It is my pleasure to announce that Steve is finally going to graduate Army Boot Camp. It has been a rough road for him at times, but our best wishes and prayers go out to him and his family as he begins his career. I do not have any other information at this time, but keep him in your prayers as he graduates and progresses to his next stage of training. Congratulations Steve, and thank you for your service.
~Tribal~
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Jungle Jump Off
Since last Sunday I have been on a journey..."A Journey to the Center of Christ's Heart." Every two years our church sends a group of youth to the Wycliffe/JAARS center in Waxhol, North Carolina, for a program that is known as Jungle Jump Off. For those of you who don't know a thing about Wycliffe or JAARS (a good bit of you), Wycliffe is a Bible translation organization comprised of missionaries from around the country. JAARS originally was an acronym for "Jungle And Aviation Radio Services," and was/is an essential support group to translators overseas in difficult areas. Jungle Jump Off itself is run by JAARS and is pretty much a week long simulation of missionary camp life, culminating in a realistic experience that spans from receiving the call to actually beginning translation for a foreign people group. Along the way, we had an opportunity to explore the different aspects of missions, the different roles of missions, the support that missionaries need, and we all grew closer as a youth group as well.
Among the things we did while there, we actually served JAARS itself by doing various tasks around the compound. We also had class room sessions about Bible translation and missionaries, and we watched numerous movies. One such movie we saw was called something like "Ee-Taow: The Next Chapter." It chronicled the life of a native people group before missionaries arrived. It then traced the evolution and development of the Word of God written in this group's native tongue. When the translation was complete and the people received their Bibles, the response was overwhelming to watch. The entire village of thousands repented of their ways and turned to Christ. Celebration broke out in the streets, and for hours the natives sang, jumped, ran around, and praised God. It soon gave way to hysterical weeping, however, as the people realized that everyone from their village who already passed away were living in a dark, Christless eternity. About an hour later, the celebration resumed as the people would not let the new hope they had found be smothered. Keep in mind that this was not an acted out movie. This entire film was shot by camera men as these events actually unfolded. Nothing was scripted. Later on, the missionary was teaching these people out of God's word, and they were all sitting under their grass huts. The missionary got to a part in his Scripture reading about God sending a great earthquake as a sign, and the entire village was actually suddenly hit with an earthquake. The missionary ran around in a panic trying to get people away from the huts, but the people remained as motionless as statues without a shred of fear on their faces. The earthquake soon subsided, and the natives never flinched once. They knew it was their God showing Himself to them, and they knew they had nothing at all to fear.
Now I could tell you hundreds of stories from this week, either things I experienced or things missionaries told me in conversations, but I chose this specific story for a purpose. I think we have alot that we need to learn from these people groups. I am not trying to bash that missionary and I am not trying to criticize the church in more developed countries like America, but how come in America there isn't mass celebrating when people get saved? How come we don't cry for those who have died without Christ? How come the natives had the faith to remain calm and see the earthquake as a sign of God while the American missionary feared for the lives of those he was teaching to? It's just kind of heartbreaking I think to see these people who have never heard about God until just recently have such a strong faith and such excitement and dedication while we really couldn't care less in most circumstances. I'm not excluding myself from anything I'm saying here, I would probably have run during the earthquake and I really don't get as excited as I should when people get saved. It's just kind of ironic that sometimes the ones we go to teach can teach us more than anyone thought. We're so comfortable where we live that we really don't need God or faith...at least that's how it seems to us. We have an abundance of food everyday, we have electric, we have running water -- most of these tribes have to find their food to survive everyday, they have no modern conveniences, and most of their water sources are contaminated and unfit for consumption. Like C.S. Lewis says in The Problem of Pain, it's not when we're comfortable and content that we seek God -- it's when we're hurting, lost, and miserable. These natives have lived in constant fear of witchcraft, evil spirits, starvation, dehydration, and natural disasters all their lives (all of these things do exist). Our culture naturally makes us closed to God's Word, and it's time that we took a stand for God and for the Bibless people groups in the world.
