Wayfarer By Faith: Faith

Street kids ministry to a delightful bunch of orphan boys and girls in Mandevo, Zimbabwe. Photograph by Janielle, December 2014.

I’ve been thinking about our world today as we know it, live it, and breathe it. It’s scary just to contemplate the reality of our generation’s consumerist culture. We are all caught up in the web of ‘more for me, myself and I’ – the subtly vicious cycle of getting, buying, selling, and profiting more, for ourselves. We don’t need to overtly reject or run away from faith or the reality of God, we just need to occupy and cram our minds, hearts and schedules with more ‘stuff’. As Darren Cronshaw wrote, “Malls are our cathedrals.” Our modern havens reek superficiality.

I’ve begun to realize more and more how destructive these trends are. It is precisely so dangerous because it’s not immediately ‘life-threatening’ or obviously detrimental to our well-being. But really, this narcissistic, media-driven, consumer-oriented society is actually driving us all restlessly insane under our very own skin. We just think it’s normal now – an expression of our ‘freedom’, a privilege of our ‘developed’ world. In feeding the physical and the egoistical part of us, we have numbed our senses to our spiritual and inward starvation. We are desperate for a different kind of ‘more’, but we do not know it, or even care to admit it.

A lot of the pre-occupations and seeming ‘necessities’ in our lives are actually merely fine-looking or even noble distractions that take us away from encountering the life-giving reality of God, which opens our eyes to blatant injustice and spiritual need in our world. Much of our identities are all muddled up and falsely shaped by the marketing ploys of the mass-media or by what our peers and even our parents or teachers tell us are important.

I believe one of the things that can help shake up a person’s world is travel. By that, I do not mean camping trips or luxury holidays, nor do I mean jet-setting round the world on a shoe-string budget primarily to satisfy your own tastes or interests. By ‘travel’, I mean entering into diverse places and cultures and communities that are different to our prior life experiences. By ‘entering into’, I mean the act of making certain commitments to learn from, partner with, and work alongside a particular group of people in a specific context that may challenge us deeply in every aspect of our lives.

What I am proposing is simply what Jesus did. He entered in to our context, our world. He still does. He raised up a missional tribe of twelve disciples and sent them out to touch the world and bring life to those worn-out weary souls. What Jesus did miraculously touches me today (and millions of others around the globe). He touches me so deeply (with his mercy), so warmly (with his love), and sometimes so searingly (with his truth), that I am compelled to give all my life to love as He calls me to love tough people in tough places. In all this, I often fail miserably. You and I always will have our intermittent stumbles, but what I’ve come to realize is that Jesus sees our hearts. He sees that we are fighting, we are reaching, we are seeking, pursuing, running this race. So he reaches out and picks me up again and again when I fall. He is the reason why I started this journey, this ‘wayfaring by faith’, and this very moment of introspective writing.

That is why the consumer culture can no longer dictate my motives, my actions, and my plans. I need to go through this paradigm shift, and I still am in the process of it! While I live in Australia, I am faced with it every single day. It’s difficult to not be influenced by it. But I’m finding more and more that if I immerse myself in the words of the Bible, my mind is renewed by Truth and motivated by the love Jesus demonstrated. In so doing, my attitude undergoes a subtle, ongoing transformation. I’m meeting many other followers and seekers of Jesus Christ who are undergoing this same miracle of restoration and radical change in their lives as they turn to faith in Him with tears of repentance and a heart full of newfound hope.

When we begin to re-orientate our lives toward the narrow path Jesus leads us on, we face new challenges, but we also are filled with a remarkable peace that stays with us amidst dark and tumultuous times. When we begin to follow Him more and more wholeheartedly, we dive deeper into His presence and become part of His missional tribe. Jesus doesn’t want us to just spend time with him and live a good life. He didn't call us to subscribe to mere religion and make a nice life for ourselves. He wants to send us out to love radically and be his agents of reconciliation for a broken world. One day I might be stoned for writing all this so openly, but now that I have hands to write, I will write with no apologies. Jesus is sending us out as part of his missional tribe. Isn't that incredible, that God desires us to partner in His great mission work of redemption? He is the instigator and initiator of all missional activity the world over. It's pretty awesome!

By missional, I mean ‘missionary’. It’s not a professional title or merely a credential you study for. It sounds complicated, but really, it’s simply a calling – a calling to each of us who commit to follow Jesus. It is a call to enter into the tough corners of our society, our world. It is a call to journey with Jesus in a cross-cultural mission venture spanning street to street, village to village, city to city, border to border, island to island, and continent to continent.

