It’s been such a joy to be home for the last three and a half months to catch up with family and to advance the work on three books I’m currently pushing down the road—a novel called The City, written by a mom in France that unpacks the kingdom of God in a lovely way, a book about interpersonal relationships called The Language of Healing, and a novel set in the Civil War era by the man who presided over our wedding ceremony almost 44 years ago, called (tentatively) Lucien’s Crossing. But my toe is healing and it seems Father has some other adventures awaiting me elsewhere in the world.
At the end of this month I’ll be in the Atlanta area for ten days, then at the end of February in Eureka, CA. After that I’ll make a quick trip to Tulsa, OK the first weekend of March and then Morgantown, WV, and Pittsburgh, PA at the end of it. I may be teaching a DTS in Italy in late April and perhaps go to Norway and elsewhere in Europe thereafter. I’m also hoping to get to hang out with some Jesus-loving biker-types in Southern Illinois, but haven’t found a date for that yet. Later this year I plan on getting back to Kenya to check on things there as we wind down our projects there and hope we’ve given them the tools to move ahead with a growing trust in Father’s provision for them.
Speaking of Kenya, we heard from them the other day with a new emergency. Some of our friends there began a school in a part of Kitale that was settled by displaced people from the tribal violence following the disputed election in 2008. It is an area of extreme need, where many of the adults are hopeless about job prospects and addicted to alcohol. Since school is not compulsory in Kenya, nor is it free, our friends started a school in a church building to educate the children and give them a way out of the hopeless cycle around them. Supporting the school was first picked up by some friends in Virginia for a couple of years, and then it has been part of our monthly support of $10,000 to help with all the needs in Kenya, including our special outreach to Pokot.
Recently torrential flooding there caused the sewage of the school to mingle with their water supply, causing sickness among staff and students. It took them a while to figure out the cause and now the local government wants to shut down the school if they don’t get a new water supply. Drilling a well there will cost $32,000. They have temporarily been transporting drinking water to the school, but wondered if we might help. We advanced them the money in hopes that some of you would join us in keeping that school afloat. If you’d like to help us please.
The needs here are ongoing as is our support for them. If you’d like to join us, you can direct it through Lifestream as contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the gospel grow in this part of Africa, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.
And for those following our saga in Kenya, they sent us a detailed year-end report. here are some excerpts from it:
Greetings in the name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Living Loved Care Centre staff and the children, and also from the coaches, schools, dispensary staff and the entire villages in Pokot as well as the Forkland School.
We appreciate your help in the Kitale area:
Gas station, which continues to buy food and pay the staff at the Living Loved Care Centre.
Grain enterprise, which helps us maintain the center, and educate the children in nearby schools, as well as help those go to college and university.
Forkland School, thanks you for helping them repair the facility when it was destroyed by wind and rain, and now we have a challenge with clean water. You can pray and advice us what to do since we are about to open the school, although the children were there.
Utensil stand to keep kitchen supplies clean
We thank you for supporting us in Pokot now for 3 years 7 months, and it has remain with 1 years 7 months, so the village will be sustainable, probably in July 2020. There we are seeing villages transformed, helping them know that, although they are in rural areas filled with hardship, God loves them and he has a great purpose in their lives. Our coaches have done great things by teaching the villagers how to meet their challenges. Every village, which we are currently working with, now has water and we are making progress in other areas as well:
Education: Many families now understand the importance of taking their children to school and to keep their compound clean compared to the first time.
Outhouses for each home in Pokot
Hygiene/Health: As I flash back 3 years back, there were so many cases of malaria, typhoid and cholera and helping them with medicine was very expensive. Now, we have constructed 450 latrines with dozen of utensils stands to help the villages clean and hence reduce of the diseases causing micro-organism. Right now almost each household have utensil stands made of available materials and we are praying that in 17 months each household will have at least one latrine. This is so amazing, as the saying goes better to prevent than cure. Thank to all those who stood with this community for purchasing iron sheets, cement, nails, polythene, and provide tools to build them.
Children enjoying the new crops they are raising
Micro-financing: This program has helped over 400 families start a business to be able to feed their families and run their home affairs.
Agriculture: We nw have farms raising sweet potatoes, cassava, corn, and other vegetables to help feed all the people.
Food donation: Thank you for supporting the aged and the breast-feeding moms on a monthly basis. The monthly amount here has been reduced due to the agricultural projects, which have greatly boosted food security in each village.
In my trip there later this year, we are hoping to make the necessary arrangements that will bring an end to our regular support there over the next few years and ensure that there will be sustainability beyond our involvement. Our desire was not to create programs there dependent upon ongoing support from us here, but for them to have the tools to go forward and trust Father’s provision for the future. We’ve had some great instruction by others who have done this by helping tap the creativity and industriousness of the people there. This will not be easy, of course, and I appreciate your prayers for me and them as we move forward.
It has been a joy to watch these people respond so joyously and so diligently to the opportunities now before them. The reports we get of their responsiveness to Jesus as well as their hard work to better their condition, are incredible. Who would have thought that our little corner of the web could have touched so many people so far away. And it’s all been through relationships that God orchestrated, and not our attempts to try to find a project like this. It’s what love led us to do.
