When where we are is not good enough

What!? Traveling 6,000 miles just to pray!?

Yep. That's what Anthony, the founder of TEN3, is doing right now. He had once told his daughter he would travel across the world just to speak for ten minutes about the Lord. Soon after, he got an invitation to go to Ethiopia to speak for ten minutes! "What could I do but accept?" he reflects with a chuckle. It turns out, though, the invitation had a mistake; it was actually for ten days.

Even after that happened, though, he thought taking a big mission trip just to pray was ridiculous. After all, you can pray for anyone from wherever you are! Save the money and traveling exhaustion for what can't be done from a distance!

Oh how little we really know. If you've been following my blog posts, you know that this year is really stretching TEN3. It will make or break the vision we've been striving for all these years. And as we've been struggling to help our four locations get to a point of demonstrable viability, Anthony was impressed with the need to be physically with our partners in Africa ... to pray. But why? Why pray over there when we can just pray from home?

"Why" is usually not a good question to ask when it comes to prayer. Do we really understand why we need to pray at all? Prayer doesn't make God any more good or loving or just. We can't impose our will onto God. The wiser theologians I've read have all said that prayer is really about changing our hearts, making them line up with God's heart and thus able to receive and participate in God's grace active throughout the world. God lines up our hearts with His in prayer, and also in being together with our brothers and sisters, where we can see the hope in their eyes, feel the fears they face, hold them if they cry.

Jesus didn't save us from His throne in heaven. He saved us by coming to where we are, living and dying as one of us, and then rising from the dead that we may be with Him. So how can we think that we can save people from a distance? No, we must choose, as Paul did,

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

(1 Corinthians 9:19-22)

It's somewhat a mystery, but God works through interaction, us being with Him and with each other. Please pray for Anthony and Rob, TEN3's worship leader, as they travel to Zambia and stay about ten days. They are taking computer equipment to help start a center as well while they are there, but their primary purpose is to pray with Pastor Collins Sakalunda and his colleagues who share his desire to reach their people through transformational education. I pray that in that time the Lord break down barriers that may be in people's hearts, that He grow brotherhood and resolve to serve, that He implant our vision of African churches overcoming the severe challenges they currently face and emerging as world leaders in education and the spread of the Gospel into everyone's heart whom He desires to be part of it.

Excerpt from Pastors & Technology

As I mentioned a couple of entries ago, I have been working on material for a technology seminar for pastors. The first seminar was last week, and I'm eager to hear how it went. The seminar teaches pastors about the power that modern communication and media has ovr young people's minds, and warns them that they cannot simply condemn it because it can harm: once technology is here, it is here to stay. So, we teach them to use the tool with (as Tony Evans likes to call it) a Kingdom agenda. We teach them to use Bible software, do responsible Internet research, compose and share documents and slide presentations. We give them the Families & Media seminar, which looks at the different technologies that affect families, especially children and youth, and discusses ways to implement godly use of technology in the home. Finally, we give them ways they can use texting and social media to connect their members outside of the church's walls. Here's an excerpt:

We've shown you some tools that you can use to do what you do already in church with some extra resources and conveniences, and advised you how to use it to engage your congregants' attention rather than lose it. But one of the main reasons this seminar was developed was to discuss technology as a way of reaching out to young people. They may be mildly gratified if your church can use a computer to put lyrics or sermon notes on a screen, and it may reach them better because they are better able to follow along. But that makes little difference in keeping their interest in the church overall compared to social media.
The technology that has changed society the most since 20001 is the communication technology. We relate to each other and the world in different ways now than ever before. That is probably the most important reason for you to take this seminar. The minds of the young people in your congregation now are driven by texts and social posts, and so if you want to stay connected with them, you need to know how to communicate with them with their media.

Texting
We discussed in the story in the beginning of this seminar how powerful texting has become. Even older people who at first are averse to the idea, once they try it, find it a surprisingly desirable communication venue. It is fast and convenient, easy to store messages that might be forgotten over voice, easier to send out without interrupting other activities. ...
Emphasize that certain kinds of communication should only be done in person: apologies, condolences to a close friend who is going through tragedy, confrontations. A quick text is not sufficient for such complex matters. I (JennyBeth) recently offended a trusted teacher because I decided to express a delicate concern in a text rather than by voice. Without the extra sentences to explain myself, and the tone of voice and facial expressions to make it clear how I meant it, I did not realize until it was too late that it sounded disrespectful. Praise God, with some further communication later it was cleared up and forgiven, but learn from my mistake.
On the other hand, your church can make great use of texting. It is more useful than anything else for announcements that cannot wait until Sunday, for reminders, and for emergency prayer requests. People also make great use of texting all the time for just staying in touch when it's hard to catch other for a phone call. ...

