Lord help me

Yesterday we took the medical team and hiked through a few streams and a few yards, chairs on our heads, to worship in DuFour.

A gorgeous collection of our brothers and sisters were there for worship.  And of course Phida, Nosebin, Simon, they were there. Early.  Still there when we left in the heat of the day....with smiles and grace, patient teaching, dynamic worship, gracious spirits and clear, simple Gospel-giving. 

I've never preached there (I've never preached ANYwhere outside of Emmaus) but with Phida asking me over and over if I would please share a simple Gospel message at DiFour for months, yesterday I had the privilege of doing so, with Sharon manning the children, and I wish I could tell you that it was AWESOME.

But it was a lot more hard than awesome.

The Gospel was brought by Emmaus to DuFour just over a year ago now, but the soil is hard hard.  So remote, totally scattered with voodoo temples and ancient voodoo practices and mindsets, the large majority of the village having never received any formal education, the soil is hard.  The resources are in the negatives.  The long-engrained pattern is dark and hard and lost.

And as I shared a very simple message, with illustrations and lots of repetition, of the church of Laodecia and God's distaste for comfortably allowing sin in the Christian life, for God's inability to use lukewarm followers, for God's great faithfulness, standing at the door and knocking and knocking and anxious to come in, I searched in-the-image-of-God beautiful face after beautiful face and eyes were dark. Spirits were dark.  Eyes were not seeing, ears were not hearing, hearts were not responding.  

I finally prayed and asked Phida to come up and teach it again.  

Perhaps it was my Creole, perhaps it was my foreign presence, perhaps it was my culturally different way of sharing.  

I don't care HOW I DID yesterday.  I care that the Gospel was given and received and understood.  Phida and Simon, Nosebin and Marc, they assured me that everything was clear, but she did it for me anyway, point by point, illustrating by illustration, step by step, she taught again God's desire for us to be entirely hot and pure, about how He will spit out that which is lukewarm, about His great desire for our hearts, about how the Holy Spirit convicts and points out sin, about how we can repent and He can come in and BE with us, eat with us, discipline us, dwell in us. 

With grace and kindness and simplicity, like a mother hen with her chicks, Phida shared and preached and asked questions.

And eyes were not seeing, ears were not hearing, hearts were not responding.  They were there...He WANTS them and is seeking them out...but the grasp of Satan was as clear as day.

I sat frustrated and humbled and utterly inspired as I watched Phida and Nosebin and Simon finish the service.

It was crazy hot, incredibly muddy, and HARD.

And the past six months that I've NOT been there, THEY. HAVE. BEEN. THERE.  On Sundays, on Wednesdays, on Tuesdays, on Fridays, on weekends.  It's been HOTTER.  It's been muddier.

And there is not ONE SPECK of glory for these talented men and women in that tent in the mud at DuFour.  There's not one speck of glory in this for them, not one hint of fame or fortune, not ONE growing seed easy or fun--and there simply never will be--and yet THERE. THEY. ARE.

And as much as that heavy reality hit me yesterday, they understand it fifty times over.  There will be no money, ever, there will be no glory, ever, there will be NOTHING easy, ever, and for over a year, every day on their knees and their motos and their days off and their days on, Phida and Nosebin and Simon. and Belony. are. there.

They are THERE because God has wedged DuFour in their hearts, because there are people who WANT Him, though they struggle, and because there is No. One. Else. to give Him or live Him.

I was humbled and embarrassed, entirely, because I often forget to pray. Because I often quit so easily.  Because I often seek out my comfort and my common sense over His calling.  

I was humbled because I have not been BEGGING God's grace on that area, on those people, on those hard hearts and deaf ears and blind eyes.  I was utterly inspired because Phida has, because Nosebin IS, because Simon WILL.  

They never got frustrated yesterday, and while I know there have been MANY frustrating days, and a brand new voodoo temple literally still dripping paint RIGHT next door, these three students and staff showed me yesterday a faithful I know NOTHING about.  

A perseverance human minds cannot understand.  A love for God's people that He seeks hard after that is SUPERNATURAL, beyond all understanding and beyond all reason.

It is miraculous, something only God can do.

DuFour has heard the Gospel, many times now, many times even just yesterday.  However, we must pray, pray with me, that God's powerful grace might FREE their minds from darkness in such a way that they might RECEIVE the Gospel.  Not add the Gospel.  Not have people who preach the Gospel...but in a way they might be able to truly HEAR and SEE and INGEST and be transformed by the Gospel.  

And in the meantime, we must pray, pray with me, for the faithful faithful ones, for Nosebin (3rd year) and Simon (3rd year) and Phida (staff) and Belony (4th year) who are praying and going and preaching and being without ceasing, with many challenges, toils and fears, with no rewards or hope of rewards outside of heavenly ones, which are theirs abundant and I praise the Lord.

Packing things up to run and catch up with the team after the service was long over, I held Nora and a bag of empty illustrations on one hip and struggled on the large chunks of rock to kick off my church shoes and slip back into my muddy flip-flops.  Immediately and without a word, Simon crouched down and humiliatingly pulled my shoes off my sweaty feet and arranged my disgusting flip-flops for me to put my feet in, standing and handing me my church shoes with a sweet smile.

I choked it down hard the muddy path home, very much so having just had my burdened feet washed by as clear a Jesus as I ever have.   

I'm honored and humbled and inspired to work with such people and in such dry and weary lands.

This morning was an awful one, with lots of tears and time-change struggles, frustrations, embarrassments and discouragements, crater pot-holes and mud and too much to do in too little time.  I rushed to class at 8:02 am with tears in my eyes and frustration in my heart and a slew of uncertainties.  

"Are we traumatizing our children here?" my friend earnestly texted me not five minutes later and I was selfishly so grateful to have someone in my boat.  I watched my 24 students taking their review quiz and the Lord quietly nudged into my heart the powerful lesson of just yesterday.

I can cry, I can withdraw, I can be frustrated, I can rant, I can fear, I can complain.  

Or I can take courage and toil and painfully p-e-r-s-v-e-r-e and bend a knee in the mud over sweaty feet for the sake of our Savior, and for the sake of nothing else.

I want to be faithful like my students.

Lord help me.