•Friday, February 18, 2011
[Author's note: If I can just be permitted to dust off this little corner of the web for a few moments, I thought I would share a few more thoughts in the same vein as the ones previously posted. In light of the recent Sudan referendum and birth of a new country, I thought it to be appropriate. Hopefully, my writing hiatus won't last much longer and I'll be back to posting regularly once again. Thanks for your patience!]
Twenty-five believers are lining up for baptism now. The water droplets run down thei
r faces - some young and smooth, others wrinkled and scarred - as they, one-by-one, identify themselves boldly with Jesus Christ and a new life.
The sunlight streams through the edges of the grass mat roof, spotlighting dark faces with patches of light. Dozens are crammed on hard log branch bences for the morning church service.
It is Sunday morning, and there are at least two faces in the crowd that certainly do not blend in. Laurie Filson and I have tagged along with long-time missionary Vince Ward to visit Lo Mading, one of the mission churches growing rapidly in Southern Sudan. After many weeks of experiencing life with the Cush4Christ team under the African sun, we both approach this final Lord's Day with eagerness and a twinge of sadness. I look around, trying to etch every single face into my memory - looking back into the dark eyes that followed my every move.
What was about to take place in front of me, thousands of miles away from the familiar and ordinary, would be the stage for God to show me just how close Home really is.
A wiry young fellow, barely in his teens, is leading the singing. He is clothed in slightly baggy, mismatched clothes and he is barefoot, but these things are hardly noticeable after seeing his face. Sweat glistens on his dark features. His eyes are closed as he sings his heart ourt. His entire body is enveloped into the singing, as if the words escaping his lips were running through his veins. Thin arms pump the air victoriously and his feet kick up tufts of dirt as he makes his way up and down the makeshift aisle.
Pure, unaffected joy.
Worship in an entirely different language that speaks louder than words ever could.
Another young man, Ajou, only recently passed by Presbytery to be licensed to preach, stands in front of the fledgling congregation. I can see the joy in his eyes, the excitement erupting all over his dark face. I can hear the edge in his voice betraying the zeal of his soul. The words that issued from his lips were still a mystery to my untrained ears, but as a preacher to his own, these words aren't dead. They are filling the four corners of the grass-mat enclosure, bounding into the listening ears of the people crowded together.
Twenty-five believers are lining up for baptism now. The water droplets run down thei
r faces - some young and smooth, others wrinkled and scarred - as they, one-by-one, identify themselves boldly with Jesus Christ and a new life.It is a celebration.
You can feel it in the air. The voices echo all around me and I can hear their praises erupting to God in their own language. I don't understand a word of it, by the joyful tears that are welling up in my eyes match the glistening droplets that still linger in their dark hair.
Then, in the midst of all the Dinka language, I hear something that I do understand ... a few English words!
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I look over, and for a moment, our missionary friend is praying a blessing for the people. It is a very small thing, just a short prayer to add to what the baptizing pastor has already prayed for the new believers. But in that moment, hearing my own language resonates deeply in my heart. I didn't even realize how much I had missed it.
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It was as if someone had turned a spotlight on to that beautiful scene, allowing the colors to glisten in a way veiled before. Hearing the echoes of my own heart being put into words revealed how much I had been missing by not being able to comprehend the language of those around me.
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If I thought I understood, I did even more so now.
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A few days later, we embarked a small white plane to begin our trek back to America, carrying months of memories with us. The crowning pinnacle of our reflections, as we watched the ground disappear below, turned heavenward and we considered the Kingdom work that God is doing through the labors of the dear missionary friends that we leave behind.
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That church service scene, like so many others before it , bore the obvious signs of His redeeming work - clear indications of the gospel captivating hearts and transforming lives. We see these things in missions, though imperfect, and it causes us to rejoice in it, wait for it, work for it, long for its completion. God "has put eternity into man's heart" (Ecc. 3:11) and those eternal souls are finding Biblical language in whcih to praise Him!
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Sometimes it isn't easy. We don't "blend in" and certainly don't always understand the meaning of these little tastes of eternity. As C.S. Lewis has aptly said, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." One day, all things will be made known, every knee shall bow, the goal of missions will be finished, and we will worship together with one voice before our Savior.
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Yes, I'm on my way home.
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"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." - 1 Corinthians 13:12
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