how shall we then live?

Mike and I have just returned from a weekend retreat with one of our favorite missionary organizations in the world - Advancing Native Missions. We were blessed, in so many ways, and we're also very tired. I want to sit on my couch, fix my favorite drink, and watch mindless television until I can unwind and go to sleep. But my soul won't let me. I feel the absolute compulsion to "brain dump" from the weekend and this poor blog is going to be the recipient. I could journal my thoughts out in solitude and it would accomplish almost the same thing, but these stories need to be heard by more than a faux leather journal.

I heard a brave man tell his story of walking across Liberia for more than a year during their civil war, starting at 150 lbs and ending at 85. He was forced to watch gang rape of women by gun point, watched his brother beheaded in front of him, watched family members burned alive. Now he forgives...forgives!, the actual murderers because they are now believers in Jesus Christ. His message of courage, "keep calm and carry on," and hope in Christ came through Joshua 1. He challenged the Americans to stop talking about "safety" in missionary work. He said so many people say "I can't go there, it's too dangerous." Then in the next breath we talk about our ski trip in which we'd willingly fly down a mountainside covered in snow at speeds surpassing 65 mph... "brothers, that is safety?"

I saw a humble man with the heart of Jesus weeping as he confessed that he had witnessed the deaths of more than 60 of his pastor friends, burying many of them with his own hands, in a land of drug cartels and violence in South America. This same man did not mention any of his own sufferings during his testimony. He shared with joy what God had been doing - performing miracles *in this present time* - to bring people to know Jesus. Mike and I were both broken, again, by this servant of the Lord. We had heard his testimony previously at our church in Carrollton and could not hold back our tears during his testimony this time. I felt emotionally drained and restored at the same time!

These missionaries also did not ask for funds, did not ask for things for themselves, only telling what they needed when pressed by the leadership. When they do receive support, they follow the example of ANM leadership and often give away their own support to help the missionaries under them. One missionary in the Philippines asked simply for enough money to give $30 to each of his missionaries when he returned, so that they could eat meat for the first time in a year... they had been living off rice, 24/7.

And I pride myself so often on organic, grass fed, gluten free, paleo, etc. diets.

I heard Jesus speaking love through the life of a Turkish woman who had once despaired of life. She was raised Muslim, never told she was loved, was beaten and abused by family. The first time she felt love was when she met believers and they shared Jesus with her. This woman radiated beauty. She is a living example of the beautiful freedom that comes in the Gospel - thank God that He didn't come only for men; only for the Jew; only for the intellectual elite. He came for all. I find it both ironic and beautiful that it seems God is using women in these dark Muslim countries to bring His light and beauty to the Muslim people, women who feel they are second class citizens or worse in a religious system that does not treasure. He is freeing the women from the oppression of Islam and using them to spread the Gospel.

One of the most stirring, heartbreaking moments for me was the reminder of the value of a soul to God. There was a quote from Schindler's List, which I've heard before, but never quoted by a native missionary who has given so much and still wants to give more.

Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more. 
Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them. 
Oskar Schindler: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just... 
Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of what you did. 
Oskar Schindler: I didn't do enough! 
Itzhak Stern: You did so much. 
[Schindler looks at his car] 
Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. 
[removing Nazi pin from lapel] 
Oskar Schindler: This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. 
[sobbing] 
Oskar Schindler: I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't! 
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What is the price of one more soul? What could I live without, to support one more native missionary sharing the gospel in places I will never go? Do I really need that latte...that addition...the whatever? I know that there is balance in everything, that God is sovereign and all whom He calls will be saved. I know I can give freely of what God has given and also enjoy what God gives to me. But in my heart there is a war raging at the moment, and I don't know what to do with it. This verse is stuck in my heart:

"Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are,
who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.
Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth."
3 John 5-8

Pray for me and my husband as we go forward thinking "how then shall we live?"