More than words

God is strong, and he wants you to be strong. . . This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours.  This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.  Be prepared.  You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own.  Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.  Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words.  Learn how to apply them. (Ephesians 6 from the Message)

This passage formed the text for the morning’s sermon, and when I read it in the Message it sounded like a letter written directly to our team.  This is for keeps, the struggle against lies and hate and hunger and abuse.  We need all the help we can get.  Truth and faith are more than just words.  

In what is now becoming a second-term trend, the students at CSB began to protest last night when their dinner was burned beyond edibility and the cook berated them for their uneducated tastes in refusing to eat the food.  The Pierces and leadership team rallied prayer and wisely met with students this morning, but by that time one staff had been hit by a rock thrown in the dark (by the GIRLS’ dorm no less) and the students had boycotted breakfast (which was at least a non-violent collective action).  The issues are many, and deep, way beyond bad food, beyond the “afternoon athletic contest” level of conflict.  It is no small task to procure and cook food for several hundred people three meals a day on a dollar or less per person, in a primitive setting (no power, cooking over wood fire, no cold storage, no supermarkets, no wholesale warehouses . . ).  This is complicated by the global crisis of rising food costs, the Ugandan school culture of violence, the prevalence of corruption, even the strained historical cultural/tribal relationship between the majority ethnicity of the students and the minority previously dominant ethnicity of the caterer and some staff.  Add to that personality and unwise words and frustration, and the mix is volatile.  

While that was brewing over the last twelve hours, a long time friend and neighbor arrived in the dark last night saying his child had died, a 4 year-old-ish girl we had treated for malaria a couple of hours earlier.  Thankfully she was only temporarily dead, a convulsion from the severe malaria.  Scott injected her and Karen brought her down to the hospital this morning for more treatment.  Pat’s elderly friend is languishing there because a troublesome newly-appointed medical worker assigned her care has missed work the last two days . . . In spite of the fact that on Friday I brought a newspaper article to the staff which said that absenteeism was now being considered corruption, stealing a salary without doing the work.  A smug local primary school teacher read the Scriptures in church today much to our sadness since his infidelity and polygamy are destroying his family, we feel he should not be given any spiritual leadership role.  

And I sense the battle just as intensely in my own heart, in my quick-to-judge views and intolerance, in my protective indifference to the needy who are impinging on my Sunday rest.

In short, this is a fight to the finish, and we are up against more than we can handle.  The timely sermon pointed us to prayer.  Please join.