Safe???

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion –the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” – C.S. Lewis The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

It is before dawn, light still has not sprung from the eastern edges, but day has begun regardless. Maybe it is the mosquito buzzing near my rickety cot, the rooster crowing outside or perhaps I’ve just tangled in the net meant to keep the bugs from spending the night with me, but either way I am awake. It is hard not to be sensitive to the noises of the night in a place so unfamiliar to my habits.
As the sun rises through the muggy morning I find enough water to splash my face and brush my cotton mouth away. I am greeted by the questions of the morning: How did you sleep, how was your night? I am offered some steaming, sweet tea and a few bananas; the day is in full swing. I wander out to see the world and am followed by pastors, community leaders and a man with a gun. For the first time I realize, I have a bodyguard…

I have been traveling around the US for a little over a month now, trying to rest up and get ready for the challenges that await me as I return to Congo for another year. One of the things that has stood out to me as I have visited with friends and family is the number of times I have been asked about my safety or told to “be safe”. While I am extremely grateful for the concern and the sentiments of caring that have been extended to me by many along the way, I feel it is important to point out that as a disciple of Jesus I am not called to “be safe”, I am called to followed him wherever he might lead.
The call of Jesus is a far cry from a call to safety(by the world’s standards). Jesus never said, “Come follow me and I will make your life easy and safe”, instead he said, “Pick up the cross and follow me”. The cross, in my mind, is about the most unsafe place to be. To be clear, I am not saying that as a Christian I am going out looking for danger - that would be lunacy. I am, however, saying that regard for my personal safety is of no consequence when the King calls me to follow him; my life is in His hands. Following Jesus may cost some of us our very lives (and for many it has) but we follow willingly and joyfully, knowing that this world is not our home. Is the journey at times very frightening?? Of course it is!! But that is exactly why we are walking with Jesus in His surety and not down some path of our own choosing. Complacency and a life of “safety” would be the death of an intimate, trusting relationship with the King as He uses us as instruments for the advancement of His kingdom and His glory.
The vocabulary of the Kingdom is not a “be safe” vocabulary, but rather a vocabulary of “be strong in the Lord”, “have courage and hope” and “run the race with perseverance”. When we feel like quitting we need to be reminded of the King and how He left the sure safety of heaven to walk with courage and resolve to the cross for our sake; how He, with compassion, bore our suffering so that one day all this mess of a world we live in can be made new. We need to be reminded that He gave us His Spirit, not so that we could sit back and relax, but so that we could share in His courage and resolve to bring His kingdom on this earth.
If you want to know if my work is safe by the world’s standards the answer is simply no, we live in a world full of heartache and evil. However, I serve a King who is GOOD and that is what matters the most.

The Loss of Innocence

Several weeks ago I traveled by road to one of the areas that has seen a lot of LRA activity in the last year. It is hard to describe the hardships people have faced as the LRA have spread their web of fear over northeastern Congo. It is especially hard to describe what this conflict has cost the children.

I was taken to see a young boy of maybe ten or eleven years of age who had recently been recovered from the LRA in an operation to rid them from the area. He had been a captive for almost a month and half, having been abducted in June, and had spent his days carrying supplies for the LRA while eating roots and other barely edible foods. Along with other boys his age he had been forced to walk for hours each day and night through the wilds searching for another garden to raid, another home to pillage, another village to scatter with fear.

How do we begin to comprehend the loss of innocence, freedom and hope? All over northeastern Congo there are thousands of children growing up in fear; many of them traumatized for the rest of their lives by what their eyes have witnessed – what no one should ever have to witness. How do we make sense of this world where so many can grow up in an unfolding tragedy while others live lives untouched by the ills that are so prevalent in places like Congo?

I also recently visited an old woman who is caring for 26 orphans. My heart breaks because she is giving her all for the children but is barely making it. There isn’t money for school fees and she can hardly find the milk powder to feed the tiniest of babies she is caring for.

This has got to end. This war, this pain, this loss of innocence.