This morning I awoke in the dusty Honduran village of Mal Paso to barking dogs and roosters on the last day of a rich, seven-day visit to our ministry. After packing my bags, braving a cold shower from a bare white PBC pipe, and eating a delicious breakfast of beans, eggs, chicken and tortillas I said goodbyes and I took off in my 4x4 rental for Tegucigalpa to catch my flight home.
Tierra Nueva’s Honduran leader Angel David suggested that he accompany me on the first hour of my journey. Honduras has been especially unstable of late due to a devastated economy, political and moral chaos. In our once-peaceful town of Minas de Oro there has been an alarming increase in home break-ins and armed robberies. Police defend those who pay them, and look the other way when citizens shoot to kill local thieves.
On the road into Tegucigalpa bands of young men with AK-47s, often freshly-deported from the US, have been assaulting motorists and kidnapping people—often killing those who resist. So Angel David’s company was comforting—and we were able to wrap up some plans to encourage a beautiful wave of God’s Presence that is growing into an unstoppable remedy to crime with its resulting insecurity and fear. And I am now on a flight from Houston to Seattle.
Angel David leads Tierra Nueva’s growing movement of young leaders emerging from home Bible study/prayer groups we’re calling “Hogares en Transformacion” (Households in Transformation). These began 2-3 years back when he began visiting some of the poorest and most spiritually-alienated families in Minas de Oro. He spoke to them of Jesus’ special friendship with sinners, listened to their problems and prayed for them. We’ve been amazed to see Jesus heal one person after the other in ways that directly confirm the message of God’s unconditional love for the poor and undeserving.
Last week over 50 young leaders from these households from age 13 to 70 gathered for two days for teaching on the ministry of Jesus with lots of worship, conversation and prayer. The third day we took two truckloads of main leaders (28) on a day-long field-trip to visit Tierra Nueva’s 15-acre coffee farm high in the mountains of Yoro (first two photos below, second photo showing Dago and Angel David) to check on the harvest for our Underground Coffee Project in Burlington. Many of these young people had never been out of their villages. We met and talked with the workers as they picked coffee and saw the new coffee processing plant.
The last two days Angel David and I have visited most of the leaders in their homes. Here are some highlights.
Carina (third picture below), is 15 and eagerly accompanies us from house to house, laying hands on people in need of healing and commanding pain to go in short, non-religious commands. “Go away sickness in Jesus name,” she says, hands placed on a woman’s congested chest. The woman coughs and sputters for a few minutes and then announces that she’s cleared up and feeling better. We pray over her and her husband’s house for God’s protection from evil spirits that torment them at night, before heading down the trail to another home where more healing and peace are offered and received.
Carina’s father left for El Norte (the US) years ago and is now with someone else. Carina looks to Angel David for paternal support and receives it—like many others who text him day and night with “textos para cobrar” (“collect texts” that he pays from his credit as they can’t afford their own minutes) for their raggedy cell phones.
Elena (not her name) is another emerging leader in her early thirties who came to every event hungry for learning and prayer—though she was strongly rebuked by a man who goes back and forth from her to his wife in another village. Elena was traumatized at a young age when her mother paid someone to kill her father after he reputedly cheated on her. She consequently dropped out of school after third grade and began selling goods and then her own body in the capital. She has four kids from three fathers. When we visit her she wants prayer to forgive her mother and be free from deep crippling resentment.
Elena just finished 4th grade in an adult education program that Tierra Nueva sponsors called Educatodos (Educate Everyone), which now has over 30 participants. I attended the graduation two nights ago and saw Jorge, Angel David’s 65 year-old brother and veteran TN promoter receive his 6th grade diploma. Angel David (53) himself graduated from 7th grade this year!
Yesterday Angel David introduced me to a group of notorious young men who he visits weekly in one of Minas de Oro’s poorest neighborhoods. Nearly all of them are now enrolled in 4th grade with Educatodos, and Angel David has organized them into a soccer team that played Mal Paso’s young men yesterday (photos below). We visited the parents of the most at-risk youth, whose older brother is in prison for robbery.
We visited Abram (59) and his wife Ana Gloria (58), parents of two young men who attend all of Tierra Nueva’s activities and are emerging leaders. We watched Abram’s lame ankle strengthen and Ana Gloria become free of knee pain before our very eyes.
Lester is a young man we recently helped with a $150 loan towards buying a cow to start a butcher business. He has now built up enough earnings to provide for his parents, grandfather and younger siblings.
I’m convinced that a peace movement is on the rise through these hogares en transformacion that combines practical skills-training, education, Bible study, prayer for healing and deliverance, subsistence agriculture and loans for micro-enterprises. Regular pastoral visits by a growing cadre of workers empowered by fresh impartation of the Holy Spirit keep things moving forward. Angel David and I discovered a scripture that seems to encompass much of what we are witnesses firsthand:
“Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, “take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but he will save you.” Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness (Isaiah 35:3-6).”
Please intercede for Angel David and these emerging leaders, for:
· Wisdom and strength
· Growing spiritual hunger, awareness of God’s goodness and understanding during the Bible studies.
· Favor from religious and civil leaders in the community.
· Protection, conversion and new hope for the young bandits of our region.
· Financial support for our many projects in Honduras.
Check out my website for my photos (www.bobekblad.com) and order some coffee at www.undergroundcoffee.com
Have a blessed Christmas!
Bob Ekblad
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Signs of God's Kingdom Now: Witnessing Jesus' work among the Mennonites in Iowa
I recently spent four days ministering at Sugar Creek Mennonite Church in Wayland, Iowa. There I witnessed varied signs of Jesus’ Kingdom coming together here & now in ways rare & desperately-needed in North America.
Sugar Creek is a historic peace church in the Anabaptist tradition. They believe in Jesus’ teaching on love of neighbor and enemy alike—which works itself out in lavish potlucks, barn raisings and other community-oriented good deeds and a commitment to resisting war.
Over 20 of Sugar Creek’s members were conscientious objectors in WWII-- an unpopular outworking of following Jesus in choosing to love and pray for (rather than kill) national enemies. Like many peace churches, living out Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a high priority. Nathan, the pastor, had invited me to share on dimensions of discipleship less known & practiced by his congregation-- the gifts of the Holy Spirit & healing prayer.
Right after the morning service in the lineup for the potluck I had my first surprise, prepping me for the next three evening sessions. A woman in her early 80s who walked with a cane was complaining of knee pain and her fears of a knee replacement. I offered to pray for her there in the line, and after flexing and testing it she said in amazement that the pain had completely gone away. Wow, I’d never seen someone that old have their knee healed!
That night I shared my own spiritual journey and invited people who desired more of the Spirit to come forward for prayer. The last time I’d given this talk in Stockholm nearly the whole church had come forward. This time I awkwardly stood there as nobody budged except to go out the back doors. Finally a man timidly approached and said: “well, why not, I supposed I would want more of the Holy Spirit” and asked me to pray for him. I blessed him and prayed for his back too. I later heard that someone had commented: “doesn’t he know we are Mennonites?”
Fortunately I had done an exercise where I had people with pain raise their hands and asked those in the pews around them lay hands on them and pray for their healing. I also had prayed for an older man who used a walker and complained of mental confusion and imbalance after a stroke.
A few people lingered, and eventually asked for prayer. The first three or four people apologized before stating what they wanted prayer for, speaking near identical refrains: “I know that we get our healing when we die, but….” -- clearly a tendency towards under-realized eschatology. I was perplexed by Sugar Creek’s brand of selective embracing of Jesus’ teaching & practice—and they proved themselves open to stepping into greater expectation of Jesus healing and liberation in this life.
It turned that that in the narthex that first night the man with the walker who’d had the stroke was meeting the people coming out of the sanctuary, without his walker!, saying excitedly that he was almost completely better. I just got word that at his last physical therapist session a few days ago he was told he didn’t need to come back—and that he’s back to his normal state before the stroke.
Monday and Tuesday nights were well-attended as many of the people who had been prayed for by others the night before were relieved of their pain. The word had gone out and people in need of healing were bringing family members and friends--- and we ended up praying for a lot more people. One man with 4th stage lymphoma just wrote me saying his blood test showed such dramatic improvement at his appointment three days after prayer that chemotherapy has been called off for the time being and he doesn’t need to come back for a checkup until February.
People laughed when I pointed out that Jesus didn’t encourage the masses to wait until they died to receive their healing—even in the 1st century when life-expectancy was so low & people didn’t have to wait so long to die! And yet I realized as older people kept reporting being healed that my low expectation for God to heal people with normal aches and pains of aging was being challenged. Jesus’ ministry of healing & deliverance, his embrace of the excluded, love of enemies & proclamation of the Good News of the reign of God must all be pursued with expectation for this life—even though God’s Kingdom will not be fully realized until the next.
Sugar Creek is a historic peace church in the Anabaptist tradition. They believe in Jesus’ teaching on love of neighbor and enemy alike—which works itself out in lavish potlucks, barn raisings and other community-oriented good deeds and a commitment to resisting war.
Over 20 of Sugar Creek’s members were conscientious objectors in WWII-- an unpopular outworking of following Jesus in choosing to love and pray for (rather than kill) national enemies. Like many peace churches, living out Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a high priority. Nathan, the pastor, had invited me to share on dimensions of discipleship less known & practiced by his congregation-- the gifts of the Holy Spirit & healing prayer.
Right after the morning service in the lineup for the potluck I had my first surprise, prepping me for the next three evening sessions. A woman in her early 80s who walked with a cane was complaining of knee pain and her fears of a knee replacement. I offered to pray for her there in the line, and after flexing and testing it she said in amazement that the pain had completely gone away. Wow, I’d never seen someone that old have their knee healed!
That night I shared my own spiritual journey and invited people who desired more of the Spirit to come forward for prayer. The last time I’d given this talk in Stockholm nearly the whole church had come forward. This time I awkwardly stood there as nobody budged except to go out the back doors. Finally a man timidly approached and said: “well, why not, I supposed I would want more of the Holy Spirit” and asked me to pray for him. I blessed him and prayed for his back too. I later heard that someone had commented: “doesn’t he know we are Mennonites?”
