safety measures....

I shared with you how our city has been facing new rules and new roadblocks all around.... phone checks for pedestrians and mandatory car checks for drivers at random places, where citizens ought to continually be on guard for identity theft.  Thousands, some say several tens of thousands, across our province have been taken into political re-education.     The past few months have been an incredible time of fear and uncertainty.

I've had close friends who have missed their husbands for months.  Another who has stayed quite mobile- visiting friends and family in several different locations- to try to keep her husband from being picked up and taken away.  Again, if someone is brought in.... they don't need a trial or a sentence, but families plan on them being gone for probably at least 3-4 months, and many have not yet returned even after being gone for about a year now.

Right now, as meetings are being held to decide the future of these security measures in our province, all employees of companies or institutions in our province are forced to work 50 days straight.  Saturdays and Sundays.  No break.   We've heard people show up on weekends and no-school days with school aged kids who have to sit by their parents desk all day.  And there's nothing to do, but be there.....  this isn't about workload.  Supposedly it has to do with keeping people in our province from traveling while these meetings are going on.

Right now, there's a total suspension of shipping into our province.  Online groceries are completely stopped.  Hopefully after one more week of meetings it will resume.... and I can't imagine the backlog that the whole province will be dealing with.

Honestly, it has me weighed down as I think about how Romans writes to us that governments only cause fear for those who have done wrong.  Not always....  This is a hard situation.

And yet, we absolutely believe that the Lord will use this.  We are praying, and would you pray with us, that these hard measures would result in the U people coming awake to see that I sl am does not need to grip their whole people?  The security behind all this is a response to I s lam ic  terr or ism... but it's also the easiest thing in the world for the U people to say that it's just oppression against their people group (whom they assume are 100% Muslim.)

May they come to see that there are U ygh ur people that are Christians, Christians who are commanded to obey their leaders and pray for those in authority over them!  May this hard time be the place in history when the U people shake free, by God's grace, of the deception of Islam, and decide that truth will determine their beliefs not tradition.  May it be God!  Build your church among the Uy gh ur people!

living simply for the sake of the Gospel

Here's an excerpt from a needed post over at Radical.net  The author is writing about living simply with material goods among a jungle people group they would present with the Gospel.  The first indented words are from a local believer who was reflecting on his view and encouragement for the missionaries...

There's just so much to this, and it's not only about reaching a jungle tribe with the Gospel.  There's the element of how our own hearts are lassoed towards dependence in God if we are choosing to not depend on stuff for security, comfort, happiness, status.  There's the great demonstration to everyone who sees us that we are living not according to this world's system or for this world's reward.   We can evidence an actual belief in heaven if we show that we're more concerned for other's eternity than we are for our present reality (in this fallen world!  which is more important!?)  We can show that we're not taking our happiness or joy in stuff (that will all burn.)   There's a holy heap of good reasons that we, the church (not just missionaries) should consider living as humbly as we can beautifully serve others.  I love all this, and yet I know that there's still much room for the Lord to work this humility and stuff-severing in my heart.  I want the Lord to continually work in us to draw us down, make us dependent on Him and make His grace the thing that shines out of our lives as great.... not out income, our fashion, our status markers in this world.   May it be, Lord, all for your glory!

Mis3ionaries should be thinking about the future church that will be born. 

When the gospel is taught clearly in our heart languages and the Holy Spirit saves souls, that’s when we see everything that you have said and done with clear eyes—because we understand why. Now, when the Lord asks us to do without or to do hard things and walk to far off villages for the sake of the gospel, we will have your pattern as an example. Missionaries need to ask God for help to live like we live. If you build and work with only your family in mind and you bring many things from your culture to live with you and you love those things, you will make decisions that will separate you from us, the ones you came to reach.

There is no right formula for simple living among the unreached, or at home for that matter. It is a matter of the heart, including our personal convictions and our strategies of suffering. However, we should all take inventory occasionally and ask ourselves if our living standards and our “stuff,” which will soon be wood, hay and stubble ( ), are playing a larger role in our daily lives and decisions than the urgency and eternity of the gospel. As the Lord leads you to suffer the infringements of your own rights, the flesh will protest and others may misunderstand, but we have Christ and His joy for our example as we move toward Him in obedience.