Weight

I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days and in my mind I’m trying to fit all the pieces together.

This is how it all has come about. Tuesday during discipleship with Ryan, we talked about the ministry of Jesus and walking in the supernatural on a normal basis and why it doesn’t happen in our lives like it did in Jesus’ or other followers past and present. That night I watched a movie called “Finger of God” which was about the movement of God in supernatural ways in the present day church throughout the world, much of which was in severely impoverished countries. It had me thinking so in my devotion on Wednesday, I shared on that part of our walking in the Kingdom, but felt like an idiot, because its not really all that present in my life. Thursday night worship was amazing. It was prophetic, it was powerful, it stirred our faith and brought us to question why in the face of so much need, we personally don’t employ all the power given to us. On Friday, I visited the website of an organization called Discover the Journey. I was watching their awareness videos and I was floored by some of the stuff that they showed, specifically about the orphan problem in Iraq. I could feel the weight of the needs of this world. I’ve been carrying that weight to this point and after a long conversation over and after dinner with Lauren and some others, the fire in my belly has just been growing.

What are we doing? What are we doing? What am I doing?

I lack appropriate words for what is going on in my head. I’ve felt intense personal frustration since being here, but the last few days it has been this depressing frustration about the world’s plight and the American church’s paralysis in doing anything. I’m not trying to sound condemning, but again I only speak from my experience. Up until four months ago, I was an active American church member, so take this from someone who has been in similar shoes. We are not doing enough. I am not doing enough. You individually are not doing enough.

Can I speak candidly with you about all these things?

Statistics are fun, aren’t they? Here are a couple stats that I heard in the last week. I may mess them up, but I don’t need them in the first place to tell you there’s a need. Stat 1 (from Discover the Journey): There have become 1 million new orphans in Iraq since the American invasion, an unheard of precedent in the Middle East. Stat 2: It would take one third of people professing to be Christians to adopt every orphan in the world that is eligible for adoption. Aren’t those fun? I know we love to just throw those around, it shows that we care. You hear stats like these, and we could truly go on forever with some daunting figures, and one of three things happen. One, you hear it and it doesn’t hit you so you just forget. Two, you hear it and it debilitates you to actually do anything. Three, the rarest happening, you hear a stat and do something small or big about it.

Have we been reading our Bibles? New or Old Testament, take your choice. Do you see the righteous anger the Lord has towards those who oppress or apathetically allow suffering of orphans, widows and the disenfranchised? As Lauren said last night, do we realize that the Bible isn’t about us? The Lord gave it to us, as an incredible and completely necessary tool for sanctification. With the right interpretation, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, we are unveiled to who God is and what He wants to do through us for His glory. We don’t get to pick and choose which scriptures we want to emphasize in our lives. We emphasize the whole book. We love to talk about God’s love, Jesus gives us rest, He’ll give His children good things. What about the parts about enacting true justice and restoration for others? No, sorry that’s out of my comfort zone. What about modeling after the crazy guys that were godly enough to look crazy and be unpopular. John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Jesus, take your pick. Hmm… a little too radical for me.

Here’s a few popular words in young American churches: activism, causes, social justice. These are good things. These are insufficient things. You know what will change the world and enact true justice for the oppressed? The gospel. The whole unadulterated thing with all the words and the actions that come with it.

We are all called to live the gospel which includes true justice. Think about how that appears in your church and sphere of life. Anybody else think of Invisible Children? A good organization and I pray the Lord’s blessing over them. You aren’t daily walking in justice, because you do Invisible Children’s big event once a year and own a couple of their shirts. Its not enough. Think about what they’re doing. Invisible Children is an activist group that enacts righteousness on behalf of children that are forced into war. What is their relationship with you? You bought one of their sweet shirts. Are they a clothing company? No. They sold you a shirt, because they knew you wouldn’t just give money, unless you went through the god of materialism and you could wear your activism on your sleeve. And yes the shirt can lead to awareness, but awareness only does good if it is followed by action and intervention. Their big events are good and do things for raising awareness and fund raising for their just cause. But its also strategic in drawing people. They came to you, because they know you won’t go to them. Come on Brandon, they work in Uganda. Getting there would be impossible and too costly and not safe and yada yada yada. Bull. You serve a God of infinite power, grace and provision. Case closed.

