Certainty---on the brink of disaster

Anthony will soon be traveling to Charlotte to meet with SIM leaders about TEN3. The news in many ways is not good; we set up to grow, but are shrinking. We have only three places we are working currently--Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia--and those each have their struggles. But we're hopeful that this meeting will help get us some more needed personnel and opportunities to move forward. In preparation, I am republishing TEN3's Orientation Guide, and came across this section, written years ago, that has turned out to be rather prophetic for this time:

Counting the cost, or the certainty of uncertainty

I [Dr. Petrillo] wonder if you ever get the impression I get when working with church mission committees or people taking an MBA? That impression is that if we work hard enough on our planning, we can figure everything out and have a business plan that will guarantee our success.

Oh, no, they would never say that. There is no guarantee to success unless you are lucky enough to publish a book that guarantees success. People will buy that by the millions. I am not questioning the fact that we should plan. The Lord makes that clear when he talks about the cost of discipleship.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, "This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish."

Luke 14:28-30

What I am questioning is something deeper down in our souls. Something that shows itself over and over in different ways in our lives.

We work in Africa where uncertainty is a part of life. But in America and much of the West, "uncertainty" is a foul word. We strive hard to take all uncertainty out of our lives. We have precision statistics in our factories so we can make parts for, say a jet, so we know the steel will be able to handle all the pressure and the jet will fly properly. We have car insurance, health insurance, house insurance, you name it and we insure against the uncertainties of life. Is this bad? No way. I'm so glad for the engineers that work extremely hard to give me the best chance that the jet I'm flying will remain in the air.

But, alas, that last sentence let the cat out of the bag. They are working on the chance I'll stay in the air, not the certainty that I will. Like some say, "The only certain things of life are death and taxes," and they are wrong about death, at least death eternal.

Yes, certainty is a real struggle and uncertainty is a reality. In general, Westerners do not really understand this, while Africans live it. Westerners education has been inadequate and purposely short-sighted, resulting in this inability to deal with uncertainty.

As I said, in general, Westerners do not understand uncertainty, and this prevents them from functioning well with African projects. Interestingly, it also hinders them from being good leaders. However, there are Westerners that understand this very well. Dan Allender explains it well when discussing crisis as one of the costs of being a leader:

Leading … is all about moving toward a goal while confronting significant obstacles with limited resources in the midst of uncertainty and with people who may or may not come through in a pinch. Leadership is about whether or not we will grow in maturity in the extremity of crisis.

Crisis is the eruption of chaos, the cloudburst that ruins the beautiful day. We want fair winds and a safe run from our port to the destination ahead. We may have secured a favorable weather report and prepared the boat for every possible problem, but as sure as the sun will rise, tides will change, and entropy happens, few of our plans will go as we design. There is no way to plan for all the contingencies or have all the knowledge we need to navigate the strange waters of life.

Crisis is not a bump in the pavement that causes us to hold the steering wheel more tightly; it is the wall that we hit while we're steering with everything we've got – and it leaves us wondering how we will survive. Crisis is a context for opportunity and growth, but it also takes us to the edge where some don't survive. . . Crises serve to remind us that we are fundamentally not in control. In reality, we are dependent on grace, on a host of people and circumstances that operate well beyond our control, and on the perspiration we have expended in trying to anticipate the unknown (an impossible feat in and of itself).

… We have adversaries who want not merely to replace us but to destroy us. We have enemies in high places who operate with powers and principalities that wish us hellish harm. We live in a disturbed universe that groans daily like a woman in childbirth, and we share the planet with people who at their best are still a mixture of glory and darkness. We all deal with a finite, fallen, unpredictable world that is bent on decay and moves inexorably toward a final, cataclysmic crisis. As leaders, we live on the edge of disaster each day. (Allender, Dan. Leading with a Limp. Waterbook Press, Colorado Springs)

I've added the emphasis. I almost left the last sentence out because it seems like Dan is a bit extreme, but is he? Do you really know what your next day or even your next hour will be like? No, we do not live in a world of certainty. We pretend we do, but it is just pretending so we do not become overwhelmed; we fear it will make us huge pessimists that do nothing.