Fortunately I had done an exercise where I had people with pain raise their hands and asked those in the pews around them lay hands on them and pray for their healing. I also had prayed for an older man who used a walker and complained of mental confusion and imbalance after a stroke.
A few people lingered, and eventually asked for prayer. The first three or four people apologized before stating what they wanted prayer for, speaking near identical refrains: “I know that we get our healing when we die, but….” -- clearly a tendency towards under-realized eschatology. I was perplexed by Sugar Creek’s brand of selective embracing of Jesus’ teaching & practice—and they proved themselves open to stepping into greater expectation of Jesus healing and liberation in this life.
It turned that that in the narthex that first night the man with the walker who’d had the stroke was meeting the people coming out of the sanctuary, without his walker!, saying excitedly that he was almost completely better. I just got word that at his last physical therapist session a few days ago he was told he didn’t need to come back—and that he’s back to his normal state before the stroke.
Monday and Tuesday nights were well-attended as many of the people who had been prayed for by others the night before were relieved of their pain. The word had gone out and people in need of healing were bringing family members and friends--- and we ended up praying for a lot more people. One man with 4th stage lymphoma just wrote me saying his blood test showed such dramatic improvement at his appointment three days after prayer that chemotherapy has been called off for the time being and he doesn’t need to come back for a checkup until February.
People laughed when I pointed out that Jesus didn’t encourage the masses to wait until they died to receive their healing—even in the 1st century when life-expectancy was so low & people didn’t have to wait so long to die! And yet I realized as older people kept reporting being healed that my low expectation for God to heal people with normal aches and pains of aging was being challenged. Jesus’ ministry of healing & deliverance, his embrace of the excluded, love of enemies & proclamation of the Good News of the reign of God must all be pursued with expectation for this life—even though God’s Kingdom will not be fully realized until the next.
Monday, October 4, 2010
God Encounters in Europe
During a recent trip to Sweden, England and France I’ve had some encounters that seem divinely orchestrated—and the Spirit seems to be calling me to continue to make myself even more available. Are you by any chance feeling a similar call these days?
My trip began in Stockholm where I was speaking at Elim Kyrkan’s annual Transformation Conference. Spiritual hunger was evident from the first night, when 95% of the people came forward for prayer!
The next day after a session on hearing the voice of God I co-lead a workshop on prophetic evangelism with Norwegian pastor Sverre Bjørnhaug and his team from Bergen. They and their ministry school students regularly walk the streets, praying for people’s healing and blessing people in different ways. They had lots of inspiring stories.
Sverre had a group of 35 of us divide into groups of three to try a “treasure hunt” in downtown Stockholm. We started by asking God to reveal to each one of us individually “intelligence” regarding the “treasure” (specific people) that God might want us to find that afternoon. We each asked the Holy Spirit for places, clothing, names, needs for healing. Scandinavians, who tend to be very reserved, are especially affected when God reveals personal information that only God could know through people who approach them with humility and genuine care.
A woman from Norway, another from Botswana and I compared notes and between us had a 7-11 store, waterfront, a pub, bus stop, and a park bench, a businessman with a black & white tweed jacket who had a bad ankle, a man with a green jacket with a neck/back problem, and a homeless man on a park bench with a dog. We brought food coupons and flyers inviting people to the church and took off on our adventure.
Near a local 7-11 store the Norwegian woman boldly approached two different businessmen with offers to pray—but they refused, stepping up their pace to get away from us. We continued toward the waterfront, stopping to talk with two immigrant workers from Hungary who sat smoking on some steps on a break, their hair covered in sheet rock dust. We asked if we could pray God’s blessing on them and they awkwardly accepted. “I hear God saying that you are a very caring father,” said the Norwegian woman to one of the men. He shook his head and spit on the ground, looking like he was about to cry—and seemed very moved as we prayed for him and his family and gave him a food coupon and an invitation to the church.
We continued down to the water and across from a bar, right near a bus stop we spotted a grey-haired businessman in a black & white tweed jacket. The woman from Botswana took the lead, asking him if we could speak with him. He brushed us off and moved quickly away, but a man in his late 30s with a green rain jacket stopped to talk with us. We explained what we were doing, how we’d asked God to show us people he wanted to bless, and wondered if he had a problem with his neck or back. He said he did, accepted prayer and immediately felt a difference. He was very curious about us and asked us lots of questions.
The Norwegian woman took a risk and asked him if he was struggling with feelings of rejection and inferiority when he’s with his father. He looked shocked and said: “well, the grey-haired man who just brushed you off is my father, and yes I am struggling in my relationship with him.” I asked if his father had a bad ankle and he said that yes he did. This guy began to cry as we prayed and talked with him about God’s strong love for him, and we prayed for Jesus to heal his father’s ankle. We headed back to the church and heard stories from others who had had experiences of both rejection and breakthrough on the streets.
During my week of teaching at Westminster Theological Centre in the UK we saw God at work healing a number of our students. One woman who was unable to eat and swallow normal food after a stroke was completely healed during communion, as was a man with his arm in a sling.
On the Eurostar train from London to Paris on Friday I sat beside a woman in her early 30s from Argentina who spoke only Spanish. She asked me what I did and then told me that she grew up Catholic but didn’t believe in God and felt no need for religion. “I believe in myself,” she said, repeating a common confession of faith I’ve heard from many secular Europeans and Latin Americans. I asked her if she’d ever read about the life and teaching of Jesus in the Bible, and she said she hadn’t. I encouraged her to try reading the Bible for herself, told her a few stories of healing and encouraged her to open herself to the possibility that God is real and can make a difference in her life. Her mouth was all smiles but her eyes looked like pools of sadness. In response to my asking if she’s struggled with feelings of emptiness and depression she poured out her heart about her long struggle with depression and failed relationships. By the end of our journey I can only hope that she was more in touch with her need for God.
On Saturday in Paris I walked by a heavily-bearded homeless man in rags who lay on his back on the sidewalk, looking completely dejected. I had a picture of my hand on his heart, praying for him for healing, but brushed it off and continued on another block. Thoughts of the Levite and the Pharisee walking past the man beaten by thieves haunted me and I finally turned around and approached him, stooping down to ask if he was in pain. “Yes, and I haven’t been able to sleep,” he said. He timidly accepted my offer to pray for him and God’s presence came strong as I put my hand on his heart. When I finished he told me he was an atheist. “Even so God sees you, knows your suffering and loves you a lot,” I said, and he looked like he wanted to believe it.
I had repeatedly called the airlines prior to my Sunday morning departure to change my dreaded Paris-Houston-Seattle itinerary to a direct Paris-Seattle flight, and then tried to get out of my assigned seat in the center of a center row to a bulkhead or emergency row—all to no avail. Once on the plane I found my seat surprisingly taken, and the steward ushered me to the opposite side of the same row to an aisle seat beside a man who I immediately noticed was reading a Bible.
I struck up a conversation with Groduowski, a Polish jet engine mechanic who barely spoke English. He told me how he grew up Catholic but had no active faith until he had recently begun reading a Bible given to him by missionaries doing street evangelism in Warsaw.
“My heart comes alive when I read the Bible,” he said, showing his favorite verse from Revelation 21:6 “I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.” “God gives this living water for free,” he said, his eyes shimmering.
We shared different Scriptures with each other and I asked him what he knew about the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ sending of disciples to not only announce Good News but to heal the sick, cast out demons, etc. I referred him to Matthew 10:1, 8 and Luke 9:1-2 & 10:1, 9, 17-18 and he looked up each text and read them with wide eyes. He had never received any teaching on being filled with the Spirit for the ministry of Jesus and gladly wanted prayer when I offered to pray for him. He left assuring me that he would talk with his pastor and that I shouldn’t be surprised if I get invited to speak in Warsaw.
I’m now on a flight from Houston to Seattle, excited to get home, but with a new openness and desire to make myself available to God as I go about normal life—and I encourage you to do the same.
My trip began in Stockholm where I was speaking at Elim Kyrkan’s annual Transformation Conference. Spiritual hunger was evident from the first night, when 95% of the people came forward for prayer!
The next day after a session on hearing the voice of God I co-lead a workshop on prophetic evangelism with Norwegian pastor Sverre Bjørnhaug and his team from Bergen. They and their ministry school students regularly walk the streets, praying for people’s healing and blessing people in different ways. They had lots of inspiring stories.
Sverre had a group of 35 of us divide into groups of three to try a “treasure hunt” in downtown Stockholm. We started by asking God to reveal to each one of us individually “intelligence” regarding the “treasure” (specific people) that God might want us to find that afternoon. We each asked the Holy Spirit for places, clothing, names, needs for healing. Scandinavians, who tend to be very reserved, are especially affected when God reveals personal information that only God could know through people who approach them with humility and genuine care.
A woman from Norway, another from Botswana and I compared notes and between us had a 7-11 store, waterfront, a pub, bus stop, and a park bench, a businessman with a black & white tweed jacket who had a bad ankle, a man with a green jacket with a neck/back problem, and a homeless man on a park bench with a dog. We brought food coupons and flyers inviting people to the church and took off on our adventure.
Near a local 7-11 store the Norwegian woman boldly approached two different businessmen with offers to pray—but they refused, stepping up their pace to get away from us. We continued toward the waterfront, stopping to talk with two immigrant workers from Hungary who sat smoking on some steps on a break, their hair covered in sheet rock dust. We asked if we could pray God’s blessing on them and they awkwardly accepted. “I hear God saying that you are a very caring father,” said the Norwegian woman to one of the men. He shook his head and spit on the ground, looking like he was about to cry—and seemed very moved as we prayed for him and his family and gave him a food coupon and an invitation to the church.
