So will you join me on March 31st to fast and pray for the Millennial generation? They have so much to offer–so much potential. They are creative, they are passionate, they are looking for something to believe in. A recent poll of 18 to 24 year olds here in the US showed that this age group feels they are here on this planet to solve world problems, to accomplish something, but they just don’t know how to get started. They want to be constructive and to contribute. They are motivated, goal-oriented and have a desire to be optimistic. It is our responsibility to show them something to believe in, something authentic, and they will be willing to jump on board and participate whole-heartedly. They deserve our best efforts to hang on to them, fight for them, interecede on their behalf. It is through our prayers that the curse of this Culture of Death can be broken. I’m asking the Lord to give them revelation, wisdom and knowledge so that they might hear His voice behind them saying, “This is the way,walk in it.” My prayers are that they’ll know God’s will and His way and that they will have a sense of compulsion to follow Christ above all else. I think about Jesus quoting the prophet, “Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger” (Psalm 8:2 ESV). I pray that this generation will, through God’s strength, still the enemy and the avenger. I want to close with Mary’s Song found in Luke:

His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
According to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
Peace.

Jeremiah 31:15, “The Lord says: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.’”

So what do we do? What am I called to do, through Scripture, for this generation? Perhaps you are a Millennial and you know personally the struggles of your generation. Maybe you’re a parent of a Millennial and your own kids are fraught or you know of others in your neighborhoods, churches, and communities—kids that are being afflicted by the very issues I wrote about yesterday. I have always said that what one generation does in moderation the next generation does in excess. It is our responsibility as followers of Christ to hold on to the Millennials and not hand them over to the enemy. Greatness can come from this generation. Perhaps the enemy knows that they are destined for great things and that is why he has worked so hard to destroy them. I think about the Great Commission. God’s call to His people to go into all the world and preach the good news of Jesus Christ. Even with 1.9 billion unreached it’s still a doable goal in this day and age. For example, and hang in there with me now, don’t let me lose you, Robert Woodruff took over the Coca Cola company and after WWII when the company was financially wiped out he came up with a new vision, a mission statement for Coca Cola, “A Coke within arm’s reach of desire for everyone on the planet.” In 1999 the company revised the statement and wrote on their website, “A Coke in the hand of every person on the planet by the year 2010.” They have since removed that statement because they didn’t quite make it, but it is the most recognized product in the world. They’ll make it eventually. Here’s my point: if Coca Cola believes they are able to get a Coke into the hand of every single human being on the planet then surely we as evangelicals can get the Gospel message heard around the world. (If nothing else we just follow the Coke trucks!). The Great Commission is doable. It is attainable as never before in history. Globalization, technology, air travel, satellite phones and television—all these things make the sharing of the Gospel worldwide an achievable task. Perhaps the enemy of our souls knows this and knows that it would be this generation, the Millennials, that will accomplish the task remaining. Can you see how he would hate them then? Because what does God’s Word tell us about the finishing of this task? Matthew 24:14, “And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come.” Now The End is a good thing. This is when Jesus returns and fixes everything. This is where He comes and heals us and heals our world and redemption is fully realized. The End is really the New Beginning. So be happy about The End.

I ask, could it be that the enemy of our souls knows that it is this generation that will usher in the Coming of Christ and he so hates them so much that he is doing all that he can to kill, steal and destroy them? Is it this generation that God has set apart for the task? Is this why we are seeing such a Massacre of the Innocents?

It is time we join together to bombard the throne of heaven and intercede on behalf of this generation. It is time we covenant to pray for God to deliver the Millennials from the work of the enemy and reclaim each and every life for life…life that is abundant and free. I am asking everyone to join me on March 31st to fast and pray for this generation. That somehow we can join together to grab hold of the horns of the altar and cry out to God to strengthen, deliver, empower, and to fulfill His will in their lives. Will you join me?

Jeremiah, 31:16-17, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears for there is a reward for your work, says the LORD: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the LORD: your children shall come back to their own country.

If you want to join me in fasting and praying for the Millennials on March 31st, please sign up via email (teri@iics.com) or through the comments section of this blog. Let’s join forces to reclaim the Millennials for God’s purposes and for His plan. Peace.

