What’s Important

Over the last 6 months we have had some of our most successful, fruitful ministry. We also have seen some of our biggest disappointments. So many times I am amazed how much ministry and missions reflects what it was like to own a small business. You couldn’t make any money without taking some risk. You can’t touch any lives without the same.

Relationships aren’t easy, they take time and work. Our relationships are what we are investing in. When we do soccer for the kids it isn’t to run a big soccer program, the goal isn’t to see that succeed though that would be nice. The goal is simply to build relationship with the kids, with people.

I have seen this so clearly demonstrated the last couple of weeks. We needed a break from the soccer ministry after about 5 months. We took a little trip to Rio to visit the beach and scout out what could be a future opportunity, future not today. Some how we returned from vacation missing the beach and with one more dog. Missionary friends of ours will be moving to an area they won’t be able to have a dog so we are in the process of welcoming Fritz to the family, a miniature Schnauzer.  By the way this was 5,000 kilometers in a VW bus.

Having a dog that has to be walked not just turned outside is new. As Melissa walks him every night we have gotten to see just how much relationship was built through soccer. Several of the boys follow her up and down the street walking the dog with her. So much more ministry happens in these moments than we can know. It isn’t the 10 minute lesson, though I believe God’s word never returns void, that impacts a life. It is the time spent just loving.

It is the boys coming to our gate to get their balls filled with air. It is TT and Kaela desiring to go to church, to visit, giving us bread instead of just selling it. It is seeing people want to know you, want to be near you. The moments we get to be like Jesus and demonstrate the Father are rarely the moments we are up front preaching.

Sometimes though they are. The day after we got home I was able to run the boys from the orphanage up on top of the hill with the Jesus statue overlooking the Pant anal. Every time I get to the orphanage they still talk about what I shared from them out of Corinthians about being the body of Christ. How they are called by God to be family, being built to be a unit not just kids living together because they have no place else to go. It was one of those moments God gives you something very specific and powerful. They needed to know and hear that God is constructing a home and family unit for them.

At the same time I am heart broken. A large part of the reason I attacked the baseball field project was Aluizio. A young Brazilian helping us train the kids telling us it has been his dream to do a soccer ministry in the neighborhood. For us a ball and an indoor court to play with the kids and share was enough. We joined, attacked the field, began communicating with the Baptist Association to look at a bigger long term program. We were looking at getting him in a seminary program.

Suddenly he begins to back off. More suddenly he stops. I paid him out to bless him and his family with a new baby. Heartbroken wondering what I could have done better to bring him along. I could see the roots were spiritual, attack, stress and marriage.

Sadly his wife came to clean yesterday. They are under a lot of pressure. He has left town to work in another city. She doesn’t want to live there and is thinking of leaving with her parents to live in Rio. Their marriage with two kids under 3 is on the brink. Honestly I am a little crushed.

At the same time I had the joy of seeing my dad visit the prison again last week. Seeing the joy on the faces of the prisoners knowing they are loved. Especially Martin who my dad connected with last year. I have the joy to go there almost weekly and preach one or two times a month. Sharing that with Ricardo, or more him sharing with me. It is a pleasure to see relationship thrive.

In the end, a bit heartbroken at the pain in the lives of Aluizio’s family. Unsure of where to go with the soccer ministry. Unsure if I am good at anything. Beat up by the enemy I can wake up and think about all I see and realize we have success. Simply because in the middle of a hard city a hard neighborhood we have been able to crack into peoples lives in a deep way and begin to implant the seeds of the gospel in their lives. The seeds of hope that Christ can bring life into their lives now. People here make very little, struggle, live in shacks but the hope they have is that Christ loves them and wants to satisfy the purpose to which they were created. Relationship with God and others.

Let it Simmer

Often I am sure it seems to some I mostly write about challenges, that is probably true. However that isn’t because life here is so hard and challenging, or that we aren’t doing well. It is more because it is in the midst of the challenges that we learn most. That is often what I focus on because I like learning and growing. We have been doing a lot of that lately.

I want to first say though, we have had 4 or 5 months of great ministry with our soccer school. We are arriving in winter hours and going to have to slow down a season but we have had around 100 kids participate, listen to a bit of God’s word, begin to obey and even a few begin visiting the church. One very nice girl who is about 13 and has never been to church before.

