Tod Bolsinger

A Leader with a Vision

I am in the middle of a series of posts reflecting on a ten day trip to Malawi, Africa to establish a ten-church partnership with World Vision, Opportunity International, the Presbyterian Church in Central Africa and two local Malawian ministries. 

As you can tell from these stories, the people of Malawi are as inspiring as they are in need.  They are people of genuine faith, of a deep sense of family and community who are facing a daunting challenge of poverty, disease and now the scourge of AIDS. 

Let me tell you one more story.  On Tuesday, we visited Nkhoma, the site of the World Vision Area Development Project where we could be partners.  It is a beautiful valley.  We drove up and parked our cramped Land rovers in front of a single mud hut building. 

After greeting us in typical warm fashion, they told us that this building was the only school in the area, for 240 children.  The littlest ones sit all day on stones for seats, in the hot sun trying to learn. 

Seven years ago, they had been promised by the government enough cement to build a school if they’d make the bricks.  So they worked for weeks, burned up all their firewood and made hundreds and hundreds of bricks.  The cement never came, the brick piled in decaying heaps and they have no more firewood. 

When the World Vision workers asked them what their first priority was for improving their community, the leader of the village said that it was education for their children.  When the worker pointed out that they also had a bad cholera problem and needed clean water, the head man replied, “If you help us educate our children, one of them will grow up and solve our water problem.”

Steve Haas, vice-president of World Vision USA, said, “That was a leader with a vision.  He wasn’t looking just to the immediate need, but to the long-term good of his people.” 

At the end of the tour they took us to a site in the middle of the field.  Because they heard we were coming, they had spent two days clearing the grass in a large rectangular area.  This was the place where they wanted to build the new school for the children.  And these people, led by their visionary leader, wanted to give us a vision for what could happen here if we partnered with them.

My 11 year old son, Brooks was standing with me and I said, “Someday, son, I want you to come back here and stand in this spot and see the school that we are going to help build.  You come back here and remember this day when you stood here with your Dad and we prayed that God would let us partner with these people.”

(Later I learned that while the school is the community leader’s first priority, World Vision will work with the leadership of the village to take steps to make their water safer at the same time.  They also discovered that in the area there are two previously built wells that are not working.  They’ll be able to get those wells going at the same time.  So when the ADP is up and running, this community will have water for today and schools for their future.)

Yesterday at church we announced the partnership and already a huge stack of interest forms for sponsoring children through World Vision are coming into our church office.  Over the next three weeks we will be pulling together the details, but from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day we will be having a child sponsorship drive for the children of the Nkhoma ADP.  If you’d like to receive information on how you can be part of this project, just email me.  We’d welcome your partnership with us.

"The most important thing is that you come..."

Because we are "take charge, can do" Americans, we always want to know what we "can do" whenever our hearts are touched with the call of God.  Give us a wall to build, tracts to pass out, people to teach, whatever...just give us something to do. 

Very often when we were in Malawi, we would ask the Christian leaders what we could do to support them.  They have an impossible job and in painfully difficult situation.  Certainly we can do something?

One of our team members, Sheryl, describes just such a conversation:

"At dinner I had an opportunity to meet Francis who is the leader of the Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM).  He works with 34 denominations and 32 para-church organizations in the country.  I asked Francis if he had a vision for how we could come along side the churches in Malawi and serve them.  He started by saying, "first of all, the most important thing is that you come."  He went on to say that it is such an encouragement to them that we just show up - that we travel all the way to Malawi to be with them.  He said, "it feels like someone cares and that we are not alone."  I was in tears and so humbled by this blessing.  I had done so little and it had meant so much to him.  But what a great reminder that sometimes just being "present" is all that our brothers and sisters need from us.  We Americans are so concerned that we "do" something, that we often miss the blessing of just "being" with people."

Our SCPC team will be presenting a report of the trip in the worship services on Sunday, I will post some more stories from that report on Monday.

