After a month in America, returning to Hungarian village life can be ... abrupt.
Gone are the days of high-speed vans with automatic doors that open like magic. Gone are the days of being taken out to restaurant meals every night, and clear communication with folks who actually believe (however deceived they might be) that I am an intelligent human being.
Today, I awakened to the reality that I am the village idiot.
Since I speak Hungarian on roughly a four year old level, the villagers have come to accept me as a mental four year old. And today I lived up to their expectations. It began when I dropped the girls off at Ovoda (Hungarian Kindergarten) and found the entire class, including the teacher, decked out in fine white shirts and black pants -- the traditional special event attire.
They had to tell me three times before I figured out they wanted me to go home and get appropriate attire for my girls. Thankfully, they are patient and generous toward the village idiot, and one of the teachers let me borrow her bike so I could make the trip across the village and back before they departed for the event.
Following this scramble, I proceeded into the day's tasks, stopping off at the village "Gummi Szerviz," or "Tire Service" shop. The adorable little old man, clad in blue work overalls, listened patiently as I slowly, painstakingly explained I would be buying summer tires in the city today and I wanted him to put them on this afternoon. His gray eyes began to glaze over as I struggled to construct the sentence. It was as if he were thinking, "By the time you get this horrendously constructed sentence out, you won't need summer tires, because it will be winter again!"
It can be humbling to be the village idiot. It can be frustrating when no one understands your words, and everyone doubts your mental capabilities.
But I would not trade it for a dozen Americas. For all the enticing things America has, for me there is something grander and more alluring in the simplicity of Hungarian village life, and serving God in its midst -- even as the village idiot.
So, it is good to be home in Hungary again, or as I would say it in what I suspect is very poor Hungarian, "Nagyon jó van lenni otthon Mikepércsen!"
Monday, May 5, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
God, Our Divine Abuser?
Death...
It is a raw, pus-filled, seething wound that never really heals.
This week I interviewed a woman named Viviane for a book I am working on. She and her family were missionaries in Malaysia -- devoted fully to serving God whatever he asked. But they never suspected what He would eventually ask of them.
After six and half years of dynamic, devoted ministry where both Viviane and her husband experienced that complete fulfillment that comes from fully used one's gifts in service to Him, her husband went to the doctor with severe headaches. Tests revealed his brain riddled with tumors and six agonizing months later he was dead.
Seven years later, her voice still trembles as she recalls the searing memories of day after day, watching her beloved husband slowly and steadily waste away, hoping beyond all hope that God would do something to save him. Surely God could and would want to heal such a man as this. Does not God bless those who faithfully serve Him?
But then He didn't. And Viviane was left alone -- with three grieving children to raise.
In that gentle, death-scarred voice, I could sense the magnitude of loss and suffering that reached much higher on the richter scale that any earthquake that has ever shaken the planet. And I wondered how such devastation could have struck in 2001 without me even noticing it.
No spiritual pat answers can soothe the pain. They only further the questions: Where is God in this? Why did He let this happen?
In the aftermath, this woman struggled with the conflict of it all. "I tried to find my comfort in God, but I felt like the abused going to the Abuser for comfort," she said.
Viviane is not alone in her sentiment. In CS Lewis's very honest reflections during his pilgrimage through the loss of his wife, A Grief Observed, he lashed out at God calling him the "divine vivisectionist" and "cosmic sadist."
Those are honest feelings, and I believe God appreciates honesty. He remains there in the midst of our railings of grief.
If we believe Romans 3:23, that "the wages of sin is death." Then we can see death as perhaps the truest, most poignant glimpse of hell we can have while still on earth. Death is a cold and complete separation that ironically burns with a cruel and brutal vengence.
Death is separation and the death that separates us from those who are most intricately woven into who we are is more that a separation, it is a violent tearing apart. And when we are left in these shreds, we can do little more than ask, perhaps angrily, "why?"
But Pastor Arpad Horvat-Kavai, who lost his first wife and unborn child in a car accident, argues that such "why?" questions may never be answered in this life. He says there is bigger question still. The question of whether we will allow our unanswered questions to separate us from God.
