Xapa to the World

This will begin a series of informative blogs on the 40 Least-engaged Peoples according to Finishing the Task, an article published in Mission Frontiers in preparation for Tokyo 2010, a conference of mission leaders from around the world to discuss how to strategically evangelize the globe.  I will do my best to investigate and add information about each group throughout the week focusing on them.  I will list the population and the religion.  The missionaries needed is determined by the number 50,000 population blocks within each group.  A group is determined “adopted” if a mission agency took the name in 2000 at the Billy Graham conference on evangelization with the intent of starting a ministry among the LPG.  So, here is the first group:

Mahisyadas of India

Population:  11,964,538

Religion:  Hinduism

Missionaries Needed:  239

Adopted:  Yes

Language: Bengali

  The Mahisyadas of India live throughout the state of West Bengal and the surrounding areas. They are ethnic Bengalis. They are a land owning caste and their traditional occupation is agriculture. Their main crops are rice and millet. The vast majority of Mahisyadas are Hindu. Lakshmi, Dharmarah, Manasa, and Shiva are the most popularly worshipped deities of the Mahisyadas. They have a relatively high literacy rate.

Added 10/19:
  The Mahisyadas are considered a “Scheduled Caste” in India, meaning that they were at one time referred to as part of the Untouchables.  Another word for a person belonging to this group is “Dalit” which, in Sanskrit, means ground, suppressed, crushed, or broken to pieces.  An SC was traditionally a group that would be outcasted and regarded as ritually polluted, segregated from the mainstream society.  These groups are usually foreignors, even those who have been settled in India for generations, nomadic tribes, criminals and lawbreakers, and Christians.  Even though the caste system in India has been abolished, the social prejudice and customs still remain.  The government, under the constitution established in 1950, has made great leaps in the economic and educational discrimination against such groups, but there is still much to do.  Since the Mahisyadas speak and read Bengali (coming from Bangladesh, originally) as their heart language, it is a great blessing that the Bible has been translated into this language.  Much work has been done among the Bengali people, pray that it would also be done among the Mahisyadas.  They already understand the idea of being aliens in a foreign land – for them to understand that, as Christians, we are just residing here on Earth, it is not our permanent home, would align with their culture without difficulty. 

“Dangerous.”  “Risky.”  “Brilliant.”  “Inspiring.”  “A nice gesture.”  “Doomed to failure.”  “Exhilirating!”

“The Christian thing to do.”  “We’ve never done it that way before.”

Just some of the many thoughts that came to my own mind or from the mouths of others who heard what was going on.  I mean, we’ve lived here for almost 4 years now and you have NO idea what goes on behind the doors of the homes next to you.  Nothing is a guarantee, and isn’t this supposed to happen inside of the church?  That’s why we have jammin music and a bunch of ministries there.  And it’s safer at the church.  You know, people come there and they know what to expect, and they know how to act.  Why not just “change” the way we do things within the security of the church building, rather than move out beyond it.  People can be hostile towards Christians coming out of the four walls and into their homes.  We don’t want them to think we’re Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.  It’s just a bad idea.  Plus, it’s a big expense.  All that food.  You would never want to let them into your home, they might steal something.  Or stake the place out in case they have a “need” in the future and want a quick fix, including your stereo system and flat screen.  Plus, if they really want to meet you, they know where to find you.  It’s plastered over everything that you’re a Christian – the cross on your door, the Easter flag hanging out front, your car is gone every Sunday morning, the Christian “cussing” you do when your lawnmower won’t start.  If they want to meet you, or even go to church, they can find you at church.  Jesus would never really expect you to “hang out” with non-Christians either.  I mean, if they don’t go to your church, you can’t guarantee that they’re even believers, no matter what kind of “WWJD?” bumper stickers they have on their car – they could have bought it that way.  If you go to church on Sunday mornings, maybe even Sunday nights, and take your kids to VBS, you’re doing alright.  Jesus never lived in our society, He would totally understand.  You can’t expect to apply Bible Time evangelism to our day and age.  It’s impractical.  It’s just “not done” that way anymore. 

What the heck?!

All that this conveys is a spirit of cowardice, and not the energetic, powerful Spirit of the Almighty God!  Ok, so I’m not the best planner in the world.  So, maybe it was a little too aggressive to put fliers in the doors of 35 homes on our street, letting the inhabitants know about our cookout.  I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. 

