December Update

(This is the text of an email I am sending out to various supporters, friends and family members.  If you don't see it in YOUR inbox, that might mean I don't have your email address - or I've got the wrong one!  If you'd like to be on our mailing list, drop me a quick note at sgross@onemissionsociety.org.)

The Cowman School's kindergarten in Vaudreuil, Haiti is waiting for Mrs. Gross...

Greetings!  We certainly hope this email finds you well at the start of the Christmas Season.  Remember when you were a kid and this “season” seemed to last FOREVER?

I am missing those days – especially this year when time seems to be flying at an alarming speed.  We have spent the last two months writing letters, making phone calls and speaking to churches and individuals about this call God has placed on our hearts to serve Him in Haiti.  Before Christmas arrives, we are making a big push to raise new financial support in the hope that we might be able to move to Haiti in January and get started with the work there.

We have reserved plane tickets for the family for January 10^th out of Fort Pierce, Florida, to Cap Haitien.  We can cancel those tickets right up until a few days before Christmas without penalty, so by the end of December we need to know if we are going in January or waiting until the start of the next school year in August.  We are feeling amazingly at peace considering we don’t know whether six weeks from now will find us wearing short sleeves or parkas. 

The biggest factor in whether we go … or stay put … is our level of funding.  We are so appreciative of all who are supporting us with prayer and finances.  You are precious to us and we thank God for you! (2^nd Corinthians 9:12+13!)  Especially encouraging to us is the reality that some have been giving financially for a year now, building a solid foundation from which to launch us to the field. 

AND we are encouraged by many others who have verbally pledged support.  Unfortunately, until those pledges reach OMS in writing, they do not advance the official funding level.  So in these next two weeks we are doing what we can to make pledges official and to raise new pledges to a degree that will allow One Mission Society to release us for departure to Haiti. 

It’s a steep goal, but it’s not impossible. 50 more monthly pledges of $50 each would put us in a place where we could get started in January.*  (For the math-challenged, I should point out that this goal could also be met by 25 pledges of $100 or 100 pledges of $25 – or various combinations of all.)  That’s why a friend helped us create a website which makes pledging simple, fast and convenient:  grossesinhaiti.com.  I mention it here because I’d be very grateful if you helped me get the word out in any way possible. 

I will be sure to pass along the news once we know for certain what January holds for us.  (If/when we get the green light, you will probably hear me whoop it up ... even if you live a couple of states over.)  Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

In Christ,

Steve and Melissa Gross

P.S. My friend James is working at OMS headquarters and just finished an overhaul on the OMS website: onemissionsociety.org.   And it is GOOD.  Now I can link directly to our support page there as well, at http://www.onemissionsociety.org/give/thegrosses. 

* As of this writing, 3 down and 47 to go! Praise the Lord!

Thanksgiving 2012

So many of my most recent posts have been VERY wordy, so it's a good time to pause and post some pictures from this past week.  As you know, we are trying to see if we can move our family to the Haiti in January.  (And it's a bit stressful, with December hitting by the end of this week, not knowing for sure whether we have a major life change coming after the first of the year.)  But we feel very sure that if we don't make it to Haiti in January, we will most likely head there in August of 2013 in order to start the 2013/2014 school year.

Which means that this will likely be the last Thanksgiving we celebrate in Indiana for quite a while.  That idea has definitely been in the forefront of my mind these last few days, and it tends to make me pause to "soak it in" a bit more frequently than past years.

So here are some pictures of some of the moments I soaked in over Thanksgiving.

Our Thanksgiving started with Melissa's annual kindergarten class program.

 

They performed several songs in the "commons" at her school.  All the kids were so cute in their little homemade pilgrim headware.

 

And then a line of kids recited a poem based on the letters in "THANKSGIVING".

 

 

 Our own little Princess received the letter G.  (I think the teacher rigged it!)  "G is for Grandmas, the ones that we love!"

 

 

The Princess with the Grandmas she loves... Both Grandmas made it to the program, so The Princess was very excited.  Even her brothers and sister were able to leave class in order to watch.

 

 

Dats, on the other hand, had a speech to perform where he was supposed to dress as a turkey.  We made him do a dress rehearsal for the family.  Colored duct tape put to good use.

 

Can you tell how thrilled The Drama Queen is about being taller than her mom?  She passed Melissa just a few months ago and now she's clearly several inches beyond.  Both beautiful ladies are barefoot in this picture.

