He Who Has Ears

I changed the name of this blog.  I'll explain about that in the next entry because I feel that it's an important message in itself.  Here's the current post for now:

Sometimes we just need to shut up and listen.

Pasteur Ilunga, pastor of the mother church of
Pasteur Ezechiel's church, telling the good
news about Jesus at Pasteur Job's funeral.

Pastor Job was a well-loved upright professor at one of the Bible schools in Lubumbashi.  Unfortunately, after a lengthy struggle with cancer, he passed away.  We attended his funeral service.  After a moving address and poignant message about the need to repent of wrongdoing and trust in Jesus’ payment for our forgiveness, the hearse took off to a cemetery on the outskirts of the other side of town.  Once we arrived we had to wait our turn to enter the graveyard and have the burial conducted. 

As we waited with our Congolese friends outside the gate amidst the rural Katangan landscape, I noticed our Congolese friends’ foreboding tension.  Something about this was not normal. 

An unbelievably rapid series of events fulfilled that apprehension.  Gate opens.  Crowd moves to pavilion.  Hearse backs in.  Workers in construction clothes haul out coffin.  Minister orates short prayer and biography.  Workers carry coffin to gravesite.  Family and guests follow.  Family grieves as coffin is lowered.  Attendants hurry wailing family away.  Long line of guests quickly passes grave.  Group exits cemetery.

I took a complete guess off a faint memory
of the name of this cemetery and found its
website! It's called Rivière des Anges (River
of Angels). Here a group is entering the gate to
the cemetery. That van is the hearse. The speakers
on top are for blaring Christian worship music
through the streets during the procession.

Just before we left, we saw a white man who I assumed to be the funeral director.  Bill went over to talk to him, and what I overheard from their conversation shook the way I listened to others. 

The director said he was all about dignity and respect and he wanted to build gravesites that provided that.  Our Congolese friends interpreted his efforts much differently, though.  Pasteur Ezechiel rode with us on the way home and fumed about how he felt everything opposite of dignity and respect during the funeral.  The phrase he hammered over and over was “That’s now how the Congolese bury people.” 

Congolese customs and values that this European director trampled on surfaced many times during his diatribe.  Pasteur Ezechiel ranted about everything from the concreted-over grave parcels and the over-structured business-feel to the event, but what bothered him most was how the attendants flew through the service and even pulled away the mourning family from the grave to speed the line along for the next funeral.  He said that normally the Congolese cry for hours at burial ceremonies, but these guys hardly gave Pastor Job’s family 5 minutes to bemoan his interment.

Workers moving a casket from the pavilion

to a grave site.

I saw a spectacle that highlighted the contrast in cultural customs while walking home from the Ruashi church one day.  I looked up from gazing at the walkway to avoid tripping over a rock sticking out of the ground or stepping in a stream of water trickling out of an alley and noticed a tarp stretched across the avenue a ways down.  Many people were standing around and even a few cars were parked in the path.  Curious, I cautiously approached and soon recognized what was going on.  Whenever someone dies, usually family and friends will visit the bereaveds’ house during the days following.  After finding out that it was indeed a funeral, and I gave my consolations and continued home.

This is the area Pasteur Job was laid to rest in.

For six continuous days later there were still visitors mourning with the family.

Although the director may have had business reasons for running the whole procession in less than 30 minutes, there wasn’t much about it that communicated dignity and respect to Pasteur Ezekiel.  It didn’t matter what the director’s intentions were because his actions ignorant of Congolese traditions resulted in frustration. 

I thought about how Pasteur Ezechiel didn't
like how they concreted-over the graves and
wondered if they did that practically to prevent
graverobbing. Then I realized that the
Congolese already have their own system
to prevent that. These metal enclosures are
common in gravesites in Africa, but apparantly
this funeral director missed that.

Lesson for people seeking to serve others cross-culturally:  When interacting with those from other cultures, it’s important to be knowledgeable about their customs.  Understand that both yours and theirs are good and valid, but since you are there to serve them, you need to serve them on their terms.  So ask them.  Talk to them.  Humble yourself and adapt your preferences to theirs.

