Simon says ...

Have you ever played the game, "Simon says?" While perusing Pinterest the other night I came across this pin ...

"Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Matthew 28:19  

"...all the nations..." Powerful! Not just cities, not just neighborhoods, but ENTIRE NATIONS!  
All of us have not only memorized that verse, but we have also "gone." 

When I was a teenager my heart burned for the nations, especially Africa. I would lay on my floor in my bedroom and cry out for God to use me to reach the nations with His love. Turning the channels on our TV one day, I came across Reinhard Bonnke, missionary/evangelist to Africa. He was preaching in Africa and he began chanting, "Africa will be saved. Africa will be saved." The presence of God filled my living room as I wept, prayed and I believed that one day the entire continent of Africa would be saved. 

Sitting and serving in Germany right now, my heart continues to burn for the nations. More than ever before we need to pray for laborers and the funds needed to "go." In the past few months I have had missionary friends having to leave the field due to lack of funding. 

Let's stand and pray for each other because ... 

Sometimes ... discouragement threatens to snuff the fire out. Bills intimidate and attempt to encircle me like mountains on every side. A thick fog named stress dares to cloud my view and my perception becomes skewed. 

Let me see if I can explain it. 

A few weeks ago I received a call from a friend requesting touristy help regarding Switzerland. She's lived here for at least 10 years and she's traveled quite a bit, but since we lived in Luzern before, she wanted to ask some questions. I told her it was a beautiful city and it's close to a magnificent mountain named Pilatus. Breathtaking, really. She chuckled and said that for years of visiting Luzern she never saw the mountain and thought those postcards showing the mountain were a joke. Until one clear day. She sucked in her breath, slowly releasing, then told me about the first time she actually saw Pilatus.

Recently, I heard a message about "seeing." What do you see when you pray? Do you "see" your situation turning around? Do you "see" the entire nation where you are serving being set free in Christ? We have to "see" it in the spiritual before we ever "see" it in the natural. 

Look at the picture below of Luzern. You may be saying, "how could she not see that mountain. It's huge!" Like my friend, I have driven through Switzerland on foggy days and the alps have seemingly disappeared. My vision is skewed and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't believe it.  If I hadn't seen them for myself I would have doubted their very existence. 

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

Like Psalm 27:13 states, "...we would have fainted unless we believed to see His goodness..." We are "seeing" the mountains in our life dissolve. Why? Because He's done it before. 

Let's trust through discouragement. 

Let's lean on Him at all times especially when we find it hard to stand. 

Let's rely on His word. 

Let's stay in His presence because ... 

The mountains take one look at God and melt, melt like wax before earth’s Lord. 

Psalm 97:5

I absolutely love that verse! Isn't it great?! Our mountains will melt like wax in His presence. The fog lifts in His presence. Discouragement has to go in His presence. 

May we be a testimony of His glory together as we ask God for the nations.

May we see the ruins come to life. 

May we witness His glory being poured out on this Earth. 

"Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,
    the whole earth as your possession."

Psalm 2:8

Tuesday Topic: Staying sane :-)

I thought of this one last night during a little "emergency" sanity walk that I took by myself. What are your favorite little sanity measures? I mean, simple, everyday kinds of things that you do to take care of yourself. I'm not talking about a week at the beach, or a Paris vacation, or anything like that here, just the simple things. :-)

(If you have a “Tuesday Topic” question, please email it to me at fylliska@gmail.com. Provide your blog address if you would like to be linked to, or specify if you would like to remain anonymous. Thanks!)

5 Things I’ve Learned in 25 Years Overseas

I remember like it was yesterday landing in the airport in Izmir, Turkey with 2 kids and 17 suitcases. (Believe me, the suitcases were lots easier to handle than the kids.) The team mate we’d never met wasn’t there to pick us up. Since I had a few jumbled bits of Turkish that I hadn’t used in 15 years stored somewhere in my brain, I was the natural person to solve this problem. My husband knew none. That was my fourth and last international move twelve years ago.

Next week I celebrate my 50^th birthday, and I’m thinking about how I still don’t have it all together, but I’m making progress and learning.  After twenty-five years of cross-cultural living, here are my musings on what I’ve learned I’m still learning about serving overseas.

Make God Your First Priority

Ministry has ups and downs, but God never changes. Sometimes I get discouraged by not seeing results in our ministry, but I’m not here in Turkey to see a fruitful ministry, I’m here to obey and please God. All I have to do is remain in Him and trust that fruit will follow. Even if the people I disciple fall away, even if the people I share with reject the message, nothing takes away the joy of knowing God!

