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"Thieves that [drive motorcycles] and steal…"
Monday, April 06th, 2009 / Karifern

Personal safety is not something that we take for granted here in Brazil, and lately there has been a dramatic increase in the number of assaults among people we know personally.

The most prominent assault occurred two weeks ago when Bobby Dennis, one of my students at FA, was robbed after youth group on Saturday night. He had planned to spend the night at a friend’s house and the two were walking by themselves on a secluded road near the church. Two armed men pulled up on a motorcycle and took Bobby’s backpack, which had his laptop, his palm pilot, and his billfold; they took his friend Casio’s cell phone as well. It was definitely a successful robbery.

In some aspects, the two brought on their own misfortune. They shouldn’t have been walking on that road by themselves at that hour; but upon their return (via bus) from a youth outing, they decided to walk the rest of the way home instead of calling and waiting for someone to pick them up. At the same time, they could just as easily have been assaulted while waiting at the bus stop. Ironically, they were assaulted on the “safe part” of the road, after having passed through the more dangerous section.

It’s unfortunate, but robberies, especially with motorcycles, are becoming more and more common – and at all hours of the day. I’ve heard of four incidents in the last few months.

The first was the brother of recently returned Luis Coelho who serves under BMM with his wife Shari. (I believe they’ve presented at Faith.) Luis’s brother was struck in the face by a rock while driving his motorcycle by would-be assailants, another growing practice here. The robbers toss a rock in front of a motorcycle driver, often causing the driver to lose control and crash; then the robbers take his belongings and either kill the drive or leave him to die, if he has not already done so in the crash. In an amazing act of grace, God allowed Luis’s brother to maintain his balance in spite of the severity of the blow which hit him directly in the face (the assailants are well-practiced in tossing the rocks) and smashed every bone therein. Five minutes later, when he arrived at his destination, one eye was swollen shut with only a small slit through which to see on the other. I don’t know how many reconstructive surgeries he has had since then.

Another was Dona Edissa, the Portuguese teacher at FA. She visited the bank one afternoon with her sister who took out a large sum of money. As they were entering the front gate of Da. Edissa’s home, two men on a motorcycle pulled up, and one followed the two women into the front area where he pulled out a gun. The gunman didn’t ask Da. Edissa for her purse but only demanded that of her sister. When the sister refused, he shot the gun into the ground as a warning. Da. Edissa fainted and the sister gave the assailant her bag. Obviously, the two men had been tipped off, but the question remains by whom? It’s sad to think that it was most likely somebody at the bank.

The next was an attempted robbery that occurred a few weeks ago while Fred was waiting for a bus downtown. A motorcycle pulled up to a woman who was standing off from the group (perhaps waiting for a person to pick her up instead of the bus). He pulled out a gun and would have assaulted her, but her scream forced him to rapidly drive off.

Last month, Karen, a friend and pastor’s wife, was talking on her cell phone while standing on a median in the middle of the street. A motorcyclist drove by and snatched the phone out of her hand.

Many worry about our ministry in Edson Queiroz, a notoriously dangerous neighborhood, but the reality is that assaults and violence are a danger everywhere. We try to be responsible and minimize the risks we take; but at the same time, we recognize and trust in God’s sovereignty and control.

Today at lunch, I learned of two more recent assaults; one, unfortunately, was Da. Edissa who was robbed of her bus money by a teenage girl wielding a broken bottle as her weapon. The other was the father of one of my students at FA who, while sitting in a guarded recreational park, had some teenagers approach him with a gun. They initially robbed him of everything – including his shoes – and intended to kill him, but his calm manner and God-given wisdom to speak to them about God’s awareness of their actions pricked their conscience; and they eventually let him go, restoring all of his belongings but his money. Da. Edissa also spoke to her assailant about God’s awareness of the situation, but it did not have the same effect – yet more proof of God’s sovereignty.

Sometimes I wonder how I will respond when (not if) I am finally assaulted. As common as it is to be robbed, it is not an experience easily forgotten (so I am told). Pray for the faith of those robbed to continue to trust in God’s protection as well as His wisdom as to whether or not the stolen items are ever restored. Please pray also for wisdom in our daily interactions. In the last two robberies mentioned, the assailants first approached the victims with “innocent” intentions. Continue to pray for our daily personal safety, as well as those around us.

In spite of the dangers, I am thankful for how life in Brazil has taught me to devalue things. I know of no better description for seaside Fortaleza than in Matthew 6:19-21 where it says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The only thing I would add to that list is mold, especially during rainy season! So much more reason to look forward to heaven!

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A Bowl Of Cereal
Thursday, July 24th, 2008 / Karifern

For breakfast, I poured myself a bowl of frosted mini-wheats.  Well, no, actually I PICKED myself a bowl, meaning I juggled and sorted through the box to pick out the frostiest ones available.  Why?  Because I wanted the sweetness to cover the dry, nutritional part of the cereal.  This morning, however, there weren’t very many well-frosted pieces readily available, so I dug deeper, hoping to find some on the bottom (the frostier pieces weigh more, you know).

