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 “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.”     Acts 6:8
“One of the advantages of the grace of God is that it makes a man a gentleman without the aid of a dancing master.”    (John Wesley)Â
Paul S. Rees, Man of Action in the Book of Acts (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1966), 32
April 15, 2004
Dear Jane,
It is 9:34 at night–way past missionary midnight which falls for me about 8:00.  
Mike and Casey have retired for the evening. Mike often takes the mini missionaries who visit back to the airport at Entebbe. It is an hour drive and the flight out to London is very early so tonight he is not the family night owl. There are times, like today when I feel so surrounded by humanity that I purpose to carve out some time to be still, quiet and alone with God.  God has met me with much comfort concerning the death of James Okwir. As I prepared for the Mama’s Bible study of Genesis 9, I was warned and helped when I considered the heart of Ham. He sought to expose and ridicule Noah when he lay naked and drunk. How easy it is to feel superior and to exploit other’s weaknesses. How beautiful that the other two sons honored their father and sought to cover and protect him in his folly.
There has been so much tongue wagging about this tragic incident.  Everyone seems shocked that this young man was stealing. I asked the mamas today if we were guilty of arrogantly thinking that the sin of stealing only dwelt in James’ heart. I asked whether we felt justified in exposing and denigrating his character?  Are we like Ham–anxious to clothe ourselves in self-righteousness and willing to strip this brother of all honor?  I wondered if God would not rather have us tremble at what lives in our hearts and draw close to Him who is willing to cover rather than expose us!
Carolyn and I took Sophie to Mengo Hospital today where her TB treatment is given. She will go every two weeks for about 7 months. I thought she would be hooked up to some breathing apparatus or some inhaling machine. The treatment plan consisted of waiting in line to be weighed–waiting in line to be seen by a doctor, waiting in another line to get in to meet the pharmacist. She carefully counted out tablets that were to be taken for the next two weeks and put them in a tiny envelope like the envelopes we get from tellers at the bank. Following the TB treatment portion of the visit, we got into two more lines to have her seen by a doctor for an ear infection and then another line for the medicine for that!
During those waiting hours, you see sights that you can scarcely believe. People collapsing from malaria symptoms, lepers, malnourished children who look like skeletons, children urinating on the floor. Despairing, suffering people–waiting for the most minimal kind of care.
Compared to the sights we saw, our Sophie is thriving! She now has wrinkles in her thighs that used to look like Kermit the Frog’s! She is eating to beat the band and getting stronger everyday.  
I wouldn’t take anything for the privilege that is ours to oversee this child’s recovery–she is so worth it. Carolyn and I adore her hair — it is a soft straight Indian looking growth. The doctor said that we need to shave it off. He said that her hair was a sure sign of malnourishment and TB. He told us that if she is getting good food and good treatment her hair will grow in curly like it is supposed to on an African!
The verse that sustained me through the day was Psalm 125, especially these words:
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people
both now and forevermore.
As I sat on wooden benches in the hospital with TB patients, Â I counted on His surrounding Presence and it was there.
Until later my dearest friend–you are cherished and loved–lissa
March 31, 2004
Hello my friend,
 We brought 2 new babies here yesterday. After a confusing delay and a much too long wait for dear little Sophie–she is finally here!  Our doctor at SOS is not at all convinced that she is suffering from TB. He says that the x-ray that he viewed of her chest was of such poor quality that he may recommend a better one.
He also wants to see her next treatment report from Mengo hospital where she has been getting TB treatments. In his opinion, he says he would label Sophie as a child who has “failure to survive” complex but believes that that will end when she is eating and sleeping properly. We were so encouraged by his words.
Sophie will go to cottage #1 where she will be cared for by Auntie Janet. Mama Jennipher has left the village and not returned. 
She left the care of these children in order to take care of a crisis with her own daughter. This is becoming more routine than I can say — any family crisis presses these women to make a choice between Rafiki, where they are committed to live full time, and their own homes where things are never stable or smooth running. I know we need a policy that will allow the women some more freedom to come and go so that we can hold on to them over the long haul. Since I have been here, we have lost 4 mothers!
Auntie Janet has been exceptional in this latest AWOL episode. She has moved in to cottage #1 and is making the care of these children her top priority. 
