Waiting for Les Miserables

I have truly enjoyed only one recent trend on Facebook. Not the election moaning.  Not the Chik-Fil-A debates.  Not even the 30 days of thankfulness in November. (It was sad how many people started strong and then ran out of blessings before the month ended!  After Thanksgiving Day itself, it seemed that most people got distracted by ... other stuff.)

But here's the trend I'm talking about: people confessing they have no idea what Les Miserables is about - neither the book nor the musical.  And, of course, this conversation is prompted by the musical-turned-movie premiering on Christmas day.

Those ignorant of Les Mis seem to know that there is SOMETHING there and that many fans eagerly await the movie, but they are not sure exactly what the draw is.

Some point to the outstanding cast.

Others to the memorable music.  (And even the ignorant recognize the lyrics of "I Dreamed a Dream" and then say, "Oh - I didn't know that's where that song came from!")

But all of that is built on the foundation of a truly great story. 

And by "great" I don't mean just that it's well told, or gripping, or whatever.

It's the greatest fictional story of Christian redemption I have ever come across.

And what surprises me most about what the uninitiated don't know about Les Mis is the fact that it is a story of how God's forgiveness, rightly received, changes the course of one man's life.

How many people are going to walk into the movie theater in the coming weeks to "see what all the fuss is about" only to be hit with a tale of sin, forgiveness, redemption, law and grace?

I am a bit puzzled about how Les Mis has managed to avoid the "Christian" label.  And why I don't hear a peep about any church promoting the movie - like churches have promoted "Christian" movies like "Fire Proof" or "Courageous" in the past. 

Don't get me wrong. I am glad it doesn't carry that baggage.  I'm just curious about how it has avoided it.

Anyway, I got out my DVD of the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the musical tonight.  It features a full orchestra and all the stage actors, but only the musical portions of the stage production are performed.  The actors are in costume, but they simply sing the lyrics into microphones lined up on stage. 

I started watching it and the next thing I know The Drama Queen (age 10) is watching intently.  Next, Ida (age 9) finished loading the dishwasher and he's standing and watching it too.  Then, Dats (age 11) comes up from playing video games in the basement and he plops down on the couch and gets pulled in too!  Since all the dialogue was left out, I had to fill them in on developments in the story as we went along.

By the standing ovation at the end of the DVD, all three were asking if they could see the movie when it comes out.  And Dats and Drama Queen were wanting to know if I had a copy of the book. 

I do - but I'm not sure they are ready for it.  It's 1,400 pages! (One of the things that most impresses me about the musical is how it so accurately captures the spirit and sweep of such an epic story even within the limitations of a stage production's space and time frame.)

Since we're not able to go to Haiti in January, this is a nice distraction and the movie's premiere as something to really look forward to...

Sadness Around the Table Tonight ...

... as we had to let the kids know that we won't be heading to Haiti this January.  We had all gotten our hopes up, but it is simply not to be.  Melissa and I are still processing it, and it leaves us feeling a bit deflated, but we know the Lord is the master of the calendar.  "There is an appointed time for everything.  And there is a time for every event under heaven." (Ecc 3:1)  I had tried not to get my hopes up too high because I learned long ago that I am very bad at trying to predict God's timing!  But still ... our hearts long to be in Haiti and that longing is hard to endure in Indiana.

It's all kind of ironic, too.  When God first began calling our family to Haiti through Melissa's short term trip in June of 2010, she said No...No... No.  For at least three months.  Now He has to hold us back from rushing forward! 

So, while not trying to predict God's timing, we still have to look forward to a future departure date.  There's a slim possibility we could go and help finish out the school year in April and May if funding is in place by then, but more than likely we will not be moving to Haiti until August of 2013, in time to start the next school year. 

In the meantime, we'd appreciate your prayers for patience and wisdom and for our funding.  Please pray for the kids as well.  Far from being afraid or hesitant to move to Haiti, they are looking forward to it.  In fact, Caleb did some crying in bed tonight about not going in January.   

The urgency we felt to get to work in Haiti this January still remains - now in the form of a deep frustration.  And there's nothing we can do about it. 

