a doctor. In fact, although the idea of University is overwhelmingly attractive, no course in any university even remotely interests me. I actually want to get into 3D Animation, which requires no qualification higher than an advanced diploma. AS well as this, what skills could a 3D Animator bring to someone on the other side of the world in order to give them the chance to experience the love of Christ?
And so I felt stuck, stranded, left out to dry. I had absolutely no idea what i was going to do.
And yet out of all of those involved in the Ship Tour; out of all of those involved in various subsections of YWAM; the people who ended up at my youth group, were those involved in Create Emerge. In fact when they said what they were involved in, about five of my fellow youthgroupians turned and stared at me. It was most certainly a God-send. Here was not only an idea but an actual group who merged two opposing sides of my life. A group that took my passion for design, for movement and for media, and squished it with my unrelenting thoughts of missionary work. It was an opportunity. A turning point in my life. A revelation of sorts.
And so the dam has let go my passions. It has managed to take my ever-widening life and channel it in a direction, in one direction. For some, myself included, we have had these huge events that change our lives; events like the acceptance of Christ, maybe Parachute, or a mission trip. But for me, the event that changed me, the one that gave me hope was an hour session with YWAM. What an experience.
-KW
I grew up in Canada with an electric guitar and a hand held tape recorder. In high school I used to sit around and wait for ideas, be it riffs or choruses or verses, and if something came I'd quickly hit the big red button so I wouldn't forget it. Never getting around to working these ideas into actual songs ensured these ideas were kept “magnetic” and useless.
I finally started finishing music in first year of university because I was forced to do so for a song writing class. At the same time as taking this course, I was taking a recording course, and that combination set me off in the direction of my dream vocation - making music full time. I went to an audio recording school the next year and learned about the technicality of it all, but I was still much more concerned with musical composition than circuits and signal flow. When I got home, my parents sacrificially helped me buy a recording studio and for the next year I sat around with my cousin in the studio making our dream album (this was my main purpose for buying a studio), while supplementing my income by taking some clients. All I could possibly get wasn’t quite enough. Eventually I found my way onto a ‘missions media’ team with a bunch of amazing people, calling themselves Create Emerge, who actually had some use for what I had to offer in music composition and audio engineering. The only problem was they were going to be located in Australia and I couldn’t take my studio gear out there - too expensive to ship. Thus, I’ve been using portable gear, like a laptop with a couple of audio programs, a keyboard controller (like a mini-piano), and a microphone or two.
Now, a good amount of the time is spent sitting in an office with my headphones on, plugging away at that keyboard, making layer after layer of instrumental music for whatever video production the team is working on.
I’ve had the chance to work on a pretty wide range of projects, from full length dramatic films presenting Jesus to specific people groups which required music in a culturally appropriate style, to much more stylistically familiar music for projects intended to inspire a young Western audience to engage in missions. It’s always been about finding a balance. At first I was a bit frustrated with the idea of needing to write music to please the ears of people. I wanted to pursue creating music that might just disrupt the listener because something about it sounds fresh and new. While I still have the desire to pursue ‘brave new waves’, I have found that there is a lot of creativity needed in the balance of it all. If there isn’t something new and inspiring in a soundtrack piece, it gets boring pretty quick - but if there’s too much sonically going on at the wrong moment you’ve lost the audience’s concentration on the visuals. Finding something fresh while still being relatively minimalist is probably for me the hardest way to approach writing, but it seems to produce the best results for what we do. ‘Minimal’ is relative, and there have been plenty of opportunities for me to explore that have translated well to the screen, even providing opportunities for the video editors to go to a new level of creativity.
I’m happy to say songwriting is becoming more of a discipline for me. On a Monday morning I try to come in expecting to get something down, and I think my quality of work has improved because of this.
As far as music composition goes, I mainly use a program called Reason, which contains nearly all the elements for a piece of music that you could want . For example, I don’t play drums, but with this software and the keyboard controller, I am now able to program a beat to a song with all the nuances, to the point where a listener wouldn’t know that it wasn’t a real live drummer - AND I can adjust any timing issues I might have had in the recording pass. I’m also able to use instruments that are well beyond my price range, like a piano from Abbey Road studio, or a Hammond B4 organ through a warm, gushy Leslie speaker cabinet.
