A Dream to Realize - A Promise to Keep

Almost 22 years ago, Maria-Luz Roda Bautista became my wife and immigrated to the United States of America. Though many who casually observed our union assumed she was eager to come to the U.S. and live the good life, all those who truly knew her understood that accepting my proposal and following me to minister in various ministries, missions and outreaches in the inner cities of the US and around the world meant stepping away from deep involvement with a tremendous ministry in the Philippines. In many ways, it was for her a heart-rending decision. When she left, Luz always dreamt of reestablishing a deeper presence of ministry in the Philippines for us. We nurtured that vision through financial support, by sending others to the Philippines as both short-term and career missionaries and always dreaming we ourselves might be able to do more than just participate in a once in a while ministry visit that had to piggy back on urgent family business as a condition of our return.

As I write, My Luz is now on her way to the realization of this 22 year-old dream and the promise I made to her that we would one day re immerse ourselves in mission involvement in the Philippines beyond giving and sending others. For the last 4-5 years, we have been laying the ground work for what we sensed was the Lord’s moving us towards the opportunity to bring our dreams into the realm of reality. Through the pioneering ministry efforts of her Brother Ramon and his wife Nene, we have all worked together to establish a beachhead in the Bohol community with a broad spectrum of ministry that includes very needy families in extremely poor conditions, street children and college boarding students away from home.

Thanks to the involvement of our home church, Grace Church in Racine, we have made significant steps towards building upon the foundational elements of ministry we’ve been establishing in Bohol. For starters, our church collected supplies for over 200 children which we shipped a week ago for the children we have supported in Manila and Bohol. Luz has 4 duffel bags of supplies she is hauling by herself to distribute immediately upon her arrival that not only have those supplies, but contain hundreds of Ziploc bags that will assist us in distributing rice Luz will purchase with donated funds for hundreds of families! It is our desire to assist the growth of the mercy ministries we've help to start there and to partner with local churches to minister on a broad scale including church development, poverty relief and educational support with deep and lasting impact. Luz will recon the areas we have targeted, plot a course for our next steps and prepare the way for a team we hope to send from Grace Church Racine in 2012. Luz is ecstatic and we’re thrilled as a family to be directly engaged in ministries we have prayed for and supported for so long.

The time Luz will spend in the Philippines will be both challenging and fulfilling. I will try to keep everyone abreast of her progress and prayer concerns. Thanks to all of you, our friends, for your encouragement and support over the years and for this mission in particular. This is only the beginning of a great opportunity to serve others and bring greater glory to God. Stay tuned and stay prayerful! Until Next time…


Sam.

Spiritual Reminders From A High School Musical

For the past three months, a very significant portion of our daughter Joana's life has been devoted to her participation in the Grosse Pointe North High School's production of the Musical "Guys and Dolls." Joana has participated in musicals since her elementary years, but was particular excited about stepping up the the "big leagues" of high school theatre. It turned out to be a rather demanding commitment with almost daily rehearsals after school during the week, several all day Saturday rehearsals as well as fittings for costumes, extensive choreography and other requirements necessary to put together a top-notch performance. I have to admit that process tested our whole family at times with conflicting schedules, last minute adjustments, long waits in the parking lot for the end of practice and other unplanned inconveniences that at times put families involved in such an undertaking on edge. On several occasions I asked myself with the sight of the performance unseen on my part, "Can all of this craziness REALLY be worth it?" Well, as the commercial used to say, "The proof of the pudding is in the taste" and now having seen the actual performance I can say without any doubt that the "taste of the pudding" was delightful!

Having gone through a few High School Musicals in my time, as a participant and as a the parent of two now-grown daughters with their own High School performance histories, I can confidently state that almost all High School performances are fun to watch, but not all are good. This years production by GP North was both! The preparation and imagination put into the production was clear from the opening curtain, and it didn't take long at all to be pulled into the story and its characters to forget, for a time, that you were not watching fully grown adults from a different time and place, but High School Students from Southeast Michigan putting on quite a show! Most of our family was present- my wife, our three-year-old , our oldest daughter and her husband were there with me as well as a few dear friends from church. Only our second-born and her husband could not make it as she had commitments in South Carolina where she is finishing her undergraduate degree.

