The Question Song

1 Timothy 4:12 (ESV)

¹² Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

My ten year-old son wrote this song about his internal wrestling with what it means to truly follow Jesus.  I thank God that He has blessed me with a son that has a heart that is seeking Jesus so deeply at such a young age.  I pray God equips me to disciple my children as they seek Him.

Why do I hurt a lot of people?

I know it's all a sin

But I have to remember, once Jesus was my age

And he never gave in.

Why do I have answers to questions

But I only answer them to me?

And then I see a lot of non-Christians

I don't know where I should be.

I wanna care

And I want to love

But it's just so hard to do.

I don't want to give in

And I don't want to die

All that I want to do is fly.

I only have one question for God

That if there's so much trouble on earth

Why in the world would he leave it be

When he can do something.

But I'm afraid

That he just might

Fire that question

Right back at me.

I don't want to give in

I don't want to die

I wanna love and care

And I don't know why.

I have a little voice

That wants me to

It's asking if I will

And I want to say I do.

I'm getting all confused

If I could say I do

If I should or not

Or if it's even true.

I think I should stop

And just not do it

Or maybe I'll keep going

On and on through it.

I just don't know

If I should go.

Out of Africa: Prayer for the Fatherless

Psalms 10:17-18 (ESV)

¹⁷ O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear ¹⁸ to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

There are no good stories behind how one becomes an orphan.  However, there is something extra repulsive when a child becomes an orphan by the hand of man's hate.

This is the story throughout Liberia and in particular in the Fairfield Baptist Mission orphanage in Liberia.  Every child in this orphanage is a war orphan.  This was a war of hate which is often the root of most wars.  However, as I listened to the people talk about the war, it was clear that in this war, there was no side on the side of justice.

Prince

My third night at the orphanage (still on my own) I hung out on the back porch with the teenage boys.  One of them had a cell phone.  Cell phones are abundant in Liberia.  One may not have bread on the table but still have a cell phone.  Nobody was making any calls.  My guess is that there are rarely any minutes available on this phone.  We were all sitting around listening to the musical ring tones like you might expect to see a bunch of teenagers doing in the US sitting around a boom box.

They were laughing, singing, dancing and making fun of each other like teenage boys do.  I decided that I would share some American music with them so I pulled out my iPod and let them listen to Toby Mac.  I did not have speakers so the boys took turns listening on the headphones.  Toby Mac was a big hit.  However, the bigger hit was the pictures on my iPod.

As we huddled around sharing the headphones, we browsed through my family pictures.  These boys were all excited to see pictures of my kids and my wife.  There was not a sense of sadness of seeing pictures of a family they did not have.  I sensed more a presence of hope.  A hope that there was a world beyond the orphanage where there were moms and dads and families.

A young man named Prince told me that he did not have a mom and dad.  He told me that the president killed them both.  I knew he meant in the war of hate, the government soldiers killed his parents.  I have no idea why, but why does not matter when a 10-year old boy has his parents killed by his government.

Prince is 15 now and has been without a mom or dad for 5 years.  He told me that night, that now I was his dad since he did not have one.  I was his dad, why?  Because I had shared some music and pictures?  No, because I was there which meant to him, I must care.

Prince did not ask to come home with me.  He only asked me for some flip flops.  His had busted.  There is a real sense of needs versus wants when you visit a country buried in poverty.  "I have an American visiting and he wants to know what he can do for me.  I'll ask for my hearts desire, a new pair of flip flops."  Is that the request I would get from a typical teenage boy in America?

Moses

Moses was with us as we looked at the pictures.  Being the celebrity that had actually been to America, he started to tell the other boys how great America was and how bad Liberia was.  This did not go over well with Maude and she rightly admonished him that he should not talk that way about his country, a country she has chosen to stay in to care for children like himself.

Moses does not like to be corrected (do you know any other thirteen year olds like that?).  His emotions that he had been keeping in came out.  He wept in the midst of his friends for most of the rest of the night.  It was heart wrenching.

The good news is that the next day we had a successful visit with a lawyer in Monrovia.  There is a Liberian family in our church in Cypress that wants to adopt Moses.  This lawyer was fairly confident that he would be able to get the paperwork through a system that had been bogged down to this point as Liberia investigates child trafficking problems.

