Back to Africa #2--Pessimism vs. Racism

My friend Tom and I depart one week from today.  Wow, where have the last two weeks gone.
On my first visit to Mwanza, Tanzania in 2008 I had the opportunity to be a part of a Leadership Conference where over 1000 Bishops, Pastors, & Church leaders from over 64 Denominations and 7 East African countries participated.  This was not about denominations or factions, my church vs. your church, this was a truly Kingdom event.
Part of that conference took place in the city of Shinyanga, about 160 kilometers south of Mwanza.  I had the privilege to go with two dear friends to teach for two days to a group of about 250 leaders at that satellite location.

Bishop Edison Mwombeki led that conference.  At the end of the first day, my companions and I sat to debrief the events of the day.  I was really struggling with not only the hyper charismatic theology, but also the heart wrenching presentation that the Bishop gave us asking us for money for his ministry.  I felt that the Bishop was being opportunistic since he had 3 "Muzungu" (Swahili for white man) he could hit us up for money.
As my friends and I talked, one of them pointed out that the Bishop was a destitute pastor, leading an impoverished church, in a county where the average "middle-class" income is about $1 a day.  Bishop Mwombeki would have been doing his churches a dis-service if he had not presented the needs.  He was simply casting the vision of what he felt God had called him to accomplish in the Shinyanga region.  It was a vision far greater than what any one man could accomplish.
These and other thoughts haunted me that night as I lay in bed trying to go to sleep, being serenaded by the chanting coming from the crusade taking place at the local mosque a couple blocks from our hotel.
The next day my companions and I took turns speaking on different topics of leadership.  An all out battle was going on in my heart and mind and my feelings toward the Bishop.  This battle continued until we began our trip back to Mwanza.  The Bishop wanted us to stop at a remote hospital that he had told us about.  In the midst of my pessimism and prejudice I could only believe it was only a photo op with our new friend.  I was confronted by some of the most needy people on this planet.  This was a leprosy hospital where people were put to die.  They were provided with dilapidated cement barracks with tin roofs and unless someone brought them food, they did not eat.  We were confronted with people who were in the midst of various stages of this horrible disease.  Some were missing fingers and toes, some legs and arms.  Some hobbled around with a cane, some sat in wheelchairs because they had no legs but also no hands to grab the wheels to move themselves around.
But what was harder than the visual images before me to face was the mental and emotional struggles that raged within me.  For the first time in my life I came face to face with a prejudice, a racism if you will, that went far deeper than the color of this Bishop's skin.  It was a prejudice that went to the core of who this man was and his deepest belief's.
I discovered a note in an online dictionary that read, "a person's bias is based on facts, but prejudice occurs without a person knowing or examining the facts".  Antonyms were listed as, "fairness, justice, regard, respect, tolerance".  My heart showed none of these to Bishop Mwombeki.
In my mind, I knew I felt compassion for this Bishop, and these people because of their circumstances and surroundings, but I have to admit that I did not hold the same level or type of compassion because of who they were.  I was consciously discovering that I had a huge disconnect between my mind and my heart.
The kicker that really put all my struggles over the top and broke through my dam, was the look on the faces of the patients of this Leprosy hospital.  They knew Bishop Mwombeki!  This was not the one-stop photo-op that I had conjured up in my mind.  They truly recognized and knew him as someone that loved them, and cared for them in very practical ways.  At one point during our time at Kolandoto Hospital, Bishop Mwombeki walked up to an old woman whose head was almost completely covered by a hooded cape.  Our interpreter told us that the Bishop was saying, "Where is my beautiful princess?"  He slowly, but only slightly pushed back the hood revealing a face that had been ravaged with disease.  He placed both hands on her cheeks and spoke loving compassionate words into her life.  Through the disfigured skin that was left, I could see a smile that sprang from deep within her heart.  She knew, regardless of her circumstances, she was loved.  And because of the compassion and love of a man, she knew someone far greater loved her and looked upon her as special, unique, and precious, even worth dying for...
I was undone to say the least.  The last 2.5 hour drive back to Mwanza was literally an emotional roller-coaster as I attempted to process everything that was going through my mind.