>DEEP SIGH<

We do appreciate your support through this (long) process so very, very much and the encouragement we have received along the way.


^"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."  - Ecc 3:11

A Life Lesson from My Dad

My dad owned and managed a True Value Hardware store and built a lifelong reputation for common sense, common decency and uncommon integrity.  In his lifetime he interacted with thousands of customers and hired, trained and guided scores of teenagers and dozens of adults.  Of course, my brothers and I also worked at the store while we were growing up, so I got to see firsthand what my dad was like as a boss. 

Here is one truth (among many) that was impressed upon anyone who ever worked for my dad:  he would never ask someone to do a task that he himself refused to do or one he felt was somehow "beneath" him as the boss.  There was no such task.  If he presented an employee with a boring, messy or uncomfortable task, that employee at least knew that dad knew firsthand exactly what it was like - having done it himself many, many times before. 

Here's why I bring it up.  Melissa and I have spent this past year asking friends, family members and even complete strangers to financially support us as missionaries to Haiti.  We talk about the Great Commission and how it's a call on every Christian's life.  We acknowledge that Scripture teaches that all we own comes from God and we are to be wise stewards.  We point to 2 Corinthians 9:10 and similar verses which describe how God gives us bread to eat (for ourselves) AND seed to sow (for others).  We affirm that God has a passion for the poor, the oppressed and the lost (all of which can be found in Haiti in abundance).  We tell others it a privilege to be involved in building God's kingdom around the world through financial sacrifice.

So it would be strange, wouldn't it, if Melissa and I didn't practice what we preach?  If we asked others to do something we ourselves neglected to do?

And yet it seems a lot of people believe that "some are called to go and some are called to send" and thus assume that we, in striving to go to the field, are therefore exempt from the call to send.    But the fact of the matter is ALL believers are meant to be about building God's kingdom and doing God's will; we hold that all are called to go with the Gospel - whether that is overseas or an office or the grocery store or a classroom AND all are called to send. 

Unless I get sidetracked, I will devote an upcoming post to the two missionaries we support financially on a monthly basis.  They are advancing the kingdom in two very different ways - one serving at OMS headquarters and working with web development and the other heading to the Philippines to work against human trafficking - and they are both very dear to us.  And we believe their work is very close to God's heart and we want to be a part of it.

I am sure my dad would have approved.

P.S.  We also have a couple of missionaries who are giving to send us!  Awesome.

Long Distance Education Frustrations

I guess Thanksgiving bumped my November newspaper article - and it landed in today's paper:

As I have mentioned in this space before, my wife and I are currently raising funds to move our family to Haiti where we will teach at Cowman School.  In the meantime, I am teaching high school Language Arts to several students there long distance over the internet.

“Do you understand what plagiarism is?” I recently found myself asking one of my students as I stared into the webcam perched on top of my laptop.

“Yes, yes.  I know what plagiarism is,” he answered from his classroom in Haiti.

Then, just as our discussion was about to get more interesting (and more personal), the image of my student’s face disappeared from the laptop and our Skype connection was lost for the remainder of the day.

And once again I was reminded of the limits of technology.

Online classes have been growing in popularity in the U.S. for several years now.  They first gained acceptance at the college level and are now making inroads into secondary schools (can primary schools be far behind?).  When I taught at Hauser, we used online courses regularly to enable students with failing grades to recover credits without having to make room in their schedules to repeat a class.

The more familiar I get with online classes, the more I find it is a love/hate relationship. 

On the one hand, online courses provide amazing flexibility.  If tomorrow morning, one of my students in Haiti wakes up in the mood for math, he can open his geometry course.  And he can spend fifteen minutes there or three hours, with no bell to dictate a move to a different subject. 

I have to love the flexibility online courses afford students, parents and schools.  Without online curricula, in fact, there would be no Cowman High School in Haiti: the student body is much too small to be able to afford a full high school staff. 

But that flexibility inherent to online classes is a double-edged sword.  It becomes a test of self-motivation, discipline and time management for the student. If I am physically present to distribute a vocabulary quiz, for example, my students are forced to prove their retention in that next fifteen minutes. If that same quiz shows up in their Yahoo inbox, though, it can be effectively ignored for hours, if not days. 

