I am now in Singapore after a
brief stop over in South Africa with Jonathan and Tracey.
My journey out has been
interesting: First of all a one and a half hour delay in Toronto due to an ice
and snow storm on the eastern seaboard. When I arrived in New York, I had to
transfer from Le Guardia to JFK airport and my cab driver was a Christian, had
something about Jesus loves you in the cab, so I opened a conversation and
we had a great time of sharing, wishing each other Gods blessing as he
dropped me off at the terminal for South African Airways. Then in New
York our departure was delayed two hours because of back-logged flights and
waiting our turn for de-icing. More than 20 hours later I arrived in
Johannesberg via Senegal. The heavy rain was almost horizontal; the
radar auto landing facility wasnt working so each flight was brought in
manually, but we touched down safely. After a 20 minute wait at the gate for
a bridge operator to show up, we finally disembarked and waited 50 minutes for
our luggage. A missed connection meant going for the next flight to
Durban which in turn was delayed by almost 1½ hours and I reached Durban at
midnight. Jonathan was there to meet me and drive me the remaining hour
to his home.
A friend of Traceys called
Natalie was staying the weekend with them. She had to be in Durban on
Monday so offered to save Jonathan the round trip and drove me there for my
flight to Singapore. She had grown up in a Christian home, gone to Bible
school and then turned away from the Lord. During the weekend, I sensed
she wanted to talk to me alone. She had been intrigued by Jonathans and
my stories from Papua, and asked a lot about missionaries and culturethe
usual stuff about imposing our beliefs and westernism on unsuspecting natives.
But her tone changed.
On the way to Durban she opened
the door for me to talk to her about the gospel in a more personal way. She
told me early in our 1 hour drive that, she had been brought up in a Christian
home but had questioned her beliefs and reached the point where she wasnt
sure whether she had totally rejected Christianity or was in middle ground.
I suggested that what she had rejected was churchianity and not
Christ. This really opened the conversation, and I was able to talk about what
Christ and the gospel means to me and my everyday life. It seems
this was the kind of thing she had been longing to hear, but had she only been
hearing the trust Jesus now and go to heaven later, and dont go to hell
(like we heard on Sunday); but no one was making it relevant to daily living.
She said the church is always talking about what you have to do, but not about
beingabout who you are and how you can be a complete person. She said
she never felt the church was interested in who she was as a person. I told
her that the gospel is for now, not just for eternity; that Jesus came to
redeem our personhood, not just save our souls for heaven. Obviously, when she
dropped me off at Durban airport we could have gone on talking, but I sensed
that her heart had been gripped and hope revived.
As I sat waiting for my flight,
and all through my 12 hours to Singapore, I could not stop thinking about that
conversation and that this was one of those God-ordained moments that takes
your breath away. I was praising God and praying for Natalie all the way.
Keep her in your prayers too.
Today, Gloria travels to London to
spend time with her Dad. I will speak at the Asia Cross Cultural
training Institute today and tonight am meeting with a man from Myanmar who
has seen the Yali Story. Tomorrow I will meet my Taoist friend
Shankar.
Greetings,
John