Our host for the overall conference in Mwanza, Bishop Mpemba was speaking, I think, when we returned and rejoined the main conference in session.  Something he said jarred me back to reality.  He was referencing the conference and that it wasn't about his church or denomination.  It was about the Kingdom of God, and that if we were to reach the world we had to put our differences and prejudices aside, in fact, we must destroy them in the recesses of our minds so that we can join together and show the world God's Love.  That was it, I broke down right then and there and got up and went over to Bishop Mwombeki and through the sobs and tears asked him to forgive me of  my prejudice and "racism".  He met me with graceful, compassionate hugs, and most importantly, forgiveness.  I then went to each of the interpreters, and our diver and did the same thing.  I have never in my life been so overwhelmed by emotion and brokenness as I was at that moment.  The sense of relief and freedom that came over me was beyond description.
As I am typing this Hillsong's "From the Inside Out" is playing on my i-tunes.  The emotions and memories of that release pours back over me...  I have truly been ruined for the ordinary, and know that I will never be the same again.
All that is to say that with each successive journey on my "safari", God fertilizes a growing passion and vision for all the He continues to do in my heart for Africa.  Sometimes it feels like it is more about what He is doing in me, more than what I am able, or would ever be able to do in Africa.
Part of me feels very insecure in sharing this.  I have only shared this privately with a few of my closest traveling companions.  It is almost embarrassing to show and expose some very despicable actions and feelings.  But at the same time, I put it out there as a challenge, to expose the same types of prejudices that are more prevalent in the church than we really want to admit.  The infighting, and back-biting, the unspoken expectation; Church, It Must End!
Our brothers and sisters in Africa have so much to teach us.  A conference of leaders from 64 denominations, from 7 different countries?  That is unheard of in this country.  There will always be differences, we are unique, that is the way God made us, but we in the Church, have allowed them to become barriers that the world has observed and frankly is saying they don't want to have anything to do with.
Join me, Please join me, in working to break down our personal and corporate barriers in the Church and be the Church to a lost and hurting world so they will see what the Apostle John talks about; letting them see and know we are truly children of the God of the universe, by our love for the one-another's of this world.

Back to Africa #1--Spiritual Tourism

Three weeks from today my friend Tom and I will board a plane to fly halfway around the world, again.
It was not until after I was home from my first trip to Tanzania in 2008, that it hit me that I was able to cross off a lifelong item on my Bucket List.  That item was to go on photo safari in the Serengeti.  As much as I enjoyed that, it pales in comparison to what goes on in my heart and soul these days as I am undone by the thought that I have the extreme privilege to return to Africa a 4th time in as many years.
Until I depart, I would like to reminisce a little of my past journey's and how they seem to be preparing me for another trip on my "safari"(Swahili for journey)
One of the things that I have struggled with along this journey has been my deep desire to keep these trips from becoming just "spiritual tourism".  I have worked hard to not just be a tourist that goes, gives a little, does a few token gestures of service, all to make myself feel better...
The needs are so great, and I will never be able to "fix" them.  (Yes, I admit I am a "fixer")  But one thing I am learning is that I can have an impact and in some small way assist in being a catalyst of change.
For me, this "impact" comes in a number of ways.  First and foremost is comes in having the privilege to have influence in my church and being a part of what we as a church do to develop strategic partnerships with ministries around the world.  Through these partnership, we encourage and provide opportunities for people to develop and/or expand their Biblical Worldview.  The one thing I am learning is that as we go, God uses different element, people, events, differently in the team members lives in different ways.  We can not create, or recreate this impact and/or transformation.  As we each submit to what God wants to do in each of us, we each pick up or sense differently parts of the trip that impact us in different ways.  What I like best is that as we share what God is doing in each of us we learn more about all that God does in us together to expand our world view.  It actually multiplies what God does in each of us individually as we share in each others lives together.
We do our best to prepare our teams to create a disdain for spiritual tourism.  We attempt to get them out of their comfort zones, and as we like to say, "ruin them for the ordinary".  We challenge them to actively seek all that God wants to communicate to them on the journey that lies ahead of them.  I truly believe that God does not need me to do anything for Him.  What He wants most is a personal relationship with Himself.  What He does in and through that relationship comes from an overflow of that relationship, that ends up blessing others as well as myself much more than if I just went and tried to do something humanitarian on my own, no matter how altruistic my motives.  What these short term outreaches provide is an opportunity for people to experience what God is doing around the world and realize that it involves way more than our sheltered religiosity here in America.  I admit what I just said is a generalization, but find that often times when I and our team members talk upon returning home, we have begun to discover that we didn't know what we didn't know...
Bishop Mpemba from Mwanza, Tanzania uses an alphabet analogy.  Humanly speaking, all we know is that which is between A and Z.  God lives before A and after Z.  We can't even begin to understand all that goes on before A or after Z.  As we open ourselves up to His work in and through us in the context of a personal relationship with Him, our world view is expanded way beyond ourselves and we experience new levels of what it means to be a follower of Christ here on this earth.

For me this is best expressed in an image that I stole of a moment in time as God transformed a heart.  The image is of our Lead Pastor, Keith Boyer, and his youngest daughter Brittany.  It was the moment that God gripped her heart for others outside her everyday world.  It was also a transformation in humility as she was undone by the fact that God would use her to touch the lives of children with His love and compassion; children who through no fault of their own are under resourced and less fortunate.
It was also a moment in a father's heart that is a culmination of years of prayers for that child.  A prayer that God would capture his child's heart is such a way that marks the child with the fact that the expression of His love for the child is not meant to be held, but given away, and the appreciation that comes for a God that gives opportunities to express that love to those less fortunate.  That joy that overflows to a father that gets to share in his daughter living out of the overflow of God's love in and through her, is a joy that is beyond description.
What I had the intense privilege of witnessing that day went way beyond the transformation in a father/daughter relationship and has instilled in me a deep and growing passion to provide opportunities for people go beyond "spiritual tourism" and experience first hand God's overflow in them as they express the Love, Grace, and Mercy of the God of the universe to those less fortunate than themselves.  It is through experiences at this level that we begin to experience a mutual redemption that will forever change our lives, and our relationships.