For audio mixing I have a program called Pro Tools. The video editors give me their audio files once the timeline of the video is set, and I put it into Pro Tools and use the bag of tricks that the program offers to bring all the levels to a nice place and compensate for any poor audio quality
The best bit about Pro Tools for me at the moment is that it integrates with Reason really well, so you can be working on a ‘song in a box’ in Reason while bringing in acoustic elements through Pro Tools (eg. recording an Egyptian oud melody, acoustic guitar, singing, beat boxing, narrating).
I didn't just join this team because of the opportunity to make music. I joined because God, through this team, was opening my heart up to his love for me, and consequently for the world. I didn’t have a lot of passion for the Kingdom or a clear idea of what it was all about when I first joined, but through the relationships that were formed around a great purpose, I couldn’t help but eventually begin to get energized by the Perpetrator towards the purpose of bringing the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I’m hopeful that God will continue to use what I have to offer in music, but am grateful that in the past four years of being a part of this team that it hasn’t been all about music for me. New passions, interests, and skills have grown in me alongside the music, that I didn’t see coming. These new things have rounded out my life experience and given me more to reinvest into the Kingdom - and I know with God there can only be more of that coming.
-CD
Since our last entry the Pacific Link has left the Queen's Wharf in Wellington and is on it's way down to Dunedin. During its brief stay in the 'Windy City' our Youth Connection Team made it down to the dock for a tour, and we got to see first hand the amazing work that Marine Reach is involved in througout the South Pacific.
You can check out the full details of the ship and the Marine Reach ministry at www.marinereachministries.com, but here are some interesting insights into life onboard the Pacific Link that caught our attention. For example, how about doing 1 load of laundry per week? For a colour separator like me that would be a challenge! Then there's the water situation. There is a desalintor on board that can create 1 ton of fresh water per day, but when you're sailing to a pacific Island and sharing that between all the crew for drinking, showering, and everything else, that means the showers can be limited to 60 seconds per person. The heart of the ship though is the health clinic. When the ship docks in Fiji, Samoa, or other Islands, the clinic becomes the main hive of activity with people coming from all over to receive free treatment from the Marine Reach staff. There is one main operating room and a small waiting room. The operating room specializes in opthemology and dentistry but has many resources to provide people with primary health care as well. If people come with eye problems they are also able to receive a pair of donated glasses.
Above: Images from the Pacific Link Open Day in Wellington
The amazing thing is, Marine Reach New Zealand is giving their ship away to YWAM Australia to help them start a nautical ministry to reach out to Papua New Guinea in a similar way. In doing this Marine Reach have embarked on an inspiring voyage of faith, trusting that God will provide another ship. If you want to be a part of the Pacific Link farewell in New Zealand you are welcome to come tour the ship during it's "Open Days" as it docks the following locations:
Ywam New Zealand Ship Tour |
Scheduled for Oct - Dec. ‘09
Believing for another wave of young Kiwis to the nations
A Voice & A Wave In 1982 a voice that challenged and spurred the Western body of Christ to integrity and action, became only an echo as the person behind it died and was buried in the ground. The church reeled at the news of the deaths of Keith Green, his children, and his friends. After the initial shock, Keith’s wife, Melody, felt like God wanted to use Keith’s life and testimony beyond the horrible tragedy. “The Keith Green Memorial Tour” soon began. His call of missional ‘no compromise’ echoed not only in North America but was carried on a Mercy Ship called Anastasis around New Zealand in 1983. The Anastasis visited many ports calling people to obey the Great Commission, and resulted in an unprecedented wave of young people that responded to ‘the call to go’. The following year saw missions training programs and bible colleges in NZ packed to capacity and over 1000 young New Zealanders launched into foreign missions. New Zealand became the world’s number one missionary sending nation per capita. It is from this historical precedence that the Ship Tour grows. The discipleship call has not changed, although the voices have, and YWAM New Zealand & Marine Reach Ministries are gearing up to sound the call again, 26 years later.
