Learning from the ones I teach...

I have spent my entire adult life teaching others and finding that often, God uses those I’m teaching to teach me profound truths about Himself and about myself.  Sometimes indirectly – like learning to grow in patience as I mothered three young children or as I taught second grade.  Sometimes directly – as when my beloved Bissa ladies in Garango, Burkina Faso would share truths from God’s stories with me that His Spirit had put on their hearts.  I found myself encouraged and challenged by their interaction with His Word.

{I've learned so much from these favorites!}

Yesterday, Jay and I had a long conversation with our sweet daughter.  She just finished a 6-week time of ministry working with refugees from several different countries who are in a camp in Europe.  Often, having fled horrific lives, they now await the possibility of a fresh start, a new life – one of freedom and no violence.  Her work was hard, as those who continue to suffer greatly from the immense stress that they had experienced, sometimes responded less than graciously to some of the difficult changes that she had to impose on their lives. 

And she said this to her daddy and me:  “For the first time in my life, I’ve learned what it means to really love those who don’t love me, like Jesus talks about in Luke 6:32. ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.’” 

{so blessed to have such an amazing daughter!}

So Jay and I find ourselves reflecting on this in our lives today.  How do we truly love those around us who don’t love us? Here in DRC, missionaries are generally well-respected, so exactly who are the ones around us who don’t love us?  How do we challenge the Congolese church to love those who don’t love them?

One of the things that we say regularly to those who are learning with us to tell His story, is that we should never walk away from an encounter with His Word without allowing ourselves to be transformed.  My heart is burdened today about what God wants to transform in my life after once again being placed in the position of learning from one whom I’ve taught.

  

Next week we’ll be working alongside a US church who will be teaching about leadership through stories from the life of David.  They’ll also be challenging young English students to respond to God’s call on their lives.

As we study His Word together next week, will you pray for all of us – teachers and students alike—to allow our thoughts and actions to be transformed by it?

And as a side note, this past week, Jay and our mechanic friend, Jean Louis, completed the purchase of a 2008 Toyota Prado as a second vehicle for our missionary team here in Kinshasa.  We’d like to say a huge thank you to our Southern Baptist friends who support us financially and prayerfully and provide for our transportation needs. 

Pirogues & Pygmies

{Mbandaka Telling His Story Conference}

Thank you all so much for praying for our trip to the interior!  We made it back on Friday and here are a few highlights.  But first, let me tell you how God answered your prayers:

• Please pray for our taximan, Cedrique to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We continue to share Bible stories with Cedrique.  Please keep praying for him.
• Pray for safety and no unnecessary delays throughout the journey. None whatsoever!  In fact, we made such good time in our pirogue on the river going to the forest village of Lotumbe that we arrived in one day instead of 2.

• Pray for prepared hearts of participants at both trainings. The participants were SO ready to learn. Their enthusiasm was contagious.
• Pray for ordinary people to catch the vision to “tell His story, tell it often, and tell it well.” They went out boldly and enthusiastically to tell His story.

{the bamboo pieces on the pulpit represent different parts of the Creation to Christ story}

{telling the Creation to Christ story}

{Jay teaching the Great Commission}

• Pray that we will be a blessing to our new friends that we’ll be staying with, even as they have already been such a blessing to us. Ron and Doris were incredible hosts and we learned so much from them.  They invited us to stay with them again when we come to Mbandaka.

{Jay with our hostess, Doris}

• Pray for good health during this time.  We’re taking our malaria prophylaxis, and we have a cure just in case, but we’d love to come home without having to use it. We came home with all our malaria meds although the mosquitoes had their share of our blood for their meals.
• Pray for that sometimes-difficult missionary task of eating what you’re served.  As we head up the river, we don’t know what to expect as we’ve never been to the forest of DRC before.  But we know that the God we serve expects us to be gracious guests. We had some delicious food.  We especially enjoyed eating fish from the river every day.  It never disappointed!  We also had fried plaintain, rice, fufu, spaghetti, goat, beef, and chicken.  We ate like royalty! 

