Where Two or Three are Gathered

It’s a rainy night in Red Hill. A bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the aluminum shack. A carpet covers the floor, the dirt foundation peeking from underneath its frayed edges. One by one, the men file in through a creaky door and take a seat wherever they can find one in the cramped room.

These humble surroundings have become home to a weekly Bible study over the past three months. These men – and a few women as well – are growing in their knowledge of God. To see it is to realize that God’s Church has nothing to do with fancy meeting places. It is simply wherever His people are, with Him among them.

Filling the Void

Often I wonder if the kids Living Hope ministers to are “getting it.” That is, are they really experiencing the kind of life change that can only be brought about by Christ? But even on their worst days, I think of what they would be missing if Living Hope were not working in their communities. Day after day, week after week, they are receiving sound Biblical teaching and moral values to build their life’s foundations on. As Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

Parental Guidance Needed

Living Hope’s D.A.D. (Dollar a Day) donor initiative specifically supports the Life Skills Education program by giving individuals the opportunity to contribute financially and symbolically serve as a father to the children served by LSE staff. The LSE program reaches more than 7,500 students each year through after-school children’s and teenagers’ clubs, and classes in local crèches, schools and colleges. Students receive Bible-based lessons on sexual abstinence and other lifestyle topics. For more information on this always-important funding need, visit www.livinghope.co.za; for a D.A.D. pledge form, click here.

Labor of Faith

The book project I’ve been working on all year has been an exercise in faith. Progress has been steady, but several questions remain unanswered. Namely, who’s going to publish it and who’s going to pay for it? No one at Living Hope assigned this to me, and even if they had, there’s no money in their budget for such an undertaking. My belief has always been this was something God gave me a vision for and it’s something He will see to fruition.

Today I took another step of faith by hiring a photographer to shoot a few portraits of people who are being featured. It wasn’t a huge expense, but it was the first time any money has been spent on the project. So in opening my own wallet, I had a tiny bit of doubt: What if this thing never sees print? I do believe it will, so I press on, encouraged by the words of 1 Corinthians 15:58, which says, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Committing to something when the outcome is yet to be realized – that’s part of what faith is all about, right?

Pretty Place

This Wednesday, September 1, marks the official first day of spring in South Africa. But even in winter, the country’s Western Cape region is a place of breathtaking beauty. This image was taken a few weeks ago near Stellenbosch, an area world-renowned for its wine-producing farms and estates.

Priorities

Being a former magazine editor, I was intrigued and amused to read about “The Great Typo Hunt,” a project by two guys, Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, determined to rid America of erroneous public signage. According to a story by Reuters Life!, the pair – calling themselves the Typo Eradication Advancement League – drove across the country in the spring of 2008 “armed with sharpies, pens and whiteout, correcting spelling, removing surplus apostrophes and untangling subject-verb disagreement on signs outside stores, gas stations, parks and public buildings.” (Click here to read the entire piece.) I’m all for correct spelling and properly placed apostrophes, but I can’t help wondering: For what was surely a lot of time, effort and gasoline expended, does this really matter?

Everybody's Looking for Answers

In her book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert seeks healing from a divorce by going on a yearlong journey with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure; Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for “balancing.” Now Gilbert’s story is being portrayed on the big screen, with Julia Roberts in the lead role. So monumental is this new release that TIME magazine chose to review it in this week’s issue. In the same issue is a story on how the book’s popularity has helped turn Bali into a holiday destination for “a new kind of tourist.”

TIME’s Hillary Brenhouse writes: “Newly launched packages by luxury resorts and spas promise to re-create, in a few days, Gilbert’s four transformative months in Bali, with yoga classes, drawn-out beach dinners, massage therapy and cleansing temple rituals. Other excursions built around the book peddle therapeutic gatherings and self-discovery of the kind Gilbert sought.”

Halley Eavelyn, co-founder of a Las Vegas-based tour group that runs an “Eat, Pray, Love Bali” trip, is quoted saying, “It really did feel like Liz was helping us experience some of the same spiritual growth she did.” And one member of an Eavelyn-led tour said the Balinese people helped her find balance and tranquillity “ingrained in their tradition.”

All this – the best-selling book, the blockbuster movie, the “spiritual tourism” trend – just illustrates the search for meaning and purpose that’s common to everyone. As George Clooney’s character Ulysses Everett McGill said in O Brother Where Are Thou?, “Everybody’s looking for answers.” But they aren’t going to find them from a Balinese healer or in an Indian ashram. Or anywhere else outside the cross of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is very clear: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself said it: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

But a lot of people would rather seek counsel from someone who’s not going to call them to account to a holy God. They’d rather hear that they only need to “look within” so they can feel warm and fuzzy and good about themselves. They don’t want to submit to the Lord of all creation because they know that way is not easy – it requires dying to self rather than worshipping self.

That’s the way of the human heart apart from Christ. And so books like Gilbert’s sell millions, and shows like Oprah’s draw devoted viewers who hang on her every word. And I suspect the devil watches and laughs.