I have a very good friend, Ellison, who began his career in the Aerospace industry. Over time, God redirected his path into Gospel centered counseling.
His focus is primarily marriage. A year ago I introduced him to another wonderful friend, Michael, who invited him to visit The Persecuted Church. Ellison went. Ellison has returned. But in ALL that Ellison has seen in life, I am not sure I have seen him so moved. Why? Because he saw and touched and spoke with those precious ones who have discovered that Jesus is, indeed, enough.
He met six women and four men who are house church leaders. He heard their stories, but one story stood out:
She is in her early 30’s. When she became a follower of Jesus she was brutally beaten, raped, and falsely accused of criminal acts. She told Ellison that when she returned to her country she would stand trial for those crimes and then be sentenced to one year in prison. She would be allowed one month of freedom before she would serve out her sentence. The time-off was granted in hopes that she would leave the country and destroy the impact of The Church’s witness in her country. But she declared to Ellison that she would not leave, but remain and serve her year in prison. A young man across the table from her then spoke up. He said that when she finished her time in prison he would marry her. In his culture it is shameful to even associate with a woman who has been raped.
Why would she return to this place of “shame?” Why would he marry a woman who is “shameful?” It is because God’s love is transforming and to not go and to not embrace the shameful would be, in fact, shameful. Jesus wrecks our lives in wonderful ways because He destroys sin and shame and makes us new creations.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
I will be returning to The Middle East this fall because I, too, have seen and touched and spoken with those precious ones who have discovered that Jesus is, indeed, enough.
An excerpt from The Insanity of Obedience. I highly recommend this book by Nik Ripken:
The house church leader explained that the Holy Spirit woke him up in the middle of the night and told him to gather the fruits, vegetables, and meat that the house church had stored up to care for people in need. The Holy Spirit told the man to take this load of food, by horse and sled, to a pastor’s family who had been left to die in a one-room hut in the frozen tundra.
The man reminded the Holy Spirit that it was thirty degrees below zero outside and that there was no way that he would survive the trip. The man reminded the Holy Spirit that the wolves would probably eat his horse and then eat him.
Then the words of the Holy Spirit rang in his ears:
“You don’t have to come back; you simply have to go.”
