Legalism, Carnaval, Freedom

Navigating our way through the media age is not easy as Christians, as the Church and especially as parents. It has been interesting for me to realize I grew up towards the end of a strongly legalistic era for the church. Christians didn’t go to dances, didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t listen to secular music…. We had a fair sized list of don’ts.

I am happy to have seen that mentality largely die in the Church in the states. Christ himself said he didn’t come to condemn for we already are condemned. He offers us freedom from sin and as the Pharisees created a mountain of law to try and fulfill the law all the legalism the church can invent doesn’t free hearts from sin. Those who love the dark love the dark, if your heart loves sin avoiding certain actions does not make it clean.

At the same time I have seen many Christians lives and marriages destroyed by this freedom in recent years. Melissa and I passed through a difficult season to say the least, neared divorce and abuse of freedom certainly didn’t make it easier.

Now we have moved to Brazil, a country steeped in legalism within the church. People go to church, love God but have no freedom to live for Him do to that weight I remember from growing up. It almost becomes a competition to see who is the best Christian. That is the problem with legalism. Instead of rising up to love the broken partying their lives away during carnaval they run to retreats, almost hiding from the world. The reality is legalism hasn’t cured the heart, people to me seem to be jealous of the world, almost afraid if they don’t have a retreat all the young people will realize how much more fun the world is and leave the church. I understand this is one of the few holidays everyone has off, there is a legitimate side of wanting to do a retreat because everyone is available. the legalism comes in the reaction to the suggestion of going and doing evangelism instead “oh it is evil, it is impossible, Christians can’t go to the parade to the events”.

The light should shine more brightly in the midst of the dark, we should have no fear of evangelizing in the midst of the worst of sin. This doesn’t mean if we have a weakness for sex and drunkenness we go alone to a party in the name of evangelism. Wisdom must reign. However if we believe Jesus has set us free we should believe that hope will cry out to others. If we believe sin is death the people partying should be discovering they are unsatisfied.

At the same time as watching Carnaval I am watching the sickness of celebrating everything evil in both Carnaval and the Grammys. The world does love evil. It is more evident all the time. Celebrities like Rihana and Keysha are so openly demonic, loving evil. We cannot cry freedom and ignore our youth running after their influence.

How do we find balance in the midst of this? I think we must examine what true freedom is. The reality is that sin kills, kills relationships, kills families, kills marriages. Crying freedom and denying ourselves nothing hurts us. It isn’t about God rejecting us if we have shortcomings, I am beyond full of shortcomings. We must love holiness but also love freedom. We must realize Christ didn’t offer us just freedom from but freedom too. Freedom too be what he has created us to be. Ambassadors of restoration with God.

As a church in the states we must hold on to the freedom we have found, to grace, to the rejection of the idea that having a beer means you aren’t a Christian. That dancing with a girlfriend/boyfriend or a spouse isn’t worshiping that person over Christ. That music has to be spiritual or can’t be listened to. This drives people away, the world is more fun than that. If that is what it means to be a church going Christian I will happily be Christian that doesn’t go to church.

At the same time we must realize that loving the world, running so deep into freedom that we never say sin is sin prevents us from true freedom. I can not get drunk, party with my wife, watch increasingly pornographic movies or go to clubs listening to pornographic openly demonic music. Watch people dance provocatively, perhaps join in and expect life. Death will come. Relationship with my wife, my God will be broken, may still go to heaven that is God’s decision, but broken in a way that prevents life. Life is knowing the pleasure of God working in and through you. Life is the pleasure of living each day with a greater purpose, part of a kingdom.

We are adopted sons and daughters of the living God. Princes and princesses in a holy kingdom. We must wake up and reject what needs rejected first and foremost in our own lives and homes. Also though in our churches, not through beating people with the law but through encouraging them to experience freedom. The freedom to truly love our spouses, to truly love others. Lord wake us up, not to go back to death but to go forward. To dream of what a pure clean church can accomplish. Not preoccupied with small meaningless actions but obsessed with loving others. Caring for the poor, restoring marriages, listening to the hurting, praying for each other, taking care of the elderly, cutting their grass….. Living selflessly, without thought of our own needs, walking in the steps of our savior who was satisfied by pleasing the father, that took breaks to be with the father, to know Him resulting in a life spent serving.

