Donkeys, Fireballs, and Other Near-Death Experiences

Balaam wasn’t saved by an angel. He was saved from an angel. This reversal of the expected formula is made even stranger in that his repeated deliverer is a donkey – one who can not only see the invisible angel, but who can also speak. And Balaam, at least for his first two near-death experiences, was utterly ignorant of the fact that he was being delivered from death by means of his remarkable long-eared servant (Numbers 22).

This is so often the way it goes. Death misses us by a hair and we are completely unaware of it, or at least unaware of what was going on behind the scenes once we do realize the great danger we just escaped. Just the other day we found a copperhead coiled up at the bottom of a rock we had been climbing and sitting on. I and several of my kids had apparently stepped around and right over him, busy admiring the view beyond of a Virginia river valley, taking pictures and peering over the cliff edge, completely unaware that the far greater danger was coiled up at our toes.

What had directed our feet so that they never stepped on the poisonous snake? What had directed the snake so that he stayed still, opting for freezing rather than fighting? Had it all been normal providence, aligning our days and choices just so in order to turn a potentially deadly encounter into a merely interesting one? Or was there direct involvement in that moment, a little nudge to the four-year-old’s foot by an invisible protector here, a word of warning inaudibly spoken to the snake there? Traditional Christian culture has angels invisibly intervening for us on the regular, saving us from calamity just in the nick of time, and often without us ever being aware.

If such guardians do function in this way, perhaps one activity in eternity will be watching one another’s Your Many Near-Deaths: Greatest Hits compilations. I can see it now, chilling with Darius* and Reza* in my room in the Father’s house as we watch one particular nail-biting act of deliverance. They rise to their feet, hand on their heads, yelling, “Bro!!! That was so close! How did you not die?! Look at you, just sitting there, sipping your chai like a complete donkey!”

Occasionally we do realize that something was definitely amiss in a given near-scrape. Something potentially deadly has happened, yet we were rescued, unharmed, in a way that doesn’t completely make sense. People don’t act they way they normally would. Train schedules are inexplicably off. For some reason we make a choice that we would not typically make. Natural elements behave abnormally. Fireballs burn an arc around us yet leave us completely alone.

One year ago I almost blew myself up in our kitchen. I did manage to blow up the kitchen, especially the stove. But I escaped unscathed, with the exception of some jumpiness every time I lit a gas burner for the next six months.

It all went back to to the difficulty of staying warm during the worst part of our Central Asian winters. The nights up in our mountain area often go below freezing, and the government makes its most severe cuts to the electricity during this season also. Two winters ago also proved to be one of the coldest snaps in decades. Add to the cold and the lack of electricity a natural gas shortage as well. All this meant not enough electricity to heat water for showers, dwindling supplies of LPG for cooking and portable heating, and one very cold family who couldn’t stop coughing. As a dad, I decided that it was time to pursue the nuclear option, something I had been chewing on for many a cold Central Asian winter.

With the help of a partner church, we purchased a 3,000 liter LPG tank for our roof and got a gas-powered water heater, a couple of LPG fireplace-type heaters, and all the necessary piping installed. This would mean that even if we had no electricity for days on end, we would have constant hot water, heating for at least two rooms during the day, and gas for cooking and hot drinks. The local workmen who installed all of this for us in the worst part of winter were great guys, and they even showed me what to do if the huge tank ever ran out. Conveniently, I could attach one of our smaller fifteen liter tanks to the gas lines and – voila – have gas in the lines until I could get the big one refilled. But, they stressed, it’s not good to let the tank completely empty. Refill it at twenty percent.

Well, Central Asia being what it is, the next few months were full of lots of ministry drama and various crises, and the big gas tank on our roof ran out without me noticing. It was late at night when this happened. My kids were already asleep and my wife was reading in our bedroom. I recalled what the workmen had told me several months before about how to temporarily refill the gas lines. So I went out back, attached a hose and nozzle to one of our small grill-style LPG tanks, and hooked it up to the house gas lines. But before I turned it on I made sure all the gas appliances were shut off. The gas nozzle I was using was one I was less familiar with, the kind that twisted open rather than a simple on/off lever. Figuring I needed to fill up many meters of lines for this to work, I turned the nozzle as far open as it could go, and heard a loud hiss as the gas rushed into the lines. So far, so good.

But as soon as I walked back inside I knew that something was not right. Another hissing sound was coming from the kitchen. I ran into the kitchen and could tell that gas was rushing out of the front right burner of the stove. I was confused. The burner was not on. But I figured that I’d better make sure. I made a panicky attempt to turn the burners off, forgetting that this stove had an electric lighter function. And in trying to make sure the burner was off, I accidentally triggered the lighter function. That’s when it happened.

A fireball filled the kitchen. Warm air wrapped around me, a shock wave hit my eardrums and rocked me backward, and the entire house shook. When this had passed I saw that the stove was on fire. What had been the front right burner area was now a geyser of flame, smoke, and melting plastic. Somehow I had the presence of mind to run outside and shut off the valve connecting the small LPG tank the the lines.

I ran back inside and was intercepted by my wife who has just run into the kitchen, wide-eyed. She thought our city was being bombed. I must have mumbled some kind of explanation to her that no, it was me. No enemies or terrorists bombing. I had managed to bomb the kitchen.