Lesson for anyone else:  Listen to others.  It’s so easy, especially in our American individualistic “speak my mind” culture, to blab first and not even consider listening to the other’s experiences later.  I’m sure guilty of it.  If that’s your confession too, it’s a good thing that the Holy Spirit develops in us the patience, compassion, and humility necessary to listen first.  Even though we may have constructive intentions, our ignorance of others’ situations greatly increases the chances of miscommunication and irritation.

“You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or with impressing the other, or are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or are debating about whether what is being said is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered.”
     --William Stringfield

Re-telling Africa

First, here’s a quick update on a past post.  A couple entries back I shared about a friend I met, Gael, who struggled with the hold of witchcraft on his life and family yet made a decision to trust Christ’s deliverance.  Anxious to see if he was still following the Lord, I asked my friend Jeancy if he saw him recently at the Ruashi church.  Jeancy told me that he was there regularly!  Even though darkness tried to reclaim Gael, praise God that nobody can snatch those who belong to Jesus from his hands!

Some time ago I was thinking about the way that I’ve shared stories about my stay, and it bothered me.  I want to share some changes I’m making in the way I tell those tales. 

My Swahili tutor, Papa Esaie.  I'm still
keeping up with my French thanks to Le
Phantom de l'Opera and French translation 
of a collection of Billy Graham's 
questions and answers from 1960.

We Americans hear and see much about deplorable conditions in Africa.  War, violence, refugees.  Rampant disease.  Poverty and lack of essential resources.  Images of huts and hunters with loincloths. 

I wonder if we’ve understood Africa in a way that it’s developed a generalization as the needy continent, the poor land, the lesser terrain, while much of the rich, valiant and generous side goes untold. 

Let me explain a little more.  An interesting thing I noticed in Congo was that my Congolese friends knew that.  They were aware that the rest of the world figured they did things in a less-developed way and were fairly self-conscious about it too.

Here's the pilipili bowl with
pilipili inside.  I was sad
when I was leaving because
I thought the pilipili peppers
were only found in Africa,
but when I came home
I found out what they were
otherwise called--habanero!
Hot stuff.

For example, one day I bought a small bowl that they use to grind pilipili (a kind of pepper) in.  It was cheap—about 50 cents—and looked it.  I didn’t really care though because I just needed the bowl for the meal David and I were making for our friends from the Ruashi church.  During the dinner, I brought the pilipili bowl in and enthusiastically told our guests that I was going to bring it back to the States so I could make pilipili there too.  They didn’t share my excitement.  “Oh…” my friend Jean said, noting the “decorative” markings on the side that looked like a five-year-old haphazardly scorched it with a hot rod.  His despondent tone and countenance said it all--“They’ll look at this cheap thing and think that we’re just some kind of low, uncultured people.”

“Nah.”  I recognized what he meant.  “I’ll just tell them it came from Zambia.”  They all laughed!

That’s why I want to re-tell Africa.  I want to re-tell Africa for them.  My Congolese, African friends.  They deserve a truer depiction.  Let me start with a story I’ve told frequently about a little encounter I had with malaria…

                                                                                           

The after-dinner photoshoot with the
guys from the Ruashi church.

I usually mention the poorly-designed bathroom, who the heck taught these nurses to stick IV’s, and other not-so-great things.  But really, why?  What picture would the majority of my listeners have already had of that hospital?  Not a pristine, state-of-the-art one.  Maybe they would have even been surprised to hear that it had concrete floors and looked like a normal building.  But amidst the mishaps and conditions shone the true generosity and hospitality of the Congolese that I must highlight.  This time I’ll tell it differently.

One Sunday near the end of the morning service I started feeling light-headed and dehydrated.  I stepped out and downed some of Maman Sonia’s water.  Some of the church members and Maman Sonia came out to check on me.  Back at the house later on I was only feeling worse and started having digestive issues.  Bill decided to take me to the hospital that one of our church’s pastor’s wife worked at the following morning.

