(you may want to get popcorn for this one =)
Being one that prefers to err on the side of being over prepared rather than underprepared these past several weeks have been a real stretch for me. And to be completely honest, confidence in my preparation was just one of the ways that I have felt stretched lately. I also found myself for the first time responsible for the training and equipping of a new missionary family as well as leading teams of mostly teenage evangelists through some of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in one of the world’s largest cities. But through it all, God kept reinforcing one central lesson to me. That lesson… will be the subject of today’s e-mail.
But first things first: let’s talk about these past couple of weeks.
The days between January 5th and January 13th have been marked on my calendar for months now as the days when the Almeida family would be with us for a week of intensive missionary training. For those of you that don’t know: Paulo and Fernanda Almeida, together with their two daughters Laura (14) and Luana (10), are the first Brazilian family that has applied and been accepted to serve as missionaries in a different country. This is very exciting to us as an entire organization, as OMS is increasingly trying to involve itself in this next great paradigm shift in world missions. This shift involves us facilitating the sending of missionaries from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. The thing is, athough there is a great desire to see this happen through out our whole organization, much of our infrastructure is not yet geared to facilitate this. So, it is new territory for all of us. It is new territory for the Almeidas to be guinea pigs in this process It is new territory for Marla and I as OMS Brazil is serving as a sending agency and not just as a missionary field, and it is new territory for our international headquarters as they must decide the logistics of all of this. Though it is new territory for all of us, the potential is tremendously exciting.
Well as January 5th was approaching, I was hoping for waves and waves of e-mails from headquarters with pages and pages of training material ready to go; ready to be translated and simply delivered. What I found out was that much of OMS’s training has been transformed into facilitated group discussions. According to this training style, many topics are covered by a group facilitator who guides conversation by well thought out questions. It is a training style that is both very effective and a form of art. But it means that there aren’t pages and pages of material ready to be simply passed on. So as the training dates drew increasingly closer, and I was in great contact with our training department (who helped as much as they could), I had far less material than I was hoping to have when the Almeida’s arrived. Marla and I didn’t want our time with the Almeidas to be a waste of their time, and yet we felt almost completely unprepared to deliver the level of training that we desired to give. We felt as the disciples must have felt when Jesus told them to feed the multitudes of hungry people and they only had 2 fish and 5 loaves on hand. But how? With what? It isn’t enough.
And yet as the training began and progressed, it was amazing to see the little that we felt we had, being multiplied. To sum it all up, we had a tremendous time with the Almeidas. We had great times of training, great times of laughing, great times of investing, great times of worship and great times of prayer. The training took various forms from conversations around the dinner table to skype conversations with the trainers at our headquarters in the USA. And by the time they left we felt that we had been incredibly blessed by their visit and been a blessing in their lives. But how? We only had 5 loaves and 2 fish?
Well there wasn’t much time to reflect on this because the next event was quickly approaching, and I only had a week to unbury myself from the work that had been piling up in my office while we were training as well as prepare for the next week long event.
“What was the next week-long event?” you may be asking. Well, it was a mission trip that the central church here in Maringá does every year. Last year, as you may remember, we had gone a couple hundred miles north to the city of Campo Grande. Half of our group had remodeled the church up there while the other half of us did some door to door evangelism. Last year, I was responsible to lead one evangelism team of 5 people. This year the church that was selected was in the city of São Paulo. We approached this project with the same scheme as the last: half of us (about 25) would help in the remodel, while the other half help in evangelizing the neighborhood. The church that was selected to receive help had been planted by OMS missionary Max Edwards and is pastured by an elderly pastor named Pastor Celestino and is in a very, very poor part of São Paulo, just a couple blocks away from a slum. And this time, instead of just being in charge of 1 evangelism team, I was responsible to organize and lead the entire evangelism effort. “Ok, I can do that” I thought to myself…. Little did I know…
So on Sunday morning of the 22nd, at 5am, and extended cab pickup already packed to the gills pulled up to my house to pick me up to take us to São Paulo. Our caravan of 2 cars (8 people) was responsible to prepare the way and “set up camp” for the larger group of 40 that would be arriving some 15 hours later by bus. We arrived late afternoon to a church that was obviously in construction chaos. The paint was falling off the walls in big areas because of water infiltration in the bricks, the rough concrete floor was littered with chunks of brick, paint and wood and everything was covered in deep dust. The building was dark and dingy inside, and I thought to myself that there was absolutely no way that we’d be having service that night. (Here in Brazil, church services are typically at night). Comforted by this thought, as the electricians and the people who people who actually knew about construction, wondered around for a couple hours with their hands on their hips examining the condition of the building and planning their next move, I grabbed a broom and started sweeping. Others followed my example and we made a lot of dust in that small church before we carried out about 3.5 gallons of dust. Only when we moved to wiping down the church benches did Pastor Celestino informed me that we would be in fact having church and that he wanted me to preach. When Pastor Celestine asked me to preach I looked down at my watch and realized I had only 2 hours before church was to begin. Though I agreed to preach and looked calm and collected inside, I began to panic inside.
