Hearse ‘n Turf

The other day I was driving in the north Metro area and I came to the corner of Dale & Larpenteur where there is a cemetery.  At the time I was driving by, there was a graveside service going on with the casket positioned to be buried in the ground.  It’s one of those wake-up calls you get as life is cruising by smoothly.  As I turned east on Larpenteur, there was a guy outside of his house laying sod in his yard; it looked great. What struck me, however, was how polar opposite these activities were and, presumably, the season of life for these two families.  One family was burying a loved one in a hole that had been dug up through the grass while the other was giving their yard brand new grass.  Less than a football field length away, there was grief and there was beautification.  I couldn’t help but liken this to America & Africa.  While I drive by ads and watch TV that work hard to convince me that I need more, bigger, faster – that I need a prettier yard (and should certainly consider buying something to get rid of dandelions) – I can’t help but think of those with so little.  There is such a disjoint.  I’m not talking about a small difference – I’m talking a difference of monumental proportion.  Consider Africa (or heck, consider some of our neighbors) where food is an absolute luxury and safe drinking water doesn’t exist; people poop in the middle of their communities; they make cakes of mud to eat; they get stung by a mosquito and die; over 10% of their kids die at birth and many more get HIV through being born or breast-feeding; there are no jobs so men travel to find work leaving their spouses & daughters to be raped.  Now, consider Cambridge, Minnesota — this afternoon I drove past the Wendy’s in town and there was this huge blown up display near the highway of a malt; As Wendy’s tries to compete with McDonalds, Taco Johns, Culvers, and the new Sonic, they figured it would be a good investment to lure us in with a big chocolate blown up malt.  Comparing these two places is not a minor difference.  

I would love to see a revolution take place in our communities.  This revolution is not against a political party or any particular person; this is a revolution against a system that somehow puts a blown-up malt near the highway we drive by while in the same town people go to be without food & homeless and while people throughout the world are dying of highly preventable causes.  This revolution starts with us having the guts to look at the problem; to acknowledge the problem; to be made physically sick by the problem; to get angry at the problem.  We must first be transformed ourselves into the realization that if there is a God who “so loved the world”, who “lavishes His love on us”, and who is filled with “amazing grace” that this is not what He intended; we must read the red letters in the Bible (that represent Jesus words) and take them seriously when He says “true religion is caring for the widow & orphan” and that he separates the sheep from the goats based on how we cared for other people.  If we would rather not use the biblical approach, consider the American approach that founded a new country based on the premise that “ALL men are created equal” and that “ALL have the rights of life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.”  If you believe in the Declaration of Independence you must believe that Africans are created equal and have the right to life… and the right to pursue happiness.  Yes, they suffer the disease of not being born in America – why do we continue to hold that against people?  They are not one of “us” – what?  They are humans – just like “us”; they have the capacity to love, reason, grieve, and rejoice – just like us.

Allow a revolution to take place inside of yourself; and then bring this revolution to the streets.  A revolution against a system of haves & have nots simply because of geography or matter of circumstance.  A revolution against accepting the hearse ‘n turf mentality.

Opportunity

Ladies & gentlemen… over the past several months I have shared with you the devastating facts about poverty, human suffering, & disease in Africa.  As we prepare to travel to Rwanda in about two months, I want to tell you that there is a great opportunity to transform the lives of the people of Kivuruga, Rwanda and to build a sustainable infrastructure going forward.  Our Response is a community-wide effort in partnership with World Vision to provide financial resource to Kivuruga and to build the economic infrastructure and enhance the standard of living through education, water, disease-control, agriculture, and finance.  World Vision has been doing this for many decades and has seen the fruit of their labor as the first of their community-wide programs begin to be removed from support due to their new-found self-sufficiency.  My vision with Our Response is that in 15 years, those of us involved will be having a big party filled with cake & ice cream & laugher & tears as we celebrate the completed turnaround of Kivuruga, Rwanda.  There is a tremendous need in Rwanda, but there is also hope.  I can’t image living in a country where over 11 out of every 100 babies die at childbirth; where the average life expectancy is 49 years; where 35% of adults can’t read; where 25% can’t get safe drinking water; where the economic infrastructure was blown up by civil war (Hutus & Tutsis). This is an emergency situation.  But here’s the good news… there are people that are prepared to work to transform the community; the leadership of Kivuruga is committed to the transformation; there are local, on-the-ground World Vision staffers who know the core issues and are experienced in re-structuring a community to be financially self-sufficient.  What they are lacking is the financial resource to make this turnaround happen.  This is where our community comes in and where Our Response will work diligently to get that resource.  

Ladies & gentlemen, there are four of us going to Rwanda in November to build relationships with their community leaders; to meet the on-the-ground staff who will be working toward the transformation; to meet the children we sponsor personally; to bring back the stories of dismay and of hope; to ignite a community wide response.  We are looking for your financial support to travel over there and when we return, we will be asking you to consider sponsoring a child in Kivuruga… the cost is about $35/month and most of that goes to the children’s family (which are carefully selected by the community & World Vision staff) and the remainder goes to the community-wide projects.  I never tell anyone what they have to do; all I’m asking is that you do something in our efforts to restore the world – and if you are so guided, participate in Our Response; perhaps this is Your Response.  You are going to be hearing a lot about this effort as we work to raise funds to transform Kivuruga and, at the same time, it will transform us.  This is an opportunity for each of us to reach out to the “least of these”; to directly touch the “widows & orphans”; to “act justly, love mercy, & walk humbly.”  

If you have ways you can help us spread the word, please let us know, otherwise just tell your friends.  We are tentatively looking at setting up a big event on December 3rd to cast the vision for Our Response (this is a couple weeks after we get back and two days after National AIDS Day).  We believe this community-wide effort will not only raise funds for Kivuruga, but will have impact in raising awareness of so many issues (global & local) and fuel the movement that is already afoot amidst many in our community.  Thanks for taking the time to read this and considering a partnership.  It is a great opportunity to make a difference and leave a legacy.