The plot of the musical-comedy made for especially compelling viewing for my family and me as it focused on the struggles of the downtown Save-A-Soul Mission and its daunting task to make headway in the rough and tumble, hard-living gangster society of mid 20th Century New York City. In spite of earnest efforts, the missionaries just could make headway into the gangster culture through street preaching and Bible Studies. When a couple of lovable big time gamblers make a bet regarding the ability of one of them to secure a date with a particularly attractive and dedicated missionary, a comedic love story and an unlikely spiritual journey ensue.

Luz and I could identify with many elements of the story from the beginning. We both met as missionaries serving the extremely poor at a conference developing global strategies for ministering to the impoverished. At the time, it seemed that Luz was virtually "married" to the ministry in which she was involved and I felt that my chances of capturing her heart were extremely remote. Her commitment to the ministry was, however, very similar to my own and it was that commitment that eventually brought us together as soul mates. The on-stage courtship brought back many fond memories.

Nevertheless, it was the devotion of the missionaries in the story and their willingness to think outside the box that particularly resonated with us. Their goal was to get "12 sinners" into that mission by the time their supervising missionary came in for her periodic evaluation of their work and their desperation led them to do the unthinkable - get involved in the lives of the people they were seeking to reach. Though the "romance" is the primary focal point of the musical, friendships are developed with members of the gamblers extended networks of friends by the missionaries. As a closeness develops, both the missionaries and the gamblers see each others humanity, walls come down and both the seekers and the sought are transformed into better and more complete people than they were when the adventure began.

My family has seen these principles in action over the course of our years of service as overseas and inner-city missionaries and in or local church ministry too. When asked why he befriended "sinners" Jesus informed his critics that His purpose was to "seek and save that which was lost." He got so close to the less desirable elements of society that the spiritually uninformed counted him among their ranks. In our time in ministry, Luz and I have found that we have been called again and again to go places where nobody wanted to go, to reach people nobody wanted to reach only to see the Lord change lives nobody believed could be changed, including and especially our own! My mentor in Seminary, a wonderful man named Tom Petty who has now gone on to his Heavenly Home gave me this charge: "You've got to be willing to be a nobody, willing to tell everybody, about Somebody Who can reach anybody!"

My congratulations to the students and staff of Grosse Pointe North for a job well done and my thanks for reminding me of what I'm called to do and how I'm called to do it.

Labels

Labels can be very helpful. They can assist us in understanding the content and quality of the products we are buying and how long the products might be of use to us. In those instances, I like labels and depend heavily upon them to lead me to deeper understanding and to help me make sound choices. When it comes to labeling Human Beings, however, labels can be more problematic and often lead to misunderstanding and a breakdown in communication.

A few days ago, my teen aged daughter was sharing what went on during her day at school and told me of an incident involving "human labeling" that I found absolutely astounding. She recalled having lunch with her classmates and discussing the latest goings on, when one of her friends of a different ethnicity suddenly shared that they liked her because she didn't "act Black." Not being one to back down from an awkward situation, my daughter asked what this individual considered "acting Black." My daughter listened with astonishment as this very misinformed friend listed a series of less than flattering attributes that they associated with "Blackness." When my daughter tried to assist the friend by bringing some positive perspective to the situation and to the friends understanding of "Blackness" in general, the friend didn't miss a beat. "But you're half Asian", the friend answered, "So that kind of washes out the Black stuff." Some at the table nodded their heads in agreement while others stared in disbelief.

Flabbergasted, another one of my daughter's friends who is originally from East Africa interjected, "And what does that say about me?" Undeterred, the friend added, "Oh you're different too, because you're directly from Africa, not one of the Blacks from here." All attempts to educate this friend and to bring awareness to the situation went for naught. The imprint of the labels was just too deep.

To this friend, the label "Black" has an exclusively negative meaning directed only towards African Americans. The adjectives, "unsophisticated", "unruly", "undisciplined", "undependable" and "ineducable" are just some of the flawed descriptions this individual would attribute to American-born Blacks. This label has such power, that even when the fallacious nature of the label is exposed, the label persists - Black American = not good!

Of course, these aren't the only labels used to relegate people to a less than desirable status. We all tend to assign labels to marginalize or demonize people we don't have the desire to get to know. We use terms like "conservative", "liberal", "radical", "fundamentalist", "lunatic fringe", "outsider", "special interest group" to make certain people appear less sympathetic or even worse. less human than ourselves. It's part of the baggage of our sinful nature.

One well known broadcaster of yesteryear attributed this practice of labeling to selfishness and laziness. He believed that people were simply too selfish and too lazy to do the work of understanding others. After all, it takes work to learn a language, courage to engage a culture, patience to understand a way of life and selflessness to take the risk of being rejected as you reach out. It might even take a lifetime to make headway towards really learning about someone beyond a label.