David, Rachel and I at our friend Bridgette's
wedding. The Congolese sure do
their weddings big!

At the hospital, Maman Jackie, the nurse we knew, sped us through what seemed to be a long line of sick people trailing outside the clinic.  I felt bad for cutting ahead of everyone else who was probably suffering just as much as I was, but was equally thankful for her gesture—and looking forward to getting closer to a bathroom!  After some blood tests which confirmed the malaria, she pointed us to a nice private room with an adjacent bathroom.  The staff quickly put me on an IV with quinine and hydrating fluids.  Three nights and three days later, after four rounds of the diluted drug, I was symptom-free.

There wasn’t any interior food service at this hospital.  Friends or family of patients had to bring food for their loved ones.  Maman Mimi brought me a meal that could feed about 4 people not just once, but on two different occasions.  Maman Jackie made me a fairly pricey breakfast with sausages and eggs on my last morning there as well.

Victory after malaria.  That's the
hospital in the back. Although
the staff there took good care
of me, I must say that the healing
process was definitely quickened
by the the prayers of my
friends and family to the Lord.
Thank you again!

I was astounded by the people who came to visit me.  Not only were there many of them, but even people I had only met once or twice came to sit with me!

On two different occasions, I started shaking uncontrollably.  That was pretty scary, even for Bill, who’s had much experience with this illness.  The same nurse was watching me both times and after whatever she did, I was fine.

Oh, and my fee for three nights and four days stay and medication was $0.  Maman Jackie covered my expenses completely.

Normally we don’t get the opportunity to observe how people from other nations live and go about their relationship with God and church life.  Oftentimes we only hear about negative happenings or events they appreciate but we don’t understand.  As a result, we tend to get pretty prideful.  That pride doesn’t match reality though.  God has blessed every culture with honorable character traits and he is working all over the world.  We must seek to gain a balanced picture of our global brothers and sisters.  That starts with listening for the good that God is doing even amongst negative or hard-to-understand situations.  That starts with re-telling Africa.

Here's the youth group at the Ruashi church.  If we can say 
that we definitely left an impact anywhere, it's here.  
David and I introduced games to get the energy level up.  
I'm fairly certain this is the one of the only youth groups
in the city of 2 million people that includes games
 in their youth groups.  Also, we partnered with Jean, 
the leader, to integrate studying books of the Bible 
all the way through into the teachings.  I think they've 
stopped the group for a time since they've been busy with 
Pentecost seminars and end-of-the year exams, but they 
should get going soon.  Oh, and excuse David's scowl--
usually he's a pretty jolly guy

Story Time: Unexpected Visitors

The walk from our house to the church wound through suburban Lubumbashi.  I zigzagged through residential alleyways, crossed a dusty soccer field, and passed the blaring music and gaudy decorations of the Facebook Number One Bar on an almost daily basis.  It was a pathway often filled with surprises.

One of those came in the form of an unexpected visitor close to home.  Just as I was about to cut through a taxibus repair stop, I heard a voice behind me shout in English, “Hey man! Hey!”  

His accent wasn’t quite African.  I wondered who this guy might be as I turned around yet ended up seeing your average Congolese guy. 

“You from Canada or somethin’?  Where ya from, man?” 

I stuttered a reply, taken aback at this Congolese man with an African-American voice. 

“Uh… Americ-“ 

“Oh man America?!  I’m from Oakland bro!”

I added a few photos of the Bible school we helped build
a while back.  Here it is, nearly completed on the outside.
Courses to train Congolese pastors about how
to equip their churches for ministry will begin soon!

He said his name was Shawn* and went on to tell a little about himself.  Shawn was born in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC on the other side of the country.  His father sent him to the States to grow up in Oakland, CA.  That explained his accent.  He lived there for a while but came back to Africa later on.  While working for a company in South Africa, problems came up against him, family issues blew up, and now he’s stuck in Congo looking to get back to South Africa. 

Pasteur Ilunga, the man in the pool at the left, is the pastor
of the church that planted Pasteur Ezechiel's church.
They gathered new believers together from both of their
churches and another church plant for a baptism service.
Praise God!

