Welcome to Africa

A week after our return to South Africa and some of the differences between our two life styles have become apparent. Superficially and perhaps surprisingly we live in a very similar house, in a very similar tree-lined street in a fairly similar town to our UK one except the South African place boasts a kilometre of beautiful golden sands.

Fish Hoek beach

Shopping is by no means a Third World experience either. There is little that we cannot buy here that we might wish and there are some bonuses – great meat and buttery avocados to name two. With the impeding arrival of our two inquisitive grandchildren aged 6 and nearly 4 I have tried imagining the differences they might notice. In common with most of Africa, the ladies carry their babies on their backs not in pushchairs. People sell a wide range of products by the side of the road, risking life and limb at traffic lights and you may even have a man with a large plastic bag offering, for a few rand, to take away the rubbish from your car.

A more amusing occurrence is finding someone around lunchtime lying on the grassy pavement by the side of the road. In UK we would immediately phone 999 fearing a collapse or even worse. Here it is just someone having an afternoon nap after a hard morning’s work.

However one morning in church and the differences become very apparent. A lady told of some American nurses here on placement spending a night in the Emergency room at the local hospital. This is in our quiet town not in Johannesburg. It was a night of stabbings and drug and alcohol overdoses. The nurses were trying to process their unexpected experiences.

Another church member who works with Metro Ministries in Lavender Hill, one of poorest areas of Cape Town, told of the shocking incident of a gang shoot out which had left 8 dead and 32 injured and children traumatised.  He was about to go to a meeting between police and gang leaders so he could speak up for the children in the area and to ask the gang leaders to consider the effect of their lifestyle of crime and violence on them.

Finally, another church member, a former missionary to Libya, spoke about how a colleague had just been kidnapped in Niger where he had spent over 30 years working with the locals in providing more secure food sources for them. No one knew where he was though fortunately his wife and children were safe in US.

 

What could we do but pray and pray we did. It made the topic of Brexit in UK and the Trump / Clinton presidential election seem very far away. But all these events, here and abroad, can be overwhelming for the man in the street or the Christian in the church. Do we sit back and howl about the immensity of these problems or do we take them to the Lord in prayer?

These are pivotal days. Our nations need our prayers and considered thoughts. This is the time for the Church to arise with God given wisdom and prayer.  We can show God’s perspective for the poor and needy, his great love for them and his desire for the Church to share that love with those around them and in the furthest corners of the globe. Drought stalks Africa and the effect of Hurricane Matthew is most visible in Haiti. They need our prayers and aid. Haiti desperately needs some God given long-term solutions to their problems.

Haiti

Our politicians and governments also need our prayers and for the Church to speak with wisdom and compassion about God’s view on Brexit and the presidential election because, believe me, God does have a perspective.

When the problems of the world seem overwhelming, God has some answers and he is happy to speak to whoever asks and seeks him. We may not have access to the ear of government but we have access to the highest courts in the universe, the courts of heaven. There we can hear God’s heart and petition him for our communities and nations. There we can change our world through our intercession and there we can make the most profound difference both to the rich and mighty and to the poor and suffering of our world.

Stand

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, Ephesians 6: 10 – 14

One of the hardest yet most essential abilities for the Christian is to be able to stand especially in the face of the devil’s attacks.

It can be so hard to stand when things go wrong in our marriage, or with family, colleagues and especially in the church. The first desire is to run or to hide. How often do you know people who have left their church, their job, family or marriage when things have not gone well?

When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid. When Moses killed the Egyptian he ran and hid in the desert for 40 years.  King Saul hid in the baggage when God’s call came. Elijah ran away and hid in the desert after confronting King Ahab. Jonah did not want to be part of God’s plan for mercy on the Assyrians so he fled in the opposite direction.

Of course this is what the devil wants. Paul is wise to remind us where our struggle is because we so easily forget that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the devil and his cohorts. He doesn’t want us to stand.  He wants us to run away.

Too often we get bogged down in the politics of work or church and let personalities determine our words and actions. Instead it is helpful to try and see how the devil is manipulating people and circumstances and our response must be to stand firm and pray. James reminds us ‘to resist the devil’ and the promise that goes with it is most encouraging ‘and he will flee from you’ James 4: 7.

These verses from Peter are a great reassurance.

Resist him (the devil), standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5: 9 – 10

When circumstances are hard, when everything in you wants to run, to hide, to get away at all costs – stand. Stand firm. Resist the devil. Pray and let God bring triumph out of adversity.

God's Word is not chained

This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. 2 Timothy 2: 9

Paul wrote these words to Timothy at the end of his life but they still resonate today. You cannot chain, silence or stifle God’s Word, the Bible. The most oppressive empires, regimes, governments and even societies down the centuries have all tried and failed. The Bible, the Word of God, the life giving and active word cannot be chained or silenced.

Persecuted Christians in Eritrea 

I love the story in God’s Smuggler of Brother Andrew from the Netherlands taking Bibles into Communist Eastern Europe in the fifties and sixties. He found himself with a Romania pastor who spoke no German or Dutch and of course Brother Andrew spoke no Romanian. So they conversed together using the Bible. They showed one another a verse and then they looked it up in their own language. ItB started with Brother Andrew saying:

I Corinthians 16: 20 All the brethren greet you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

The Romanian pastor replied: Proverbs 25: 25 Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.

