Interruptions are the key to the crucified life. –Jeanne Guyon

Planning. Scheduling. Organizing. These are mainstays of the Western mindset. I must plan, I must schedule, and I must organize. Then I moved to the jungle.

More often than not, our days are unplanned here. Not that we don’t plan, mind you. It’s just that, well, things come up.

Medical missions is part of our outreach ministry. Since everyone in our region knows that our clinic treats everyone for everything, they show up every day. Never mind that clinic days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. The only time they usually have to wait is on Sunday, because we don’t see anyone on that day until after our church services are over.  “Closed except for emergencies” is what we say; and what isn’t an emergency? Malaria, typhoid, knife wounds…all of these cannot wait until business hours.

Today we were supposed to work on language learning. Then two patients needed to be transported over the mountain to the hospital. Then came another. By the time I was back at the mission station, my language helpers were gone. So what did I learn in language today? I guess I spent the majority of the day speaking in the two languages we are learning because our patients and their families don’t speak English. The little boy who walked with me to the village taught me how to say “We (two) are walking to the village,” along with some other words and phrases.

More importantly, I learned (again) that interruptions are the key to the crucified life. My plans are always to be subject to my Master Planner. His wisdom is infinitely higher than mine, and His path is much more worthwhile than mine. I will continue to plan, schedule, and organize; but daily I will lay these “desires” at the Cross of Christ that I may know Him better, and that my life may be more like His. God desires that I be conformed to the image of His Son; and I have noted that in my life, He engineers the conforming.

Let’s start tomorrow’s plans with a “Lord willing, we shall…” and allow Him to interrupt us as He pleases.

Daybreak refuel of P2-TMK by our pilot, Matt Allen

The day started at 4 AM as we got up and packed supplies to head over the mountain to the airstrip. Actually, it had started before that.

Kids at Komako

Take your vaccine!

I’ll take my vaccine!

Whooping cough immunizations

Fast forward 9 hours…Lena had seen 159 patients by herself. 87 cases of whooping cough (active!). 147 total immunizations. Jack spent the whole day translating for us.

Line at the end of the day

And in answer to prayer, the wind died down at around 3:30 pm. Lena and I were prepared to spend the night at Komako. OK, we weren’t, because we didn’t bring a sleeping mat or a blanket…but we had psyched ourselves up to that’s what needed to be done. No worries. Be flexible.

Jack & Esila Naudi

Jack will commissioned by Kotidanga Baptist Church on next Sunday (March 10). He will be the first missionary sent out by the church that Matt planted back in 2004. This national church is going to support him for the equivalent of $75 USD per month. We’re all excited, and we consider it a blessing to have seen the place our teammates are moving to.

Jason, Cherith, & Grace Ottosen

Yeah, it was a crazy day at Komako. But maybe we helped lay a small part in the foundation of the ministry that will follow. Pray for Jason, Jack, and their families as they begin this new venture soon.

Imagine winning part of a debate with an atheist, or at least getting him to concede you had a point.

Matthew Parris, a self-avowed confirmed atheist, returned to Africa after 45 years and found that it just wasn’t the good that the missions and faith-based organizations had done. It was the actual belief in God that had transformed the people. He wrote:

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

And of all things, this quote from the Times Online is posted on RichardDawkins.net. Not quite the place you’d expect a promotion of Christian influence!

Which leads me to encourage you to become engaged in your society. Too long we’ve given place to the world and its influences, allowing the world to go on its eat-drink-and-be-merry way. I’m a conservative, Independent Baptist; but I’m the first to admit that we can be so conservative that we don’t read outside our circles nor think outside our training nor fellowship outside our own. We got so separated that some became inbred and introspective. We forgot the part about being salt and light in our world. We’re afraid to be part of our community. We say they don’t like us, but it’s human nature to distrust the unknown. The reality is that we left them.

Would that it could be said of us, as Parrish writes again about his experience in Africa:

The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

Let’s be different. Let’s be the ones who reach our communities by being part of them. Though they may not like our faith, they will nonetheless have to say that it works. And just maybe it might bring them to meet Jesus.

Unengaged. Unreached. Unevangelized. Untouched.

Those are missions buzzwords. Want to stir up the crowd at the next conference? Make certain you use one of these words. Christians are stirred when they think of people who are un-something. I mean, let’s touch the untouched! Let’s evangelize the unevangelized! Let’s work harder to reach the unreached! It’s our job to engage the unengaged!

No matter where you live in the world, there is someone near you to be “engaged.” Informing the uninformed, telling the untold; however you put it, we should be busy telling the Gospel story.

How often we go out into our communities with our pack of tracts, our Bibles, our invitations, our flyers…our things about “us.” Problematically, our brand of touching/reaching/evangelizing/engaging works best on those who have a mindset like our own. And let’s be honest: There aren’t many like “us” out there. 

Looks like there’s another group who really needs to be engaged; that’s “us.” We’re not being engaged by our society, by our culture, by our own people. And we make excuses about it. You know, “People can’t take preaching any more. They don’t listen like they used to. You can’t get into their homes.” If we aren’t careful, we go all the way out to, “It’s the last days, nobody’s gonna listen. Signs of the times! Better button up the bunker, Bertha!”

I know plenty of men and women who serve the Lord and find ways to win people to Christ. But to them, people are not targets. People are not simply converts, the scalps you count from your evangelistic efforts on Thursday evening or Saturday morning. They are people. Hey guys, Jesus came for people. He came to engage them, evangelize them, reach them, and touch them! Yes, I know, it takes time. It takes investment. It will cost you, whether from your wallet or your calendar or your soul.

We need to be engaged by our communities. We need to be involved. Get out into your community and show compassion. Find ways to show the light of the Gospel, and you’ll find ways to share the love of Christ. Good deeds are okay! You won’t lose your salvation just because you do something good. It won’t weaken your belief that you are saved by grace through faith. It will put you out there with people. Make yourself approachable. Have your neighbors over to the house, and just be good to them. Listen to them. Soon enough, you’ll bear their pains with them, and pray for them, and pray with them. And Jesus will become real to them through you.

Let’s engage the unengaged, starting with ourselves.

Read all about it on our mission website:

http://bit.ly/T8v4gQ

Clean water–sweet!

Those words seem so out of place in our remote area of PNG. No shopping, no hustle and bustle, no last-minute-buying, none of the things that stress out our friends in the West.

Here in PNG it is Christmas Eve. The clinic is closed today and tomorrow, except for emergencies. Lena and her nurse co-worker, Rachel Schellenberger, had agreed to see a couple of young burn victims for dressing changes and a snakebite victim for follow-up. Nothing much for our dear nurses to handle.

Lena & Rachel

We’re blessed to live next door to our son and his family. The only family tradition we have here is Christmas Eve dinner at our house. Lena has been looking forward to it for a long time. And hey, the clinic is closed! Plenty of time to prepare the dinner. Piece of cake.

Then comes the note scrawled on scrap paper. A new mother is having complications in birth downriver from our place. Lena and Rachel headed down to assist. For them, it was fairly routine: the birthing mom is outside on the wet ground, downhill from the house; the baby arrives with the cord around the neck–twice; then there’s the post-delivery duties every delivery room nurse knows about. Except for doing it in the mud.

Newborn in a string bag

All is finished; new mom and baby are doing well, so Rachel and Lena come home. And Lena cleans up and prepares Christmas Eve dinner. Just in time.

Yeah. She’s wonder woman. And we’re blessed. For us, the holidays aren’t really that stressful.

Maria’s snakebite improving