We continued down to the water and across from a bar, right near a bus stop we spotted a grey-haired businessman in a black & white tweed jacket. The woman from Botswana took the lead, asking him if we could speak with him. He brushed us off and moved quickly away, but a man in his late 30s with a green rain jacket stopped to talk with us. We explained what we were doing, how we’d asked God to show us people he wanted to bless, and wondered if he had a problem with his neck or back. He said he did, accepted prayer and immediately felt a difference. He was very curious about us and asked us lots of questions.
The Norwegian woman took a risk and asked him if he was struggling with feelings of rejection and inferiority when he’s with his father. He looked shocked and said: “well, the grey-haired man who just brushed you off is my father, and yes I am struggling in my relationship with him.” I asked if his father had a bad ankle and he said that yes he did. This guy began to cry as we prayed and talked with him about God’s strong love for him, and we prayed for Jesus to heal his father’s ankle. We headed back to the church and heard stories from others who had had experiences of both rejection and breakthrough on the streets.
During my week of teaching at Westminster Theological Centre in the UK we saw God at work healing a number of our students. One woman who was unable to eat and swallow normal food after a stroke was completely healed during communion, as was a man with his arm in a sling.
On the Eurostar train from London to Paris on Friday I sat beside a woman in her early 30s from Argentina who spoke only Spanish. She asked me what I did and then told me that she grew up Catholic but didn’t believe in God and felt no need for religion. “I believe in myself,” she said, repeating a common confession of faith I’ve heard from many secular Europeans and Latin Americans. I asked her if she’d ever read about the life and teaching of Jesus in the Bible, and she said she hadn’t. I encouraged her to try reading the Bible for herself, told her a few stories of healing and encouraged her to open herself to the possibility that God is real and can make a difference in her life. Her mouth was all smiles but her eyes looked like pools of sadness. In response to my asking if she’s struggled with feelings of emptiness and depression she poured out her heart about her long struggle with depression and failed relationships. By the end of our journey I can only hope that she was more in touch with her need for God.
On Saturday in Paris I walked by a heavily-bearded homeless man in rags who lay on his back on the sidewalk, looking completely dejected. I had a picture of my hand on his heart, praying for him for healing, but brushed it off and continued on another block. Thoughts of the Levite and the Pharisee walking past the man beaten by thieves haunted me and I finally turned around and approached him, stooping down to ask if he was in pain. “Yes, and I haven’t been able to sleep,” he said. He timidly accepted my offer to pray for him and God’s presence came strong as I put my hand on his heart. When I finished he told me he was an atheist. “Even so God sees you, knows your suffering and loves you a lot,” I said, and he looked like he wanted to believe it.
I had repeatedly called the airlines prior to my Sunday morning departure to change my dreaded Paris-Houston-Seattle itinerary to a direct Paris-Seattle flight, and then tried to get out of my assigned seat in the center of a center row to a bulkhead or emergency row—all to no avail. Once on the plane I found my seat surprisingly taken, and the steward ushered me to the opposite side of the same row to an aisle seat beside a man who I immediately noticed was reading a Bible.
I struck up a conversation with Groduowski, a Polish jet engine mechanic who barely spoke English. He told me how he grew up Catholic but had no active faith until he had recently begun reading a Bible given to him by missionaries doing street evangelism in Warsaw.
“My heart comes alive when I read the Bible,” he said, showing his favorite verse from Revelation 21:6 “I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.” “God gives this living water for free,” he said, his eyes shimmering.
We shared different Scriptures with each other and I asked him what he knew about the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ sending of disciples to not only announce Good News but to heal the sick, cast out demons, etc. I referred him to Matthew 10:1, 8 and Luke 9:1-2 & 10:1, 9, 17-18 and he looked up each text and read them with wide eyes. He had never received any teaching on being filled with the Spirit for the ministry of Jesus and gladly wanted prayer when I offered to pray for him. He left assuring me that he would talk with his pastor and that I shouldn’t be surprised if I get invited to speak in Warsaw.
I’m now on a flight from Houston to Seattle, excited to get home, but with a new openness and desire to make myself available to God as I go about normal life—and I encourage you to do the same.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Cambodia Transfigured
Last week I spent three unforgettable days with my family in Cambodia. There we saw signs of Jesus’ Kingdom shining in a land still under the shadow of death. I now find myself thinking daily what it would look like for the light of Christ to shine even stronger there and here-- so people can really see it.
Gracie and I were invited by Servants of Asia’s Urban Poor—a team of people from New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia, Japan and Canada called to live and minister in slum communities in Phnom Penh. The first day I led a short retreat for the staff and Gracie and I prayed for each of them. We visited some of the families in their homes amidst the squalor of the slum communities where they are seeking to live humbly among the poorest of the poor, bringing Jesus’ light.
A highlight for our family was being driven from place to place around the city in a Tuk Tuk assigned to us for our stay. Looking out at Phnom Penh we saw myriads of motorcycles, often with three-four people. They moved like tropical fish in schools, flowing through intersections, turning in front of on-coming traffic, often with people texting or talking on cell phones as they drove their worn-out motorcycles. A father and his three two sons laughed as we took their picture— the older boy clutching two turkeys on the seat between he and his younger brother.
We had an alarming visit to the genocide museum Tuol Sleng, the former office S.21 of the “Kampuchea Democratic” from 1975-1979. Pol Pot had established this office to detain, interrogate and eventually send off to the “killing fields” thousands of people deemed enemies of the regime.
We wandered through the cells and torture chambers, reading the stories of victims and perpetrators, looking at instruments of torture, and the photos of hundreds of young people who were executed. These photos still haunt me. Young men and women, their shoulders pulled tightly back as their hands were bound behind them, exhaustion and terror in their eyes. Many had been forced to lay for days side-by-side like sardines in rooms, shackled, forced to remain silent, before being tortured for days while being held in narrow wood-walled cells. Eventually their captors would tell them they were being taken to study. They were photographed, blindfolded then driven 30 minutes out of town to a big field with pits. There they were forced to kneel on the pit’s edge, where their captors executed them and buried them in mass graves. Somewhere between 750,000 and 2.5 million Cambodians were killed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign.
I have since read historians who argue convincingly that the United States’ secret carpet bombing of Cambodia from 1965-1973 is directly linked to Pol Pot’s rise to power (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf). The 2,500,000 tons of bombs dropped on targets in Cambodia (more than all the bombs dropped during WWII) traumatized the country—and unexploded ordnances (bombs) still litter the countryside today. Unexploded spiritual ordnances in the people and the land most certainly require detection and removal too—a massive task that needs to be done with great sensitivity.
Walking through the Tuol Sleng genocide museum disturbed me on another level—genocide on display as a tourist attraction. I first noticed this when a beggar with a severely burnt face and another maimed man approached us as we got out of our Tuk Tuk at the museum to join throngs of mostly foreign tourists to look on the shame of atrocities committed. The museum was poorly kept up: an introductory movie of the poorest quality, photos fading and pealing— reflecting the very shame that it exposed in it’s featuring of crimes committed by Cambodians against Cambodians.
That very day judges were deliberating on the sentence of Dutch—the head of that very prison—and the next day his 19 year sentence was announced—over 30 years after these events. In one of the nicer neighborhoods along the river, restaurants drew tourists by advertising free movies after dinner on the Cambodian genocide and “killing fields.” Shining light that exposes atrocities and shames perpetrators does not bring the desperately needed healing and deliverance—but rather numbness, resignation or even anger and further destruction and abuse. True repentance comes through the light of Christ.
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand,” preaches Jesus. Confession and repentance are most certainly needed in Cambodia—but larger global powers like the USA (and most certainly aware Christians) need to be involved. Last week’s commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a missed opportunity for the USA to publically apologize for the 214,000 killed there. Yet the work of peacemaking is more hands-on then simple apologies.
We visited some of Servant’s many ministries to the poor that they have turned over one-after another to Cambodians: a rehabilitation center to street youth addicted to sniffing glue, Justees, a silk-screening operation run by young graduates of the rehab program that makes tee shirts with justice statements, a nutrition center for malnourished children, an outreach to people with disabilities (see www.servantsasia.org).
Gracie and I prayed for several people suffering from pain, and found that Jesus was quick both heal and to reveal hidden terror and anxiety from trauma rooted in Cambodia’s wartime violence. We saw a deep need for spiritual mine sweeping, and found ministry workers desperate for more of Jesus’ anointing to address widespread abuse, infidelity, HIV/Aids and other issues and to keep energized themselves.
Since last Friday, when Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrated Jesus’ transfiguration, I find myself thinking how critical it is to right now, in the midst of ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel/Palestine to pay special attention to the Father’s spotlighting of Jesus’ person, teaching and way of redemptive suffering, that Moses and Elijah discussed with him before the watching disciples. “This is my son, my chosen one; listen to him!” (not to misunderstood OT justifications of violence via Moses/law and Elijah/the prophets!).
“And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:18-19).
Please pray for the many Christian workers seeking to bring the light of Christ into the darkest places in Cambodia. Please pray for Om Neang, a Cambodian woman working with Servants who established the nutrition center-- that Jesus would heal her of lung cancer. Pray for the other many workers of Servants of Asia's Urban Poor, for great wisdom, strength, health and more of Jesus' anointing so they can bring the best news of God's Kingdom to the people of Cambodia.
Gracie and I were invited by Servants of Asia’s Urban Poor—a team of people from New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia, Japan and Canada called to live and minister in slum communities in Phnom Penh. The first day I led a short retreat for the staff and Gracie and I prayed for each of them. We visited some of the families in their homes amidst the squalor of the slum communities where they are seeking to live humbly among the poorest of the poor, bringing Jesus’ light.
A highlight for our family was being driven from place to place around the city in a Tuk Tuk assigned to us for our stay. Looking out at Phnom Penh we saw myriads of motorcycles, often with three-four people. They moved like tropical fish in schools, flowing through intersections, turning in front of on-coming traffic, often with people texting or talking on cell phones as they drove their worn-out motorcycles. A father and his three two sons laughed as we took their picture— the older boy clutching two turkeys on the seat between he and his younger brother.