My good friend in Tulsa, Tom Mohn, says that betrayal is one of those amazing things God uses to shape his life in us. I know it doesn’t feel like it. It more likely feels like the end of the road when someone you love, and who you thought loved you, decides his own word is meaningless, and you are of less value to him than what he can gain by lying to you or lying about you. Most often it takes both.
I’ve gone through this with three different people in my life and it is the absolute worst. The first time cost me everything—my involvement with a congregation I’d helped to plant, my salary, my health insurance, my reputation in a community, and countless friendships I treasured—and this was all two weeks before Christmas in 1994. I wasn’t offered a dime of severance pay, just an avalanche of lies about my family.
I wish I’d known Tom back then and had seen more hope in what was going on, but those days were the darkest Sara and I have every experienced. We thought we were following Jesus in it all, but we weren’t sure. Maybe we were as independent and rebellious as others said we were. I remember telling God if we were, then shout it from the rooftops. Let everyone know including me, because I only wanted to follow him even if I was proved wrong.
I know Jesus said that such times are an amazing blessing in our lives, but to get there you really have to think with a deeper mindset than your own physical comfort.
You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble. (Matthew 5:10-12, The Message)
I know that sounds like crazy talk. It did when my dad read those words to me a few weeks into my betrayal. But, I began to let them sink into my heart and began to count myself blessed even when it didn’t feel like it. I found a way to rejoice in the fact that people had lied about me and thrown me out because I was seeking to follow him. And it became true that going through that betrayal opened some incredible doors that Sara and I have treasured for the last quarter century. The betrayal of our close friends drove us deeper into God and our freedom from a human-centered view of ‘church’ allowed us to begin to taste the Church that Jesus is building in the world.
So, now I do know that betrayal is not the end of the road. It hurts, most certainly. And unfortunately, it is a common theme in human history and the biblical record. Abel knew it, so did Joseph, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and many others including, of course, Jesus himself. No, that doesn’t justify the acts of the betrayer, but I prefer to leave them in Jesus’ hands, where they are best served. I don’t know what goes on inside someone that allows them to make those kinds of choices, nor the consequences they suffer for putting money, power, fame, sex, or the illusion of safety above love and friendship. I do know how living a lie warps you from the inside in some horrible ways and it makes my heart hurt for them.
A number of years ago I had someone else steal a significant amount of money from me by not honoring an agreement we had made together. Even reminding him of our agreement only provoked his anger. In the aftermath of that encounter Jesus told me to let it go and he would make up whatever I had lost. Fortunately, I did and he proved faithful in all he promised me, and more. I am so grateful I followed him rather than demanding what was rightfully mine.
So, if you’ve been betrayed by someone, invite Jesus into that pain. He understands. He’s been through everything you’re going through and much more! He is able to work beyond the failures of others and to continue to let grace have its unfolding work in our hearts. Betrayal may close some doors, but it also opens us to other opportunities we might have missed otherwise. Getting through betrayal with Jesus also changes something deep inside us so we are tuned more compassionately to the needs of others and the value of being a faithful friend.
This all comes up because I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Jon DeWall of Liminal Space. He does a podcast about life transition and wanted to hear my story of betrayal and how Sara and I managed to get through it alongside Jesus. It dropped last week and I wanted to let you know it was available if you wanted to listen to it. You can find it on their website or these podcasts outlets: iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play.
Even if you don’t listen, when you find yourself being betrayed by someone close to you, just remember Jesus has a way to walk you through the pain and into wider pastures than you ever thought possible.
[This is a copy of our December 2018 Email Blast. If you’re not on our list you can sign up here. And if you include your name and address you’ll also receive email notification if Wayne is traveling in your area.]
The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.
(Psalm 118:14)
What do you think the Psalmist meant when he wrote that? Did he mean the Lord was his get-out-of-hell-free card to secure his final destiny? No, he didn’t.
When a desperate, young mother is trapped by the abusiveness of her husband and the needs of her children, is a get-out-of-hell-free card the salvation she needs? Of course not. What she needs is a friend to come alongside her and show her the way through that situation to safety and life. Anyone who does that for her is her salvation.
“The Lord is my salvation,” is not just a statement of our eternal destiny; it is our hope in this broken age that he has a way through whatever life can throw at us and whatever sin seeks to destroy in us, and he can teach us how to follow him into that freedom.
Nothing has distracted Christians more from the true mission of Christ in the world than the misunderstanding that he only came to determine whether we go to heaven or hell. He didn’t. He came to rescue us from perishing in the bondage and deception of this evil age and show us the path to true life and freedom. In doing so, he also showed us how to give that same journey to others.
For us, that means that we are not alone in anything life hurls at us and that every resource of wisdom and power in our Father is available to us at any moment of the day. That’s the kingdom of God, and Jesus came into the world to invite us into that reality every day that we live.
How do we tap that resource? Is praying for an answer enough? Would that it was. I’m sure you know countless people, like I do, who have sought God desperately at moments of need and been hopelessly disappointed by his seeming inactivity on their behalf. I’m sure it’s happened for you, too. Where did we get the idea that we would just call out to God and he’d wave his magic wand to turn all our pumpkins into chariots?