Maybe you’re not called to Africa or Asia or wherever these terrible atrocities are taking place (and many do happen under the nose of Americans, in their own country). Maybe you’re called to the states, that’s wonderful, obey the Lord in that and go to Chipotle on my behalf. You are also called to enact true justice for your neighbors, both local and global. And I would ask you to be thorough in your thoughts. Don’t say that they aren’t really your neighbor because they live in another part of the world and you don‘t see them. We live in a world that is more connected than anytime in history. Be consistent. If you don’t think your Christian witness applies to the globe, besides ripping the Great Commission out of your Bible, you can throw out all those Japanese electronics and your German car. With that said, what does loving others look like when others include women forced into prostitution? When others include 12 year old boys forced to kill people? When others include millions of orphans living on the streets? Does love look like buying a T-Shirt and joining a Facebook cause? Or does love look like spending hours in intercession and days in fasting? How about traveling to these places to hug them and speak truth to them about the God who loves, heals and restores? Does it look like selling things you like to support ministries that enact the Lord’s justice for them? Let’s love justly.

I want to end with something that should be and probably will be an entire writing in itself. We must realize the impossible is possible and walk in that stream of love and justice. Through diligence in our relationship with the Lord, we can have an increased anointing to move in power by the Holy Spirit. We can proclaim justice to that battered soul and as we tell them about the Lord that restores and heals, we allow ourselves to be His agent of such restoration and healing. We give Him control, love that person and enact justice for them by supernaturally healing them mind, body, and soul. If it’s a child soldier that has become paralyzed, that means we hug him, tell him God loves him, and in Jesus’ name tell him to pick up his mat and walk, then we get to rejoice as we see the Lord do His work in the boy’s mind, body and soul. If we believe the Bible and if we believe God is involved in this world and our lives, none of this is a jump.

There is a tremendous need and I don’t claim to have the answers or the best strategies. But God does, and if you have the Holy Spirit, He can guide you to what you are supposed to do with all this. It is weighty stuff. Its sad, its terrible, its ugly. Its not for the faint of heart or for the weak stomach. But this is what living the gospel looks like.

Do justice. Be righteous. Love. Pray. Intercede. Act, then act again, then act again. Do something big that looks impossible and upsets some people, but is exactly what God wants you to do. Live the gospel.

Note: This is in no way written to condemn people, much less my supporters. If you support me and the work to Tanzanian orphans through Hidden With Christ Ministries, that is a work of obedience to the Lord and justice to the disenfranchised. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was outside of what we do, but my question is, what’s next? Its the same with those that support good organizations like Invisible Children. In all of it, there is too much need to say that what any of us is doing is enough. There’s always more, radically, drastically more.

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The Rundown: Well, I shared a bit of my week early in the blog so there’s all that. I preached on Sunday and it went really well. I was blessed to speak and it was more fun to preach without translation. Remember my blog “Church”? Well, with preaching last week and leading worship solo tomorrow, the Lord is doing that, so its exciting to be a part of His body at ICC. Pray for me as I lead worship. The kids are well and it was a fairly normal and blessed week. In step with what my blog was on and seeking the Lord for an increased anointing to walk in His Holy Spirit in all facets, I’ll be fasting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Please pray that the Lord would increase His anointing on me and give me vision in this time of prayer and fasting. That’s all I got. PEACE!

Persistence

This is a little cheap. Okay, just so you know before you continue with the blog, I want you to know that there is the slightest bit of me that is being lazy in what I’m about to talk about. The Lord has been teaching me something over the last little while and I’ve turned it into a sermon. I delivered that sermon at Pastor Unity’s church on Sunday. I then used the same material in a short devotional at TOA on Wednesday morning. I’ll be preaching on it at a my church tomorrow. A couple hours ago, I didn’t know what to write on so I went with this. I’ll be a little like Rob Bell. Not like having hip haircuts and sprinkling a little heresy and weird analogies in my teaching, but rather if you’ve heard me teach, then my writing is pretty much the same stuff, just like his Noomas and sermons are the same as his books. If this repetition in anyway makes you feel cheap, I’m sorry. Please feel free to not read any further. My feelings won’t be hurt. I imagine most people that “read” my blog don’t make it past the first paragraph anyway.

Disclaimer aside, there is this passage in Luke 11 that seems a little odd to me. Sometimes, I hear a story that Jesus tells and I’m just like “huh?” This is one such passage. One night, a guy comes to his friend and asks for some bread. The friend tells him to take a hike, because him and the fam are already in bed (I’m paraphrasing of course, that’s okay though, Eugene Peterson paraphrased the whole Bible and everyone loves that). The dude doesn’t leave, but keeps asking. Jesus explains that it is because of his persistence that the friend will get up and hook him up with the bread. And what do we learn? If you bug your friends enough, you’ll ware them out and get what you want. Right?