We had an alarming visit to the genocide museum Tuol Sleng, the former office S.21 of the “Kampuchea Democratic” from 1975-1979. Pol Pot had established this office to detain, interrogate and eventually send off to the “killing fields” thousands of people deemed enemies of the regime.
We wandered through the cells and torture chambers, reading the stories of victims and perpetrators, looking at instruments of torture, and the photos of hundreds of young people who were executed. These photos still haunt me. Young men and women, their shoulders pulled tightly back as their hands were bound behind them, exhaustion and terror in their eyes. Many had been forced to lay for days side-by-side like sardines in rooms, shackled, forced to remain silent, before being tortured for days while being held in narrow wood-walled cells. Eventually their captors would tell them they were being taken to study. They were photographed, blindfolded then driven 30 minutes out of town to a big field with pits. There they were forced to kneel on the pit’s edge, where their captors executed them and buried them in mass graves. Somewhere between 750,000 and 2.5 million Cambodians were killed during the Khmer Rouge’s reign.
I have since read historians who argue convincingly that the United States’ secret carpet bombing of Cambodia from 1965-1973 is directly linked to Pol Pot’s rise to power (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf). The 2,500,000 tons of bombs dropped on targets in Cambodia (more than all the bombs dropped during WWII) traumatized the country—and unexploded ordnances (bombs) still litter the countryside today. Unexploded spiritual ordnances in the people and the land most certainly require detection and removal too—a massive task that needs to be done with great sensitivity.
Walking through the Tuol Sleng genocide museum disturbed me on another level—genocide on display as a tourist attraction. I first noticed this when a beggar with a severely burnt face and another maimed man approached us as we got out of our Tuk Tuk at the museum to join throngs of mostly foreign tourists to look on the shame of atrocities committed. The museum was poorly kept up: an introductory movie of the poorest quality, photos fading and pealing— reflecting the very shame that it exposed in it’s featuring of crimes committed by Cambodians against Cambodians.
That very day judges were deliberating on the sentence of Dutch—the head of that very prison—and the next day his 19 year sentence was announced—over 30 years after these events. In one of the nicer neighborhoods along the river, restaurants drew tourists by advertising free movies after dinner on the Cambodian genocide and “killing fields.” Shining light that exposes atrocities and shames perpetrators does not bring the desperately needed healing and deliverance—but rather numbness, resignation or even anger and further destruction and abuse. True repentance comes through the light of Christ.
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand,” preaches Jesus. Confession and repentance are most certainly needed in Cambodia—but larger global powers like the USA (and most certainly aware Christians) need to be involved. Last week’s commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a missed opportunity for the USA to publically apologize for the 214,000 killed there. Yet the work of peacemaking is more hands-on then simple apologies.
We visited some of Servant’s many ministries to the poor that they have turned over one-after another to Cambodians: a rehabilitation center to street youth addicted to sniffing glue, Justees, a silk-screening operation run by young graduates of the rehab program that makes tee shirts with justice statements, a nutrition center for malnourished children, an outreach to people with disabilities (see www.servantsasia.org).
Gracie and I prayed for several people suffering from pain, and found that Jesus was quick both heal and to reveal hidden terror and anxiety from trauma rooted in Cambodia’s wartime violence. We saw a deep need for spiritual mine sweeping, and found ministry workers desperate for more of Jesus’ anointing to address widespread abuse, infidelity, HIV/Aids and other issues and to keep energized themselves.
Since last Friday, when Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrated Jesus’ transfiguration, I find myself thinking how critical it is to right now, in the midst of ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel/Palestine to pay special attention to the Father’s spotlighting of Jesus’ person, teaching and way of redemptive suffering, that Moses and Elijah discussed with him before the watching disciples. “This is my son, my chosen one; listen to him!” (not to misunderstood OT justifications of violence via Moses/law and Elijah/the prophets!).
“And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:18-19).
Please pray for the many Christian workers seeking to bring the light of Christ into the darkest places in Cambodia. Please pray for Om Neang, a Cambodian woman working with Servants who established the nutrition center-- that Jesus would heal her of lung cancer. Pray for the other many workers of Servants of Asia's Urban Poor, for great wisdom, strength, health and more of Jesus' anointing so they can bring the best news of God's Kingdom to the people of Cambodia.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Preaching the Gospel to the Dead
In April I traveled to the steamy, tropical island of Leyte in the Philippines to participate in a Holy Given Mission School where I became involved in a mission I never could have anticipated.
On the third day the worship leaders WanHsi (Singapore) and Juliana (Brazil) led us in several hours of worshipping. They longed to see the group of young Filipino leaders step into greater freedom and authentic expression in their worship and prophetic voice. It was during this intense, prolonged worship that I had a vision as I looked out the window at the lush tropical hill towards the Pacific Ocean.
I saw hundreds of Japanese soldiers standing in the lush grass under the coconut trees outside the classroom, looking intently in at us through the windows. I’m not sure how I knew they were Japanese, but they looked more like prisoners of war from another time than active soldiers. On the opposite side of the room, facing the street I saw crowds of Filipino people looking in at our group. What might contemporary Filipinos and the enemy combatant dead be looking for from worshiping Christians?
I met with pastor Ferd and shared what I saw with him. He told me that a number of Bible school students had had visions of headless Japanese soldiers marching around the land. “Many of the local people are afraid to come here because they believe there are spirits of the dead Japanese here on this land,” he said.
I asked pastor Ferd about the Hill 120 World War II memorial several kilometers down the road. In 1944 US General Douglas MacArthur had led the Allied troop invasion of the Philippines. In the naval battle just offshore in the Gulf of Leyte the Allied forced destroyed many Japanese ships, causing locals to name it “the red sea” because of all the blood. After pounding the Japanese stronghold Hill 120 from sea, MacArthur came ashore and took the hill after killing many Japanese soldiers, planting the American flag at its top (See the film “Letters from Iwojima” for some valuable perspective on a similar invasion of a Japanese island).
Pastor Ferd explained that the tourist Hill 120 down the road was not the actual site. I was actually looking out the window at Hill 120 from our classroom as we worshipped—the very site where many Japanese, but also Allied and Filipino soldiers had died. Why had God shown me these Japanese prisoners of war? What was I to do with this vision and what did it have to do with the mission school?
Internet research turned up MacArthur’s victory speech on Filipino radio from Leyte, and I read words that I found deeply disturbing. “I have returned… By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil-soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come, dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring, upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people. The hour of your redemption is here. Rally to me.”
I thought about the 20-foot-tall bronze statues of MacArthur and his men down the road, and was struck by his messianic pretention and over confidence. MacArthur seemed to see himself as the Filipino’s Savior-liberator. Filipino soil certainly was not consecrated in the blood of two peoples—Americans and Filipinos. America blood consecration certainly did not give the USA the right to keep Filipinos in a debtor state after the war.
Allied “liberation” was followed by the US’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and MacArthur went on to govern Japan in the aftermath of the war. US victory in the Philippines did become the basis for a new imperial domination as the US followed suite after Spain and the Japanese to establish a beachhead into SE Asia that would later serve them in the Vietnam War and other interventions. One of my big concerns is that Japanese and SE Asian’s would have a confusing understanding of Jesus, his Kingdom and missionary activities through their identifying the US as a Christian nation.
As I kept investigating I learned that the Bible college was founded in the 90’s by American missionaries as a beachhead for mission, with the name “World Evangelism Bible College.” But locals referred the college as the “White House”—another clue that the land was still associated with imperial domination.
In fact the Spanish had “discovered” this island and others when Magellan came through. They’d also established a fort there because of its strategic location facing the Leyte Gulf and the Pacific Ocean shipping lanes. For Filipino Christians to step into their authority God’s sons and daughters, heirs of this land and a missionary people with a prophetic voice it seemed clear that lies had to be exposed and perceived debts cancelled.
But why had God shown me this vision of Japanese prisoners of war? The Japanese were hated by the Filipino people because of their ruthless occupation. They had raped, stolen livestock, killed people and committed other acts of brutality. Yet these soldiers had been forcibly recruited and had probably not had the opportunity to hear about God’s love for them in Jesus—especially not from the American soldiers who killed them. So is it absolutely too late for these poor souls? Why had I seen them as still living on this blood-soaked land?
1 Peter’s description of Jesus’ preaching to the spirits in prison who died during the time of Noah kept coming to mind, but I had never heard of anyone enacting 1 Peter 4:6: “For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.” What does this mean for our practices here and now?
Pastor Ferd and I wrote up prayers of confession and declarations (below), and planned a worship service atop Hill 120 for that Friday. That morning with guitars, drums and communion elements in hand we hiked with all the students up into an overgrown bomb crater above the stone fortifications of the stronghold, worshipped, spoke the confessions, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper together.
While most of the students worshipped in the crater, pastor Ferd, a few other Filipino students and I climbed to the top where we symbolically took down the American flag, replacing it with a pole and banana flag for the Kingdom of God. We spoke words of forgiveness and the Good News of Jesus’ death to reconcile us to God “while helpless” and “enemies” (Rom 5:6,10) over the Japanese soldiers and others who had died there. We prayed prayers of cleansing and blessing over the hill, the Gulf of Leyte, and the Bible college—for a fresh wave of God’s Presence to empower the church to announce the Gospel of Jesus’ Kingdom.
While it is hard to know the impact of such confessions and declarations, my dear friends from the Holy Given school reported that there was a breakthrough for the students in their worship and prophetic ministry—and no more complaints of nightmares involving the Japanese dead. Some of the students said they perceived deep cries released from the land as we declared forgiveness and others have said the hill feels “different” and “much better” now. My hope is that all of us, our ministries, and lands can become cleaner carriers of God’s Holy Presence to our communities and to the nations—remembering always that Jesus works through us as we are, in spite of all our personal and social failings. My hope is that those who are watching us will see less of us and our agendas and more of Jesus and his kingdom.
