I have a perfect illustration – now I need a sermon to go with it! As soon as our flight was in the air, the couple in front of us – who had already demonstrated their love quite obviously – leaned their seat back, robbing us of six precious inches. So I immediately am tempted to “I hate them” mode. I managed to avoid that obvious temptation. Well into the flight I was trying to get to my back pack, a task made much harder by the leaned back seat (do you feel my pain yet??) when I saw the iPhone under the seat. Clearly the lady had dropped it. So in full Jesus style “love your enemies” I determined to retrieve it for her. But how?? I reached with my foot and pushed it around the seat foot, but there was no way to reach it. I tried using my Kindle as a tool but no joy. Then I thought my foot might become “handish” and took off my shoe. No joy. Then I took off the other shoe and tried to manipulate it with the two opposed. I could get it, but couldn’t lift it. Finally I realized I might be able to get it into the pocket of my back pack. Success! I was able to pull the back pack up, retrieve the phone and restore it to the lady. She was delighted – and I still consider her a forgiven robber!

Amsterdam was a brief layover where we had to do a bit of sorting to get Sherry’s assistance worked out. Ended up being a very nice Dutchman who wanted to ensure everything. Sadly the plane ride to Budapest was over clouds so I didn’t get to see anything.

Big Regret!

We arrived in Budapest, retrived our bags and walked out of the airport – No Hungary stamp in our passports. Very sad! It is the outcome of coming here from within the EU.

First day of exploring

Terry Cokenour picked us up and showed us a bit of the town on the way to our flat. We unpacked and then Arpi and Andi Horváth picked us up and we took the bus across the Chain Bridge to the Halászbástya or Fisherman’s Bastion which Wikipedia tells me is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church.

Matthias Church is behind Sherry and Andi. Unfortunately I could not get far enough back to get all the church into the picture. The Falconer and his bird is a total tourist trap, Arpi said. For 5 Euros, you can have him on your arm, it seems.

This is the street we walk to get to the entrance to our flat. It’s a beautifully remodeled one bedroom with a kitchen Sherry immediately had to have transported back to Portland. Since the owner is a Finn, it is fitting that there is a sauna in the shower room. The bed is great for sleeping – but tired as we were we would have slept on bricks!

There were several lessons from our day. First is that Arpi and Andi are wonderful! Delighted to have them as new friends. Second, there is so much history in Budapest. It ranges from beautiful to completely tragic. For example, we were near the Shoes Memorial memorializes the place were many Jews were forced to remove anything valuable including shoes before they were shot, falling into the Danube. Third, the public transportation system is something to bring to every US central city. Fourth, Sherry will never again do the Undergroud here with its super long, super steep and especially super fast escalators.

Faith Baptist Church was the church I preached in last time I was here. My former student and friend, Rudolphe, was pastor. He was in remission from a most severe kind of cancer so he and Rana Gedeon took us to a most marvelous lunch in the Lebanese Mountains. Alas the cancer ended his life early. The church feels much different without him. The new thing there is an active ministry to many Syrian refugee families.

We saw several friends when we arrived and enjoyed the service, enhanced by Walid Zailaa‘s excellent simultaneous translation, my first time for such a marvel. I knew he was good because he had been my translator when I taught last time. We laughed at stories together and enjoyed that he and Rana are married since we last saw them. 

Rosette Mansour took us to lunch with our new friends. Lebanese food is even more excellent here in Beirut.

Sherry and I both are doing well in the time zone which is marvelous. 

The Summit is finished and most of the participants have left. Those going to Congo have a very dangerous journey home so when I saw their team gathered to begin their journey, I spent some time praying with them.

Sunday was at a local church founded by Jumah Patrick, the MTS Africa director and Pastor Cosmos, one of the miracle stories of the MTS program. He had been hurt badly in pastoral ministry, going back into a fully sinful life for many years and got AIDS as a consequence. But Jesus reached him through a gospel message. He joined an MTS trauma healing session. Today has found the wife he abandoned, restored their marriage and is now part of the pastoral team of a church largely made up of people with stories like his. We got to hear some after the four hour church service.

Monday and Tuesday we will be doing a trauma healing training with the staff at the National Rehabilitation Center, which translates into the facility where all juvenile offenders go. It is not a Christian organization, but they have begged MTS to help their staff.

Internet is spotty here and time is very limited. There are more updates here. When I get back to the USA, I will fix the non-functional links in the other posts.

Day 2 continued the pattern of gripping interactions with amazing people. Moses (in the yellow shirt) is a pastor from South Sudan. Because of the wars there, he has spent most of his life living in refugee camps – if you can call that living. At breakfast I asked him about his current situation. His home area is completely destroyed so he came to a camp in the Adjumani region of Uganda. They have lived nearly two years in a tent with a useful life of 6 months or so. Of course there are no more tents available so they do what they can to keep it together. He told me of his pre-teen life as he, his mother and brother were burned out of their home by soldiers, escaping into the bush with almost nothing. They would build hut under a tree, live there a few days, and then run again when the soldiers came. His mother would collect firewood to sell to by their only “meal” in the evening consisting of a small amount of grain. He and his brother would grind it with stones, cook and eat. His whole life has been in similar situations of extreme hardship. In the midst of all that he has a robust contagious faith.