Jesus goes on to teach the famous “ask, seek, knock” passage, to which everyone that wants a new car says “amen!” Not quite. This passage always seems to befuddle me a little. I remember thinking about this passage and continually asking the Lord for a particular thing that was very important and very big. It never happened and barring a miracle that is way overdue, it won’t ever happen. I’m okay with that, but it makes the passage a little confusing.

Time

Birthdays always seem to get a person thinking about their lives and how they’ve been spending their time. For us as believers it poses a perfect time for us to reflect on our lives in the last year and point to God’s faithfulness in that time. Such was the case for me this week.

I am no longer 23. I have officially entered my mid-twenties. On Thursday, I was thinking how I spent my 23rd birthday. I was in the dumps a bit actually. A girl I had been dating and I broke up the week before and so went my plans for my birthday. The big highlight ended up being going out with some of my guy friends to ESPN Zone to watch the Dodgers game and I actually think they lost. That was the day that started my year as a 23 year old; the year that definitely saw the most change in my life. I moved from Costa Mesa to Moshi to Long Beach back to Moshi and here I am.

That same woman, who I remain close friends with, emailed me this week and asked me for my thoughts on that season in our lives. I enjoyed thinking back, but now it all seems so odd and distant. Well, okay, that was my last year in Costa Mesa, I struggled with feelings towards this person and I was working this job and I was going to this church, my final year rooming with Josh and Cody. Yeah, that was a good time in my life, but its gone and things will never be like that again. Do I wish some things of that season were still a part of my current life? Totally! I’ve never had roommates that I laughed with and grew with like Josh and Cody. I’d love to have that again. I’d love to have many parts of my past to be parts of my present.

You know what I remember about that time? Alta. With Clesi, with Ash, with whoever. I remember the sights and smells of preaching and doing evangelism at Newport Pier. I remember getting calloused fingers for the first time while learning to play guitar. I remember songs from worship times with my life group. That’s where I was when I turned 23. Isn’t it funny how all these different aspects of our physical lives are linked together? Like a certain song brings you back to such and such time or reminds you of this person. Blue Fruitopia (do they still make that?) is forever linked to my freshman year of high school and I get sad with any similar smell because that was a lonely time for me. Amos Lee’s self-titled album is linked to my internship in Moshi, it brings back memories of my roommates and the excitement of getting hired at TOA, whereas Matthew Mayfield makes me somber as I found his music during a very hard and sad time in my life. The Lord constructed us to remember things and remember His faithfulness in every season of our lives.

In all our reflection, we should be sure to evaluate our effectiveness for the Kingdom and take note of what God was doing in that time. God’s movement of course can look so different from person to person, same with the advancement of His Kingdom. Maybe the last year His Kingdom and His Spirit was expanding in your life personally and this next year will see the fruit affecting the lives of the people around you. Or maybe, the Lord spent the last year radically using you and changing you and the Kingdom grew because He chose you. Or maybe, you spent the last year sitting on your hands, trying to see if you could get the coolest new gadget, that significant other you‘ve been longing for, or any other arbitrary thing that pulled you away from what the Lord was trying to do.

I am 24. Our lives are short. Its funny how we always want to think about the future and how we hope things will be. Typically that goes about five years in the future, we’d like to be there because then we’ll have our spouse, our own house, our family, our own business, our whatever. We don’t like to look to the future that is fifty years from now. The truth is that those things you plan on having in five years may be further than you expect and that fifty years is coming quicker than any of us realize. In fifty years, I may very well be dead. It wouldn’t even have to be anything particularly tragic or odd. I’d be in my seventies, people just die in their seventies. If I am just an average man, I’ve essentially lived a third of my life and yet in so many ways, I feel as though my life has just started.

How morbid of me, the Lord has given me another year completed in my life and I’m talking about death. I’m not trying to be morbid or foreboding, but it is biblical to realize that our time on this earth is fleeting, a mere vapor in the wind (James 4:14). So how are we spending our time? Are we capturing every moment for the glory of God or are we just trying to keep our heads afloat? Are we intentionally seeking to enjoy our time in accordance with His spiritual fruit of joy and peacefulness? Or are we constantly longing, even lusting, after whatever thing we think will satisfy, therein driving us to the point of misery? When your life is said and done will people be able to tell that you existed? If so is it because you made a positive impact or is it because you became an infamous waste of God’s creation?