One of the reasons he was confident in our success was the legitimacy earned by bringing Moses back when his medical visa expired.  While Moses does not understand why we had to take him back (he asked my why I did not just call the President and explain his situation) it pays to honor God by following the laws of the land.

Pastor Anthony and I correspond each week.  He says he is praying with Moses and helping Moses to understand and learn patience waiting on God.  This is a hard lesson for us grown-ups.  It has to seem like an impossible task to a 13-year old boy.

Princess

We met Princess my last day at the orphanage.  We were eating with the kids in their lunch hall (a dark mud-brick building with two long tables for 70 kids).  A 9-year old girl came over to Pastor Bill.  Unlike all of the other children here, Princess was not wearing a smile.  As soon as she came over, Pastor Bill began to cry (I can't even write this without tears).  He explained to us that she had seen rebel soldiers kill her parents.  In fact, she witnessed a rebel soldier slice her dad's throat from behind.  Princess was 4 at the time.

The boys and girls in this orphanage are well fed thanks to Christian Aid.  However, Christian Aid can only supply food for 50 children as Liberian law only allows 50 orphans per orphanage.  There are 75 orphans being cared for by the Fairfield Baptist Mission in Liberia.  Nonetheless, all the children are fed.

The needs are great.  At one level, the needs seem too great and too overwhelming.  However, when you ask the children what they need the answers are simple.  A matchbox car, a baby doll, but really a request that someone knows they exist.  I can't tell you how many of these kids wanted to make sure I knew their name and wanted to know my name, my wife's name and my children's names.  They want to be connected.

Our church is working with an organization called BrightPoint to do just that.  Our goal is to match up every child in the orphanage with a family sponsor in our church.  A family that they can call their own.  A family that will know their name, pray for them and write them.  They want a mom and dad because "man who is of the earth" stole theirs .  We hope that together with Bright Point, God can use us to bring them that desire of their heart.

If you or your church want to get involved and reach out to the fatherless and the oppressed you can do it.  Check out organizations like BrightPoint and Children's HopeChest.  There is really no reason to ignore the fatherless, whether in Africa or your own backyard.

However, I must warn you.  Once you open up your heart to hear what is on God's heart, your life cannot ever be the same again.  There is no telling what God will have you do.

My journey is now leading me back to Africa once more.  This time, Ethiopia, where God has a fatherless child that he has prepared for our home, to change our lives forever.  Read more over at Hipp is my middle name.

Out of Africa: Vision and Hope

Romans 15:13 (ESV)

¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

I am not sure what I expected in Liberia.  I had seen some pictures of the orphanage and I knew it was a vastly different world than my home.  I knew Liberia was one of the poorest countries in the world.



On one hand, I was not surprised.  The poverty in Liberia was as extreme as the pictures.  On the other hand, there was something beyond the pictures that God wanted me to see.  It was the people God wanted me to meet.

Anthony had started working for Fairfield Baptist Church Liberia in May.  He was hired as a teacher at the school.  However, the head pastor, Pastor Bill, had quickly realized that Anthony was a man that could not only teach the children, he could preach the Word.  Actually, Anthony had been preaching for various churches for ten years, since he was seventeen.

Pastor Anthony and I spent most of my first day in Liberia together.  He took me around the school and introduced me to the kids and the teachers.  He and Pastor Bill drove me into town to check-in with the embassy (which ended up being closed).  I got to see Monrovia and Painesville in the daylight after driving through in the dark the night before.

After our errands, I joined Pastor Anthony for a bible study.  Actually, he had prepared a bible study for his adult bible study class and wanted to practice it on me.  It was just me and Anthony and God's Word.  That's what the bible study was about, God's Word and God's vision.

Pastor Anthony has a passion for God's Word that is contagious.  He also has a vision.  A vision for taking God's Word to a community desperate for hope.  A vision for taking God's Word to a country devastated by war.  A vision for taking God's Word throughout an entire continent.

This is a big vision for an assistant Pastor in a small church in Liberia.  An assistant pastor that had his formal education cut short by a civil war.  A small church with about fifty active adult members.