Some time later David met Shawn on the street and invited him to the Ruashi church.  He came on his own several times after that.  The guys at the church were really interested in him.  My friend Jean overheard a conversation between Shawn and I and later commented, “He really talks the English of the streets… he finishes everything with ‘man.’”  Haha.

It was great that he was coming to the church, but there was a little issue that bugged David and me.  After each service he would mention meeting up with us sometime to talk about some “real life stuff, ya know.”  David and I would look at each other warily and, considering his situation, guess what he was thinking—ask us for money.  After a while, he did that straight up—first for a passport, then money to get phone credits to call someone to ask for money.  I kept pushing his demands off with excuses about my broke college student state, but I knew I was in a dilemma.  I wanted Shawn to keep coming to church yet feared saying “no” would cut him off.  On the other hand I knew I couldn’t say “yes” and open up a relationship revolving around monetary demands.  I prayed to God for wisdom about handling this.

Boy did the Lord come through. 

A lot of people have asked us what we ate there.
This is what the women of the church cooked us for our 
goodbye meal.  Often there's community bowls of whole
grilled fish like at the bottom left and some sort of greens
like those about to be cooked at the top left.  They
also made a meat-like root cake called kikanda.  So good!

I called Shawn to meet me at church the next Sunday, promising I’d talk to him about giving him a little money for phone credit.  He came to the service and approached me after the shake-hands-with-Pasteur line exiting the church.  I said to myself that if he didn’t have a job, then I couldn’t just give him a few bucks without expecting him to fare well on his own.  So I thought I’d show him a nearby English center and see what he thought about helping there. 

The main starch they had was called fufu.  It's cooked all
over Africa, yet it's called different things and made
with different ingredients.  In Katanga
they made it with corn flour.  There's some in the
yellow bowl.  We grabbed a chunk, formed it into a
ball, and tore off a piece which we used to pinch some
fish or greens.  You can see the fufu ball in Frere Ritch
and Pasteur Ezechiel's hands.

Shawn confessed that a job there might be a little difficult since he didn’t know French too well, but he promised me he would look into it.  He went on to lament his family issues, which reminded me of the sermon we just heard.  The preacher talked about how we need to look at our family origins and cut off the bad practices of our relatives.  I brought that up again and he said that was knocking on his heart too.  I told him that when we believe in Jesus, we become born again into a new family.  I inquired how far he was in doing that.  It seemed from his response that he thought he could get to that point by his religious works—he said he could improve on his prayer life and stuff.  But that’s not the way it works!

Sometimes God just gives you really cool stuff to say.  I explained that God gives us new life not because of anything we do, but because of what He did.  “When we were naturally born, we didn’t do any work.  It was all the mom.  That’s why it’s called labor!  In the same way Jesus did all the work for us on the cross.  All we have to do is receive that and continue in relationship with him.”

We wrapped up the conversation after that.  He gratefully expressed that what I told him was the best thing I could give him after all.  “That’s the way men did things—working for it,” he attested.  He really appreciated the spiritual advice too.  After praying together we parted ways.  I praised God all the way home that he came through and sorted out that situation as best as possible!

*name changed

Story Time: New Orleans Voodoo Round 2

Well it sure has been a while.  I am back in the United States now and have completed my 10-month internship in the DR Congo.  As much as I like writing and would have liked to share about my experiences, I never could find the time to do so between ministry, coursework, and team-building time.  So now that I’m back and have a little more time, I’ll write posts to catch up on those stories.  I really hope God is glorified through these testimonies of what he’s done.

Here's us sharing a meal with our Congolese brothers
from the Ruashi church--from left to right, 
Joe, Jean, and Jacques.