I am now in Maylasia with my family speaking at a global missions conference, and we will be in Cambodia, Thailand) this coming weekend and next week. Please pray for us, for spiritual discernment, direction and God’s Holy Presence as we travel, meet the people and minister.
***
Confession of sin on behalf of the American people (led by Bob)
I confess the sin of the United States of America before the Filipino people and the people of Japan of taking credit for Filipinos being liberated from the Japanese as stated by General MacArthur. I confess and repent of the sin of messianic pretention, self-aggrandizement (visible in statements like of MacArthur’s on Filipino radio: “I have returned” and “rally to me”.
I renounce the lie that the USA and Allied forces (soldiers and/or commanding officers) liberated, redeemed or in any way saved the Filipino people, and declare the truth that Jesus is the only Messiah/Christ and Savior of the Filipino people and world.
I renounce the lie that Americans/Allied troupes are capable of “destroying every vestige of enemy control” and “restoring upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your [the Filipino] people. I declare the truth that Jesus Christ has conquered the Ruler of this world and all demonic powers through his life, death and resurrection, and through his reign through the Church, his body “who not even the gates of Hades can withstand.”
I ask the Filipino people for forgiveness…
I confess and repent of the sin of the USA of imperial domination and control in the aftermath of WWII, and of using it’s favor with the Filipino people for it’s own interests—establishing military bases, intervening to establish pro-American national leaders. I confess and repent of American use and abuse of Filipino political leaders and other citizens in violation of the best interests of the Filipino people, especially the poor, and of the sin of abusing women as prostitutes around the military base.
I confess the sin of General MacArthur, who representing the USA called on the spirits to save. I renounce the call: "Let the indomitable spirit of Bataan and Corregidor lead on." We declare that only Jesus saves.
I cancel MacArthur's call to "rise up and strike", and pray the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name (Jesus), thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...." We counter MacArthur's call with the invitation "rise up and worship!"
I ask the Filipino people for forgiveness…
I confess and repent of American missionary ignorance of and/or agreement with US imperial interests, and of American Christians benefitting from favor according to the flesh for the purpose of expansion of their missions.
I confess and repent of the sin of labeling Japanese human beings made in God’s image as “the Enemy,” of taking their lives rather than loving them, praying for them, and evangelizing them. On behalf of American Christians I ask forgiveness from the Japanese dead and their relatives and people for any confusion they have about Jesus due to Christian agreement with violence and war.
Confession of sin on behalf of Filipino people (led by pastor Ferd)
On behalf of the Filipino people I confess the sin of believing the lie that General MacArthur and the Allied forces liberated the Philippines, eradicated the enemy and restored liberty. I declare the truth that only Jesus liberates, saves and restores freedom through his death on the cross, where he took upon himself the sins of the world, forgiving humans and defeated the Ruler of this World, the Enemy, Satan.
I confess and renounce the sin of rallying to a human savior, and embracing General MacArthur and the USA as liberators—of putting confidence in man/humans rather than in God.
I confess and renounce the sin of subservience, of letting ourselves be dominated and controlled.
I confess and repent of benefits our people have received from subservience and accommodation of empires (Spanish, USA, Japanese). (security, dependency, not taking responsibility, passivity, corruption).
I confess and repent of the sin of hatred of Japanese enemies and the Japanese people, and the sin of harboring resentment, bitterness and the sin of discrimination.
I choose to turn away from any perceived benefits from this Bible College’s association with USA, the “White House” and the action of the Allied Forces (status, financial benefits). I turn towards Jesus and choose to turn over this land to him as Prince of Peace, Savior and Lord.
Time for others to confess....
On the third day the worship leaders WanHsi (Singapore) and Juliana (Brazil) led us in several hours of worshipping. They longed to see the group of young Filipino leaders step into greater freedom and authentic expression in their worship and prophetic voice. It was during this intense, prolonged worship that I had a vision as I looked out the window at the lush tropical hill towards the Pacific Ocean.
I saw hundreds of Japanese soldiers standing in the lush grass under the coconut trees outside the classroom, looking intently in at us through the windows. I’m not sure how I knew they were Japanese, but they looked more like prisoners of war from another time than active soldiers. On the opposite side of the room, facing the street I saw crowds of Filipino people looking in at our group. What might contemporary Filipinos and the enemy combatant dead be looking for from worshiping Christians?
I met with pastor Ferd and shared what I saw with him. He told me that a number of Bible school students had had visions of headless Japanese soldiers marching around the land. “Many of the local people are afraid to come here because they believe there are spirits of the dead Japanese here on this land,” he said.
I asked pastor Ferd about the Hill 120 World War II memorial several kilometers down the road. In 1944 US General Douglas MacArthur had led the Allied troop invasion of the Philippines. In the naval battle just offshore in the Gulf of Leyte the Allied forced destroyed many Japanese ships, causing locals to name it “the red sea” because of all the blood. After pounding the Japanese stronghold Hill 120 from sea, MacArthur came ashore and took the hill after killing many Japanese soldiers, planting the American flag at its top (See the film “Letters from Iwojima” for some valuable perspective on a similar invasion of a Japanese island).
Pastor Ferd explained that the tourist Hill 120 down the road was not the actual site. I was actually looking out the window at Hill 120 from our classroom as we worshipped—the very site where many Japanese, but also Allied and Filipino soldiers had died. Why had God shown me these Japanese prisoners of war? What was I to do with this vision and what did it have to do with the mission school?
Internet research turned up MacArthur’s victory speech on Filipino radio from Leyte, and I read words that I found deeply disturbing. “I have returned… By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil-soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come, dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring, upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people. The hour of your redemption is here. Rally to me.”
I thought about the 20-foot-tall bronze statues of MacArthur and his men down the road, and was struck by his messianic pretention and over confidence. MacArthur seemed to see himself as the Filipino’s Savior-liberator. Filipino soil certainly was not consecrated in the blood of two peoples—Americans and Filipinos. America blood consecration certainly did not give the USA the right to keep Filipinos in a debtor state after the war.
Allied “liberation” was followed by the US’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and MacArthur went on to govern Japan in the aftermath of the war. US victory in the Philippines did become the basis for a new imperial domination as the US followed suite after Spain and the Japanese to establish a beachhead into SE Asia that would later serve them in the Vietnam War and other interventions. One of my big concerns is that Japanese and SE Asian’s would have a confusing understanding of Jesus, his Kingdom and missionary activities through their identifying the US as a Christian nation.
As I kept investigating I learned that the Bible college was founded in the 90’s by American missionaries as a beachhead for mission, with the name “World Evangelism Bible College.” But locals referred the college as the “White House”—another clue that the land was still associated with imperial domination.
In fact the Spanish had “discovered” this island and others when Magellan came through. They’d also established a fort there because of its strategic location facing the Leyte Gulf and the Pacific Ocean shipping lanes. For Filipino Christians to step into their authority God’s sons and daughters, heirs of this land and a missionary people with a prophetic voice it seemed clear that lies had to be exposed and perceived debts cancelled.
But why had God shown me this vision of Japanese prisoners of war? The Japanese were hated by the Filipino people because of their ruthless occupation. They had raped, stolen livestock, killed people and committed other acts of brutality. Yet these soldiers had been forcibly recruited and had probably not had the opportunity to hear about God’s love for them in Jesus—especially not from the American soldiers who killed them. So is it absolutely too late for these poor souls? Why had I seen them as still living on this blood-soaked land?
1 Peter’s description of Jesus’ preaching to the spirits in prison who died during the time of Noah kept coming to mind, but I had never heard of anyone enacting 1 Peter 4:6: “For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.” What does this mean for our practices here and now?
Pastor Ferd and I wrote up prayers of confession and declarations (below), and planned a worship service atop Hill 120 for that Friday. That morning with guitars, drums and communion elements in hand we hiked with all the students up into an overgrown bomb crater above the stone fortifications of the stronghold, worshipped, spoke the confessions, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper together.
While most of the students worshipped in the crater, pastor Ferd, a few other Filipino students and I climbed to the top where we symbolically took down the American flag, replacing it with a pole and banana flag for the Kingdom of God. We spoke words of forgiveness and the Good News of Jesus’ death to reconcile us to God “while helpless” and “enemies” (Rom 5:6,10) over the Japanese soldiers and others who had died there. We prayed prayers of cleansing and blessing over the hill, the Gulf of Leyte, and the Bible college—for a fresh wave of God’s Presence to empower the church to announce the Gospel of Jesus’ Kingdom.
While it is hard to know the impact of such confessions and declarations, my dear friends from the Holy Given school reported that there was a breakthrough for the students in their worship and prophetic ministry—and no more complaints of nightmares involving the Japanese dead. Some of the students said they perceived deep cries released from the land as we declared forgiveness and others have said the hill feels “different” and “much better” now. My hope is that all of us, our ministries, and lands can become cleaner carriers of God’s Holy Presence to our communities and to the nations—remembering always that Jesus works through us as we are, in spite of all our personal and social failings. My hope is that those who are watching us will see less of us and our agendas and more of Jesus and his kingdom.
I am now in Maylasia with my family speaking at a global missions conference, and we will be in Cambodia, Thailand) this coming weekend and next week. Please pray for us, for spiritual discernment, direction and God’s Holy Presence as we travel, meet the people and minister.
***
Confession of sin on behalf of the American people (led by Bob)
I confess the sin of the United States of America before the Filipino people and the people of Japan of taking credit for Filipinos being liberated from the Japanese as stated by General MacArthur. I confess and repent of the sin of messianic pretention, self-aggrandizement (visible in statements like of MacArthur’s on Filipino radio: “I have returned” and “rally to me”.
I renounce the lie that the USA and Allied forces (soldiers and/or commanding officers) liberated, redeemed or in any way saved the Filipino people, and declare the truth that Jesus is the only Messiah/Christ and Savior of the Filipino people and world.
I renounce the lie that Americans/Allied troupes are capable of “destroying every vestige of enemy control” and “restoring upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your [the Filipino] people. I declare the truth that Jesus Christ has conquered the Ruler of this world and all demonic powers through his life, death and resurrection, and through his reign through the Church, his body “who not even the gates of Hades can withstand.”