This was one of my favorite moments from the past week.  Dats (age 11) and Ida (age 9) snuck off on Thanksgiving Day between big meals to carve tree branches with sharp rocks.  They sat together on the edge of the field behind Grandma's house for over an hour, chatting and scraping. 

They will get along just fine in Haiti!

 

More Vuja De - When Hell is a Laughing Matter

This is a post I don't really want to write - but in the interest of being as transparent as possible, I will.
 
I don't want to write it because it necessitates a confession, and it's bad enough that I said what I said in front of a table full of family members.  Now I am about to repeat it online for all who care to read.   And I am seriously embarrassed by what came out of my mouth and I am reminded of Jesus teaching the religious folks of his day that "it's what comes out of the mouth that makes us unclean."
 
But I risk sharing this because it was another "vuja de" moment for me. (Vuja De = seeing something familiar with new eyes, as if for the first time.  The opposite of deja vu.)
 
Also, it (kind of) gives me a chance to apologize to those at the table. (Sorry!)
 
What I said followed a couple of stories regarding a pastor I used to know.  They were meant to paint him in a very negative light - all while we sat around the Thanksgiving meal, for heaven's sake!  Now, to be sure, this man was extremely ill-suited for the ministry.  He was mean as a snake, rude and sneaky.  But this was 20+ years ago and I am almost certain he has passed away, so it should all be water under the bridge, right?
 
Anyway, I told these stories about this man and then someone asked, "Where is he now?"  And I blurted out, "I don't know ... burning in hell, I think." 
 
This elicited nervous, shocked laughter from some around the table ...
 
... And a rebuke in my spirit.  Instant regret!  But I had no time to analyze it in the moment (or to apologize) as the conversation continued on in a different direction. 
 
So here's why I call it "vuja de" - I have often told stories about this pastor over the last two decades and have often been asked "where is he now?'  And my stock answer became: "I think he moved to a warmer climate."  That was my "funny" way to state two propositions and a conclusion. Prop 1 - he was not really a believer.  Prop 2 - he has probably passed into eternity.  Conclusion - he is currently separated from God for eternity.  For some reason, yesterday I was much more blunt, but in essence I was saying the same thing I had said for years.
 
The sting I felt in my spirit wasn't so much about me 'judging' his destiny (though that can obviously be shaky ground).  After all, Jesus did say that there would be false teachers and you would know them by their fruit.  I don't know that many church members around this country would argue that, in general, there are a lot of people in a lot of pulpits who have no business being there.  And I'm not talking about the ones who are well-meaning but incompetent; I mean the ones who don't even seem to believe - or practice - an ounce of what they preach.  And the Apostle Paul warns us that "teachers" within the church need to be extra careful because they will be judged more harshly in the End. 
 
No, the sting of the rebuke was more along these lines: "Hell is a real place of real torment.  It is NOT something you would ever wish on your worst enemy.  And it is NOT something to be flippant about."
 
In a way, this experience of vuja de is an extension of the one I wrote of the other day - about doing the will of God.  Because if Jesus leaves us with The Great Commission, urging us to "go" and to "make disciples", then we have to grapple with the reality of what happens if we DON'T go and if we DON'T make disciples.
 
Eternal destinies hang in the balance.  And that is serious business.
 
So here's my new and improved answer just 24 hours later, in lieu of what God is (patiently) teaching me:
"I don't know where this man is.  I believe he has passed away.  I sincerely hope he had the opportunity to repent and truly trust in Christ before he slipped into eternity."   
 
 
P.S.  Whoops!  It just occurred to me to Google his name ... and it appears he is still among the living.  (He must have been much younger than he looked back when I knew him!)  I believe God is telling me it is high time to let go of any remaining bitterness on my part and forgive the man, right?  I feel like I have a reprieve.  I'm praying for you, Rev! (And I really mean that.)  I want for you what none of us deserve...

50 for 50

           There is a time for patience and a time for pushing ahead.  Melissa and I are feeling an urgency to get our family to Haiti - even the kids are feeling it. 

The teaching positions at Cowman School just outside of Cap Haitien, Haiti, today stand wide open and unfilled - and have been all this semester.  Currently at Cowman, the principal is doubling as kindergarten teacher and has therefore necessarily limited class to three days a week.  Melissa is anxious to step in to the teacher role and allow the principal to get back to her administrative focus. 

 

At the other end of the school, the junior and senior high students that I will be working with are unsupervised much of the day.  As they work on their online courses, they have no regular teacher available to crack the whip, answer questions, lead Bible class or teach English.  Trying to teach from a distance this semester has been incredibly frustrating to me and it simply falls far short of the classroom ideal.