{food service by Sister Mahmi}

Our training in Mbandaka was such an encouragement to us and to New Jerusalem Baptist Church as well.  Learning to tell His story, tell it often, and tell it well was a lifestyle change and commitment that these church members fully embraced.  As we continued to the village of Lotumbe, one of the New Jerusalem participants traveled with us – a new “Timothy” for us.  Sister Mahmi was such a hard worker, and she is becoming a great story teller.

 

The pirogue trip was long and relaxing.  On the trip out to the village, we were on the river for 11 hours with only one stop.  The sights and sounds of the Congo rain forest are beautiful.

In Lotumbe we trained in the Baptist Church, which is a church of a Pygmy ethnic group.  As with those from New Jerusalem, they were excited and ready to learn.  Those from this forest people that we met do not like to be called Pygmy, but call themselves “Samalie.” The Samalie are often the targets of intense racism in that area, and we were told that some are still held as slaves in certain villages.  If a Bantou person meets a Samalie on a forest trail, the Samalie is “obligated” to leave the trail to walk out at least 3 yards around the Bantou. 

{Samalie lady gathering wood}

But we’re thankful for the spirit of unity that we experienced during our training as Bantou believers from other village churches accepted to come and learn with us in the Samalie church.  We are especially thankful for our church planter friend Jeremie, a Bantou Baptist pastor who persevered though persecution to plant a church in the Samalie neighborhood.  Will you pray with us for the day when all Samalie people feel free to walk about and to worship in any place they choose and when all Bantou people will understand this freedom as well?

A highlight for me was visiting the school which Pastor Jeremie started for the Samalie children.  As you look at the pictures, please pray with us for wisdom about how to best give support to this school.  The teachers are not paid; they volunteer.  Imagine that, all my teaching friends!  The Samalie people are not yet completely convinced that their children need to be educated in a school.  Please pray for these teachers and for the director of the school to realize the immense importance of the role that they’re playing.

This week we are back in Kinshasa with another Tell His Story training.  This time our Kin “Timothys” are doing much of the teaching.  We are coming alongside, giving encouragement, and teaching some as well.  It’s gonna be another great week!  And then we’re off to the US for a few weeks to see our much-loved and missed families. 

A summary of prayer needs:

• The Samalie school in Lotumbe.  Pray for wisdom for Jay and me and our team about how to give prayerful support to this school.
• Faithful story tellers in both Mbandaka and Lotumbe
• That Samalie people will fully understand that they are special creations of God Most High, made in His image.
• That Pastor Jeremie, one of the hardest working men I’ve ever met, will be filled with strength and energy for the challenging tasks that God has given him. 
• That Cedrique, our taximan friend, will continue to grow in his knowledge of God and His Word.
• For God’s peace to rule and reign in this troubled country and especially in the hearts of His people here.

Do. The. Next. Thing.

That’s what our day has been like.  We are preparing for a two-week trip into the interior of the county, and we leave tomorrow!  So I’ve been packing and washing clothes and shopping for sheet fabric and making what I’ll call “sleeping bag sheets” out of them and cutting up a pillow to make two smaller camping pillows.  Jay has been gathering funds and doing logistics necessities for our trip and for new colleagues arriving soon.  We’ve made sure our tents are in good shape and that they have rain guards and packed some coffee in plastic bags.   And somewhere in there, we had a Lingala language lesson.

Tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. on our 28^th wedding anniversary, we’ll hop into a taxi with a young driver that we often use and head to the airport.  On the way, we’ll tell Cedrique some more of the Creation to Christ story that I’ve been sharing with him little by little as I’ve learned it in Lingala.  Also on the way, we’ll stop and pick up a local pastor who is traveling with us and who will help us with these trainings.  When we arrive in the city of Mbandaka, we have the joy and privilege of staying with two new missionary friends who invited us to stay in their home during our first training in the city. 