Your Kids Will Be Okay

Ever since the day we went to the circumcision of a neighbor’s son, and our 5 year old boy ended up behind a locked bedroom door with all the neighborhood boys WATCHING THE CIRCUMCISION while we waited helplessly outside, I’ve wondered “Are we messing up our kids by raising them here?”

I’m amazed at how God has blessed them despite challenges. We’ve had kids at the park say they don’t want to play with Christian kids. We’ve seen most of their TCK friends return home to America or Europe, but today our kids are happy and thriving. They’ve had unique and precious opportunities growing up in Turkey.

Don’t Take Life (or Ministry) Too Seriously

Learning to laugh and enjoy life keeps me alive here.  This is a country where you spend the first two years of your church plant staring at the other foreign couple seated across from you on Sunday mornings in your living room. This is the place where your star disciple falls away from Jesus or gets mad at the other believers and leaves the church. Oh the tears do fall, but it helps me to remember that our lives are about much more than ministry. So I keep looking for things to enjoy and give thanks for.

Make Friends with Nationals

Relationships with Turkish nationals make our lives richer. My closest friend is a Turk. It’s a privilege for my kids to rub shoulders with believers who choose Jesus over friends, family, and a job when the rubber hits the road. We’ve learned so much from these people about kindness, generosity, sacrifice, and God’s grace.

Take Time for Yourself

A bit of self-cares helps me to live beyond survival mode, you know what I mean? When my kids were little, I would leave the house for a few hours on Saturday mornings. Now that they’re older, I carve out time for hobbies like writing, and I try to spend a bit of time every day, okay some days, reading.  A daily morning walk, quiet time with God, and coffee dates with friends keep me sane (most of the time).

What about you? How long have you been on the field, and what is something you’ve learned that you can share with the rest of us?

What's it really mean? "Go..."

You know that moment when you read or hear something... and your only response is an emotional/mental, "Ouch!" ??

I had one of those moments the other day when I read: 

"One of the main reasons [insert your country... county... city... name here]'s churches are not ministering to a larger number of people is because they typically wait for people to come to them.... Many congregations seem to have become ends in themselves. They exist for each other and become preoccupied with themselves and their way of 'doing' religion. Lay ministry means nothing more than getting involved in running the church." (Dr. Reginald Bibby, Transforming Our Nation: Empowering the Canadian Church for a Greater Harvest, p. 302, 300-301)

I read that and started to wonder, "Could that be true? That even when we go as missionaries to far flung corners of the globe we still somehow wait for people to come in to find us instead of going out and sharing with them?"

I can only really speak to my own experience living, working and trying to minister in West Africa - but if I'm speaking honestly, spending most of my time with other expat friend and colleagues was certainly more comfortable. And there were times that it was needed and an integral ministry. Even after living in the same neighborhood for several years, stepping out into the community to visit with the ladies, trying to use my third language, seeking to understand a culture and way of thinking that was so completely foreign to me, always knowing that I was obviously a foreigner just because of the color of my skin.

I can also only really speak to my own experience living, working and trying to minister in Midland, Michigan - where my kids attend the Christian school that is a ministry of our sending church... where life seems to be consumed by school and church activities or by traveling and visiting with our partnering churches activities... and our little ones come to the "invite a friend to church" nights and realize they don't know anyone who doesn't already know Jesus or go to church regularly. 

So different from life on the mission field in Niger.

And I have to ask, where would we even fit getting to know someone else in to our way too busy lives? And why is "way too busy with so many church and Christian school activities" a tempting badge of honor to wear? As I speak with others, I don't think my family is the only family that struggles with this. So I think it is worth asking the question: Is it possible there are too many activities so that we can invite/entice people to church... but we're so busy either running or participating in all those activities we don't really know anyone outside of church? We are, effectively, waiting for people to come to us rather than going out and ministering to them!

A few weeks ago, my husband telephoned from work and told me to get ready to go out. He wanted to take me somewhere. I was reluctant. My always-too-long to do list of stuff that still needed to be accomplished around the house continued onto the next page. So I sort of just ignored him. When he walked through the door, he was insistent... and adamant that it would remain a surprise until I was in the car and on the way. So I threw on some "going-out" clothes, brushed my teeth and hair, added a few touches of make-up, gave the biggers instructions for babysitting the littlers and within fifteen minutes or so, we were on the way...

...to a program called Thursday Night Together, a "happy hours" of sorts at our local Center for the Arts. One of the men where Tim was working was planning to go with his lady friend and invited Tim and I to join them. Once there, I sipped my water with lemon, ate cheese and crackers, listened to a Québecois folk music group play a few songs, explain about their instruments and give a little bit of the history of French Canadian folk music. We visited with this older couple and enjoyed sharing a little bit of what we'd seen God do in Niger over the past several years as well as hearing what this couple thought of God and ministry. We spent a few minutes actually speaking French with a few of the group members, talking about Québec and their travels in the United States.