On my end, this experience with long distance education has reminded me that no matter how sophisticated our technology, there really is no substitute for a flesh and blood teacher’s presence.  And it’s not just to crack the whip and keep students on task.  Fostering creativity, checking comprehension and discussing important ideas do not happen easily or naturally via satellite. 

Technology falls short. That Haitian classroom needs a teacher on site.  And that reality continually motivates me to keep working to raise the finances necessary to move my family there.

The Cattle on a Thousand Hills

The other night, Melissa and I had the chance to meet with some folks from our church who had also gone to Haiti on a short term mission trip.  Before that meeting, we hadn't really known each other beyond familiarity of names - and had certainly never sat down to chat over a cup of coffee before.  It was a joy to get to know them and to see their heart for the hurting people of Haiti. 

We were impressed to find out that one of this couple's responses after returning to the States from Haiti was to sell their house and move into a smaller home in order to simplify their lifestyle and free up funds for ministry.  That sounds pretty radical!  But upon reflection, it's obvious that it's not unprecedented ... in Scripture.  Just check out Acts Chapter 4. 

By "chance" the next day I picked up a book and found these challenging words from Steve Moore in Who is My Neighbor: Being a Good Samaritan in a Connected World:

"The Bible clearly teaches that we are stewards and managers of what God has entrusted to us.  Though we struggle to apply this principle, most Christ followers would acknowledge all we have comes from God and belongs to God.  But practically speaking we live as if stewardship applies to our money but not our property, as if cash that has been converted into stuff belongs to us.

"Imagine the following example.  You spend a few hours online paying bills and balancing your checkbook and are pleasantly surprised to discover an unexpected cushion of $600 after your tithe and savings.  (I know you may find that hard to picture, but as I said, imagine.)  You have been eying a sale on flat-screen televisions for some time and know you can purchase one for $595.  In a matter of hours you have converted cash into stuff and are enjoying a movie in full HD with popcorn in the comfort of your living room.

"The next morning while making coffee, you turn on the new big screen to watch the news before heading off to work, only to discover a 7.0 magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti, leaving more than one hundred thousand people dead and two million homeless.  An already stumbling economy has been brought to its knees.  Before the day is over you have received emergency appeals from trusted relief and development organizations along with a dozen Facebook status updates from friends pointing you toward practical ways to help.  And you know they are not exaggerating because you can see the destruction in real time, with full HD.

"For most of us, one idea that would never even enter our minds while sorting out how to respond to this tragedy is that God might actually want us to return the television in order to free up funds that could be used to help.  We view money differently than property.  Forget about recent purchases and just think about all the "stuff" in your house (never mind the garage).  How could any of us really look into the face of poverty, whether caused by crisis, corruption, or logical consequences, and say I can't afford to do anything to help?  God's ownership stake does not end the moment cash is traded for a sales receipt.  In spite of the fact that our connected world, with online services such as Craigslist and eBay, has made it easier than ever to turn stuff back into cash, we tend to view money very differently than property, and it greatly limits our options.

"This is an unbiblical worldview when contrasted to how the early church viewed property.  "There were no needy persons among them.  From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need" (Acts 4:34-35).  The apostle John would later write, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:17-18).  Perhaps we have too quickly and easily taken the exit ramps of rationalization and justification enabling us to pass by on the other side [as the Priest and Levite passed the injured man in Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan].

"We quote Psalm 50:10, affirming God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" as a word of encouragement that He is not at a loss in providing for our needs.  That is true.  But in an agrarian society, cattle represented a business owner's inventory.  We might paraphrase that verse for our time, saying, "God owns the inventory in a thousand warehouses." Why is that important?  Because this verse says as much about God's ownership stake (100 percent) in my property as it does about His commitment to my prosperity.  Every time our connected world offers us the opportunity to be Good Samaritans, we need to prayerfully process the decision about involvement based on total inventory, not just available money.  This subtle but powerful change in worldview opens the door to a life of open-handed simplicity and generosity, empowering us to engage more deeply with the issue-based passion of poverty."