At the same time our experiment to support Aluizio in order for him to be free to help has been much more of a learning experience. We are having to end that, slowing down the idea we had of investing more time and energy, perhaps a bit of money in the baseball soccer field. It had began to feel like I was expected to shell out money but that there didn’t seem to be a need to produce. It wasn’t all bad, there was a season he did a small tournament when we were out of town, he made some efforts to move the project forward, was great help cleaning the field but it felt it was changing, there was an expectation or a sentiment that we owed something instead of appreciation.

At the same time we had began to “cut off” or cut back investments we had made in TT and Kaela. Around Christmas we had began to get the same feelings, there was an expectation. Now, we live on others gifts, we understand that we too could suffer the same attitude. I am not good at remembering to write and  thank all of you. I hope people understand it isn’t a lack of gratefulness or expectation I simply feel I need to do good work and God will take care of us. That does not mean I am ungrateful. Anyways, as we felt the “you owe us” attitude growing I began to remove myself a bit from there lives, not out of anger but it limits our ability to disciple when money becomes an issue.

About the same time we began to feel that a bit with the soccer project, not just Aluizio others also, we began to see TT and Kaela seek us out. She had been mad, sent her sisters and kids down to tell us, acted childish, he is more mature and really never was as much an issue. She began to miss the relationship, to have her perspective change. Now we again have relationship with them on a regular basis but it is a much healthier point to disciple.

I like to cook and I make a pretty good chili. The thing with making chili is it takes time, a lot of time. If you really want a good chili it takes several days. If you compare this to a hamburger or hot dog it is a monumental difference. I like hamburgers and hot dogs but how much better are they with chili on top. With the chili you get all your vegetables and peppers, fry them in butter at a real high heat and season them. You get your beans sort them and put them in a mixture of water and tomato sauce to slow cook for many hours. Then you add the veggies and if you like meat in it you also cook the meat, season it and add it. After bringing all of it to a boil you let it simmer. After simmering for many hours you put it in the fridge for a few days then simmer again. That is when it gets good.

God has been speaking to me how much our ministry reflects making chili. We invest in individuals, projects and things. We want results, we want to eat the hamburger but God is often making chili. Just like with TT and Kaela our story with Aluizio isn’t done. Just because we are cutting soccer back to Saturday when we can doesn’t mean it is done. This fall for you, spring for us it is likely to be even better because of the simmer time. We simply don’t have lights, enough people and aren’t ready to get the thing functioning during the week without causing problems with the kids school, time to put it in the fridge.

At the same time I am seeing this in the people we are ministering too I am realizing this is largely what God is doing in us. Our role in the body of Christ is too bring new people into relationship with Him. We have always been better moving on the fringe of the church. What I mean is we function in our gifts better when we are investing them into people who aren’t yet a part of the body or are barely there. We become frustrated when we are focused in the church. Neither is bad, just where we are more comfortable ministering.

For a long time I have felt torn at how to be “outside” and “inside” the church at the same time. We minister to people on the street, neighbors, kids, people at the military club. Yesterday we got invited to join a group of about 10 military families every Sunday who bbq together because they don’t have family here. None of them go to church, know God or really have much knowledge of what a Christian is. It is a great opportunity to let our family both get refreshed and minster at the same time. We are beginning to sense the way to cure the problem of where we fit in the church may be to plant a “church” of new believers.

To get involved in the lives of a group of people who don’t know Jesus and take the church to them. The book Radical by David Platt was very influential on me. I was going yes, finally, on every page. For a long time I haven’t wanted to build body around what I am doing, what I like, what I feel called to do. To attempt something that is a bit different. We like helping people, helping them meet there own needs, food, income and so on. We like sports, playing, watching, we like eating and bbq’s. I don’t like going to church quite honestly.

We are not in a rush and not sure but why not plant a “church” that is about incorporating things of our normal life into the life of the body instead of having a building we try and get people to leave there normal life and go to. Why not take the church to the military club for example, get to know them, bbq with them, share with them and then eventually seek to teach and share a bit right there, have that be the church. Or start a community garden, sports project where people work and play together and that is the church? Is church not body? Is body not living together and meeting one another’s needs?

