Funerals, Prosperity, and the Occult

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39

As we stood in the midst of a funeral gathering in the middle of the local graveyard, I really wondered and struggled with the idea of witchcraft in Zambia. I guess I’ve always just considered it as nonexistent. I mean, Satan is real, but God has won that battle and through Him we can too. But witches? Evil spirits? Spells and curses? It always seemed like make believe – hocus pocus – material for Halloween and scary movies.

Here’s the context: A dear Zambian friend of ours – one we consider one of our (many) Zambian moms, lost her son this week. He had just been promoted to a managerial role at Shoprite in a town three hours from here. As the educated and well-employed member of the family, he was expected to support and help other family members. As we drove Mama Yoba and two other women to the mortuary to join the procession following the coffin from there to the graveyard, I asked how the young man died. Witchcraft was the response. She said he had just been promoted a few days before, and then he walked into his office, fell to the floor, and blood started coming out his eyes. Someone had cursed him. What?!? I tried to think of what kind of illness would have that sort of effect, but also thought back to a chapter I read in African Friends and Money Matters just last night. Here is an excerpt:

“In many rural communities, people are afraid to accumulate more goods or prosperity than their neighbors and kin, for fear of creating jealousy which may lead to reprisals being carried out against them on an occult level. It is common for certain people to use occult means, through the mediations of … workers of magic, to cause the failure of competitors, to achieve their own success, or as a leader to ensure that people will agree with him or her. There is general fear of such reprisals, and a significant amount of economic development is held back because of it…. As occult rites are carried out in secret, people never know who may be taking action against them, even from within their own family.”

So then I find myself wondering – how do people view us? Do there spells and curses have any power over us? I mean, our God is bigger and more powerful, but the verse in Romans doesn’t tell us these things don’t exist, just that they can’t separate us from God. Asking Luke his thoughts, he said, “Nothing can affect our immortality.” True? Yes. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ – eternally. But that isn’t exactly comforting during this life. It doesn’t mean we have a free and easy joyride here. We can pray God’s protection over each other and our loved ones and our home and things – praying that the Spirit will guide us and help us discern between good and evil, but ultimately, when it’s our time, we will go home to the Lord. It’s not that I’m afraid of death – what a joyous time of celebration and wonder Heaven will be. But I’m scared to death of dying – and the process. As if car wrecks and natural disasters and diseases and crime aren’t enough to be afraid of, witchcraft is a realm I don’t understand, and find quite frightening.

We had heard other references to the occult usually in regard to preventing any sort of evil power from taking hold – things like a specific way the umbilical cord is destroyed when a baby is born, certain birth defects being referred to as a result of witchcraft, trees uprooting themselves and then standing back up, but I guess this was our closest encounter with anything or anyone directly affected by the workings of evil.

I don’t really have any clear answers or understanding of it all. I know the mother of the young man is a believer in Christ and I pray that she lean heavily on the Lord at this time. I also “know we are more than conquerors through him who loved us,” and that Jesus is at the right hand of God and interceding for us. I also know that “by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of (y)ours and every act prompted by (y)our faith.” (2 Thes. 1:11) May our actions be prompted by faith, may others leave evil ways and come to faith through God’s work in and through us, and may our Lord – the one true Lord - be glorified by our lives for Him here.

comforts from home

We’ve had a lot of people ask us lately what they can send in care packages, either for us or for our work here.  We figured that making a list on our blog would be an easy way for you to get ideas.  It’s amazing what is available here – and we’re blessed beyond belief.  So the things for us certainly aren’t needs as the Lord has provided for all of our needs.  Some are just comforts from home, or close substitutes for said comforts (since you can’t ship a tub of Cool Whip….).  The second list is items that would be helpful in our ministry at Lusa.