In Hebrews 5:7, we see Christ's very human struggle. He, like Viviane, prayed that things could be different, and although He was heard, it did not change the outcome. The Amplified expresses it best:
"In the days of His flesh Jesus offered up definite, special petitions [for that which He not only wanted, but needed], and supplications, with strong crying and tears to Him who was [always] able to save Him (out) of death, and He was heard because of His reverence toward God -- His godly fear, His piety [that is, in that He shrank from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the Father]."
When I hear a story like Viviane's, I shrink at simply the thought of death separating me from my husband or children. It would indeed be a "horror."
But in everyday life, I scarcely notice when I make choices that place that first wedge of separation between God and myself. And in this I begin to see that although my priorities may be in "good" places, they are certainly not in right places.
The pain of death that mars us in this life may well never heal until we reach God's presence. As beings created for eternity, we are ill-equipped to deal with it. But when our losses in this life drive us to speculate whether God might be some sort of Divine Abuser, may we take a moment to reflect on how we casually invite our sins to separate us from Him who loves us best. And perhaps we will catch a renewed glimpse of His pain -- for he too knows what death is.
It is a raw, pus-filled, seething wound that never really heals.
This week I interviewed a woman named Viviane for a book I am working on. She and her family were missionaries in Malaysia -- devoted fully to serving God whatever he asked. But they never suspected what He would eventually ask of them.
After six and half years of dynamic, devoted ministry where both Viviane and her husband experienced that complete fulfillment that comes from fully used one's gifts in service to Him, her husband went to the doctor with severe headaches. Tests revealed his brain riddled with tumors and six agonizing months later he was dead.
Seven years later, her voice still trembles as she recalls the searing memories of day after day, watching her beloved husband slowly and steadily waste away, hoping beyond all hope that God would do something to save him. Surely God could and would want to heal such a man as this. Does not God bless those who faithfully serve Him?
But then He didn't. And Viviane was left alone -- with three grieving children to raise.
In that gentle, death-scarred voice, I could sense the magnitude of loss and suffering that reached much higher on the richter scale that any earthquake that has ever shaken the planet. And I wondered how such devastation could have struck in 2001 without me even noticing it.
No spiritual pat answers can soothe the pain. They only further the questions: Where is God in this? Why did He let this happen?
In the aftermath, this woman struggled with the conflict of it all. "I tried to find my comfort in God, but I felt like the abused going to the Abuser for comfort," she said.
Viviane is not alone in her sentiment. In CS Lewis's very honest reflections during his pilgrimage through the loss of his wife, A Grief Observed, he lashed out at God calling him the "divine vivisectionist" and "cosmic sadist."
Those are honest feelings, and I believe God appreciates honesty. He remains there in the midst of our railings of grief.
If we believe Romans 3:23, that "the wages of sin is death." Then we can see death as perhaps the truest, most poignant glimpse of hell we can have while still on earth. Death is a cold and complete separation that ironically burns with a cruel and brutal vengence.
Death is separation and the death that separates us from those who are most intricately woven into who we are is more that a separation, it is a violent tearing apart. And when we are left in these shreds, we can do little more than ask, perhaps angrily, "why?"
But Pastor Arpad Horvat-Kavai, who lost his first wife and unborn child in a car accident, argues that such "why?" questions may never be answered in this life. He says there is bigger question still. The question of whether we will allow our unanswered questions to separate us from God.
In Hebrews 5:7, we see Christ's very human struggle. He, like Viviane, prayed that things could be different, and although He was heard, it did not change the outcome. The Amplified expresses it best:
"In the days of His flesh Jesus offered up definite, special petitions [for that which He not only wanted, but needed], and supplications, with strong crying and tears to Him who was [always] able to save Him (out) of death, and He was heard because of His reverence toward God -- His godly fear, His piety [that is, in that He shrank from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the Father]."
When I hear a story like Viviane's, I shrink at simply the thought of death separating me from my husband or children. It would indeed be a "horror."
But in everyday life, I scarcely notice when I make choices that place that first wedge of separation between God and myself. And in this I begin to see that although my priorities may be in "good" places, they are certainly not in right places.