Retreats and Sacrifice

This weekend, the staff, elders and key lay leaders of SCPC are gathering for a weekend retreat.  We will stay in a comfortable hotel, gather for meetings in cool air conditioned rooms, have cookies and coffee to keep us focused and eat some good meals together.  I love retreats because they allow us to get away and focus on our calling as leaders.  To study the Scriptures, to pray and to grow as disciples.  But I am aware that it is somewhat of a sacrifice. 

The attendees have to pay their own way.  On top of that there are always time commitments to rearrange. Soccer games, little league games, birthday parties.  Yard work to do, errands to run.  Most of us have pretty full lives and need all the weekend time we can get. 

Sometimes I fantasize about living in a simpler place.  I think then I'd have less pulls on my life and it would be easier to be dedicated to Christ, to take retreats, to study and pray and gather with Christians.  I wouldn't have to sacrifice so much.  I think.

While in Malawi I heard Louise Laubscher of Fishers, Trainers, Senders tell of how they do retreats for their ministry leaders.  These are people who gather 10-12 weekends a year to lead outreach events in local villages.  They all work full time and travel up to six hours from around the country to lead the outreach events.  They sleep in tents, cook their food over open fires and do it all on donated funds since none of them can afford even the simple camp food.

You'd think that when they do a retreat, that it would be a nice comfortable weekend away someplace, like at Lake Malawi.  But they can't afford that and they want more time to study and pray so what they do is usually gather for 1-2 weeks camping in someone's yard.  They go off to work each day and then during the evenings they study the bible and pray. They buy food in bulk, bring plenty of fire wood to cook food or give heat and they stay together. 

One time they gathered in Louise's yard.  Since it had a wall and a simple wooden gate, they could have some privacy in the city for thier "retreat".  Near the end of the two weeks, one of her leaders came to her and said that they couldn't cook any more food.  They had run out of fire wood.  Louise was concerned because she felt that there was so much more they needed to learn, so much more training this young team needed on this retreat.  She asked the young leader what he felt they should do.

"We don't have any wood, but you do have a gate to your yard," he said matter of factly.  Louise nodded.  They tore down and burnt her gate, cooked the food and continued their study together.  She said it without fanfare, it's just the kind of sacrifice that leaders make. 

One of the reasons why we need to be involved in places like Malawi is to be partners with people who are so dedicated to Christ that they redefine for us what sacrifice looks like.  The FTS ministry is  run by a group of people who live at subsistence level and then give all they can for the sake of the gospel. I am proud that they will be one of our partners in Y-Malawi.   

We leaders here in America can learn a lot from their leadership.

(If anyone would like to learn more about FTS or how to support them in their upcoming outreaches, please email me. They don't have a website but I can get you in touch with Louise.)

Waking the Sleeping Giant

It was one of those good meetings that some people don’t think happen in Christian circles.  It was passionate, pointed and purposeful.  After partnering in an evangelistic outreach, seeing the work of World Vision in Central Malawi, touring a potential Area Development site, meeting poor merchants whose livelihoods had been greatly improved by Opportunity International and visited a nursery that cares for orphans whose parents have died of AIDS (some of them are HIV+ themselves), we were now sitting in Zambia at a comfortable lodge in a game park talking together about how to make this ministry a reality.  As we shared our reflections of the week and our dreams for what we could do together two common themes came to the top:

• Malawi is a country on the brink of deadly disaster.  It’s not the Sudan, or Ethopia of years gone by, but it could soon be.  Poverty, disease and AIDs is ravaging the land, the lack of rain this year alone could mean widespread hunger by the end of summer. 
• The American church has been given the resources by God be the answer to this need.

One man pounded the table as he declared: “I know that there are millions and millions of dollars just sitting in our churches if people could only see the difference they could make.” 

Another talked of how painful it was to realize that the children we met were going to die if we don’t do something:  “I believe that God is trying to wake the sleeping giant that is the American church to this worldwide crisis.” 

We all had many ideas, even some reservations.  This whole concept has a lot of details to work out.  But when the meeting was over, a new partnership was formed.  I wrote a Memo of Understanding that I sent out to the leaders who were in the meeting.  Here it is in edited form:

The Y-Malawi Partnership exists to give congregations in the United States the opportunity to cooperate with what God is doing in Central Malawi to bring relief from poverty, care for people who have been devastated by HIV/AIDs and to encourage Malawi churches and Christian workers in their efforts to bring the gospel and discipleship of Jesus Christ to this beautiful country of warm hearted people.