I ask the Filipino people for forgiveness…
I confess and repent of the sin of the USA of imperial domination and control in the aftermath of WWII, and of using it’s favor with the Filipino people for it’s own interests—establishing military bases, intervening to establish pro-American national leaders. I confess and repent of American use and abuse of Filipino political leaders and other citizens in violation of the best interests of the Filipino people, especially the poor, and of the sin of abusing women as prostitutes around the military base.
I confess the sin of General MacArthur, who representing the USA called on the spirits to save. I renounce the call: "Let the indomitable spirit of Bataan and Corregidor lead on." We declare that only Jesus saves.
I cancel MacArthur's call to "rise up and strike", and pray the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name (Jesus), thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...." We counter MacArthur's call with the invitation "rise up and worship!"
I ask the Filipino people for forgiveness…
I confess and repent of American missionary ignorance of and/or agreement with US imperial interests, and of American Christians benefitting from favor according to the flesh for the purpose of expansion of their missions.
I confess and repent of the sin of labeling Japanese human beings made in God’s image as “the Enemy,” of taking their lives rather than loving them, praying for them, and evangelizing them. On behalf of American Christians I ask forgiveness from the Japanese dead and their relatives and people for any confusion they have about Jesus due to Christian agreement with violence and war.
Confession of sin on behalf of Filipino people (led by pastor Ferd)
On behalf of the Filipino people I confess the sin of believing the lie that General MacArthur and the Allied forces liberated the Philippines, eradicated the enemy and restored liberty. I declare the truth that only Jesus liberates, saves and restores freedom through his death on the cross, where he took upon himself the sins of the world, forgiving humans and defeated the Ruler of this World, the Enemy, Satan.
I confess and renounce the sin of rallying to a human savior, and embracing General MacArthur and the USA as liberators—of putting confidence in man/humans rather than in God.
I confess and renounce the sin of subservience, of letting ourselves be dominated and controlled.
I confess and repent of benefits our people have received from subservience and accommodation of empires (Spanish, USA, Japanese). (security, dependency, not taking responsibility, passivity, corruption).
I confess and repent of the sin of hatred of Japanese enemies and the Japanese people, and the sin of harboring resentment, bitterness and the sin of discrimination.
I choose to turn away from any perceived benefits from this Bible College’s association with USA, the “White House” and the action of the Allied Forces (status, financial benefits). I turn towards Jesus and choose to turn over this land to him as Prince of Peace, Savior and Lord.
Time for others to confess....
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Forgiving Our Fathers
On May 2nd I returned home from a week of teaching on the Island of Leyte in the Philippines. I took the 16 hours of flights (each way) to help out with the Holy Given Mission School, a two-month induction into the ministry of Jesus. These schools are designed for grass-roots leaders, bringing them into the bigness of Jesus' vision for the Kingdom of God, and into the intimacy of fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
The Filipino leaders-in-training were mostly under 30: earnest, open, ready to give their lives as pastors & teachers, evangelists, prophets, or apostles. One morning I felt led to speak on the importance of forgiving our human fathers. I have been struck by the relevance of the last few verses of the Old Testament, where Malachi writes:
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. and he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse" (Mal 4:5-6).
My first day of teaching focused on training students in proclaiming Good News to inmates and others on the margins. Our second day was spent putting the teaching into practice in a steaming hot 600+ inmate prison in Tacloban City, where Filipino inmates gathered hungrily for worship, Bible study and prayer ministry.
Conditions were worse in this prison than many I’ve visited, with inmates sleeping on cement floors and having to supply their own food or settle for filthy prison rice slop. But the men’s reports of abandonment, neglect and violence at the hands of their fathers echoed what I’ve heard in France, Mozambique, Guatemala and in our own county jail. I borrowed a club from a guard for Bible study on Psalm 23s “rod and staff” verse, which is a “toxic text” for most, who do not associate these words with images of God as protecting, comforting shepherd.
“How many of you have been beaten by something like this when you were a child, or at other times?” I ask, holding a wooden club worn from overuse.
Nearly everyone raised their hand, including many of the Holy Given students. Unresolved trauma and hurts from human fathers most certainly affect people's ability to trust God as Father. Distrust sabotages close communion with God, which erodes our relationship of trust, dependency and love as God’s children—which in turn disempowers us in life and ministry. Certainly the world is reeling under the curse coming from unforgiveness-- and pastors and leaders-in training are also often in serious need of extending forgiveness and seeking reconciliation.
On the third day I taught and ministered on extending forgiveness to our human fathers. Here is a testimony from Richard, one of the students. (You can see more photos, updates and testimonies on HG Leyte school on the HG school website - www.holygiven.org)
“I just want to thank God for the privilege He has given me. I am set free from anger towards my father. My earthly father is the reason why I am affected like this. He planned to kill me when I was in the womb of my mother. He didn't want the responsibility. He told my mother - just kill that baby so we can be set free from the responsibility and the shame.
My anger became bigger as time went by as I was affected by what they had done to me. My eyes were damaged because of the medicine my mom took to abort me. My height was affected too - I am 31 this coming May, but still my height is like a 13 year olds. This is because of the medicine. I am thankful because my brain and my senses were not damaged.
It was very hard going to school, I suffered very much. When I was in elementary school I could read, but by the time I was in High school my eyes deteriorated into college. In college I met the Lord Jesus Christ and I realized that He has a great plan in my life. I said, “Lord, why did you allow that my father did these bad things to me if you had a plan for my life? If you loved me, why did you allow this to happen, why was my father hard on us?
When I was in grade 1, my father left us, and he abandoned us. From that time until now, the only person supporting us is my mother. She is in Hong Kong now working to support us. I am thankful that my siblings and I have finished studying. I am thankful that the Lord got me, and that He has a purpose for my life. He gave me a task that is easily fulfilled.
Yesterday, I recalled those hard times that I had in school – the teasing of my classmates and relatives. I told the Lord that it's so hard, my situation before is not easy, but look at me now, I am here and I'm on the top, and you're using me, and you moved in my life. Do you know the song ‘God will make a way’? That's a very encouraging song, I hold on to the promises of the Lord, and he will make a way in my life.
Yesterday, I totally released the anger I had towards my father. I said, “Lord, thank you for sending Brother Bob - you moved even in the very private things of my life. Thank you for teaching me how to forgive my father and for moving on. I am totally 100% set free from the anger - I plan to call my father and tell him I'm sorry and that I love him so much despite what he has done to us. I plan to share the love of God. I want my father to be saved - as God had done for me, I want it done for him as well.
I want him to serve God in spirit and in truth. Lord, you are very very good, you fixed everything in me. I am very much blessed because I am set free. My heart seems 70 kilos lighter since I prayed for my father. I am thankful to the Lord, to God be the glory.”
The Filipino leaders-in-training were mostly under 30: earnest, open, ready to give their lives as pastors & teachers, evangelists, prophets, or apostles. One morning I felt led to speak on the importance of forgiving our human fathers. I have been struck by the relevance of the last few verses of the Old Testament, where Malachi writes:
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. and he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse" (Mal 4:5-6).
My first day of teaching focused on training students in proclaiming Good News to inmates and others on the margins. Our second day was spent putting the teaching into practice in a steaming hot 600+ inmate prison in Tacloban City, where Filipino inmates gathered hungrily for worship, Bible study and prayer ministry.
Conditions were worse in this prison than many I’ve visited, with inmates sleeping on cement floors and having to supply their own food or settle for filthy prison rice slop. But the men’s reports of abandonment, neglect and violence at the hands of their fathers echoed what I’ve heard in France, Mozambique, Guatemala and in our own county jail. I borrowed a club from a guard for Bible study on Psalm 23s “rod and staff” verse, which is a “toxic text” for most, who do not associate these words with images of God as protecting, comforting shepherd.
“How many of you have been beaten by something like this when you were a child, or at other times?” I ask, holding a wooden club worn from overuse.
Nearly everyone raised their hand, including many of the Holy Given students. Unresolved trauma and hurts from human fathers most certainly affect people's ability to trust God as Father. Distrust sabotages close communion with God, which erodes our relationship of trust, dependency and love as God’s children—which in turn disempowers us in life and ministry. Certainly the world is reeling under the curse coming from unforgiveness-- and pastors and leaders-in training are also often in serious need of extending forgiveness and seeking reconciliation.
On the third day I taught and ministered on extending forgiveness to our human fathers. Here is a testimony from Richard, one of the students. (You can see more photos, updates and testimonies on HG Leyte school on the HG school website - www.holygiven.org)
“I just want to thank God for the privilege He has given me. I am set free from anger towards my father. My earthly father is the reason why I am affected like this. He planned to kill me when I was in the womb of my mother. He didn't want the responsibility. He told my mother - just kill that baby so we can be set free from the responsibility and the shame.
My anger became bigger as time went by as I was affected by what they had done to me. My eyes were damaged because of the medicine my mom took to abort me. My height was affected too - I am 31 this coming May, but still my height is like a 13 year olds. This is because of the medicine. I am thankful because my brain and my senses were not damaged.
It was very hard going to school, I suffered very much. When I was in elementary school I could read, but by the time I was in High school my eyes deteriorated into college. In college I met the Lord Jesus Christ and I realized that He has a great plan in my life. I said, “Lord, why did you allow that my father did these bad things to me if you had a plan for my life? If you loved me, why did you allow this to happen, why was my father hard on us?
When I was in grade 1, my father left us, and he abandoned us. From that time until now, the only person supporting us is my mother. She is in Hong Kong now working to support us. I am thankful that my siblings and I have finished studying. I am thankful that the Lord got me, and that He has a purpose for my life. He gave me a task that is easily fulfilled.
Yesterday, I recalled those hard times that I had in school – the teasing of my classmates and relatives. I told the Lord that it's so hard, my situation before is not easy, but look at me now, I am here and I'm on the top, and you're using me, and you moved in my life. Do you know the song ‘God will make a way’? That's a very encouraging song, I hold on to the promises of the Lord, and he will make a way in my life.
