The crazy truth

It was my last night in Cameroon and I was enjoying dinner under the stars, and listening to a lot of conversation in French... At one point late in the meal, our host, whose father worked with my Grandpa, recalled when my father visited Cameroon 20 years ago. This man told me, through his son, who was translating for me into English: “When your dad, Harold, visited, he told my dad as they parted, ‘I will most likely not see you again here, but I’ll see you next time in heaven!'”

Both his dad and mine have now died… In fact, we figured out that recent February night that they died within a year of each other – about seven years ago. And as we sat there, it occurred to us that at this very moment they might be enjoying fellowship together in heaven, just as my dad had said! We smiled and chuckled at this fun realization, and then our host said, “Who’s going to come back and tell us if it’s so?” He had a big smile on his face, as he waited for the translation to reach me. When it did, I smiled too, and there was some laughter around the table and I remember hoping that there was not a measure of disbelief in this comment.

I’ve thought about this more since that evening, and here’s where my thoughts have gone:

1) I hated to say good-bye to my new family in Cameroon; it was especially hard not knowing if I’ll ever see them again. I feel very connected to them, even a little protective of them, and especially regarding their relationship with Christ. Perhaps because my grandparents first brought the Good News to them, there seems to be a burden on my heart that the truth not be lost or diluted all these years later. I don’t know that it is being lost or diluted, but I desperately don’t want it to be.

Therefore, my dad’s good-bye with this man’s dad resonates with me... If I don’t get to see my Cameroon family again on this earth, I trust with all my heart that I will get to see them in heaven. That we will all safely arrive, and have fellowship together, there…

2) Is it really true that my Cameroon host and I don’t know with certainty that our respective dads are in heaven? He is right, after all, there is no one who can come back and tell us. Part of me wants to absolutely prove to the world that trusting in Jesus is the only way to live and die. It is true, I believe, and there should be no doubt about it. I even remember feeling a teeny bit of frustration that this new brother would cast that doubtful comment out into the open, even in fun. I mean, why voice that possibility – even jokingly – if you earnestly believe?

Well, I’m fairly certain my Cameroon friend does believe. Moreover, he’s likely confident enough in his belief to acknowledge unashamedly that eternal life through Jesus requires faith. It does look like foolishness to many. And, it’s the very foolishness that becomes our salvation. Life through Christ involves a heart change that can only happen by the grace of God. If it were any other way – if it required my logical and perfect obedience to a set of laws – I would not be saved from the slavery to sin I was even born with. I would not have the amazing hope that I have.

Yes, I think there is a craziness to what we believe. And couldn’t one say there is a craziness to all things worthwhile? Think of love…sex…human birth, as examples. When you first grasped the truth of these things, wasn’t there a wonder and craziness to them? Is it any surprise, then, that the most beautiful, saving truth that exists, should also have a craziness about it? If it didn’t, wouldn’t it be all the more ordinary, far less beautiful, and – constrained by mortal life?

To those of us who believe and have chosen to place our trust in this belief, we can smile at the craziness. We can even acknowledge this aspect as an expression of joy in, rather than a fear of, offending our Savior. Jesus came back from the dead and told us this is truth. His Spirit lives in us, and verifies it too.

I trust I will see you in heaven, my Cameroon host, if not before!

Julie's no-fear week

When my friend Julie shared my “No fear week” blog with her mom and sister, her mom said, “You should write a response about your week, Julie.” So I invited her to be a special guest blog author. Here’s what she sent, regarding her week – the week she and I decided to have freedom from fear.

Ann is a dear friend who challenges me in my faith and walk with the Lord. I actually feel a spiritual high as we talk about the Lord and how we can grow deeper in our relationship with Him. Yes, the past week has been quite a test for both of us. However, Ann and I believe the Lord prepared us for what He knew was coming by engaging us in this challenge – by enlightening our minds with this idea of choosing not to fear for one week. Of course, we both plan on continuing the challenge, but we both also need to take this one day at a time... We struggle with fear and anxiety – not to a level where either of us would consider medication, but to a more common level, a level I hear many people describe when sharing their own struggles.

So, here’s our freedom from fear week challenge: As soon as we feel fearful or are worried about something, we will stop, recite a verse like, "God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind." And then we will pray and apologize to our Heavenly Father for not trusting, and ask Him to help us trust. Finally, we will make a conscious, decisive decision not to fear!

My week started with an early morning call from my mother that my father had "escaped" again. He has Alzheimer's and we have been waiting to move him into a new memory care facility when it opens April 1st. I jumped in the car and took off on the search. Thankfully, he was found a couple of hours later. Then at 11:15 p.m. that same day my mother called me and asked me to come over and help her take care of him. I politely asked my guests to leave the party I was hosting for them, gathered my items for the night and headed over. My mother and I finally landed in bed at 2:00 a.m.