 

Meanwhile, over at Emmaus Biblical Seminary,  demand for English classes and tutoring exceeds what current staff can offer.  English skills give the students - Haiti's future pastors - access to oodles of resources that have never been (and never will be) translated into Creole. AND, those graduates who are proficient in English are finding opportunities to use their skills for income as freelance translators - in  a country where few pastors receive any sort of compensation from the churches they serve.

 

Those are the opportunities we KNOW we have missed out on this semester and will continue to miss out during this second semester if we cannot get to Haiti in January. Nobody knows what other opportunities and divine appointments might be missed in 2013.

 

We are entirely dependent on individuals (mostly) and churches (some) who will partner with us through monthly support. 

 

We've done the math ... and 50 more pledges of $50 a month each will put us in a place where we can get started. (Of course, 25 at $100 would work too!)

 

Will you pray about this ministry opportunity and the possibility of joining with us as one of those 50?

 

We have a website that makes it easy to start the process:  grossesinhaiti.com.  If you fill out the online form there, you will soon hear back from One Mission Society about the next steps in making our partnership a reality.

 

I am sure you are aware of how much the Haitian people have suffered, especially in recent years.  There is hunger, ignorance, corruption and death at every turn.  And so many who don't know Jesus.  But God has laid Haiti on our hearts and we desire nothing so much as to be there - as the hands and feet of Jesus.

"Vuja De"

Everybody's heard of "deja vu" - that strange feeling of "I've done this before" that pops up every now and then at the oddest moments.

But I had never heard of "vuja de" until this weekend.  Some creative soul coined the term to indicate that feeling which is the opposite of deja vu - while in the midst of very familiar territory, you see something brand new ... as if for the first time.

I have experienced sporadic deja vu in my lifetime - but lately, vuja de seems to be a pretty common occurrence!

It actually started two years ago on the flight back to Florida after my first week in Haiti.  And it was with a basic concept that should matter greatly to every believer.  It was one which I thought I had a pretty good grip on and one (I thought) I had devoted quite a bit of prayer to - at least since my college days.  That concept was "God's will".

I had learned during my senior year in college how important it was to seek God's will for my life in prayer.  Long story short:  With three weeks to go before graduation from Wabash College my student teaching fell apart and my professor said she would not be recommending me for a teaching license!  So with less than a month until I would be booted into "the real world", I had no hope of finding the job for which my four years at Wabash had "prepared" me.

I was more than slightly upset and slightly confused.  I took a long walk one night, making slow circles around campus and I let God have it.  I was angry.  I whined and fussed at God about why He had allowed all this to happen.  And I got a reply.  A rebuke.

"I don't know why you're angry with me - you never once asked me if you were supposed to be a teacher." 

It was true.  The biggest decision of my life to that point and I had never once consulted God about it in prayer!  (Incidentally, when I started to pray about my career path - which I did immediately - that is when He directed me toward youth ministry.  And, praise God, He obviously didn't allow to go to waste those four years studying to become a teacher.)

So, like I said, I had learned the importance of prayer in determining God's will for my life.  But then two years ago, the Lord started to show me how very limiting those three words had been in regard to my understanding of God's will: "for my life". 

Whenever I read anything in Scripture about "God's will", in my mind I assumed it had to do with what job God would want me to take, what girl to marry, what house to buy, etc.  All the various forks in the road where we need wisdom and discernment. 

And this understanding of God's will is not foreign to Scripture: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" (James 4:13-15)

So when I experienced vuja de on the plane ride two years ago, it was that my eyes suddenly viewed "God's will" in a much wider perspective. 

All of a sudden the phrase "God's will" had much more to do with the Great Commission than with which house God wanted me to pick when we moved to a new town.  My new eyes saw "God's will" as being synonymous with much grander and more critical enterprises ... like caring for the poor, setting the oppressed free, and preaching the Gospel. 

"God's will" was no longer only about me trying to discern His steering in the particulars of my life decisions but rather me devoting my life towards those desires that drive Him. 

Now when I read Scripture, it seems that most often, the phrase "God's will" is used like Paul's claim to the believers in Ephesus before his departure: "I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God." (Acts 20:27)  Obviously, Paul had been preaching about God's great priorities for the human race, not a detailed roadmap for each listener's life. 