The pain of death that mars us in this life may well never heal until we reach God's presence. As beings created for eternity, we are ill-equipped to deal with it. But when our losses in this life drive us to speculate whether God might be some sort of Divine Abuser, may we take a moment to reflect on how we casually invite our sins to separate us from Him who loves us best. And perhaps we will catch a renewed glimpse of His pain -- for he too knows what death is.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
"God Has Never Answered My Prayers"
"God has never answered my prayers," said 15-year-old Robi* who lives at the orphanage in Miskolc, Hungary, "And He never will."
The other orphan teens at the Wednesday afternoon Bible study raised their eyebrows as they turned to Russell and Karesz, the leaders, for reply.
It is a statement that would raise most of our eyebrows, if not cause us to gasp in shocked offense at such blatant irreverence for God. But what was Robi really saying with this statement?
I do not know his story, but one does not end up in a Hungarian orphanage if life has been good and happy. We can rest assured that his life, thus far, has been at best, really bad; at worst, unspeakably tragic.
Last summer Robi came face to face with the Gospel and love of Christ for the first time in his life. He responded, and was baptized.
Since then, despite his everpresent proclivity for getting into trouble, he often comes to the regular Wednesday Bible study at the orphanage. Sometimes he is little more than a disruptive influence there, but still he comes. And so last week, in the midst of his disruptions, he blurted out, "God has never answered my prayers, and never will."
The words are shocking. They are irreverent. Perhaps a cry for attention. Perhaps a challenge to God. But before we write Robi off as a "tool of Satan" to wreak havoc on the Bible study and place doubts in the hearts of the struggling believers there, consider the fact that Robi's words are not so different from those penned by David, a man after God's own heart, in Psalm 22:1-2:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent." (NIV)
Robi has not yet made it verse three in this passage, where David takes his eyes off himself and begins to recognize who God is and all that God has done through the ages, which galvanizes his faith to push forward, despite God's seeming silence.
Robi's faith is still in its infancy. He scarcely knows it what it means to be "sure of what we hope for and confident of what we do not see." (Heb. 11:1) The life in which he finds himself has left him ill-equipped to fight the battles that he faces. He is like an untrained soldier forced to the frontlines. And these Wednesday Bible studies represent his only training ground -- and he is being trained in the heat of fiercest combat.
As we see the despair, let us not overlook the hope in his words. First, clearly Robi believes in God. He knows God is out there, he merely questions God's interest in him personally. Second, "God has never answered my prayers," insinuates that Robi prays. There is some faith alive in him. And finally, the fact that he says, "God never will," insinuates that he expects to pray in the future.
Robi is distraught, longing for assurance, but he has not given up on God.
And the better news than that is: God has not given up on Robi.
If we were all a little more honest, we'd have to admit we have had Robi moments too -- those dark days when God seems so distant, "so far from the words of our groanings." (Ps 22:1) I am thankful Robi had the confidence to articulate the doubts most of us would keep hidden in our secret places.
Join with me and pray for Robi at the Miskolc orphanage, that God would bring this boy through this dark time, and make Himself known to Robi in a real and dynamic way. And that God would use Karesz, Russell, and other Christians to meet this boy where he is.
*Not his real name.
The other orphan teens at the Wednesday afternoon Bible study raised their eyebrows as they turned to Russell and Karesz, the leaders, for reply.
It is a statement that would raise most of our eyebrows, if not cause us to gasp in shocked offense at such blatant irreverence for God. But what was Robi really saying with this statement?
I do not know his story, but one does not end up in a Hungarian orphanage if life has been good and happy. We can rest assured that his life, thus far, has been at best, really bad; at worst, unspeakably tragic.
Last summer Robi came face to face with the Gospel and love of Christ for the first time in his life. He responded, and was baptized.
Since then, despite his everpresent proclivity for getting into trouble, he often comes to the regular Wednesday Bible study at the orphanage. Sometimes he is little more than a disruptive influence there, but still he comes. And so last week, in the midst of his disruptions, he blurted out, "God has never answered my prayers, and never will."