So I started the search for a memory care facility that could take my father right away. God directed me to a niece of a good friend who is a director of nursing for a memory care facility. She not only found a wonderful place for him, she also found nursing care for the nights before he could be admitted. She even took one of those nights herself! My mother has been staying with me most of the time. After 62 years of marriage she’s trying to adjust to living alone.

The Lord has provided at every turn. .. My father was a Gideon, passing out Bibles to students at schools for many years. He also placed many small banks in restaurants for the orphans ministered to by World Vision. As one of my dearest friends says, "The Lord takes good care of His own, especially when they have ministered for Him during their lives."

Along with the trauma in my family, my business has been especially difficult over the past week. I have been a realtor and real estate broker for more than 21 years, and have enjoyed successful years, but have also had challenging times. This past week has been one of those challenging times with various transactions appearing to work out...then evaporating into thin air.

So, during this week I decided it was time let go of the fear associated with my business and to sell my business. I sold it to Jesus Christ. Now I work for Him. He decides who we work with and who we don't. He determines the path of the transactions and the outcome. I felt quite a burden lifted after "selling" Christ the business. After all, He owns it anyway. (By the way, He is a great boss!)

Needless to say, our respective no-fear weeks were not the easiest of weeks... But then, who of us have been promised easy weeks? Knowing we’ve got a God who knows all, and loves perfectly – and commands us not to fear – is certainly a comfort for the troubles we experience in this life. Thanks for sharing your week’s story, Julie! I’m thankful for your friendship and for your encouragement in my walk with the Lord.

No fear week

Last Wednesday evening I was driving home from a Bible study when my phone rang. My friend Julie from Minneapolis was calling to catch up a bit, and after discussing a few things together she said, “Ann, what if we decide tonight, that for the next week we will commit to not have fear about anything? We could pick a verse from the Bible to help us fight off fear any time it threatens us, and we will hold each other accountable and pray for each other. Wouldn’t it be great to experience a week without any fear?”

Well, how could this not be a good thing to try? “Sure, I’ll commit to that with you!” We picked a verse and talked about how we would battle any spirit of fear that tried to enter us – no matter how great or small – and then I said with a little laugh, “This isn’t going to be like praying for patience is it?” And, “Whoops – I’m off to a bad start if I’m already afraid of praying against fear.” We laughed a little, then prayed, as we kicked off the week. (We noted that a certain variety of fear protects us and we wouldn’t fight that fear... )

So that was last Wednesday - one week ago. By Thursday night, the cold sores I thought I had on Wednesday had become a diagnosed case of shingles. My battle with fear was about it begin… Now many people get shingles – even many young people, I’ve heard. And what do most people say about this illness? “It’s so painful!” Nevertheless, it was not the impending pain that most threatened my no-fear pact. It was the fact that the outbreak was attacking my face, which meant it could possibly charge right up and into my eye. (I should say, while people’s eyes apparently usually recover from shingles with assistance from modern medicine, one does not want a shingle's lesion on one’s eyeball, and in the worst cases, it can cause blindness.) But wait…I had only two lesions so far and they were both near my lips, not anywhere near my eyes.

But by Friday afternoon I had a lesion as close to my eye as it could possibly be without entering it. It was on the skin just above my lower eyelashes. It seemed like an evil taunt: “Now will you be afraid?” While my loving God seemed to be reassuring me: “Remember your prayer! It wasn’t happenstance. I want you to know that you should not be afraid through this. Even if the worst happens and it goes into your eye, I will be with you and take care of you. I don’t want you to fear.”

Many people were praying for my eye’s protection and for my recovery… Yet, by Saturday morning, my eyeball was tingling and I was crying on the phone to my sister. By Saturday night my upper eyelid was swollen and my eye was in pain. By Sunday night I had a lot of eye pain. But all through, I could still see… The eye doctor and I had been in contact, and he was optimistic since my vision did not seem to be affected and I couldn’t see a lesion on my eyeball when I looked in the mirror.

So here I am at the end of my week without fear. My eye and face still hurt; I’m still on pain medication. But I have a checkup with the doc tomorrow and I think I’ll get a good report.

I confess that I didn’t make it perfectly through the week without fear… But while many things are getting back to normal, I never want to go back to a normal where fear is okay.

In a few minutes I’m going to call Julie and ask about her week...

Trusting isn't passive

For much of 2010 the recurring question I felt God asking me was: “What do you want?” As I’ve answered Him more and more about this, it seems that particular question has faded, as answered questions often do. But there’s a new question that I now seem to be faced with, and fairly often: “Do you trust me?”

