Archive for February, 2009
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Papa God
(A reminder with many thanks: If you were thinking of making a donation on behalf of a Harvest Project team member, this would be a good time. Airline tickets are being purchased now.)
Remember camp songs on the bus when you were a kid? There’ll be time for plenty of songs when the Harvest Project team makes the 8-hour bus trip again this time from Yaounde up to Bamenda.
In 2007 on the bus we learned a worship song in Pidgin English. The meaning is something like this:
No one can say God has never done good for him.
Show me! Show me!
I never heard, I never saw, I never heard
Any who can say God has never done good for him.
I was back in Cameroon a few months after the 2007 project, and grabbed my camera when the church choir started in on that familiar song, “Na oh weh Papa God nevah do good for he.”
So here’s to memory and anticipation! And here’s thanks to our God who drops rain on the just and the unjust and who works everything together for good to those who are trusting him.
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Not Saying No to God
(A reminder with many thanks: If you were thinking of making a donation on behalf of a Harvest Project team member, this would be a good time. Airline tickets are being purchased now.)
Thought from Brian Reilly, team member:
Our pastor has been preaching sermons the last few Sundays about spiritual gifts and making oneself available to God, that we may not say no to God (nor would there ever be a good reason to do so).
I have been listening especially closely, feeling like he is opening up God’s word directly to me for the upcoming Cameroon trip in particular. I know it goes for everyone, but I have been awestruck at how God is honoring me by providing for this trip. This scripture is not new to me, but its pertinence and current application has growing meaning, growing me in Christ.
Getting to know the truth about what’s going on in the world, that some people actually think their disabled loved ones may be “part snake“ – true heartache. It makes trust in God and faith grow stronger by the second.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Solange
by David Anderson, team member who lives in Cameroon and ministers through Crossing Bridges
Solange was born with a deformity in her knees which made it difficult for her to learn to walk.
In many African cultures, this means that the child is not valued by the family – often the family may simply abandon the infant.
In Solange’s case, however, she was kept by the family, but because of her disability – and because of the mysterious disappearance of some eggs -
her father believed that Solange was actually a snake.
Somehow, she was “found” by Nungu Magdalene, Founder and Director of the Center for Empowerment of Females with Disabilities, and was brought to the school. In 2005, an orthopedic surgeon operated on her knees to reduce the deformity. She now wears braces to further correct her legs and to give support.
Last month, when Magdalene was in Solange’s village . . . she gave Solange’s father a letter from Solange. He was astonished. “My daughter wrote this?” he kept asking. Magdalene assured him that she had, and added that Solange wants to become a minister (government official). Suddenly, his entire attitude changed. He began telling everyone whom he saw “My daughter is going to be a minister!”
This true story somewhat parallels a sketch which the children of CEFED frequently perform, which features a disabled child whose father denies her the opportunity to attend school, favoring instead his non-disabled child. As the sketch ends, the disabled child, now grown to adulthood, returns to the family after achieving a position of importance through the Christian love and support of a benefactor. [Solange plays the role of the mother in the video of that sketch, "I Want to Go to School."]
Solange is one of several children who, following a profession of faith, was baptized last December.
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
Transient vs. Eternal
I don’t remember the exact date I became a Christian, but it was right about this time of year, 30 years ago. The verse that broke through was 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Those verses keep finding their way into my life, and it occurred to me this morning how fitting they are for this outreach. We will be serving a couple hundred disabled people who are in the middle of a “slight momentary affliction” that probably doesn’t feel very slight or very momentary.
But believe it or not, another “affliction” can be the wheelchair itself. The wheelchair is a great thing, but it is going to wear out eventually.
So would you please join us in praying for each person that gets served? Thirty years ago Jesus changed my life by helping me take my eyes off transient things.
Pray that these eternal souls in
- would see their disability as transient. Even if it lasts their whole life it is short compared to eternity.
- would not put too much emphasis on their new wheelchair, realizing that it too is transient.
- would respond with joy to the gospel, and know without a doubt that Jesus offers “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