Now just so you know, typically it takes me about 35 hours to prepare a message in Portuguese. Looking at my watch, I had only 2. Not only this, but I was filthy, I was exhausted, and I didn’t even have my computer. Back to my 5 loaves and 2 fish. My only consolation was that I hoped that the church wouldn’t have very many people. As quickly as I could I locked myself in the pickup with a pencil and paper and began to jot things down from sermon that I had preached months earlier, but my thoughts weren’t very coherent and my mind wasn’t as sharp as I had hoped. Now I only had 1 hour 15 minutes. But wouldn’t you know it, by the time the service started, God had opened way for Marla to send that very message that I was trying to remember along with the accompanying presentation to me very unexpectedly. The church was pretty full when we started, and God once again blessed the little that I had to offer. It was a good service.
Only after the church service did I go down to reunite with the rest of my group who were busy setting up our camp about 6 blocks away. Wow, what a scene! It was about 10:30pm and people were spilling out into the narrow street from the various bars and parties that were happening all around. There were a lot of people dealing and using drugs and one police car that was parked in the middle of a narrow intersection half a block away with its lights on. The 4 policemen were not having much success trying to control the crowd that was obviously intoxicated. After a bit, the policemen hopped back into their car, revved their engine and sped away. The crowd, liking this reaction gave a spontaneous cheer and continued their parties to the extremely loud music. This victory was short lived as the police car returned about 15 minutes later with three other police cars with it. The cars parked in the middle of the street at various places and began shutting down the street. The people scattered before them like cockroaches when the lights get turned on. And yet in the same way, when the police left half an hour later after peace had been “restored” they returned to the streets. Their music once again pounded our building, and the party once again resumed.
Now, in my ignorance, I thought the scene was pretty funny; and I as tired as I was, I had no problem sleeping that night. The pastors leading the trip, however, had different thoughts. They were more than slightly worried. In fact, they had even considered calling the bus (already in route) and calling off the whole trip. Only later did the gravity of the situation hit me. In American context it would have been like taking 50 members (many of them teenagers) from a church in lets say Lake Oswego, or somewhere well to do, and putting them in the heart a place notorious for drugs and violence… lets say… south central LA for door-to-door evangelism. (**note: Our method of evangelism was to meet people, tell them where we were from, and invite them to a special theatre presentation that would be taking place at the church next to the bakery. Then, we’d ask them if they had anything that we could pray about. Usually by that point conversation was either flowing or not.***)
In fact, before the trip, I had even been told not to talk much on the streets because of my American accent they didn’t want me getting kidnapped. Now I’m not sure if they were joking or not, but not being one who prone to this kind of fear, I took their advice as a half joke. Then add to this that when Pastor Marinez had further divided the evangelism teams into 5 groups of 5, in my group she had put most of the prettiest teenage girls. You know the ones that draw people’s attention simply by walking down the street. The thought even occurred to me as our group was walking down some of these streets lined by guys drinking beer in the middle of the afternoon, “Do I really want to take these girls down these dark alleys where most of the people live?”