Here’s what happened:

My heart is for the lost.  My heart has been engaged in the field way out yonder, halfway around the globe – which is good, but a little hypocritical.  Essentially, I have been saying that the people of East Asia deserve Christ more than the people in my hometown.  Granted, I have always been an active church member, attending services whenever the doors are open, teaching Sunday School, yatta yatta.  That’s all fine and dandy.  I’ve helped at the food pantry we support – in the next town.  Our hometown has always seemed to have it together.  On almost every main street in the city, and even some non-main streets, there is probably a church somewhere in there.  It’s fairly affluent.  It just doesn’t have as many needs as, say, the city north of us or south of us.  And, honestly, if even 1/5th of those churches are doing the same amount of things that ours is, then people are being reached. Right? 

The truth is that a lot of churches in our country and hometown are seeing a decline in regular attendance.  Yeah, there are those “feel-good” churches, the ones that have super-comfy seats, coffee holders, and all the “Christian-y” things happen behind other doors, away from the main congregation – those are growing by leaps and bounds.  But I wonder how deep the genuine faith goes in those places.  Not saying that all of them are weak Christians, just that, I wonder what the ratio would be.  And then you have other churches who are still preaching in the manner of the 50’s-70’s – fire and brimestone, condemn ’em to save ’em.  The members of those churches are of a significantly older generation and shrinking in number, until the last elder is taken to receive his reward in heaven. 

While overseas, doing evangelism in one of those Far Eastern nations, I was confronted with my own hypocrisy of evangelism back home.  I do believe that my ultimate vocation and ministry will be overseas, but that does not negate or excuse my actions while I’m “home”.  At the same time, as the Japanese would say, “sazuga kamisama” (in a manner just like God), my mother was feeling the same conviction. In fact, she did the first neighbor-outreach project, making Christmas baskets of candy and cookies and whatnot for a few of our neighbors and passing them out, in the pouring snow.  She’s great.

When I got home, Mom and I began praying for God to show us what we needed to do to reach out to the neighbors, the most effective way.  Mom likes to plan, and she’s not an extrovert by any means.  I am not really an extrovert either, but I have had a lot of social training. 🙂  We decided to buy a grill, a bunch of yard toys and whatnot.  We were going to have a reason for people to come over if it killed us.

My college group from church decided to meet at my house this Sunday for our Bible Study.  It was a perfect opportunity.  They were gung-ho for it, (I am so grateful for my church.  We might have missed the mark on a couple things, but there are people in it, and my close friends, who are so hardcore and adventurous…they rock!) we moved our Bible Study to an earlier time and were going to have a cookout party in our backyard for the rest of the evening.  As I said before, I went up my whole street, handing out fliers for the event to 35 homes, inviting our neighbors to join us.  I had no idea how many people would come.  But God did, and that was all that mattered.

The day before, a neighbor called to say he couldn’t make it – he’d be out of town.  The day of, a neighbor called and said she might come and she would bring pasta salad.  We didn’t hear from anyone else.  With Connect (the young adults group) and others from my church, we had 23 people coming.  Then, we had another family come through, and then another set of neighbors.  All in all, we had 28 people here, in our yard, last night.  It was so much fun.  We had burgers, manwich, hotdogs, cookies, brownies, etc.  We had frisbees, cornhole, football, water guns.  It was a blast!  Totally awesome.  There was a mix of ages, so everyone had a place, and we just had a really great time.  The neighbors directly to the right of my home are Connect-age and I think they’ll come do stuff with us in the future.  One woman is a bit older than Mom, but they built a good foundation last night.  Another woman with two young kids, said she’ll probably come to our church. 🙂  So, cool.  So much fun.

I feel so satisfied.  I could not have asked for a better evening/event.  Mom and I are super-jazzed to do something like this again soon.  I think everyone in Connect was really encouraged too.  The neighbors who did come were a perfect fit for a first outreach.  The older woman said there had never been anything like this before in the neighborhood, and she’s been here for 50 years now.  Unbelievable!  All day, I’ve just had joy welling up inside me, tickling my heart and making me laugh randomly.  It’s been bringing tears to my eyes, and last night, I just sat in my room crying in praise and thanksgiving to God. 