The Y-Malawi Partnership is organized in two partnership sub groups: Ministry Partners in Malawi (The Evangelical Association of Malawi; Fishers, Trainers, Senders; The Nkhoma Synod Youth Department of Central African Presbyterian Church; Opportunity International and World Vision, Malawi) and North American Partner Churches (10 max) and World Vision, USA.  Both sub-groups will be headed by steering committees made up of representatives of the ministries and churches. 

The Y-Malawi Partnership offers American churches the opportunity to express their passion for Jesus Christ and his particular callings to us in service to the Spirit-led priorities expressed through Malawian Christian leaders.  We do this both through investment and involvement. 

Our primary investment as a Partnership is with the World Vision Nkhoma Area Development Project (ADP). Our partner churches are all committed to participating in the World Vision Child Sponsorship program for the Nkhoma ADP.  Every church in the partnership will be asked to make an initial investment, the first $180,000 of which is required to initiate the project.  All initial investments beyond the first $180,000 will be invested in the Partnership administrative and ministry costs. 

In addition, as projects and ministry opportunities are identified by the Y-Malawi Malawi Steering Committee, investment opportunities will be offered to the partner churches to support as they feel led. 

While World Vision provides the Partnership with investment opportunities, congregational involvement is made available through the Y-Malawi Partner Ministries.  Those ministries will provide opportunities for regular short-term mission teams to come to Central Malawi, visit their Sponsored Children in the Nkhoma ADP and participate in hands-on ministry that supports the ministry of the Y-Malawi Malawi Partners. 

I am not a missionary, nor am I leader in relief and development.  I am pastor.  As a pastor, I believe, through investment and involvement, the “sleeping giant” will be awakened, the church will be strengthened and a world in need will experience the power and presence of God.

When confronted by a world in need, I see the way that need is an opportunity for the church to participate in God’s ministry to heal and reconcile the world through investment and involvement.  In fact, it is more than an opportunity, it is a call.

The only question is: Will we answer it?

Light in the Darkness

We spent the morning, visiting the new Area Development Site in Nhkoma just south of Lilongwe, Malawi.  (Of which I will write more in another post.)  Then we traveled to a bank.  I have to tell you that as someone who is challenged by all things numerical and financial, this was the part of the trip that I thought I could do without.  (We had one banker on the team who was practically giddy about this idea, so I figured I’d just let his enthusiasm carry me.)

But, this was no ordinary bank.  It was the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM).  Opportunity International is a Christian organization dedicated to “giving the poor a working chance.”  They loan money to small shopkeepers, farmers and merchants so that they can make a life out of the tiny means they have.  They help the poor save money and keep it safe from outside forces that can take advantage of them.  It’s the “ministry of micro-financing” and it’s making a difference in many countries like Malawi.

After a brief introduction, we traveled into a poor market place in what most Americans would call a slum.  It was daunting, dirty, smelly and scary.  It seemed dark with the desperation of those who were just trying to hang on.  A drunk man followed after us looking for handouts, children seemed to be running everywhere.  I think we were all in a bit of shock at it all.

But the OIBM staff took us on a tour and let us meet some of their clients.  A woman trying to run a small diner in the market place.  Another woman who sells potatoes, scrap metal and used musical cassette tapes.  A man who sells food that he makes over an open fire.  Another woman who sells corn-meal flour—a staple in the Malawian diet. 

But what was really impressive was the meeting we attended after the tour.  All those who receive loans from OIBM have to attend classes on business skills and ethics, responsibility, working together and Christian values.  When we walked up, the clients greeted us by singing over us (this happened all the time) sharing testimonies of how their lives have improved and continually cheering in their favorite slogan (translated as “OIBM, It’ MY bank.).  No Amway meeting ever had so much genuine enthusiasm.  And I believe that these shopkeepers are the light of God in the darkness of that market place. 

