Mission Meanderings

This is our final weekend in Vermont.  This makes it bitter sweet.  At MTI they taught us about saying a good goodbye.  This last week has been a succession of goodbyes.  Last Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to our Newport Fellowship who all gathered around us to say “God Speed.”  This Sunday morning St. Luke’s in Chester will send us off.  Last Sunday they let us share about our ministry at each service.  Then I was asked to lead the music this Sunday – that is a huge blessing for me.  Do pray! Some of the songs are very traditional.  I will be introducing them to a new song that I had sung at our picnic this last summer for St. Lukes.  It was written by Dawn Rodgers and Eric Wyse.  Eric was my beloved organist in Nashville whose gifts have me in awe whenever I hear him play.  Let me share the words.

Wonderful, merciful Savior
Precious Redeemer and Friend
Who would have thought that a Lamb
Could rescue the souls of men
Could rescue the souls of men

Counselor, Comforter, Keeper
Spirit we long to embrace
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost the way
Oh, we hopelessly lost the way

You are the One that we praise
You are the One we adore
You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

Almighty, infinite Father
Faithfully loving Your own
Here in our weakness You find us
Falling before Your throne
Oh, we’re falling before Your throne

You are the One that we praise
You are the One we adore
You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

As we leave it is with a great sense of weakness and yet of God’s huge strength.  Says another song, “I was lost but now I’m found.”  In Jesus is LIFE in all its fullness.  Wherever we go he goes before.  So, I am always “found!”

Please pray for traveling mercies, sweet fellowship upon arrival and fruitful ministry amongst our Peruvian family.  As they say down there – A DIOS, vaya con Dios.

This week I was executed in a simulation exercise.  The situation was simple.  A group of missionaries were taken hostage and before rescue the insurgents executed certain ones.   The real purpose of the exercise was to see how we would react, respond, make decisions and who would exercise leadership in a highly stressed situation.  I have to be clear – this was a very well done simulation and the emotions were real.  This went beyond play-acting.  The folk at MTI are extraordinarily skilled.  They have moved us beyond cliché and opinion into emotion and transparency.  Emotion and transparency are essential ingredients to community, especially on the mission field.

What then did it feel like?  Firstly, I was at my age “expendable.”  Secondly there was the confidence that as Jesus has gone before so can I, in faith, follow him.  Jesus trusted the Father.  Paul’s axiom “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” makes sense because our faith is founded upon the resurrection. In other words, there was a calm sense of this–the simulation had become real.  When I did not die – it was after all a simulation – my sense was one of God’s grace.  I have another day to live.

What about Polly?  Interestingly she also was executed.  They had divided us into two groups.  Her feelings were not dissimilar to mine.  We have had a wonderful life.

Will we be put into this kind of situation as missionaries?  Who knows!  The point is that we can only live a day at a time.  We cannot live simply with clichés and opinions.  We have emotions that need to be expressed and, God willing, be redeemed.  We are called to a transparency that is also a purifying, where that which is not of Christ may be taken to the cross and there abandoned.  That transparency is the essential ingredient in true Christian community and fellowship.  This is true on the mission field or in the local church.

I love this group of young and energetic, vibrant and dedicated young people.  I am so looking forward to hearing their stories as God uses them in the years ahead.  We have, all of us, another day to live.  To live for Christ.  How will we use it?

I Corinthians 13

Missionary-Style:

If I speak with the tongue of a national, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal.

If I wear the national dress and understand the culture and all forms of etiquette, and if I copy mannerisms so that I could pass for a national, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor, and if I spend my energy without reserve, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long hours of language study, and is kind to those who mock his accent; love does not envy those who stayed home; love does not exalt his home culture, is not proud of his national reputation,

Does not boast about the way we do it back home, does not seek his own ways, is not easily provoked into telling about the beauty of his home country, does not think evil about this culture.

Love bears all criticism about his home culture, believes all good things about this new culture, confidently anticipates being at home in this place, endures all inconveniences.

Love never fails; but where there is cultural anthropology, it will fail; where there is contextualization, it will cease; where there is linguistics, it will vanish.

For we know only part of the culture and we minister to only part.

But when Christ is reproduced in this culture, then our inadequacies will be insignificant.

When I was in America I spoke like an American, I understood as an American, I thought as an American; but when I left America, I became a learner of a new culture!

Now we adapt to this culture awkwardly; but He will live in it intimately; now I speak with a strange accent, but He will speak to the heart.

And now these three remain: cultural adaptation, language study and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

(Author Unknown)

Mision San Pablo - Lima

Polly and I are now in Colorado at the Mission Training Institute with thirty-seven other folk and many of their children all being trained, stretched and taught about the mission field.  What an amazing gathering.

