Inmates, Wrasslers, and Pentecostals

Well, good friends, I must admit that I nearly committed the unforgivable faux pas of sending out a mass e-mail without posting it. Not that I suspect there's much of an audience around here that isn't recieving it straight to their inboxes already, but I confess that I cherish secrets hopes of anonymous millions that stumble across and are enthralled by this blog, but that is not something that I ever want to peer too deeply into, in case I should ever discover the truth of the matter. So here, ravenously impatient and anonymous millions, I have not forgotten you!

Dear erudite, enviable, and ergonomic friends, supporters, and deep thinkers of every persuasion,

Well, I am feeling rather at a loss of what to say, due in large part to the sheer number of things which have happened since I last wrote. The most notable thing which happened this week is that we had a large team of over 25 arrive from, of all places, Dallas Texas, and they have kept us so busy this week that I did not even have the chance to write even a small e-mail until tonight. I have been tagging along with them this week on a number of their outreaches because this gives me the chance to make it out to a number of SIM’s different ministries that I otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to see. For example, this week I got to see the ECWA run hospital and visit the inmates of a Nigerian prison and attend their church service. I could write entire e-mails on these experiences alone, but I don’t think time will permit tonight.

But one of the things the Texas team has come to do besides drag around STA’s who can’t afford/drive a car is put on a number of wrestling shows. That’s right, I said wrestling. They basically do a WWF style show with a Christian spin in which all the bad characters kind of represent evil forces and all the good guys are fighting with God on their side. So, for example, they have stage names like “Jesus Freak,” and “Tim Storm” as well as the only pair of pleather pants I have seen in Nigeria, or perhaps in my entire life, come to think. So the different contestants battle it out in the ring, the good guys win, the bad guys are driven off, and they give an evangelistic message. They made a very entertaining spectacle, I have to say, and I especially enjoyed hearing all the Nigerians chanting “Jesus Freak! Jesus Freak!” But, topping that to win as my absolute favorite moment of the evening was when Tim Storm, one of the “bad guys” who is really incredibly huge, came out and started tearing around the perimeter where people were standing and the little kids who were standing in front actually ran away to avoid being stomped on by this massive Bature.

I have to confess, however, that I have some misgivings about the effectiveness of this kind of ministry in Nigeria because, although the audience was composed mostly of children who all streamed forward to accept Christ at the end, I have to wonder how many of them wanted to accept Christ and how many simply wanted to touch the hands of these big men who had looked so impressive wrestling each other on the bright stage. There were plenty of tracts passed out, but I’m not sure that anyone was really directed to a local church where they could be discipled and taught the meaning of the profession of faith that they had made. That’s been a difficult trend that has emerged in my travels with the Texas team, they are really outstanding at achieving those high numbers of conversions, but I don’t know that there’s necessarily a support structure that they’ve tapped into to build on that foundation. I’ve really struggled a lot this week trying to decide what to think about this kind of evangelism. I was writing to a friend and I said that I think that kind of proclamation is like handing some stranger on the street a million dollars and then just walking away. You don’t have any idea what happens to that money after you leave. Did they use it well, did it change their life and the lives of those around them? Did they use it for evil, to rocket down a bad road they were already traveling? Or did they just stick the money in an empty coffee can and bury it at the back of their closet, never to think about it again? You have no idea, you have no control, and you accept no responsibility for the consequences of a huge change you’ve brought to that person’s life. And that’s the question that I’ve really been hit hardest by, is whether this kind of evangelism is fundamentally irresponsible, like asking someone to change trains when you haven’t committed yourself to travel with them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed the members of the Texas team as individuals and I respect their willingness to give up time and money to do something as difficult as drop themselves into a foreign culture for three weeks. I just wonder if there aren’t ways their ministry could be more effective.

Another really bizarre experience I had this week was attending an African Pentecostal church, which was called, ahem, Church of God Mission International Inc. Solution House. The name “Solution House” gives you an idea of what kind of church it was, the whole sermon was a litany of prosperity theology, the preacher loudly proclaiming that if you can just earn “divine approval” you will achieve “open heaven” and you won’t have to pursue miracles, your miracles will pursue you! Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Basically, the gist of it was that if you can just situate yourself properly with God, he will give you anything you want, whether it’s a promotion, a good marriage, a child, a new car, a boat, a cell phone network that actually works, whatever it is, God is all about giving it to you. But the fundamental problem with that kind of message is that no anointing is going to force God’s hand into giving us what we want. The whole point of Christianity, from my perspective is “Thy will be done,” not “MY will be done.” But part of the reason that the Pentecostal church is one of the fastest growing denominations in the Southern church is because many of them preach exactly that.