Our tendency is often to look to mediocrity. I don’t have to be like Mother Theresa, so long as I don’t become like Hitler. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m a bit of an idealist, but I would hope that more people would strive to reach levels of goodness and worth-living life that would reflect that of a saint like Mother Theresa. But rather than trying to be like her, lets try to be like the Guy that was her inspiration and walk in the same Spirit that empowered her. Let’s live our lives in front of God and only look for His satisfaction in us. Mother Theresa did that. I feel like much of the world missed out on her passing because it was overshadowed by the wasteful death of Princess Diana around the same time. But that wouldn’t matter to Momma T for one second, because she didn’t spend her time thinking about publicity or what people thought and noticed about her. She lived her life and spent her time with her eyes on her Creator and the life to come.

I don’t want to waste my time on earth. I don’t want to get old and look back and see a garage full of cars and realize its all vanity. I don’t want to wait for tomorrow to be great in God’s sight, because tomorrow might not even come. I don’t know how much time I have on this earth, but I know that whatever time He gives me, that time is important and I should use it wisely. I realize this is only a vapor in the light of eternity. I realize that “the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next” (C.S. Lewis) I thank the Lord for the last 24 years. I pray that He is glorified in me today and that I can focus on Him and Heaven so that I don’t waste the moments He gives me.

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The Rundown: My birthday was very blessed and memorable. I started off the day at devotion and Jodie prompted people to do affirmations for me and I was affirmed by Eli, a few of our workers and one of our kids Irene, then everyone prayed for me. My parents gave me some money and after an ordeal for a few days, I was able to download a really sweet editor that I will be using to get quality videos of me and the kids out to all of you. Lyd and Jodie took me out for lunch which was nice. We also celebrated altogether at TOA where we ate cookies the older boys had made the night before and Mary prayed a blessing over me. I had a good time of English Bible teaching with the Form One students. And that night I had dinner at the Helblings and Lauren made a cake for us to enjoy after worship. A very blessed day overall. The only other two things would be that Friday, I played pickup soccer for the first time with a bunch of Tanzanians and that was fun. Playing with Tanzanians is similar to playing with Mexicans, which is what I’m used to. Its like they’re good, but its not like they’re necessarily better than me and I just have to get used to speaking in a language other than English. Tanzanians don’t celebrate as much though, I will say that. I scored my team’s only goal. I will be preaching at Pastor Unity’s on Sunday and will be bringing Innocent and Awadhi with me which will be great. I’ve preached there before and I really love Pastor and his wife Grace, who is like my right hand at TOA. That’s it!

Wow, I think my blogs keep getting longer and longer…

Adventure

My alarm goes off at 8:00 AM, this is sleeping in for me now. Get up, shower, make breakfast. My Saturday morning church service of worship music and listening to The Garden’s pod cast, Pastor Bill teaching on sloth. Church takes place as I do all the dishes from the previous week. So much silverware. My first day with this new deodorant, it smells very manly. I hop on the piki and head to TOA. Go into my office, check Facebook, email and change blog interface (do you like it?). I go outside to play with the kids. Sam smells my armpit while sitting next to me and says “Baba, you are wearing perfume.” I teach the English word ‘cologne’ and explain its my new deodorant. Chapati and beans for lunch. Show Benny some things on the guitar. Let the older kids on the computers while I work in my office. Lyd comes up and we go to balance the books for March. Expected time to do so, 20-30 minutes. After two hours, my new deodorant is adding to my headache. After a few hours, Jodie comes in with a problem. Awadhi is out of his meds and we might have to go to his school and it is already turning into dusk. If they go, I go, because its not the best place to go after dark and its been raining. I wait. Turns out they don’t go and I don’t leave TOA till 6:40. I take my laundry home in my basket and it blocks my headlight. Too dark to wear my shaded sunglasses while I drive. Bug flies in my eye. Try not to eat it in the mud. Get home. The new tenants’ dog won’t stop barking at me. I pray this big German Shepherd doesn’t get to brave and bite me. He settles for disrespectfully peeing on my piki. I come inside, turn on Amos Lee, cut the mold off the last of my cheese and fry up another salami quesadilla. Resign to writing for the night. Adventure?

A couple days ago, I was IMing with a friend from Long Beach. He asked me if I had anything exciting to share. I told him that things that used to seem exciting to me were now just normal. A response also known as ‘no.’ He asked me if we’d been dealing with any persecution. As an aside, I know where my friend’s question came from as he was a part a prayer meeting for me where that was spoken of. I won’t get into it right now, but I’m quite certain that in my walk I will come into considerable persecution. His question came from that mindset, but the truth is I haven’t really been experiencing any yet. Boy, that’d make for a riveting blog.