Jesus, however, is calling Christians to do to the redemptive work of getting beyond labels. He has charged His people to be His witnesses in the places familiar to us, the places on the wrong side of the tracks from us and even the places that are totally strange to us to the point of laying down our lives if we must. His imperative, known as the Great Commission, calls Christians to learn unknown languages, eat unfamiliar food and love people long considered unlovable for the purpose of making God's redemption known to everyone. As a matter of fact, Jesus says when we minster and reach out in His Name to those we consider the least desirable, we're really ministering to Him!

My daughter's lunchtime occurrence clearly exposes the need to carry out Jesus' imperative. If American Middle School students in 2007 are labeling each other with such recklessness, much work remains to be done. Hearts must be touched and minds must be transformed - that's the power of the Gospel. For this reason, I still have hope - The Bible unequivocally affirms that people can be changed by the power of God if His people are willing to continue in reaching beyond barriers and labels.

I take some comfort in the fact that my daughter and her friends continue to eat together, and laugh together and still work at trying to get past the labels in spite of the difficulties. I believe that this effort pleases Jesus - people stumbling along, sometimes even stumbling over each other, but never giving up on doing the work God has called them to do in bringing healing and understanding between people. Those kinds of people are called "Peacemakers." That's a label I'd like to see spread around.

Until next time,


Sam

Affirmative Action

The words, "Affirmative Action" evoke strong reactions from almost anyone concerned with societal fairness and the promotion of equality in a Democratic Society. For some, Affirmative Action involves the righting of historic wrongs and the offer of restitution for those who have been unfairly left behind in the pursuit of happiness. For others, Affirmative Action represents unfair advantages and set asides given to people who do not measure up to a common standard, unfairly punishing and leaving behind deserving individuals who have worked hard for opportunities that would be robbed from them in the name of "fairness".

These extremely different views of a common term are at the core of the problem surrounding discussions on Affirmative Action. What exactly are we talking about? We all want justice and we all want things to be fair, but how can we come to grips with a term that means something so different for those who feel it is worthy of discussion? An attempt to defend either stance on the Affirmative Action issue would probably prove divisive and in the end not offer any resolution to a difficult dilemma. I would like to offer, however, a Christian concept of Affirmative Action that I believe could prove useful and effective in helping to advance the Kingdom of God.

If we take the words "Affirmative" and "Action" at face value, they are both positive and powerful and offer us an excellent starting point from which to begin our discussion. One of the definitions Webster's dictionary uses for the word "affirmative" is "positive". A simple definition Webster's uses for the word "Action" is "deed". Put them together and you have a Positive Deed. If that sounds familiar to you, it's because Hebrews 10:24 calls us to "consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds". As Christians we are called to a standard of doing good deeds.

When we consider the Affirmative Action question, let us bypass the political banter and consider how we can honor God by seizing opportunities to do good. Firstly, as Christians, we shouldn't be waiting for others to do initiate service and assistance to others. This passage calls Christians to be proactive in doing good work ourselves. Why? Honestly, even when we do a limited amount in Jesus' Name, God carries our efforts a "mighty long way"! My first pastoral ministry assignment was to the inner city of Cleveland, Ohio. We were called to that work by a then relatively small, predominantly white congregation led by Pastor Rick Duncan called, Cuyahoga Valley Church. CVC didn't really have a detailed game plan, but they knew they wanted to do something positive to reach people for Jesus and they called a new ministry couple, Sam and Luz Jackson, to take on the challenge. The work wasn't easy, but through partnership, prayer, creativity, resourcefulness, mentoring, teaching, mercy and all kinds of other positive deeds, our small church plant, Old Cedar Community Church, sponsored by CVC was used by the Lord to change lives in remarkable ways.

Every member of that small congregation - members who struggled with lack of education, unemployment, substance abuse, you name it - every member moved on to be financially responsible, educationally proficient (some up to the college level) and morally grounded according to God's Word. All this, as a result of positive deeds done in Jesus Name! For every Christian, the Affirmative Action issue cannot be about who is deserving to receive our good deeds or a helping hand - according to Scripture, no one is really worthy! Rather, Christians should be motivated as recipients of God's mercy to share the life giving message of Jesus whenever that opportunity presents itself by doing good and touching lives everywhere we go. That's Affirmative Action that any Christian should be able to live with!

Until next time,

Sam.