For many, this calling is for their home turf, their neighbourhood, and their street. For others, it means going to other cities and slums, to other jungles and villages, to other deserts and desolate towns. For some, it will mean doing both in their lifetimes. I’m already brimming with nervous anticipation! Isn’t this crazy and exciting and difficult all at the same time? Precisely so! I hope this moves and inspires and challenges you to rethink your posture in life so you can be on your way to discovering your God-given destiny.

For me personally, 2015 has been a transitionary year of immense growth and simple yet soul-riveting challenges. My pride and self-assurance has been undergoing a time of ‘chipping away’. I hope and pray that one day it is utterly decimated, because I don’t want to cling to it anymore! My need to buy and consume and serve myself has also been confronted drastically. I still fall into these traps, but I have been made more aware of their drastic consequences. More and more, God has been forging in me a fire to mobilize others to spiritual awakening and toward a ‘missional’ outlook in life. We can’t just sit around and keep ourselves happy! Neither should we work our bums off to serve our own needs and interests. True freedom is being able to serve others wholeheartedly as God calls us to.

As I work this out through my daily seeking, my involvement in locally diverse communities (Australia), and abroad in my upcoming return to Africa and my music missions to Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan, I invite you to journey with me and enter into new imaginations and conversations. It is an exciting gift to be alive. Are you up for the soul-riveting, life-altering, heart-transforming adventure? Let’s give God our all!

At some stage, all of us are called to face our point of no return. By that, I mean that stage in life where you choose to go or not to go; where you say yes or no to God, in regards to a specific calling or direction you are about to take.

The point of no return is when you say yes to God and surrender your plans wholly to Him. The point of no return is when you fall in love with the people He has called you to bless and reach and show compassion to. The point of no return is when you forge those heart and soul relationships with difficult people and begin to cross the barriers that were once so impossible to break down. The point of no return is when you realize that this tough thing is your calling, your destiny. Then instead of fighting it, or giving in to doubt and fear, you begin to embrace it along with all its challenges. This is the point of no return – when you realize that this is God’s best for you. And nothing else will satisfy you anyway, no matter how enticing all these ‘other’ things appear to be at times.

Since I got back from my first trip to Africa this February, I was on the ‘cusp’ of my very own point of no return. I could still turn away from it all and tell God, ‘Yeah it was an amazing trip, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to do harder things.’ I could have thought to myself, ‘Now I’ve got some fine experiences down for my future resume, I can get back to life in Australia quite comfortably.’ But for some reason, I just knew that there was going to be more. It was a ‘taster’ trip, and also a test of my personal resolve in seeking God’s purpose for my life. When I came back, I knew that there were things I needed to let go right here in Australia. I needed to focus on where God was leading me, and relinquish my own well-crafted plans.

And you know what God was telling me? He was telling me to spend the most part of 2015 with Him: just to sit and soak in his presence; to read and reflect on his word; to sing songs and write songs; to wait on him for the next thing. Now that’s a hard thing to do. I’m prone to saying yes to many things and most people. I have a tendency to want to move and do and go, go, go! The fact that I’ve spent the last 7 months doing very little apart from reading (I’ve read over 40 books in this time period), playing music, songwriting, teaching music, and serving at a local church made of predominantly Sudanese young people, is itself miraculous. I’ve stopped all my socializing and meeting up with people. I’ve stopped going out and watching movies whenever I felt like it (yes I used to do that all the time when I was in university!). I’ve stopped all the other things that used to distract me. It wasn’t easy at first, saying no to things. But after a month or two, I began to enjoy this luxury of ‘rest’ and just spending more and more time with God. Now I'm able to say yes to some of these things again in the right measure, but also in light of my daily reality with God - which really changes everything!

It was only when I began to take the time to listen to God and let His love sink deep into my heart that I began to change my outlook and attitude. I began to strive less and serve more (I’m still learning this!). I began to relinquish my critical attitude and become more aware of my subtle veneer of pride. I began to discover more fully my identity in Jesus Christ, and this inexpressible joy and peace began to flood into my existence. Although I had to go through some dark moments, now I look back and realize that those were my defining points of choosing. Would I give up on seeking God just because I was going through a tough time, or would I press on and dig deeper? Would I give up on the people God has called and led me to love and serve, or would I stay put and keep giving until there was a breakthrough?

Now I can only look back with immeasurable thankfulness to God for keeping me through and making sure I didn’t give up and go on with my self-assured life plans that were so ingrained in me before my first African trip. Now I really can’t thank God enough for His grace. He wanted to lead me to this point of no return. I can now see all those times where I was tempted and enticed to go just the opposite direction – to do my own thing, to rebel against God’s best purposes, to run my own life with people whom I weren’t meant to journey with. But thank God! Those wrong turns were intercepted as I realized that I was going downhill. And it felt awful – although at first it seemed great. Needless to say, I came running back to God, who really was with me all along. My heart began to sink into the right place again, and then I had to make those decisions to stay put in the right place with the right people I needed to be with for this season.

