Letter from North Africa

/ Ari Rocklin

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from weeping to joy in the Maghreb

I’m reading a letter, a real paper letter from an envelope with 
a stamp from UK. Remember those? It’s written on green paper. It’s from a tentmaker serving in North Africa.

About half way through, I am barely able to see the writing as tears fill my eyes and run down my cheeks.  I ask my wife to read it to figure out who it is from.

A year earlier

A year before this letter finds me in southern Europe speaking at a missions center and spending downtime with short term teamers heading into North Africa. As we eat our evening meal on the roof of the building with a view over the Med, we can faintly see the mountains of North Africa. Indeed our prayer times are often on this rooftop and we always face those mountains.

Someone interrupts to ask if I can go to the port and pick up a worker arriving on 
a ship from NA. It is dark by the time I arrive at the port, and people are already walking out of the customs office. How am I supposed to know what the person looks like? I look at each passenger closely from the curb, hoping for some sign or hint.

Eventually no more people come out. I get ready to leave, but take one more look and then I see him—a lonely young man, dragging his duffel bag on the ground behind him, eyes cast downward, seemingly unaware of anything around him. There is a tremendous sadness on his face as he walks up to the car and throws his bag into the trunk. Without a word, he gets into the car and we start the drive back to the center. Eventually he simply asks me if I could take him to the travel agency first thing the next day so he can buy a ticket to fly home as soon as possible. I promise to do that right after breakfast.

Before retiring, we end up sitting on the roof in the darkness, sipping tea in silence. He sighs in silence and it seems like a good time to be silent with those who are silent. Eventually he begins pouring out his pain.

We walk to our rooms in the early morning hours, but before Nate steps into his room he asks for assurance that I will take him to the travel agency after breakfast.

At breakfast his stories of defeat continue with gruesome details of people spitting his way as he walks to buy food. If he goes to a coffee shop, people move away from him which is so unusual for this hospitable culture.

Nate suggests we go to the travel agency after lunch instead. We head to the beach where he continues his story.

He has been teaching English in a small city about 200 km from the capital city of this NA nation. Living alone in a primitive dorm room with no heat in winter and no air conditioning in summer. Although his young students and boss appreciated his teaching, the suspicions by the locals was so strong that no friendships were being made. He shares increasingly sadder stories of his life in this remote city. I feel a wave of sadness and despair come over me.

After lunch with the team, Nate suggests we postpone going to the travel agency until the next morning.

Three days come and go. Mostly I listen to Nate’s stories. Debriefing is just a fancy word for listening.

On the fourth morning while having breakfast Nate informs me that he is returning that day to North Africa. His love for the people in his community and desire to see them know Jesus is so strong, that against all my best advice not to return so soon, he insists on returning.

Before he heads to the ferry, we all gather on the rooftop with Nate to pray for 
his community and ask for a spiritual breakthrough and safety. It is one of those memorable prayer meetings.

I watch Nate with a spring in his step and joy on his face, now with his duffel bag on his shoulder, walk briskly back to the ship that will take him back to the people he loves.

One year later

My wife hands me the letter and says, this is from Nate. He was using an alias in the letter that had been hand carried to the UK and mailed from there due to security issues.

The letter is a testament of God’s faithfulness in the life of a young man driven by the love of Jesus to go to the unreached. When Nate returned to his work and life, the spiritual atmosphere had changed tremendously. People welcomed him back with open arms and in the course of his first year back, a house church started from the families of his students.

Today, Nate is back in his home country in Europe, mobilizing new tentmakers. 
The house church he left behind is thriving and is now a part of a network of house churches in this one majority religion country.

              Psalm 126:5 Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

The lesson is that it took years of hardship, with no visible signs of success, and then in God’s time, the seeds planted during the those unfruitful years finally sprouted and multiplied.

After the Evacuations – The Return!

/ Ari Rocklin

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After the agony and the fear of an unknown future that tentmakers experienced during the evacuations, many are now returning to their jobs and lives. The local situation has changed, sometimes dramatically. Some local friends have died in the uprisings, others are still in hiding and many more are suffering from unemployment and a sharp rise in the price of staples. Reality has set in and many have accepted their fate with typical, in the “will of God” way.

One tentmaker reports that while there is a greater openness to the Gospel, there are also new enemies emboldened by their perceived power of having rebelled against authority and won their version of victory. The lines between friends and potential enemies are blurred. Hospitality of the locals remains as it has for hundreds of years in their culture.

A few underground house churches have stuck their collective heads out of the sand, and in some cases have enough members and clout to actually rent a building and meet in the open. It remains to be seen if this precarious boldness can continue without reprisal. Pray for them!

The needs of society are many and most relief projects have been welcomed and accepted with obvious gratitude. One shipment of scripture was confiscated by officials only to be released a few months later under mysterious circumstances. The eternal Word of God in the hands of the local people, in their heart languages will do what only God’s Word can do: Change lives!

There is a tremendous need for foreign workers of all professions and trades. One tentmaker reports that you can literally take a flight to a neighboring country, hop into a cab that will take you the country next door with minimal questioning by the border guards. Once in the country you can probably find a job within days and receive a visa without the usual weeks of waiting.

The uprisings have for the moment led to these surprising realities:

 1. Peoples hearts are more open than ever to the Gospel.
 2. The need for foreign workers is picking up steam.
 3. The work visa process has been reduced from months to days.
 4. In many countries, it is possible to just go there, find a job & get a work visa.

In conclusion, although the opportunities and openings are many, the region is not stable. The same lack of security that the local population faces will also be the situation for foreigners.

GO prepared, GO with caution but most importantly of all, GO with God!