What stood out with me in this visit was the way that our partnership with Opportunity International was going to help us care wholistically for the poor in Malawi.  Yes, we will invest in helping them get clean water and good schools, AIDS education, health care and Christian teachings, but we will also give them opportunities to break the cycle of poverty by creating small businesses.  Our investment in this partnership will be far more than just a handout or the giving of a gospel tract.  It will be about giving a foundation of financial, spiritual and moral education to people who are eager to work hard and let their lights shine.   

Ron Sider and Reconsidering the Gospel

While I was in Malawi, I posted on some quotes from CT's interview with Ron Sider that is now online. It is quite challenging indeed. But necessary for us to hear.

While in Africa, I found myself thinking along similar lines: What is the "good news" for these people? How does the church as "bearers" of the "good news" proclaim and demonstrate it? How does a genuine, caring Christian community, also be a community of transformation and participation in God's gospel mission to the world?

More on this later this week, but consider Sider's comments below as "food for thought"

Link: The Evangelical Scandal - Christianity Today Magazine.

I would think that evangelicals would want to get biblical and define the gospel the way Jesus did—which is that it's the Good News of the kingdom. Then we see that it means that the way to get into this kingdom is through unconditional grace because Jesus died for us. But it also means there's now a new kingdom community of Jesus' disciples, and that embracing Jesus means not just getting fire insurance so that one doesn't go to hell, but it means embracing Jesus as Lord as well as Savior. And it means beginning to live as a part of his new community where everything is being transformed.

Cheering Jesus, Seeing the Gospel

I have deep personal appreciation for The Jesus Film Project.  Indeed, several Jesus Film staff members attend my church, including the current director of the project.  I first saw it when I was in High School when I went with my youth group.  It is also something of a family tradition for us to watch it at Easter time.  The first time we did so, at the end of the film there is a simple invitation to trust Christ and my then quite young son, Brooks, quietly bowed his head and prayed along with the voice on the film. 

But I must tell you that I didn’t “get it” until I saw the film in Malawi.  One of our Malawian Ministry Partners called “Fishers, Trainers and Senders” (FTS) uses the film in their outreach weekends to poor villages. 

The Director of FTS, Louise Laubscher (pictured here with her faithful and delightful assistant Mphatso) and her team come in for the weekend, work with the local pastors, offer a VBS-like day of games and instructions, put on a soccer match and study and then that evening everyone returns to sit on the soccer field in front of a large white sheet projecting the Jesus Film. 

The two nights they showed the film, (I was there the second night) I was told that 2000 people watched the movie.  But there was something more happening there.  Throughout the film, FTS team members would stop to change the reels and offer testimonies and lead in singing.  The crowd would sing and dance all over the field, a roar of enthusiasm sparking faith to flame, growing all the more as the story was told.  But when the film would start again, all would fall silent. 

Then the strangest thing happened: When Jesus appeared on screen the crowd cheered.  When he healed someone, they roared their approval.  When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, they yelled as if they were part of the original palm waving crowd.  When a Pharisee confronted Jesus, the crowd would boo and shout out their disapproval and when Jesus was arrested they protested.  As I stood on the field with these villagers, I realized that in a very real way, they were hearing the gospel the way it is supposed to be heard—as a story that demands our response. 

In America, The Jesus Film is a movie that tells the story of the gospel. When we watch it, we are more spectators than anything else.  In Malawi and many other places of the world where films are not part of everyday life, The Jesus Film is more of an icon, an encounter, a “passion play” where every person participates in the universe-changing drama and has to decide who they will cheer, with whom they will identify, and what will they do about it.

The next afternoon, as our team gathered in meetings to discuss our partnership, FTS volunteers led a final worship service for their outreach weekend with all the local churches.  5000 people showed up to hear more about the Jesus they had seen with their eyes. 

It seems odd that I who have preached the gospel, told the story, seen the film (and others also) needed to travel around the world to truly understand the power of the gospel when it comes to a people for the first time, but it was just one more gift I received even as I came to minister the gospel to them.  Mission is a ministry to the needy.  Sometimes those of us who come as the “missionaries” are the most needy of all.

