Tag Archives: God’s control

Three Warning Letters I Wish I had Received, and a 4th I made sure I got)

Posted on by

Three Warning Letters I Wish I had Received, (and a 4th I made sure I got)

This Saturday, March 19, I expect to celebrate my 84th birthday. Since my life divides nicely into four 21-year segments, I wrote four messages to my four selves.

Dear 21-year-old Jack, as I look back at your age 0 to 21 years,
I thank God:

  • For keeping you safe through the war under Nazi-occupied Holland and for bringing you to Canada.
  • For giving you the faith to accept God’s offer of salvation.
  • For your high school girlfriend who led you into a good church and from there to attend Bible school.

As I look ahead to your age 21 to 42 years, I warn you to be careful in your relationships with girlfriends. Instead, trust God to help you find a wife for you to treasure and to become the most important woman in your life with whom to raise a family and serve God together. Then confirm these priorities to focus a life of love: to God, to your wife, to your kids, and your ministry, in that order!

 Dear 42-year-old Jack, as I look back at your age 21 to 42 years,
I thank God:

  • For favouring you with Jo as your wife, and the mother of your three daughters, and choosing your family to live with the Canela people of Brazil and translate his Word into their language.
  • For raising ministry partners to support you in your life ministry through prayer, gifts and encouraging letters.
  • For your daughters’ love for God and for helping them to excel in their studies, in Belem and on several furloughs.

As I look ahead to your age 42 to 63 years, I warn you not to forget that the Canelas and the translation program belong to God, not to you. He is in control of the timing, not you. I also urge you to trust God to prepare you, in his own way, for a post-Canela ministry.

Dear 63-year-old Jack, as I look back at your age 42 to 63 years,
I thank God:

  • For leading you to repent after you had blasphemed Him, casting doubt on His power, wisdom, and love, after you lost your trust in Him to know the end from the beginning.
  • For allowing you and Jo to complete the Canela translation program despite satanic attacks on you both and to answer your prayers for your three daughters to choose the right husbands.
  • For placing you in two top Wycliffe leadership positions, which led to your on-going true-story-based writing ministry promoting Bible translation.

As I look ahead to your age 63 to 84 years, I urge you forget about retiring from ministry but to focus on your life verse, “He that sows bountifully will reap bountifully,” and grab every opportunity to speak and write. You may well be travelling extensively, possibly without Jo, so trust her to handle important issues, and, together, keep building a strong relationship with your daughters and their families.

Dear 84-year-old Jack, as I look back at your age 63 to 84 years,
I thank God

  • For leading you to promote world-wide Bible translation by speaking to thousands of believers in conferences, banquets, and churches in nineteen countries, and nearly every state and province in North America.
  • For giving you the writing skill to produce five published books of true-story-based articles, and three memoirs showing how God led in your life.
  • For giving you the mental clarity and physical ability to start writing a more extended memoir telling how He led you and Jo through the struggles and translation work of twenty-four years in Brazil.

As I look ahead beyond your age of 84 years to the next, however many years God grants you, I urge you to keep writing God-honouring testimonial stories for as long as He keeps you able to do so. Also, keep trusting in God’s love even if you need to go through a time of pain and illness or the loss of a loved one. And keep on loving God, Jo, your growing family, your friends, and your writing ministry, in that order.

 

The Christmas of the Spiritual Battle

Posted on by

The In-Village Work Completed At Last
I felt so happy and excited it seemed as if Christmas had begun on Thursday, September 28th, 1989. I looked up from the page of Canela translation and said to Jaco, our best translation helper, “Yeah, we’re done! This is the last page. You and I have worked and learned together since you were a teenager, and now you are a married man with a family and responsibilities. Thank you, Jaco, for being so faithful. You kept taking time to work with me to translate God’s Word into your language.” Jaco grinned broadly, sharing my delight at completing a massive project–translate, check, improve, and approve every one of 370,000 words in the Canela partial Bible. We kept grinning at each other as we celebrated with coffee and Jo’s cookies.

“I will be processing all our work on computers,” I explained. “It will take many months, first in Belem, and then in Brasilia, but by early next August, when no one is working in their fields, Jo and I’ll be back in the village with boxes full of printed Bibles; everyone will see your work, and you will finally hold the Book of God in your hands.”

Satan’s Fury and Revenge
That was the plan, but I had failed to remember that we had an Evil Enemy. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood . . . but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12.) Satan is a poor loser. After having imprisoned countless generations of Canelas, he knew that with the arrival of God’s Word, the recent trickle of escapees would turn into a complete jailbreak. He was furious and wanted revenge. God was still ultimately in control, but, as in the case of Job, he allowed Satan to inflict some injury.

Two months later, the day Jo and I finished dealing with the new material, we got word that Jaco was very sick, and his family was bringing him to Belem for us to care for him.

Jaco looked fragile when he and his family arrived. He was mentally confused and could not walk unaided. I immediately took him to our doctor, gave him medicines, and took him for a dozen tests, but he got worse instead of better.

