May 14th, 2007
A Constant Battle
Last week I surprised myself with a gut reaction that I didn’t like. When told about missionaries being persecuted in another country, I instinctively thought, “They are Americans, they don’t deserve this! Bring them home!!” Pretty humbling for someone who teaches that we should look at life from God’s perspective rather than a me-centered viewpoint! I got permission from the teacher who told me the story to write about it here. Why tell you this? I wanted you to know about Carrieanne so you can pray for her and also examine your own attitude as I had to mine.
Carrieanne is with “Youth With A Mission” (YWAM) in Africa doing missionary work. Lately she has been stationed with a team in Zimbabwe for outreach work, and she and her team are staying with a family of six in…a mud hut. From what I understand there is currently a shortage of food in Zimbabwe (famine?) so the team wasn’t eating much. (Unfortunately at this point my reaction was already becoming, “Why don’t they go somewhere else where there are better facilities? After all, they are Americans and surely have money to be able to at least eat a decent meal – ahhhh!). One day last week Carrieanne and her team were driving back to where they were staying when their van was jumped by a group of men. Frantically trying to get away, Carrienne tried to drive off. However, one of the men grabbed her arm and pulled so hard she must pull over. The men proceeded to rob them all, steal the van and leave the team stranded. The story seemed to go from bad to worse.
May I reiterate my gut reaction now? “GET THEM OUT OF THERE. They are Americans”. But, almost instantly I caught myself. What am I thinking? I teach about “living for the glory of God” and here I am, upset that someone is suffering because they are doing God’s work. Instead of frustration, shouldn’t I immediately start praying that God would use these circumstances to glorify himself, to make himself famous through Carrieanne and her team’s hardships? So, I asked the lady who shared with me if I could pass on this story so that you could not only pray for Carrieanne’s situation but also examine your own attitudes. We can’t control our gut reactions, but our responsibility is to examine our thoughts, attitudes, actions and make sure that we are lining up completely with God’s perspective.
For instance, the Bible says to live at peace with others. Are we causing strife with anyone? The Bible says not to gossip. Are we passing along any “news” that others don’t need to know? The Bible says not to be malicious. Are we purposefully harming anyone with what we say? In order for us to live God-glorifying lives we will need to sacrifice – perhaps not food or shelter but sacrifice our own pride and “rights”. This is hard, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever “get it” so my gut reactions (or even my thought-out ones!!) are all from God’s perspective.
The latest Carrieanne update? Her wrist is not broken (as they thought), it was the police who attacked them, and the government is demanding that they leave the country. They finally secured transportation out of the Zimbabwe and should have left early this morning. The end of one of the emails sent out to the friends and family of Carrienne said,
“So please pray for all the ywam teams, as well any other missionary you may know. But always remember who’s in control, and that only by God’s permission is anything allowed, and only for the good of those who love him.”
I will pray for them, for the other YWAM team who was attacked in Nairobi, Kenya that same night, and for those of us who live in the United States, that we will all live the lives God has placed us in, with a God-perspective.