The Ship From October to December, 2009, the ‘Pacific Link’ ship will be a hub, traveling to 8 different port towns/cities in New Zealand. It will spend about a week in each port, with a variety of events planned around it... school group tours, on-board presentations, and city-wide youth events. In the three to four weeks before the ship docks, there will be teams serving in the community, and presenting a missions call in Christian high schools, churches, youth groups, and young adults groups,
The Tour Vision To engage the youth of New Zealand in a mission focused way of life, providing them with training opportunities, challenging their faith and connecting them to the poor and needy of the world.
We believe that God wants to champion His call on every single young Kiwi to make a profound difference in the lives of others. The tour will present a biblical foundation for missions in every sphere; give young people a current visual image of what missions looks like around the world; and provide a gateway for them to engage in missions ac- tivity within their local community and the world abroad.
The Create Emerge Role To facilitate, train, and provide media resources for the ‘Youth Connection Teams’ which will be focussed on giving missions presentations in Christian high schools, churches, young adults groups, and youth groups.
Equip - Preparing your team for outreach |
Every year, thousands of teams set off on short term trips to share the gospel. Language and cultural barriers can make clear communication of the gospel incredibly difficult. What if we could equip them to witness in an engaging and culturally relevant way? Equip makes sure to provide outreach teams with the tools and information necessary for them to be as effective as possible for the time they are on the field.
Eliza, an Australian missionary, testifies: "On our recent outreach to Jakarta, we spent one day with a family in a slum. We showed them the “More than Dreams” video of a young Muslim lady who had a vision of Isa Al Masih (Jesus) and became a believer. Two of the ladies decided to give their lives to Christ."
“are we doing all that we can to make the Gospel heard and understood?”
Last century, pioneers began to equip teams with tracts and a hand powered cassette tape player. Today, teams can fill their iPods, laptops, MP4 players and mobile phones with evangelistic films and gospel messages. Our Equip training package helps people to embrace these new technologies in order to reach the people in their heart language.
JoAnne reports: "When we got to Reny’s house, he and his Muslim family were not as cheery as usual. They got the notice that their community would be demolished in 2009 and all residents would be forced off the land. As the perfect combat tool against hopelessness, we were armed and ready with Create International’s Refleksi film in Indonesian on our laptop. The movie, which they really connected with, was a segueway to talking about Isa Al Masih. Reny’s family thanked us for telling them more about Jesus’ news, which they had never been told before."
To find out more and watch the Equip promo video click here
If you’ve managed to get a hold of the Engage DVDs, then you’ve probably met Becca. She’s the birth attendant who sings. I thought I’d give you a little update, in her own very articulate words, about what she’s been up to over the past year. She recently returned from a trip with her team which took them to South East Asia as well as West Africa for a number of months. Here’s a story from her time in Africa:
It’s good to be here. It’s really good. There are gorgeous tree-covered mountains that surround the city (that feels like a big village with dirt roads and visible waterfalls) and we’re getting the students started at two hospitals in the area. The first birth we assisted with was a mother who is living with HIV. Hope continues to be confessed in exile. The hospital is small with a very low level of equipment, but the midwives we work with are full of life.
I was checking on the staff and students in the labour room who were assisting the midwife, and arrived just in time to see a baby boy born blue and limp. We rushed him to the theatre and did our best effort at resuscitation despite only having the equipment that our team had in our labour room bag. After 30 minutes he took his first spontaneous breath and after an hour was transferred to a larger hospital. I went to visit him and his mother, a beautiful woman called Sabina, at the regional hospital and he was in the intensive care unit, but breathing really well. The nurses said he had greatly improved in the night and have a lot of hope that he will recover.
There’s really nothing as terrible as seeing a baby born without the great cry of deliverance that is meant to come. This week I’ve been thinking about Jesus, born into the world in such vulnerability - God’s great confession of hope, His own bearing of a child in exile. The students that helped with the resuscitation and vocally interceded the whole time caught a clear glimpse of why we do this - of the battle that surrounds each birth and the invitation of God to be people that will engage those terrible moments with hope and compassion and action.”
-CD
Reverse The Curse - Marion |
A dance studio inside a portable building was the venue for one of our latest Emerge presentations. The hosts of this particular gathering was a 55+ group, a group not renowned so much for its dancing, at least as far as we know, but rather for its commitment to support and pray for missions.