Actually, I thought the whole situation a great opportunity for the people of our church to have a true cross cultural experience. I had outlined a series of devotionals for them to challenge each of their spiritual walks. Though it did take us a few times of hitting the streets with people Pastor Celestino’s church to get comfortable in those neighborhoods, we were completely shocked at how well we were received. Even those who looked like hardened drug dealers showed respect for Christians and even let us pray for them. We entered into neighborhoods and houses the likes of which most on our team had only seen on TV. We walked up the steep paths of the shanty towns and entered many “houses” that we wondered how they kept the rain out. We heard every kind of story imaginable. From a guy who had died for 28 hours to a father who had intentionally moved into such an impoverished place to help take his son out of his other friend group and a life of drugs. There were single moms and people whose family members were addicts or in prison. We prayed with people, we cried with people, and we were encouraged by many Christians who live in those neighborhoods who’s light for Christ is brightly shinning. It was FANTASTIC!
Also, I had great chances to invest in the lives of these evangelists. I led a devotional time every morning. Also, I lead bible studies, game times, times of sharing and times of reflection. Being in such a cross cultural situation, it was a time when we could see almost visible signs of spiritual growth. As we concentrated on listening to God and following His guidance, I heard over and over people say things like “I felt like I should…” or “I think God was telling me to do such and such… but I’m not quite sure.” It was great to hear people beginning to quite down enough (some for the first time) to intentionally listen for God. And then it was great to hear how God was speaking; how God was challenging and how God was changing people. It was great, and it was exhausting. Between working with the teams, working with the leaders, preparing times of training and devotionals, it wasn’t until Friday evening that I had time to call Marla and the girls for the first time.
On Thursday night a team of 7 of us got into 3 different cars to drive an hour and a half across the city to do a midweek church service for a church plant that Pastor Celestino’s son had started about a year ago. We brought with us a worship leader and some teenagers to sing in the worship band, and won’t you know who they asked to preach? Yup, that’s right. At least this time I had been informed a couple days before that I’d be sharing. But unfortunately, up until that time, I hadn’t had any time to prepare. So I thought to myself… “at least I’ll have 1.5 hours in the car to think of something.” But while in the car, I heard God tell me just to relax… that I needed the rest… and that He’d help me when the time came. Well, happily, I sat in the car and pretty much zoned out for an hour and a half. Because or traffic, we arrived 2 minutes after the service was supposed to start. The worship band jumped out of the cars and took their places, and when they began their first song, I took my notebook and went to the back of the church.
“Ok God, what do you want me to say?” Here I sit, 5 loaves and 2 fish again. I scribbled down some things, and by the time the fourth song ended, I was ready to preach. The message went out, and I was surprised (considering how tired I was) how well my Portuguese came out. The message was well received and I even saw people wiping tears from their eyes as I shared. God made my mind return to phrases that I had said earlier and tied everything together perfectly at the end as if I was a pro. Even the song that the worship group played directly after I shared seemed to tie in perfectly with the theme of the message. And as I sat down after the end of the message, I thought “man God, I would have liked to prepare more.” And God said “being anointed has a far greater effect than being prepared.”
In ministry, and perhaps life in general, it becomes so easy to place a great emphasis on being prepared; on having our ducks all in a line. But without anointing, where is the power of the message. I think that it is interesting that after Jesus spent 3 years training and preparing his disciples for ministry, he told them to wait for the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it’s so easy to seek to be prepared for God’s work, but do we seek in the same measure to be anointed… to be empowered by the Spirit?
These past couple of weeks, over and over again, I felt as if I had nothing to give. And over and over again I felt the pleasure of God using me. I have felt the power of your prayers. It made me remember the example of a pipe. A pipe that is full of itself carries very little water. But a pipe that is all but empty, can carry a lot of water to people who need it. In the same way I also remembered an equation that our pastor always gave in his messages. He always told us to remember:
God + 0 = God
Let us continually remember to be the 0 so that what others see will be God.
Training time with Almeida family
The girls
Almeidas and Routons
External view of church in Sao Paulo -before
External after
External after at night
Church inside- before
Church inside- after
In the neighborhood with team
Talking with kiddos
My team
Our whole team
micahandmarla