The words are shocking. They are irreverent. Perhaps a cry for attention. Perhaps a challenge to God. But before we write Robi off as a "tool of Satan" to wreak havoc on the Bible study and place doubts in the hearts of the struggling believers there, consider the fact that Robi's words are not so different from those penned by David, a man after God's own heart, in Psalm 22:1-2:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent." (NIV)
Robi has not yet made it verse three in this passage, where David takes his eyes off himself and begins to recognize who God is and all that God has done through the ages, which galvanizes his faith to push forward, despite God's seeming silence.
Robi's faith is still in its infancy. He scarcely knows it what it means to be "sure of what we hope for and confident of what we do not see." (Heb. 11:1) The life in which he finds himself has left him ill-equipped to fight the battles that he faces. He is like an untrained soldier forced to the frontlines. And these Wednesday Bible studies represent his only training ground -- and he is being trained in the heat of fiercest combat.
As we see the despair, let us not overlook the hope in his words. First, clearly Robi believes in God. He knows God is out there, he merely questions God's interest in him personally. Second, "God has never answered my prayers," insinuates that Robi prays. There is some faith alive in him. And finally, the fact that he says, "God never will," insinuates that he expects to pray in the future.
Robi is distraught, longing for assurance, but he has not given up on God.
And the better news than that is: God has not given up on Robi.
If we were all a little more honest, we'd have to admit we have had Robi moments too -- those dark days when God seems so distant, "so far from the words of our groanings." (Ps 22:1) I am thankful Robi had the confidence to articulate the doubts most of us would keep hidden in our secret places.
Join with me and pray for Robi at the Miskolc orphanage, that God would bring this boy through this dark time, and make Himself known to Robi in a real and dynamic way. And that God would use Karesz, Russell, and other Christians to meet this boy where he is.
*Not his real name.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
..Sin..
Sin ...
In many circles, it is an outdated word.
It is a harsh word, a severe word. It is politically incorrect. Some would argue it is a mean-spirited word, wrangled only by the hateful.
We would much rather use words like "issues" or even "struggles" because they reduce the culpability. And maybe through these linguistic gymnastics, we can ignore the devastation our own sin wreaks on others and ourselves.
In a recent bible study with orphanage teens, the subject of sin arose. And these hard-edged youth struggled to understand the concept of sin. It was not a part of their social code and therefore they possessed little ability to grasp the cause and effect of sin. (That the "wages of sin is death.") They struggled to even define examples of what true sin is.
In this day and age, are we so different from the Hungarian orphans? Do even those of us who bear the name "Christian" truly grasp the life-massacreing, soul-searing nature of sin?
Hebrews 3:13 states, "But instead warn (admonish, urge and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened (into settled rebellion) by the deceitfulness of sin -- (that is,) by the fraudulence, the stategem, the trickery, which the delusive glamor his sin may play on him." (Amplified)
Sin does not lie placidly by the wayside waiting for us to wander accidentally into it. It is as active as the con-man out to secure the long con, toying with our affections, playing on our insecurities, strategizing on our weaknesses. No matter how small a sin, each works insidiously to drive one more nail in the coffin for our faith.
We do not have to look far to find examples. From pastors who have fallen into sexual sin, to church ladies consumed by their own venomous gossip, to the bitter heart who can only lash out in hate --- to the reality of me in my deepest places. Sin takes its toll. And its repurcussions ripple out like spiked lashes on the backs of family and friends. John Donne was correct when he wrote,"No man is an island."
We live in a battlezone, but scarcely realize it. We catch glimpses of it in some moments and pray eanestly for a day, and as quickly as we begin, we forget and slip into the mundane cares of the world that seem so pressing.
In Holy Sonnet 19, John Donne captures my own struggle with faithfulness and facing sin:
Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with feare.
As Hebrews 3:13 admonishes, may we grasp an understanding of nature of sin, and, "as long as it is called today" actively encourage and urge one another to be on the alert, lifting all those dear to us up to our Lord in prayer, that he might protect us from the Enemy's schemes.
In many circles, it is an outdated word.
It is a harsh word, a severe word. It is politically incorrect. Some would argue it is a mean-spirited word, wrangled only by the hateful.
We would much rather use words like "issues" or even "struggles" because they reduce the culpability. And maybe through these linguistic gymnastics, we can ignore the devastation our own sin wreaks on others and ourselves.
