The girls and I have been reading through the life of William Carey, a chapter or two each night.
Considered the father of modern protestant missions, he spent 41 years in India, literally and completely pouring himself out in every way for Bible translation (the entire Bible into India's six major languages and parts of 209 other languages and dialects), fighting social reforms including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning, and assisted suicide. He founded a college, a divinity school which is still functioning today for some 2,500 students, trained up indigenous missionaries and sent them throughout India, saw (after many, many years) the conversions of some 700 people (and influenced the conversions of how many since?), and perhaps his greatest legacy was the missionary movement that he inspired among (equally insane) missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, David Livingstone and perhaps thousands of others.
Ever heard, "Expect great things from God, do great things for God"? That was William Carey.
"I'm not afraid of failure," you may have also heard, "but I'm afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter."
Another idea of his that often challenged and comforted me in Haiti: that there was a gold mine of souls dying without the Truth around the world, and that he would go down willingly if others would promise to hold his ropes.
As I'm reading chapter after chapter of heartbreak, challenges, horror and frustrations from his life and story with the girls this time around, however, the resounding truth I'm gathering as I close the book and shake my head through our prayers each night is that William Carey was insane.
He was totally nuts.
He was surrounded by death and destruction and defeat, loneliness, poverty, major family problems, loss, difficulty, hunger, sickness, threats, poisonous snakes, fear, betrayals, anguish, impossible obstacles...and all the man could think about, all the man could focus on was his consuming concern for souls...the many, many, millions around him who were living and dying each day without God.
Carey called himself, at my very finest, a plodder. I am no more than a plodder. I can persevere. To this, I owe everything.
He was crazy for the Lord and for the people God led him to, and however heart-wrenching the realities that came with this, I LOVE introducing my children to insane men and women like that.
Alongside of reading William Cary: Obliged to Go, I've been reading through Corinthians, and it has been stewing and stewing on me as I pray for my little world and OUT to His not-little world. ...the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance.
The sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, our comfort in Christ abundant as well. The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort comforts us in our affliction so that we can comfort those who are in affliction.
Our hope is firmly grounded for those sharers of our sufferings, those sharers of our comfort.
As I pray, more lately, for the suffering of our brothers and sisters around the WORLD, there is comfort in knowing they were HIS sufferings, first...He is there and alongside and sharing His comfort, as well.
The words I painted on our cracked wall in our little house in Haiti while I was pregnant with Lily finish 2 Cor. 1: but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.
A few weeks ago when our brothers and sisters at Emmaus reached out to me again...when could we come alongside? When could we join them? When could I come and share the stories, when could we all pray together, when could I come see what God is doing? When could I come share the sufferings of Christ in Haiti with them...when could I could share the comforts of Christ, as well?...I asked them for their recommended dates and we all started pushing forward again.
Then our homeschool curriculum called for William Carey, and as we've been reading through his story, the Lord has been meeting my concerns and questions with faith. With a little bit of insanity. With focus on souls. With plodding. And with a lot of open doors.
Sharon and the kids and I leave for Northern Haiti in two weeks for two weeks, and I'm asking you to hold our ropes. We haven't really shared this news widely because, well, it has been making people unhappy...and you know making people unhappy rivals root canals and morning sickness in my midnight hour thoughts and prayers.
The short answer to our most common question this time around: We are not going to get kidnapped.
The short answer to my favorite question this time around: Yes, even the baby is going.
You now understand why we haven't really shared the adventure widely.
Our brothers and sisters in Haiti need our prayers, and we need your prayers, too. THANK YOU, faithful ones, for always being our praying people. I am counting on you to be holding our ropes as we go down...for there are such riches in Haiti the world does not account for...and all of our comforts and all of our suffering, He shares.
You are joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons through the prayers of many. 2 Cor 1:11
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