Strength in weakness...

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There's a place in the Bible (1 Corinthians chapter 2) where the apostle Paul writes a letter to Christians in Corinth and mentions that, the first time he visited them, he was with them in weakness... but that the power of God was evident in that situation, anyway. I've often wondered whether Paul meant that he felt weak when it came to communicating God's truth to them, or whether he meant that he was ill and physically weak at the time.

I've felt physically weak during these first few days in Madagascar. Today I realised that my chest infection was getting worse rather than better, and I'm now on a second, stronger course of antibiotics. I can feel that I have bronchitis now, and although I'm still managing to teach my classes in the PCYM, I'm aware that my breathing isn't too good, and so I'm being careful to rest when we get home from class again.

Despite my weakness, though, I've been encouraged that the students are responding well to the teaching. One of my main goals this week is to equip these Malagasy youth workers to design and develop their own programmes that are custom made for ministry with their own groups of children or teenagers. Today we talked about how different kinds of programmes serve different purposes: some activities are for making contact with people and simply beginning to "sow seeds" of the gospel in their lives. Other programmes are more specifically designed to present Biblical truth and give people an opportunity to commit their lives to Christ. And yet another kind of programme serves a discipleship aim: helping people to grow stronger in their relationship with God and in their obedience to His Word. All three are needed, and a strong ministry or church will have some activities that are for "sowing," others that are for "reaping" and still others that are for "keeping" people going on strongly with God.

This morning, I had the students working in groups of three to analyse their own situations (whether rural villages or city suburbs) and to come up with possible "sowing, reaping and keeping" ministry expressions for their work with young people and families in each of those settings. They did a great job, and presented a variety of different ministry ideas that would work well in their own Madagascar contexts. I'm am so thankful to see God working through these teaching and application times, even though I myself have been feeling rather weak and inadequate this week.

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Meanwhile, back home again at the house where the King's Kids staff live, I'm taking some time to rest in bed this afternoon. (Whenever I lie down to rest, I can hear a noise just like a heavy snorer in a neighbouring room, and I find myself wondering who else is in bed at this time of the afternoon. Then I realise that it's the neighbour's pig, either snoring or snuffling away contentedly in their garden, which is back to back with ours. I can look out my bedroom window and see the little pink fellow enjoying a snack or a nap in their backyard.)

When I'm not lying listening to Pinkie enjoying his lunch or screaming indignantly at the chickens, I'm continuing to do steam inhalations with leaves from the eucalyptus tree, and to drink hot lemon with honey and cinnamon. (Yes, those little round things in the photo above are tiny Malagasy lemons.) While it's true that God shows His strength through and despite our weakness, I'm nonetheless continuing to pray and trust Him for increased healing and strength over the coming days. Thanks for standing with me in prayer, and please feel free to leave a comment here if you have any thoughts or impressions as you pray.

Snapshots of Madagascar

My second day in Madagascar was rather a long one, as I was teaching both morning and afternoon, and then we were invited out for dessert in the evening.

We sat in a "traffic jam" on our way to the PCYM this morning, with trucks and taxi-buses lined up on one side of the road, while the oncoming traffic continued to swerve from one side of the road to the other in their efforts to avoid the potholes that can be as much as six inches deep. As we're having rain and thunder storms every afternoon, these monster potholes are also filled with water in the mornings. And amidst the motor vehicles, there are always people pushing or pulling carts of firewood, rice or other goods. Madagascar is noticeably poorer since I was here six years ago, and it's especially noticeable in the condition of the roads. Even so, people still smile and give you a friendly wave as you drive by in the Land Rover.

We arrived at the YWAM centre just in time for the start of class, and I spent the rest of the day teaching about different aspects of programme development: how to set goals and create effective programmes that will be tailor made for your particular group of children or teens. We also looked at how all of our different programmes and activities can fit in some way into the overarching goal that Jesus gave us: to go into all the world and "make disciples."

I'm relieved that the teaching is going so well, because the truth is that I really don't feel well yet. I'm not coughing so much that it disrupts the teaching, but my throat and my chest still hurt in a bronchitisy sort  of way, and I feel quite weak on the whole. I'm continuing all kind of "remedies" - like picking eucalyptus leaves from the trees to inhale with, and continuing my regime of hot lemon and honey drinks. So far, I seem to be holding my own, but I'm not really seeing any improvement yet. Thanks for continuing to pray that I'll become totally well again.

Made it to Madagascar

Well, after seemingly endless delays and diversions, I finally made it to Madagascar yesterday afternoon, about seventeen hours later than originally scheduled. Unfortunately, my suitcase had not made it to Madagascar; they told me that it had been sitting in Paris for the past thirty hours! This meant that I had no clothes - other than the ones I'd been wearing during the two days of flights and sitting around in airports!!