The next most important thing was to shut off the valve from the pipes to the stove and to grab the fire extinguisher. Both of these were back against the wall, right next to the side of the stove that was on fire. Not the best place for a fire extinguisher, I thought to myself as I strategized how to safely get past the flames. I managed to do it by draping a dish cloth over my head, ducking past the flaming corner, and shutting off the gas line. I also grabbed the fire extinguisher while I was down there and soon the stove and most of the kitchen was covered in a fine grey dust.

My wife went and grabbed the vacuum while I stood there, shocked and surveying the damage. What had gone wrong? Did I turn up the pressure too high on the unfamiliar nozzle? Did some kind of safety mechanism in the stove break, allowing gas to rush out when the burner wasn’t on? This was when I figured out that it was me who had lit the fireball by means of the lighter function in my haste to make sure the burners were actually off.

“Do I still have my eyebrows?” I asked my wife as she walked back in. I was very surprised when she answered in the affirmative. I had learned from friends in Melanesia that when facing down a fireball, the eyebrows usually don’t make it. I looked down for the first time at the hair on my arm and hands. Not singed at all. My clothes weren’t either. Wait, the tips of my thermal socks were crispy. And all around me, a semicircle was melted into the grey kitchen carpet. Other parts of the kitchen also evidenced contact with the explosion. Strangely, the exposed part of the trash bag had reversed itself, wrapping itself up tight around the lid of the bin when it had previously been wrapped over the sides.

We spent the next hour or so cleaning up all the extinguisher dust, and marveling that nothing worse had happened. What accounted for the fact that I was almost untouched by the giant fireball? Why had the carpet all around me melted while even my hair had gone unsinged? Was I protected by the normal flow of providence, or had there been some kind of abnormal intervention which stood between me and the flames? Is that even a valid distinction to make?

It’s unlikely I’ll ever know the answers to these questions in this life. “The secret things belong to the Lord,” as it says in Deuteronomy 29:29. And included in those secret things are many of the workings of providence in both our tragedies and our deliverances. No, unlike Balaam, ours is not usually to see behind the curtain when it comes to our close calls, but to learn from them and to be grateful for them. There’s wisdom there – like how not to nearly blow yourself up next time your LPG tank is empty. And gratitude – like prayers of thanks for the only real loss being a melted stove, and for the surprising bonus of not even one melted eyebrow.

Balaam was saved from an angel by a donkey. Could I have been saved by an angel from the consequences of being a donkey? Perhaps. A few more seconds of that gas rushing out and it could have been a much bigger bomb. But however it went down in the invisible realm, I am thankful for God’s kindness to me when I almost blew myself up a year ago. As I am thankful for his protection this week with the copperhead – and for all those other times that I don’t even know about, included on my tape of Your Many Near Deaths: Greatest Hits.

*Names changed for security

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Support this writing with a one time gift

Support this writing with a repeating gift

How a Christian Marriage Was Saved by a Wise Guerilla Leader

I woke up to texts that several of the exiled political party/guerrilla bases in our area had been bombed. One main base was hit with a devastating rocket attack. I scanned the updates, wondering if any of the teenage guards or kind officials that we had interacted with there had been killed. I was struck again by the sad security realities of our area of Central Asia. Things could seem so stable and safe, then all of the sudden, the veneer of security gets shattered as someone you interacted with gets disappeared, assassinated, or targeted by a neighboring country’s rockets or drones. It hadn’t been very long since I myself had been at that same base that now had a smoking rocket crater in its central building. Though in general we tried to stay away from sensitive locations like these, it was a crisis among local believers that had brought me there. In fact, the leadership of this guerrilla base had even helped to save the marriage of two local believers.

Two months earlier, things had reached a breaking point in Pauline* and Karim’s* marriage. Their daily arguments about money and respect had escalated, household items had been smashed, and they were at risk of falling back into their pre-conversion violent outbursts toward one another. We asked Karim to come and stay with us for a few days until things could cool off. After initially protesting at how shameful this would be for a Central Asian man to be “kicked out” of his home by his wife, he eventually relented. I was grateful for that humility that won out over cultural pride.

The following weeks were full of crisis counseling, and that in another language. It is one thing to have technically achieved advanced language. It is another thing altogether to keep up with conflict conversation, when accusations and insults you’ve never heard before are flying. Somehow we muddled through it. After a few days, Karim moved back in with his wife and daughter, but things were still not great. Sixteen years of tumultuous marriage as unbelievers had left some mighty deep scars. And in spite of the tremendous growth in knowledge they had achieved in their several years of being believers, both husband and wife accused the other of failing to put their Christian beliefs into practice when it actually counted – in the home.

Karim was willing to work on things, and while truly at fault for a great many things, was willing to take some initial steps of repentance. Pauline was done. Day after day she insisted they get an official divorce. To do this, they would have to visit the headquarters of their political party, an ethnic organization and paramilitary group that had been exiled from one of the neighboring countries and was now based out of our area. The unique way our regional government handles groups like this is to require them to have a separate legal infrastructure for all their party members who live as asylum seekers or freedom fighters in the region. The party is thereby able to grant some measure of legality and protection to it members, who are not granted many of the basic rights that local citizens enjoy. To get a certificate of divorce, Pauline couldn’t go to the local courts. She’d need to work through this parallel system, she’d have to make her case to her party leadership.

Continued pleading and counseling with Pauline had little effect. We asked specifically for a month’s time for her to think over the huge decision she was about to make. But it seemed she had run out of hope entirely that she and her husband could change. She insisted that they go and request an official divorce, and, being without transportation, she asked that I drive them. After weighing the risks with the team, I decided to go with them, hoping that the hour and a half drive might provide some opportunity to talk further.