At that moment with my hand deep in the box, I suffered an attack of the conscience.  What was I doing?!?  After all, wasn’t I eating this cereal for its nutritional value (rather than, say, Frosted Flakes or Captain Crunch)??  And yet, here I was selfishly searching for the ”good stuff!”  Oh, the shame.  (I know you’ve never done anything like that before, but for those of us who have, it is humbling moment when we succumb to such low behavior.)

Okay, okay.  So maybe it wasn’t quite like that, but a random thought did cross my mind: How often do I dig for the frostier pieces in life?  And how do I respond when I don’t find them?  Am I disappointed?  Mad?  Do I frantically dig deeper in the box?

I’m old enough now to realize the need for a nutritional, well-balanced diet, just like I’m far enough along in my Christian walk to recognize that life cannot be perfect in a sin-cursed world.  Even so, that doesn’t keep me from wanting a sugar-coating to help me swallow other harsher realities of life.  And when I can’t find or don’t get well-frosted pieces, I accuse God of being unfair.

I’ve been listening to a message series “Responding Right When You Feel Like Reacting Wrong” (preached MANY years ago) by John Sauser.  He often repeats the phrase, ‘God does not promise to make all the crooked ways straight!”  In other words, God doesn’t promise an abundance of frosting with each box of mini-wheats; in fact, He doesn’t promise any frosting at all!  But He does promise the grace to help me eat them, and most importantly, He promises to use them to help me grow through the nourishment they provide.”

It may surprise you, but I was not the easiest child to raise.  No, I required much discipline, which my father readily and amply supplied.  There were times I accepted Dad’s discipline and then…well, there were other times.  (Guess which occurred more often?)  Inevitably, when I resisted Dad’s discipline, I received more!  Was this because my dad didn’t love me?  Of course not.  It was because of his great love for me that he persisted!  (And praise God that he did!)  If he had not cared, he wouldn’t have bothered; it wouldn’t have been worth the effort!

Likewise, my Heavenly Father corrects me (and I need plenty of it!).  God knows my sinful tendencies, but He strives in love to change and transform me into His likeness for my good; and He does this through His discipline.  That’s why God sent Christ, who not only acts as my Savior, but through His earthly example, serves as my encouragement!

“Consider [Jesus Christ] who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself,
so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.’

“It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons.
For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated,
then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this,
we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.
Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them,
but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant,
but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:3-11

While on this earth, Christ, too, suffered at the hands of sinners; He endured wrong treatment by others, and He did so without sin.  Why?  Because God forgot about Him?  Because God failed to protect and take care of Him?  No.  God allowed it for my good because when I follow the example of Christ and allow myself to be trained by life’s difficulties — that is when I am patient and look to see what God wants to teach me through them rather than reacting and fighting against them — then I am transformed into His image and share in God’s holiness.  And there is nothing greater!

I say all of this for my benefit.  Monday and Fred’s interview at the consulate are quickly approaching, and I know I will be served a bowl of cereal.  Regardless of how much frosting covers my mini-wheats that day, may I praise and thank God for His perfectly measured portion and His sufficient grace faithfully supplied along with it.

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be,
you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuiness of your faith,
being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire
may be found to [result in] praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 1:6,7

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Love’s Wait
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 / Karifern

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, ”Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, ”Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with him.”

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, ”I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, ”Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him… (John 1:1-45).

God’s plan is always so much greater than ours, so much bigger than our minds even begin to fathom; and our dreams are so small in comparison to what He desires to do. Imagine the doubts and the fears that passed through the minds of Mary, Martha, and even Lazarus as they waited on the Lord.

What was the motivation for their request? It obviously wasn’t Christ’s safety, as the passage clearly indicates Judea was a dangerous place for Him to be. Look at Thomas’s statement, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” (Perhaps “Doubting” Thomas deserves more merit than we often give him credit for.)

I also don’t think the family was concerned about Christ’s glory in light of the sisters’ similar greetings to Him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In other words, ”Lord, You’re too late. We needed You and You failed us.” In other words, it was all about them – their problem, their need.

When reading the passage, did you catch the fact that Christ waited two extra days before leaving? And it specifically points out that He did so BECAUSE HE LOVED THEM! How much sense does that make? But God’s wisdom is not like the wisdom of man. As 1 Corinthians 1:25 says, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

God, in his wisdom, desired to do much more than just confirm His healing power. Mary, Martha, the disciples, Lazarus – they all had witnessed Christ heal the sick; that is, after all, why they sent for Him! But God constantly reveals more of Himself to us, more of His power, more of His greatness; and this time, God wanted to show them His power over death – and not just to them, but to many Jews who would not have been present had Lazarus not died! How’s that for divine orchestration!?

This past year has included numerous ”waiting periods” in my life (with visas, wedding plans, etc.), but I remain confident that God specifically ordained them out of His love for me, for Fred, for my family, and for how many numerous others that I do not yet know about! God has not been negligent or forgetful, cruel or unkind. He is infinitely good and infinitely wise. Praise God for His faithful care of me – of us, even when we fail to see it as such from our earthly perspective.