Religion vs. the gospel

First, a disclaimer.  I generally don’t go “religious” on this blog, but there is a point that must be made to help raise awareness as to why so many of us (and so many of the churches) are apathetic (OK, pathetic) when it comes to answering the needs of those in Africa.

In a trailer for his book & DVD study called, “A Prodigal God”, Tim Keller talks about the difference between religion and the gospel.  Keller says that, “Religion operates on the principle, ‘I obey, therefore I am accepted’.  But the gospel operates on the principal, ‘I am accepted through what Jesus Christ has done, therefore I obey.’  So, religion isn’t just a little bit different than the gospel; they are diametrically opposed.”

For many of us, we follow the laws of religion; we become “religious” so that we can be accepted; or we try to “obey” what we think are the rules so that we will be included.  But this is contrary to everything Jesus teaches… we are all accepted by God FIRST – and this acceptance; this love of God leads us to love Him (“we love Him because He first loved us”) — and it is out of this love for God and desire to live the life that Jesus modeled & taught that we begin to walk in obedience to that life.  You see, the problem is that many of us think we need to EARN God’s acceptance by living in just the right way – by not drinking, or smoking, or dancing, or having pre-marital sex, or swearing, or stealing, or gossiping, or whatever.  But we do not earn God’s grace – the very definition of “grace” is contrary to earning it.  It all starts with recognizing that we are ALL accepted.  

When we focus on religion (rather than the gospel) we learn how to ‘obey’ the right way; we learn to ‘play the game’ so that we can be accepted & included – and it works!  When we change our lifestyle and learn how to pray the right way and sing the right way and go to the right committees — we are “in”.  And, then, once we are “in” – we look for others to get in right – and we help them understand what they have to do to get “in”.  But think about this mentality when it comes to those who are literally dying by the thousands daily – why aren’t we answering the call to help them; why don’t we recognize the emergency?  In the model of “religion”, they must be in to be accepted – and often they are not (or at least by our standards); I have heard it said that AIDS is “their own fault” or that the poverty is “something they brought on themselves.”  I disagree with this principal and I can’t imagine anyone could possibly look at a 6-year-old kid who has lost both parents to AIDS and now has to start thinking about selling her body for sex to be able to eat, and tell her it is her fault.  Ridiculous.  

What if we started moving our worldview from one of religion (obey –> acceptance) and shifted to an “acceptance-first” model.  All are accepted.  How would that change how we approach widows & orphans?  How might that change how we view people in our circles?  How might that change how we treat people who walk into our churches?  How might that change us?  What if each of us really believed we were accepted regardless of our current levels of obedience?  What if we came to the conclusion that our works were like filthy rags when it came to being accepted by God?

There is a movement afoot across East Central Minnesota; I see it; I hear it; I smell it; I perceive it.  There is a radical movement toward laying hold of the gospel as Jesus intended it and living our lives in pursuit of it.  This movement will move us from a series of rules & regulations & expectations for how people should be when they “come to church” and into a wide swath of living out the gospel by loving the unlovable, picking up those who fall, helping those by the side of the road, giving food to the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, weeping with those who mourn, and celebrating with those who celebrate.  

When we start with the premise that we are ALL accepted… it changes everything.  And I believe change is afoot.  If it is really true that we are all accepted, then what is “Our Response?”

Time flies

It’s amazing how you put your head down to pound away at what’s in front of you to do and when you are finally able to look up, several weeks have passed.  The past several weeks have been daunting from a work & teaching perspective for me, but what has been cool is that over that time I have continued to ache for Africa.  I think this was the first time over the past 3-4 years that I thought, “perhaps the Africa thing was a fad; a passing passion.”  It was a good test to see if the energy I’ve put into Our Response have been a self-contrived effort or something that is honestly welled up inside of me… and it is the latter.  I don’t know exactly what is going to happen with Our Response and how the community will respond in sponsoring children, but I know there is a real, active work happening inside of me and my hard-hearted, affluent heart is continually being chipped away at and the soft gooey center is starting to emerge; the heart that aches for the fatherless, the widowed, the poor, the diseased, the broken.  And there are so many in our country and abroad.

As I look forward, we (the four of us who are going) are now less than three months from our trip to Rwanda.  There is a lot of preparation to do and several discussions I want to set up before then so people know what we are doing & why we are doing in; there is fundraising and immunizations and Visas and all those details to go through, but through all the “effort” there is that constant ache like a dull headache where your skull & neck meet. 

There is so much need, but I am so excited to actually “do” something about it.  I’m excited to surround myself with people willing to grab hold of a relationship with a community on the other side of the world and say, “how can we come along side of you?  how can we build relationship?  how can we resource you while you teach us the power of family, love, & relationship?”  Through the pain of poverty, these are the things that excite me… to get to know people of a different culture with different perspectives; to learn how they become “content in all things”; to learn to put people before things; to have my kids understand the global society that we live in; to raise awareness for the people around Cambridge, Minnesota that we can make a difference and we can watch the transformational impact we have on a community as we resource it and build relationship.

I continually am reminded that the richest countries are 75 times wealthier than the poorest; and that over half the world lives on less than 2 U.S. dollars per day; and that 2 billion people live in what the U.N. calls “extreme poverty.”  These are statistics that continue to pummel my brain & chip away at my heart; but the pulse in my blood is not that the statistics are the end point… the pulse is the question, “what is our response” to those numbers?  That is my challenge and I believe the question we all need to face at some level… what is our response to inequality & injustice. 

Thanks for listening & caring & participating…