The presence of babies in the village has lifted all our hearts and made us fix our eyes on the goal rather than all the problems in arriving there! The children in cottage #1 are fascinated with this cute tyke with the extraordinary eye lashes. Janet is completely besotted as well–it is unusual to see African women display such outward affection. We have also been waiting on William the one I call our little “Buddah Boy” and he too has arrived to live at Rafiki.   He is taller and his stomach is not as distended — he loves the dining hall and is relishing all the attention he is getting from his new mother– Mama Robinah.
Easter Morning
Jane, we had a tragic thing happen here this weekend. One of our most trusted guards James Okwir (O-quill) was on duty Friday night. 
James was a Rafiki guard and also worked as a personal gardener for Mike and I and another ROS couple here. Our hearts were so tender to this wonderful man who tried every way he could to support not only his own family but children who had been orphaned in his extended family. He would work all night as guard and then spend several more hours washing cars, replanting and keeping the weeds out of the flower beds around our houses.
Anyway, the generator went off at 10:00 on Friday night and in the darkness he took a 5 gallon can of paint from Rafiki, left the village and went across the road to store it in a house of someone who lives close by. Since we also pay outside community guards to keep watch at night, one of them saw him stealing and reported it.
James knew he had been caught and that sweet man was so shamed that he went home,  swallowed rat poison and killed himself. I cannot even begin to describe the heartache this has caused for us and the nationals who work here. I found myself of despairing of being any kind of a help to these people when what we bring and build is so tempting to them.  
James was in many ways one of our “success” stories.  He had fled the north where the war is going on rather than be impressed into service with the rebels. He found work here–he found Christ here and was the most dependable worker. How horrid that his escape from certain death in the north ended with this– to flee here to supposed safety only to face such temptation and shame that he ended up taking his own life. The heartache does not stop with him–he left a mentally unstable pregnant wife and extended family who wailed and wondered who would support them now. Mike commented that CEO’s can steal millions and experience no remorse or shame but this man could not face the world after stealing what would amount to about $50.
Jane, this is the resurrection day of our Lord. My hope rests in the truth of this day. I am convinced that James is right now as alive as Jesus and is enjoying perfect fellowship with him. I am convinced that the truth of Romans 8:31-39 does not mock him because of his sin but has been fulfilled in him because of what Christ did in spite of his sin. I didn’t expect to appreciate the truth of resurrection in this horrible way but it is more real and precious to me this year than ever before. He is Alive! He is Alive indeed!
With heavy, hopeful heart,
lissa
“Too many Christians never see that self-love comes out of a culture that prizes the individual over the community and then reads that basic principle into the pages of Scripture. The Bible, however, rightly understood, asks the question, “Why are you so concerned about yourself?” Furthermore, it indicates that our culture’s proposed cure–increased self-love–is actually the disease…Need theories can thrive only in a context where the emphasis is on the individual rather than the community and where consumption is a way of life. If you ask most Asians and Africans about their psychological needs they will not even understand the question!” ((Edward Welch, When People are Big and God is Small, P & R Publishing, 81 and 87))
As I read this quote, I remembered the days of interviewing African women who were seeking a job as housemothers for 10 previously orphaned children. Trying to get to know them as quickly as possible I would naively say, “Why don’t you describe yourself and your hopes and dreams for me.” The women would stare at me with a confused look and say, “JjaJa, I don’t understand the question.” It was not a language difficulty–it was that they never spent a moment of their lives pondering such a self absorbed question! It never occurred to women who are daily consumed with thoughts of “How will I make it today?” to think about themselves or ponder an uncertain future. They live in a culture that prizes the good of the community and care almost none for the aspirations of the individual as we do. People with little, and certainly not familiar with a consumer culture but with a pervasive joy and contentment. Are we missing something by having so many somethings?
I remember one time going to church with Auntie Edith and asking, “Edith what is his name?” She said, “JjaJa, you mzungus care very much about names–here we greet people by saying, “Hello Ssebo” (Sir) or “How are you Nnyabo” (Madam), we don’t ask for names!” Again, she was helping me see that her world view was not individualistic –she was not living in a culture that could afford to pursue the esteem of self. As Welch has suggested, what if the cure we seek–a better self-esteem–is the disease from which we need to be delivered?
I have been in Acts 4 today. I am thrilled by the energy and insight that is bubbling out of the Spirit filled believers. Peter’s sermon has struck religious leaders so that they could say nothing–they realize that Peter and John are “unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” In one statement Peter boldly asserted that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Right after I finished studying, I ran across this 6 minute summary of the good news of Jesus by a present day pastor. Do you have 6 minutes to spare?