Ten days later, he had gall bladder surgery, during which time he had a cerebrovascular accident and went into a coma. When I explained to Kajari, Jaco’s wife, why he was in a coma, she said,

“After you left the village, he was repairing our house, and a heavy beam fell on his head. We thought he was dead, but he got up again. He’s been sick and confused ever since.” The doctor said that head trauma probably caused the brain bleed. I took Kajari to see him in the ICU twice a day, and we prayed over him constantly for weeks, but there was no improvement.

“Satan is sure a poor loser,” I said to Jo. “He is mad at losing his hold on the Canelas. And it seems God is letting Satan take his anger out on Jaco and his family.”

Yet Another Attack
But Satan was not done yet. On Christmas Eve, we got a phone call from Cheryl in Canada, “Mommy, Grandpa in Oliver just died, and Grandma is also very sick. Please come home right away.”

I can remember nothing about Christmas, except Jo packing to leave for Canada the day after Boxing day. It was a huge hassle to get a ticket at such short notice, board a flight to the US, and then to Canada. She arrived, in Oliver, utterly exhausted, the day before the funeral. Jo, our three daughters and Jo’s Mom comforted and supported each other during the funeral and the days following. Since Cheryl was slated for gall bladder surgery a week or so later, Jo stayed to be with her.

Kajari’s Sacrifice
Meanwhile, I received word from the director of publications, “If the first two weeks in August is the best time to have a Bible dedication celebration among the Canela, you need to start work here on January 1st.

“Kajari,” I said when we were on our way to visit Jaco, “I need to go to Brasilia to work for four months to make the Bible ready for the printer to make books. So, I need to leave very soon.”

“But how will I see my husband?” she interrupted, crying, “Don’t leave me!”

“I have already asked four of our friends to take you to see Jaco as often as you want every day.”

Through tears, she said, “My husband has sacrificed to help you make God’s Book in our language, but I have never done anything to help. So, this time, I will sacrifice. You can go. I will depend on your friends to take me to see my husband.”

I left for Brasilia, and two days after I arrived, Jaco died. The Wycliffe plane took Jaco’s coffin, Kajari, and her baby directly to the village. Jaco’s friends and the rest of his family had already left for home on the bus.

Celebrating the Victory
God then intervened, and Satan’s attacks ceased. Jo joined me in Brasilia, and on May 9th, we celebrated with praise to God and turned the 750 camera-ready pages over to the printer.

On Friday, August 10th, Jo and I were in the village with boxes full of Canela Bibles, excited and eager to celebrate the victory. Joining us in our delight were my Dad and Mom, Jo’s Mom, my brother Henry, and his wife, as well as our three daughters, one with her husband, the other two with their boyfriends, and of course many Wycliffe colleagues.

Kajari was, of course, the first person to receive a Bible, “This is your husband’s work.” After that, I called each person who had earned a Bible by memorizing an unbelievable number of Bible verses. On receiving their Bible, each one opened it, started reading, sat down with the others, and kept on reading. I nearly cried when I saw they kept reading even though several village leaders and I made speeches. Yes! Oh yes!

A few hours later, Jo and I stood off to one side and watched the celebration. “I felt like it was Christmas eleven months ago,” I said to Jo, “but I was wrong. Today is the true Christmas for the Canela people. God’s Written Word has come to them in their village, to reveal Jesus, the Living Word who came to Bethlehem that first Christmas.”

An Insightful Grandson and an Angry Chief

Posted on by

The First Story
If you have done repairs to a loose kitchen sink you will know what suffering is. As you lie on your back, the edge of the under-sink-cabinet floor causes excruciating pain as it tries to pry apart your vertebrae. You are peering up into semi-darkness, holding a flashlight in one hand, the other feeling for the loose under-the-sink bolt, and needing a third hand to find the tools lying on the floor beside you. In the meantime, bits of grit and dust keep falling into your eyes.

I had been in that position for much longer than I wanted to be, and still, the job was not done. Just then, Ryan, our oldest grandson who had observed my torment for some time, made an insightful comment for a young teenager.
“You are not very good at fixing this kind of thing, are you, Grandpa?”
“No, I’m not, Ryan. My back hurts, and I hate working way up above my head, with dirt falling into my eyes.”

He then made another perceptive comment.
“But later on, Grandpa, you’ll be able to write a great story about this. It’ll be a really funny one.”

Yes! That I could do. Ryan and the other grandkids had heard me tell hundreds of true stories about all kinds of adventures and hard times—many with funny and always encouraging endings.
I remembered that sink fixing episode today as I researched my 1987 diary for stories to include in my memoir of our translation work among the Canela people of Brazil.

The Second Story
Here’s the story that stood out. In 1967, twenty years earlier, Pedro, the Canela village chief, had invited Josephine and me to come to his village to live and work. He wanted us to do medical work and teach his people to read and write. We had done this and much more, including saving the life of his son by driving him four hours to town to a doctor who confirmed my diagnosis of appendicitis and sent him to a hospital where he had surgery just in time.

We had always had a good relationship with Pedro, and when he asked if I could drive him, his wife and two or three men down the jeep trail a few hours to meet some people, I agreed. A continued good relationship with him was worth four hours of driving over rough terrain.