Legalism results in a weak inept Christian, an untrustworthy bride that needs watched constantly

Sloppy grace results in a dirty, ugly Christian, a bride who is no different from the world, hopeless.

True freedom results in an active Christian pursuing knowing God, a beautiful bride preparing ourselves for Christ. Working to see others come to him.

Is our faith simply going to church on Sunday or have we been given freedom to change the world?

Fruit

One of my (Ben) and our biggest passions is to see fruit, not just the fruit of our lives, people coming to our ministries but the deeper fruit of them changing and becoming producers of fruit themselves. Working in prisons, poverty inflicted neighborhoods and similar places this is not always an easy task. So many of the lives we interact with are so burdened with basic needs it is hard for them to think of more than what is in front of them. How can you ask someone who makes less in a year than I have spent in the last three weeks, on normal life things for us, to concentrate more on others than themselves.

Yet that is what we are seeing. Aluiso a 26 year old from the church and Rosalie his 22 year old wife have become a tremendous asset in our(you and us) soccer ministry that I don’t know what we would do without them. The reality is they live monthly on less then my rent, about what I spend on our lunch service, less then the kids tuition payment will be, less then I spend on gasoline, probably about what we spend on relaxing. Yet Aluiso is passionate to help, to see kids in his neighborhood have an opportunity to escape a life of drinking, doing drugs and making more babies you can’t take care of.

Alusio and his boy

They showed us their humble one room house with pride. They constructed it one day with help from the church and are excited to have us over for dinner. They aren’t afraid of having been to our 3 bedroom home, they want to return the favor. They are excitedly hoping to come up with a couple thousand dollars to build a bedroom, they are expecting their second child.

This is the beauty of missions, at the same time as we are evangelizing lost kids we can invest in a young believing family. Their start wasn’t perfect and their understanding of God is very tied into church. How joyous it is to be able to poor into them, encourage them to personalize their relationship with the Father. To offer someone who is here a part of the neighborhood, the city more understanding and more tools to pour back into his neighbors.

All ministry is full of direct impact and byproduct. We are directly targeting kids on our streets our byproduct is often more important. Who is watching, who is joining, who is growing by proxy. The reality is many of these kids, though 5 or 6 snuck up a hand to say they wanted to follow Jesus last night, will simply go on to live the same hard life their parents live. Through byproduct we get the privilege of investing in people who are long term residents and disciples of Jesus. Through byproduct we get to strengthen the existing church, help it focus outward, change perspectives. This will have far more impact on these kids then we could ever personally have.

This is an exciting time for us. God is beginning to open many doors, shut a few others. The kids are getting into a private school, need prayer for testing but are committed to the course. Things in our neighborhood are opening but that limits our ability to be on the river or in Bolivia. These three areas are still the three areas we are passionate but at the moment the prominent one is our neighborhood. Pray for our ability to disciple those around us. From our continued work with TT, Kaela and their family to Aluiso and others from the local body. Pray the kids who gave their hearts to Jesus have that little spark of the Holy Spirit kindle a great flame in their hearts. Thank you so much for your partnership.

		Soccer VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

God bless and keep you,

 

Ben and family

What is different?

After Adam and Bethany left I found myself processing what we had downloaded on them. Stresses, fears, feelings of inadequacy and failure. God is doing a work here, in us primarily. We are weekly in Bolivia, disciple neighbors here in Brazil, starting a bible study in our home to work on reaching neighbors and a bit more. I, Ben, know God called us here, we like it here against all reason. We have no desire to leave, to quit, to fail but so many mornings I wake and just want to go back to the known. A job, a church where my kids have friends, one simple task. Make money, pay bills, do a little ministry, love my family, so on.