First off, I am the oldest in the group.  There are a very few of us in out fifties and sixties.  Most are young and in their twenties and thirties.  There is an all pervading youthful energy and enthusiasm that makes this especially invigorating.  From my years as a parish priest I know the value of youth and young adults.  They are lively and enthusiastic, often vocal and ready to change the world.  In the parish they were a minority usually and all too often “controlled” by the “elders.”  Here they are the majority.  Their contribution is awesome and we are only at the end of day one!  There are going to be a full three weeks of this.  My prayer is that I become young again in spirit.  I know that my hair will still be grizzled and my body far less than youthful, but I pray to learn from them and be infected by their vibrancy.

Some stories:

We rode from the airport with a young man who is going to Afghanistan.  He will be in a town in a valley where he wants to set up a bicycle shop, maybe even hold bike races.  He will be joining other missionaries.

A couple – not much younger than us are going out to serve the Missionary Aviation fellowship to look after their computer systems in south central Africa.

A young woman is going to eastern China to work amongst Chinese Muslims.  She will seek out a local “underground church” and they will become her team.

Most folk have to learn a new language, raise support and expect to spend a lifetime overseas.  They will leave homes, careers, families, churches, all that is familiar and be “spliced” into a new culture where they will assimilate, raise children, bear children and God willing be witnesses to Jesus Christ in such a way as to win converts to Christ.

I am in AWE.

Mision Nazareno - the Cross over the hillside shanty towns

This last weekend I was in England briefly to visit family, my father being in a nursing home. We went for a wonderful walk along the river Itchen in Hampshire, where my brother tells me fly fishing was born.  It was a drop dead gorgeous day and after a super pub lunch we needed a good walk along the river.  We spied many trout and a family of swans.  Shortly we came upon a small but beautiful church – St. Mary’s, Itchen Stoke, which was declared redundant in 1971 as the parish authorities found they could not afford to keep it open.  It is a gem and based upon Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France.  These photos do not do justice to its beauty, nor to the sadness that attaches to being declared “redundant.”

The inside of the church was just as wonderful.  I wanted to stay, sit and pray as I mourned its redundancy.  To be declared redundant is to be declared useless and unnecessary and thus worthless.  I mourned the loss of England’s Christian presence, witness and the coming of a society that regards Christians as somehow suspect, or of dubious intellect.

What a contrast was the worship that same morning in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Sheet, Hampshire.  The service was a celebration of harvest in-gathering and baptism.  There were so many differences to what I am used to – no robes, no communion.  BUT the church was full, happy and joyful.  The people were of all ages and hugely friendly.  I was blessed.  It was a cross cultural experience.  This church is far from redundant!  It reminded me that the church is not actually the building but the people.  The sadness of the redundant church was that it had no people – they were gone, dead or disinterested.  In fact there are some wonderfully alive churches and gatherings of Christian people.  However the landscape has changed and to be Christian is decidedly counter cultural.  The message of joy, life and spiritual birth/rebirth; the good news of forgiveness, new life and transformation has been removed from mainstream English life as the church has become in the eyes of many simply a cultural relic of Christendom’s past.  For me the local church should be a missionary outpost that brings the light of Christ to a lost world.  The Christendom attitude has caused the Church to lose its missionary zeal and purpose.  Sadly the light has gone out in Stoke Itchen as now this little church is empty.  That light is shining bright and bringing in new converts to Christ in Sheet, Hampshire.

Below are some pictures of this joyful celebration – rejoice with me – Jesus is alive!

Andy and Ian after a day of tree clearing

This last week has been wonderful in Vermont.   This week our dear friend and SAMS board member Andrew Osmun came and worked like a crazy man helping us cut down some trees.  What a joy to share in fellowship.  Andy is one of my oldest seminary friends and is a major intercessor for us.  He prayed over us as we are finding this leaving stage full of spiritual attack.  We are visiting his parish in Milford, Connecticut to speak on Oct 10 and 11.  We also were visited by Fr. Paul and Julie Feider.  Paul came to Kenya with me in 2006 and we have done building together on our home here.  This time it was a visit to relax and for Polly and Julie to do some cooking and visit the chocolate store in Walpole, NH.

Paul and Julie at the Chester Fair

The next day we visited Peru, Vermont – seemed appropriate! Guess what we found – alpacas!  I was reminded of the wonderful sweaters that I wear in cooler weather.  I was reminded of the “rocoto relleno con alpaca” that I have enjoyed eating in Arequipa.  I also led some in a Christmas pageant once in Wisconsin, not because they were present that long time ago in Bethlehem, but because one of our parishioners there kept them as pets.  The children  at the pageant that Christmas loved them!

Alpacas in VT

It was a perfect day in Peru and we spent our time enjoying the beauty and wonder of the turning leaves.

