A Phone Call from England: A Voice from the Past

They go away and are very rarely heard from again. Over the past 7 years there must have been close to 200 prisoners that have attended the weekly Bible studies. Some, of course, only come a time or two; others come faithfully for a year, two years, or in a few cases even longer, until they've served their time. As they are foreigners, in 99% of the cases, their release is accompanied by immediate deportation, so when they do go, there are no good-byes...they are simply gone. Only two or three have ever gotten back in touch with me, and this week was one of those exceptions.

Usher, a native Jamaican living in England, was released last fall. I mentioned him in a previous post. He was the first Rastafari I ever talked to, and I even tried drawing him. Cameras are not allowed in the prison, of course, and I couldn't take the time to have him "pose" during the limited time at the meeting, so I would come home and try to draw him from memory...This is one of my later attempts, and because of that, perhaps the closest to Usher's real appearance.

Why did he call? He called to say that he had gotten settled back into his apartment he had had to give up when he was arrested. He thanked God for that. He said he had gotten back into his former trade as a plumber, and he thanked God for that, too.

He called to say he would never forget the Bible studies in the prison, and that he reads his Bible every day. He said he prayed for me and would never forget me. (But then I will never forget him, either!)

And he called to send greetings to those who are still coming to the Bible studies. And the last thing he called to tell me, "Pastor, when you sing at the meeting, sing Amazing Grace for me."

Mike's Musings - 1

If you check back a few weeks on this blog (late January, early February), you'll read about my life-long friend and brother, Mike Rogers, as he learned that laboratory tests confirmed he has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which has spread throughout his body.

Mike has always been one given to musings. He was never afraid to think "outside the box", and there have been times when I thought he might have strayed too far away from the box. But he didn't mind if I told him so, and that has actually worked both directions.

The news about his cancer has caused him to take another look at things: his life, the world. He has proposed to write his thoughts down from time to time, but he said he would not "force them on anyone". Neither will I. But I will give you the chance to read them. Maybe we, too, will see the world a bit differently, looking through Mike's eyes.

Musings #1 - However We Assume the World Is, It Actually Is the Way It Is

The first time I remember realizing the world is fundamentally not the way I assumed it to be, was in my late teens (1967). I was still living with my parents in Asuncion, Paraguay. I had gone by bus with my friend and fellow church member, Laureano Arriola, some 90 miles out into the country to a town, Primero de Marzo, where Dad was starting a new church. My family was supposed to come on Sunday to hold services and take us back to Asuncion with them. But all that day they didn’t show up.



Laureano and I were stranded without money to buy food or lodging,... (more)

Remembering the "Good Old Days"

In many aspects, the early days of the mission work here seem more "old" than "good", as we look back on them. I plan to eventually post photos and historical notes here, but for the time being, I am linking to an article I read recently in the BPNews (a service of the Southern Baptist Convention). The writer's description of making telephone calls and getting parcels through the mail on the mission field was our experience. I was thinking today about how everyone has a cell phone and we have broadband internet connections; how strange it seems to think back to our first years here, when we signed up to have a telephone installed in our house and had to wait five years until they built a new telephone exchange in our village.

Read the article. It's worth your time.

One of the difficulties of serving as a missionary is battling the oppressive feeling that you are laboring alone, buried in obscurity and forgotten. The struggle is harder when you are serving in a country where the general population doesn't even want you to be there. It grows heavier when friends from home forget to write. The devil tempts you to believe that they have also forgotten to pray and that you are making no difference....more

Keeping Secrets

It's now about 10:30 p.m. on Friday night, and I just got back from the airport to welcome some visitors to the island. One of them is the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal and his wife; the couple that came with them is Gov. and Mrs. Jeb Bush of Florida, Pres. Bush's brother. Gov. Bush was in Lisbon for the day, participating in some conferences at the invitation of Amb. Al Hoffman, who is from Florida, which helps explain the close relation between the two men.

I'm writing this now, but it won't be posted until after they have left the island on Sunday morning. This is a private visit, and for well over a month we have been in the process of preparing matters on this end for their brief stay here, to keep it as discreet as possible. For security purposes (as well as privacy matters) knowledge of the Ambassador's trip has been limited to the fewest people possible (for police protection, limousine services, and lodging), and the identity of his guests has been even more closely guarded.

I couldn't help but think of another Person Who is coming at some point in the future; I reflected on the contrast between the preparations for this visit this weekend and the other one still to take place. The point of this visit is that as few people as possible even know the Ambassador and the Governor are here; Jesus, on the other hand, wants us to tell everyone He is coming. The more we publicize His coming, the better. "Every eye shall see Him," we are told in Rev. 1:7. And every heart had better prepare to meet Him. For most, the news of Jesus' coming is a warning; for those who believe in Him, the news is our blessed hope. In either case, there's no reason to keep silent about it.

UPDATE: Sunday night...

We left the house this morning at 9:00 and went straight to the airport, staying until Gov. Bush and his wife had embarked on the small business jet that would take them straight back to the US. The Ambassador and his wife, along with their assistant and the body guard left on a commercial flight back to Lisbon at 11:30, but we drove on to church and didn't wait for them to board the plane.

Pretty Things

Beauty is one of God's gracious gifts to man. It comes in many forms...in nature, it is a direct reflection of creation, when God saw that "it was good"; man, made in the likeness of God, is given the gift of creating beautiful things... from composing beauty in music to the plastic arts: painting, sculpting, architecture. Here are some of the pretty things that we have been blessed with:


We can always start with the sunrise each morning, thanking God for a new day. Friday morning, this was the sunrise over the ocean, as seen from our house.




Abbie was given this orchid a couple of years ago. As it was getting ready to bloom last year, a tiny bug bored into each bud in search of the sweet(?) sap (would it bother if the sap weren't sweet?), and not a single blossom opened. This year Abbie put some plant spray on the tender buds; whether that was what made the difference, or not, we don't know. We do know the plant is full of beautiful blossoms this year.

A Christmas Present




When I went to the Bible study at the prison for the first meeting after Christmas and New Year's, Mikhaylo ("Misha"), one of the three Ukrainian prisoners in the group handed me a rolled-up piece of poster board. It was a pen-and-ink drawing of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden by the angel of the Lord. I had it framed and it hangs in our living room, which is basically black-and-white in its decor. The drawing measures 45cm x 50cm (18" x 20"). The photo doesn't do justice to the fine detail of the drawing. I never imagined that Misha is an artist. He still has 2 or 3 years to serve, at least; of the 3 Ukrainians, he is the one who has the most difficulty in understanding and speaking Portuguese. Pray that in time he will come to comprehend what God's grace is all about. He already has a pretty good idea about how destructive sin is.

Although everything around us is not pretty, we thank God for the beauty we do see, and we know that one day, "all things will be made new."