Category: Encouragements and Exhortations
Singles, Love Your Roommates as Christ Loved the Church
I had a great idea my second to last year of college: move out of the dorms, move in with some friends, and save a ton of money. So I moved to an apartment, not far from campus and began to live the liberating off-campus life. I should have suspected that there would be trouble the first day I moved in, what with having to spend hours cleaning the kitchen and all. Three hours to be precise. And it was a small kitchen. It was the first time that I had to deal with messy roommates, and it was painful….
Confessions of a Former Grammar Nazi
by Dave “Thank you for calling Merchant Services, my name is Dave, WITH WHOM do I have the pleasure of speaking?” I could, and probably do, chant this introduction in my sleep. For 2+ years I answered hundreds and thousands of tech support calls in the windowless Louisville call center for Bank of America Merchant Services. In my final six months I spent little time taking calls and a LOT of time listening to calls, as I became a part of the Quality Assurance Team. I awarded and deducted points from my co-workers’ scores based on their tone, technical prowess…
How Can We Best Love the Poor?
I have been asking myself the question how we can best love the poor since moving here to Cameroon. It was much easier to consider this while living in the States where there were no people living in houses made of mud and sticks right next door to me. There, “the poor” were more of a category as opposed to actual people that had faces and names. So let me begin by introducing one such man so that you too might begin to see their faces: Introducing Simon Simon is an old widower that wears a white silky “Lancôme…
Minority People Groups will Rule the World
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” – Luke 6:20-26 We have at times been asked (and wondered ourselves) why we would choose to work with a minority people group when we could work with those who would be more likely to have a world-wide impact. The thinking is that if a Bakoum person comes to know Christ, he may be instrumental for the Kingdom among those who are in his village, but he will likely never travel nor write anything that could influence the masses. Conversely, if those who speak languages of wider communication…
Greater Than the Sum of the Parts
I was walking alongside a woman and her partner on Market Street a few years back. It was Saturday morning, 6AM, and she was walking toward the abortion clinic, so it really was not hard to guess what was going on. I tried to ask a couple of questions, but they just continued to walk, disregarding me. Knowing I only had seconds, I decided to cut to the chase. “Did you know that the child you are carrying was created in the image of God who is currently weaving her together in your womb?” For the first time the woman…
God Uses “Bad Legs”
Can God use you? It is a good question. Some people told Elinor Young that her polio crippled body would prevent her from her dream of becoming a missionary. But she believed that whom the Lord calls, he uses. And that he equips those whom he calls. Watch this amazing woman’s journey to becoming a Bible translator that ultimately ended in the Kimyal Bible Translation.
Called Not to be Colonists, but Revolutionaries
Called Not to be Colonists Like most first-term missionaries, we are thinking through many issues that are suddenly before us (usually “out-loud” on our blog). One such issue is the question of “tolerance” on the mission field. This question is intimately tied to the history of our people group. People in this region had been living in the jungles until the French and German colonists entered the area. It has been said that the Germans violently forced the people to set up new villages along a main road so that they could control them more easily. A few of our…
“What a Bunch of Savages”
by Stacey Dave and I have lived for over 30 years in America. For 30 years we lived and breathed American culture. But 2 years ago we were launched out of our comfort zone and into first Europe and now Africa. We have found that in reality, we are somewhere in orbit outside of these cultures, not really belonging to any of them. Within a single week, we hear both the values of those from our home country and the swirling opinions of the people among whom we work. Their differing reactions to the same issues are astonishing: Concerning Homosexuality: Western Culture:…
When People Say Stupid Things: An Alternative Response
by Dave Do you ever get asked stupid questions? Try this one on for size: on a market trip the other day the meat vendor saw Stacey, Elias and myself and asked, “Hey, where is your black woman?” Polygamy is not rare here and he assumed I had another wife, or at least another woman on the side. This type of question is the norm as we walk around here, not the exception. Adoption outside of the extended family is rare in Cameroon, multiple women/wives is common, and seeing us with black kids leads them to certain cultural assumptions. But…
There is so Little Grace Here
by Stacey Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. – Psalm 12:1 Streets Filled with Violence I was studying one day when I heard a young woman screaming in the street, “No mama, no mama.” I went outside to see what was going on and Dave told me that our neighbor was violently whipping her daughter with an electrical cable, even in the face, while her older brother was pinning her down. Dave told the mother that she needed to stop and with much frustration, she eventually relented….