Peru fair

This week we were also visited by some “critters.”  We awoke one morning to find our bird feeders had been attacked by a bear.  The metal posts were bent double, one feeder wrecked, another twisted and the third missing.  There were two gifts on the ground, indicating two bears – I will show evidence of one only!

Bear scat

We also found another critter and a critter home – snake and hornet’s nest.  The former is harmless and  lives by the garage door and the latter was in a tree down by the road.  AVOID hornets at all times.  Once stung is enough and I have been stung a few times in my life.

The last picture is of the covered bridge a mile down the road.  It is being rebuilt and I find it fascinating to see how incredibly it is fabricated.  Here the siding is off.  It will be jacked up and re-decked and some of the side struts replaced.  I am so thrilled that there are traditional things being preserved and that the skills to do so are retained.

The Worral Covered Bridge, Rockingham, VT

So a final reflection.  We share this world with the good, the bad and the ugly, with creatures great and small.  Our stay on this earth is but short.  We come out of somewhere, seek to make a difference and then move on.  In other words we are sojourners.  This is especially true as Christians.  Today’s reading was a very edited version of Esther – most of the best parts were left out sadly.  Never-the-less, God placed Esther in the right place at the right time with really only one opportunity to make a difference.  She was afraid, but took a hugely brave choice (risk of her execution was real).  She was the salvation of her people.

Who knows what a difference we may make?  No one but God.  As one of my mentors says to me often, our responsibility is to follow Christ, step by step, often with the next step shrouded in mist.  As we seek Christ and to serve obediently, we can trust him to use us.  I am not master of my destiny.  I serve the master and must have confidence that He will place me in the right place at the right time.  I cannot presume to set out an agenda but must serve His.  Meanwhile the bridge under construction shows me that beneath the sheathing, the external covering, there is a structure and a foundation.  This must be strong and serviceable, requires attention and may need rebuilding for the future.  Surely this is my parable for the day!  Jesus is the master carpenter.  May he rebuild me as needed and as necessary and use me to His glory.  That I may see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly, day by day (with apologies to Richard of Chichester).

Ian at church garage sale - picture by Lew

Polly and I are returning to Peru in a very short time.  The next stage of our new life is what I call “baby missionary school” and that begins in about two weeks.  After that it will be farewell to Vermont and our church family here.   Our church here is small and lovely.  My main involvement is to be part of a mid week group of three to six dear folk who read the readings for the day and share.  We are an unlikely bunch!  It is an hour of reading and sharing followed by communion and breakfast.  The discussion is lively, hilarious and to the point.  This morning they all helped me put stamps on our latest newsletter – they want to continue to do this, for which I thank God.  Sunday church is maybe 25 people, sometimes 35 on a good day.  It is a village church served by a faithful priest who takes seriously the cure of souls.  What a blessing he is.  There are several other churches that support us in prayer and finances; they are all “family” to us.  It is really the people who make up these churches who are the treasure found in “earthen vessels.”

This reminded me of a great sadness today – I have discovered that some of my friends and colleagues, all of whom I count as “orthodox” in the faith – have been fighting among themselves.  What delight the enemy has in such discord!  I found solace this evening in a few words of Oswald Chambers (often greatly helpful!).  He wrote: –

He titled the piece “The missionary’s goal” and summed the whole up in the sentence “His aim is to do the will of his Lord.” It reminded me of the passages in St. John’s Gospel where Jesus is clear;

he says only what the Father tells him to say and does only what the Father tells him to do.  How I wish I was that constant, that holy.  In this world I am reminded of my fallen-ness and humanity.  In my weekly group I am reminded that we are a motley group of disciples.  BUT we are learning to love each other, to bear with each other, to laugh and cry together.

As we return to our beloved Peru and our beloved family there we sense the Lord’s leading us onward.  We are praying for a similar group of motley and beloved prayer partners and pilgrims.  May God be honored.  May the world know we are Christians by how we love one another.

Polly and I are sending out the support letter that is attached and asking for prayer and financial support.  The summer has sped by and the last weeks have been a wonderful time of family visits and reunion.  After Labor Day Polly will go to Ohio to spend a week with her mother and to help out there.  At the end of September Ian will spend the weekend in England with his ailing father.  Meanwhile there are several speaking opportunities to share about the ministry in Peru.  In mid October we go to MTI in Colorado Springs for “baby missionary school.”  This will last for three weeks and then back for a week of closing up the house before returning to Peru on November 16.

Once in Peru we will be developing our language skills further while beginning our ministry of working with the clergy of the Anglican Church there.