It was fun.

More importantly, it was an eye-opening reminder. 

It was a reminder that just because I've "gone" as a missionary to a far away place, I've not received a pass on God's command to "Go..." when I'm not in that far away place.

• For "Go... and make..." is what He's told me He wants me to do. Go is the first step.
• Get out of my house. 
• Step outside of my comfortable community. 
• Unbusy and unclutter my life so that there is opportunity.
• Step into places that may feel a little uncomfortable. 
• Accept invitations when others offer hospitality, even if it looks different.
• Find opportunities to interact with - ministering to and learning to love those who haven't, who aren't, choosing to come to me. 

And that's true whether I'm a missionary on home assignment, whether I'm a missionary working on the backside of the desert, or whether I'm any person in any church any where who claims to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Photo Credit - Bianca Bueno

Tuesday Topic: Patriotism?

Are you patriotic about the country you live in? The one you came from? Would you fly a local flag or make other outright statements about where you stand? What about your children? How well do they know the little patriotic things of their passport country (anthem, flag, etc)?

(If you have a “Tuesday Topic” question, please email it to me at fylliska@gmail.com. Provide your blog address if you would like to be linked to, or specify if you would like to remain anonymous. Thanks!)

Sunday Is Coming

It all began with a triumphal procession, shouts of joy and praise. As the week wore on, expressions would darken and the cries of “Save us!” would turn to rants of “Kill him!”

For His closest followers the week would be an emotional roller coaster unlike anything they had, or ever would again, experience. They were part of a chosen group, come to claim power at last for their people. By week’s end they were denying their Christ, and hiding their faces in the shadows.

They saw God die.

With their own eyes.

And then they buried Him, along with all their hopes.

Nothing made sense for His closest chosen. Betrayal and fear hung thick in the air. What questions did they whisper to God in the dark? What looks of utter confusion did they exchange on that most horrible of days? How could any of it make sense?

They forgot about the promised Sunday.

How easy it is to forget. Oh, how I so quickly forget. Lately it feels like we are living one long, dark, and confusing Saturday.  A very young man in our homeless ministry is terminally ill. He will die after a childhood of substance abuse because he was abandoned on the streets. A woman involved in one of our programs has left to find work elsewhere, and in all likelihood she will fall once again into the evils of prostitution and exploitation.

The darkness presses in, and we wonder why. Why are we here? Can we do anything? Was it all for nothing? Is there a way through the darkness?

But Sunday is coming.

And I forget, but I know. I know it is coming. Nothing is too far, too gone, too lost. The dark questions, the “God no!” that is whispered in the night is the reality of the Saturdays that we live, that all of us live in this world. We raise white knuckled fists to heaven because we do not know how we will make it through, we do not know how God will make a way. We do not understand how we can possibly bear the crosses that are given to us, and we cry and we hope and we press on, and sometimes we just want to give up.

But Sunday is coming.

May we not forget this week, as we move through the traditions, as we remember the passion, and as we reflect on the sanctity of what is holy and true…that although we may live in Saturday, the story does not end there. The story does not end in a spiral of misery, and there may be pain, and there will be questions. But there will be victory, and there will be glory, and there will be a life without end filled with joy and praise. Our struggles will not be wasted, our hopes will not be dashed. And one sweet day, we will see the sun streaming through the clouds.

Because Sunday is coming.

Tuesday Topic: Inconveniences

This week's question, along with some of her thoughts, is from Betsy:

Last weekend I had a Turkish moment. Just after my 10^th breakfast guest arrived, repairmen cut the water supply to our building! It was a surprise, so I didn’t have a chance to fill up any buckets or bottles beforehand. The water came back on at 8:30 pm, and on Monday it was cut again. In fact over the last 6 weeks, I’ve cooked a few meals without water, gone a few days without doing laundry, and had one 3-day showerless adventure.

I confess my patience is wearing a bit thin, and I’m thinking, “I’m too old for this.”

Looking on the bright side, inconveniences like water cuts on the field do keep us flexible, and God can use them to teach us the hard lessons of patience and contentment. Undoubtedly they’re part of His design to mold us into the image of His son, but knowing this doesn’t make it any easier!

Are water or electricity cuts part of your life on the field? What other inconveniences threaten to undo you?

(If you have a “Tuesday Topic” question, please email it to me at fylliska@gmail.com. Provide your blog address if you would like to be linked to, or specify if you would like to remain anonymous. Thanks!)