In a recent bible study with orphanage teens, the subject of sin arose. And these hard-edged youth struggled to understand the concept of sin. It was not a part of their social code and therefore they possessed little ability to grasp the cause and effect of sin. (That the "wages of sin is death.") They struggled to even define examples of what true sin is.
In this day and age, are we so different from the Hungarian orphans? Do even those of us who bear the name "Christian" truly grasp the life-massacreing, soul-searing nature of sin?
Hebrews 3:13 states, "But instead warn (admonish, urge and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened (into settled rebellion) by the deceitfulness of sin -- (that is,) by the fraudulence, the stategem, the trickery, which the delusive glamor his sin may play on him." (Amplified)
Sin does not lie placidly by the wayside waiting for us to wander accidentally into it. It is as active as the con-man out to secure the long con, toying with our affections, playing on our insecurities, strategizing on our weaknesses. No matter how small a sin, each works insidiously to drive one more nail in the coffin for our faith.
We do not have to look far to find examples. From pastors who have fallen into sexual sin, to church ladies consumed by their own venomous gossip, to the bitter heart who can only lash out in hate --- to the reality of me in my deepest places. Sin takes its toll. And its repurcussions ripple out like spiked lashes on the backs of family and friends. John Donne was correct when he wrote,"No man is an island."
We live in a battlezone, but scarcely realize it. We catch glimpses of it in some moments and pray eanestly for a day, and as quickly as we begin, we forget and slip into the mundane cares of the world that seem so pressing.
In Holy Sonnet 19, John Donne captures my own struggle with faithfulness and facing sin:
Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with feare.
As Hebrews 3:13 admonishes, may we grasp an understanding of nature of sin, and, "as long as it is called today" actively encourage and urge one another to be on the alert, lifting all those dear to us up to our Lord in prayer, that he might protect us from the Enemy's schemes.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Longing for Love
It is Valentine's Day -- when girls'expectations burst with dreams of heart-shaped boxes of chocolates accompanied by over-priced bundles of flowers. It is a day of flirtatious gazes and fluttery giggles. In secular circles, passion reigns king. And in Christian circles, endless recitations of 1 Corinthians 13 attempt to spiritualize silly schoolgirl crushes.
Valentine's Day has been dubbed the day of Love. But perhaps more accurately, it is a day of longing -- longing for ideal love and perfect romance. Unfortunately, few recognize perfect love even when it lingers fully within reach.
Valentine's Day has been dubbed the day of Love. But perhaps more accurately, it is a day of longing -- longing for ideal love and perfect romance. Unfortunately, few recognize perfect love even when it lingers fully within reach.
Last week, at a conference for teen girls here in Hungary, several twenty-somethings attended. They had grown up in the orphanage since age three -- in world with little moral compass, and much more passion than compassion.
"Marry your best friend?" Mari*, one such girl, questioned the wisdom being shared in a small group. "Never! What kind marriage would that be? There would be no real love or passion!"
In her world, love is all about wild rushes of emotion and sensual nights of passion. And so she searches for a sexual passion that will endure forever, an emotional high that never grows dull. And she cannot understand why it continues to evade her.
Clearly she does not understand love.
When I was growing up, I recall endless discussions on the topic of "finding Mr. Right." In Christian circles, we phrased it, "waiting for God's best," but in the end it all amounted to a notion that there was someone out there crafted just for me -- my ideal life partner.
True love meant a perfect fit and certainly happily ever after.
But what happens after all the rice is thrown and the new couple settles in the utter imperfections of day to day life only to learn each is now eternally linked to a fellow creature as sinful as himself? It is disillusioning. And some have been wont to conclude they must have missed God's best in the pursuit of a mate, because the life in which they find themselves is certainly not happily ever after.
Again, I would argue, this person does not understand love.
So what is love?
Love is not sappy sentimentality or fluttery feelings around the heart. It is not rooted passion and sensuality, but rather in sacrifice and long suffering. We will not discover it by "finding the perfect mate," but rather by allowing ourselves to be perfected by Him who loves best of all.
Valentines Day each year underscores our very natural longing for love. But that longing is not satisfied in idolized images of a perfect man or a perfect mate -- because people are not perfect and therefore inevitably fail to emulate perfect love.