TOP Ways to Share Your Faith in the Workplace

/ Phill

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Phill Sandahl

The essence of being a tentmaker is to live an integrated faith in all that you do, whether at work or play, so that others will see the work of the Father through you. This is true whether you are living in your birth culture, or as a guest in another culture. Living in another culture just adds another layer of complexity.

Interpersonal relationships are a big part of taking Christ to the nations. Holidays and celebration days are especially rich opportunities for building and extending those relationships. One might say it is peak “fishing season” for fishers of men. There are more opportunities for connecting and people seem to be in a more open and receptive mood.

Recently I came across some good lists of practical suggestions for how to share ones faith with neighbors and another one focused on the workplace. While there were a lot of useful ideas I quickly realized it was written by, and for, North Americans. Some will work, and some won’t, in multi-cultural settings. They are starting points to discover some of the best ways to engage people naturally in your specific workplace.

 These are my top 5 ways to engage cross culturally in the workplace:

 1. Share stories about your/their family traditions related to the holidays
 2. Share food from your/their cultural tradition
 3. Attend their parties – invite them to your
 4. Find out when there are special events in their lives (birthdays, etc) and seek
    to recognize and bless them
 5. Go out of your way to recognize the people who are often overlooked in the
     workplace. Learn the names of all the people in your workplace and pray for
     them.

Holidays offer increased opportunity to build relationships for those who are open to seeing them. It is “open Season” for fishers of men. It may not even be a holiday where you are, but a holiday of your host culture, which you are not accustomed to celebrating. Either way you win. There are twice as many opportunities in a multi-cultural setting.

 The Novena

An air of expectancy filled the neighborhood. The celebration of Quito’s Independence Day had passed and people were preparing for Christmas. Ecuador, having a long catholic tradition, has a celebration they call the Novena which takes place for the nine days leading up to Christmas. Each neighborhood wanted to do something together to recognize the season. Ours was no different.

Often Novenas just become pretexts for drunken partying completely missing the original purpose of preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus. With Ecuadorian friends we set out to redeem the time. We gathered all the adults in the neighborhood together and made our proposal. Each night we would have a party for all the children in the neighborhood. All of the families would contribute food and help with games and activities including the launching of brightly colored hot-air balloons which sailed off into the night – a favorite of all Ecuadorians.

The Christmas story was told in 9 installments, one for each night, accompanied by singing and visiting. Everyone had a wonderful time.

It was so successful that when the next major vacation event came along – Carnival – the neighbors said they wanted to do something special for that occasion as well. In the end a bus was chartered and the whole community rented a retreat house on the beach where all the families hung out together for a whole week.

 Strangers Bearing Gifts

There was a knock at the door. Who could it be? Diane was not expecting visitors. When she opened the door she was shocked to see a whole family of Indians with an armload of wrapped gifts. She greeted the strangers and asked how she could help them. Perhaps they knocked at the wrong home. No they explained, they had come to the right place.

We are your neighbors from the next block over, and we have been curious to meet you and know why you have come to our country. Though Christmas is not practiced in our land we know that in your country it is a time of gift giving, so we have come to give you gifts and meet you.

This was the beginning of an unexpected opportunity to share about Christ with the people of India with whom they had come to work.

 Cookies in India

Baking and sharing cookies with the neighbors during the holidays was a family tradition in our home. So when my grandchildren moved to India, they continued the practice there. They found it took on a new cultural twist. You can’t just drop the cookies off and leave. You are always invited in to visit. First you have to explain what the strange practice is and why you are giving things to your neighbors. Of course, there is also the serving of tea and conversation. Each visit will last from one to two hours so you need to allow lots of time and several days to complete the project.

At this time of the year it is easy to get caught up in buying and giving gifts. Perhaps one should ask instead, “How can I bless the people in my life?” then instead of focusing on buying and giving one might find that the best way to bless is to give of your time and energy. This is the real spirit of the season. “For God so loved the world, …He gave His Son…” because He wanted a relationship with us.

WEA Discusses Future of Missions

/ Steinar Opheim

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Tentmaking and Business as Mission are among the subjects being discussed when World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) this week arranges a global consultation to discuss what future will look like in the worldwide mission work.

As you read this issue of TMBriefs approximately 230 invited leaders from more than 50 nations are gathered at Schönblick Christian Centre an hour drive outside Stuttgart in Germany to focus on future strategies for reaching out with the gospel. “God’s disturbing mission” is the headline for the conference. According to Bertil Ekström who is heading WEA’s Mission Commission there are several reasons to be disturbed and to rethink how we best can proceed to bring the Gospel further on.

– The environment in which we are doing mission has been dramatically changed. God is doing new things that we need to focus and reflect on. Compared to the number of Christians in the country, Mongolia is now sending out more missionaries than any other nation. Who would have expected that just a few years ago? The church planting movements in India and Africa have also given us new thoughts on how we can send out workers in God’s kingdom and start new, Christian fellowships, says Ekström, who has been leading WEA’s Mission Commission the past five years.

The Swedish-born former missionary to Latin America says many young people are reacting negatively to the shallow plans that often are made on how the world can be reached with the Gospel.

– Without sacrificing their commitment to Jesus and His mission, many have rejected simplified statements of truth, reductionist descriptions of the world and three-step, short-cut strategies “to finish the job”.  We are motivated by the need to think together with leading practitioners around the globe about how and why God is disturbing our traditional ways of doing mission, states a document made by WEA’s Mission Commission before the conference in Germany started.

Tentmaking and Business as Mission are among the subjects being discussed at the conference. The GO Equipped TENTmaking course developed by Global Opportunities and Tent, has for several years been run annually in many African nations. The tentmaking model is a good fit for the African churches and enables them to take part in the global mission work although they may not be rich on material resources. Also in Latin America and in Asia the tentmaking model is widely used.