This is vision reserved for big American churches, isn't it?  Churches with money. American churches with with a mandate from God to spread the Gospel throughout the world.  Missionaries are supposed to be sent to Liberia, not out of Liberia.  Right?

Brother Johnson is a former superintendent of one of the counties in Liberia.  He's a deacon at the church.  I'm not sure of Brother Johnson's age.  If I had to guess, I would say he's in his late seventies.  I don't guess this age because he looks like an old man.  I guess this age by the wisdom in his words.  Sometimes you can just feel the wisdom of the years from people as you visit with them.

Brother Johnson has a vision as well.  He has a vision for a rebuilt Liberia.  I sat on the porch with Brother Johnson and a man named Frank and learned of his vision.  A vision for starting a community farm so that the community, and eventually the country, can start producing it's own food.  He tells me anything you plant in Liberia will grow but that the country imports most of its food.  If the ships don't bring the food, the people don't eat.

Frank attends the small Liberian church and he is the owner of a small construction company.  His company won the bid to install the $12,000 security fence that the government required around the orphanage.  One of our purposes of our visit to Liberia was to inspect their work and make the final payment.

Frank has a vision for his country recovering from the catastrophe of war.  Frank is living out that vision with the fence building project.  A dozen young men had work putting in this new fence for the orphanage.  I don't know when these men will have a job this big again.  However, they are living with hope with men like Frank leading the way.

Of course there was also Pastor Bill and his wife Maude.  A couple that has given the last ten years of their life to this small church, school, and orphanage.  Bill and Maude also have a vision.  Their vision is to educate the children and to teach them about the hope in Christ.  They're not looking to have seventy orphans adopted and sent to America.  Their vision is for seventy orphans to receive love and hope and grow up to help rebuild their country.

As I sat there listening to Pastor Anthony teach me my second bible study, the sustenance of God, I understood why God wanted me in Liberia and why he wanted me there for two days by myself.  God wanted me to meet the people.  He wanted me to meet His people.  He wanted me to meet brothers and sisters in Christ with His vision and His hope.

I've lost about a third of my 401k this year.  Most of that in the past week.  I'm not alone.  Many Americans are seeing their vision and their hope diminish before their eyes.  It does not take a lot of imagination anymore to see what could happen to our own country, whether by divine punishment or just reaping what we sow.

The good news is the Good News.  No matter what happens, Jesus is Lord.  No matter what happens, Jesus still died for my sins and rose again.  No matter what happens, like my brothers and sisters in Liberia, I can have a vision and hope focused on on the cross.

Out of Africa: The Journey Begins...

Proverbs 19:21 (ESV)
²¹ Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

There is so much to write about my trip to Liberia.  Yet I am finding it hard get everything out that has gone on inside me during my trip.  I thought one way that might help is to chronicle my trip over 2-3 posts and see where that leads me.

Three of us from our church made the trip to Liberia.  Pastor Jim, our head pastor, Charlie, an engineer to inspect a fence that was being built, and me.  My role on this trip was to escort Moses back.

Moses and I had to take a different route than Pastor Jim and Charlie.  We had to travel on Moses' return ticket route that would take us through Chicago and a 8 hour layover.  The others had a more direct route with just a short hour layover in Frankfurt before Brussels.  The plans were to meet up in Brussels and all fly on the same flight to Monrovia.

In Chicago, Moses and I took a train downtown to kill some time.  I needed to buy an extra pair of pants for the trip so we found our way to Macy's.  We were quite a pair walking around Macy's carrying backpacks and a small duffel bag.  I'm sure there were plenty of security eyes following us around the store.

The trip downtown did manage to burn the layover time for us.  For me, it was a lot of walking and riding in a crowded Chicago train and not a great site seeing adventure.  To  Moses it was a blast.  He mentioned through out the trip how much fun he had on our excursion into Chicago.  His joy in the trip made the layover worth it.

From Chicago we flew directly to Brussels to meet up with Pastor Jim and Charlie.  It was a packed plane but we were able to settle in for a non-eventful flight.  I had plenty of time to read the book I had with me, Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper.

