Attendre (waiting)

Reporter's Notebook: N'djaména, Chad

If you click on the above link, you will see notes from a French reporter currently in the capital of Chad. Her written comments show in a colorful way why our team is currently not seeking entry. It's just not the time right now it seems. Our decision to wait a bit isn't based primarily on the tension in the capital - this is a factor, but tension alone isn't enough to keep us away from people who don't know the Lord. It's a combination of factors. Two main ones are the hesitance that our field leadership feels that God is giving in his prayers about us, and the fact that a new rebel attack has been threatened.

For the time being we are looking at other options for learning Chadian Arabic, the next step in following our calling. We have heard that there is a community of people in Maroua, Cameroon, that speak a dialect of Arabic very similar to that we want to learn. Maybe it's not a direct step into Chad, but it is at least a diagonal step in the right direction. As we wait for God to direct us through this decision process and work out the details for us, please join us in prayer:

1. God, lead the Chad team to a wise to decision about their next move.
2. God, bring the gospel of hope to the people we have been praying for for so long - We aren't ashamed of it, because it is God's power to save those who believe.

Thank you for joining with us

Three Guys in 2008

Some of you know that I am praying this year 2008 for THREE DISCIPLES. That is three guys that I will be able to share with about Jesus, see them come to Him, and help them grow towards him. This goal was scary for me to establish because I have no idea where these disciples will be – Chad, France, the US, another African country as we wait for Chad to open up? Furthermore, I have very few non-Christian friends in my life right now. Most of the ones I had were through our French school. Now that I’ve stopped attending, I only have loose ties to some former students by e-mail.

I’m relying on your prayers to open something up. 2 Thess 1:11 says “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.”

Thanks again for your prayers.

Uncertainty

So the team is in maybe more flux than ever. After the McKenzie’s harrowing ordeal being evacuated from N’Djaména, Chad during the rebel attack in early February (read about it at www.majestyinmeekness.org click on 'Dawn Treader'), they are back in Chambéry safe and sound with their children Eleanor, Elijah, Silas, Annelise, and Jocelyn. Because we were in California during most of February, they were able to stay in our apartment. God really worked out the timing on that quite well. Anyway, now we are back in our apartment and they have moved to another apartment nearby. I really feel for their family. Over the past six months, they have lived in nine different places, in three countries, for at least two weeks each.

Margit gave her notice on her apartment long ago, and had her ticket booked for Chad. After the attack on the capital, the ticket was cancelled, and she was left without a place. So she moved in with one-year-old Ben Carter (in the Carter’s apt) for a while. Still on the move, she is currently staying in our office.

As a team, excepting our newest family the Schraders who are currently in Illinois raising support to come overseas, we are in this situation: We came to France to learn French, but this is done now, so we are ready to go to Chad. But Chad may not be ready to take us. The government is trying to get back on its feet now, and things are slowly returning to normal. The opposition says it will try another coup, but the European force finally being established on its peacekeeping mission in the east should discourage any opposition plans.

Another option would be to go to temporarily set-up in a neighboring African country to start on our Chadian Arabic learning there with Chadian expats, just to make a further step toward our goal while waiting to enter Chad.

We wait, watch the news, seek counsel, pray, and hope God will show us when and where to go.

Geography outside Abéché, Tchad

Chad News?

Sometimes people like to keep up with what's happening in Chad.

Go straight to this BBC page, then you will see links to recent stories on the right:

BBC Chad

Or try searching 'Chad' on this French news site which has stories in English:

France 24

Maybe you will think to pray for the country after learning more about what's going on?

Four Books

On the left there is one thing I try to do a little bit a day. Whip out these four books and read just a section. I find it interesting but it also gives me a headache. I am at a different level in each of the languages - good at English, ok at French, rusty at Arabic, and almost illiterate in Hebrew. It is sometimes a real struggle to care about keeping up competency in the two languages with non-western scripts, Hebrew and Arabic, but those are the ones I forget the fastest.

The Hebrew of course is only necessary because we are going to translate the Bible. But the others are necessary for everyday life in Chad. People on the street in the capital are just as likely to speak Arabic or French, and practically no one speaks English. Then there is the tribal language, which no one on our team knows yet, but which is the most essential of all to master. The sharing about Jesus will take place in that tribal language.

With all the language learning and stuff, it is easy sometimes to think that the work depends on how well we speak or listen...or in our case, translate. Granted, there is a definite importance to communication ability when you are doing cross-cultural work. But at the end of the day, two passages in the Bible remind me that 1) God is the one who is doing the work with or without me, and 2) the messages coming out of my mouth don't speak as loud as the ones coming out of my life. Here they are:


"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."

Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:1


" Moses said to the LORD, 'O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.'

The LORD said to him, 'Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.'"

Exodus 4:10-12

It's between me and Him

So a couple from our church here in Chambéry recently invited us over for lunch at their house. It was a delicious sausage dish prepared in the old tradition of Besançon (where Victor Hugo was born). During our meal we were discussing how church differs in France and the US. Somehow I ended up sharing what I think the biggest difficulty is for people to grasp the truth about Jesus. We have lots of opportunities at the French school we attend to tell people about him - often people that have never heard, even if they are from a traditionally 'Christian' country. So many people from around the world have accepted that it is wrong to believe that another person's religious belief is wrong.

To me, truth concerning the afterlife and God is the most important kind of truth. So it is really important to be able to talk about truth about him in a meaningful way. We lose all sense of reason and objectivity in a religious discussion if we accept that bolded statement above. If you've read Night by Elie Weisel, maybe you remember Moshe the Beadle. His character had seen atrocities of the Holocaust, and then escaped. He returned to his Jewish community to warn them of the coming danger. No one believed him. They thought he was mad, but what if they were saying "Moshe, you can believe that those things are real and that's fine. As for me, I don't believe that the Holocaust is happening. But that's our beautiful freedom to believe as we want." Moshe surely would have been furious at this attitude! If someone claims that X is true, the opposite cannot also be true. To deny a truth like that is convenient in some ways, but in the end is slippery, and destructive.

This way of thinking is so embedded in a lot of people that I meet that they don't even recognize the inconsistency. So difficult, then, to have a meaningful talk about God!