Still, deep inside us, we want to make mere human love our idol and believe if we can only attain it, all will be well. Our lives will become happily ever after. And like Mari, who grew up in a Hungarian orphanage, we cannot understand why it continues to evade us.
Real love is out there. It has lingered within our reach all the time. It longs to teach us what it is all about, but we shun it again and again. We eschew its complete sacrifice. And dismiss it casually only to again pursue an idol of imperfect love.
True love is not of this world. And we will not understand it until we begin to value it above our own selfish ideals and idols of fleshly love.
Are you longing for love on this Valentine's Day? Then take a fresh look at the Author of Love and discover that a divine romance awaits you -- one so mystical and magical than it could only be designed by the Lover of your Soul.
*not her real name
Monday, February 11, 2008
Do you believe in Spiritual Warfare?
Hocus Pocus!
In the era of Harry Potter-esque incantations and Lord of the Rings mystique, the concept of spiritual warfare can conjure images of Dementor-like demons and Sauron inspired personages of Satan in a dark, creepy battle for the fate of a soul.
To be frank, such images creep me out a little. And I prefer not to think in such terms. But that does not mean I do not believe in the spiritual battle. As we prepared for last week's conference for teen girls both from the orphanage in Miskolc, Hungary and from our church's youth group, I was astounded by the series of obstacles that arose. Was it spiritual warfare? Following is a chronology of events. You decide.
Week before the conference:
Primary translator for the orphanage segment of conference must cancel due to ill family members.
Our church, which uses a small Christian conference center for church services is due to renew its contract. We are using the same facility for the girls conference. The renewed contract price is too much for our church, so the church moves with one week's notice. This means that while we will still have our conference there, we will not have ready access to the sound equipment and other church stuff we had been counting on. Moreover, it increases our costs as we could no longer "piggy back"on what the church is already renting.
Monday 4 February (3 days before conference begins)
We have one replacement translator scheduled to be at the orphanage for the opening night of the conference. Her father has what appears to be a heart attack and is rushed to Budapest for medical attention. We now have a team of 10 Americans coming and no one who can translate for them.
Tuesday 5 February (2 days before conference begins)
We learn that three sisters (out of the ten girls slated to come from the Miskolc orphanage) have just been contacted by a long lost sister who has decided to come THIS weekend to visit. The three will not come to the conference. Moreover two others who are close to these girls refuse to come without their friends.
Meanwhile two new translators agree to join us for opening night.
Wednesday 6 February (the day before the conference begins)
Hungarian train workers are on strike with no resolution in sight. Team of 10 from Ohio will arrive in 24 hours and there is no transportation available between the Budapest Airport and Miskolc -- about a 2 and a half hour drive. All transportation alternatives are booked due to train strike.
Snow begins falling in Chicago -- the hub that the team is scheduled to fly through. Large snowfalls predicted. Team's flight delayed and rerouted.
Orphanage agrees to send van to pick up team.
Thursday 7 February (the day the conference begins)
Team misses connection in London will not arrive until 3:30pm. Conference starts at 7:00pm -- but site is a good 2.5 hours from airport. I arrive at airport only to learn the expected flight actually will not arrive until 5:00pm. I wait with Hungarian orphanage van driver for the two hours and phone back to tell Russ to push back start time until 8:00pm.
Team arrives. I take a critical three people in my car and the van takes the rest and luggage. Jozsi, the van driver assures me he knows a fast way through Budapest that will get us on the highway to Miskolc in no time. I agree to follow him.
Jozsi gets us lost in the heart of Budapest. Frustrated by the man's inability to follow his own map, I take off without him and drive like a maniac toward Miskolc. We phone ahead to the translators and tell them to play some games with the girls until we get there.
8:35 pm -- we race into the rented conference room to face about 6 or 7 teenage girls, some of them laden with teen attitude. Gina shares a testimony about how she had been brutally rejected by her birth parents -- suddenly all attitudes change.
Friday 8 February (conference recommences in Debrecen)
We meet the girls at 4:00 (after school and work) to travel together to Debrecen -- about two hours away by bus. At 3:00pm one of the girls slated to leave with us calls saying she was vomiting and very ill -- ate some bad food at the mall. She has to cancel.