When we began the drive, I realized how unrealistic my hopes for vehicular counseling had been. Pauline and Karim could barely look at one another, and had no interest in talking. Their teenage daughter merely stared out the window and sometimes cried quietly. The atmosphere in the car was tense and silent. I decided to turn on my playlist of English worship songs. In happier times, Pauline and Karim regularly made jokes about how bad their English was, so there was little chance that songs by City Alight, Josh Garrels, and Poor Bishop Hooper were going to have much effect on them. Still, they might pump some faith into my heart. And it was better than driving in the heavy silence. Maybe they’d pick up on the Hallelujahs and the name of Jesus as the songs played.

I stewed on our depressing situation. Pauline, a member of our church, was stubbornly pursuing an unbiblical divorce against all the counsel she was receiving. Karim was acting like a punk as well, taking angry jabs at Pauline that only made things worse. We were driving to a guerilla base that a neighboring country counted as a terrorist hub, and one they periodically bombed. But the worst part of it all was the horrible witness this whole adventure would likely be to the unbelieving party members that we interacted with. How were they supposed to see the difference Jesus makes if their only comrades claiming to be Christians have a marriage that is falling apart? I shook my head, imaging the kind of bickering they might get into once each was asked to make their case to the judge. Maybe, just maybe, my presence there as their pastor could serve to do some good in all the mess. In all likelihood, their party leadership, influenced primarily by Marxism and ethnic pride, would give them worldly advice, and issue a certificate of divorce. Even if they leaned on their Islamic background, supporting a divorce was the most likely outcome.

I drove and prayed. We had tried everything, and it hadn’t been enough. If Pauline proceeded, we’d need to shift into a church discipline process as our final option. What else could be done? Some moments in ministry we feel only too keenly the powerlessness of our words to effect change upon hardened hearts.

After an hour and a half we passed the last local government checkpoint and drove down the desert road toward the area where the exiles had built a neighborhood and their political party and paramilitary facilities. Eucalyptus trees swayed in the spring wind. Rain clouds teased the thirsty orange soil with small sprinklings here and there. It was a beautiful day, the kind likely to produce a rainbow or two over the distant foothills. It was too bad our excursion to this small desert outpost had to be for such a sobering reason.

We pulled up to the base’s checkpoint and were approached by a gate guard who looked like he was seventeen. He and the other young female guard with him were dressed in dark solid green fatigues and had checkered black and white scarfs around their necks. I remembered how idealistic I was at seventeen and wondered if these kids were true believers in the guerrilla cause or if this was simply what one does growing up in this kind of community of political exiles – a high school job of sorts. After checking Karim’s papers, they waved us through and we found a place to park in a small gravel lot.

A party official with a large mustache soon arrived in his vehicle and parked next to us. He recognized Karim and was familiar with their situation. Having been responsible for some of their official processes in the past, he felt some responsibility for their family and quickly shifted from respectful greetings to an almost fatherly demeanor. He put his hand on Pauline’s shoulder and began warmly but earnestly entreating them to do whatever it took to save their marriage. This was when I began to realize that some of my assumptions about the day might not be correct. This man was talking sense, sound wisdom that backed up the counsel they had been getting from their church. I looked at Pauline to see if it was having any effect. Negative. Her respectful nods were accompanied by a steely gaze.

We soon transitioned into a nearby trailer office, a sort of triage room for those with appointments with party officials. Here we sat on reception couches as the younger official behind the desk ordered tea for us and began to confirm the details of the visit with Karim and Pauline. Once again, this official bore a look of kind concern. He also began reasoning with Pauline, asking her to reconsider her decision to divorce, if only for the sake of their daughter. But Pauline held firm, quietly insisting to see the judge. The official then asked who I was, and Karim shared how I was one of the pastors of their church, and an American. Both of these things surprised the official, who seemed both confused and intrigued at my presence. While they couldn’t have interacted with many Christians, or that many Westerners for that matter, I was encouraged that the hospitable responses so far seemed to indicate my presence at least wasn’t going to make things worse.

We finished up our tea and walked back out to the gravel lot, where were met again by the first mustachioed official. He now learned who I was, and as he walked us into the main building to see the judge, he dropped back to walk beside me.

“If we work together, I bet we can change her mind,” he told me under his breath. “She’s not as set on divorce as she appears. I can tell.”

I found this interpretation encouraging, though Pauline sure seemed hell-bent on divorce to me. Hopefully he was right. As we walked through the corridors, multiple energetic and respectful greetings were exchanged with each person that we passed. I was struck by how well this paramilitary context fit with the formal, honorable tendencies of our local culture. The militaristic structure seemed to bring out some of the best aspects of the culture, and to dampen some of the negative aspects that Islam reinforces, such as the demeaning of women. In fact, there was an easy respect among the men and women on this guerilla base that was downright refreshing. I also noticed that the female soldiers were still very feminine, sporting long black braids for example, and everyone seemed fine with that. This, and the fact that many joined up because all their brothers had already been killed presented a more nuanced picture than is usually present in evangelical discussions about women in the military.

At last we were ushered into the large room where we would do the interview for the certificate of divorce. It was carpeted, stiff high-backed couches lined the walls, and portraits of party leaders were prominently displayed. A large, very official looking desk sat in front of the windows. We sat on the couches facing the desk, and were served a second round of tea.