Honestly, I’m sure I’d just use that power to get me into even more trouble because if I just use it even to satisfy my best intentions it would only destroy me. Jesus offered us something so much better than a fairy-godmother in the sky.
He offered us a different way to live, inside a relationship with him and his Father by the power of the Spirit that would open the door into the realm in which our Father dwells. By embracing him there we would begin to see everything differently and he would begin to change us from the inside, away from our self-focused bias to embrace the highest purpose God holds for his Creation. In that relationship, he would teach us how to walk in this age as lights of another kingdom. In other words, he didn’t offer us answers for our problems, but the opportunity to live inside a different reality that would save us from the destruction of this age and bring his wisdom and love to bear on others.
The kingdom of God is here! All the wisdom and power of God is at your disposal, as you come to know him and learn to follow him. That relationship will challenge everything you think you know to be true. It will unmask your deceptions, expose your selfish ambitions, and invite you down pathways you’d never consider without him. But with him, they will lead to unimaginable depths of discovery and freedom.
If just praying about our needs doesn’t make that happen, what will? We find his way by actually following him. There really is no substitute for that. That’s why Jesus came. We don’t celebrate the Incarnation by attending another Christmas pageant or putting another string of lights on the tree. We celebrate it by leaning into the reality he paid so much to give us. His Incarnation was the example of how Father wanted to walk alongside us. His death on the cross obliterated the sin and shame that made us too fearful and too intimidated to sit at his feet and learn his ways. His resurrection empowered us to share the same relationship with him that Jesus had.
Salvation is found in following him, in this life, and yes to life beyond as well. There’s nothing sadder to me than someone desperately wanting God’s help in their life, but just waiting for God to fix it. He’s inviting them to follow him, to recognize what’s really true about the circumstance they are in and respond not out of the flesh but in the reality of his kingdom. Isn’t it amazing that we find more comfort in trying to find an answer in the right book or seminar, when the Spirit of God dwells in us to guide us into truth and to empower us with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead?
He wants you to know him, to see into the reality of how God regards you and the situation you’re in, then you’ll know how to follow him. That’s all the salvation you will ever need. He can take you through anything and change you in the process to be more like him and to think more like he thinks.
That’s what Paul meant when he wrote, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Col 3:1-2) Jesus opened a door for us to see and experience what is really true in the universe by knowing him. Unfortunately, we spend too much time focused on things below, on our own abilities or lack of them, and on our own wisdom, thinking it is his. Or we put too much stock in religious principles and rituals that have the appearance of spirituality, but don’t help us recognize the truth of what’s going on around us.
Ask him to let you see reality through his eyes. Spend time with him, so that you know what touches his heart and how he thinks in situations. Talk with others who are also learning to follow him and let them share what they see. Be aware that what he sees will almost always be very different from what you see. His path will most likely invite you out of your comfort zone and preferred outcomes to follow him. But remember he is your salvation and there’s no safer place to be than in him.
Yes, you’ll find yourself resisting the truth like I do the first time I see it. His ways are rarely the way I’d naturally think. As we embrace his growing revelation, however, we’ll see how following him is the only way forward. Celebrate this Christmas with a prolonged gaze into the reality of our Father’s kingdom. Draw near to him and ask him to make himself known to you and pause enough to recognize the nudging of passion or wisdom he puts on your heart. Follow him as best you see him each day and watch what will unfold in your life.
This is the great adventure. You don’t have to have all the answers or all the power, you only have to follow the one who does.
Wayne and Sara with their children and grandchildren on the beach… This is how Christmas looks in Southern California.
Wayne was a Guest on Liminal Space
I was a recent guest on the Liminal Spaces Podcast called Life through Transitions Podcast. I had a great time talking with host Jon DeWaal about how God can use something as painful as betrayal to open a wider door in his kingdom.
Do You Want to Help Us In Kenya? If you have some year-end giving to do and unsure where to send it, would you please consider our brothers and sisters in Kenya? You can read more about what’s going on there in my recent article, The Craziest Thing I’ve Been Asked to Do. If you’d like to help as we finish up there, you can do so on our Online Giving Page.
Travel Notes for 2019
I’m currently sorting through some of my travel schedule for 2019, which at this point will include Atlanta, Eureka, Italy, and Kenya, and might include West Virginia and Southern Illinois. We’re still working on some of the early parts of the year. I’ll be in Italy at a Discipleship Training School from April 29 – May 3. I’ve got some time on either side of that week to be elsewhere in Europe while I’m out that way. If you’d like to host something when I’m in the area, please let me know. You can keep up with my Travel Schedule here, and if you’d like to be notified if I’m planning to visit your area, you can sign up on our email list and include your address <http://eepurl.com/bJ43Ar>.
In Cased you Missed it…
Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated a lot of interest over the last couple of months.
I got to spend the weekend and then a three-hour drive with my dad this week. I realize I’m incredibly privileged to have a father like him. He was the epitome of character, integrity, graciousness, and willingness to follow God even at great risk to relationships he treasured. I watched him be lied about by close friends and not defend himself, to be called names because he wouldn’t conform to what others wanted. This was not only my father according to the flesh, but also he is my father in the faith, setting the example of a man who would carve out time in his life to cultivate a closer relationship to Jesus, to listen to him, and to do whatever he put on his heart.