The thing that is different here is that we are in between. We have a church here we enjoy attending with friends. However because we are here as missionaries we can’t fully participate. We have other tasks in other worlds. When we are ministering in those other worlds we can’t fully relax and let our kids just have friends because we are often called to a “dangerous” world. Poverty so often has drugs, molestation and all other kinds of hurts mixed in.

Mixed with the fact that Corumba is almost 300 miles down a road to nowhere helps all this lead to a feeling of being on an island. Lost, lonely, unsure are all words I could use to describe my emotional state.

As process all this and how to move forward I find the Lord reminding me of many things. Primarily this is no different than I felt in business, working at our church, when I had a job, buying a house, in marriage, in being a father. The struggles I have with my own insufficiency is just the realization that I am man. I am week, sinful, fleshy man. Incapable on my own of good works. I am so desperately in need of the Holy Spirit I almost cannot breath without Him.

The thing I am being taught, I seem to never learn, is that the cross is truly my only hope. The one thing I can cling too, lean on, desire, strive for and fully succeed and be satisfied in is Jesus. Why, because it is the one thing I can be totally content and yet never have enough. If my hope is money I can desire more but cannot be satisfied, if my hope is a house it will never be complete or right, if it is family I will never be satisfied, I am far to inadequate as a husband and father.

When Jesus died on the cross the price was paid, my weak inadequate nature, that is unable to please God was paid for. My in ability to please God to live by law no longer maters. What I am haunted by is the realization that like Adam, not Haile, first Adam, I would be unable to resist the simple temptation of one fruit. I have the same weakness in me that my first ancestor possessed but that price is paid.

The joy, the amazing joy of the cross doesn’t stop there. Not only was the price paid but Christ rose. Death had no power over him. The power of the resurrection gives me hope that amidst the realization of the complete mess that I am, I can trade it for something new. Today, as I should all days, I wake up and desire to put on the new man. To live in the spirit and forget this weak flesh. I want to know Jesus, I want to know Him so intimately that I begin to become the reflection of Him that I both originally was created to be and was reborn into.

I was born into weakness and failure, I am painfully aware of that. I feel so little success in my life but the failures way heavy upon me. I am reborn into immortality, into eternal life, life now. I must choose to look past my flesh, to look solely on the cross, to let the Spirit of God take over and rewrite everything about me. This is no different now then 4 or 5 years ago. Being a missionary or a business man is no different. I am in desperate need of Jesus, desperate need of the Gospel, full of hope not because of me but because Jesus, only Jesus.