That's just not good enough! That's a cop-out. It's a lie that our enemy has carefully sown into our media and educational system to destroy us. Jesus didn't come to leave us prisoners to the uncertainties of life. He came to free us ... Jesus is the certainty of life. If you are reading this, I'm telling you nothing new. And yet, it is new every morning. Each day we arise we must remind ourselves of this awesome Lord whom we know and serve, and come hell or high water we will not be separated from him, never! ...

So if you venture with us on this journey of seeing transformational education systems, be forewarned it will not go all as planned. Rather, join with us in being a Deo Volente (God Willing) organization, in which we plan the best we can, but ultimately trust the Lord for the final outcome, which will be growth in grace, wisdom and love and honour to the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Urgency or patience?

What's the place of urgency for the saint?

Urgency for Christians is often preached as a positive. For instance, the following story I've heard from the pulpit:

Satan was discussing with his demons how to dissuade Christians in their service advancing the Kingdom of Christ. They began offering suggestions:
"Tell them there's no God."
"No," replied Satan. "They won't buy that. They've seen too much evidence of his presence in their lives."
"Tell them Jesus never rose from the dead," another said.
"Just as bad. Besides the evidence from history and the martyrs, they see the evidence of it in the salvation God has already given them."
"Tell them there's no hurry."
"THAT'S what we need."

I think there is truth to that; we certainly lose our passion and opportunities through our tendency to procrastinate. And yet, I find also that I fall most readily into sin when I operate with a sense of urgency. I get tunnel vision, prioritizing the whatever must be done and thus ignoring the needs of those around me. Like just today when I lost my temper with my dog as I was trying to take the trash out to the dump. We've been working on teaching them not to run out in front of vehicles, but so far it's only associated with my Grand Prix, and I was using our new (to us) pickup. So both dogs were running to where I couldn't see them as I was backing out, and so after unsuccessfully trying to distract them with food and then inviting them to come with me, I decided to just shut them in the house. Well, since Diogenes knew I didn't want to let him out but I neglected to command him to "Stay," he bolted as I left. When I finally cornered him, I was harsh with him, even though the things I was upset with him about were the things I haven't put enough time in to teach him completely yet. He's very good about staying when I tell him to stay, so I should have remembered to tell him instead of assuming he would. And he hasn't had enough time to learn yet that NO car should be crossed paths with. But I was caught up too much in the task at hand to be patient enough to take a teaching opportunity. Terribly ironic for someone whose ministry is supposed to be teaching.

That made me very thankful that the Lord is "compassionate and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness." He knows where we're at, when we know better and when we're still learning, and knows He will get His purposes done in spite of our weaknesses, and so is always patient enough to teach us.

Maybe that's part of why, even as we've seen the real urgency for our ministry increase in the last few years, seen Satan build up ways to trap people's minds, God has concurrently given me this sense of--hard to describe--helplessness? A realization that this task of growing transformational education in Africa is far too big for me or our small team to accomplish, that it will have to be His mighty work through our simple obedience. If I fell for the "have-to-get-it-done" drive I tend towards, I would probably lose patience with people and miss the real point of ministry, which is to grow us all into Christlikeness.

Lord, forgive me and change me. And thank You for my colleagues who exemplified that patient teaching for me.

Full speed ahead!

This summer I composed a start to the requested primary curriculum, and sent it out to await feedback. The other main projects of my department were networking and programming, but my job was just keeping tabs on it and giving feedback as Anthony and George worked. It was an incredible relief since I was so preoccupied with the wedding, and moving, and all the house disasters such as those described in my previous post, I couldn't have kept up with more work and my sanity.

As I already mentioned, though, my responsibilities are increasing, as I am needing to fill the role now of communications manager and treasurer. And I've found learning treasury work to be rather tiresome; the steps are not very intuitive, so every task seems harder than it should be. I'm definitely wishing for a real accountant to volunteer to take that over! Please pray in the meantime that I serve our team well and learn what I'm supposed to in this process.