Two women then entered. Like all of those who worked at this base, they were dressed in simple green fatigues. The younger woman was a lawyer. The short woman in her fifties was a high ranking official, and would serve as judge for Pauline and Karim’s case. She had a mature – though tired – look in her eyes and a no-nonsense bearing that called for a respectful hearing. Yet she also seemed kind and approachable. I instinctively trusted her to see through any of the nonsense that might emerge in the following conversation.

After confirming the details of the visit one more time, she proceeded to ask some basic questions. This led to the only funny thing that would come out of the day.

“You are Karim and Pauline, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been married how many years?”

“Twenty one.”

“And these two are your children?”

“This is our daughter, and… uh, this is our, um, pastor,” Karim managed to say with only a hint of a smile.

I shot the family a quick glance and could tell they got a kick out of the judge thinking I was their son. That Karim and Pauline are my “dear mother and father” would become a story often told and an inside joke that continues to the present day. But the welcome moment of levity was over all too soon.

“So you are here to request a divorce. Pauline, please explain your situation.”

Pauline proceeded to lay out her complaints for the next ten minutes or so while the judge took careful notes by hand and the lawyer leaned in to listen. After this, the judge allowed Karim to respond and explain his desire to remain married. So far, everything remained calm and orderly. I found myself envying the gravitas this older woman brought, and wondering how I could learn to do likewise in my conflict-mediation conversations with locals that tended to explode.

After hearing both sides and effectively shutting down some bickering, the judge began to reason with Pauline.

“My dear, none of these problems that you are describing are abnormal for a marriage. These are not massive issues. They are the everyday frustrations of a husband and wife that must be navigated and worked through. You are not describing anything to me that seems to warrant a divorce. Think of the great costs you and your daughter will incur if you do this. Think of the regret. Pay attention to your husband’s openness to making change. Why should you give up at this point? Be wise and careful, my dear. This is a very serious thing you are requesting.”

The judge continued on this vein for some time, patiently and wisely attempting to help Pauline see reason. For my part, I was thrilled that the judge was taking this position. Over and over again, these unbelieving freedom fighters were dropping wise and sober counsel. Eventually, the judge turned to me and asked what our church’s advice had been regarding the marriage. I was surprised at this invitation to speak, but grateful.

“Jesus teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman for life, and that a situation like this does not call for a divorce, but reconciliation. We have counseled them to stay married, to commit to regular counseling, and to follow Jesus in this way.”

The judge nodded respectfully and took more notes. A middle aged man with a red mustache came into the room with some files for the judge to sign. He knew Karim and proceeded to make efficient greetings to all present. He seemed very kind.* Following this, the judge rose and excused herself to deal with another situation that had arisen, promising to return soon with her verdict.

We sat in the room for the next fifteen minutes. The lawyer decided now was a good time to wax eloquent about her views on marriage and feminism. It was the first counsel of the day that was less than helpful. But I could tell that neither Karim nor Pauline seemed to like her. The lawyer continued her spiel, seeming not to notice.

At last the judge returned, sinking into her seat with the look of a woman who has to deal with multiple crises every day.

“Having reviewed everything in your case and heard all of your answers, we have decided to give you a month to think things over.”

This same period of waiting was what the church had asked for as well. I smiled, since the judge hadn’t heard that part. She continued.

“We will not be issuing you a certificate of divorce today. Go home. Think it over for a month. If after a month you still desire a divorce, then come back and we’ll give you the certificate. But dear, do you think carefully and wisely about what you really want.”

Karim, his daughter, and myself were relieved. Pauline was furious. The verbal outbursts that followed confirmed for the judge even more that she had made the right call and that Pauline was in no condition to be making this kind of life-altering decision that day. The guerilla leader saw a chance to save the marriage, and she took it, believing that Pauline might come to her senses and stick with her flawed, but loyal husband. And she was right, this is exactly what would happen. God would use the legal decision taken by this party official to buy time for repentance to begin. I had been very concerned that this leftist group of freedom fighters would only help to undermine Karim and Pauline’s marriage. Instead, we had surprisingly found ourselves to be allies, pleading for the goodness and sanctity of marriage together. God uses all kinds of means – apparently even Marxist-leaning paramilitaries and “terrorists.”

It was early afternoon by the time we left, and we were all starving. We stopped by a hole in the wall restaurant to eat some chicken before the drive home. Karim stepped outside to take a call and I seized the opportunity to draw out Pauline without him present.

“Dearest mother,” I started, alluding to judge’s humorous mistake. “How are you doing? Will you not take this month to reconsider your decision?”

Pauline smiled and chuckled, “Oh my dear son, I’m still getting divorced, believe me! We’ll be back in a month, you’ll see. Now pass me some of that chicken.”

But already there was a new softness in her eyes. And she continued smiling. Somehow I knew we wouldn’t be back at that base after a month. She had tried very hard to go her own way. And God had kindly placed obstacle after obstacle in her path.

Today, Pauline and Karim are still married, and doing better than ever.

*Names changed for security

*Sadly, this man would be assassinated in a hotel room two days later.

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

A Proverb of Caution

Don’t cross the bridge of the dishonorable.
Local Oral Tradition

This local proverb warns against trusting the untrustworthy. It reminds me of Proverbs 26:6, “Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence.” Trust is good, but trust without wisdom is dangerous. We need to know the character and the ability of the person we are extending trust to. Historically, to cross a bridge is to take a risk. A bridge usually crosses some kind of dangerous water or gap. Will its construction hold? A bridge is also a chokepoint. Could it lead to an ambush? In local wisdom, to cross the bridge of man known to be dishonorable is to invite harm. Of course, as followers of Jesus we will at times violate this principle for the sake of the gospel (such as in Zacchaeus’ case), sometimes to powerful effect, but we still live in a universe where we are foolish to trust the untrustworthy naively.

