Unleashed Gospel Dynamite

Today. . .

Today I leave Congo, with my husband remaining behind because he just had to squeeze a world more of living into the two weeks remaining until he must return to the States for our spring dinner event. He just stepped out the door to travel to the airport and board an MAF plane piloted by Dan Carlson, a second generation missionary, whose family is like our own. We love them dearly. I miss Jim already.

Today I am reminiscing. . .

about our whirlwind two months here, how that God packed more into that period of time than we could ever have dreamed of, how He showed up time after time, how He revealed His mighty right arm of righteousness at every turn of the way, and Congo can be full of sharp turns, often thrown in by the evil one. But he cannot throw the Lord any curves. The Lord makes our crooked paths straight once again.

The cannibalistic village comes to mind that I recently wrote of, and Romans 1 shouts into my being. . . " I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION FOR ALL WHO BELIEVE. ." ALL--no exclusions. Even those who murdered this innocent victim, He chooses to love. Even those who cut up the bodies of babies in the small forest near our home after placing them on hot coals, and hearing them scream so that they would arouse ancestral spirits to bless their crops. I don't begin to understand that kind of love--so boundless, so unconditional, so all encompassing. That only emanates from a God WHO IS LOVE.

The seventy men from Mpene and Mibiere who sought to escape their self-inflicted attack from warriors from two other nearby villages come to mind. They walked into the lake on our mission campus, thinking they could wade across it, not knowing the lake was more than 15 feet deep in spots because it was hidden by tall elephant grass. None of them could swim. They all died in the 1920's. Lake Ewa became their burial site because of a property issue. Nkara has been fought over for decades, long before the Smiths ever set foot there.

Remembering Mapungu, a reprobate pastor. whose beaming smile welcomed us in '78, only to find out later this "pastor". who was also principle of the state-operated school, forced high school girls to sleep with him on Saturday night and then got up and preached in church on Sunday mornings. He was an instrument, a would be ministry deterent for years and years until the national church defrocked him. The power of the blood of Christ kept him at bay and diffused his plans. He eventually fell in the pit he dug for us.

Thinking of the day in 1980 when Jim took a few nationals up to east hill and prayed for a radio station right there in the middle of the bush. That dream came true in 2003, but as far as the Lord was concerned it already was before it ever existed.

A sea of faces comes to mind. Men and women who have been washed in the blood of Christ, cleansed totally from witchcraft and all kinds of forms of demonism, darkness, ignorance, and unshackled by the power of that blood. Pastor Mbuku says there is no way of knowing how many there are. God knows.

Our four children come to mind. I see them playing, studying, running outside to welcome the cool breezes from the stirrings of a tropical storm, returning home bearing the prize of their hunts on their arms, baking bread in the kitchen with flour everywhere, preparing the wood stove to bake their product, cooking glowing orange palm nuts with salt, savoring every bite, reading endlessly--well some of them enjoyed reading--creating their own fun, making houses out of cereal boxes and clothes for Nicol's monke, T. D. (Teddy Roosevelt's namesake), sitting around our beautiful ebony dining room table that Jim made with his own hands, while Jim read Scripture to them and taught them God's Word. Their girlish and boyis faces with toothless smiles and the wonder of childhood bring tears to my eyes. I miss those bygone days.

Back to the present. The clock tells me it is time to get ready to be taken to Njili Airport by Congo Travel Service. My head is swimming with too many memories to share right now. I feel so very blessed to have walked this soil, rubbed shoulders with giants of the faith, reared our children here for enough time to really impact us as a family, and as a married couple to have seen the Lord Jesus Christ part our red sea time after time, and produce incredible results by the power of his gospel. I owe you big time, Lord!