On a brighter note, Anthony returned from a very successful trip to Tanzania. Ray's work skyping with them to explain our model worked so well that for once Anthony trained a group in ten days and knew they weren't overwhelmed; they already understood what about our education makes it different and successful. By God's grace, they hope to start their classes by the end of the month. Anthony also reported that they were very interested in the primary school programming material I was developing--that would be something that nobody else around offers, that could put their school forward as one that really knows what it is doing. Which means I need to make adjustments for it to be self-contained, rather than integrated into a regular primary school, and publish it hopefully within the week.

We were already a small team, weak in many ways, but strong in trust, caring, and experience. Now we're being cut back further, and the people we lost were incredible. But we have no sense from the Lord that we're supposed to pull back. We have faithful partners in Nigeria, a school starting in Tanzania, people asking in Zambia and Tanzania, and we can still serve them. Anthony's leading is still, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," and my reply is still, "Aye sir." Perhaps all we can give them is a start; these eager administrators and teachers will have to carry the transformation on throughout the continent, and they can do it. That's why we've been working all along. God's people in Africa have done wonderful things with education, turning old donated equipment in a little office space into a school that was teaching people better than anywhere and leading them to Christ. And they can do it so much more, if God be with us.

Problems as a hopeful preview.

Leaky roof.

Handles, screens, and glass missing from storm doors.

Broken window panes, with frames that don't cooperate in the replacement process.

Running toilet that led to the bathroom flooding.

Lots and lots of dirt.

Rodents in the kitchen and dining room.

Coyotes.

Flat tire.

Headlights out.

Flu.

These are a few things Kenneth and I been dealing with this first month of marriage. Has it stressed me out? Some, yes. But then I remember, this would be quite par for the course if we were moving to the field, with culture shock on top of it! That actually gives me hope, that maybe this is preparation for one day when we'll call Africa home. We still have no idea how it will work out--we have the willingness, but the way is still a mystery. It always is.

In the meantime, I am so very thankful, amid all the things to fix and do, to have a spacious place to live, the privilege of continuing to work for TEN3, and for a truly wonderful husband to share all this craziness with. And yes, he has been babying me this whole time I've been sick.

What if there is no "plan"?

It's a favorite phrase among American Christians that God has a plan. But I've been thinking lately that's a bit of a misnomer. I like to plan. I like to figure out how to best maximize my time and resources to accomplish my priorities. I really like to plan because I want to be purposeful with my short time on earth. That's why we like to say that God has a plan, too--we believe He has a good purpose for the things that happen, one beyond our understanding. And surely that is important to believe.

But a conversation with a new friend the other day made me think, "You know, if God really does have a plan, why doesn't He make it more clear, at least our part of it?" I struggled for a long time deciding where to go to college because I wanted to follow God's plan and didn't know what it was. Even as I approached college graduation and was pursuing the mission field, I struggled because, again, I felt I should go into missions, but what was God's plan? And then even reflecting on my life, moving over a dozen times growing up, and TEN3's struggles as we pursue inlets in certain communities only to see them fizzle, my thought became something like, "If this is the plan, it's the most convoluted plan I've ever heard of."

Which has gotten me thinking that to say God has a "plan" isn't quite accurate. Plans are for efficiency, for accomplishing particular goals on a particular timeline in a particular way. Plans require contingencies. If God just had a plan, what hope would we have, since we'd inevitably mess it up?

I can't think of any Bible verse that says God has a plan*. It does, however, have a great deal to say about how He is at work in everything--waters, winds, and earth, plants, animals, and people (Ps. 104), all that happens (Is. 44:7), lies and schemes and politics and settlements (Is. 44:24-28), wars and weather, light and darkness (Is. 45), death and life, rising and falling (1 Sam 2:1-10). And the purpose that we see, expressed over and over in Scripture, is that all people "may know that I am the LORD." We also see throughout the Bible that we can accomplish this in either of two ways: by being His faithful servants, shining out His glory for people to see, or by being disobedient and displaying for the world that sin brings death and destruction, showing by example that life in Him is better.

That's why I think now that God doesn't have a "plan" for our lives in the sense of having a clean system of accomplishing specialized goals for us. Rather, He has a purpose, to be known. And He is sometimes known best in the convoluted mess, in our failures and struggles and frustrations, in the messy business that is life and death. In all those things, He will accomplish that purpose through us, whether we cooperate and join in the glory and love He fills the earth with, or refuse and show the world how horrible sin is.

