In the Aftermath of ISIS

In terrible circumstances, making an eternal difference, one child at a time.

I spent a week in Colorado Springs recently for meetings with the Board of Indigenous Ministries, International (John and Dee Cook’s agency, and the ministry through which we support Grace Bible College in India, provided them with a van through the Harvest Offering, and provided Iraqi refugee families and children with trauma kits containing food, clothes, and stuffed animals). Actually I spent more of my week than I planned as a “worst in memory” blizzard hit the eastern slope of the Rockies socked. Freeways were closed, vehicles unable to move, and flights canceled—God made his will clear that I stay longer, and learn more.

Anyway, I serve on this Board (it’s a small one right now, with four of us in the meetings), and what I have been learning about two of our ministries is both incredibly disturbing and extremely encouraging.

From northern Iraq: What is disturbing is the continuing deterioration of conditions for millions of refugees in and around the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While there are many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the region, and a few large Christian relief organizations, they are not visible to the people IMI is serving in the camps, cities and towns that were once in ISIS-controlled lands. It is in these regions and these people that this small mission is focused.
The stories of these refugees are horrific, and the suffering they have experienced has left entire populations with physical and emotional scars—everyone seems to have some form of PTSD. The horrors of ISIS and the utter destruction of every bit of infrastructure breeds hopelessness. In the midst of these overwhelming needs, IMI has the privilege of bringing the light of gospel message and presence.

IMI has helped plant the Baptist Church in Irbil, and that church’s pastor, Sabre, oversees care for a fast-growing congregation of converts from Christian and Muslim backgrounds. In one evening last summer, 125 people trusted Christ. This church is overwhelmed with trying to help these new converts and other refugees to be able to find stable living. When John and Dee come, they bring more resources, encouragement, and Dee’s ministry to the women is having a large impact. Members of the church become the ministry team to others.

One young couple, Fadi and Myrana, lead our efforts among refugees. Fadi handles the logistics of getting food supplies, while Myrana works with children, helping provide basic needs and building a unique child sponsorship program. IMI’s program doesn’t just provide for a child, although that becomes the entry point. Each child receives enough food for their family for a month, a monthly kids club similar to a Sunday school, the families are visited by team members from the church, and each child is linked to another program IMI has initiated that provides backpacks with school uniforms, shoes, and supplies. And right now nearly 300 hundred children are being sponsored. But we have almost 200 profiles of children still waiting.

What is encouraging is that we can do something in the name of Jesus that changes the circumstances of a child, and in many cases is introducing them to the gospel that can change their lives for eternity. All for $39 a month. [Pictured: John Cook holding one of the refugee boys outside of Mosul on the last trip].

From Egypt: Following tremendous persecution, Christians in Egypt are experiencing a moment when the government is friendly toward them even as Muslim extremists still attack churches. In recent weeks, churches have been surrounded by militants with automatic rifles, firing at them as the people huddled inside. And still, they continue to worship and witness.

IMI has hosted pastor’s conferences (Don Callan has actually spoken at one) and helped plant 10 churches in Egypt. Here the great pressing need has been to help widows in the churches who cannot work because they have children to care for. IMI has launched child sponsorship here as well, providing these “half-orphans” food for their families, clothing, and all that is necessary for school. Because they are all connected to IMI’s church plants, both mothers and children find spiritual support, and a number of the teenage children have decided they want to serve the Lord Jesus with their lives. IMI is helping them go to Bible college. Again, the amount of support works out to $39 a month.

I don’t mean for this to be just a commercial for IMI, but I do want to ask you to consider whether being a part of changing a child’s world by helping their family, linking them to a church, and exposing to the gospel is something you could do. IMI's program provides a profile, picture, and description of the child and family, as well as the strong encouragement for you to write to your child (these letters are so prized, John and Dee asked if we have people who might write letters to give to kids whose sponsors don't write, and also to the other children in a sponsored child family--these children often feel terribly sad when someone writes to a sibling but not to them). Iraqi refugees are often staying for the long haul. Syrian refugees in the region often hope to emigrate and so may have months rather than years to be reached in this way. Like other sponsorship programs, this one feeds and clothes children. But what excites me is the close connection of these precious children to Christians who are present in their lives and able to bear continuing witness. Pastor Sabre is doing amazing follow up work with teams from his church.