“What are we going to do with these men,” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.” Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:16-20)
Well, the kids are back at school and that means it is time to think about ways to stop the spread of that school stuff that wants to come home and live with you! The CDC has posted the following recommendations: frequent hand washing, avoiding close contact and staying home when you are sick. Okay, am I the only one who thinks the germs from school laugh when they read this list? They manage to infiltrate no matter how hard I seek to stop the spread!
As I read this passage in Acts, it sounded like the Sadducees were employed by the CDC! These self-protective agnostics were also trying to stop something from spreading! What were they trying to stop? Peter had seen a crippled beggar and in an act of kindness healed him in the name of Jesus. It was the spread of the “Jesus germ” that the Sadducees sought to stop. Their strategy was to get the apostles to stop speaking–the thought was that if they could quiet the apostles this spreading kindness–this spreading healing might also stop! Does that strike you as odd? With previously uncharacteristic boldness, the apostles responded to the Sadducees in effect, “It’s too late, we’re sorry, we are already infected and we can’t help but spread this!”Â
R. Kent Hughes shares an account from our own history of a man who was spreading the same germ!
Peter Cartwright was a great circuit-riding Methodist preacher in Illinois. An uncompromising man, he had come north from Tennessee because of his opposition to slavery. One Sunday morning when he was scheduled to preach, his deacons told him that President Andrew Jackson was in the congregation. Knowing Cartwright was used to saying whatever he felt God wanted him to say, regardless of how people might react, they warned him not to say anything that would offend the chief executive. He stood up to preach and said, “I understand President Andrew Jackson is here. I have been requested to be guarded in my remarks. Andrew Jackson will go to Hell if he does not repent!” The audience was shocked. They wondered how the President would respond to this, but after the service the told Cartwright, “Sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could whip the world.” (( R. Kent Hughes, Acts The Church Afire, Crossways Books, 64))
Interestingly enough these Spirit infected Jesus followers were on a world mission–not to whip it but to win it for the Jesus that they had come to devotedly adore! This “thing” that the Sadducees tried to stop is unstoppable–it is not something–it is someone–the Sovereign Lord of the Universe who is on mission!
 
 Yesterday, I launched a 12 week fall Bible study at my church. About 20 women gathered and there was much excitement as we opened chapter 1 and began to unearth the gems contained there. I am glad to be studying with these women and eager to consider the essential role of the Holy Spirit in spreading the good news about Jesus. Luke is so precise–such a researcher–and committed historian. He records the events that allow us to observe people being changed from the inside out!  When thinking about that change I remembered these thoughtful words:
“Is it really possible to change?…The word “really” is the issue. In many people’s minds, change must be nearly complete–at least dramatic–or it doesn’t count…If efforts to restore a drab marriage lead only to a flicker of warmth, then perhaps it hasn’t really changed…Evangelicals sometimes expect too much or, to put it more precisely, we look for a kind of change that God hasn’t promised…We manage to interpret biblical teaching to support our longing for perfection.Â
As a result, we measure our progress by standards we will never meet until heaven…We therefore claim God’s power as the guarantee of total change from pressure to peace, from disappointment to joy–and then live with an intolerable burden that either crushes us with despair or requires us to pretend we are better than we are. The idea that peace and joy might merely support us during times of struggle and sorrow rather than eliminate those times is not appealing.Â
 We want to do away with the necessary pain of living in a disappointing world as imperfect people. We insist on experiencing neither pain nor failure, so when the inevitable happens, it becomes reason for discouragement. But there are unnecessary problems that develop when we insist that necessary pain be eliminated…If we were convinced that the trauma of learning to trust God would really change us, we might be willing to endure it. But real change is available now; it’s just not the kind of change we want. We insist that the real change that heaven will bring (an end to all pain) be ours today. That insistence is the problem that we must overcome if real change that’s possible now is to occur.” ((Larry Crabb, Inside Out, NavPress, 1988, 203-205))
O Father, you are the Potter; I am the clay–it has never occurred to me before that my desire to change–my hopes for moral renovation might be rushing your timetable–or that it springs from a root of pride that wants to look better in other’s eyes right now! I sense, that through Acts you will teach me to want the change you want to do in me! What an adventure it is to live under the molding influence of your Spirit. Amen