This is one of the stronger local proverbs I’ve heard recently, and one which must be used with caution. That word dishonorable is so loaded in this honor/shame culture, that you would never want the one you use it for to hear about it. If they do, you will at least have broken the relationship, if not have also invited threats of violence.

Photo by Charlie Green on Unsplash

Of Providence, Car Bombs, and Appointments With Death

...it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. - Hebrews 9:27, ESV

On a pleasant spring evening twelve years ago, *Hama and I should have died, with Hama’s sister dying shortly thereafter. But it was not yet our appointed time. In that sense, even though death brushed past us in alarming proximity, we were invincible. Not because of any power of ours. No, but because God is on his throne, appointing for each man his time of passing into eternity. God keeps us from premature death through the mysterious workings of his providence. Seemingly random decisions and the prayers of believers become the means by which the great king and author works out his grand narrative and reveals his glory.

Hama and I were walking down one of main avenues of the bazaar, one named after a famous poet, like so many other streets in our mountain city. We were on our way to the cafe of a nearby hotel to study English together. Hama was thrilled to have a native English speaker for a friend again as he was worried his language, picked up while a refugee in the UK, was beginning to slip.

The spring weather was lovely on that late afternoon and I soaked in the sights and smells of the bazaar as we walked and talked together. The smell of tea on charcoal, shwarma sandwiches, and shops full of spices wafted up and down the busy street in the spring breeze.

Suddenly Hama stopped. “I think I’ve changed my mind. Maybe we should go to my house for supper first, then after that we can go to the cafe to study.”

I glanced ahead. You could already see the upper floors of the hotel looming above the shops, maybe five hundred meters ahead of us. We were nearly there. At the same time, Hama’s family lived in a neighborhood almost within the bazaar itself, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. It wouldn’t be a long walk back in the other direction to his house.

“Sure, bro,” I said, “Whatever you want to do is good with me.”

We turned around and made our way back up the street and after ten minutes or so took a right into the winding alleyways that represented the fusion of the bazaar with Hama’s neighborhood. Streets just big enough for one car were framed by cement, brick and mudbrick courtyard walls, some crumbling. Others, in fading design work, still showed evidence of a bygone glory. I loved the sense of history in this neighborhood, a sense often lost in the construction boom of the rest of the city. As we walked I asked Hama what he had been reading in the gospel of Matthew since we had last spent time together.

“It’s amazing, bro, there’s no one like Jesus. Everyone who comes to Jesus gets healed!”

I smiled as Hama talked. There’s nothing quite like hearing a friend encounter scripture for the very first time.

“The lepers, the crippled, the sick, the ones with the evil spirits in them – Jesus is powerful to heal all of them! Our religion teaches us that Jesus performed miracles and healed people, but I didn’t know it was like this. Jesus is special, bro. He is different.”

We walked along as Hama shared some more and then walked in silence for a bit. A note of concern was in Hama’s voice when he began speaking again.

“Bro, my sister is about to die. You know, the disabled one, *Sharon?”

I had only seen Sharon briefly one or two times, but Hama had told me about her. She had been born with dark purplish markings all over body, but in spite of this had seemed to be a normal infant. However, when she was three years old she had gotten deathly ill. Somehow the illness had arrested her mental development and she had remained with the mental capacity of a small child as she grew into an adult. The other children in the neighborhood had mocked her mercilessly, so her family had learned to keep her hidden away indoors, as so many families in our area do if they have a family member who is physically or mentally handicapped. Sharon had learned the names of some family members and childhood friends, but after her illness was never able to learn another person’s name. Even though her condition made her an object of shame in local culture, nevertheless her family adored Sharon and doted on her, giving her generous amounts of sugary chai whenever she asked.

“Hama, what happened?”

“Sharon’s become very sick in the past few weeks. She was already really thin, but now she’s just bones. She hasn’t eaten anything in days. She’s lost her ability to speak, even to us, and her good eye has clouded over. A doctor came yesterday… He says she’ll be dead within the week. He said there’s nothing we can do.”

“I’m so sorry to hear this, bro,” I replied.

We walked on in silence for a little longer. Then Hama, seemingly without realizing it, began recounting once again how Jesus had healed the crippled, the blind, the mute. As he spoke I felt an urge, a thought, growing more and more powerful and clear in my mind and in my chest.

You need to ask to pray for Sharon tonight.

Doubt and anxiety rose up in me parallel to the strength of this impression. Nevertheless, the thought grew stronger.

You need to ask to pray for Sharon tonight.

But I don’t know how to do that! I protested inwardly. Sure, I had read lots of missionary biographies and even heard some first-hand accounts in Melanesia of God’s power to heal when believers pray for the sick. But I had never seen it modeled. And I was feeling reluctant to go out on a limb like this when my friend seemed so close to following Jesus. What if nothing happens and he comes to doubt Jesus’ power? What if I just make myself look like a fool? What if they get offended when I pray in the name of Jesus?

But the leading was irresistible now. I had to yield.

“Hama, do you believe that Jesus really did all those miracles that you’re reading about?”

“Yes, of course I do!” Hama replied.

“Do you believe that Jesus is alive and powerful in heaven now?”