These things are just simmering or perhaps being chilled. Perhaps it will mean a step back from the frontiers to experiment in a city more ready for our ideas. It certainly would mean moving a bit away from these local churches who we and God love that we wouldn’t offend them, I would never want anyone to feel I am saying their church isn’t good enough. It is more of what Jesus taught about wine skins, you don’t want to loose either so you put old wine in old wine skins and new wine in new. It may also mean a step back to formalize my education, a bit of seminary. We just wont know until God begins to take it out of the fridge. We know today we focus on what is here, nothing is changing tomorrow except us.

What I do know is I am encouraged to tread on, to keep ministering, to attack what is before us knowing God is neither done with those I minister too or with me. He will be faithful to complete this chili.

Understanding Our Role

As I sit here we are rapidly approaching 3 years living in Brazil as full time missionaries and at about 4 years including the year spent preparing to leave the states. I am still young but realizing I am not as young as I approach 36 this June. After a lot of hard work the last month and a very busy fruitful few months of ministry it leaves me wondering just what have we learned?

We have learned to cope, to persevere, to have joy in difficulty, to survive on a little and also to manage occasional abundance. We are learning that it is okay to do things our way but that we must learn to respect those with a different style and strive to make each other better. This can be hard as so often in ministry ego plays such a large part.

Right now as sports ministry, primarily soccer has been so successful we are learning many more lessons. Thankfully most of them joyful but still there are a few painful. We have seen so many kids participate, so many willing to listen to the lessons. Their respect and obedience has grown. It is a joyful ministry. We have been out to farm country where we truly enjoy the people, played soccer with more quiet diminutive kids. We are getting to know Brazilians both youth and men from the local churches and are learning to work with them.

We “hired” Aluizio and are enjoying learning from this relationship. It isn’t always easy and I am unsure what my role should look like there. What is right to pay someone versus what is culturally accepted, how to disciple someone and yet have friendship. How to promote someone else in ministry without doing to much for them. So many lessons.

The more painful to learn is about our role as missionaries. Investing time and  money in the soccer project and the baseball field my desire was to demand more control of the direction. I wanted to build it my way and in my time, to use gifts I have to grow a program. This week as a meeting approached with the Baptist association God began to change my heart. We are passing by, we are not permanent members of this community. We were wanting to buy a little farm, set down roots, “own” the sports ministry so to speak. Have something that is “ours”. God is challenging me especially but our whole family with this is not ours, none of it is. Brazil is for Brazilians. My way, my ideas, our visions, our whatever must take a backseat to them. I may lead for a season or step in front for a time but must do it in a way that leaves something behind they can and will continue on.

This means that as I was prepared to go to a meeting and fight to keep control of what my sweat has done I wound up just handing over some of my ideas and letting go of my frustration with a pastor who though I know he has had this dream for a year or more it was just that a dream. Know one has made an effort to even cut the grass much less attract kids. My flesh wants to scream I cleaned the field, we have been doing the ministry how can you just step in front when it is easy. Spiritually I know I don’t matter but my flesh wants to do the ministry. This isn’t all bad, this is why we are here. Much more though we are here to inspire Brazilians to do things.

The reality is the way this is happening isn’t right. We may be left out or robbed of what we have done so to speak. There are no assurances. This may go fine, they may go in the front, we do the ministry and end up leaving Aluizio in a position to be a sports missionary. Or some one’s son or friend will suddenly be in charge and we will never have existed.

Does it matter? Yes, but not for us. It matters, it always matters how God’s people do things. If wrong is done here it matters for the leaders who are mismanaging or being inappropriate in how they minister. What matters for us is how we respond. The truth is right or wrong in how “they” act we are here to support them. If we work to see them have a sports ministry it may last a long time, if we run one for five years then just hand them the keys it will surely die.

The point of all this is to realize we are here to be behind Brazilians, to encourage and support them. To lead in attitude and discipleship. To do what is right with our lives. To do what isn’t being done but always to give way to the locals. I want to move forward from this however things go with a better perspective on how to build things that last, how to inspire locals, how to work with them. Not how to promote Americans as the solution. I don’t regret what we have done I regret that I didn’t sit and build more relationship with this pastor from the beginning, that I didn’t understand in December that I could have better engaged the association at that time. I have more gifts and ability to pioneer and run a self sustaining sports program but it is theirs to do not mine. I must come behind and partner in a more healthy way, the burden is on me.

		Paiolzinho VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

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.