Adventure is important to me. Anyone whose ever read this blog since I started it can see that the same tag line has been on it the whole time “tracking Brandon and all his adventures throughout Moshi, Tanzania with his Treasures of Africa.” Is that accurate? Have you been reading my blogs and thinking “wow, look at the adventures Brandon is having with his Treasures of Africa!”? Probably not. I wish that I could chalk it up to my self-effacing writing style, but the truth is, this “adventure” looks different than I would have thought.

What is adventure? When I think of adventure, I get this mental picture of Indiana Jones running away from this huge stone ball and narrowly escaping yet again. Is that the standard for adventure? I’m not a tomb raider. I’ve never even met one. There has to be some other standard to say that this is living adventurously and this is living domicile. I don’t know what it is though. When you think about all the ways that people live its hard to discern what is true adventure and what isn’t. What about a person that is always climbing mountains, hang gliding and skydiving, but he’s never been in love and is insecure, is he living an adventure? What about a guy who used to have these aspirations of changing the world and now is working a normal job married with a couple kids, is he living an adventure? Better yet, how about a guy that will be 24 on Thursday, who just followed God to Africa, but his experience is different than he expected? Adventure? Sijui.

Bill Dogterom was preaching on sloth and he talked about how we are made for adventure and to sail the seas of life. I agree, both from experience and from knowing that disagreeing with Bill is second to disagreeing with the Lord. By the grace of the Spirit, sloth seems so unattractive to me, because I want to experience life that is really life. Even if that means I fall on my piki in the mud or get a broken heart every now and then.

So is this adventure? I daresay that I think it is. Everything else aside, I say it is for one reason. I may not be riding rhinos to work or getting beat up by Masai warriors everyday. I may not be taking the gospel into some remote South American tribe or hiding out with my underground church in the Bhutan. But there is this critical factor of risk. Adventure is completely dependent on risk. There is nothing more valuable to risk than love. I can objectively say that I risked love to be here. I loved my friends and family in the states. I still do love them, of course. However, in a normal pattern of thinking, you might gather that me moving to the other side of the earth will severely limit the growth of love in every single relationship. Not that love won’t grow still, but it won’t be as much or as quick if I’d been sitting down with you and experiencing life at your side. I risked that true love. Even more so I risked not having the truest form of human love that I’ve ever experienced as being here meant not being with a person that I loved in the most unique fashion.

So there’s the risk. Praise God that my risk was not out of foolhardiness and thrill chasing in East Africa, but rather it was based in His calling me here. Since it is in His will, I have a 100% chance of reaping greater benefits (love) than I risked. I’ve always loved the kids that I worked with in California. I risked and gave them up and have experienced a hundred-fold (no exaggeration) in the love that I have for the Treasures. That takes nothing away from my love for those kids in the states, but the Lord has taken me to a new level. I risked my love for the relationships with friends and family. Praise God that those are still maintainable from here, though more limited. My friend base here is…developing, nonetheless there are certainly a handful of people that I am developing deep relationship with. And that risk of being with that special woman, I honestly believe that the Lord hasn’t forgotten that and when I’m with whoever I’m supposed to be with, it too will be an immeasurable increase because of His faithfulness.

The greatest adventure is abiding in the Spirit and allowing Him to lead you. Don’t fear, He is with you and will uphold you. Let go of what control you think you have and dive in expecting the unexpected. It’ll be beautiful, pinky promise.

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The Rundown: The first week of the kids’ break went very well. We’ve had time for all the things that I mentioned last week. They are big fans of English Verb Bingo for the ESL time. I’ve taught them a couple songs as well which is my favorite thing. On Friday, I took the fourth graders and up for a nice long walk to the grocery market and treated them to ice cream. That was a lot of fun. I have really been able to make some deep connections with the boys especially. We have some great conversations and laugh together a lot. The books have been a serious headache. Pray that Lydia and I can figure stuff out before a bunch of transactions are made on Monday. Its Easter and that’s crazy how fast its come up. He is risen! I didn’t bring any pastel shirts. We’ll be eating a nice tall goat. My birthday is this week. I will be 24. Does 23 start my mid-twenties or is it 24? One way or another I’ll certainly be in my mid-twenties on Thursday. Haya, inatosha.

TOA Video Made By AIM Short Termers

treasures of africa. from chelsea kim on Vimeo.