Spending time with my dad and talking over things we’re both thinking about and struggling with, is better than any book I can read, any conference I could attend, or any counselor I’d know. It is a rich, rich time that helps center my heart, shift my priorities, and adds nuggets of wisdom to my own journey.
After I dropped my dad off, I spent a few hours with another friend, Dave Coleman, who was my co-author on So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. I enjoy time with Dave in the same way and with the same results. Between those two men in a single day, I gleaned over 170 years of experience of learning to know who Jesus is and and how to follow him. What an outstanding resource they both are! And, I know many more like them all over the world—men and women in their 70s, 80s and 90s—who have been seasoned in walk with Jesus and picked up some amazing lessons along the way. Yet, they spend countless hours at home, alone. Few people come to visit, to ask questions, to not only offer them company but draw from their fountain of wisdom as well. And, I don’t just mean about spiritual things. These people know how to raise families, run businesses, cultivate healthy relationships, and put the welfare of others above their own.
In fact, after I left Dave’s, I met with some others who know him. They asked me how he was doing. It seemed so absurd to me. I live 250 miles away and they ask me how someone is doing who lives down the street from them. “He lives right here, you know?” I asked comically, though, I was also making a point. I know Dave would love to spend time with any of them, and they would all go away, enlightened and encouraged.
A few years ago I met with Jack Gray, a ninety-year-old in New Zealand, whose life and wisdom in Christ I’ve come to appreciate deeply. The man who drove me to that appointment joined in our conversation and after I came back home, he got a few more friends and went over to visit again and continues to, because of how helpful it has been to them. Jack told me those conversations have revitalized him and he looks forward to every one.
To its detriment, our culture has diminished the wisdom of age. Yes, I know many people grow old, bitter and more reclusive, but many others don’t. It’s as if we put their vast resources of wisdom and compassion on a shelf and ignore it, all the while trying to find the right book or speaker that might give us the wisdom we think we need. Don’t fall for it. There are brothers and sisters right around you that have what you seek and would love to help you discover a great life in Jesus. And you won’t just get platitudes or principles, but a living example and the honesty of their struggle.
If you know one of them, just invite them to lunch, or ask if you might visit. Get to know them and see what treasures spill out of their heart. If you don’t know what to talk about, here are some suggestions:
What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned on your journey?
What are you thinking about these days?
What’s the best advice you ever received about marriage (or business, or relationships, or discipleship)?
Tell me some ways God has made himself known to you?
What has been the hardest thing for you to entrust to God?
I promise you, you’ll make their day. And yours too!
No one should have to bury their twenty-one-year-old daughter. It’s just not right, especially when she was murdered in a senseless act by a broken man who somehow thought shooting up a local bar and grill would do something for his pain. Yesterday, Sara and I attended her funeral just to be with our community in the midst of its pain and to pray. We didn’t know Noel, or any of the other 11 victims of that mass shooting, but a good friend of ours was one of Noel’s best friends, and we wanted to support her and her family.
Our community has been through so much over the last two weeks. The shooting happened on a Wednesday night at 11:20 pm. The next day two wildfires broke out on either side of Thousand Oaks and by 3:00 am on Friday many residents were told to evacuate their homes in advance of the fire. Fortunately, only three people were killed in these fires, but over 1000 homes and businesses burned. In Northern California they are dealing with a fire that destroyed 6,000 buildings, killed almost a hundred, with a thousand more missing. Sara and I have personally escaped unscathed from these twin tragedies, but know many who have not.
And now, it’s Thanksgiving. This holiday always centers around the images of home and family, expressing gratefulness for the bounty of blessings they’ve enjoyed in the last year. But not everyone had a good year. Some had their houses burned or their child murdered. Others have been through divorce, or cancer, or being laid off from their job. What if you have been abused by someone you love or abandoned by your family? Where do you find your Thanksgiving then?
Pain—and this world can deal it out in some horrible ways—can make us question the goodness and beauty of Creation and the One who made it. But Paul expressed a different point of view in his trials, which were many and vast, from shipwrecks to beatings, he wrote in II Corinthians 4:7-9:
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
No matter what circumstances brought to Paul, he knew of an inner refuge that could carry him through it and in the process seed the ground for greater joys to come. If we look for joy only in our circumstances, our sense of security will rise and fall with capricious tides of life. We’ll then see God as the one who must fix all our circumstances to make us happy, or be disappointed with him when he doesn’t. But if our pain can remind us to look deeper, to find a God who is bigger than the most atrocious things life can deal out to us, then we can find joy and thanksgiving no matter what goes on around us.
My heroes of the Old Testament include Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three children of Israel living in the Babylonian exile. They were threatened with being burned alive if they wouldn’t bow down to a golden idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had built. They refused. They were given another chance to comply and refused again, uncertain how things would turn out:
“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Their trust in God was not attached to the outcome of their circumstances. I know wonderful people whose homes were spared in the fires, and wonderful people whose homes were burned right across the street or next door to those who were spared. Our temporal blessings, even survival, is not proof of God’s favor or his judgment. These children of Israel could trust God whether or not he delivered them from their persecution and pain. There is always something more than what is right in front of us. Tuning into that reality gives us cause for thanksgiving no matter how bleak circumstances might appear.