Yesterday, I totally released the anger I had towards my father. I said, “Lord, thank you for sending Brother Bob - you moved even in the very private things of my life. Thank you for teaching me how to forgive my father and for moving on. I am totally 100% set free from the anger - I plan to call my father and tell him I'm sorry and that I love him so much despite what he has done to us. I plan to share the love of God. I want my father to be saved - as God had done for me, I want it done for him as well.
I want him to serve God in spirit and in truth. Lord, you are very very good, you fixed everything in me. I am very much blessed because I am set free. My heart seems 70 kilos lighter since I prayed for my father. I am thankful to the Lord, to God be the glory.”
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Adjusting to stranger and alien status: update on Feliciano, Andrey and Guatemalan inmates
The Bible tells us that as followers of Jesus we must view ourselves as aliens and strangers and exiles on the earth (1 Pet 2:11; Heb 11:13). Yet simultaneously in God’s eyes we are “no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household” (Eph 2:19).
Yet as a US citizen whose primary identity is citizen of the Kingdom of heaven, my calling includes advocating for those suffering under actual stranger/alien immigration status so they can freely live and minister “on earth as in heaven.” The following is a prayer update on three important cases.
On Wednesday April 7 my colleagues Chris and Bethany accompanied our 52-year-old Mexican pastor friend Feliciano down to Seattle to our meeting with Claire in Senator Maria Cantwell’s 32nd floor office. We told Claire that our aim was to win her over to become Feliciano’s advocate on behalf of our Mixteco immigrant workers who need his pastoral presence. Feliciano is currently in deportation proceedings, but pastors a 600+ member church in the Skagit Valley.
Claire seemed won over by Feliciano, and supportive enough to pass our petition on to the next level—the Washington DC office. Our hope and prayer is that Senator Cantwell will choose Felicano and his family as a sort of poster family for immigration reform—which is so desperately needed in the United States at this time. Please continue to pray with us that Senator Cantwell will agree soon to submit a Private Bill for Feliciano Lopez and his family to be granted permanent residency status.
That same Wednesday I continued south to Tacoma to the regional immigration detention facility to testify in a hearing before a federal immigration judge on behalf of a 25-year-old Russian immigrant named Andrey. The detention facility is a private prison surrounded by razor wire that houses 1,200 immigrants in deportation proceedings. This was a powerful experience for me. After passing through security we met with 25 of Andrey’s Russian Pentecostal immigrant family members and the attorney before proceeding through three prison doors into a courtroom at the heart of the prison.
Andrey’s wife asked if her grandfather could pray before we entered the courtroom. He put out his hands and began to pray in Russian. I felt a strong presence of God descend over my head and shoulders, causing my eyelids to flutter and cheeks to heat up—and then I couldn’t keep from crying. Many of Andrey’s family members couldn’t hold back the tears—and I thought of Jesus before Lazarus’ tomb—lots of love, but a suffering sort of love.
It turns out I knew the judge. She had been present when I had preached in Seattle United Methodist Church years ago. In that sermon I clearly remember describing our ministry as inspired by our experience of the Holy Spirit as Advocate/Comforter before the Satan/accuser, who manifests through internal voices and external powers. I gave some examples of external powers like the Department of Homeland Security prosecutors, and county prosecutors who’s job it is stand with the laws over and against people.
I had preached about the need for followers of Jesus to stand with people before powers that accuse, defending them so they may experience relief-- more abundant grace and life here and now. A woman came and introduced herself to me after the service as a prosecutor for the Dept of Homeland Security—and there she was last Wednesday as presiding judge in Andrey’s case! She recognized me with a nod and smile as I took the stand beside her to present my testimony.
My 45-minute testimony felt like a prophesy over Andre—who has repented, gone through a profound conversion and has responded to a call into pastoral ministry during his year in our jail and subsequent year in immigration detention. The other family members testified—and I heard the hard news the next morning that the judge saw not legal way to keep Andrey from being deported.
Only one option remains—which involved me approaching the local county prosecutor here to try to get him to lower the official amount of time Andre was charged to serve from 14 months (he’s already served over 2 years) to 364 days—which according to complex immigration law would take him out of the “aggravated felon” category and save him from deportation.
Please pray for our local county prosecutor, and for me. The last time I approached him on Andrey’s case he refused to help. It would be tragic if Andrey was deported back to Russia with a lifetime bar to re-entry—as his entire extended family now lives in Washington and Alaska after a long struggle as a persecuted minority during Soviet times in Russia.
On another front, the three Guatemalan gang members made it through Holy Week without incidents thanks to many prayers from people all over the world. Please continue to pray that they will be transferred to a safer prison—and for funding, wisdom and protection for their beloved chaplains.
All of these cases involve people who God has called into pastoral ministry who are experiencing their stranger and exile status in harsh ways. While I am sure that God can work through them anywhere they end up, we pray that the ruler of this world will in no way detain them from stepping into their most fruitful lives and ministries.
Yet as a US citizen whose primary identity is citizen of the Kingdom of heaven, my calling includes advocating for those suffering under actual stranger/alien immigration status so they can freely live and minister “on earth as in heaven.” The following is a prayer update on three important cases.
On Wednesday April 7 my colleagues Chris and Bethany accompanied our 52-year-old Mexican pastor friend Feliciano down to Seattle to our meeting with Claire in Senator Maria Cantwell’s 32nd floor office. We told Claire that our aim was to win her over to become Feliciano’s advocate on behalf of our Mixteco immigrant workers who need his pastoral presence. Feliciano is currently in deportation proceedings, but pastors a 600+ member church in the Skagit Valley.
Claire seemed won over by Feliciano, and supportive enough to pass our petition on to the next level—the Washington DC office. Our hope and prayer is that Senator Cantwell will choose Felicano and his family as a sort of poster family for immigration reform—which is so desperately needed in the United States at this time. Please continue to pray with us that Senator Cantwell will agree soon to submit a Private Bill for Feliciano Lopez and his family to be granted permanent residency status.
That same Wednesday I continued south to Tacoma to the regional immigration detention facility to testify in a hearing before a federal immigration judge on behalf of a 25-year-old Russian immigrant named Andrey. The detention facility is a private prison surrounded by razor wire that houses 1,200 immigrants in deportation proceedings. This was a powerful experience for me. After passing through security we met with 25 of Andrey’s Russian Pentecostal immigrant family members and the attorney before proceeding through three prison doors into a courtroom at the heart of the prison.
Andrey’s wife asked if her grandfather could pray before we entered the courtroom. He put out his hands and began to pray in Russian. I felt a strong presence of God descend over my head and shoulders, causing my eyelids to flutter and cheeks to heat up—and then I couldn’t keep from crying. Many of Andrey’s family members couldn’t hold back the tears—and I thought of Jesus before Lazarus’ tomb—lots of love, but a suffering sort of love.
It turns out I knew the judge. She had been present when I had preached in Seattle United Methodist Church years ago. In that sermon I clearly remember describing our ministry as inspired by our experience of the Holy Spirit as Advocate/Comforter before the Satan/accuser, who manifests through internal voices and external powers. I gave some examples of external powers like the Department of Homeland Security prosecutors, and county prosecutors who’s job it is stand with the laws over and against people.
I had preached about the need for followers of Jesus to stand with people before powers that accuse, defending them so they may experience relief-- more abundant grace and life here and now. A woman came and introduced herself to me after the service as a prosecutor for the Dept of Homeland Security—and there she was last Wednesday as presiding judge in Andrey’s case! She recognized me with a nod and smile as I took the stand beside her to present my testimony.
My 45-minute testimony felt like a prophesy over Andre—who has repented, gone through a profound conversion and has responded to a call into pastoral ministry during his year in our jail and subsequent year in immigration detention. The other family members testified—and I heard the hard news the next morning that the judge saw not legal way to keep Andrey from being deported.
Only one option remains—which involved me approaching the local county prosecutor here to try to get him to lower the official amount of time Andre was charged to serve from 14 months (he’s already served over 2 years) to 364 days—which according to complex immigration law would take him out of the “aggravated felon” category and save him from deportation.
Please pray for our local county prosecutor, and for me. The last time I approached him on Andrey’s case he refused to help. It would be tragic if Andrey was deported back to Russia with a lifetime bar to re-entry—as his entire extended family now lives in Washington and Alaska after a long struggle as a persecuted minority during Soviet times in Russia.
On another front, the three Guatemalan gang members made it through Holy Week without incidents thanks to many prayers from people all over the world. Please continue to pray that they will be transferred to a safer prison—and for funding, wisdom and protection for their beloved chaplains.
All of these cases involve people who God has called into pastoral ministry who are experiencing their stranger and exile status in harsh ways. While I am sure that God can work through them anywhere they end up, we pray that the ruler of this world will in no way detain them from stepping into their most fruitful lives and ministries.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Redemption not Deportation
For over 15 years now Gracie and I have ministered among Mexican migrant farm workers here at Tierra Nueva in Burlington, WA. We have seen many immigrants suffer terribly-- and things are only getting worse. Immigration reform is critical at this time and must include far more than an opportunity for the millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the USA (12-20 million) to become citizens. Reforms are also desperately needed to overhaul the failed 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) to give young men and women labeled “criminal aliens” opportunities for redemption.
Four Biblical texts need to be remembered and heeded these days by followers of Jesus who are about announcing the Kingdom of God. After all, we ourselves, regardless of our legal status, are invited to consider ourselves as "strangers and aliens" in this world (1 Pet 2:11) and citizens of heaven-- of which we are ambassadors.
"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Ex 22:21).
"The Lord protects the strangers; he supports the fatherless and the widow" (Ps 146:9).
"I was a stranger, and you invited me in" (Matt 25:35).
"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it" (Heb 13:2).