Social media
Social media offers a great opportunity for discussing weighty issues that may not come up in regular conversation. For instance, in open discussion forums or pages, people invited into the discussion groups can post questions to which others can respond. This can lead to some very enjoyable and enlightening dialog, which is accessible to everyone in the group because they can read it one day, think about it overnight, and respond the next day; they don't have to be all in the same room at the same time, so the conversation can go on for days.
A constructive platform for social media would be a page or forum in which people could ask questions that the teachers of the church can answer. If people have questions about the Bible or theology or social issues or how to live, they could offer them there with the teachers then able to take time to compose a good answer from the Scriptures. This could be used to carry on conversations that members can ponder for days, rather than the shorter conversations in Sunday School that may be sooner forgotten. There would need to be good rules enforced, however, about who can contribute what, because while it's good to discuss opinions, there must be a clear line between who has authority to give answers and who can only give supplemental thoughts. Kay Arthur, a renowned Bible teacher, has said that the most destructive phrase in a church is, "What do you think?" when we should be asking, "What does God say?" If everyone is allowed to answer, then it could become a platform for ignorance rather than good instruction.

There's much more to it, obviously. We discuss much more opportunities to explore, and pitfalls to avoid. But I hope this served as a good peek into what we do. Don't forget, if you have a church, Christian school, or any other group in which you'd like to offer one of our seminars, we'd love to connect with you to make that happen!

Correspondence of the team hard-pressed but not crushed

From: Christie Dasaro
Subject: Pray for us
Dear Team, Pray for us, arm robbers vandalized EICT yesterday and took all our valuables. We need God's peace, because the trials are too heavy for us bear. We are grateful to God they did not harm anybody. Whatever God is doing, pray for us to stay focus and not to waver. Thank you very much for being there for us always.

From: JennyBeth
Subject: Re: Pray for us
Dear Lord, how many and evil are the afflictions which befall Your servants. We cry out to You night and day and yet they still come. Yet You are almighty, and Your word is good and sure. We pray that the evil these men have done may result in good, that EICT's ministry to Nigeria may recover better than it was, that the students may still get the education they are attempting, and that the perpetrators may be convicted and brought to repentance and faith in Your Son. For You daily turn the enemy's devices against him for Your glory. Use this incident too to draw our hearts to trust more in You; forgive me for all the things that I have worried about until this email reminded me that our only hope has to be in You, Lord.

From: Christie
Subject: Re:
Thank you very much JennyBeth for these encouraging words. Please continue to pray for our staff, because the incident has really devastated their morales, it is only God' s grace can help us to be strong again. I tried by God's grace to be strong in the morning, leading prayer sessions and many people visited to condole us, but I came home this evening with fever, my body aches. Pray for strength to be focused and productive this week as we have CTO graduation on July 3, 2016 which I have to travel to Kwoi and Pastors seminar July 4, 2016. God is Great and it pays to serve Jesus...no matter what satan brings our way. Thank you very much my dear sister for your prayers and encouragement.
Christie Dasaro, Head of TEN3 Nigeria

Training pastors

We were recently asked for material to offer a technology seminar for pastors. We're excited by this opportunity, because what better way to help God's people resist the schemes of the devil and instead use technology to advance Christ's Kingdom than by making pastors aware of these dangers and opportunities? The seminar introduces pastors to ways technology can be used to help their church, including Bible study software, slide presentations, online libraries (with principles of a good search), and how to use social media to advertise and make discussion forums for classes. It also discusses many of the drawbacks and dangers of technology, including scams, attention reduction, bad information, relying on the fanciness rather than the actual content, privacy concerns, and more.

But what about when they leave and later have questions? What about when the buttons change and the new apps show up? That's the best part about it--we already have the follow-up work ready in the CTO and its follow-up courses. They can grow their own technical experts by having members trained, perhaps in schools they start in their own church!

Please pray for wisdom as I add the final touches, and for the kick-off seminar, which is to be July 4-8. Pray that some of these pastors may be able to start CTO centers, and for the provision of equipment and electricity for that to work.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste with botched learning

"Two students told us that they had taken computer courses before but could not actually operate a computer. But now that they have taken the CTO they can do things with the computer ... Education in our country is dead. I don't see any life in it. All our effort in school is just to prepare kids to pass exams."

It both saddens and excites me to hear that report from Christie in Nigeria. Saddens, of course, because it's awful to think how many students waste their young, potent years sitting through drills to regurgitate words that they'll soon forget. Thus they'll grow up just doing whatever they see everyone else doing, thinking whatever is popular on the Internet this week. On the other hand, it excites me to be able to develop and offer something much better. The CTO she refers to, the Computer Training Outreach, teaches students not information about the computer, but how to evaluate what can be done with it and how to apply its logic, and how to research and find answers when they want to learn something new on their own. Furthermore, we teach them to approach use of the computer, and their whole lives, from the perspective of God's redemptive work.