“Yes, both of our religions teach that Jesus is alive in heaven and powerful.”

“Well,” I swallowed, “Do you believe that Jesus is powerful to heal your sister if we ask him to?”

“Bro… I, I don’t know…” Hama responded with a sigh.

“If it’s OK with you, can you ask your family if I can pray for her tonight? Jesus asks us as his followers to pray for the sick and sometimes he answers our prayers for healing.”

“I can ask bro, but I’m not sure what they’ll say.”

Shortly afterward we arrived at Hama’s family’s home. He and his newlywed wife lived in the upper floor and his mother and three sisters, including Sharon, lived on the ground floor. Hama’s father had been killed by a previous dictator when Hama was just a boy. Even though he was the youngest brother, he had the strongest leadership skills and often functioned as a leader in the household, depending on the day and his mother’s moods.

Hama’s family shouted some greetings to us as we went up the external staircase to the upstairs. As customary, they were full of polite greetings and hospitality in spite of the grief they were feeling inwardly. Hama’s wife, Tara, looked genuinely happy to see us. She was pregnant, probably early second trimester, and terrified of losing the baby after a previous miscarriage. Though I didn’t know it yet, a fear was growing inside of her that they would lose this second child because her husband was angering Allah by studying the Christian Bible. But on this night she just seemed happy and relieved that we had come for dinner.

Tara took out a spray bottle and sprayed a mist over some flat bread she had stored (to make it tender) and put the pile of bread in the middle of the table cloth she had placed on the floor. As we sat down, cross-legged at the edges of the cloth, Tara placed bowls in front of us, full of chicken broth, tomato/okra soup, and lightly fried rice. We began tearing off bits of flatbread and scooping the rice into our mouths. I was not regretting our decision to come back for this home-cooked dinner.

About twenty minutes into our meal all of our mobile phones started ringing at once and getting inundated with text messages. We pulled out our simple Nokia phones and started reading the texts and answering the calls. A tense and nervous air had descended on the house. Clearly some kind of emergency was going on. As we processed what we were reading and hearing, Tara quickly turned on the TV.

There had been a car bomb. It had detonated at the front of a main hotel in the city. It was the very same hotel where Hama and I had been planning to study. The entire front facade of the hotel was shattered, including the cafe where we would have been sitting. Tragically, a security guard had died. He, along with the suicide bomber proved to be the only casualties.

After reassuring various friends, family, and coworkers that we were OK, and finding out that they were OK too, Hama and I looked soberly at one another. We very well could have died had we not decided to turn around and gone to his house for dinner instead.

Shaking our heads at the craziness of the whole situation, I leaned forward toward Hama.

“My friend, we could have died tonight. You should be dead right now. You’re not. That tells me God has a reason for saving your life tonight. He has a purpose for you, something that needs to happen before you die.”

Hama nodded his head in agreement, watching the flashing news reports with a glazed expression.

“I think you’re right, bro… I think you’re right.”

The evening wore on as the entire city took stock in the wake of the car bomb. Locals were furious that a Palestinian youth had been the bomber. What was he doing all the way over here in our corner of Central Asia? For our part, we were totally engrossed in the phone calls, texts, and news reports. Tara was shocked to hear that we had narrowly escaped being victims of the bomb ourselves and lots of wide-eyed rapid conversation took place between her and Hama which I wasn’t able to follow. She was of course happy that her husband had not been blown up, but she was also understandably angry that he had almost gotten himself blown up. Nevertheless, she put some chai on for us and soon had served it.

While we were sipping our chai I was reminded of our plans earlier in the evening to pray for Sharon. The evening was wearing on.

“Hama, do you think we could still pray for your sister tonight?”

Hama suddenly remembered our earlier conversation and took a moment to think over my question.

“Yes, let me go downstairs and see what they say.”

“Hama, please tell them that I have to pray for her in the name of Jesus. I mean no disrespect, but I am a follower of Jesus and I must pray for her in the way that he asks his followers to do so.”

Hama nodded and went downstairs. Some lively discussion ensued, but he soon emerged again and told me that the family had agreed, and that they were very thankful that I would consider doing something like this for them.

We went downstairs and into the room where Sharon was laid out on a foam mattress on the floor. If they had not told me otherwise I would have assumed that she had already died. Her body was skeletal. Her skin, the parts that were not the purplish color, was a lifeless grey. She stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes and clutched a blanket to her chest with bony hands. She was in her early forties, but I could have been looking at a deathly ill ninety-year-old.

I asked Hama to translate some more for family, who had already begun crying as I knelt down next to Sharon.

“Please tell them that I’ll just put my hand on her hand and simply ask Jesus to heal her.”

I prayed quietly in English to myself, holding onto Sharon’s bony hand. The first time nothing happened. I began crying as well. The second time nothing happened. I prayed a short, third prayer and looked up. My heart sunk. Nothing had happened.

“Hama, please tell your family that sometimes God says yes, sometimes he says no, and sometimes he wants us to keep asking. Maybe this is not a no. Maybe he wants us to keep asking. I’ll keep praying tonight and ask some of my friends to pray also. All we can do is ask and wait for God.”

We went back upstairs and I sat, confused and disappointed. I heard some more commotion downstairs. When I asked what it was I became even more discouraged. The family, desperate as they were, had invited the local Islamic mullah to come and also pray over Sharon. Then I heard shouting and doors slamming. The mullah had attempted to beat Sharon with his cane in an attempt to drive out a demon. The women of the family, not about to put up with that nonsense, had in turn driven him from the home.