some updates on ministry

Hey all, I wanted to give some updates on some things God has been doing in our lives and the lives of those we are involved in.
   I am (Melissa) happy to say my friend Kayla and her family are doing good. God has been blessing them with their business of selling salgados. Everyday they bake and sale these door to door and at their kids school. They seem to be making enough money to buy food, diapers and clothing. They have been also hungry for fellowship with other Christians  and attend church with us on a regular basis. Our church here has welcomed them with open arms and continues to help them with their physical needs as well. Kayla and I have started again with our discipleship. Tuesday mornings we go the house of our friend Anna (she attends our church to) and breaks down the word for Kayla. It’s been so cool to see how God really does what he says “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Praise God for all he has been doing in their lives. Please continue to pray for them that they would be strengthened by God’s word and keep growing and trusting Him.
  Also on Tuesdays Ben and I have been going to Bolivia, He goes into the prison with Ricco and others to encourage the believers there and to share God’s love. I personally haven't been inside the prison, I have been at the gates though and sometimes can’t believe that there are children living there. Our pastor Altair went yesterday and explained in detail what the inside looked like to me and Luryan. He was shocked to find out 26 men sleep in one room with only two fans. it might not sound that bad but if you felt the heat here you’d realize how bad that is. The men there have heat rash and also I have seen it on the girls. Not to mention mosquito bites and disease from such a cramped environment. I’m not trying to paint a horrible picture that you would feel bad but that you would pray.
  I have been reading a lot about the structure there in Bolivia. The government really tries to keep the families together even if one ends up in prison. They believe that it is better for the children to stay bonded with their parents than to live on the streets or with other family members that can’t even afford to feed them. I get that I even agree to but not all prisons in Bolivia are a picture perfect situation for kids to be growing up in. Now do I want them living on the streets..No.. do I want them living with relatives that don’t love or care for them..No. I do know that there has to be be another option for these children. Ricco and his wife are praying and trusting that the Lord will provide a way for these kids in Puerto Suarez to have a safe and loving environment to grow up in. Please continue to pray for them and that the doors will open fully for this to happen.
   When Ben goes to the prison me and some girls from the church pick up the little girls that live in the prison and bring them to the missionary base. Where we invite other neighborhood girls to a little bible school. Where we have stories, crafts, snacks and this week a puppet show. Please pray for us to show God’s love to the girls and also the moms that have been coming. Also for our Spanish..I speak zero..thank God for others that do.
    This last weekend we were able to go to Porto Esperanca. It seems like every time we plan to go something comes up. I get sick or Ben does or the car breaks down or something else happens but this weekend thank God we were good. Ben’s parents went with us, His father shared in the church on Saturday night and Ben translated for him. The message he shared really impacted me and the leader of the church there. There is a huge need for discipleship there. A one on one, life on life kind of discipleship. Our church here plans on going on the 10th of November to do some remolding and fixing some problems with the church building. Then again on the 24th of November for the anniversary of the church. Ben and I plan on going again along with Adam and Bethany who will be here on the 15th of November.:) YEAH!!!!! Again please pray that God would use us and our church here to really disciple the believers there and that the church there would grow.  
    As for myself and my family we are doing well. God has personally been challenging me to trust Him, to have faith in Him and to seek Him whole heartedly. I just finished reading the autobiography of George Muller and have been really challenged in these things. God wants to bless his children and wants to use us for His purposes. Am I willing to wake up early everyday to seek Him? Am I willing to give with no thought of return? Am I willing go outside of my comfort zone and touch the brokenhearted? Do I believe God can actually do the things He says He will do in His word?  I hope so..I’m praying and will have faith that He will accomplish what he wants to through me. It might take my whole life.

Bolivia, P.E VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

What will we sacrifice?

Today I find myself asking what am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. For the sake not only of the gospel but to go to those who seem to have no value. We find ourselves at the end of a lonely highway in the middle of nowhere. Spending time with neighbors, going to a prison in a nowhere frontier town, in slums, a tribal village.

If I get real honest when I look at most of these people they are never going to matter much, not in the way we think of as a society. They are very unlikely to change, to get educated, to tithe, to send their kids to college. Maybe a few in our neighborhood as society is making more room for that here, but the tribal kids I was with today? 2012 they are living in mud huts, sitting there chewing coke leaves, drinking terere without much ambition or teeth. Thank you Ricco for passing it to me.

Worse yet are some of the prisoners. Not only are they unlikely to contribute to society they are a drain. Two new guys today were in a dirty, disgusting little processing cell. They asked us to pray for them. Ricco asked why they were there, the one we could understand said he beat up his woman for trying to leave him. Great, a #@#$$#@ and I was praying for him.

We have other connections too, some of which seem more important, or at least easier to stomach. Still Corumba is the end of the world and not likely to amount to much. Even if I became a great missionary to the wealthiest people here no one who didn’t already know me would be likely to hear of me.

It could be easy to convince myself to go back to the US, to minister in my own culture. Shoot I could work at McDonalds, be far more comfortable, lead a bible study, do outreach with our church and it would be just as valid and important of ministry. There is no great high calling in being here.

I could really get ambitious and go pastor a church somewhere in the US making a fair living, be in easier circumstances and be used by God just as much as here.

What is it that makes us stay? Even more to be excited to stay? What is it that makes the price seem so small to love the people who don’t deserve it?

Today I really believe it is because I get to taste, touch and sense what God’s heart for me might be. You see I don’t really feel that way about the people I describe above. It is doubtless how I would feel without God’s love though. Equally as doubtless that in truth I am far more worthless then them to God.