By the way - Steve Moore's book is short but packed with good and challenging stuff.  I might have to pull some other quotes for future blog posts.

Powerball Letdown

A lot of people were talking about the Powerball Lottery over the last few days.  I heard that in the 24 hours before the drawing, 105,000 people an hour were buying new tickets.  (And that sounds a little low to me!)  In the hours after the drawing, a picture of a Powerball winner was circulating on Facebook with a note that he would give away one of his millions to a random person who "reposted" his picture.  It was a hoax, but over 450,000 people reposted the picture, hoping at a second chance to get some of that Powerball cash.

My lottery tickets were duds, too.  Now ... long ago, my Dad had impressed on me that the lottery was a "voluntary tax on people who can't do math".  So I didn't buy any tickets - they came in the mail. 

Just before the Powerball drawing, a letter arrived from an old friend of mine.  Out came two lottery tickets and a note.  He said he hadn't bought a lottery ticket in close to 20 years, but he bought two to send to me  - for me and "the people of Haiti".  Why? Just in case God decided to "multiply the gift". 

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me a really beautiful gesture.  Lottery winners often talk about what they will do with their winnings - and the list usually includes things like buying a house, quitting work, travel, helping friends, etc.  Rarely do they talk too much about charity - and I've certainly never heard of anyone giving it ALL away. 

So it was a cool idea and I have to admit that I did check the tickets against the winning numbers ... and felt a bit of a let down when they proved worthless.

And then the Lord reminded me of an incident from my youth pastoring days in Shelbyville. 

I had gotten close to a broken family living in a trailer park on the edge of town. The mom was out of the picture and the dad struggled to keep the rest of the family together and find enough work to keep the bills paid.  One day I stopped by and the father said he was just on his way out - to a big bingo game!  He explained that he didn't have enough money to cover the rent, so he was praying God would allow him to win the jackpot.  I told him that it seemed to me that some of his friends at church - including me! - would gladly give him some money to tide him over.  But my friend insisted that God could easily rig the bingo game for him and thus provide for his need.

He didn't get the rent money that night.  When I checked on him later and heard of his "bad luck", I gladly gave him the rent money he was short.  He sheepishly ... and gratefully ... took it. 

And I remember thinking after that little encounter that God very well could have worked a "miracle" and given this man the bingo money, but that would have left me - his brother in Christ - out of the picture completely.  It was my JOY to be able to share with this man.  I had the means and he had a real need and so it was an opportunity for me to SHOW him love.

And if you look at the multitude of Scriptures that deal with how we should relate to the poor - some of the strongest worded can be found in Isaiah 58, partially quoted below - then you realize that it's an obedience issue for the believer.  And if God has the choice to provide for the needs of the poor through a gambling jackpot on one hand or while teaching a lesson in obedience, love and  stewardship to believing brothers and sisters on the other, is it any surprise that 99.999999% of the time God does not answer our needs by helping us hit the jackpot?

Confession Time:  A year ago when we first started the process of raising funds to get our family to Haiti, I entered the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes through a link that popped up on some website.  And I prayed.  (And this was LONG after I had "learned" that God works more often through His people than through Bingo!  I am a slooooooowwww learner.) 

Since then, I have realized that a lump sum from Publisher's would have been a shortcut around a lot of great meetings, conversations, and learning experiences this past year.  Besides, who on earth would have been invested in our ministry in Haiti and who would have been praying for us?

And yet having said all this... Guess what ... 
I DID GET SOMETHING from Publisher's Clearing House! 

Daily spam in my inbox.



Isaiah 58:
⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

 

It's our privilege as believers to join God in His work around the planet.  And one of His top priorities seems to be the poor.  As a "pre-missionary", I am simply extending the invitation to other believers to put some of their (God's) money to work in what God is doing in Haiti.  I have (slowly!) come to understand that being about the work of God is not an optional "add-on" to the Christian life, it IS the Christian life.  If you'd consider joining in THIS work, partner with us at  grossesinhaiti.com.

 

And I promise I won't spam you.