If you’d like to help a child in Iraq or Egypt, you can do so by going to IMI’s website—http://indigenousministries.org—and go where it says “Sponsor a Child.” Unless specifically requested you will be given a refugee child to sponsor. Here is the link to the sponsorship page.

More than this, though, I want you to know that the Gospel is having great impact in some of the darkest corners of the earth. Men, women, and children who have experienced horrors that we cannot begin to imagine have been met in their deep pain and loss with the greatest love ever known—the love of Jesus. There is so much to be done, and it does feel overwhelming even as we anticipate adding 600 more refugee children to our program. That is a huge leap for such a small organization, and it seems so little, knowing that the need is so much larger. But while we can’t solve it all, we can be agents of gospel change, one child, one family, one refugee camp at a time. And it is happening!

Shame On You!

One of the burdens we were not designed to bear.

The last verse of Genesis 2, just before the Fall, tells us of the state of the first man and first woman having been brought together and set loose in God's garden to create and shape and play and love and fill it. It says "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25)."

As a kid, I remember when that would be read and thinking how silly that was, walking around without clothes outside! And then as a bit older kid thinking that they may not have been ashamed but what about embarrassed. My juvenile self felt that reading this story made us witnesses and somehow that was embarrassing to them. And besides, all the angels were looking!
I now understand so much more about that statement, and the profound truth it holds. Adam and Eve were naked and that speaks of having absolutely nothing to hide from God or each other. Total exposure that was totally safe.  Most significantly, it says they were "not ashamed." I don't think this means they had a good body image of themselves, although they did since there was nothing to lead to anything else.  I think it lets us know that there was nothing in their lives that would generate shame. That was as it was meant to be. But that would change.

After the Fall, Adam and Eve know evil--eating the forbidden fruit gave them that experience. Knowing evil in this way led to a state and an emotion that came with it. The state was "guilt." They were now guilty of violating God's command to them. They had transgressed their one law. But this led to an accompanying experience no one had ever felt before. They were ashamed. Now, they didn't identify the shame with the guilt, but with their nakedness.

The connection of material and immaterial in our creation is so strong that the apprehension of guilt led to identifying shame with nakedness--they no longer sensed the freedom to be seen by God as they were, because they were no longer what they had been. This is seen when asked by God where they were (and the accompanying appearance they make trying to cover themselves with leaves). When Adam answers, he says they hid because they were naked--something that had previously shown their lack of shame. Now, nakedness could not be endured before God. They were now doers of evil, and their created state carried the awareness that this meant something stood between them and God. They knew they were guilty, and they felt shame.

Much more could and should be said about all this entails, and the relationship between guilt and shame, the existence of false guilt, the fact that in our broken world we can feel shame about things where we are not guilty of wrong, and so on. But what got me thinking about this was listening to a couple different podcasts talking about guilt and shame, and the power that shame continues to have over us.

One particular woman I was listening to talked about having survived years of sexual abuse, but in her survival feeling great shame over what happened to her. That shame led to years of destructive behaviors which were often guilt-inducing because they were evil, which would then add more shame to the mix. She talked about confessing her own sins, finding forgiveness, but still struggling with shame over abuse, not realizing that this was Satan's tool to keep her in bondage. She didn't understand that such sins committed against her were not hers to confess, and that the shame was something she could bring to God and seek freedom from. She posed a very interesting question. Pointing to Genesis 2 and the lack of shame in our creation, she said we were never meant to experience shame, and yet it dominates so much of our lives. We are ashamed of the people we have been, but also of the things that mark us over which we have had no control. She wondered at the negative power of shame to continue to plague us, even when any guilt for sin has been atoned for by the sacrifice of Christ. How many of us still feel the shame of sins forgiven and forsaken? We believe we are forgiven, but we know the pain we've caused others.

And how many of us still feel shame at things done to us or that were a part of our lives, not by choice--the young man ashamed that he still can't read, the girl who feels broken and unworthy because of unspeakable evil done to her and being told she deserved it, the men and women who hate the lusts that continue to plague their minds even as they beg God for deliverance, the parent who has confessed to God their failures in child-raising but continues to feel the shame of their wayward one as a personal diminishment of worth to God and the church?