For us:

Foodstuffs:

Dream Whip – closest shippable thing we’ve found to CoolWhip

Great Value (Wal Mart brand) Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese (you can even keep the noodles and just send the sauce packets – definitely a favorite for Luke)

Great Value or Crystal Light sugar free drink mix (the kind in the tubs that you mix w/ a pitcher of water)

Fat Free No Sugar added pudding mixes – vanilla, chocolate, lemon

Parmesan cheese (or other cheeses that wouldn’t need refrigeration in sending)

Splenda

Marshmallows.  We have them here but they just are all flavored – they taste great but don’t work so well for baking or making s’mores!

Extra Spearmint gum

Taco Bell Sauce Packets (just save your extras when you hit the drive thru!)

Coffee

Kashi GoLean Cereal (the original – not any of the special flavors or anything)

Seasonal goodies – candy corn, peeps, jelly beans, etc

Spices: Jamaican Jerk, allspice, cinnamon, chili powder

Dried fruit - Prunes, cranberries, etc. (Raisins are easy to get here and we don't like banana chips though!)

Otherstuffs:

Lexmark printer cartridges – black 14 and color 15

Razor blades – Venus for Tiff; Schick Quattro Pro for Luke

Anti-perspirant –Lady Speed Stick; Old Spice High Endurance (not red zone)

Flea collars and/or tubes of flea treatment (frontline or advantage or generic) for dog and cat

Recorded sermons

Books – novels, anything

Cookbooks or cooking magazines

Workout videos/DVDs/Wii games – High energy cardio type stuff

CDs or DVDs – we’ve been here over a year and a half now- what’s new?

For Lusa:

Balls (deflated) and a pump

Nice wooden, glass, metal, or even plastic beads for jewelry making

Craft wire and other jewelry-making supplies

From our experience, first class mail items take about six weeks toarrive and cost varies by weight. Flat rate shipping is one rate based on the size of the box, so if you're sending heavier items, it’s more cost effective AND it arrives in about two weeks.  We also enjoy receiving letters and pictures!   All packages and mail can be sent to us at PO Box 110079, Solwezi, Zambia.  Thank you in advance.  Again, these are just ideas for those who have asked – please don’t feel like you have to send anything.  Blessings and Love!

to give a man a fish

How many times have we heard the proverb, “if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”? Not sure where it came from, but it’s always seemed a pretty good principle to me. It screams empowerment and equality – good western ideologies. And with ministry in Africa, trying to empower people to be self-sustaining in their work and not depend on financial pipelines from overseas, it just makes sense, right?

That’s where I’m having a hard time. The above proverb is certainly not from the Bible. Jesus never tells the disciples to go teach people how to catch fish or harvest their fields or bake bread – he tells them to teach, but to teach about Him. Jesus himself doesn’t teach tricks of the trade, sustainable agriculture or the like. He feeds the multitudes and tells us to do the same. He says we should sell our possessions and give to the poor. In 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Paul writes,

‘Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.”’

Whether it’s on the street or at our door, we have people asking for food and money on an almost daily basis. At Lusa, there is a dire need for money to get the center running to its full potential. Kids need sponsorships to go to school. We’re by no means rich, but the Lord has blessed us with plenty. How does He want us to use it? We’re trying to teach money management and develop income-generating projects at Lusa – and let me tell you – it’s exhausting. We often offer piecework to people who come to the door. Sometimes we give a loaf of bread or money to buy mealie-meal. But we also find ourselves saying “no” a lot. We really struggle with what we should do – where we should give.

The country of Zambia has benefitted from a pipeline of charitable funding for so many years that it seems to have crippled much of the country. People have gotten so used to having the fish given to them that they’ve stopped casting their nets themselves. Many parents don’t seem to even try to pay their kids' school fees – they’ve learned instead how to ask for sponsorships. This is by no means everyone. There are people who work hard, tirelessly, to provide for their families and manage money wisely. But (please excuse any bitterness here) there are also a lot of people who wander the streets waiting for someone with white skin to give them money, regardless of actual need. Kids seem especially “trained” in this. We see kids who are well-dressed and clean, coming from school, who see us and walk up and say “give me 5 pin” (equivalent of a dollar), just because they’ve apparently learned it might work.