So where do we find gratefulness in times of crisis? Here’s where I find it:
I am grateful that he is always with me, even if my feelings try to tell me otherwise.
I am grateful he has given me life, breath, and subsistence to get through this day.
I am thankful that I have a Father who loves me more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will.
I am thankful there’s nothing I can do to make him love me one bit less or one bit more than he already does.
I am thankful that every breath I take is in his hands.
I am grateful that Jesus has a way to navigate me through anything life can throw at me, including when others treat me unfairly.
I am grateful that all my hopes and dreams don’t have to be satisfied on this side of eternity.
I am grateful that nothing in this world, or the actions of any person, can keep me from the life and freedom he has for me.
I am grateful that Jesus will get the last word on every one and everything in this world. He hasn’t yet, but he will.
I am grateful he is bigger than any injustice, calamity, lie, or failure.
I am grateful that there’s always a way for me to encourage and be helpful to others who are going through difficult times.
I am grateful for friendships that love through anything, and don’t assume the worst of motives in moments of pain.
And, I am grateful that beauty and joy will once again rise from the ashes of my calamities and lead me to peace.
So, whether you find yourself on this Thanksgiving in abundant circumstances or in painful ones, there are real reasons to be thankful. And, finding our way to a place of thankfulness is often the first step to finding our way beyond the pain and into his reality of life and peace.
And it may be the most significant thing I do in my lifetime. Our outreach to brothers and sisters in Kenya and through them to the tribal people of Pokot, is the strangest connection God has invited me into. This is nothing I sought out or tried to accomplish. God brought it into my life gently, but persistently, over time. He knew that somehow I could help him connect people with the great need on the other side of the world to people here with the resources to help out.
Over a hundred thousand tribal people there were dying of malnutrition and disease, without any aid from the United Nations, their own government, or nonprofit organizations. This is a remote region with no one to help. Their nomadic life had been destroyed by a prolonged drought that killed their cattle-driven economy. The Kenyans we already knew in Kitale were heartbroken when they discovered them and asked if we could share some resources through them. Let that sink in. A group of people we were already helping because of their poverty were wanting to reach out to others they who were even in more need. It’s just nuts. We are not a missionary organization, yet in recent years more than 80% of our budget has gone to help these dear people in Kitale and Pokot.
To my utter amazement and delight, people from my podcast at The God Journey and my blog here, responded with generosity and continue to do so over such a prolonged period of time. We’ve been helping in the Kitale area now for over ten years with an orphanage, primary school fees, college tuition, and medical needs. In addition, we started two enterprises—a petrol station and a grain distribution business—to help them employ people and use the profits so they wouldn’t grow dependent on us. That has worked out incredibly well.
Three years ago they discovered the people in Pokot, and over that time we’ve been able to help relieve their sufferings through food, water, medical assistance and education. Two and a half years ago we began a development plan to help them develop their own resources. We have coaches in the area teaching them how to provide for their own needs of food and water, and about hygiene, which has put an end to 90% of their medical needs. We’ve also helped them start their own businesses to generate income. We drilled six wells and over the past year built five agricultural projects around those wells so that in addition to having clean water for themselves, they can also use it to water their animals and to grow their own crops.
It wasn’t just money that helped us here; God also arranged for me to meet people at just the right time—two people who had doctorates in East African development three months after we found out about the people in Pokot, a man working in Thailand who introduced me to the people at Global Hope who were in a neighboring county already doing the work we needed to start doing, a family whom God led to put aside some money for a “great need” coming their way who has given nearly half of the money we have used, an education official from Uganda who could confirm the need in Pokot with government officials in Nairobi when he was skeptical of what we were being told, a lady from Australia to confirm the hearts of those who had contacted us from Kenya, and so many smaller connections that came just as they were needed.
Yes, I’ve had to make a lot of decisions in concert with others and at times this has taken far more energy and time than I felt I had to give, but mostly it seemed I’ve just watched God knit something together so much bigger than any of us could have accomplished. The way he arranged for people and support at just the right time has his fingerprints all over this. We have helped feed the hungry, including widows and orphans, rescued the sick and dying, and provided an opportunity for the Gospel to spread among a forgotten group of people.
Our plan is for the people of Pokot to be self-sustainable after five years and it looks like we’re on that track. Can you imagine? This happened because of people like you who heard about this need and responded with open hearts and have continued to do so over multiple years. I sit here amazed at what Father is doing to let love be practical in reaching out to a people who were dying of malnutrition and disease. All told, we have given over 1.5 million dollars to assist in all these efforts, and the people there have spent it shrewdly and accountably to maximize its reach to as many people as possible.
The pictures above show the tremendous success they’ve had in their first year of harvest. They work hard to grow the food and then share it among the others, especially the most needy. They are also now expanding the acreage of each of the agricultural projects to grow even more food. In addition, the generosity from so many of you has opened up a wide door for the Gospel as they have responded to the message of a Father’s love and learning to follow him. Here’s a recent email I got thanking us for our efforts there:
The work in North Pokot has given us hope and this is what we are praying for. The people in these regions are seeing live miracle, this is so amazing. God has granted them what they prayed for some years back.
