the back burner

today's support email, hot off the presses

Dear friends,

Greetings from my little corner of the world -- which is currently Atlanta, GA. I arrived here two weeks ago in Matthew's car after having a car wreck in Birmingham (no one was hurt), and will remain here until (a) visa papers arrive and (b) my car leaves the repair shop. I am thankful for your prayers for my safety and for my field-preparation during this crazy time! Look at what God has done in response to your prayers:

* My travels were free from injury, despite an auto accident.
* I've spent some good quality team time with Matt and John.
* I've also spent some time with several local supporters, old and new.
* AND..... my support budget is nearly funded! I'm only a few pledges short of being fully funded!

Clearly, this is the time to really discipline ourselves to pray for "my new country." We believe that the gospel speaks to every part of the social situation there: among the immigrants, the homeless, the government institutions, the expatriate communities, the blue-collar workers, and on and on. As I get closer and closer to the field, I increasingly see Satan targeting those of us on the front lines. Please pray that:

* ...the church would find encouragement to keep on proclaiming the word of God.
* ...God would open ears and soften hearts to hear the good news.
* ...Islamic communities will find healing, honor and security in Christ.
* ...my vehicle and my visa would no longer pose obstacles. (The mechanic shop promises to call me tomorrow.)

On a different and final note, I just attended a free screening of a rough documentary made in Gulu, Uganda, home of the Acholi tribe and many, many children displaced and orphaned by the war. Gripping and galvanizing stories! I realized afresh how easy it is to discard a city like "my city" by pointing out that people's basic needs are met there... but two stubborn truths remain clear to me. Stubborn truth #1: "my new city" is a city in which (seemingly) all the nations of the world are assembled. Many poverty-stricken areas of the world that remain closed to the gospel are represented by large populations in my city. If we cannot reach them in their home countries, we must reach them here and build as many secret bridges as we can into their home contexts. Stubborn truth #2: my city is a place of deep spiritual darkness. I cannot justify leaving such a place altogether alone in favor of more physically extreme fields. Going to the city in question represents a big step of faith for me, as I trust in God's sovereign missiology: to call people to himself from among ALL who suffer and ALL who stumble in darkness by calling SPECIFIC believers to SPECIFIC kingdom tasks (and locations).

In the past I've asked you to pray for my call, that God would confirm this apprenticeship season in "my city" and also ease my heart when it comes to the suffering of the poorest nations. I am so thankful for your continued prayers in this matter. God is walking close to my heart in all these things, even as he walks closely with the poor. Thank you.

Yours in Christ, Bob

free screenings are nice

I just second-handedly received this note from the assistant pastor at All Souls' Fellowship, here in Decatur:
---

"Please try to come to our church this Wednesday at 6:30 to watch the documentary Invisible Children which is on the tragedy of children in Uganda that have struggled against the civil war in their country. It is my hope that we will be more aware after this movie about the injustice in Uganda as well as spur us to think about the injustice in our own city as well.

"The filmmakers just found out they are going to be on the Oprah show live this Wednesday.

"If you are free, please consider joining us this Wednesday and inviting your friends. There will be childcare provided for this night.

"Dan Adamson
Assistant Pastor
All Souls Fellowship"

in the thick of it

Was there ever a doubt that I'm an ENFP? I am spending the whole day hanging out and feeding people. I love it.

This morning I slept in till 9 am (after staying MUCH too late at a Westminster small group last night), then threw on some clothes and started frying chicken. I think I fried ten drumsticks before I really got the hang of it. They each hung out in a bath of egg, pepper and old half-and-half while the oil got hot. Then they picked up a corn meal breading and went into the pan. I could have fried ten more if only I had more chicken. Who knew it was this easy?

So then I loaded up Bill's cooler with drinks, ice, bananas, chicken, and raisins. After a few frantic minutes of phone calling, I secured a ride to Piedmont Park and played about three hours of ultimate frisbee. Ahhhhhhh... followed by fried chicken, ginger ale, and fruit. Double ahhhhhhh...

And now I'm having folks over to the Moorestown house for a game night. Props to my amazingly-flexible MK roommates for letting me take over and make their house a three-ring circus. I would pay top-dollar for catching the look on M's face this morning as I took all that chicken out the front door. The whole house smelled good, and I was taking all the food away. Poor guy. At least he took it like a soldier.

verse du jour

de Habacuc 3:

17 Car le figuier ne bourgeonnera plus,
et il n'y aura plus de raisins dans les vignes,
le fruit de l'olivier trompera les espoirs,
les champs ne produiront plus de pain à manger.
Les moutons et les chèvres disparaîtront de leurs enclos,
les bœufs de leurs étables.

18 Mais moi, c'est à cause de l'Eternel que je veux me réjouir,
j'exulterai de joie à cause du Dieu qui me sauve.

Easter(n) thoughts

Details by Frou Frou
Bloom by Sarah McLaughlin
Hopes and Fears by Keane
anything by the Innocence Mission

(Selections from what I'd like to be listening to, these days.)