The conference that followed proved a time of love and healing for all the girls who attended. It was truly rich with relationship, care and concern. And it may prove to be the beginning of something really big in the way we operate and reach out to youth here in Hungary. I am thankful that God is bigger than all the obstacles and that he has the victory in the battle for the soul.
In the era of Harry Potter-esque incantations and Lord of the Rings mystique, the concept of spiritual warfare can conjure images of Dementor-like demons and Sauron inspired personages of Satan in a dark, creepy battle for the fate of a soul.
To be frank, such images creep me out a little. And I prefer not to think in such terms. But that does not mean I do not believe in the spiritual battle. As we prepared for last week's conference for teen girls both from the orphanage in Miskolc, Hungary and from our church's youth group, I was astounded by the series of obstacles that arose. Was it spiritual warfare? Following is a chronology of events. You decide.
Week before the conference:
Primary translator for the orphanage segment of conference must cancel due to ill family members.
Our church, which uses a small Christian conference center for church services is due to renew its contract. We are using the same facility for the girls conference. The renewed contract price is too much for our church, so the church moves with one week's notice. This means that while we will still have our conference there, we will not have ready access to the sound equipment and other church stuff we had been counting on. Moreover, it increases our costs as we could no longer "piggy back"on what the church is already renting.
Monday 4 February (3 days before conference begins)
We have one replacement translator scheduled to be at the orphanage for the opening night of the conference. Her father has what appears to be a heart attack and is rushed to Budapest for medical attention. We now have a team of 10 Americans coming and no one who can translate for them.
Tuesday 5 February (2 days before conference begins)
We learn that three sisters (out of the ten girls slated to come from the Miskolc orphanage) have just been contacted by a long lost sister who has decided to come THIS weekend to visit. The three will not come to the conference. Moreover two others who are close to these girls refuse to come without their friends.
Meanwhile two new translators agree to join us for opening night.
Wednesday 6 February (the day before the conference begins)
Hungarian train workers are on strike with no resolution in sight. Team of 10 from Ohio will arrive in 24 hours and there is no transportation available between the Budapest Airport and Miskolc -- about a 2 and a half hour drive. All transportation alternatives are booked due to train strike.
Snow begins falling in Chicago -- the hub that the team is scheduled to fly through. Large snowfalls predicted. Team's flight delayed and rerouted.
Orphanage agrees to send van to pick up team.
Thursday 7 February (the day the conference begins)
Team misses connection in London will not arrive until 3:30pm. Conference starts at 7:00pm -- but site is a good 2.5 hours from airport. I arrive at airport only to learn the expected flight actually will not arrive until 5:00pm. I wait with Hungarian orphanage van driver for the two hours and phone back to tell Russ to push back start time until 8:00pm.
Team arrives. I take a critical three people in my car and the van takes the rest and luggage. Jozsi, the van driver assures me he knows a fast way through Budapest that will get us on the highway to Miskolc in no time. I agree to follow him.
Jozsi gets us lost in the heart of Budapest. Frustrated by the man's inability to follow his own map, I take off without him and drive like a maniac toward Miskolc. We phone ahead to the translators and tell them to play some games with the girls until we get there.
8:35 pm -- we race into the rented conference room to face about 6 or 7 teenage girls, some of them laden with teen attitude. Gina shares a testimony about how she had been brutally rejected by her birth parents -- suddenly all attitudes change.
Friday 8 February (conference recommences in Debrecen)
We meet the girls at 4:00 (after school and work) to travel together to Debrecen -- about two hours away by bus. At 3:00pm one of the girls slated to leave with us calls saying she was vomiting and very ill -- ate some bad food at the mall. She has to cancel.
The conference that followed proved a time of love and healing for all the girls who attended. It was truly rich with relationship, care and concern. And it may prove to be the beginning of something really big in the way we operate and reach out to youth here in Hungary. I am thankful that God is bigger than all the obstacles and that he has the victory in the battle for the soul.
Monday, February 4, 2008
What is God thinking?
Danger! Construction Zone.