He is so good, and He blesses His faithful.  He loves to create.  And when His people seek to create bridges to the lost, He is right there, setting everything up, giving all the materials needed.  He is such a wonderful and loving God and I am so honored that He would use me – little ole me – to reach people.

I feel so full in my spirit.

Sorry everyone that I’ve been AWOL for a time.  I have been readjusting to life in the States and I also got a job as a freelance grant writer…so, that’s been draining my creative reservoir of late, but I have had a lot of things on my mind, and some things that God has been showing and sharing with me, I wanted to share them with you as well.

I love the object – HOPE.  It is such a unique kind of thing that a Christian has…well, that any human being can have, but particularly Christians, because our hope is placed in something that is solid and true.  The definition of hope is: “A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.” (dictionary.com)  Paul says in 1 Corinthians, after a long explanation of what love is that “faith, hope, and love abide.”  The writer of Hebrews (I think, maybe Paul…but it’s not certain) says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped, the conviction of things not seen.”

I just love what having hope can do for a person.  Hope is an amalgam of faith, contentment, and trust…and a certain amount of optimism.  For the regular person, hope is believing that something good is going to happen.  For a Christian, hope is believing that no matter how bad the circumstances or trials, good will be the ultimate end, because we have the promises of Christ.  I think one of the best descriptions of hope for a Christian is found in Romans 8:24-25, “For in this hope (redemption of our bodies / adoption as sons of God) we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” So, patience and hope are drawn together in a close union. 

Another description that I was surprised to find was in Ezekiel.  I’m sure many of you have heard a sermon on The Valley of Dry Bones in chapter 37.  If not, I’ll give a brief summary. 

Israel had been pillaged and taken captive by the Babylonians.  Nebuchadnezzar was ruthless in the seige of Jerusalem, cutting to pieces all the gold vessels of the Temple and carrying them back to Babylon. The Israelites were left without hope.  They could not go to the Temple, and therefore could not worship God, at least, the way they were used to doing.  Many gave in to worshipping the false gods of the Babylonians.  They were desperate to maintain any kind of purpose in their lives, but many gave up and just assimilated to the culture in Babylon.  God wanted to make a point to them, to restore hope.  Why?  This is what the Israelites were saying: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” 

Did you catch that?  “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.”  So, God picks up the prophet Ezekiel and gives him an amazing vision. He puts him in a valley filled with dried and bleached bones (symbolic of the people of Israel).  He asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live again?”  Ezekiel, being very smart…and cautious…says, “O LORD God, you know.”  God tells Ezekiel to prophesy a special message over the bones and that they will arise again.  As he does, “the bones came together, bone to its bone…there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them.”  And then he prophesies again, as God commands, and the four winds come over the valley, and breath came into them and they stood living, a great army. 

This vision was for Ezekiel to take back to the captives to restore their hope that God had not forgotten them and that He would restore them, not just to their land, but to life!  God would pour His breath into them, filling their bones with the marrow of His hope, and they would thrive and live and conquer! 

For me, being back in the States, I have been skirting along the rut that I used to walk in, the rut of complacency…er rather…the rut of method.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember what exactly happened in the last year.  I struggle within myself between being annoyed at having to worry about the “menial” things, such as a job, my car, paying bills, being a good citizen of America, etc, and knowing that it has its purpose in my life for this season.  I kick myself that for even a second having any doubts, I have lacked hope that God would restore me to the mission, or that just because I’m not “out there” anymore, I am no longer in the mission.  It’s silly, and I will say that I haven’t given in and walked even a foot in that familiar rut, but I do come to the edge and look in, letting the thoughts run through my mind, just to push them back and comment how ridiculous they are.  But, I’m realizing how great a gift hope is.  Hope is the marrow for my bones when any doubts come in.  It is what keeps me standing when I find myself in shaky ground, when sincere people make less-than-tactful comments, when other routes look just as good as the one I’ve been called to walk.  I have to decide daily to hope that God will give me the desires of my heart…the desires He put there – to live a life as a vessel for Him and His love to the world, to have a man to live that life with me, to have beautiful feet that will walk the globe sharing the world’s true history and God’s story of redemption.

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
Romans 12:12