Bono’s Not The Only One Working in Africa

A friend of mine teaches Bible in an African country and college which I won’t name for safety reasons. Here’s a recent report:

On the first Sunday morning of the New Year we sat in a church partly burned in the latest Crisis. From our pew we could see a charred hole in the ceiling and remnants of the fire on scrubbed walls behind the pulpit.

During the service we heard the sounds of ironworkers in the Muslim neighborhood and saw the peddlers’ wheelbarrows going by the open doors.

We listened to a sermon about the Apostle Paul who had persecuted the church before his conversion to Christ, and we sat in a church that had suffered a similar persecution nearly 2,000 years later and a continent away.

The church was reopened only recently, and after the service some spoke about repainting the burnt walls. That will cheer things up!  But I hope they leave the scars of persecution in the ceiling. It’s easy to forget that today’s persecutor can become tomorrow’s apostle.

“But I hope they leave the scars of persecution….”

Can you wrap your mind around that?

“It’s easy to forget that today’s persecutor can become tomorrow’s apostle.”

Only because God offers reasonable hope.

What it’s All About

What is People of the Second Chance (POTSC)? Not only in is it an organization in California, but it’s all of us—the homeless in Chicago, the bruised in Haiti, the Mover-n-Shaker in NYC. Each of us needs hope.

How Did You Hold On? ~ Part 3 of 5

Why do we go through these times? What possible purpose can they have?

What comes to mind with the word slavery? To me, it evokes horror, subjugation, suffering, abuse, and a wagon-load of other loathsome realities.

I’ve studied the Sudanese crisis of the 1980s through 2000s, have researched topics such as human trafficking, child prostitution, and slave labor where the pipelines criss-cross throughout the Asias and Americas, Africa and Europe. Humans of all skin colors invent atrocities to satisfy their cravings for power and lusts for more (whatever that more may be)—atrocities that continually devolve as the hearts of these diverse people-groups reveal we are more alike than we are different: for the wickedness of mankind is great, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.[1]

How could we ever find any purpose in slavery? How could God allow such a horrible thing to exist?

Know, dear reader, that “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue, and
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that run rapidly to evil,
a false witness who utters lies, and
one who spreads strife among brothers.”[2]

One who enslaves another human being has probably committed all seven.

Why, then, would Jehovah—who says He is Love—allow such cruelty to continue? Why would He lead His own people into slavery?

“‘For I know the plans [including slavery in Babylon] that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.’”[3]

Hope?! What does slavery in this instance have to do with hope? How does Jehovah expect us to take Him seriously when this is how He treats His own people? How does this help us to know how to hold on in our own tough times?

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[1] Genesis 6.5
[2] Proverbs 6.16
[3] Jeremiah 29.11

to Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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