“Well,” I thought, “at least they’ll see that contrast tonight.”

Later that night when we said goodbye, Hama’s family thanked me profusely. They could see that my tears and prayers for Sharon had been genuine, even if they were ineffectual. The contrast with the mullah’s cane had clearly left an impression on them. Perhaps that was God’s only purpose in this strange encounter, a chance to show Christian compassion?

After I made it back home I sent out an email to some prayer supporters, updating them on the situation with Sharon and asking them to join in praying for Jesus’ power to be displayed, whatever that would look like. Then I went to my room and opened my Bible. For the next couple hours I worked through the gospels, pausing on each account of Jesus healing someone.

“Lord, you did for that person, would you do it again for Sharon?”

Around 1:00 a.m. I had a strong urge to focus on praying for Sharon to be able to speak again. Shortly after that I fell asleep.

When I awoke, the first thing I did was reach for my trusty little Nokia phone, hoping to see a message from Hama. There was nothing. I spent all day distracted in my work, chewing on the mysteries of God’s providence and human suffering. I kept checking my phone in hopes that I had somehow missed a call. But I had resigned myself. God had said no and Sharon would die.

Around 7 pm, I noticed something flashing in the bottom corner of the phone’s small screen. When I looked into what kind of notification it was, I was informed that my phone was out of memory and that I had a new text message waiting once I cleared up some more space. Frantically, I deleted other messages and opened the new one. It was from Hama, sent early in the morning.

“Bro, Jesus healed my sister! Please call as soon as you can.”

I called up Hama right away and asked what was going on.

“Hama, why didn’t you call me? I just saw your message now.”

“I had no credit, ha! Bro,” Hama said, “Jesus healed my sister!”

“What?! How?!”

“Around 1:00 in the morning, all of the sudden she sat up and asked for some chai! We all jumped out of bed. We couldn’t believe what was happening. She’s been eating and drinking all day and we are just laughing and talking about what happened! Bro, you prayed and Jesus healed my sister! When can you come and see her? You have to see her!”

I was taking a trip out of town that evening, but a couple days later I returned to Hama’s home to see Sharon. The family was ecstatic and Sharon was sitting up in bed, eating and drinking and talking in her unique, child-like way.

“Ever since that night, she hasn’t stopped talking! She talks all night long and now we can’t sleep!” laughed one of Hama’s sisters. “Would you please pray again to Jesus to get her to shut up?”

We all laughed until we cried.

“But seriously, as a family we did want to ask if you would pray for her again. She is still blind and before she had one good eye. Would you pray that she would be able to see again?”

I agreed. Then I proceeded to pray, this time with a much greater confidence. But just like the previous time, nothing seemed to happen.

“Well,” I said, “Maybe God is again saying that we should keep asking. We will keep praying for her.”

Sure enough, two weeks later I got another phone call from Hama.

“Bro, her cloudy eye has cleared up and she can see again! Jesus did it again!”

God had granted Sharon another season of life. It would prove to be brief. For six more months she ate, drank chai, saw her family through her good eye, and even learned my name, the first name she been able to learn in forty years. Then she died.

Hama hadn’t told me that she had gotten sick again. I was a little upset at him for this. But he responded that the family didn’t feel right about telling me. They knew I would want to pray again. Perhaps they felt like God had already granted them two miracles and it was ungrateful to ask for another.

God had intervened to save Sharon’s life through the prayer of a doubting nervous believer. He had intervened to save Hama’s life and my life through a seemingly random decision to turn around and eat dinner before we studied English. Both of these miracles resulted in death delayed, not death dismissed. It was appointed for Sharon six months later. It will be appointed for Hama and I one of these days as well, though now we look forward to it together as brothers in Christ. God’s providence in these things is beyond me, but I recount these things as they really happened. I haven’t had the same kind of near death experience nor answered prayer for healing in the twelve years since. It was simply God’s mysterious kindness that they should both fall on that particular spring evening.

At the time I thought that this would be the last step in Hama professing faith in Jesus. Surely after such a display of power, alongside of his study of Matthew, Hama would immediately profess faith. But to my surprise, Hama stopped speaking about Jesus altogether for the next six weeks. A battle was going on in his soul. Jesus had revealed his truth and power. But would Hama surrender and risk everything?

*Names have been changed for security

Photo by Jeff Kingma on Unsplash

But What Would Happen to my Family if I Died?

This is a common question Christian men wrestle with when considering cross-cultural missions. It’s not a bad question. God has called us men to protect and provide for our families. Yet might provision and protection look differently for those upon whom the end of the ages has come?

[3] Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, [4] who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. [5] Greet also the church in their house. -Romans 16:3-5 ESV

Come on, Aquila, you risked your own life and the life of your wife for the sake of Paul? What would have become of Prisca had you died, a widow from a persecuted minority in a pagan society? Is this not a failure of biblical manhood? What about your priorities as one called to be a husband?

Wait a second, Paul is commending these actions… and calling for the global church to give thanks for what Aquila and Prisca have done. Apparently, there is something deeper going on here that makes risking one’s life (and the life of one’s spouse) worth it, if done for the sake of the gospel.

This question hits close to home. My own father died on the mission field when I was a four-year-old, leaving my mom a widow and me and my siblings to be raised without a dad. Was this incredibly hard at times? Yes. A core part of grieving seems to come from the bereaved imagining life without their loved one. I was young enough that I was not able to do much of this at the time of my dad’s death. Instead, the grieving happened slowly over time, one quiet blow after another as the realization landed yet again: this is what it means to not have a dad.