Don't Waste Your Life is about living your life for the glory of God.  There were some challenging chapters in this book as you can probably imagine.  One of the more challenging topics was living for the glory of God during trials and testing of your faith.  I was soon about to have the opportunity to live this challenge out.

In Brussels Moses and I found our connecting gate and started our wait for the others.  Their flight was about 2 hours behind ours.  Their flight landed on time at 10:30am.  At 11:00am Moses and I started eagerly staring down the terminal corridor waiting for our friends.

Our flight from Brussels to Monrovia was scheduled to leave at 12:30pm.  At noon, Moses and I started boarding our plane, with no Pastor Jim or Charlie in sight.

Here I was about to fly to Liberia with Moses but all by myself.  It was obvious Pastor Jim and Charlie had missed a connection somewhere.  I had no idea where and no way to find out.  My cell phone did not have international access.  As I got on the plane I prayed, "Lord, I have no idea what you have planned here but I glorify your name."  This was a prayer of faith, not feelings.  My feelings were more like, "Lord, what are you doing here?  This is not what we had planned!"

I was not too concerned at this point.  I figured Pastor Jim and Charlie had missed a connection and would be on the next flight down.  What I did not realize at the time was that the Brussels to Monrovia flight is only every other day.  I was about to get two whole days by myself in a Liberian orphanage where the only person I knew was Moses.

There was that thought again...God wants to show me something and he wants my undivided attention.

Things got a little dicey when we arrived in Liberia.  I did not know the address or phone number for the orphanage.  Moses did, and people from the church were at the airport waiting for us, however this did not help me as I sat in the customs office by myself.  Customs officials aren't too keen when you arrive without any idea of where you are going to visit.

Fortunately, God was good, as always.  The Customs officials eventually took pity on me and let me go.  The prayer going through my head while I waited my fate was, "to God be the glory...wherever this leads".  Again, it's not what I felt but it was what I prayed.

Once I made it out I found Moses and we found a bus load of orphans outside the airport ready to give Moses a hero's welcome.  His friends were excited to have him home and excited about his new hand.  It was a great welcoming.

It was about an hour drive from the airport to the orphanage.  On the way we passed through streets that were so packed with people that traffic was often stopped trying to make it's way through the pedestrians.  The folks I was with seemed nice enough but they were strangers nonetheless.  Here I was thousands of miles from home, by myself, and no way to call home.  It was quite an E.T. experience.

That night as I laid in a very nice guest bed, in an orphanage somewhere in Liberia, reality was creeping in on me.  I had found out by now that the others would not be arriving for two more days.  I'm by myself.  Alone in Africa.  I felt nauseous as the stress began to weigh in.  "God, what are you doing?"

Out of Africa: Behind the Scene

Revelation 21:1-4 (ESV)

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

I was sitting in a small church in Maude Town, Liberia this past Sunday wondering what I would say if I was asked to speak to the congregation.  I'd been in Liberia for four days.  My head was full of thoughts, most of them disjointed.  What if they asked their American visitors to share a few words?  What should I say?  What could I say?



The thought that came to me as I was sitting there was God's promise of a new heaven and a new earth.  This is a wonderful promise from God.  Yet to this point in my life, I'd had a pretty shallow appreciation for this promise.  After all, this current earth has not been that bad for me.  I certainly have not been in a hurry to leave it.

However, as the images of this war torn country ran through my head, I could really appreciate the beauty of this promise.  This new appreciation was much more than just seeing the tin shacks and dirt roads full of craters that made up the landscape.  It was the potential beauty that you could see behind the scenes.  In my minds eye, if I just took an eraser and erased the shacks and the garbage and the craters, what was left was a landscape that looked like a paradise.

Well, I was asked to speak to this small congregation of brothers and sisters in Christ.  I started to talk about my time with Moses and how much my family loved him and then I started crying like a baby.  I cried because I not only loved Moses but because I loved all these people.  However, these were not necessarily tears of sorrow for my new friends.  These were tears of love and tears of pride for my new found family in Christ.

I composed myself and shared Revelation 21:1-4 with the church.  I wasn't sharing anything they did not already know.  What I was sharing was that now I know what this promise means.

There is much more to write about my trip.  Many of my thoughts are still disjointed.  I'll share more in the days and weeks to come.