Moses’ church used to meet under a tree, but more recently they have managed to scrape together canvas walls and a metal roof – a great blessing. There is also a school meeting there with a huge group of students, trying to learn so they can get out of the camps. It would seem hopeless but they find hope in Jesus and many are able to get education and move into one of the cities, where they send most of their money home for the family.

In the worship time we sang about stamping the Devil when he attacks (video here). It is Mama Iberia (my spelling) and the Congolese team leading so it is enthusiastic and full of movement. We went to Jesus loves me, Jesus loves you first in Swahili and then in English, which lost some of the enthusiasm in translation. (of course I put my camera away and joined in!).

But the song that brought a deep emotional response was when they were singing “Jesus has been so good to me – He has given me so much” The picture of Moses above was taken as he sang that song – man who is living in the extreme hardships of a camp. It is being sung by Mama Abia, who works astonishing healing with seriously mentally ill people in one of the worst war zones in the world. The robbers have broken into every house around theirs to steal and kill, but never her house or the clinic: Prayer Works! These are the ones singing the song with deep passion. It is led by Esther. She is the #1 student in her university class. Nine years ago her father gave them a Christmas “present” by abandoning the family, taking all their money to be the dowry for his new wife. Her mother worked constantly to get money to feed her and her twin brother. There was no money for school fees, so Esther sold her phone to start a business so her brother could go to school. Because she is such an outstanding student various people have helped her scrape up the $350 or so, a fortune here, to do a term at school. I could help but compare high schools in the US spending this much or more for a “promposal” where students will hire a mariachi band to invite a girl to the prom.

The Bishop from Rwanda told of the murder of his mother and brother in the genocide. He escaped by fleeing into hiding in the bush, running from spot to spot when it broke out. To this day he has no idea where his mother’s grave might be. By the gracious transformation of Jesus, he is now pastor of the people who murdered his mother. Who can do other than marvel at the power of Jesus.

These are some of the people I get to do the summit meeting with. They are the ones who do trauma healing in people living through this kind of traumatic life events. Amazing is not nearly adequate.

The travel from Portland to Entebbe was very long, made worse by my inability to sleep sitting on an airplane. But the layovers in Minneapolis and Amsterdam gave refreshing times to walk as well as get to know my team members. Arriving with all our bags gave us a feeling of great triumph! You know why I look a bit worn! My personal luggage would have fit easily into the red bag. The other three are all materials for the conference attenders.

We spent the first night at Banana Village, a delightfully rustic retreat center, south of Kampala. The highlight was watching the monkeys play. You can get a glimpse here. It was not as cute when they were chasing Steve and Celistia’s two year old granddaughter!

My moment of panic came when the adapter that connects my PC to the projector wouldn’t work which means much of what I was prepared to teach wouldn’t work. I tried everything I could, but no go. So I was in my room wiped out, needing sleep, and also needing to revise things. I did some and decided to sleep and do it more efficiently. Of course my head didn’t cooperate so I pondered until I finally got up about 3:00 and did some more revising. Then I set my alarm for 6 and slept soundly. I set up before our 7:00 am team prayer and everything worked (!!), but then it didn’t work right after breakfast. So I flexed and the teaching went very well.

I taught about four moods of Psalms starting with Psalm 3.

• Lament: A cry to the LORD out of distress grounded in trust for who He is.
• Praise: Proclaiming the worth of the LORD for who He is and what He does in both our adoration and in our service
• Imprecation: Angrily begging the LORD to punish evil doers for the sake of justice.
• Trust: Emotive celebration of the LORD’s goodness and faithfulness, believing He will act graciously

After I was finished, Celestia led them in a time of using the moods to express their own psalm. Then they shared them in their regional teams. I sat in on the small Uganda team and heard Emma lament the death of her parents – no one would tell her what happened to them. She grew up in loneliness without anyone to care for her.  Even though she was able to get her education and now can take care of herself the tears would not stop even as the praise went on. As we talked after the group broke up, she cried through the lament of needing the love of her parents or at least an explanation of what happened to them.

Jumah is the bishop over 32 churches in South Sudan. In the wars his area was destroyed so no one could live there. He told of men coming to the door, demanding money, and if there was none or not enough, the person would be killed. One day he was driving and saw what seemed to be a motorcycle accident. As he stopped to help, he realized that both men had been shot as they rode along. Had he continued without stopping the same would have happened to him. Now they live in the camps now with virtually no water or food and he supervises the churches there.

There is a conflict in the churches in his home area and they asked him to come help settle it. Someone spread the story that he was associated with the rebels, which is a death sentence. To go back would seem to be like committing suicide. He asked God for help. The people who started the rumor called him and asked him to come, saying it was all OK – which sounds like a set up to me. But he asked God and decided to go. He will leave the summit a day early to go. We pray the seeming change of mind will be true and he can help resolve the conflict rather than being executed.

The stories here are horrific, but their testimony of the reality and power of God is greater still. There are four more days to go.