Reni (a Swiss friend) came to the rescue, and lent me some of her clothes for my teaching in the PCYM. I'm pleased to report that my voice is almost back to normal, and I was sufficiently able to speak to the students this morning. It didn't matter too much that my voice was still a bit croaky, as half of the group were listening to the Malagasy translation, rather than to my English version, anyway. I've almost finished my antibiotics now, but my throat and chest are still quite sore. (They had seemed much better before I began my trip, but hanging around in cold, air conditioned departure halls for two days probably didn't help them much.) So I would still be really grateful for your prayers for complete healing.

We switched the schedule around a little, so that I'll teach tomorrow afternoon instead of this afternoon. This allows my throat just a bit more time to recover, and also allowed me (yeah, fanfare!) to go back to the airport this afternoon to recover my lost suitcase which had just arrived from Paris.

So now, both I and my suitcase have finally made it safely to Madagascar. Thanks for your prayers as I teach, and as Tahiry translates, over the coming days.

Stranded in Paris

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Well, thanks so much for your prayers. After a couple of pretty rough days, I was feeling noticeably better yesterday. The fever was gone and I was hardly coughing at all, even though my throat was still quite sore. When I woke today in the early morning darkness, though, and headed off to the airport at 4 am, I realised that I still felt very weak and was quickly out of breath. Concerned that I wouldn’t have the strength to manage my transfer in the vast Charles de Gaulle airport (just one hour to get from one terminal to another and go through security all over again), I asked if it would be possible for me to have assistance in Paris. They obligingly entered all my details in the computer and, because it was such a long distance to the departure gate in Malaga, they invited me to get into a wheelchair right there and then, and took me all the way to my departure gate at the other end of the airport.

I was there so bright and early, that I ended up sitting there at the gate for more than three hours: due to snow causing delays in Paris, our flight wasn’t allowed to leave Malaga until two hours after the scheduled departure time. That didn’t bode at all well for making my connecting flight to Madagascar.... although there was always the possibility that flights departing from Paris would also be delayed. At least I knew they’d pop me in a wheelchair and whisk me off to the appropriate departure gate; I already had my boarding pass for the second flight too.

Sure enough, we arrived in Paris around 11 am, a good half hour after the scheduled departure of my connecting flight, but one of the flight attendants phoned ahead and found out that it hadn’t left yet. There was still hope....... at least until the point where we realised that the wheelchair hadn’t shown up yet. “Don’t try to go on foot,” said one of the security people. “It’ll take you ages to wait for the bus and go all the way to Terminal 2E, and you don’t look very strong. I’ve phoned them and the wheelchair is on its way. Just wait here.”

Well, an hour and a half later I was still  “waiting here” in the empty arrival lounge where they’d left me, and it was all I could do not to dissolve into tears. (It didn’t help that my throat felt dry and scratchy from not having the constant flow of hot lemon drinks that had kept it soothed over the previous few days.) Eventually I managed to find and intercept another security person and, half an hour later, the wheelchair finally arrived. Of course, by this point, my flight to Madagascar had left more than an hour before.

Other people who missed their connecting flights were taken off to spend the night in a hotel, so that they could catch the same flight tomorrow. Well, Antananarivo is not exactly the most popular of destinations, and so that wasn’t an option for me; it seemed to take an unusually long time to work out a way of re-routing me so that I could still arrive in Madagascar this weekend. Finally, they managed to find me seats on a flight to the island of Mauritius, and then on an onward flight from there to Madagascar.  Only problem is that the Mauritius flight leaves Paris at almost midnight: the time I should actually be arriving in Madagascar. Instead, I’ll only arrive there at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

Perhaps I mightn’t have made the connecting flight, anyway. When the wheelchair assistant had taken me on the long-ish bus ride to the other terminal, waited with me while they tried to track and redirect my checked in suitcase, and then taken me through yet another security check, more than another hour had gone by. But I think they felt kind of guilty about how I’d been “abandoned” at arrivals, so when I raised the question of whether there would be a place to rest or something to eat during my twelve hour wait, someone went off and managed to come up with a “meal voucher” for me. Now that I’m finally at the right terminal, I can have a snack and a drink at the food court there.

What a nightmare! Maybe it would have seemed more of an adventure if I’d been feeling stronger; it might even have been tempting to leave the airport and spend a few hours visiting Paris in the snow. But the fact that I don’t have winter clothes on, and am feeling a bit under the weather (no pun intended) made me decide that a long wait at the departure gate would be the wisest option for me today. (I’ll need to try and drink as much as possible throughout the day, so that my throat doesn’t hurt too much.) I managed to send an email so that the PCYM people down in Madagascar will know not to go looking for me at the airport at midnight tonight.

Aah! Even as I’m writing this, I see that one of those lounger chairs in a rest area has become free. It has a view of the airport through a huge glass window, and as I watch the planes taxi-ing in the sunshine, the frost free runways give absolutely no indication that an overnight snow storm caused such disruption to flights this morning.

