cracks in closed doors

Of the 15,969 people groups in the world today, 6,429 are cut off from the message of Christ. While the advancement of the gospel has made significant progress over the past 20 years, the door to our missionaries and mission strategists remains tightly closed in many countries, especially those that are Muslim dominated.

But there is one glaring exception to this. There is a gap in the door to most of the unreached people groups that few people know about or even think about.

I am talking about medical missions.

While most missionaries are not allowed into these countries, medical doctors and personnel who have a love for Christ and are committed to pushing back the darkness not just of physical disease and poverty but also of spiritual poverty and darkness, are welcomed with open arms and sometimes with great enthusiasm into places the rest of us could not go. God is using them in ways that defy imagination!

One of the organizations that has made significant progress along these lines is Medical Missions Response. This organization was founded by brave medical missionaries from around the globe who purposed to leverage their influence toward the darkest and most vulnerable places on earth. Although their names cannot be printed here or their incredible stories will likely never be told in full detail, it is good for us to at least get a glimpse of the impact of their work.

Our church is privileged to have one of their founding doctors, Dr. Chuck Fielding (not his real name) come to our church on August 12 to share from first hand experience how God is using medical missions for His glory.

Dan Bivens, who is the stateside support for this ministry and a new member of our church has made the arrangements for Chuck to be here with us. I am grateful to him for this unique opportunity.

the invisible women

The picture you are looking at is of one of the most unreached people groups in the world.

My wife snapped this picture on the woman's side of a Bedouin tent a couple of weeks ago.

The image strikes me for a number of reasons. One, as a Western man, Bedouin women are virtually invisible as it is their shame to be seen. They cover their faces and run to their side of the tent when we approach. It is a rare glimpse into a world few ever see. Most Bedouin women will not allow you take their picture. This one didn't care.

I also notice something in her demeanour. I can't help but notice the sadness. As it turns out, it is not just a flash of expression captured in an instant and frozen in time by a camera lens, the sadness in this woman's heart is real. Her heart is full of darkness as life has no hope.

As our missionary to this country explained to Teri and I, she feels totally and completely hemmed in by her life situation. She was married off very young by her family and now struggles day to day to stay above the creeping hardship of poverty while raising her children, taking care of animals and feeding and tending to her household. Women in this part of the world have few rights and are often subjected to terrible oppression. In this picture she is preparing a fire to make tea to serve her guests. The tea will be served to the men first, and if there is time, the women will be served some as well. But only after the men have had their fill and have had their conversations and are sitting back away from their cups, refusing to take any more refills. It is only when the men are totally satisfied that the women are allowed to partake in the pleasure of sharing in the tea.

That is the way it is in Muslim dominated countries. Women are not to be seen, they are only to serve their husbands and take care of their children.

It is the way it has always been in the Middle East. It is not far from the way it was in the Greco-Roman culture of the first century in the time of Christ.

When I look at this picture I am reminded of some of the women Jesus encountered in the gospels. The woman at the well, the woman who was caught in adultery, the widow who gave all she had, Mary and Martha and the woman who wiped Jesus' feet with her hair. I think of how Jesus honored the women who were around him. I think of how others were shocked and offended by the scandalous Jesus who welcomed "prostitutes" into his presence.

When one spends much time in this part of the world and experiences the culture that has remained basically unchanged for thousands of years, it is not long before you realize that the message of Christ, so radical even in our culture, was even more radical in theirs.

The liberating power of the gospel becomes glaringly obvious when set in the contrast of countries that are living in such utter darkness. There is no doubt, the only solution to the oppressing shadows of the Muslim world is the light of Christ.

But the only way for Bedouin women to be reached is if Chrsitian women respond to the call in mass, for the harvest is full and laborers are few. Pray with me today that hundreds and even thousands will respond to this call.

buildings not made with human hands

Last week, while visiting Jerusalem at the end of a very meaningful and strenuous mission trip to the Middle East, our group was kicked out of the (supposed) oldest church in all of Christendom (It's a long story- involving a very cranky Syriac Orthodox care-taker with an unfortunate Monty Python type voice, chewing gum, teenagers and uncontrolled giggling).

If that were not humiliating enough, today I learned that we protestants have now been kicked out of the Catholic Church. Who knew? In what I guess was to be considered a real news flash for world Christianity, Pope Benedict doesn't think that either the Orthodox or the Protestants have got it right.

I probably would not have given either of these events a second thought if it had not been for the stark contrast between the coldness of such exclusionary angst in the self righteous on the one hand, and the warm embrace of genuine Christianity I have felt in the persecuted Church of North Africa Middle East on the other.

By contrast to the cold dead religiosity of churches that now exist only as monuments, there is a church rising in the land of Promise.

In the past 20 days, I have watched as an Arab Pastor boldly laid hands on and prayed for the healing of a committed Muslim and Islamic teacher who allowed him to pray in the name of Christ for his cancer.

I have observed as a former Muslim who is now a passionate believer in Christ excitedly tell all who will listen what it means to leave the darkness of Islam and to follow the teachings of Jesus.

I watched as an Arab Christian teenager shared the gospel in a room full of Muslim scholars in a country where it is strictly forbidden.

I have watched as one of our missionaries wept over the condition of an abused Bedouin woman who has suffered such humility in a culture she cannot escape.

I have prayed for and with missionaries who have given their lives and futures to serve in one of the most difficult places on earth where spiritual darkness is deep and abiding, and yet their light shines bright and joyful.

I have worshipped with Arab believers who could not understand English as I could not understand their language, and yet, in worship, we were in agreement and unity over our praise of Christ.

I have laughed and joyfully walked with people from half way around the world I have never met before, but because we had Christ in common, felt the incredible bond of fellowship and Christian community.

I am reminded today as I reflect on this contrast, that to be a follower of Christ is to forsake religion with all of it's silly rules and empty promise. The two are not compatible. Religion is the invention of man- the idolatrous attempt to control God and look down on others. It is our attempt to create Him in our image. Religion is the worst form of humanistic atheism- it puts man at the center and elevates our contemptuous pride while piously maintaining self importance.

In Christianity, one kicks self off the throne of the human heart thus making it His building. In religion, one puts self at the center and kicks everyone else out.

Genuine ChristianityI have found is the same in every culture and in every language. It is the abandonment of self. Christianity says, "nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling." Christianity is the freedom of release- the joy of relationship. It is opened arms and warm embraces that knows no cultural or racial barriers. It puts up no false fronts or barriers but bears all things and hopes all things.

It is only by His grace that you and I belong.

And only by His grace, we are not turned away.

(Even if we are chewing gum).

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.

(Joseph Hart, 1759)