Ricco preached today at the prison and I just enjoyed listening. He shared how Jesus called Lazarus from the dead but spiritually speaking we are all dead without Christ. Amen.

In Christ I am no longer the dirty prisoner that makes me uncomfortable to talk to. I am a loved child of him that can take joy in sharing that love with others. Sharing that love with those that don’t deserve it, all of us.

What an amazing Lord we have, if he can place value in those beautifully dirty tribal people there may be a little hope for me.

Home again Home again

Stateside VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We are back in Corumba after 2 months abroad in the States. First we had a great time with my family in Kansas City. We went to Colorado, we went swimming, we ate a lot of American food and  I was even able to see my brother become senior pastor of his church after many long years of being on staff there.( God's timing always amazes me.) His church which is called Cross Points was the church where I (Melissa) received Jesus as my Savior. My parents attended this church when they were married. I went on my first outreach to Mexico with this church. It has a lot of Memories for me.So I was excited when my brother asked the Missions board to interview us as a new missionary family.
  After that we headed to Oregon where we stayed with Ben's parents (who are moving to Brazil in October to help be the pastor to the pastors in the Calavary Chapel churches of Brazil ) We had a wonderful time with our church Willamette Community, we had the privilege of sharing one Sunday morning and a Thursday night. We also got to meet a lot of new people there and made many new friends. We got to go to the coast, to a friends cabin, Ben even got to go tuna fishing and we went camping. We did many fun and relaxing things there. We also helped his parents with a garage sale and moving out of their house so they can rent it. On our way home we ended up in Miami for a few day to recoup. Other than losing a computer and someone taking 300 dollars from us we had a great time. Miami is a very interesting city where very few speak English and you have endless options of  authentic ethnic foods. The beaches are beautiful and the people are very friendly. It was a great time before we headed home.
  We left Miami for Santa Cruz, we had ten bags of luggage and some carry on bags plus four kids and a stroller. We were diffidently a sight. Thank God we had help in Bolivia. We meet an American missionary there who is fluent in Spanish. He picked us up at the airport and drove us to New tribes Missions base were we stayed the night for super cheap. What a God send he was, we had lunch with his family at Burger king and meet the rest of his family. They have been in Bolivia for 12 years now and he is the pastor of a church there. The next day we headed home by train to a border city in Bolivia called Puerto Suarez. It took 12 hours over night. It felt good to be in South America again. When we arrived Riccardo picked us up and his wife had Cafe da manha ready for us. What a blessing. Upon arriving in Corumba we noticed that everything was dead and brown. The beauty of this place was gone. With out rain for 2 months it had caused fires and drought. The streets are really dusty and Ben's Asthma started up and temperatures have been around 100 to 103 all week. Pray it rains not only for the regrowth of plants and trees but for Ben's asthma as well. Our house too was covered in dirt even the inside was covered in dust. We spent the whole next 2 days cleaning dirt off everything and we had an infestation of cockroaches in our house. I mean hundreds of these nasty guys everywhere. If you know me you know I hate them more than anything. I've had them crawl on me in the night and in the shower I just despise them more than anything. Anyways we think we have the problem fixed cause we keep finding their dead corpses everywhere.
  Other than the mess and bugs it was good to be home, I got to drink terere with my neighbors, play with the kids by some salgados and talk with my friend Kayla and her brother Wallace and her mother. Even had a barb-b-Que in Bolivia with our friends Rico and Larissa. They got us up to speed with the work they are doing there.
The kids started school again, with the missing computer Daniel has had to wait till the girls are done to start, but don't worry I've put him to good use :) So things around here are getting back to normal for the most part. You could be in prayer over the following
  1. Our house situation, do we stay and keep renting or look some where else.
   2. We are moving the tags on our Kombi  from Foz to Corumba, So pray for easy transition as you have to have the car in good working order for them to approve.
    3. The kids school, they would finish the year well and that I would have patience.
   4. Our family to be united together in ministry as well as spiritually.
  God bless you all and I look forward to life and ministry here in the Pantanal and keeping you updated on all the stuff the Lord does. Melissa