In this portions of land under irrigation it has been divided into different crops and some crops they use small water and it is drought resistance like cassava, sweet potatoes, millet and sorghum, and some maize, this will help exchange of crops time to time as the community will not depend for one crop, this is why as we continue expanding the land for more production, food donation would be reducing hence allow for development.
In every week the committee gives the food from the farm produce to the families according to the numbers. This has helped some of the families to something to eat at least every day.
Here is a picture of the people in Pokot giving thanks. Your love has flowed over in Thanksgiving to God, not just from them, but from me as well. I am completely amazed at what God has accomplished to rescue these people and give them life.
The people of Pokot bowing down giving thanks for the crops they have harvested.
The needs here are ongoing as is our support for them. If you’d like to join us, you can direct it through Lifestream as contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the gospel grow in this part of Africa, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.
I woke up this morning to my hometown being splattered all over the national news. Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, which is less than two miles from my home, is now the scene of America’s latest mass shooting. Last week it was a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, before that a seemingly endless list of schools, nightclubs, churches, concerts, and workplaces. All of them are so horrible and so senseless—lives cut short because of the anger, “cause” or brokenness of an individual human being who somehow thought carnage was the only way to address his pain.
I watch my city grieve today and my heart and prayers go out for all the victims—the family of the sheriff’s deputy who was shot, the 13 murdered and the 22 wounded, those traumatized from the event, even for the family of the shooter who are living their own worst nightmare. What started as a college night of celebration ended in untold pain that will last a lifetime for many.
What a world we live in—one broken life in a fit of rage, narcissism, or vengeance can do so much damage to the lives of others they don’t even know. And it just keeps happening week after week as we re-hash the same old debate over gun control and nothing will change. It will happen again, unfortunately. Somewhere.
I was reminded of this exchange in THE SHACK movie between Wisdom and Mack as he deals with his own tragedy of an abducted and murdered daughter:
WISDOM: This was not God’s doing.
MACK: He didn’t stop it.
WISDOM: He doesn’t stop a lot of things that cause him pain. What happened to Missy was the work of evil. And no one in your world is immune from it. You want the promise of a pain-free life… There isn’t one. As long as there is another will in this universe, free not to follow God, evil can find a way in.
MACK: There’s gotta be a better way.
WISDOM: And there is. But the better way involves trust.
And there Mack was confronted with a choice, to give into his fear, blame and anger, most of it directed at God, or to embrace the love of God that would absorb all his pain in a growing trust in Father’s goodness. Untangling the senselessness of evil won’t come out of our fear but in our engagement with a Father worth trusting, who is not the cause of pain in our culture, but the cure for it.
Evil has such amazing power, to hurt, harm and destroy. And how someone’s unaddressed personal pain can morph into acts of such incredible evil is so hard to understand.
But as horrible as that is, Love is more powerful still. Humanity does not only have the capacity to do great evil, but also the opportunity to put love and light in the world. That, too, happens every day, and even in the midst of tragedies just like this, as a sheriff’s deputy rushes in to confront the shooter, and as people pour their lives out to help those impacted by this tragedy.
My next blog was going to be about our ongoing work in Kenya, and how many lives have been saved by the generosity of strangers. Not only does free will allow evil to be in the world, that same free will every day brings incredible love, life, and healing into the world. At times like this, I want to not only pause and pray for the victims of this tragedy, but I also become even more determined to pour more love and light into the world. We don’t have enough it, not anywhere!
Good will overcome evil. Love will win over hate. Life can feed into the most broken places and bring joy and goodness again. God’s love is certainly more powerful than anything evil can do. Free will allows for that, too.
How can I be even more a conduit for that to the people I know and the situations I am in today? And tomorrow? And for all the days of my sojourn here on this planet?
Many of you know we are trying to make a movie of the story of Jake and John in So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. We announced two years ago that we were going to make an opportunity for people to give towards this as a way to have some “passion” money alongside the investment money. I’m grateful for the many of you who responded. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive enough to begin production right away. My producer has been looking elsewhere for the necessary funds, which has been made all the more difficult by Amazon and Netflix scooping up the independent projects to create their own original content. It has changed the available money for making small, independent films.
Interestingly enough, on my recent trip east a couple of people asked me about the movie and where we are in the process. After catching one of them up, they simply commented, “I think the time is now.”
Honestly, I have no sense of that. Converting this story into a movie has always been a long-shot in my mind, as much as I’d love to see it done. I do what I can to help it along, but I know many projects get as far as we have that don’t make it into final production. Getting the right people and the money to the starting line at the same time is quite an endeavor.
So, I was surprised when my producer wanted to talk this week. He told me that he had a recent conversation with another filmmaker who was also asking about this project. At the end of it, that friend said to my producer, “Relax. This will get done. Projects like this have their own time.”
“The time is now,” my producer found himself answering, to his own surprise.
When he told me that, I told him the conversation I had the previous week and he said, “I’m bursting out with goose bumps all over here.”