That is sign that should hang around every Christian's neck. We are souls in progress, spirits under construction. And as with any construction site, those venturing close, need to proceed with care.
Ironically, God calls us, with all our rough edges -- some dangerously sharp -- into the lives of others. He wants us to reach out in our weakness and love the unloved, care for the discarded of this world. He rarely waits until we are "ready" -- until we have reached some pinnacle of perfection in the school of compassion and charity. He simply says GO! LOVE! and POINT THEM TO ME.
This is an insane scheme! What is God thinking? Are we not more apt to do more damage than good? And indeed, one does not have to look far to find examples where those bearing the name of "Christian" have done more harm than good under the banner of "serving God."
So why would the God of the Universe entrust the love and care of the wretched -- His precious wretched -- to such frail, bumbling, brutes as we? He knows we are bent on arrogance and prone to pride. He has to know it is a recipe for DISASTER.
What is He thinking?
On Thursday of this week, we will begin a teen girls conference for ten orphanage girls and ten youth group girls here in Hungary. Now, only four days before it begins, more things are falling apart than coming together.
And as I consider of the magnitude of these orphanage girls' pain, I can't help but realize I and a group of Americans are ill-equipped to reach them where they are. We are but bumbling brutes -- construction zones in our own right -- entering their fragile world. It would seem a recipe for disaster. And yet, God has called us to enter it.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," the wisdom of Proverbs 27:17 cries out. God created us to need each other -- all the "each others" are the tools of Christ's craftsmanship in our lives.
Perhaps this conference is less about us teaching them and more about simply sharing where we are in the process of our construction and letting them share where they are. And as the iron of their lives scrapes up against the iron of our lives, we may just discover that as much as they desperately need a touch from us, we, more desperately still, need to touch them.
I am astutely aware of the potential for disaster here. I am equally aware of the potential for God to move by His spirit when we recognize and acknowledge our weakness and need for Him. So I enter this week with fear and trembling, urging all to pray for a miraculous work of God's spirit in the lives of these girls. May our team and translators come together in humility and subject ourselves to God's plan in these four conference days.
That is sign that should hang around every Christian's neck. We are souls in progress, spirits under construction. And as with any construction site, those venturing close, need to proceed with care.
Ironically, God calls us, with all our rough edges -- some dangerously sharp -- into the lives of others. He wants us to reach out in our weakness and love the unloved, care for the discarded of this world. He rarely waits until we are "ready" -- until we have reached some pinnacle of perfection in the school of compassion and charity. He simply says GO! LOVE! and POINT THEM TO ME.
This is an insane scheme! What is God thinking? Are we not more apt to do more damage than good? And indeed, one does not have to look far to find examples where those bearing the name of "Christian" have done more harm than good under the banner of "serving God."
So why would the God of the Universe entrust the love and care of the wretched -- His precious wretched -- to such frail, bumbling, brutes as we? He knows we are bent on arrogance and prone to pride. He has to know it is a recipe for DISASTER.
What is He thinking?
On Thursday of this week, we will begin a teen girls conference for ten orphanage girls and ten youth group girls here in Hungary. Now, only four days before it begins, more things are falling apart than coming together.
And as I consider of the magnitude of these orphanage girls' pain, I can't help but realize I and a group of Americans are ill-equipped to reach them where they are. We are but bumbling brutes -- construction zones in our own right -- entering their fragile world. It would seem a recipe for disaster. And yet, God has called us to enter it.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," the wisdom of Proverbs 27:17 cries out. God created us to need each other -- all the "each others" are the tools of Christ's craftsmanship in our lives.
Perhaps this conference is less about us teaching them and more about simply sharing where we are in the process of our construction and letting them share where they are. And as the iron of their lives scrapes up against the iron of our lives, we may just discover that as much as they desperately need a touch from us, we, more desperately still, need to touch them.
I am astutely aware of the potential for disaster here. I am equally aware of the potential for God to move by His spirit when we recognize and acknowledge our weakness and need for Him. So I enter this week with fear and trembling, urging all to pray for a miraculous work of God's spirit in the lives of these girls. May our team and translators come together in humility and subject ourselves to God's plan in these four conference days.
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