Last month while in Honduras Gracie called me about a close friend from Mexico named Ignacio whose 21-year-old son Jose was in jail charged with a DUI and possession of a controlled substance; as a result he was subject to a Border Patrol hold. If he is convicted, he will serve his time and then be deported back to a country where he has never lived, with a possible lifetime bar to re-entry. He will be separated from his US citizen wife, three year old daughter and family. “Is there anything we can do?” Ignacio asked in desperation.
I was talking with Gracie by cell phone, having just arrived in a Honduran town where we had lived for six years in the 80s promoting sustainable farming to stem the exodus from rural areas to cities to the USA. Two days before a 23-year-old man from a nearby village had been shot to death by someone he had threatened. The INS had deported him two months before, after he served time for a minor crime in a US jail.
“He had been working for three years in different states but then was arrested and deported. Like many young immigrants who have been in the USA, he came back with a serious drug problem, all disoriented and not wanting to work for $3.00 a day,” said Angel David, Tierra Nueva’s Honduran pastor whom I joined to comfort his grieving mother. The US-based MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs were exported and rapidly spread throughout Central America when the INS deported vulnerable immigrant youth from violent American urban centers and prisons.
What could we do to keep Jose from being deported? Since he is married to a US citizen he might be able to apply for a waiver, depending on the seriousness of his conviction. However, people can be stripped of their residency status or barred from ever becoming a legal resident through committing a crime involving drugs or “moral turpitude”, which includes nearly every offense. This is because IIRAIRA created a terrible two-edged sword: the threshold for a having a crime be considered the most serious crime (an “aggravated felony”) has been dramatically lowered to include any theft or violent offense that receives a jail sentence of 365 days, even if the sentence is “suspended.” Shoplifting a pack of gum can thus be equated with the murder of a policeman or rape of a child). At the same time the ability of immigration officers and judges to offer forgiveness has been severely limited.
The law now puts tremendous discretion in the hands of our current prosecutors, and immigrants are too often left to the county and municipal public defender systems, which are chronically underfunded. Prosecutors now hold all the cards in can determine what charges to file and what plea agreements to accept, often well aware that what might be a great “deal” for a US citizen will impose a horrific “collateral” immigration consequence upon the immigrant: exile from work, home and family. This is coupled with the inability of our overworked public defenders to gather the resources needed to fashion resolutions of criminal charges, like drug treatment, community service and education, that allow the immigrant to make amends and reintegrate as a productive member of society. In contemporary America justice too often requires hard cash.
Ignacio and his wife Maria, like most immigrant workers, don’t have cash to pay for a private attorney for their son—who really needs drug and alcohol treatment and not jail time. They migrated to Washington State from Nayarit 15 years ago when Jose was 7, and other kids were 5, 3, 2 and 1. They had been unemployed and landless and were eager for work. Like many undocumented immigrants, they have struggled at the bottom of American society, taking on minimum-wage jobs in construction, slaughter houses, meat-packing plants, landscaping and field work.
I think back to a forum Tierra Nueva hosted more than a decade ago when a local berry farmer shared with the regional head of the INS his longing to see his many beloved workers be offered the chance to become legal permanent residents. “You know sir, that’s not what you really want,” said the INS chief. “If you give these people status and they will go after the America Dream. Then they won’t want to work for you anymore and there will have to be another wave of illegal immigrants to provide the workers to harvest America’s crops.”
Could the current political impasse that is keeping undocumented immigrants “illegal” be a deliberate mechanism to keep people in a state of perpetual slavery? Until ordinary Americans become aware of the desperate plight of immigrant workers, the sorry state of our justice system and shrinking pathways of forgiveness and begin to make their voices heard the plight of people on the margins will worsen. As people get to know immigrant workers as friends they will hear their stories and learn how oppression in America is sustained by laws and economic forces that encourage immigrants to come here but then force them to remain in the shadows. Personal relationships with immigrants will motivate ordinary Americans to put healthy pressure on prosecutors, judges and lawmakers to enforce laws in ways that favor all people and communities and change laws that don’t permit full consideration of each person’s humanity.
Last night I met with Jose during a bilingual Bible study in Skagit County Jail. His father Ignacio has spent the afternoon repairing my car after he and Maria had attended their son’s first court hearing. “We’re doing everything we can,” I assured him. “Esta bien, gracias,” he said smiling as they led him back to his cell.
A few weeks later a dear friend and prominent pastor of Mixteco-speaking immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico who lives across the river from us was picked up the Internal Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and put into deportation proceedings. Though he has lived in the US over 15 years, oversees a crew of field workers for a local berry grower and pastors his people tirelessly-- there is no legal remedy available other than getting our congressional representative to submit a special bill to Congress for his family to be granted legal permanent residency status. We at Tierra Nueva are pursuing this option-- and would appreciate your prayers for us, pastor Feliciano and his family.
Four Biblical texts need to be remembered and heeded these days by followers of Jesus who are about announcing the Kingdom of God. After all, we ourselves, regardless of our legal status, are invited to consider ourselves as "strangers and aliens" in this world (1 Pet 2:11) and citizens of heaven-- of which we are ambassadors.
"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Ex 22:21).
"The Lord protects the strangers; he supports the fatherless and the widow" (Ps 146:9).
"I was a stranger, and you invited me in" (Matt 25:35).
"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it" (Heb 13:2).
Last month while in Honduras Gracie called me about a close friend from Mexico named Ignacio whose 21-year-old son Jose was in jail charged with a DUI and possession of a controlled substance; as a result he was subject to a Border Patrol hold. If he is convicted, he will serve his time and then be deported back to a country where he has never lived, with a possible lifetime bar to re-entry. He will be separated from his US citizen wife, three year old daughter and family. “Is there anything we can do?” Ignacio asked in desperation.
I was talking with Gracie by cell phone, having just arrived in a Honduran town where we had lived for six years in the 80s promoting sustainable farming to stem the exodus from rural areas to cities to the USA. Two days before a 23-year-old man from a nearby village had been shot to death by someone he had threatened. The INS had deported him two months before, after he served time for a minor crime in a US jail.
“He had been working for three years in different states but then was arrested and deported. Like many young immigrants who have been in the USA, he came back with a serious drug problem, all disoriented and not wanting to work for $3.00 a day,” said Angel David, Tierra Nueva’s Honduran pastor whom I joined to comfort his grieving mother. The US-based MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs were exported and rapidly spread throughout Central America when the INS deported vulnerable immigrant youth from violent American urban centers and prisons.
What could we do to keep Jose from being deported? Since he is married to a US citizen he might be able to apply for a waiver, depending on the seriousness of his conviction. However, people can be stripped of their residency status or barred from ever becoming a legal resident through committing a crime involving drugs or “moral turpitude”, which includes nearly every offense. This is because IIRAIRA created a terrible two-edged sword: the threshold for a having a crime be considered the most serious crime (an “aggravated felony”) has been dramatically lowered to include any theft or violent offense that receives a jail sentence of 365 days, even if the sentence is “suspended.” Shoplifting a pack of gum can thus be equated with the murder of a policeman or rape of a child). At the same time the ability of immigration officers and judges to offer forgiveness has been severely limited.
The law now puts tremendous discretion in the hands of our current prosecutors, and immigrants are too often left to the county and municipal public defender systems, which are chronically underfunded. Prosecutors now hold all the cards in can determine what charges to file and what plea agreements to accept, often well aware that what might be a great “deal” for a US citizen will impose a horrific “collateral” immigration consequence upon the immigrant: exile from work, home and family. This is coupled with the inability of our overworked public defenders to gather the resources needed to fashion resolutions of criminal charges, like drug treatment, community service and education, that allow the immigrant to make amends and reintegrate as a productive member of society. In contemporary America justice too often requires hard cash.
Ignacio and his wife Maria, like most immigrant workers, don’t have cash to pay for a private attorney for their son—who really needs drug and alcohol treatment and not jail time. They migrated to Washington State from Nayarit 15 years ago when Jose was 7, and other kids were 5, 3, 2 and 1. They had been unemployed and landless and were eager for work. Like many undocumented immigrants, they have struggled at the bottom of American society, taking on minimum-wage jobs in construction, slaughter houses, meat-packing plants, landscaping and field work.
I think back to a forum Tierra Nueva hosted more than a decade ago when a local berry farmer shared with the regional head of the INS his longing to see his many beloved workers be offered the chance to become legal permanent residents. “You know sir, that’s not what you really want,” said the INS chief. “If you give these people status and they will go after the America Dream. Then they won’t want to work for you anymore and there will have to be another wave of illegal immigrants to provide the workers to harvest America’s crops.”
Could the current political impasse that is keeping undocumented immigrants “illegal” be a deliberate mechanism to keep people in a state of perpetual slavery? Until ordinary Americans become aware of the desperate plight of immigrant workers, the sorry state of our justice system and shrinking pathways of forgiveness and begin to make their voices heard the plight of people on the margins will worsen. As people get to know immigrant workers as friends they will hear their stories and learn how oppression in America is sustained by laws and economic forces that encourage immigrants to come here but then force them to remain in the shadows. Personal relationships with immigrants will motivate ordinary Americans to put healthy pressure on prosecutors, judges and lawmakers to enforce laws in ways that favor all people and communities and change laws that don’t permit full consideration of each person’s humanity.
Last night I met with Jose during a bilingual Bible study in Skagit County Jail. His father Ignacio has spent the afternoon repairing my car after he and Maria had attended their son’s first court hearing. “We’re doing everything we can,” I assured him. “Esta bien, gracias,” he said smiling as they led him back to his cell.
A few weeks later a dear friend and prominent pastor of Mixteco-speaking immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico who lives across the river from us was picked up the Internal Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and put into deportation proceedings. Though he has lived in the US over 15 years, oversees a crew of field workers for a local berry grower and pastors his people tirelessly-- there is no legal remedy available other than getting our congressional representative to submit a special bill to Congress for his family to be granted legal permanent residency status. We at Tierra Nueva are pursuing this option-- and would appreciate your prayers for us, pastor Feliciano and his family.
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