After Jay preaches at a local church on Sunday, we’ll start a “Tell His Story” training at the beginning of the week with a pastor from Mbandaka.  These trainings are some of our favorite things to do because it always brings such joy to people’s hearts to find that they can begin to have regular meaningful conversations with friends and family around stories from God’s Word.

The second part of our trip takes us on a 1 ½ day journey by motorized pirogue to another small town up the river.  I just love living life for Jesus; it’s always an adventure! There, we’ll conduct another oral evangelism training with church leaders in their town.  After that’s over, we motor back down the river (this time taking only one day since we ride with current) and catch a plane back to Kinshasa. 

How can you pray?

• Please pray for our taximan, Cedrique to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• Pray for safety and no unnecessary delays throughout the journey.
• Pray for prepared hearts of participants at both trainings.
• Pray for ordinary people to catch the vision to “tell His story, tell it often, and tell it well.” 
• Pray that we will be a blessing to our new friends that we’ll be staying with, even as they have already been such a blessing to us.
• Pray for good health during this time.  We’re taking our malaria prophylaxis, and we have a cure just in case, but we’d love to come home without having to use it.
• Pray for that sometimes-difficult missionary task of eating what you’re served.  As we head up the river, we don’t know what to expect as we’ve never been to the forest of DRC before.  But we know that the God we serve expects us to be gracious guests.

Praying friends, thank you so much for your participation in our journey and ministry.  We can’t do this without you!

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done...

...in my life as it is in Heaven.

We just finished a three-day training with four Baptist associations here in Kinshasa.  It was the first of two modules of a church planting and evangelism training called Four Fields.  60 people were there for all three days of the training; up to 120 people attended at least two days.  Sometimes it can be frustrating that folks show up late or that they don’t come all three days. But we choose to be gracious toward people who work hard just to make daily ends meet, and since we ourselves have been stalled as long as 2 hours in Kinshasa traffic jams, we also offer a lot of grace to the latecomers who are arriving in taxis and buses.

One of my favorite parts of this training was getting participants to think about how life would look if the Kingdom of Heaven were to come among all the social and professional layers of their society.  Our friend and fellow-trainer Pastor Elnathan asked people their profession and then divided them into groups accordingly.  We had groups of pastors, evangelists, business people, government office workers, technical workers like mechanics and electricians, and finally students.  Each group was asked to consider how life in their profession would look for them and those around them if God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done in their lives as it is in Heaven.  Our learners quickly put themselves to the task and visualized what would happen.

Students (above) said that there would be no more cheating, no more paying for grades – either with money or with sex.

Business people (above) said that there would be no jealousy among peers and colleagues which leads to lying and stealing.

Technicians (above), who have a notorious reputation here for telling people that they need more repaired than is really necessary and who are also known for taking a super long time to do their work, said that these things would change – that they would be honest with people.

Government workers (above) said that corruption would disappear.

And these pastors?  Well, they said a lot of things, but one that stood out was that there would be no more “ministry wives.”  That’s when you divorce your first wife because she’s not “good for your ministry” and find a second one that you consider worthy of your calling.

As with all our interactions around the Word of God, I found myself thinking through my own life and work.  As the Kingdom of God grows in my heart and in my thoughts, as I seek to see His will done in my life as it is in Heaven, what will change?  It’s a good thing to think about and pray through.

Will you join me?