Shame is a good thing when it leads to our seeing where guilt abides brings us to confession. But it can be a barrier to our growth in Christ and our relationships with others--we cannot be relationally "naked" with anyone, even our loving Father, because there is still too much shame over our failures. In part, this is exacerbated by our pretending things are good, and our assumptions that what others present as a healthy and whole façade is real.

Is shame still at work in you? Is there still that memory of a past failure that haunts you too frequently, or a battle you fight that you fear would make you "less" in the eyes of others you love? Do you live in fear that your shame will be exposed?

Let me encourage you to remember that your Savior has taken your guilt. By grace, you are declared not guilty, and the righteousness of Christ is yours by gift. The Father who sees you "naked" also sees you as righteous. This happened because your redeemer Jesus hung naked on a cross for you--"despising the shame" as the writer of Hebrews puts it. He felt about that shame what you feel about yours. And he endured it to set you free from it.

My prayer is that we will become a people who, having been freed from the guilt of our sin, would walk in holiness that keeps us from experiencing guilt and shame, but also that we would lay the shame of already confessed sin at the cross. And we would recognize the places where Satan is seeking to control us with a sense of shame over things that we did not do, that are not our moral responsibility, rejecting Satan's lies and taking hold of the truth that brokenness is not always our fault, that shame is not always the right response to it, and that we can see ourselves as God sees us.

To get there, we may need the help of the Body. If this is where you are, begin to pray that God gives you someone you can trust that can bear this burden with you. That's what we are meant to do, and often it is hearing someone else speak words of grace and truth to us that help us hear what we cannot seem to hear from ourselves.

Faithful God, Unfailing Grace

Musings on the only way through our fallen world.

Dementia. Cancer. Parkinsons. ALS. Heart failure. Leukemia. 

I'm watching friends of all ages battling diseases and conditions that seem such cruel robbers of health and vitality. 

Divorce. Estranged Children. Broken friendships. Betrayed trust.

Friends and family are experiencing the gamut of relational collapses and calamities, with little hope in sight.

Dreams dashed. Plans abandoned. Efforts failing. Requests denied.

So many people I care about are dealing with losses and disappointments over hopes that will never come true.

If you've read this far, you must have a strong constitution, because the realities I've just listed about this fallen world are hard to stomach. And the longer you live, the more of these you encounter more often.

How do we make it in such circumstances? How can we carry on?

The only way I know is to cling to what we know about God and about grace.

God is faithful.

Grace will never run out for us.

There are no easy answers for any of the things I've just listed. But if, in the occurrence of each, we can keep reminding ourselves that the God who is love and who has called us into his family is always faithful to his stated plan, we can continue on. He has determined to set us free from the power and presence of sin by making us like Jesus. Any or all of these things can be the very needed to move us that much closer to that goal. And in those trials we discover both God's provision of and demonstrations of his grace.

A friend with ALS has lost her ability to move and is about to lose her ability to speak. Her husband is about to lose his partner of nearly 50 years. But she posts about thankfulness, as she sees her husband and family's care for her, or her opportunities to share the gospel with medical workers through tracts, and her requests for prayer that she keeps her eyes on the Lord and not on her failing body.

A faithful God gives parting grace.

A sister who has survived years of abusive treatment speaks of the blessing of learning to trust spiritual leaders to help her when circumstances would leave her vulnerable and when others' counsel was often to go her own way. She is grateful for those who helped her along the path of faithfulness and accountability.

A faithful God gives guiding grace.

A brother I care for has experienced brokenness, loss and, at times, despair. Life was disrupted and trajectories changed. But he tells me he has also seen God sustain and bring healing as he does the work of daily repentance (what we talked about during our 40 days of fasting and prayer). He says he is learning to let go of dreams for the future to experience the joys of a very different but meaningful present.

A faithful God gives daily grace.

Where are you hurting right now? Have your dreams or desires been thwarted? Are your plans in shambles? Is your future uncertain or your past filled with shame? If you are God's son or daughter, know this.

Your God is faithful to his plans and purposes for you. He will see you through.

And every day, he will give you the grace that is needed for that day, that moment, that circumstance. And as you receive it, others will see it and marvel, just as I have been over these dear ones and the grace they have shown.