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“A Fish or a Scorpion”
Tuesday, June 03rd, 2008 / Karifern

(From Elisabeth Elliot’s These Strage Ashes: Is God Still in Charge? , p.124-7)

The events of the preceding day stayed vividly in my mind for a long time. It had been, I wrote to my parents, “the most nightmarish day of my life.” As we walked home in the rain from the graveyard, it seemed to me that everything was over. Although I could, by no stretch of the imagination, hold myself responsible for Macario’s murder, the enormity of it weighed me down almost as heavily as if I were guilty. It was another failure, somehow, a judgment on us and our work.

I went over and over in my mind how it had come to be that I was here at all, that Macario had been my colleague. The work we did together was the work to which each had been clearly called, had we not? I went back to the night in New Jersey when I had knelt in my room, asking for assurance that the call was God’s voice and not a figment of my own mind. It had seemed that He answered me through a Bible verse, “I the Lord have called thee and will hold thine hand.” I thought of those who had prayed for me and encouraged me in so many ways, I thought of all the sermons I had cringed under about the coldness of the churches and their disobedience to Christ’s commission, “Go ye.” I thought of all the times I had sung “Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow,” earnestly examining my soul for signs of insincerity or impurity of motive. I could not deny the reality of that call or the faithfulness of those who had supported me.

What of the work of the Colorado translation? Could I possibly doubt that this was God’s work? Was He, in fact, interested in the salvation of this jungle tribe, or was it only we three foreign women who were interested? Had I come here, leaving so much behind, on a fool’s errand? If this was how the Lord of Hosts looked after His servants and His glory, if this was a sample of how He answered prayers for His work and His workers, it certainly fit none of my categories. How was I to reconcile His permitting such a thing with my own understanding of the missionary task?

… As I look back on that time, I think it was Lesson One for me in the school of faith. That is, it was my first experience of having to bow down before that which I could not possibly explain. Usually we need not bow. We can simply ignore the unexplainable because we have other things to occupy our minds. We sweep it under the rug. We evade the questions.

Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain. If God were God, if He were omnipotent, if He had cared, would this have happened? Is this that I face now the ratification of my calling, the reward of obedience? One turns into the abyss. But in the abyss there is only blackness, no glimmer of light, no answering echo.

When I was sixteen years old, I copied in the back of my Bible a prayer of Betty Scott Stam’s, whose visit to our home when I was very small had made such a deep impression on me. Her prayer: ”Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to thee to be thine forever. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit, use me as thou wilt, send me where thou wilt, work out thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.”

The cost, for her, was quite literally her life only a few years after she had prayed that prayer. I had never forgotten the picture on the font page of our newspaper of the Stams’ baby daughter being carried in a rice basket by a Chinese woman who had found her after her parents’ execution.

I went back to things like that prayer as I searched for meaning to Marcario’s death. Only God knew Marcario’s heart, and whether he was a martyr. For me there were other implications. I had promised to obey God, and I had known that that promise might lead to “tribulation.” I had prayed also for holiness, but this – this kind of “answer” – was startling and repugnant to me. I had desired God Himself and He had not only not given me what I asked for, He had snatched away what I had. I came to nothing, to emptiness.

… I felt like a son who had asked for a fish and been given a scorpion I had honestly (surely it was honestly?) desired God. I wanted to do His will.

… It was a long time before I came to the realization that it is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself. Even the Son of God had to learn obedience by the things that He suffered. He had come for only one purpose: “Lo, I come, in the volume of this book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.”

Amy Carmichael wrote: “But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness / This baffling sense of loss / Son, was the anguish of my stripping less / Upon the torturing cross?”

Each separate experience of individual stripping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when He took it all. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” This grief, this sorrow, this total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will, accept, and by accepting it, I find in my hands something to offer. And so I give it back to Him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me.

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Almighty and Eternal God
Thursday, December 06th, 2007 / Karifern

Almighty and eternal God,
You are hidden from my sight:
You are beyond the understanding of my mind:
Your thoughts are not as my thoughts:
Your ways are past finding out.
Yet You have breathed Your Spirit into my life:
Yet You have formed my mind to seek You:
Yet You have inclined my heart to love You:
Yet You have made me restless for the rest that is in You:
Yet You have planted within me a hunger and thirst
      that makes me dissatisfied with all the joys of earth.

O You who alone know what lies before me this day, grant that in every hour of it I may stay close to You.  Let me be in the world, yet not of it.  Let me use this world without abusing it.  If I buy, let me be as though I possessed not.  If I have nothing, let me be as though possessing all things.  Let me today embark on no undertaking that is not in line with Your will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice which Your will may demand.  Suggest, direct, control every movement of my mind; for my Lord Christ’s sake.  Amen.

(John Baillie quote from A Life of Prayer by Paul Cedar)

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