Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Our son Jonathan is scheduled to have open heart surgery two weeks from tomorrow, on October 29th. We’ve known about this for several months and so we’ve been able to slowly do what needed to be done in Tanzania so that we could make this trip back to America and be away from things for the two months that they tell us Jonathan will need to recover. It would be nice to focus on all of the wonderful things ahead of us – the chance to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families, the chance to visit with so many of the people who are partnering with us in this work in Tanzania, the chance to meet new people and share with them about what we have seen and heard and felt. But the truth is that as nice as all of those things are, it’s impossible for us to even think of trying to focus on them. Not now anyway. The inescapable fact is that the reason we’ve come to America is so that Jonathan can have surgery. We can look over that wonderful document that’s been prepared with all of the things we’re going to with the 84 days we’re going to be in America – the churches where we’ll be speaking and the schools and universities we’ll be visiting – but even if October 29th isn’t marked in bright red on that calendar, it is marked in the brightest of red in our minds.

Before we left Madisi, one of the little churches in Igoda sent word that people will be gathering every day to pray for Jonathan. The sisters at the Kibao hospital where Susan sends so many of her sick friends, they called the day before we left home to say that they would personally be praying, but that they also wanted us to know that they had sent word to all of their churches throughout the area to ask people to pray for Jonathan. My phone is full of all of the little SMS text messages that came literally from all around Tanzania, from our Headmasters and our teachers, from former students, from people in government, from people in the Church, all to say that they will all be praying for Jonathan. Many people walked to say their goodbyes and to let us know they’d be praying for our son. Our friend in the city of Mafinga sent us meat three days before we left for us to enjoy before our trip because we wanted us to eat more than just beans before we started the trip. Susan’s sick friends in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Igoda collected together three and a half buckets of corn and gave us a chicken to make sure that on our long trip to America for Jonathan’s surgery that we would feel no hunger. Only those who have known hunger would think to do something so kind! Godfrey and Emmanueli insisted on making the long trip down to Dar – sure they found a lot of productive things that they’ll do since they’re in town, but the truth is that the focus of their coming was to make sure there was someone to go with us all the way across the country until there was no further that we could be accompanied.

It simply is true that you can’t possibly ever truly know the depths of how much people care if you don’t have a problem that’s bigger than what you can solve yourself.

And so, it is on this incredibly long flight from London to Houston that I have come to see the paradox central to our lives right now: If Jonathan’s problems were something Susan and I could solve on our own, then we wouldn’t need people to help us by praying hard and we’d never know what we know now about the way people feel about us. If building schools in these villages were easy then we could do it ourselves and we’d never need so many people to join together with us doing something that is incredibly bigger than ourselves. Certainly all of mankind needs God’s forgiveness and God’s salvation, but it is the person who is convinced that he’s really sinned and sinned so badly that he can’t ever be forgiven by God and who recognizes how utterly hopeless the situation is, that’s the person who is overwhelmed and truly senses the immense love that God has for mankind and who is exceedingly grateful. Everyone says they’re thankful for their education – even I say it – but I can’t be thankful for my education like the kid in a village whose parents have died and who gave up all hope of ever going to school and who suddenly gets that chance. We thank God out of habit before every meal, but when we eat three meals a day and we’ve done so for so long, we lose the real thankfulness to God that a person who has been hungry and knows hunger and then sees before them a plate full of food.

Jonathan’s problem is bigger than what we can solve. And so we are needy. More than needy actually.

You are our friends and you have partnered with us in this ministry, helping in so many ways, giving of yourselves and your money and your time so we could build schools in Africa and send missionaries to those villages and help the sick and the widows and the orphans. And so now we ask you, just as you have helped so very much with the work God has given us to do in Africa, to also help us personally by praying for our son. We would indeed be grateful.