But even if the sermon wasn’t problematic enough, I was also disturbed by the degree of control that the preacher had over the congregation. The volume and demonstrativeness of their response was basically directly proportioned to his shouting and vehemence on the stage. After the sermon he actually had us all standing with our hands folded on top of our heads and our mouths open! I’m sure if he asked everyone in the church to stand on their heads they all would have been bottom up in a blink. He actually said if you don’t do it exactly the way the “man of God” tells you, you will not get “the result.” But it was by these bizarre poses that he was trying to spread his anointing to as many in the church as possible. Not satisfied with the number that were slain in the Spirit on their own, he actually went through the church knocking people over himself. Then, to ice this cake, he actually had every one who had been brought to the altar stand to their feet and a little clump while all the ushers stood around them like a human barricade. Then he waved his suit jacket over them and made a popping noise into his microphone and every last one of them went down. But just when I really thought that I had fallen completely off the map of sense and comprehension, he told us that he was trying to raise money for a plane ticket and if those in the congregation would come to the front and give him money, they could step in the anointing oil that he had poured on the floor and he would pray for them to receive the same anointing that he had. I am telling you, I have never before witnessed the kinds of things that I saw at that church. Which, for me, begs the question, how many more are there even just in this city that are just like it? I really honestly shudder to think.

But now to lighten the mood somewhat, I present to you the highlight of my week. I was going to Gyero, the CARE center about 40 minutes outside of Jos, early this week with another girl to do a craft with the boys and the woman that we were going to drive with got sick. So what one does without one’s own car is taxi down to the turnoff of Bukuru express, which is where one abandons the wide, paved main road for the small, extremely rutted unpaved road out to the village. No taxi will really go down that road, so one has no choice but to take the dreaded achaba! An achaba is really just a particular type of motorcycle that many people here use as a taxi service, hopping on the back and holding whatever they were carrying in their lap or on their heads. The thing is that SIM missionaries are absolutely forbidden to ride achabas in town because traffic here is already so dangerous and a lot of the achaba drivers are really quite reckless with the kind of stunts they pull in these horrifically busy intersections. But out on this rutted country road, there is very little other traffic to speak of, which means that we are A-OK. So we hopped on the backs of our achabas and off we went. I have to say, I’m sure that there have been things that I have done in my life that were more fun than that ride, but nothing really came to mind at the time. It was utterly fantastic to speed along that winding road with nothing to inhibit my view of the rocky hills and mountains and buttes that dot the top of our fair plateau. We winded past fields of corn and millet, past Fulani men with their sticks and humpbacked cows, past tall cacti and those elusive, bright red birds that like to sit and sing at the top of the cornstalks. It was so much fun to wave to the children who would come running up to the road and to the long train of women who laughed and laughed to see such a silly sight as Batures on the backs of their motor bikes. I had the wind in my hair and above was the sky still swirling with clouds after the morning rain, and who could ask for more than that?

So before I close, I want to say a hearty and much belated THANKS! to all of those who have replied in any fashion to my e-mails. I am so blessed to hear from each and every one of you, including those who just wrote a few lines to say that you enjoy my e-mails. I enjoy you enjoying my e-mails! Each reply really does make my day. I have felt so supported throughout this entire process that I can’t say enough thanks to each one of you who is willing to be on my little e-mail list and listen to my rantings.

That being said, I realize that I’m speaking to a very diverse audience and that some of the stuff I’ve brought up in this e-mail is a little bit more contested than what I’ve stuck to in the past. We can all agree that teaching little kids to read is a good thing, but when a sister starts going after the Sinner’s Prayer I guess she can start to ruffle a few feathers. So if you wanted me to clarify anything or continue to dialog about anything or just tell me “I couldn’t disagree with you more if your name were Arius, you degenerate apostate heretic scum!” then I invite you to write me an e-mail. I think I can promise to reply, though I make no guarantees about the timeline. You might have to wait until I’m back in the States and have had time to process this madness, but one day I will give you a reply that is as reasonable and thoughtful as I can make it.

Oh, yes, prayer requests! Well, for myself, if you haven’t gathered from the course of this e-mail, I am feeling rather exhausted after this week, not just physically, but also in my ability to take in and process all these new experiences. Please pray that I will be refreshed over the weekend, in spite of limited opportunities for rest. Please also pray that I would be able to maintain a consistent devotional life, which has always been a challenge for me, but I see a lot of opportunities for growth here simply because the nature of being in this place really does seem to demand it. Please pray that I would be able to utilize those opportunities fully and really grow in discipline in this time. Please also pray for the peace of Nigeria, there were a number of riots in Kano states of couple of weeks ago with Muslim-Christian violence and a number of robberies recently. We don’t have any particular reason to be worried, but we also don’t take our safety for granted here and want to rely on God to protect us.

Until next time, dear friends, I hope you are well and joyful and enjoying the fall!

Grace and Peace,
Shannon