This could be a rather academic distinction except for the fact that believers are meant to DO the will of God, and primarily in this second and broader sense!  Jesus told His followers:  "As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent me." (John 9:4)

WE!  You and me and Jesus - all single-mindedly pursuing God's priorities in this fallen and broken world for whatever brief time we have.  And THAT is where this vuja de experience two years ago really GOT me.  Because I had to admit that even though I went to church and small group regularly and I cracked my Bible open now and then (and felt guilty that it wasn't more often - or more... real), my life priorities were all about juggling schedules and keeping the house in repair and earning a pay check and, overall, being comfortable.

Much of these last two years has been about the Lord opening my eyes to all the many places in my life where I need to ditch my priorities whenever and wherever they compete with His.  I trust I have much to learn yet, but it's been a great ride so far. 

Lord, keep on bringing the vuja de!


P.S.  Even the most familiar passages of Scripture always have the potential for striking us anew (which is one of the things that makes reading the Bible so fascinating).  What do we mean exactly when we pray the way Jesus taught us: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?  Will God's kingdom come once everyone finds the "right" job and marries the "right" spouse and settles into the "right" house?  Can we legitimately PRAY for God's will to be done while we DO little towards that end?

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." - Jesus in Matthew 7:21

Selfless Followers of a Self-Centered God or...

Self-centered followers of a selfless God?

I have been working on a sermon the last few days.  I get the opportunity to preach tomorrow morning at Shiloh Community Church in Franklin, Indiana.  The pastor gave me the option of preaching a favorite sermon - one that I've done before, but I really don't like to approach preaching that way (not that there's anything wrong with it). So it took me a long time to settle on a passage to preach.

Several leadings eventually caused me to land on 2 Corinthians 9:6-15.  I tried to avoid this passage, because it sounds just like the sort of thing you would EXPECT a missionary to preach on - it's Paul urging the Corinthian church to ready the financial gift they had promised to share with the poor.  And it has the familiar passage about "he who sows sparingly, reaps sparingly" and "he who sows bountifully, reaps bountifully".

One of the things I enjoy about preaching (and one of the reasons I don't tend to repeat sermons even in different locations) is that in studying and meditating on the preaching passage (if I do it right), I learn something new OR God crystallizes some right idea that has been floating aimlessly in my mind.  (My WORST sermons are the ones where I have some aspect of spirituality "figured out" ahead of time and cherry-pick a Scripture passage to fit it and then knock the congregation over the head with it.)

So I am looking and looking at Paul's line about sowing and reaping and it smacks so much of the prosperity gospel that I can hardly stomach it and yet I am trying hard to see it as the respectable self-motivation that even the more conservative commentaries acknowledge and I'm still not comfortable with it. 

Then it hits me.  I am reading this with 21st century American Christian eyes.  And I'm betting the Corinthian church was quite different from the American church.  Paul was not writing to a group of Christians who had grown accustomed to keeping a tight grip on their own wealth and who expected a solid, tangible return on every investment.  It's clear from the rest of the letter that Paul was addressing a group of sold out Christians whose first priority is God's will and not their own. 

If we read Paul's words with Corinthian eyes, it changes things.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, when we see references to sowing seeds and harvesting fields, we know those are symbolic for spreading the gospel among people and seeing some come to faith in Christ.  And Paul is asking the Corinthians in chapter 9 to give financially to spread the gospel and he assumes, since they are God-centered followers of Christ, that the bountiful harvest of souls will be a motivator for them!

This interpretation then makes sense of the next few verses.  For instance, verse 8 says, "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work."  Notice, the promise is that the Corinthians (and we) will have "enough" and the reason that they (and we) will have enough is to enable "sharing" in "every good work".  

Sounds like God's top priority isn't our comfort and financial well-being as believers but rather the spreading of His kingdom!  Now THAT sounds right to my ears and heart. 

Look at verse 10: "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness."  Like "sowing" and "harvesting", "bread" shows up elsewhere in the New Testament.  In the Lord's prayer, bread represents the tangible provisions sufficient for our daily needs.  God gives the seed and the bread.  The bread is for eating; the seed is for sowing. 

So in the midst of these lightbulbs going off, I arrived this morning at this passage in David Platt's book Radical Together:

"We are to be selfless followers of a self-centered God.  But the problem is that we often reverse this in the church.  We become self-centered followers of a selfless God.  We organize our churches as if God exists to meet our needs, cater to our comforts, and appeal to our preferences.  Discussions in the church more often revolve around what we want than what he wills.  Almost unknowingly, the church becomes a means of self-entertainment and a monument to self-sufficiency.  But something wonderful happens when we apply radical obedience to Christ in the regular practice of the church.  All of a sudden, we find ourselves engulfed in a community that finds deep and abiding pleasure in denial of self and dependence on God."

That'll preach!