And now I’ve gone deeper along the point of no return. I truly feel now that I can’t go back to where I once was. A dog should never return to his vomit. There’s really nothing great about it. I see it now. In a few weeks I’m heading back to Rwanda and I’m forever grateful to God for keeping me on track every time I’ve veered off track. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be making this trip. If I didn’t spend all those daily two to four hours with him, away from everything else, I wouldn’t be making this trip. If he didn’t teach me to persevere and to do the hard yards, I wouldn’t be making this trip and progressing along the path He has called me to.

In the end, the point of no return is when I realize God’s love for me (and you) is really so immeasurable and that nothing else in this world could satiate my soul-hunger for His presence. I want nothing else but to be where He has called me to be. All those other things that used to entice me now pale in comparison to how beautiful and deep and faithful and loving God is to me through Jesus Christ my Saviour and Friend.

A Suri girl of Ethiopia. Photograph by Mario Gerth, 2010.

As the African proverb goes, "It takes a village to raise a child."

Indeed, we forget that the modern, western, 'democratic', technological world is not the entire world. When we dare immerse ourselves in the intricacies and complexities of other cultures, we're mind-blown at the sheer wondrous beauty and magnificence of the diversity God created, and yet also stand in awe at the intrinsic stirrings He has wrought within us all from the beginning of time. It's glorious.

As I reflect on my past travels in the Middle East and the African continent, I recall those precious moments of mutuality and 'sharing' with those I interacted with. It didn't matter that they could not comprehend just how far 'down under' (Australia) was, and how many time zones away it is. What always intrigues me is the warmth of perfect strangers who welcome me as if I were family. Of course, I guess I happened to go to places that were not openly hostile to or suspicious of foreigners. Nevertheless, there were still cultural obstacles that I had to navigate through.

I will admit, from my short-term encounters abroad and my music ministry in Melbourne with Sudanese, Burmese, Afghan and Indian youth and communities, I am just discovering how especially daunting the work of a cross-cultural mission worker is. You cannot approach the host culture or people using the same methods that worked for you previously in your home country or elsewhere. You need to be stripped of presumptions and pride. Your self-sufficiency and critical attitudes need to be utterly decimated. You have to enter into their world first of all with humility and with respectability. You shouldn't propose your ideas until you hear theirs and understand at least a fraction of how they view their world.

It's an immense privilege to walk in the path of what I believe is my calling. It takes courage and determination to step out of my comfort zone again and again. It takes intuition and patience to grasp the intricacies of different and evolving cultures. Most of all, it humbles me and teaches me to be more like Jesus, who taught his disciples to serve and love others - even those who were their enemies. This is the narrow way. It won't be an easy trek, but I'm realizing more and more that it really is my only and best track. It's my destiny.

Since I was 13 and encountered the reality of God, I had asked Him to take me to tough places, to people in challenging circumstances, to 'the least of these', to the last and the lost, and you know what? He has answered me at every turn, step by step. Never could I imagine even two years ago that in 2015 I'd end up with different kinds of cultures and peoples and be deeply connected in the depths of the depths with those who are facing some of the toughest circumstances imaginable. Take the beloved Sudanese people for example, emerging out of 50 years of civil war - Africa's longest-running civil war. Can you imagine the land and people enduring decades of guns, bombs, raids, village burnings, famine, pillaging, guerrilla warfare, mass rape, murders, child soldiers, mass graves, and a myriad of other heinous war crimes? Millions displaced and an estimated 1.5 million or more lives lost over the years. God is weeping. He is moving - even though the world's news and media outlets will not write about it. So how can we, His followers, also not be weeping and moving?

But through all this, what I see and feel and hear is that the Sudanese people are such a resilient people. I respect these friends and leaders of mine (at church and in the Sudanese-Australian refugee community) with all my heart. Instead of it simply being about me teaching these young people music and equipping them in leadership, I believe it is me who is learning most of the time. Intercultural ministry is my school. It is my 'higher education', although I've now graduated with my Bachelor of Music and completing my Graduate Diploma of Theology this year. Have I yet mentioned that I am humbled? Yes. It is with people in the 'trenches' that God teaches me how to love and to forgive and to pour out my life generously in relationship as He does.

Through it all, the convoluted complexities of culture's good and bad fade into the background along with the gunfire and smoke. What I see is each person God places in front of me to love, to bless, to encourage, to revive. What I smell is the fragrant perfume of God's Spirit at work in our hearts and lives to bring about inside-out transformation and restoration.

Hope is on the horizon. No, it is already here, in our hearts.