But that was not the only realization that sunk deep into my soul. The other was this: this is how God keeps his promises and takes care of the fatherless. Over and over again I saw God’s faithfulness to take care of my family. It was unmistakeable. His hand to bless us through the suffering and to help us was apparent everywhere. Friends even came to faith because my dad died. Because of this, I was raised with the truth of God’s sovereignty in suffering deeply rooted in my experience and also staring up at me from the pages of Scripture. So when I first stumbled onto Piper sermons in high school, I leaned in. This man preached the God I knew. A God big enough to turn even death for good.

My wife and I now serve in a part of Central Asia that has some serious security concerns. We have three small children. The recurring conversations about whether or not to evacuate our area has led us to joke that our team’s theme song should be The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go. For now, however, our local area continues to be a pocket of remarkable stability in a very volatile region. Still, there are rumors of terrorist sleeper cells around and I have the same health condition that took my dad’s life. What would happen to my family if I were to die? The very same thing that happened to my mom, my siblings, and myself – God would keep his promises and take care of them.

I’m not advocating any glib risk-taking here. I know all too well the painful cost. Any risk for the sake of the gospel needs to be exactly that – risk for the sake of the gospel. Total unity between spouses is also key in deciding what risks to take. Yet I am wanting to exhort my peers, dads of young families, who might struggle with fear as they wrestle with a call to the nations. Surprisingly, and by the grace of God, it is because my dad died that I was freed to take my family to risky places.

Perhaps your death, or merely your willingness to risk for the sake of Jesus, will be what frees your children to also serve Jesus in risky places.

[24] Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. [25] Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. -John 12:24-25 ESV

How To Be Safe Anywhere in the World

The part of Melanesia I grew up in could be quite dangerous. Similarly, the areas of American cities I have lived in are also considered not the best neighborhoods around. And the Central Asian region where we currently serve has its own unique dangers – I narrowly missed being blown up by a car bomb some years ago. While different groups have exposed us to some fantastic training and resources, the deepest practical security lessons I have learned came from my single mom.

After my dad passed away, we eventually returned to the mission field as a family of four: my single mom, my two older brothers, and myself. The Melanesian country we lived in was particularly dangerous for single women. Yet my mom moved around with incredible freedom and independence, with barely any security incidents for over seven years. My mom is very short and slender, so it wasn’t that she cut such an imposing figure that the bad guys stayed away. She didn’t carry a handgun on her either. Instead, she simply lived out some good missiological and neighborly principles. I have learned that these several things can mean the ability to live safely almost anywhere in the world.

First, my mom learned the local language well. All missionaries are supposed to do this, but sadly many can’t or won’t learn the language to the point where they would be considered advanced speakers (language learning is very difficult!). Yet the ability to understand what is being spoken around you and to speak yourself quickly and intelligibly is a massive part of situational awareness and staying safe. Learning the language(s) well and continuing to learn for the long-term should be a central part of wisdom for living safely in risky places. Just one well-dropped comment in the local language can alert everyone around that not only do you understand everything that is being said, but also that you are no mere tourist unable to respond and react in the powerful local vernacular.

Together with the language, my mom also learned the culture well. She learned not only what words meant but also what forms meant, things like body language and clothing and honorable conduct. Especially for foreign women, understanding how to dress modestly and interact respectably could mean the difference between a normal trip to the market and a terrifying encounter with a man with a machete. Learning the culture teaches you how to prevent dangerous situations from happening, how to defuse those that do become threatening, and also how to respond once an incident has occurred (Which in Melanesia even meant the possibility of summoning an enraged mob to your defense). Learning culture is harder than learning mere language because so much of it operates below the surface and must be intuited and pieced together. And yet the often invisible culture sets the rules that can mean life and death. In our our current Central Asian context, my wife has learned that respectful greetings to men, such as shop owners, can place her in the category of an honorable sister who should be protected, rather than the category of strange and probably-immoral foreigner, which means she is less likely to be objectified.

Finally, my mom did everything with local friends. Whether we were making a run to town for groceries or going on a village trip or going to church, we almost always had one local “brother” or “sister” or more with us. No matter how good you get at the language and the culture, you will never be able to interpret a situation as quickly and as intuitively as a local can. This extra set of eyes and ears provides a massive boost to freedom and security in a given context. Being accompanied by local friends also makes a powerful visual statement, especially in honor-shame or tribal contexts. It means you’ve got people who will vouch for you and who will defend you, people who are loyal to you. In these cultures this can mean not only that you’re less of an easy target, but also that you are the kind of person who does not deserve to be attacked or robbed. If you have visibly earned the respect of local friends, then other locals are more likely to extend respect you also – even those who might rob you.

My mom knew the language and the culture and she went everywhere with local friends. The honorable conduct of “Mama R” meant that she had freedom to move around safely that surpassed that of most of the other expat women in our context. We now serve in a very different part of the world, but I think of these things when we have the opportunity to visit parts of our region or city that might be more dangerous. These principles are valid anywhere, even in our home country. Sure, we might be fluent in American English, but could we grow in better understanding the various subcultures around us and in befriending those from those cultures? Absolutely. And that would mean greater safety and freedom with which to take the gospel into risky places.

Greater freedom and safety should, after all, be leveraged for greater gospel access. I learned that from my mom.