And here's a cryptic comment from SF, tagged onto my last post: "Happy Easter, Bob, when we are given the want to take what is good as well as the good gift itself." Good word, Funke.

In restrospect, I find it a bit odd that I was pondering the weight of temptation on Easter Sunday. But then again, how does that song go? "Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter's power..." That at least makes temptation an appropriate topic for consideration on Maundy Thursday. And what did Jesus say after appearing to the disciples in Luke 24? "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem..."

Our understanding of the significance of Jesus' resurrection draws weight from our understanding of the gospel. Suddenly, thinking about the sinfulness of sin doesn't seem all that odd. On Easter Sunday of all days, we are sharply confronted with the wholesome, redeeming, robust power of Jesus the Christ, the God-man. All other days we may drudgingly consider the sinfulness of sin as something that doesn't really pan out in the long run, something with a high price tag, or something that simply wouldn't please our Lord. But on Easter itself, we realize afresh not only that sin brings death, but that Christ brings life. Sin doesn't just look like a bad option; it looks like a foolish nothing next to an incredible SOMETHING. We look at Christ and immediately say, "Aha! So HERE is what I have really been after!"

This resurrection outshines all our hopes and injects into our lives a laughing brilliance. By the light of the risen and ascendant Christ, we can see the empty shell of our sin for what it is, light and empty as a cicada-skin. Of course Christ was the spring of all our wanting -- we never really wanted that decaying collection of dead proteins, after all. In his light we can grind it underfoot, much as our federal head has ground the serpent's head into the dust. Halla-halle-hallelujah!

My rinky-dink poem from last night was pretty poor, but Funke was right on when she talked about the gift of holy wanting, as well as the gift of life itself. The deepest root of temptation, for me, has always tapped into the soil of forgetfulness. Here's to remembering the resurrection.

temptation

There's something I want.
Without saying what it is,
I can go so far as to tell you
That it's no good.

It's the kind of thing
You want to have and to eat
All at the same time,
Taking without paying.

So I've been making the rounds,
Haunting the fringes of lawlessness,
Looking you in the face
And telling you I'm fine.

But the problem with this
Is that it never teaches
Me to say you're welcome,
Please, or no thanks.

bumper-to-bumper

So I'm back in the land of bumper stickers after an extremely boring hiatus in the squeaky-clean-bumper land of Houston, TX. Here's today's offering: "Psychiatry = Death: Don't let them drug our children!"

This was followed by a 1-800 number that I neglected to jot down. Fascinating.

I reckon somebody had a bad experience.

Speaking of bumper stickers and bad experiences, it's a good thing I didn't have any precious bumper stickers on the front of my parents' Mazda. I rear-ended another person on Thursday night in Birmingham. Yikes! So now I'm stranded in Atlanta (except when wonderful transportation-providers come and pick me up). Pray that the Lord would iron out the insurance, repair, and transportation details.

And lastly, John Goodman found this lovely movie about I-285, the perimeter highway around Atlanta. It's a highway where everyone goes as fast as they can, but the posted speed is 55 mph. These five cars decided to coordinate an act of civil obedience a couple of years ago to protest the 55 mph law, making an argument that the current speed limit laws are actually unsafe... and they filmed it. Bumper-to-bumper traffic all going 55 mph. Beautiful and horrifying.

It's good to be back in the ATL.

communities in conflict

Just a friendly reminder: there's a good discussion of patriotism, immigration, etc over at SPQR. Here's the $0.02 I posted there:

Sheesh. What a discussion. I have been listening to the local Pacifica-allied radio station here in Houston recently, because they're the only station around with good coverage of this issue. (And I do mean good coverage, even though it's coming from a left-wing standpoint.)

What struck me is that every time they make room in their programming for listener calls, there are always several African-American callers who are very ANGRY about the Hispanic population:
(a) claiming the minority title inappropriately,
(b) participating in the marginalization and disenfranchisement of the African-American community, and
(c) fighting this issue in our country when their own countries of origin are "right down the road."

Ok, so the last criticism keeps on making ME mad, it's so ridiculous. But I can see some validity to the first two. If you assume that white folks generally have it in for the black folks (a big assumption), the Hispanic issues do seem like a distraction. In Houston, at least, Hispanic folks are not a minority. They also usually "make the most use of" their social networks when it comes to hiring workers or finding work. I don't neccessarily have a problem with that, but then again, socially-minded hiring practices in the department of highways or in cleaning services don't cut into my main range of income-earning activity (IEA). They DO cut into a primary array of IEAs for many African-American workers.

I also hear African-American leadership consistently championing the rights of the Hispanic community, but I don't hear a lot of reciprocating comments from the other direction. So does the African-American community have the right to be ticked off?

Posted by: bob at April 1, 2006 05:10 PM