So I’m grappling. What would Jesus do? Would he teach a man to fish, or just give him the fish? It seems that in his parables about himself, he also teaches about farming and fishing and bread-making and so on – but were those just examples the people would understand, or was he intending to teach about Himself while teaching how others are to sustain themselves? Are we supposed to give everything to the poor, essentially becoming poor ourselves, or do we teach in a way that enables the poor to escape poverty? Do we give to anyone and everyone, or try to discern true need? Is it up to us? Even Jesus drew a line here. After teaching and healing many in Capernaum, the people tried to get Jesus to stay, but He knew He was to preach the good news in other towns as well. There may have still been physical needs among the people, but He had taught the Word and knew it was time to move on.

I’m still wrestling with this, especially as we look at our purpose here. Do we give as an open door to sharing the true gift of life? Do we teach with the same intent? To meet a physical need without meeting the more important spiritual needs would supersede the Gospel message. The greatest commandment is to love God; only after which comes the mandate to love others. But as I heard once in a quote, people won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. What is the balance of giving and teaching and sharing Christ? How do we respond in love? To what extent does love include tough love and accountability? Most of all, we find ourselves constantly asking, what would Jesus do?

We would love to hear your thoughts.

A Look at Village Life... Part 6

May 5

Last full day. Bittersweet really. We are definitely looking forward to being home with a double bed and indoor toilet and fat, healthy dog, but will also definitely miss the joy and love and selflessness and peace here… sitting and reading and writing and praying and resting; going to be when we’re tired and getting up when we wake up; having nothing on the schedule other than casual visits to new friends; having fresh water from a deep bore hole; helping with simple tasks like sorting beans and preparing vegetables; listening to Mrs. Yanjisha as she sings and hums her way through her daysl and seeing a seemingly new desire they have to read the Buku wa Lesa (Bible) after seeing us do the same.

We could never repay the community here for their generosity and hospitality, yet they seem to be the grateful ones – simply because we’re here. We went to visit the Yanjishas’ daughter this morning, and snacked on freshly steamed pumpkin. Apparently people don’t sell pumpkin in Lubofo. If they have it they share it. It seems that way with a lot of things. Money is rarely exchanged – it is much more efficient to trade a chicken for a puppy or groundnuts for maize. They care for the community, like giving half a cabbage to an older woman who stopped by or the awesome way they support so many children through school. And when someone has a visitor (like us), all their friends give gifts of food in appreciation and to help. The Yanjishas have a lot of friends. And every time we go to visit the friends to thank them for a chicken or beans or vegetables, they send us home with more.

These people are missionaries, sharing God’s love and goodness. I’m afraid to see what happens as this area becomes more “developed.” Some might say the people here are living in poverty, but I think they’re the richest people I’ve met… and they’re so self-sustaining in their work, rarely needing to go to town for food or other things we would call “necessities.” They grow everything they need and if they don’t, one of the neighbors does. It’s beautiful really: this place, the people, the joyous contentment. If only we could all be so lucky.

A Look at Village Life... Part 5

May 4

So I just “preached” for the Lubofu church’s women’s meeting. I told Mrs. Yanjisha that I don’t preach – I just talk and share. Anyway, it was interesting because Mrs. Berendsen was interpreting for me. Seems like that went okay. I found myself analyzing my talk afterward – was there enough about Christ? Did I connect everything? Did they get it? Did I use too many verses? But that’s just the me coming out. I spoke about God’s beauty in creation – the promises he makes in scripture that are shown in the sky (Abram – in the multitude of stars; Noah – the rainbow) and how those proimises were for us as well. I shared from Psalm 19 and encouraged them that no matter what developments and man-made treasures are available, to keep their focus on Heavenly treasure. I also encouraged them to gaze upon God’s beauty in the stars and the sun and the rainbows and in each other. He created us women as beautiful creations. He also created us as Christians to shine more and more brightly until the SON shines in full glory at His return.

Afterward I realized that this is ministry – sharing our hearts, helping chop vegetables and sweep floors; taking chairs when offered and allowing people to serve us; sorting beans; visiting; and sharing the Word of God in the midst of it all.