Revelations in Jambo Mart

Currently I am sitting outside the girls’ house at about midnight waiting for their water tank to finish pumping water.  Since this swarm of mosquitoes isn’t that great of company, I think this is a good time to update da blog.

Jambo Mart's the grey building.
Slick modern design stands out downtown.

I’ve been reflecting on a recent event that changed my perspective a bit on what I can offer while I’m here.  Just the other day we went to Jambo Mart, an Indian-run department store downtown to get some groceries and look at the clothes they had.  Looked around a bit and then decided to talk to the Indian floor manager named Nitach.  Good to be reminded of my Indian friends back at UTA (shoutout to Subu, Ankit, Bharat, AD, Satish, Yash, Chinmay, and everyone else!).  Talked about work there, what we were doing, life in Congo, what Americans did on the weekends (“chilling out and drinking beer,” according to him), religious views… and then Papa Jonas showed up. 

Here's a picture of the core group of Pasteur Ezekiel's
church when we went up to the prayer mountain.
In Congo, on the national holiday, everyone goes
to the mountain to pray, and on Fridays, everyone
goes to church.  Yep not in America tho lol

Papa Jonas is a Congolese fellow who worked at the same floor.  He noticed that I was speaking a little 

French, I think I told him I was a missionary intern, and upon finding out I was an American Christian he got really excited.  Then, with Nitach and another Indian guy standing right in front of him, he said something like “Ah these guys…they’re not Christians!  They believe in… what’s the name of your god again?  Brraa…”  “Uh Brahman!” the Indian guys reacted with a bit of an incredulous and ok-whatever-old-man chuckle.  “Oh yeah yeah he’s got like six arms and haha nahhh… They must believe in Jesus!”  Then he proceeded to ask, no, demand that I should bring him a Bible because he was a Christian brother trying to do some evangelism up in Jambo Mart.  Désolé Papa… but even if I had one to give, I wouldn’t without you having the proper training on how to use it.  That thing is a sword, you know.   

“It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way,” (Pr 19:2).  Heck I wish I had some more Congolese zeal to serve the Lord, openness in expression of faith in God, exuberance in worshipping the Father.  That’s a huge strength that my brothers and sisters and papas and mamans here can bring to the global Body of Christ.  But… without knowing what you’re doing… well, case in point, making fun of what someone believes doesn’t exactly make Jesus more credible. 

So I’ve realized that this knowledge, or this American-style, or even Zach-style plan-everything-meticulously-before-you-do-it would be a great thing to use in partnership with my fellow believers here so that we, from our different backgrounds, gifts, and skills, could grow more into the fullness and maturity of Christ. 

A lot of people have asked what Congolese meals
look like.  Here's one I forgot to put on the last post--
us at Fr. Jonathan's house, eating fufu, cabbage,
chicken, potatoes, some mashed up pork, 

Which is coming about in a lot of great opportunities.  I’ve been sharing ideas and helping put together the evangelism team at Pasteur Ezekiel’s church.  A guy in a local neighborhood who’s pretty passionate about preaching the gospel to his friends asked me to help him with a Bible teaching he’ll be doing.  And I just gave a teaching on making love the basis for all of the other commands we follow last Wednesday and will be giving two more the following weeks.  Yeah, I taught in French for like a whole hour.  Wussup. 

More on the evangelism ideas…  The Congolese style, as you can kinda see, is really confrontational—if the

Oh and caterpillars. 

 harvest is ready when they talk to someone, it is sure gonna be harvested.  They don’t miss an opportunity to encourage or instruct someone with the Bible, even if that person says they sing in a choir from their same

 church’s denomination.  However, confrontation doesn’t work with everyone, especially with those who don’t want to believe just yet.  Instead of just moving on, it requires a bit more laboring in the field to produce the harvest, a bit more investment in the relationship, a bit more time spent caring and talking and loving before being a part of a bunch of people who sing and are preached to several times a week becomes a willful and passionate experience with a community of believers who are truly alive in Christ.  Jesus told the disciples to pray not just for harvesters, but for laborers who do the plowing, planting, watering, and fertilizing too.

Sunday right before Michelle left.  The girls got
pretty dresses made and Mama Mimi got a matching
one too.  And I've got my slick tie

If you happen to be reading this and aren’t exactly sure about this evangelism or Jesus thing or what I’m even doing in Africa… Hey.  Yeah I’m in Africa right now trying to learn how to help people follow Jesus.  Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense… didn’t Jesus live a long time ago?  Why would I want to “follow” him?  Well, for me, I met him one day, and he kinda changed my life.  He freed me from trying to live up to a standard of my good deeds outweighing my bad ones because I believed that he took the punishment for everything I’ve done wrong and forgave me and washed me clean.  I can’t say for a fact that he’s done that, but what the Bible says is trustworthy and I have personal experiences with him every day.  That’s kinda why you have to believe it though.  John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”  And he gave me this calling, to go to Africa and work with a church organization that helps others tell people this great news, that even though our world is really messed up and we’ve done a lot of things wrong against God, he still loved us and sent his Son, Jesus, to die in our place so that we could be the ones who could be made good and pleasing towards God.  There’s nothing else I would rather do with my life, just to help others grow to know this Jesus more and more and be free through this awesome thing he’s done for us.

But of course that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near perfect.  I think I mentioned a while back about the Lord really using this time to bring up things in me that really need to change.  That has not stopped.  What’s going on now?  Congolese papa gives a very kind offer to me and I turn it down pretty jerkishly.  Younger guy after talking to me for like 15 minutes says that he loves me, and I think in response ok, thanks for being superficial, shut up I hate you go away.  Wait what?  Missionaries shouldn’t be thinking like that, they should be burdened for these people and pray for them and love them all the time and stuff.  Whoops.  Yeah it’s hard sometimes… it’s really hard sometimes… just to even love the people who show genuine kindness towards me.  But hey that’s just one of the many things that’s being brought up as I live here and that I’m trying by the grace of God, and the grace of the Congolese too, to better and overcome.

This is probably my favorite picture so far.  Perfect description of life here...
Savannah and Hannah talking about something that I have no idea about
and me just standing there looking all dorky and confused
next to my Congolese friend Jean...