Staff Missionary Reports
Reports and Experiences of the Godspeed
Staff
"Animals and other things..."
Mozambique, Monday evening
Dear family and friends,
More contrasts between my prior secular practice and our current
work with missionaries on the field:
"...For dogs have surrounded me…" Psalm 22:16
A 10 year old girl is dropped off at the front of her music teacher's
home for her first piano lesson in the same section of a city
in South Africa where her family has just moved. Like most homes
in the area, the front yard is fenced, gated, and guarded by dogs,
in this case two German shepherds and a Labrador retriever. Already
agitated by a recent passerby, the dogs lunge at the gate, which
has been inadequately secured. The girl sees the gate open, begins
to run away, and then stops, thinking that perhaps they will not
chase her if she stands still. All three attack, and before someone
can come to her aid she suffers severe bites on both legs. She
is taken to the hospital where sixteen sutures are necessary,
and is now on crutches with swollen lower legs and bruises in
the shape and size of a dog's mouth over each calf. Her brother,
age 15, was at home preparing for school when he heard dogs barking
and people screaming, and immediately thought of his sister, literally
visualizing her running and being bitten on the legs from behind.
He is particularly sensitive, as he had the same experience when
he was her age, and suffered not only significant injury, but
also several years of the flashbacks, fears, and anxiety that
can arise out of such an attack. He is the first family member
to be contacted about his sister, and accompanies her to the hospital.
Both parents, having left early for a prayer breakfast in a different
part of town, are eventually contacted and make their way to the
hospital. The question: what are the subsequent concerns and actions
of the family?
Was this my daughter, I would expect that once it was clear
she would be physically all right, my thoughts might be of retribution,
reprisal, and litigation. I would anticipate her to be distraught,
fearful, and angry. My approach to God might well start something
like, "Why, God? How could you allow this, even a second
time to still another of my children? How?"
The missionary family we met this week who had lived out this
event (two days earlier) took a different approach. They had just
the week before prayed for this particular teacher, as they had
been told she was suspect of anyone who was involved in religion;
they were hoping that in some way they could be able to be salt
and light in her life. The results of their focus: on the way
to the hospital (taken there by the music teacher), the young
girl jokes to relieve the teacher's apprehension, and gives her
the piece of fudge she had brought as a gift. The parents first
concern in their meeting with us is for assurance that both their
children were handling this event normally. Their next request
is for prayer that they could reach out to the teacher and in
their forgiveness of her could find a way to introduce her to
a forgiving God. Impressive, humbling…
A few other contrasts noted:
"…the wings of the ostrich flap joyously…"
Job 38:1
I am giving a presentation to a room of some 50 missionaries,
on issues of stress on the mission field. A gentleman in the back
row asks a question, and as I try to intently look and listen,
I am distracted by an ostrich (an emu, actually: one too many
toes) strolling by just behind him. A first for me: not the interruption
of my attention span, but certainly the first three-toed avian
such interruption.
"…behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as
you…" Job 40:1
Karen and I are with a young missionary who is asking for advice
about how to deal with a difficult situation in his family back
home. We are meeting in a lounge room offered by the lodge where
we are staying. Our "office" is decorated with a zebra
skin on one wall, a wart hog on still another, and the head of
a hippopotamus with mouth gaping, directly over the chair where
the young man sits. As I lean back in my own chair, trying to
look wise and reflective, I am repeatedly confronted by the hippo,
bringing back the memory of instructions given to me as a resident
in training about the necessity of a neutral, non-threatening
office décor to do effective therapy. Score: God 1, Freud
0.
Our time in South Africa ended with an evening worship service,
including a praise song in Zulu, a hymn in Afrikaans, the message
and communion in English, the closing prayer in Portuguese. Different
languages, unique animal exposures, one extraordinary God. Thank
you for your prayers for us and the missionaries serving God in
Africa.
Godspeed,
Barney, for Karen, too (and for Martin Brooks, a pastor from Kentucky
who is accompanying us. Martin and his family served as missionaries
in Mozambique, and his wisdom, counsel, and gentle spirit are
a blessing to us and to those we are here to serve).
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