pride

I've had these videos for a few weeks and have been wanting to share them.  They won't seem all that impressive...some men and women, digging in the dirt, pumping out some water.

But they are OUR men and women, and they are seminary students.  They are pastors.

That may not seem like such a big deal, still.

Let me explain.

One of the first things I noticed about our students when we first moved to Haiti in 2007 was that many of them had extremely long pinky nails.

What does that MEAN? I kept asking, realizing that most things in most cultures mean SOMETHING.

I came to learn that it meant simply that they were pastors.  Do NOT work with their hands.  Are of status.  Don't get dirty, don't dig, don't go in the sun.  Big wigs.  Important.  Educated.  Set apart.  Of status.

I came to be discouraged.

Pride, such a temptation and pitfall for us all.  How do you you teach humility?  How do you teach servanthood?  How do you give poured out hearts?  How do you prepare men and women ready to serve, ready to pour out, ready to die?

How do you follow the scarred hands of Jesus with prestigious nails?

How do you GIVE people a heart to take up their cross and follow Him?  WHEN did that start meaning to people that the road should be easy and pompous and prestigious and full of blessing and riches?  How do you teach that "take up your cross" is SHAMEFUL and bloody, hot and HARD work.

As we asked ourselves all these questions, all we knew to do was to model servant leadership and to teach the Bible.  God's Word...ready to address and transform the human heart, ready to attack the sin nature.  His Spirit, capable of changing the human heart.

We have picked up trash and hiked mountains, sweated and cleaned and dug for years.  We've hired sun-scorched staff members with hearts like Jesus.  The head of our work-study program pulls weeds and moves rocks alongside the students.  Hard work is built into each day.  We've taken any student who ever wants to go on every missions trip we can plan.  We've prayed.  We search for professors near and far who are godly and humble men and women.  We've tried to reject the wisdom of the world for His.  And Emmaus continues, every day, to give and give and give His transforming Word.

We dug all the bills out of pockets and drawers (then went and dug them out of the Heckman's pockets and drawers) and sent 10 students to Baron to help Ezechiel for a month over the summer...to live among the people, to sweat, to darken, to bleed, to cook, to be hungry...to share the Gospel and to work alongside the people.

We've done everything we know to do and given each heart to Him.

So to get these videos, of Pastor Ezechiel, graduate of 2011...head of the church on the mountain, head of the school, down in a hole of muddy water in the sun?  To see our women, in nasty clothes, pulling mud from Brave and Junior?  To see our brothers and sisters, going entirely against the grains of culture to dig and build a well of clearest spring water for the poorest of the poor on the highest of mountains?  To get dirty?  To be shamed?  To be the least of these?

 

A different kind of pride burns.

It's a big deal.

To God be the Glory.

If anyone wishes to come after Me,

he must deny himself,

take up his cross daily, and

follow Me.

--Luke 9:23