October 5, 2007
Dear Family and close Friends:
Congo seems to be in the news, and most of the time it is intensely negative news. But there are some good things to report, and we trust that your helping us stay out here and represent Christ and His Church is one of those. Thank you for your prayer and resources to keep us out here on the job!
We know a woman, a houseworker, who helps a friend of ours regularly. Her name has been for many years “Beia” (Bey-ah), which means in her dialect, “Rejected.” She was given this name at birth because her family wanted a boy. She grew up, married, and was unable to have children. After some years when it was determined she was indeed incapable of bearing children, her husband’s family began to press him to divorce her and take another wife. That is the custom here. After much pressure from his family, Beia’s husband showed signs of giving in to his family. Though he loved his wife, his resolve was weakening.
Not long ago, he told Beia that he was going to the church to pray about the matter. He was gone all day. Beia assumed that he had abandoned her and would not be coming back. But late that night he came into the door of their little house with tears streaming down his face. He said, “Woman of mine, I have spent the day seeking the Lord’s face over this matter. He told me not to let you go, and not to abandon you. And He made it clear that I was not to take another wife. He told me one other thing: that your name is not to be Beia. From now on your name will be Benedite (“Blessing”)! We keep praying for her that God will give them a child one day!
I like that story, not only because it is true, but for the hope it represents in a lot of place in the Congo. That story will not get any time in front of a BBC or a CNN camera, but it is important for our perspective on the way our God is working secretly in rebuilding a nation by His grace. It really is all about redemption, isn’t it?
You may have heard something of the Ebola epidemic in the interior. In the Kasai region, Three hours from here by plane, is a raging Ebola epidemic. The Kasai is where Presbyterians first planted our mission work back in the 1890s I grew up there, son of missionary parents, some 50 years ago. I doubt that the BBC or CNN is mentioning that in the Kasai there is a huge, vital Presbyterian Church hard at work ministering the Word and bringing the light of Christ to shine on the fear and harsh reality of such an epidemic.
At Luebo, in the home of missionaries Lach and Winnie Vass, workers from Atlanta’s Communicable Disease Center are working tirelessly along with others from the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders to contain the disease. Your own missionary Dr. Larry Sthreshley and his organization SANRU, which provides health care to over eight million folks in Congo, is providing the network for the containment program. Let’s pray for Larry and his team as well as these medical experts who are converging on this region at this time of crisis. Let’s not forget the Presbyterian church in that area! Pray for pastors and the many lay leaders to be used by the Lord to minister courage and hope from the Word of Christ.
In connection to this news on the Ebola outbreak, it has been tempting to ask, “Can anything more go wrong with this country? Hasn’t it been through enough?” Let me encourage you as you pray with us for this country to be careful how you think. Those kinds of questions can be the natural expression of frustration in the face of severe suffering, but the Spirit presses us to think a little further. How can we account for anything “good” that happens in this fallen, very broken world? When you consider this country’s history, is it not amazing that we find anything “right” or “good”? Or do we make the mistake of thinking that God owes us or this country or her people just for suffering? The blockade to my heart’s natural cynicism is the counsel of a wise old guy named Job: “Shall we accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:11). Lord God, keep us from sinning with our lips from hearts full of unbelief and cynicism! When you think of Romans 9 and then Romans 8:28-29, you realize how far our all-good and all-wise Father is willing to take His own children to bring them out as pure gold. Lord, don’t let me duck out on the hammering and the heat to bring me to the goal you have in mind. How can I think or talk like this? Because of that cross. Because of that demonstration of love for this broken, lost world which takes our breath away! It is there that we realize something of His heart as He endured the suffering of His own Son, in the most wicked example of injustice, for our sakes!
Val and I will begin our teaching at the seminary very soon. This semester Val will be concentrating on the developing women’s ministries in the Congolese Presbyterian community. Teaching my course load in French still scares the soup out of me! The work at the International Protestant Church continues to grow, and we have Bible study groups all over the city now. We just had our third annual national prayer breakfast with several hundred politicians, government, and military leaders attending at the Grand Hotel. One of the guest speakers was a gentleman from Tanzania who emphasized the need for leaders to emerge from the ranks of Congo’s people. He said, “We all know that the word ‘leader’ comes from what we all know in the village as ‘the elder.’ We all know what an elder is—he is a helper. We see too many people in government who help themselves. Now what our countries need are true elders—leaders who help their people! Let’s pray for that!”
Pray for us that we also will be a helpful leadership presence here in Congo. Thanks for your faithful support—especially meeting us at the altar in heaven on behalf of us and our family in these critical times in this developing nation. We thank God for you all and the encouragement you represent to us from Him!
Walt and Val Shepard
The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 313 |