A Life as Beautiful as their Land

Note: The last members of the west coast side of the Y-Malawi team arrived home last night. We are tired from the extra travel delays, but grateful for the deeper friendships that we formed and the opportunities to see some more of the land.  Today I will start a series on my reflections. It would probably be helpful to peruse the photo albums that I added and updated today to go with this post.  And if any of my team members would like to comment, I would welcome their perspectives--or corrections.

I expected it to be a much more barren place.  I was expecting it to be brown and arid, flat and dry.  But the fields were green, the clay red and the sky so blue.  The night sky literally a milky galaxy of blazing lights, a million pin-prick glimpses of heaven’s glory. 

Yes, we had come right after the rains.  Although this year the rainfall was dangerously little, a drought year that will lead to dry streams in just a few weeks, desperate hunger within a few months.  They assured me that the green fields of corn would all be quite faded by August.  And we could see the corn crop that hadn’t quite come in, an ominous harbinger. 

But it was still so beautiful.  Malawi is hilly with rocky outcroppings that jut up unexpectedly.  We drove windy, bumpy roads to visit villages nestled into expansive valleys.  The streams trickle by, the rivers are where people gather to draw water, to clean clothes, to bathe.  The sun not only shines, but sears.  The breezes (when they come) are welcome cool breaths, rippling through the vegetation. 

Cross over into Zambia and the land gets flatter but even more verdant.  Drive into South Luangwa National Park and immediately a host of creatures greet you.  Crocodiles, hippos, giraffes, impala by the hundreds, Piku, wart hogs, baboons like court jesters entertaining in masse, elephants, wild dogs, giraffes, elusive leopards, awe-inspiring lions.

And the people are even more beautiful.  Beaming smiles, waving children, warm hearted welcomes wherever you go.  In every village we were greeted with “God bless you for coming. You are most welcome here.  Be free.”

It would be easy to see this place as idyllic.  No wonder the explorer and missionary David Livingstone (1813-1873) thought of part of his God-given charge as to “explore the undiscovered secrets” of this great land (which is really something when you consider that his other two charges were to evangelize and rid the world of the scourge of slavery.)

But, the rivers are filled with diseases, the sky holds mosquitoes carrying malaria, poverty is so oppressively widespread that it’s like a boot on the neck of any attempting to do more than survive, let alone thrive.  Now HIV/AIDS has become epidemic.  While there are literally hordes of smiling children, there are disturbingly few adults to raise them.  Women describe their families in term of both their “children” and their “dependents.”  Every village we visited spoke routinely of needing to care for orphans.  And while their was a genuine spiritual hunger, all the pastors noted soberly that there is so little depth of biblical knowledge, a desperate need for life-transforming discipleship.

Throughout the trip as I considered the work that we are attempting in our newly formed “Y-Malawi Partnership” (which I will describe in another post), I kept thinking of a simple charge: How can we, in the name of Jesus, help these children of God have a life as beautiful as their land?

Livingstone’s tombstone in Westminster Abbey is engraved with these reputed “last words”: “All I can add in my solitude, is, may heaven’s rich blessing come down on everyone, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore of the world.”

An open sore, yes, but on a most beautiful body.

It's not about the travels...

Many of you have heard about our traveling travails, and believe it me it was an experience in the absurd.  (Spending five days in the same clothes was just one of the experiences.)  But after this, I won't write much about our sense of being in Tom Hanks' movie, The Terminal, because we want the focus to be on Africa.  So, thanks for praying us home, but now that we are home, it seems best to focus on what is really important.

Almost Home With a More Humble Heart

I had intended to be home and posting pictures and observations from our trip to Malawi, Africa by now, but due to some extraordinary delays, I am posting this from the London airport.  Most of our team is home, the last few of us will arrive in Los Angeles later this afternoon.

The delay did give us the opportunity to visit the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and this quote from a black South African is now seared in my heart.  I will leave it for you to ponder and then tomorrow get on with my series of posts:

"When the Europeans came we had the land and they had the Bible, now we have the Bible and they have our land."

Can't--shouldn't--mission be much, much better than this?