I love how God’s work gently unfolds in our lives. I’ve come to trust it over my own plotting and scheming. I know the frustration of asking God to give me wisdom about something I wanted to do and then feel as if he’s gone silent. Looking back, I now see that I was asking God to give me a strategy so I could work toward the outcome I desired. God didn’t go silent; he just didn’t have an answer for that. So, when he didn’t say what I wanted to hear it was easy to make up a process in my own head and attach his name to it. That is a futile road, for sure. When he didn’t honor my process, I felt even more abandoned.
But now, I’ve been won in to different space, knowing that God’s will for us unfolds in the circumstances of life. We want a strategy to implement; he wants a relationship where he will walk with us. I’m convinced that the best way for God NOT to get me where he wants me in six months, is to tell me. I’ll actually try to get there for him and mess it all up. But if I’ll just follow him today, and again tomorrow, six months from now I’ll be right where he wants me to be. Almost everything I’m involved in now was not part of my planning, but I wouldn’t trade how God has fulfilled the passions he put in me for anything I’d envisioned in the past. I love being in the moment with him, free to respond to the opportunities that come, rather than trying to claw my way to the destination I desire.
Even the cover art (see picture above), which was a gift from someone I didn’t even know, who lived in Chicago at the time, conveys that same reality. Some people thought the book didn’t offer enough “how-tos” at the end, but it wasn’t meant to. The invitation was to an adventure with him down the road less traveled, rather than a new methodology to try and create his church in our image.
I meet too many young people who are trying to strategize a new way of doing ministry. It’s an exhausting road with little real kingdom fruit. I encourage them to draw close to the Master and let him guide them through the circumstances that come their way. Rather than trying to impose our will, we get to flow with his as it winds through the circumstances and opportunities of life. Then we’ll find ourselves being fruitful in ways we’d never imagined and watch him open doors we could never have contrived. It’s slower this way, to be sure, but it is a more joyful and fruitful way to live.
Part of that phone call with my producer this week was to let me know he thinks he’s found a path to get us to that elusive starting line. A fortuitous experience working with another film crew has opened up some new options. I can’t say more than that now, but it will still take people with passion, both on the casting and production side as well as the money side. But this looks far more hopeful than it looked a few months ago.
For those of you interested in the movie, we made a video two years ago to let people know what we were doing. You can view it here:
The budget is currently estimated at $2 million. While we have had, and will continue to have, conversations with both conventional movie and private investors, we also want to include people who have a passion for the story. That will give us a seat at the table to help protect its message. So we’ve come up with the idea of raising funds through Lifestream. Not only will that give you a tax-deductible receipt, but give Lifestream a stake in the movie. If it generates a profit, our share of return will go to help fund our various projects around the world.
Click here to SEE LOOKBOOK Click the button here to view a copy of our Lookbook. In the industry it’s a representation of the movie we want to make and a feel for how it will look.
I had an opportunity to spend some time with Eugene back in the 1980s, and I can truthfully say this: I’ve never met a more genuine man who lived everything he wrote about. I also got to spend some more time with him at his home in Montana after The Shack was published, grateful that his very generous words about that book helped it find credibility with those who weren’t sure what to think of the story. When he wanted some copies of that book, I offered to send him a case for free in appreciation for his endorsement. He refused, wanting to pay for them, telling me he always wanted to support the people he believed in.
I love so many things about The Message and how he expressed in today’s language the power and truths of the Scriptures. It’s a translation I often quote and his expression of “learning the unforced rhythms of grace” is about as good as language gets. One of the funniest stories I ever read was his opening illustration in his study on Jonah, Under the Unpredictable Plant. As funny as that story was, it ended with this disheartening caveat: “The people who ordained me and took responsibility for my work were interested in financial reports, attendance graphs, program planning. But they were not interested in me.”
My favorite story about him came from a friend who invited him to come and teach at his denomination’s annual convention:
Eugene asked him how many people they were expecting. My friend responded, “Around five thousand.”
Eugene hesitated, finally concluding this wasn’t an invitation he thought he could accept.
My friend was a bit incensed that Eugene didn’t consider that a significant enough audience and let that frustration spill out in a question. “Just how many people does it take to get Eugene Peterson to speak?”
“I’m sorry,” Eugene answered, “you misunderstand me. I have discovered I’m most effective in a group of twenty-five people or less. If you can get a group of that size together, I’d love to come.”
My friend was shocked and couldn’t understand his answer. I do. The most effective learning environment for everyone is in a group that size.
I am so grateful for this man’s life, his wisdom, and most of all the depth of his character. He will be missed here, no doubt, but he now has presence in the fullness of Christ for all eternity. Well done, Eugene. You’ve enriched the world by your presence here.
For most of my life I’ve tried to do God’s work, instead of doing mine. And, honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. That didn’t keep me from trying, however. That’s why in recent years I’ve come to love the prayer Paul prayed for the Colossians and to make it my own every day:
“Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works… As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. (Colossians 1:9-11 MSG)
That’s what I want. I want my mind and spirit to be so attuned to God’s will that I can acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which he works. I wish someone had taught me that when I was younger. When we don’t have any understanding of how God works, we’ll spend all our energies trying to be God to others. Even on our best days, that will only make a mess of things.