Anway, I should be in Madagascar about 24 hours from now. Despite this inauspicious start, I would nonetheless value your ongoing prayers that the rest of the trip will go smoothly, that my luggage will arrive safely, and that my throat/voice will be totally fine in time for me to begin teaching in the PCYM on Monday. I’m already feeling a lot better than I was on Wednesday and Thursday, and it can only get better from here! Thanks again!

Praying for a quick recovery

I can't believe it! Just when I need to be fit and strong for a long journey on Saturday (3 hours to Paris, followed by 13 hours to Madagascar), I've come down with a respiratory infection that's making me feel pretty awful. It started yesterday with a very sore throat, and this morning, when I woke up with no voice, I realised that it had got a lot worse. Turns out it's tracheitis and, as well as doctoring myself with all kinds of hot lemon drinks, I'm currently on antibiotics and hoping that they'll shift the infection in time for my trip. I'd be grateful for your prayers that I'll recover quickly, so that I'm not feeling weak and ill when I have to travel at the weekend; also that my voice will get back to normal and be strong enough for two weeks of teaching every day in the child and youth ministry training school in Antananarivo. Thanks for your prayers!

Precious and protected; trustworthy in transition

Do you keep a journal? If so, I can imagine that there are days when you write only a few lines, and other days when you fill page after page. At least, that's how it is for me. Yesterday, for example, was one of those "mega entry" days. I was reading the Old Testament book of Haggai, a tiny prophetic book of only two chapters, so you may wonder how I managed to sit for hours and fill sixteen pages in my journal. It just seemed that there were so many insights in these chapters: about priorities, about transitions, about God's promises and provision...

Perhaps "transitions" is one of the key words in that sentence. About six years ago, when I was going through the huge transition of leaving South Africa and moving back to Europe, I was filling a journal every four to six weeks - about ten notebooks in the course of the first year. (Normally my journal notebook lasts at least six to ten months, or even a whole year.)

The Bible books of Haggai and Zechariah, placed near the end of the Old Testament, were written to a people in transition. The people of Judah had been in captivity, in exile for seven decades. For seventy years, they had been far from their own home. Many had died there... and many others had been born during the exile. And now these people faced the huge, exciting, scary, exhilarating, uncertain, amazing, sometimes overwhelming transition of moving back to Judah and rebuilding their lives and their homes all over again.

They arrived back to a city in ruins: the walls of Jerusalem were so broken down that they would present no obstacle if an enemy tried to enter the city. And at this most insecure time, God makes them an amazing promise of protection during their transition. He says, "I'll be your protection. The city may not have walls, but I'll be like a wall of fire around you." A wall of fire: that's pretty impenetrable. And then God adds (Zechariah 2: 8): "For whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye!" Wow! What security that brings to us in our transitions. We are not only protected; we are also precious to Him.

Yesterday, in my Haggai reading, there was yet another picture that speaks to us of being protected and precious. Even though the people who returned to Jerusalem feel insecure and intimidated by neighbouring enemies, they respond to God's challenge to start rebuilding the Temple, so that worship becomes a priority and God can have His rightful place in their midst again. In response, God promises them, "From this day on, I will bless you." Then God speaks to Zerubbabel and says, " I will take you and make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you." What a wonderful promise for this leader in transition: a signet ring is permanently on the bearer's finger and is carried with Him wherever He goes. To be like God's signet ring is a wonderful promise of His constant presence. It's a reminder too of how precious we are, because signet rings are usually made of precious metals like gold, silver or platinum.

In antiquity, signet rings were originally worn by kings, and they were a symbol of the ruler's authority. In days when a person's signature/handwriting was less identifiable than it is today, the signet ring was also used to place a seal on documents and attest to their authenticity. (Even today, when a Pope dies, the first duty of the Cardinal Camerlengo is to find the papal signet ring and destroy it.) When the Lord says that He is making someone like His signet ring, it's a promise of anointing with His power and authority, a seal of approval on that person's authenticity.

Transitions are often times when you're not sure what the future holds, when you're wondering if you will continue to be used as fruitfully by God in your new season or new location as you were in the past. At such a time, it's an incredible blessing to hear God say that He will make you like His signet ring. It's yet another assurance that we are protected and precious as we move through the different seasons and transitions of our lives.... and that God is present and trustworthy in whatever changes and challenges we face.

Heading to Africa soon...

This time next week, I'll be in a plane, coming to the end of a long flight and preparing to land in Antananarivo airport - on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. I'm going there to teach for two weeks in a PCYM training course that will equip Malagasy people to work with children, youth and families. Click on this image if you'd like to see photos of my previous trip to Madagascar, and prayer pointers for the coming month. Thank you!