the bored Bride, hard questions, and ministry of the inner life

Haiti, or maybe it is just life, comes with such severe extremes.

Some extremes are just every day realities. We eat three meals a day, and dessert in the evening. Angline, Jil, most everyone else in Saccanville, eats one, with a mango in the evening. Lily has 20 outfits. I have never seen Carcourt in a pair of shorts. We are excited about going to the fair this summer, taking a family vacation to Branson, eating out at a few of our favorite restaurants. James is excited about a radio we gave him so that he and his friends can listen to the World Cup in Spanish, a language none of them speak.

But it isn't the material extremes that are so difficult. The financial situation of Haiti is not our ministry, and though we pray about it frequently, we don't feel led for it to be. Our ministry, it seems, is that of the inner life. And it is the extremes in the inner life that bring us the most elation, and as was the case yesterday, the most discouragement.

You know of some of the many beautiful things that are taking place right now in Saccanville...healings, impossible conversions, childlike faith, home constructions...We have been walking on a bit of a spiritual cloud lately!

But being in church yesterday just kicked me in the stomach. I had a pastor once that finished each sermon with the line, "Isn't it a great day to be in church?" Yesterday, it would have been hard for me to stifle a resounding "NO."

Matt, Don and Micah went to a student's church about 2.5 hours away, and Lily and I walked to Saccanville church. I was really surprised to see that the church was almost empty, with maybe 50 people there. Abel, during the announcement portion, noted that most of the congregation was at the Catholic (closely associated with Voodoo in Haiti) church because they were having a special service that morning for kids and would be giving out candy.

So, almost all of the kids (and there are usually a LOT of kids) and about half of the grown-ups had gone to the front yard of a voodoo temple 20 yards down from the church that morning for a service with candy.

The service continued, but I quickly wondered why anyone had come. It was very apparent that no one wanted to be there. Everyone was talking while the leader was talking. The worship leader asked everyone to stand. Only about half the congregation did. Most of the youth were playing games on their cell phones. People were coming and going continually.

Finally, the singing group got up to sing, and two elderly men came around with the offering plate. I was in the last row to receive the plate, and when I dropped our tithe in, it joined a quickly calculated 36 cents US. From the entire church.

The pastor, a truly godly and earnest and patient and loving man, continually made small urges from the pulpit for the congregation to "have praise in their hearts" and to "give thanks with joyful song" and to "give God the glory that He merits", but his begging seemed to do nothing for the spirit of the group.

I looked around me and while most of the long-time Christians I know in Saccanville were not there, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the newest converts were. Pehpay was there. Freindia. Kenson. My heart just sank. They were there, and the church was not giving them HIM.

The moment the pastor stood to give the message, every single person sitting near me (EVERY ONE) flopped their arms onto the bench in front of them and dropped their heads onto their "pillows", and within moments, many were softly snoring.

Though the pastor is one of the most godly and sincere people we know, the sermon yesterday was rather struggling, focused entirely upon one idea: if you were sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend before becoming a Christian, you must stop once you become a Christian. Over, and over, and over....amen.

When he finished, we stood for the closing prayer, with over a dozen people still sleeping soundly around me, and the church then cleared out immediately.

I blinked back tears into the blazing sun, and poured broken prayers to the Lord on my walk home.

LORD, how can we ask you to bless us financially and yet not be willing to give you anything? I KNOW that this is a poor community. But everyone had something this week. Several of those people have jobs...several have jobs from the Seminary!

How can we pray week after week that you will give us money and food and clothes and education but we won't give you ANYTHING! We give you 36 cents and want 36 dollars...There should have at least been MANGOES in that offering plate! One mango for every ten that was picked up...one spoon of rice for every 10 that was eaten...

LORD, how can we ask you to hear our prayers, but fall asleep the moment the pastor starts preaching? How can we ask you to listen to us when we won't listen to you? How can we ask you to be passionate for us, to fight for us, to stand with us, when we won't stand for you, wake up for you, have joy for you?

LORD, how can we tell new converts to come to church and to leave their old ways when we skip church to go for candy at a voodoo temple?

LORD, how can Haiti be on fire for you when your bride is barely interested?

LORD, I know that by your infinite grace and mercy that we don't have relationships with You in which we "get" what we "give"...praise the Lord! But how can we expect you to pursue us if we aren't pursing you? How can you draw near to us if we don't draw near to YOU?

LORD, WHAT CAN I DO?

The first thing He did, as He ALWAYS does, is worked on my own heart...

...Am I giving the way that He gives?

Generously, recklessly, mercifully, undeservedly, with abandon?

While I ask Him to take care of us and Emmaus and the students and my family am I doing all that I can to be that vehicle of care for others?

Am I giving as He has asked?

Blessing as He is blessing?

Dying to others as He died for me?

...Do I worship Him because it is my habit?

Because I have to?

Or do I worship Him because it is the great desire of my heart!

Do I worship Him with joy and singing, or do I just come to Him with groans and whining?

Do I treat His Word with great and Holy fear, do I study it as the Word of God, or has it become idle words that I listen to while mentally thinking through the menu for the day?

...Am I, the church, His beautiful, pure, spotless, selfless, ridiculously in love, joyful, enraptured and devoted bride?

Or am I His haggard, bored, selfish, greedy, distracted yawning old maid?

...Am I "proclaiming the excellencies of Him who has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light?"

Am I "a people for His own possession?"

Am I following in His own example of unjust suffering "suffering for doing what is right and patiently enduring it, as unto the Lord?"

Am I still "continually straying like sheep" or do I now live a life "returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of my soul?"

...Am I "longing for the pure milk of the word, so that I may GROW?"

or am I content with the baby formula?

The moment His Holy Spirit checked my heart on all of this, His abundant grace covered over the frustration I had felt for my Brothers and Sisters in Christ. How great His love for me and for His bride, blemished as she may be!

I felt such a sincere and deeply broken and overwhelmed love for them, for US each, and such a sad and overwhelmed love for the church...NOT just here, but around the world...

If we want HIS BEST, we HAVE to do better...starting with me. I praise the Lord for His ministry of my inner life!

Please pray for us as we continue to try to minister in those deep, complicated, painful and intricate places of the soul.

Please pray for His continued grace and direction as we do so.

Please pray for us as we search out what His place is for us in the transformation of the Saccanville church and community.

Please pray for His Bride around the world, that "Our UTMOST for His Highest" might be our every-moment-offering...

all Scripture references from 1 Peter 2.