There are so many ways I wish I could improve education for everybody. One big way is learning by doing--our students see the difference in our courses because they learn to use the computer by practice--first guided, "Do this and explain what you see as a result"; then prompted, "Now how do you think you would change this attribute? Test it and see if you're right"; and finally self-driven, "Do your own experimenting and reading to figure out how to do something new." That is the way people learn best, but so often education is done by telling students about the subject rather than giving them real practice. Tests are of penciled-in answers rather than of handiwork. People complain of this problem often in the US, and it's far worse in Africa. I can only imagine how the world would change if people would heed Louis Benezet's "The Teaching of Arithmetic: The Story of an Experiment," George MacDonald's "Gutta-Percha Willie," and Dorothy Sayers' "The Lost Tools of Learning."

Principles of good education should be common sense, and yet why do we find them so difficult to follow?

Part of it I've been reminded of in my own life lately. My husband and I have been quite busy as, in addition to our full-time jobs and serving our churches, we also take care of two dogs, have planted a large garden, and have 30 young chickens. And our house still needs a lot of work. I've had to fight many times in the past few months a discouraged or grumbling spirit that there's just too much work, and too many things go wrong. The chickens are so messy and keep messing up their water dispenser. The garden takes over an hour to water, and when it rains so we don't have to water, the weeds go crazy. The dog keeps running off to other peoples' property 2 miles away, and I have to go get him. And yet, I proudly tout this principle that we learn best from hands-on practical work. It seems I need to learn from all this our own principle that learning takes time and effort, while we like shortcuts.

Oh God, You are the greatest Teacher. And what You desire us to learn more than skills and facts and logic is humility, perseverance, and love. Thank You for these things You have given to teach me. Turn my focus to learn well of You, that I may in turn teach others according to Your statutes.

God saves all of me ... sometimes even my tail feathers.

Thank You Lord for being so gracious with my hard-headedness.

I first started TEN3 a few months after I graduated college. I was using the laptop I'd acquired, thanks to a gift from my thoughtful great-uncle, before college, so it had some age on it already. Pretty soon after SIM helped me set it all up with encryption, missionary support software, and a password safe, my 5-year-old hard drive died. So I bought a new laptop, and well, that was six years ago now. But it was running pretty well ... except, the network would drop once in a while, and it would freeze up when screen sharing or mounting a huge filesystem.

"You need a new laptop. It's not going to last much longer," my husband told me.

"It's fine, I can live with it," I protested.

That as we're admonishing schools to be replacing one laptop per month because they will break down.

I was provided a refurbished laptop, specified for my work use rather than to be sent to Africa, a few weeks ago. I was grateful for it ... but I just let it sit there. My old laptop was working okay, at least, dealing with its glitches would still be less effort than getting the right programs and settings done on the new one. I'll get to it, once things settle down.

Well, things didn't settle down, and yesterday in the middle of work, it lost its network capability again. Resetting the network didn't help, redoing the ipconfig didn't help, restarting didn't help. Okay, maybe it is time to break out that new laptop. So I began a backup to make sure all my files were up-to-date so I could transfer them over. It froze the computer overnight. In the morning, fortunately, the backup was successfully completed, but any command I would give the computer would freeze it for at least five minutes. So it looks like if I had delayed any longer, I may have lost a few projects I'd put a lot of time into since my last backup.

I'm not quite sure why I have that tendency to push some common-sense limits, but until I figure it out, I thank God for taking care of my needs on this one ahead of time so the only unnecessary stress I've had is going a day dealing with an unconfigured system. How DO you people manage with only one desktop, anyway?

In search of synchronity

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. 

--2 Corinthians 11:23-33, ESV

That's your model. Now get to it! Yeah! Work, work, press on!

I'm a terribly ambitious person. Whatever I undertake, I want to be the best at it. B was always an unacceptable grade. If I wasn't the kid picked to show all the other kids how something was done, I was disappointed. If there was an award to be had, I wanted to win it. So naturally, that applies to my Christian life, and as a missionary, I tend to take the cues from Paul, from Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, from all the stories of saints and missionaries who worked themselves well-nigh to death. That's what I need to be. Now work harder! Get more done! I don't like sleep anyway. While, of course, also trying to be the Proverbs 31 woman at home.

...

And then the still, small voice comes:

Martha, Martha.

Loving my Lord drives me to serving with all my might. And yet then trying to serve with all my might drives me to one crisis after another until I remember to stop and sit at His feet and, well, love Him. That I suppose, is what this whole blog "Drinking in Life, pouring out service" is all about, learning to do that. I know that still, humble love and fervent deeds are supposed to fuel one another, but so often I alternate between them like spinning a boat because I focus on one oar and then another rather than turn both at the same time.

I used to keep these verses in my purse to read frequently and memorize. I think I should start it up again:

I am the true vine, an My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean [pruned] because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vie, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

--John 15:1-5, NASB