~Tribal~
Among the things we did while there, we actually served JAARS itself by doing various tasks around the compound. We also had class room sessions about Bible translation and missionaries, and we watched numerous movies. One such movie we saw was called something like "Ee-Taow: The Next Chapter." It chronicled the life of a native people group before missionaries arrived. It then traced the evolution and development of the Word of God written in this group's native tongue. When the translation was complete and the people received their Bibles, the response was overwhelming to watch. The entire village of thousands repented of their ways and turned to Christ. Celebration broke out in the streets, and for hours the natives sang, jumped, ran around, and praised God. It soon gave way to hysterical weeping, however, as the people realized that everyone from their village who already passed away were living in a dark, Christless eternity. About an hour later, the celebration resumed as the people would not let the new hope they had found be smothered. Keep in mind that this was not an acted out movie. This entire film was shot by camera men as these events actually unfolded. Nothing was scripted. Later on, the missionary was teaching these people out of God's word, and they were all sitting under their grass huts. The missionary got to a part in his Scripture reading about God sending a great earthquake as a sign, and the entire village was actually suddenly hit with an earthquake. The missionary ran around in a panic trying to get people away from the huts, but the people remained as motionless as statues without a shred of fear on their faces. The earthquake soon subsided, and the natives never flinched once. They knew it was their God showing Himself to them, and they knew they had nothing at all to fear.
Now I could tell you hundreds of stories from this week, either things I experienced or things missionaries told me in conversations, but I chose this specific story for a purpose. I think we have alot that we need to learn from these people groups. I am not trying to bash that missionary and I am not trying to criticize the church in more developed countries like America, but how come in America there isn't mass celebrating when people get saved? How come we don't cry for those who have died without Christ? How come the natives had the faith to remain calm and see the earthquake as a sign of God while the American missionary feared for the lives of those he was teaching to? It's just kind of heartbreaking I think to see these people who have never heard about God until just recently have such a strong faith and such excitement and dedication while we really couldn't care less in most circumstances. I'm not excluding myself from anything I'm saying here, I would probably have run during the earthquake and I really don't get as excited as I should when people get saved. It's just kind of ironic that sometimes the ones we go to teach can teach us more than anyone thought. We're so comfortable where we live that we really don't need God or faith...at least that's how it seems to us. We have an abundance of food everyday, we have electric, we have running water -- most of these tribes have to find their food to survive everyday, they have no modern conveniences, and most of their water sources are contaminated and unfit for consumption. Like C.S. Lewis says in The Problem of Pain, it's not when we're comfortable and content that we seek God -- it's when we're hurting, lost, and miserable. These natives have lived in constant fear of witchcraft, evil spirits, starvation, dehydration, and natural disasters all their lives (all of these things do exist). Our culture naturally makes us closed to God's Word, and it's time that we took a stand for God and for the Bibless people groups in the world.
~Tribal~
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Love
I've been absent for quite a while, and there's been quite a lot on my plate, but I thought I'd throw this up there....love is a funny thing. I'd even say that love is a many splendid thing. Why, love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love! Alright, so I didn't come up with that, and anyone who knows anything about any good music should know that. Hmm...but love's complicated and confusing...can bring you extreme happyness and extreme sadness. It drives people to do crazy things. Some people take their lives, others take others' lives. Love doesn't always drive people to murder though, cause if it did the world would be a pretty sucky place. Love can drive someone to work harder, to become better at whatever it is they do. Afterall, girls like guys with skills, right? That's my experience at least. So what's this all about? The mistake people make is they devote they're all and everything to another person. I can understand it. I've made that mistake before. Well, maybe mistake's a bad word for it...but whatever you want to call it, I've certainly been guilty of making a girl the most important thing in my life. Don't get me wrong, love is wonderful, and I for one am in favor of it. I'm a hopeless romantic, and there's no two ways about it. Whenever it is I finally am able to find that one girl who makes me sigh like listening to the Great Gates of Kiev (if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's an absolutely amazing piece of music that, well, makes me sigh because it's so beautiful), she's going to be the most important thing to me here on Earth. The point is, that out of this amazing love I keep dancing around, Jesus let Himself be slaughtered for us. He loves us more than I could possibly ever love a girl, and you know what? Jesus gets to have the number one spot. He's got to. There's just really no way around it. If He's not, then what's all the rest of this stuff worth? I don't know if any of this makes sense. Just something I thought about this evening while I was running.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)