It’s not surprising then that we were invited to share some of the stories of people God is using in inspiring ways around the world. We were able to give them follow up reports on stories they had already been tracking with and praying for, share with them a little of our recent journey including the completed Engage Missions Mobilisation Package and give them a sneak preview of our latest story from Cambodia.
Our latest story is the journey of Marion, a 70 year old Grandma from Adelaide, Australia who God has called to set up a fruit drying factory called RTC (Reverse The Curse) to employ landmine victims in Cambodia. This is a lady who previously had no experience in business or drying fruit. Despite this God has led her each step of the way and at times given specific details on how to solve problems as they arise.
Get this for example, she needed a machine to dry fruit, however to buy the machines would have cost more than she could afford. So, God showed her a creative way to modify air-conditioning units so that the warm air being produced while cooling the office could be harnessed and used to dry the fruit.
RTC currently employs 25 landmine victims who are viewed in Cambodian society as having got what they deserve through karma and most often end up begging on the street or making next to nothing in some sort of labour. Not long after beginning this project a few years ago, her staff began to ask about Jesus, and soon they were asking her about having a church. Now, most of her staff are coming back to their place of work on Sunday mornings for a church service, and deeper transformation is taking place. The confidence level of these people has increased enormously, the burden of supporting their families is dramatically assisted, and there is a real atmosphere of love,trust and family in the factory. Marion hopes to eventually employ 100 workers. She’s recently bought a farm and has plans to build a new factory, accommodation for workers and a church.
This is a story which is still in what we call ‘rough cut’ stage of production (you know, the stage with lots of disclaimers) but despite that, it has had quite an impact. I’m sure the 55+ / 70 year old grandma connection may have had something to do with it in our latest presentation, however I have a sneaking suspicion that this example of radical obedience is going to inspire young and old alike.
For more information about this story check out the RTC site:
www.reversethecurse-cambodia.com
-AW
Can't Lose Journey - Jackie Pullinger |
Jackie Pullinger is one of those modern day ‘ordinary heroes’ who have greatly inspired me in my journey. Her voice can be heard in the ‘Voices Intro’ segment on ENGAGE, saying “I’m longing for those who will be rescued out of slavery to go back to those who are still in slavery”.
As a young woman, Jackie knew she was called to missionary work but was turned down by every organization she applied to, being told she was too young and inexperienced. So, on the advice of a trusted minister, she bought a one-way ticket on the cheapest boat she could find, and prayed about where she should disembark. Eight stops later, she felt God prompting her to get off in Hong Kong. She was quickly moved by the plight of criminals, prostitutes and drug addicts in the infamous ‘Kowloon Walled City ’, one of the poorest and most dangerous places in the world - a ‘no man’s land’ which was not policed and largely under the control of gangs.
In a recent San Franciso Chronicle article, Jackie describes her beginnings…”I walked around Hong Kong and saw people dying, kids in the street, old people with begging bowls,” she recalled. “I thought maybe I could manage one street.” She chose that street and quickly began distributing food to the poor and taking them to hospitals when in need of a doctor. She also stepped into the middle of gang fights, pleading for the brawlers to stop. “ 1
Today, more than 40 years later, she still ministers in Hong Kong through ‘St. Stephen’s Society’ www.ststephenssociety.com/flash/index.html , the ministry she founded . According to the same article, “Jackie Pullinger doesn’t look like a typical Christian missionary. Popping out of a car in traffic-choked streets, she wears stylish sunglasses and long strings of pink beads over a sparkling blouse…Now in her early 60s, Pullinger has spent the past 41 years picking gang members, prostitutes and heroin junkies off Hong Kong’s streets and steering them into rehabilitation programs. ‘It’s a journey, a can’t-lose journey,’ she said.” 1
She has left a huge legacy, rescuing hundreds from lives of bondage to drug addiction. Although St Stephens Society is explicitly Christian, the success rate of their intensive prayer-driven rehabilitation programs have won favour with the Hong Kong government, which donated the land where their new centre was recently built. “Today, Pullinger organizes weekly meetings in the roughest Hong Kong neighborhoods and offers shelter and rehabilitation to 200 heroin addicts, prostitutes, street kids and gang members.” 1
Many of the rehabilitated former drug addicts have since become staff members with St Stephens Society or missionaries in other parts of Asia - those who were rescued out of slavery are going back to those who are still in slavery. Jackie’s inspiring biography, entitled ‘Chasing the Dragon ’, is available from Christian bookstores or online.