God has blessed us hugely this summer with financial and prayerful support.  I am amazed and humbled by the number of people who are sharing and partnering in this ministry.  Thank you God!  There is still a great need for more.   Every month SAMS-USA send us a printout that shows who and how much has been given.  We have not reached the goals for monthly/annual pledges set for us by the SAMS, however sufficient has come in for us to return to Peru this fall and to continue this ministry.  THANK YOU to all who have contributed and especially to those who make regular pledges.  I am especially grateful to the small Anglican communities of Vermont who have so wonderfully and generously adopted us as mission partners with them.  At a time when so many mainline churches are crying poor and shrinking their budgets it is heartening that these new fellowships are building mission giving into their DNA.

This has been the first summer that I have spent in Vermont.  It has been a joy and an adjustment.  Retirement is a challenge as we really do change our status.  As a senior pastor I was not only busy but there was a kind of status in the community.  Now I am simply part of the community.  On occasion I am trotted out to help but I am there to help not to run things.  That is of itself is a joy.  I have found that I can come alongside folk, especially clergy, and be a listener and encourager.  Meanwhile I sit in the pews of St. Luke’s Church here in Chester, VT where I first helped out nearly thirty years ago.  It is a joy and delight.  That is not to say that I have not been busy as I assist on occasion in Turners Falls, MA, at St. Andrew’s.  However my focus is on God’s calling of us to Peru and the realization that this is a ministry of service.

In Peru we have a marvelous cadre of Peruvian clergy and we, the overseas missionaries, are there to serve them and to help them become the clergy and leaders of that wonderful country.  In this post-colonial age how vital it is for us as foreign missionaries not to lord it over people.  We are not there to run things, to make them American or British!  We are there to see  the Peruvian Church emerge.  It is a privilege to serve.

THANK YOU

Our latest support letter – PDF format

“There’s no doubt about the theme of this Convention. It is all about togetherness, about Ubuntu, that “I am because we are.”” So said a friend of mine about GC 2009.  Another colleague wrote this about the “public narrative” way of doing Convention business: – “Does a normal church organize an entire national conference thematically around the search for “ourselves, our stories, our stories of us, our stories of now”?

I read and I wondered!  Something is wrong here!  Today during my quiet time I read from Oswald Chambers.  These words are his: – ‘The aim of the spiritual saint is “that I may know Him.” Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus.”

I found myself back on center.  It is indeed all about Jesus and not about who we are, what we experience, unless it is in Jesus.  Testimony is about how Jesus has brought me to be here today, to serve as I can the Gospel and his Kingdom.  It is not about my feelings, wants and “entitlements” but supremely about what He, Jesus, wants of me.  To put it another way – He is the MASTER – I am simply His servant, or perhaps better put, His slave.

I am more and more struck by the need for me to abandon myself to Christ.  In that abandonment comes all the joy, peace and delight of the Christian as well as sharing in the pain of Jesus.  If I seek only joy, peace and delight without Jesus then I am no different from the average American who is pursuing happiness (usually understood self-centeredly) in what ever way available, and certainly very individualistically.  If I pursue Jesus, abandon myself to Jesus, then ALL changes!

The result is not the superficial happiness but deep joy, peace and delight.  This is mixed with the searing pain of our crucified Lord who weeps over Jerusalem, the pain of the world, and who cries out for forgiveness for those who crucify him, again and again.

In spite of what the aviator, oceanographer turned priest and bishop who leads the Episcopal Church may say, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”  The prayer book question is as follows; “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior”?  The answer is “I DO.”  To follow Jesus as savior and Lord is a personal decision, a personal commitment.

I am because He is.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Polly and I went this last Sunday – May 17 – to the San Andres mission.  It is up north of the airport and then up a steep hillside with no real path or steps to get to it.  A year ago I visited the mission when it was meeting in the front courtyard of a home at the bottom of the hill.  Fr. Benjamin and his wife Livia have worked tirelessly in this community.  He travels each day by bus and mototaxi for two to three hours each way.  Last year Mike Chapman and I became “Godfathers” of the new property.  The cornerstone was blessed, and ten days later the women and the children had cleared the “terrace” and a tent had been erected.  Now there is a building made of bamboo poles and matting with an electric light where we worshiped and celebrated communion. It was wonderful to meet again some of the people from last year.  The woman with the hat was still there and involved in worship.  One child for whom we had prayed that her eyes might be healed was there – without glasses!  God did not desert me and I could remember names.  They were delighted that I was no longer silent but could converse. Polly awarded prizes to the children who proudly recited their memory verses.  She fell in love with them as I had done a year ago.
The trip home was exciting as there was a demonstration blocking the highway.  Two lanes became eight as the cars, trucks and buses took over every available piece of flat ground.  It was like a parking lot, and we crossed over the median and went back to Lima through the port of Callao – quite a detour but we made it home after four hours!