Houston / Sierra Leone: Two floods Yet One Common Need
From the WO web guy:
As I prepare this post, I sit in my home just outside of Houston, TX and I am experiencing the fifth day of the devastating flooding in Southeast Texas. My experience is mild compared to many in the Houston area. The attention of America and many parts of the world has been directed towards Houston and the many images of tragedy broadcast through the television airways. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced, tens of thousands have lost everything and yet to date the current estimate is only a merciful 8* deaths.
A day before Hurricane Harvey began its destructive path through Texas, Dr. Steve Woodworth had sent me this story to post on the WO website. Steve is one of World Outreach’s ITEN associates. I thanked him but did not have time to open and read until today. Reading it today reminds me again that I am not the only person in the world with troubles. Houston is not the only city in the world with troubles. And while Houston troubles are close at hand, Steve reminds me there are other places in the world also suffering the consequences of a fallen world and in great need of a savior.
Whether in a big city in America or a small village in Africa, the truth and hope of the Gospel is needed, especially in times when fear and loss seem to prevail.
In the big city, pastors of churches give comfort to many with words like the ones shared by my friend, Pastor Richard Harris of Christ EPC in Houston, as he shared Psalm 121 in a letter to the congregation and on Facebook to a city. Although only a snippet of these words of wisdom, let me share a couple of lines…
Psalm 121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? Who will help us? We are on this long, hard, dangerous journey through this life to the heavenly Jerusalem, and it is full of floods, storms, obstacles, brokenness, and sin. We get scared, tired, confused and we consider giving up. Who will protect us? Who can we trust? Who will see to it that we make it all the way home? Psalm 121:2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Who will help us? There is only one answer. There is only one who can help. The answer is that Yahweh, the covenant making and keeping Lord, who made heaven and earth will help us.
In the small village, Steve shares his story about pastors to unreached people groups throughout the land, sacrificing their health, financial gain, and personal safety to spread the light of Christ to regions cloaked in darkness.
From Steve Woodworth:
Rokassa. The name of the village took me several days to pronounce correctly, although the hospitality of the inhabitants made me feel immediately at home. And even as I bumbled my way through the cultural divide, they repeatedly honored me with gracious generosity. From the moment you arrive, the children in the village will gather around you, asking for you to take their picture. With salutes, raised thumbs, and bursting smiles, they will hold their poses as long as the camera keeps rolling.
My journey to Rokassa came during the rainy season, when the tin roof of our dwellings and puddle-filled roads provided a setting for teaching where tranquility and a sense of silence seemed to pervade the land. The vegetation was green and the nights were punctuated by the sounds of bleating goats and foreign birds. Life in the village is simple. Electricity is scarce, available for a few short hours each day, and our showers came by way of a plastic tub of collected water and cup to pour over our heads. Our students slept of the floor of a local hospital and dedicated more than 7 hours each day to their studies in a small classroom within the village school.
We had come to Sierra Leone to assist local leaders with the continuing develop of a growing seminary called RBI (Reformed Bible Institute). Over the course of 5 days, we taught theology, pastoral ministry, church history, ethics and leadership to a class of over 40 students devoted to seeing the Kingdom of Christ come to this corner of His world.
Some are former Muslims who have already sacrificed family and their former communities. Now, as pastors to unreached people groups throughout the land, they sacrifice their health, financial gain, and personal safety to spread the light of Christ to regions cloaked in darkness. As we huddled together in our crowded classroom, we learned as much as we taught. We worshiped together without instruments and the pure voices of these emerging leaders filled the village with declarations that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
The work, we were told, is difficult. The spiritual soil in many places is tough for planting. And yet there was an unshakable belief in the faithfulness of God to bring his promises for Sierra Leone to fruition. The evidence was all around us. Amidst a Muslim village of 500 inhabitants there now sits a Christian school, a hospital, and a classroom full of over 40 converts who have been called to minister the gospel to the next generation. Of course, we always desire more. We always wish for things to come more quickly. But our God is a patient God who has revealed to us the certainty of human history. These pastors we gathered with are the glorious “first fruits” of a movement of God’s Spirit that is spreading like a fire across Western Africa, reclaiming what was once lost to superstition, magic, tribalism, and the dark veil of Islam. In the eyes of these pastors we saw the future. A light on the hill of Africa illuminating Christ into the hearts of every tribe, nation and tongue.
But the rain kept coming.
It poured out of the heavens for days upon days until the soil on a hillside outside of Freetown broke free and roared its way into villagers down below. Hundreds of lives were lost, hundreds more were displaced and left homeless. In a country that has suffered for so long under dictators and diseases, the latest tragedy in Sierra Leone could (and most likely will) be interpreted by some as a cosmic curse on a land full of violence and corruption.
But those critics will not have met the men and women I did. They won’t have listened to their singing. They won’t have heard their visions. They won’t have witnessed a new generation of leaders who are willing to leave their families for weeks, travel hundreds of miles, and sleep on concrete floors to study the word of God. Men and women who believe that the power of God is infinitely more potent than the spells of a witch doctor, prayers to the spirits, allegiances to secret societies or the hollow promises of false prophets. Men and women who are peering into the heart of a wounded country to offer them a lasting hope in the love of a Father who is calling his children to come home. A Father, who when the flood waters recede, will use his Church to bring healing to a country longing for salvation.
“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
Let us acknowledge the Lord;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.” – Hosea 6:1-3
*The Texas death count has climbed to over 30 as of 9/9/17.
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