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Update: I later remembered that the oft-quoted Jer. 23:19 does say God has plans for His people. But the passage as a whole (which I really wish people would study; it's become my pet peeve when this verse is quoted out of context) still supports my overall point: God works His purposes in all that happens, which will work unto life or death for us, depending on how we respond to Him.

Cut back, but pressing forward

"Why God? Why?"

Sound familiar? Probably, though it may sound surprising from me, since I'm usually so bubbly about what I get to do. But the fact is, TEN3 faces quite a share of setbacks and disappointments that don't make sense to us.

We've always been setting up TEN3 to grow. We've had dreams of becoming one of the biggest publishing houses in the world, of consulting and certifying hundreds of schools, training and certifying teachers in all those schools. After all, we're wanting to serve needs prevalent throughout the world's second-most populous continent! We have to grow, right?

Yet we lose vital people. Matt Sabo, who did such an amazing job with our communications, could only serve a year or two before returning to a job at a for-profit company. The same happened to E, who was our communications manager a few years ago.

And now Joe, one of our longest-serving and most-gifted members who has been our CEO, is likewise having to step down from most of his TEN3 responsibilities and look for outside work. Just when the centers in Nigeria are getting started, just when Tanzania and Zambia are starting the consulting process, we have to lose someone that important? Why, God?

The LORD said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained. And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.”

Judges 7:2-4

Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever make it, if all the thought, discussion, writing, travelling, and workshops we've been doing will finally come together into a sustaining and growing system that serves students as we've envisioned for so long. We just never seem to have enough people and resources for the task. But if we did, would we really relate to our brothers and sisters we serve who live in constant difficulty and lack? And would the Lord really get the glory for what He did through us?

Please pray for us as we make adjustments so that we can continue to move forward:

• For Christie Dasaro and Isaac Tanam as they oversee schools, including three startup centers, in Nigeria amid all their struggles.
• For an official treasurer for TEN3, and for grace for me to learn what's needed to serve as Acting Treasurer until we get that person.
• For Joe to get the right job to provide for his family.
• For Anthony as he now must take up CEO responsibilities in addition to his full-time job as a network administrator and his recording his work to make curriculum for us.
• For us all to be attentive to the Lord and abiding in Him, that we may do His will and He get the glory.

Wanting what we need

Perhaps one of the biggest struggles in long-term ministry is the conflict between what people want and what they need. It's a conflict with more than one layer. For example, sometimes when missionaries prioritize what the people "need," they do it with a superiorist attitude that doesn't look at the people's needs from God's perspective, but from their own. Many mission fields have suffered from this mistake.

But in our case, we developed exactly what our African partners told us they need, what God had shown through His word, experience, and research is needed. All the Christian teachers and leaders who examine it have affirmed, "This is wonderful." Yet, as they try to implement it, they find it's not what students want. We've always known that as educators, we are offering a most curious commodity: so often, the more people pay for it and the less they get, the more pleased they are. In other words, they want the prestige and power that comes with education, but they don't actually want to take the time and effort to learn. If you know a teacher, you've probably heard how true that is. We don't want what's really best, we want what gratifies us quickly.

That's the most recent struggle our partners in Nigeria face: students become impatient and drop out because they don't want to take the time to learn the computer well; they want a few quick courses that will certify them for a tech job, even if they won't really understand it, much less be able to do it well.

That frustrated me when I heard Christie's discouragement--we've put so much effort into making the CTO the very best education, and she put so much effort into making it available, and people don't want it. But then I thought, "How much more grief does God feel, that He sent His Son to die for our salvation, and so many people don't want it!" And yet God did it knowing how many wouldn't want Him. He keeps sending the offer, rejoicing over those who do receive Him. We hope for that joy too, encouraged because even the impatient students love our Bible course that draws them into the message of redemption.

Therefore, my prayer, in which I ask you to join me, is for God to work in the hearts of people all over the world to desire Him. I pray that it start with me, that He reveal and change those ways in which I desire the quick relief rather than His patient and faithful work, however difficult I may find it. I pray also that He connect us with the people whose hearts He is already working in to desire to learn to be wise and discerning servants of God as they use technology.