Telling His Story

In the next 5 weeks in a row, we have a packed schedule – full of what we love to do!  We are training story tellers who will go and tell His story – the life-changing story, the life-giving story, the most amazing story of all.   We are asking for prayer for these trainings, which are scheduled as noted below:

• Wed – Fri, March 15, 16, 17 – Masina, a Kinshasa neighborhood
• Sat – Fri, March 18-24 – Idiofa, in the interior of the country
• Wed – Fri, March 29, 30, 31 – Malueka, right outside the city of Kinshasa
• Wed – Fri, April 5, 6, 7 – Mont Ngafula, a Kinshasa neighborhood
• Mon – Wed, April 10, 11, 12 – Associational Youth conference in Mont Ngafula (a different group of churches from the week before)

Please pray for:

• Spiritually prepared hearts and minds of all who are leading and participating
• Clarity of mind as people learn to tell with detail three stories: the demoniac story, their own personal salvation testimony, and a survey of God’s story called Creation to Christ
• Clear and accurate translation from French into Lingala in Kinshasa and into Kikongo in Idiofa
• Bold story-tellers who will tell His story accurately and enthusiastically
• Safe journey to Idiofa on public transportation

And you, our praying friends, are you telling His story to those around you?  Do you tell often?  Do you tell it well?  May we all reflect again on the personal meaning of Acts 1:8 in our lives: “…and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

#iwillprayforKin   #tellHisstorytellitoftentellitwell

Do what you like; like what you do!

Jay and I feel the amazing blessing of being able to do just that.  We are incredibly privileged to know that what we do counts both for today and for eternity.

As we come to the end of a year of mostly full-time language and culture study, we find that we still have a way to go to be able to extemporaneously teach in Lingala as we would like.  But we’re not discouraged by that – on the contrary, we’re committed to reaching that goal little by little, word by word, and story by story. We are ready, though, to launch into the joy of teaching and training people to share their faith, to advance His kingdom – primarily through sharing His story in oral form.

 

We stand amazed as God is already opening so many doors that we are willing and excited to walk through.  I have had the opportunity to teach twice now about the how and why – the huge importance of children’s ministry in Africa.  Did you know that:

• By 2050, 1 in every 3 births and almost 1 in every 3 children under 18 will be African.
• Between 2010 and 2025, the child population of sub-Saharan Africa will rise by 130 million.
• From around 2030, sub-Saharan Africa will be the single region with the greatest number of children under 18.

So my question to the Congolese church is this:  What are you going to do to ensure that Africa’s children can hear and understand the best news ever?

Teaching people how to share their faith through stories from God’s Word is another of our joys.  We have conducted 3-day training conferences about how to do that – helping people to learn to tell a simple story from His Word about a life radically changed, to learn to tell their own story and how God has changed their lives, and how to give an overview of God’s story.  People of all ages are soaking this training up and asking for more.

And yet another joy, teaching people “the heart of the Father” – praying for His kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven, remembering that if we follow Him, He makes us fishers of men, discussing together about following and fishing and being obedient soil from Matthew 13 that produces fruit.  Fruit that lasts.  Fruit that expands His kingdom.  Fruit that grows His church.

So what comes next and how can you pray?

Well, we already have more “telling His story” trainings on the books.  In March both here in Kinshasa and in the interior of the country, in April in and around Kinshasa, and in May and August deep in the heart of this beautiful country.  Pray now for the hearts of those who will attend these trainings to be ready and willing and for their minds to be sharp.

This week we met with the leaders of 4 Baptist associations representing 40 churches here in Kin to cast vision for planting new churches.  Jay shared “the heart of the Father” and those leaders were challenged by one of their own colleagues to immediately begin the preliminary steps for these trainings which we call “Four Fields.”  Pray for these pastors and associational leaders to continue to feel the passion for the Kingdom advance that they felt when Jay spoke with them.  Pray for the right timing of these trainings as our calendar is quickly filling up.

Please pray for the many church leaders who have expressed an interest in further training for the children’s leaders in their churches and that they will see children not as the church of the future, but the church of today.    

Oh, praying friends, there is so much more that I’ll share on another day!  Thank you, thank you for your presence with us on this journey.  We daily feel the effects of your fervent prayers and even your prayerful thoughts as we live the abundant life here in DRC.  Please let us know how we can pray for you as well.

Merry Christmas from the Shaftos!