As I wrestled with the specifics of what I would like the story of my life to be about, it seemed I was in an active role: the activity of figuring out what I want. I took that action seriously. It seemed the ball was in my court. It seemed God was waiting, even as He was actively helping me figure out the answer to that question.

Now my answer has taken form and I’ve been speaking with God about it. And now I’ve noticed things have turned a bit… The focus has gone from my action, to God’s action. Or should I say, to God’s seeming inaction.

Now, I’m not necessarily expecting Him to drop circumstances and action from heaven. But I kind of am, for He can do anything that pleases Him. And, I wouldn’t mind at all if a curtain was pulled back revealing a whole new path that was exactly in sync with what He and I have been discussing. Yet, I realize I’m in a partnership with my God. I’m to act, for sure, but in His timing, and as He leads and opens doors.

Right now I’m being asked to do something that is at the core of what I believe: trust Him. Not fret. Not pull all-nighters (like I can even do them anymore) to make my destiny happen according to my plan. Not stress endlessly about how this may play out, or about “what if it doesn’t play out?” But, rather: trust Him.

God wants me to trust and deserves my trust. As I talk with Him each day, and level with Him about what I’m struggling with, the Holy Spirit encourages me and reminds me of the many reasons to trust Him. Reasons threaded all through the Bible…reasons found in my grandparents’ stories…and reasons from my own life’s history.

I don’t know if what I want will come to be in the way I think it might in this life. But I do think it will come to be. My main activity regarding this right now, however, is to trust Him. It can sound and feel so passive, but believe me when I say it’s not.

No snakes, but...

I’ve been asked a few times since returning from Africa, “Did you see any snakes?” Before I left on my trip in January, it’s true that I did worry slightly about snakes and spiders. And not about simply seeing some. But more importantly, if I should see any, would they be a safe distance away?

My grandpa had a couple of trepidatious encounters with snakes in Africa (see early blog stories), and I remember my dad telling me about gigantic spiders in Africa. (He usually mentioned these when he thought I was carrying on ridiculously about some tiny house spider.) Well, the good news is that I didn’t see even one snake or scary-looking spider during the entire trip! The bad news is: there were a couple of stressful encounters with big, black, ugly bugs.

One of these bug meetings was on Tuesday night in Yagoua. I had already had two nights in my room at the Catholic mission with virtually no bug sightings. But on this particular evening, when I entered my room to settle in for the night, I saw a large, black, nasty looking, twelve-inch - I mean two-inch - thing near the wall by my bed. I momentarily froze and thought “This is it…my moment of truth. Will I be brave, trusting God for victory over this enemy? Or will I behave as expected from my, mostly ridiculous, life-long fear of insects?” I knew it was time to rise to a new place. I would conquer this fear!

I grabbed the broom that was sitting in the corner of the room, surely for such a time as this, and was thankful for the long handle. My mind quickly approximated how distant I could remain and still be able to clobber the thing, and I moved to that distance and prepared to assault. I took a swing with the broom and…just as it was about to hit my victim, the victim moved. He didn’t just move though, he jumped. Now, Wisconsin has grasshoppers, but he didn’t look like those – they are green, for one thing. But he could have passed for a larger, distant, higher-jumping cousin, perhaps. A cousin who had now, safely (for him, anyway), jumped out of sight.

I remained calm... He must have jumped under the bed (because he could jump so high, of course). No worries, I’ll just look under there and hit him again. (With this thinking, I was completely overlooking the fact that I had missed him the first time.) Well, it appeared there was to be no “next time” because he was nowhere to be found. This was extremely disconcerting to me, but I willed myself to remain calm and to continue getting ready for bed, while praying fervently that he hadn’t snuck into my bed.

When I was finally ready to hop (word choice intended) into bed, I carefully checked under the top sheet, and then decided to read a bit from the Bible that was on the small table next to my bed. Now the Bible was sitting sort of sideways on top of another book, and when I picked it up from that pile of two, I almost screamed. There on the table right next to the head of my bed, sat the awful, high-jumping black monster bug!

I had only a fraction of a second to think, as he was certain to jump when he realized his cover was blown. I calmly, steadily, raised the Bible over my head, and...SMACKED HIM DEAD WITH THE WORD OF GOD!

Oh sweet victory... His death was instant – no suffering involved on his part. And me? Well, let's just say I had discovered a whole new reason to love God’s Word.

Stories really matter

There is a story happening right now and you are in it. There’s another story happening right now and I’m in it. At times stories intersect (like yours and mine at this moment), and at times they diverge - sometimes never to converge again. Well, two weeks out of Africa I’m convinced more than ever about one thing: stories matter. They really matter.