1 ‘Hong Kong Missionary Uses Intensive Prayer to Help Heroin Addicts’ , by Jacob Baynham, San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, December 14, 2007
-KB
Preemptive Love Coalition |
About three years ago I had the privilege of travelling to a mountainous region of the Middle East often referred to as Kurdistan or literally ‘The Land of the Kurds”. I spent about a month being immersed in Kurdish culture, including multiple sessions of drinking chai (tea) with the locals and listening to their stories…of which they have many. I fell in love with the people of this hospitable but very “non-touristy” corner of the world.
The Kurds have a long history of being despised and mistreated . In fact, a well known Kurdish proverb says “The mountains are our only friend”. Over the last twenty or so years, the Kurds have periodically been in the news, especially during the 1980’s and early ‘90s when Saddam Hussein’s forces carried out a series of 281 chemical attacks and experiments on the Kurds of northern Iraq. The most devastating attack occurred in 1988 in the town of Halabja, killing thousands of people, most of them civilians. It’s estimated that 3,200-5,000 people died on the spot and 7,000-10,000 were injured. Thousands more died of horrific complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack. In fact, experts believe that those 281 chemical attacks have contributed to the high rate of life-threatening heart disease among children in the region today.
So, when I recently heard about a couple of guys who are currently living in Iraq and using some really innovative methods to make a difference in the lives of Iraqi children who are suffering from heart conditions, I was eager to find out more. They call themselves The Preemptive Love Coalition and here’s what they say about themselves on their website www.preemptivelove.org
“We are a few Americans living as civilians in Iraq. No ammo. No guns. Just armed with love and the profits from your purchases , we give away what we call ”preemptive love.” We want to do something to contribute to the future of these wonderful people. In order to accomplish that, we sell hand-made Iraqi shoes that are truly amazing. We use all the proceeds to fund heart surgeries for children who would otherwise die without some sort of outside help.”
-KB
Parable - Land In Process |
I grew up in an area with very abundant produce farms; especially berries. You'll often see signs inviting the public to drop by a farm and pick for yourself, and once you've filled your buckets you pay by weight. There seems to always be enough for the farmer to be able to offer this and to make the shipments to their major buyers as well.
I've also travelled to parts of the world that seem completely inhospitable to organic life – the earth looks cracked and dead, there hasn't been a drop of rain for months, and if you wanted you could
scoop a handful and put it in a shaker to salt your food. You marvel at its starkness (like the salt flats of Utah, the Arctic Tundra, the Sahara Desert), and then you get out of there.
Jesus compares us to land in Mark 4, in the well known parable of the Sower. The farmer seems to scatter seed everywhere, regardless of the land's quality. There's the seed on the path where the birds decimate everything, there's the rocky ground, the land with thorns, and then there's the good soil that has these varying crop yields – 30, 60, or 100 times what was sown. Wouldn't a good farmer abandon the infertile land, identify the soil with the highest production capability and concentrate her efforts there?
Potential - Humanity in Process
A farmer would have to be reckless to sow valuable seed as indiscriminately as portrayed in this parable. God would have to be recklessly hopeful to invest himself in humanity so indiscriminately at the highest cost. But God isn't reckless. His hope is informed by his infinite intelligence. He created us in His image and sees clearly the potential of every one of us that has lived and is living. The seed God sows is His likeness – it's the Word – Jesus, the Son of God. He's so confident in the seed's life-giving power and our potential to grow, that He claims in Isaiah 55, '(my Word) will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire'.
God is going to do what he set out to do in the creation, and is committed to co-operating with humanity in this vision from beginning to end (Gen 1:28, Mat 28:19-20). His Kingdom, this fertile land all over the earth that is to be a dwelling place for God and man together, is coming. As we choose to open up the ground of our own hearts, He comes. As we choose to extend the Word beyond ourselves to the ground he leads us to cultivate, He comes.
Will we co-labour with this recklessly hopeful, loving God to produce in ourselves and in all of creation the full potential of the harvest? This is our commission.
-CD
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