When I was a pastor, I thought it was my responsibility to build the church, when Jesus said he would take care of it. (Matthew 16)
In sharing Christ, I thought I was supposed to bring the conviction of God, when Jesus said that was the Spirit’s job. (John 16)
I thought the body of Christ was called to walk in unity, when Jesus asked his Father to bring us there. (John 17)
I assumed it was my responsibility to be better for God, instead of coming to the end of my human efforts and learning to trust his power. (John 15, Philippians 2)
I don’t have to figure out the times and seasons of his return, because that is in the hands of the Father. (Acts 1)
Learning how God works changes everything! He’s not a projection of our better selves, but Wholly Other, who thinks and acts in ways that confound my natural mind. When we think we know best, for ourselves or others, we usually end up working against him rather than with him.
Jesus asked me to love others like he’s loving me, to proclaim with my life and words the reality of Christ, and to help those who want, to know the God I know. It has become a major focus of my walk now to see what God is doing and how he’s working, especially when he isn’t acting in the way I think he should. When he’s not doing what I think is best, what is he doing? That’s where we learn how different, and how much better his ways really are. It is so much easier to live inside what he asks of me today, when I see, if even just in glimpses, how he is working in people and situations around me.
It helps me be more patient, because I realize God is not in the hurry that I am. It makes me softer toward marginalized and hurting people, because I know he doesn’t always wave his magic wand and fix everyone’s need instantaneously, and more often he wants me to be his gift to them. I’m not so settled on my ease and comfort because I know there isn’t any tragedy that he can’t work in for incredible good. And when I’ve given up trying to change me, I give up trying to change others around me as well.
I’m still learning to take my cues from what Father is already doing. Ask him to show you in the very circumstances you’re in right now. Instead of giving into anxiety and trying to fix them yourself, ask him to show you what he is doing. When you know what he’s doing, then you’ll know how you can respond in trust and be part of what he’s doing. It’s more fun than trying to do his job, that’s for sure!
A Huge Harvest in Pokot
Progress continues in Kenya, and I’m always blessed by those who help us. In the last couple of months, the pumps in the Living Loved Petrol Station (see picture above) that we built to support the orphanage, died after eight years. They were only meant to last five. We had to replace them at a cost of $24,000. They are learning now to set funds aside each month to replace them at the end of the next cycle.
The four agricultural projects in Pokot have branched out to five and the produce has been prolific. You can’t imagine the joy and awe of people who have been nomadic throughout their history, to be able to grow their own food! They are euphoric, and grew so much that they had new expenses as to how to dry and store the produce for future months. And thanks to so many of you who have continued to send in your gifts to help. We’re 2.5 years into a 5-year plan to help them gain some measure of sufficiency. Even the local government has taken notice of these agricultural projects and are helping out as well. If you have extra to help in this process, it will always help. As always, every dime you give us ends up in Kenya. We take nothing for administrative or financial transfer fees.
Travel to Year’s End and 2019
I head to San Diego County this weekend, and then after a brief trip through Wisconsin, Tennessee, and South Carolina, I’m returning home for year-ending (at least as far as travel goes) minor surgery on an old broken toe. I need a bone chip removed, which is working its way into a joint, but it will put me on injured reserve for the rest of the year. So, I’m going to be staying close to home through the holidays.
As far as 2019, I’m already praying about possible trips to: Northern California, Georgia, West Virginia, West Texas, Upstate New York/Toronto, Kenya, and Southern Florida. If you have anything on your heart, now is the time to let me know.
So, during the rest of this year I’ll be able to give some time to the three book projects that have captured my attention.
Lucien’s Crossing, my friend’s delightful tale of two boys, one a slave, the other the master’s son, growing up in the pre-Civil War south, through the Civil War itself, and then in its aftermath in New York City. It is an occasionally humorous, and always gripping adventure story where religion and faith hang in the background of our views of war and racism.
The Language of Healing, with co-authors Bob Prater and Arnita Taylor. Three common Americans look at the vitriol in our political and personal conversations and how to move away from the politics of polarization to have conversations about important matters in ways that bring healing rather than division.
The Healing, a novel I began in 2005 about how the gift of God draws us out of religious performance and into a way of living that is real and transformative.
Christmas Shopping
As you consider gifts for friends and family this year, keep in mind the books and audio available in the Lifestream Store. Especially, A Man Like No Other is an excellent gift for people as it re-tells the life of Jesus without all the religious stuff we have added to him. It’s book of paintings done my award-winning artist, Murry Whiteman with text by myself and Brad Cummings. It’s not a children’s book per se, but I know families who use it for a devotional because the pictures draw the kids in and the text often provokes lots of questions. As a special, we are reducing the normal sale price by $5.00 until Christmas Day. (As always with international orders, please email the office for a quote. Shipping rates are always off for those orders.)
Discussing Community on Confronting Normal Podcast
Wayne was in Kelowna, BC recently at the invitation of the two young moms that host, Confronting Normal, a podcast that helps us rethink what “normal” spiritual life might look like. While there I recorded a two-part interview that is now available on their podcast. They asked some great questions and we processed some wonderful things together. If you’d like to listen to them you can get Part One here, and Part Two here.
In Case You Missed It…
Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated a lot of interest over the last couple of months.
Christmas Shopping