21August2009
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal walk.
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Prayer Makes a Difference
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I’m sure you remember the time Pat and I were the regional directors for Uganda, Africa. Thus we know first hand the great needs in that country. We even helped plan a strategic plan for WGM to meet some of those needs. It’s a plan of great vision with outreach into five of the central regions and across into neighboring countries. A plan, to be very honest, that looked very unrealistic in light of their small missionary staff.
Then a few months ago the Uganda team organized a 24 hour prayer chain. They called all their partners in the US to join with them in prayer for the urgent needs in Uganda. One of the requests every week was for 25-30 new missionaries in the next five years. I almost laughed. On most of our fields we’re lucky to get one or two a year.
Last week in the WGM Lifeline http://www.wgm.org/lifeline Uganda was praising the Lord because they have 14 new MD’s (Mission Disciples) under appointment. I’m not laughing any more. God is answering their prayers, and the prayers of their partners like you!
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30January2009
Posted by hpshaiti under: Personal walk.
Yesterday morning I was trying to get home from Kentucky after being away for six weeks. So I wasn’t very excited when a helpful Lexington resident rolled down his window at a stop light and informed us our rear passenger tire was very low. That was an understatement. Time we got to a service station it was flat.
But it stayed up after being pumped just long enough to get us to an SS Tire store that was coincidentally only a block away. And while they were installing two new tires, we sat in the waiting room watching the Today show. Imagine my astonishment when I saw a picture of George Beverly Shea and heard that he will celebrate his 100th birthday Sunday, Feb. 1!
What a trip down memory lane! I grew up listening to Bev Shea on my Dad’s 33 1/3 rpm records. He had a beautiful voice, and the spirit to go with it. How do you live to be 100? By loving and serving God. Putting him first. Living humbly before Him. Billy Graham said about him, “Bev was the very first person I asked to join me in evangelism. He was well known in the Midwest, but at the same time he was humble… It was God who brought us together. (His) rich, bass baritone voice has touched the hearts of millions in our Crusades… I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him utter an unkind or critical word about anyone.” Dr Gordon Moyes
At home last evening I listened again to one of His CD’s. He sings “Precious Memories”. One of the formative memories in my life includes George Beverly Shea on that little battery operated record player in my bedroom/home school class room in Burundi, Africa as an MK singing \”The Wonder of it All\”.
4August2008
Posted by hpshaiti under: Missiology.
Interesting side note in my devotional reading this morning. The apostle Paul in writing to the Colossians (4:11) mentions several men who are with him in Rome and then notes, “These are the only Jews amoung my fellow workers for the Kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me”
This is the same Paul who says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither free nor slave. But even for Paul there’s something comforting, comfortable, about being with those of his own background and culture!
Parenthetically, for me as an MK (missionary kid) the question is what is my culture? Who are my people? But I really do often find myself enjoying the fellowship of fellow MK’s! We understand one another. I also feel more ‘at home’ with people of African decent – Haitians, Caribbean Islanders, or Africans. We are marked, just as Paul was, by our culture.
28July2008
Posted by hpshaiti under: Missiology.
I’m reading a book entitled Making Disciples of ORAL Leaners put out by the LCWA. I knew story telling was the best way to reach most oral learners and that even here in the US 85% actually learn better orally. But last night I learned another interesting point. According to the author, stories are essential for changing a person’s worldview. “A third key element in discipling oral learners in order to limit syncretism is to recognize the importance of stories in transforming a person’s worldview.” He says that according to N.T. Wright, “Stories constitute the core of every culture’s worldview.”
“Those stories answer four fundamental worldview questions: Who am I? Where am I? What has gone wrong? What can be done about it? Every culture uses stories to tell us what it means to be human, what kind of world we live in, why there is suffering and pain, and what, if anything, we can do to deal with that suffering and pain.”
And he says, “Christianity has its own distinctive answers to those worldview questions.” (Italics mine.) He adds that, “The Bible answers these questions with special vividness and power in the opening chapters of Genesis.”