Brother Andrew: Philemon 4 – 7 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.

And so on. God’s word cannot be chained. The Bible has all the answers to life, the universe and everything.  That is why the Bible is still in print thousands of years after being written and still in great demand in every country in the world especially where Christians face great persecution. Believers are still risking their lives to take and distribute the Word.

Countries facing the greatest religious persecution 

From North Korea, the country where Christians face the most extreme persecution all across southern Asia (Chine and India), through the Middle East and North Africa to even Colombia in South America believers suffer for their faith. Islam not Communism is the great persecutor these days.  What these Christians crave most of all is Bibles.

There is a well-known Christian organization that sends aid, Bibles and other Christian literature to countries in great need. In one situation they use drug smugglers to take the Bibles into a country where it is banned. The smugglers take drugs one way but on the return trip through the mountains the mules have no cargo. The society has negotiated a deal whereby the mules are loaded with Bibles and when the organization hears from local pastors that the Bibles have safely arrived, they pay the smugglers. Ethically it sounds a bit dubious but lets face it – smuggling Bibles into these countries is illegal so how it is done isn’t really an issue. 

The hunger for God’s word in these nations is immense and the demand far outweighs the supply.

Bible study

In the West we are spoilt – everyone of us has so many Bibles that supply far outweighs demand. We have every available resource to accompany the Word and teaching is easily accessed through the internet let alone through book stores.

The organization Bibles Unbound says that believers in countries facing great persecution ask for two things – our prayers and that we send Bibles. 

Next time we open our Bibles, pray for those who have no Bible but would love one and let us value and treasure ours as the life giving Word of God – active and powerful that just cannot be chained.

Reflections from the Somme

My Great Uncle's grave at Abbeville cemetery

I sat before my great uncle’s grave recently in the warm French sunshine. He died from his wounds received at the Battle of the Somme on July 13 1916. I sat and wondered ‘Was it worth it?’  Did he consider the sacrifice of his life worth it?

He at least had a grave with his name on. Thousands only had tombstones inscribed A soldier of the Great War. Known unto God.  The huge war memorials of the Menin Gate and Thiepval have thousands and thousands of names inscribed on them of soldiers who are missing and have no known grave. 

The Menin Gate

Some of the thousands of names

It was all such different times then. War was regarded as noble and patriotic.  Giving up your life for King and country was the honourable thing to do. It was your duty.  Generals wrote of the ‘magnificence’ of soldiers advancing without flinching as they were mown down by machine gun fire. Soldiers spoke of not wanting to die but being ready to do so.

Two World Wars have changed our view on the nobility of War, certainly in the West.  The carnage of the battlefields of Europe and Turkey in the First World War and the horrors of the Second World War when civilians and servicemen both here, in Europe and further afield in Asia suffered terribly has made us wonder what principles are worth fighting and dying for.

The public outrage over the Iraq war and especially from families of servicemen who lost their lives has shown that as a nation we need very good grounds to send our armed forces off to fight our national battles.  We no longer trust politicians and the army chiefs to decide if a war is worth fighting. That can be dangerous ground.

Our involvement in both World Wars came about because of treaties we had signed that we couldn’t possibly honour.  Even our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq came about because of the special relationship with USA.  So what do we do? Pull up the drawbridge, batten down the hatches and hope the latest global bully will go away? Of course not.

Evil must be fought.  Those who died in any of the Wars we have been involved in would, I am sure, be horrified if we just gave up. 100 years ago territories were seen as worth fighting over to create large empires whether in Europe, Africa or Asia.  Today our national boundaries within Europe are so secure there are not even border checks. Our boundaries though with the rest of the world are becoming stronger and stronger as people from poorer areas seek a new, more prosperous life or to flee the crises in their own lands.  These crises are no longer over expansion of territory but over racial and religious hatred. In both Middle East and Africa being the wrong tribe or religion is enough to go to war.

So what might my great uncle say today?

Fight evil wherever you find it. In your heart, your home, your neighbourhood, your nation – don’t tolerate racial bigotry and religious ideology that seeks to impose itself on others. Fight it and if necessary go to war against it.

And remember. Remember those who died – whatever we may think about the cause – remember that they made a sacrifice that they considered worth making and be thankful.

Tyne Cot cemetery and the Cross of Sacrifice

Some beautiful words from one of today's generation *Words below

Finally my great uncle was a Christian and I am sure he would say consider Jesus – the one who made the ultimate sacrifice to overcome evil. Jesus fought and won the good fight of faith so every one of us could know him and live free – free from sin and free from death. One day he will return and usher in the reign of peace we all long for.

Words from a British pupil on the Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot cemetery

To this day there are numerous unidentified soldiers who made up our army that won our freedom. We  have encountered so many unique and heartwarming stories from unidentified soldiers but what about the stories that were never shared. Every soldier is as important and as brave as the next. Some just happen to be unknown. Let us remember the stories that were not told, sons who never returned and lives that were never lived.