This one is cool.  I shared a little bit about this in church a couple Sundays ago, but here’s the full story.  You might remember an experience I shared earlier about a guy I met in New Orleans named Lumbar.  In short, while street evangelizing on Bourbon St., New Orleans, I had an opportunity to share the gospel with a man donning a black cloak, white facial makeup, a crystal-topped staff, a top hat embellished with a voodoo skull, and real, filed-down vampire teeth.  Right when I thought about sharing, I felt a strange spiritual force pushing me away, telling me to say nothing and leave.  I discerned that didn’t come from God—however, I found myself saying goodbye and parting.  That really stunned me—why would I obey some dark force like that?  Why did I not say “no,” and just share the good news of freedom in Christ?  I wondered if the events that day happened to prepare me for another encounter with darkness in the future.  As it turned out, they did.

Me and Gael

Another day, one-third of the world away, while passing out flyers for the Ruashi church’s seminar, I saw a man sitting on the side of the avenue.  I decided to go over and invite him.  We struck up a conversation about the church, and then I asked him what he knew about Jesus.  His answer reflected much hesitancy and uneasiness.  “Uh… tomorrow.  No, tomorrow, I will come to the seminar and tell you everything I know about Jesus.”  I found his adamancy in not wanting to talk about Jesus strange for the normally spiritual and open Congolese.  But then I felt something even stranger.  Right as the conversation was about to close, I thought about going ahead and sharing about Jesus with him quickly, but I sensed that same, unholy force I felt before in NOLA, pushing me away from him, telling me to say nothing and leave.  Recognizing that, this time I… did the same thing as before.  I walked away.

David and I had the honor of being cabin leaders

for the teenage missionary kid guys during the Central/

Southern Africa AG missionary conference.

It was a blast!

At home I reflected on the afternoon, wondering with anger and confusion as to why I discerned that same force yet reacted the same way.  I thought of some pointers for next time, and the next morning during our team’s daily devotional time we prayed that I would have another opportunity to meet that guy.  Later
that same day as I was on my way to the church, guess what happens?  I see him walking my way!  I asked him where he was going and if I could walk along with him, and he replied in English “Oh yeah, I’m just f***ing around!  Sure, you can **** around with me!”  Oddly enough… that was almost the exact same thing that Lumbar in New Orleans said when I asked him what he was doing!  He told me his name was Gael*, so Gael and I… walked… around as we talked about the Bible and what Jesus did.  Eventually we stopped at where we met before, and he revealed what I suspected to be the source of that oppressive  negative force.

Gael questioned me about sorcery.  He then explained the deep roots that witchcraft held in his family.  One family member murdered another yet continued to visit with the deceased relative’s spirit.  He recounted times when that same relative convinced him to partake in highly demonic fetish charms. 

We also got to participate in the Lordship and Lostness 
DR Congo field discussion with all of the DR Congo 
AG missionaries and strategy director Scott Hansen 
to assess the situation of the church and 
re-orient for the future.

He then confessed that he wanted to get out of that.  I shared Colossians 2:15 with him—“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross,” emphasizing Jesus’ power and victory over the spiritual powers of darkness.  I encouraged him to make a decision to commit his life to Jesus to cut those spiritual ties to the past.  At first he was a little shaky, but he said he couldn't lie to God.  He said yes to giving his life to Christ, cutting those ties, and accepting Jesus’ forgiveness.  After I prayed for him, he promised that he would come to the rest of the seminar, and I saw him there for the next two days!

Two weeks later I crossed paths with Gael again.  I asked him how his decision was going.  He hesitated, and proceeded to tell me that I didn’t know that sorcery wouldn't let go of someone so easily.  I tried to encourage him to persevere in Christ and remember that he is the one who is victorious, not sorcery. 

Playing football as a goodbye celebration with some guys

from the Ruashi neighborhood.  If you think you're good

at soccer, these guys would probably whoop you.

I can’t even imagine what he faced—what the loosened grip of darkness striving to reclaim a soul looks like.  I don’t know how he’s dealing with that now either.  I can only pray that the Lord places people in his path to encourage him in the truth and that he helps him to persevere in his victory!

So kudos to M10 and whoever was involved in putting together the preparation we received in New Orleans.  I hope this goes as a testimonial to the good that can come out of that!  And big shoutout to God—may you be shown for how awesome you are through what you’ve done in Congo!

*name changed