At noon, I drove our little quarter-ton pickup truck to his house. Pedro and his wife

Baskets & 3 daughters Okay, 10 Adult men, No Way.

climbed on, and so did ten other people.
“That’s too heavy, Pedro,” I said. “Look at the springs; they are all bending the wrong way and will break. I can take the five people you asked for but not all twelve of you. I broke all four of these springs this year and replaced them. But now they’ll all break too. I’m sorry, but I can’t take all of you.”

Pedro exploded in anger. He stalked off directly to the local government agency. He complained to the manager, telling him, “Get on your shortwave radio and tell your bosses in the city that we no longer want these teachers in our village.”
He stayed right there until the manager had sent that radiogram. Happily, several other Canela leaders overheard this order. They told others in the village who sent a large delegation to the government manager saying, “Everyone in the village wants the teachers to stay.”

These events were the beginning of an enormous confusion that eventually involved directors of the government indigenous agencies in three cities. These authorities repeatedly ordered us to leave the village, and each time the Canelas made the local manager send radiograms objecting to the order.

Even our own Wycliffe director got involved. He was called to the agency office in Belem, where the agency director told him, “The Canela chief, Pedro, and Blackpalm, a sub-chief, both want your people out of their village.” Just then, Blackpalm, who happened to be in Belem for medical reasons, walked into the office and heard this statement; he objected.

“The only one who wants the teachers out is Pedro. He’s a hothead and gets violently angry when he can’t get his way. I love working with the teachers. I taught them much of our language starting twenty years ago. They have been a huge benefit to health and education in our village.”

The Last Story
What a coincidence! No, it wasn’t. It was a God-incidence. God is in control and kept us productively working for three more years until the Canela Bible was published.

At the public Bible distribution ceremony, I gave Pedro the first Bible I took out of the box since he was the chief who had invited us to come. He made an impassioned speech. “Treat this book respectfully. It is more valuable than a cow or a new shotgun. It is God’s letter to us. Don’t tear pages out of it to make your cigarettes. Don’t leave it out in the rain. Our friends have worked for more than twenty years to make this book. Respect their work.”

What a change in Pedro from just a few years ago! I couldn’t help chuckling, and covered my grin with my hand.

The End, the Start, and the Middle

Posted on by

 Three Questions Re: Final Future, Present Day, and Intermediate Future

  1. How do you feel about becoming one of the growing COVID-19 statistics listed under Active Cases or even recorded under Deaths? Yeah, knowing that at age 82, I am part of the “vulnerable group” I do have some feelings about this.
  2. Are you getting tired of the information flood telling you things like, “Stay home, wash your hands, wear a facemask, and keep two metres away?” Yeah, me too.
  3. What are your thoughts about the endless predictions of the New Normal, and the ever-changing plans to move towards it? Yeah, they are talking about the rest of our lives, I have many thoughts.

Our Final Future
If we have become God’s children through faith in Jesus’ death for us, many of our negative feelings dissipate. Since God is in control of this world, then, as His children, we know we are in His care, today, tomorrow, and at the end of our life, no matter what happens or when. We also know that because of Jesus’ resurrection, we will receive new bodies that will never die. Our Final Future will be glorious. One of my favourite descriptions of our future end is in Revelation 21, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” We can be sure of our Final Future.

Our Present Day
We can also be fairly sure of the Present Day. God gave us today and gave us the choice of how we want to live, work, plan, communicate, and act in the Present. Although God gave us a free will to choose, He also gave us a purpose for living. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus also assured us of His help and His presence as we live our lives. “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” So how do we love God and love our neighbours in this present day? Build a relationship with others and help meet their needs as if we were meeting Jesus’ needs. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Our Intermediate Future
Now, what about our Intermediate Future, that unknown, “anything could happen” stretch between the Present Day and the Final Future? First of all, as believers, we are not to worry, fret, or be apprehensive about the weeks, months and years ahead. We are not to fear the future. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Your Father in heaven knows that you need them.” Luke 12:22, 25, 26.

This doesn’t mean we should not confidently plan and diligently work towards providing for ourselves and our families. But as we plan and work, God has a requirement: recognize that He is in ultimate control

Living in Brazil, we often heard the expression, Se Deus quiser. “If God wants/wills.” For several centuries English incorporated a Latin term Deo Volente, ‘God Willing’ usually abbreviated as DV. “I expect to arrive before dark, DV.” But our secularized society no longer recognizes God’s sovereignty over plans and actions. Even as Christians, when we plan, we tend to forget that God is in total control. We have gotten out of the habit of saying, “If it is the Lord’s will, I will live and do this or that.” James 4:15. Without keeping God’s ultimate authority in mind, we talk enthusiastically about our plans and work. Here’s His opinion: “You boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.” James 4:16.

In the Present Day, during this pandemic as Christians, we need to more than ever, love God with all our heart and love our neighbour as we love ourselves. Only then will we have the confidence to live each day knowing Jesus is present, that He wants us to cast all our care on Him, and step out in faith into the unknown Intermediate Future. At the end of which is a glorious Final Future!