Whenever you want to discover what does really matter in life, hang out with kids for a while. Last weekend, while hanging with my three and four year old grandkids, they begged me to tell a story about when I was a little girl. Then, about their dad...and then, my son and daughter-in-law suggested I tell them stories about my grandpa and grandma. (Why didn’t I think of that?)

So I did all of the above and the kids were enthralled, even though I’m really not a very good verbal story teller. When one story wrapped up they were begging for another. (Thankfully we got distracted before we resorted to the “bat in my house” stories, which they wanted to hear over and over again a few months ago. At that time they voted for their favorite out of the following: the swooping bat story, the dead bat story, or the bat hanging on the living room shade story. Sadly, I have all of those... And, for what it’s worth, the dead bat and the swooping bat stories tied for first place with one vote a piece.)

Later, my thoughts scrolled back to my last full day in Chad... Our hosts at the Chad mission welcome center invited a missionary couple working with the OneStory Partnership to have lunch with us.

Our conversation that noon focused on the power of storytelling and the importance of orality around the world. As we chatted, I thought back to how considering my life as a story - more than a year ago - had caused me to pray and think, so that my mind and heart were prepared and ready when the call came to write about my grandparents' stories. This call then led me to plan a trip to Africa and start a blog. Which all led me to be in Chad on a recent February Sunday where we just happened to be talking about - the power of a story!

The missionaries discussed the power of translating true stories from the Bible into languages that don’t have the Bible yet. These stories get told and retold over and over again, and the truth of God’s word gets introduced and spreads.

People are hungry to hear good stories. Good stories have conflict, and they have triumph. They are important, and will be retold. We are each in a story that matters and we have responsibility regarding the plot. I no longer take that lightly, and I’m contemplating the next chapter…

Yagoua's unforgettable night

It was our last night in Yagoua and we were invited out for dinner. Our driver was to pick us up at 7:15 p.m. and we were to arrive at Jacque's house around 7:30. Well, our driver was a little late and we had one quick last stop to make, to greet a woman who hadn’t been home when we tried to visit her earlier. So it was nearly 8 p.m. when we finally arrived at our host’s home.

As our jeep approached, the only light I could see was a small beam coming from beyond an outdoor wall. We parked by the wall as Jacque, Augustine and Marcos came around to greet us and usher us to the other side. There, on a nice brick patio were two tables. One had a lantern on it and the other, nearby, appeared as simply a shadow in the darkness. The lantern-illuminated table was nicely set, confirming that this was to be our dining room for the evening.

Augustine directed: “Annie” – pointing to a middle chair on one side of the table. I sat down and he sat to my left, after directing Solveig to sit on my right. (This meant I had English speakers on either side of me…thoughtful details.) Solveig and I looked at each other, wistfully mentioning something about our last night in Yagoua. It was feeling bittersweet… We were eager to get home, yet still not excited about leaving.

While our host gathered sodas for us, I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky. What I saw literally took my breath away. It was stunningly gorgeous: the night sky of Yagoua.

While I’m basically a city girl, I did grow up in a camping family so have sat around many an American campfire, gazing at night skies far removed from city lights. But I had never seen anything like this. It was truly captivating. The sky was charcoal black and there layers upon layers of stars – thousands of sizes and intensities... I did not want to look away. The expanse above me had so many dimensions; I could have stared at it forever! Then Augustine brushed his hand against my arm and said, “There was a bug,” and suddenly I was back.

We were served beverages, talked a little, and then it was time to wash our hands and visit the nearby, shadow-in-the-dark food table. I was to go first, and wondered how I would find and view the food in order to make my selections. Augustine came to the rescue with a small flashlight he shone over each serving dish so I could see to fill my plate. It was a lovely spread, which had been generously and beautifully prepared by Jacque’s wife. Yet I confess I was slightly distracted worrying about how I would get through this meal without accidentally eating a bug. It was nighttime in Africa, after all. And was so dark I could hardly see my plate or its contents...

Conversation over dinner was mostly in French, although Augustine and Solveig tried to keep me in the loop with their translations. At an early point in the dinner the lantern was moved closer to me so I could see my food, but when I felt a bug in my hair and asked Solveig to remove it, our attentive host quickly moved the lantern, and it’s following of bugs, to the other end of the table. I decided at that point that I preferred the ignorance of darkness, anyway.

After the meal, I asked Augustine – an attorney by education, a businessman by trade – what he liked about living in Africa. He thought a moment, and said, “I love our solidarity. I would miss that very much.”

Solidarity is a concept that seems rather foreign in the U.S. We are all about independence here. And while independence isn’t all that bad, it’s not all good, either. We really do need each other… But do we acknowledge it? And furthermore, do we value it?

There are many things I liked about Africa. Along with the hospitable, dear people…the unforgettable night sky will always be near the top of my list.