This is my 30th posting. I want to do a three part series on Millennials because they are heavy on my heart these days and because I think it is important for us to focus our prayers, attention, and resources on this most valuable and endangered generation. But before I get started I want to thank everyone for their prayers and kind words as I hammered out the finishing of Romanowski’s and my book. We did get it to the publisher a day early (February 28). Our contract is signed, the manuscript is delivered and now we await revisions and final details. The book is supposed to head to the printer in September. The goal is to have it completed for Urbana 2009. We have a great editor at InterVarsity Press, Al Hsu, who has been amazing to work with. Mike and I are so grateful for this opportunity. IVP was always our first choice. Also a big shout out to Anne Coates for painstakingly editing our manuscript, even while on vacation in Florida! Her eagle eye made the whole thing much better. Thanks Anne. Thanks everyone again for your prayers. God is good…all the time.

Millennials is a term coined to describe people born between (generally) 1975 and 2001. However, some sociologists argue that they really are still coming. So we could say they are the generation (40 years) born between 1975 and 2015. I’m gonna use 1975 to present.

The Millennials are an interesting group. And I do mean group. They like to hang out in herds. They like to do collaborative work. Not surprising since collaborative learning has been a big teaching strategy in this generation’s classrooms. They are technocrats. They know everything about technology and they’re rather addicted to it. They also have some other very dangerous addictions. This is the generation of meth, crack, prescription drugs and the re-popularity of heroine.

The Millennials have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and medicated for these. In fact cases rose from 20 million in 1984 to 190 million in 1993.

The Association of Social Health in America (ASHA) reports that two thirds of all Americans with STDs are under the age of 25. The Millennials have eight new STDs to deal with including HPV and Chlamydia–cancer causing, sterilizing diseases. In 2005, a rigorous and wide-sweeping survey of US teens showed that 50 percent of high schoolers are sexually active. Of those, 28 percent have had multiple partners. The Millennials are sexually active, some have experimented with sex as early as 13 or 14 years of age.

Then there is the violence. Columbine, Virginia Tech, and the Amish school killings. This is not just in the US, Germany is mourning the loss of 15 people shot and killed yesterday by a 17-year-old boy at school.

Ten children, ages 19 and under, are killed by violence every day in our country. Many more are wounded. Add to that the stats for suicide: suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds and the sixth leading cause of death among ages 5 through 14.

And what about self-mutilation? Anyone ever known a teen that cuts himself/herself? I’m 50 years old and I never heard of anyone doing that when I was in school. One study shows that 17 percent of American teens engage in some sort of self-mutilation. Don’t even get me started on eating disorders.

My heart breaks as I write these stats. I am weeping at the thought of an entire generation struggling under a death sentence. And I think, “Why does this all sound so familiar?” A culture of death? Here’s my take on it.

Abortion was legalized in 1973. Francis Schaeffer prophetically said there would be repercussions to legalized abortion that we could never anticipate. He was right. We are reaping this culture of death through our children, and for many of us now through our grandchildren. Why does it seem so familiar? Then I thought of Moses. What did Pharaoh do when Moses was born? The enemy of all humankind moved through the Pharaoh’s edict and tried to kill an entire generation of baby boys because a leader had been born to Israel. A deliverer had been born to the slaves of Egypt and as a result the enemy tried to annihilate an entire generation. And what about Herod? When he heard that the King of the Jews had been born he had all the baby boys killed in Bethlehem. A Deliverer, a Savior, Christ came and as a result the enemy tried to kill off an entire age group. What Satan has not been able to accomplish through aborting this generation of Millennials he has tried through violence, drug abuse, sexual sin and disease, depression, self-mutilation and when those didn’t destroy he used complacency and consumerism. Dietrich Bonhoffer said the test of a society’s morality is shown by what it does for its children. And I have to ask myself, “What am I doing for the Millennials?” What am I doing to stand in the gap for this generation? Am I fasting? Am I contributing? What? And please remember this is not just an American issue. The Millennials, probably due to globalization and technology, are sharing this culture of death through traits and struggles around the world. It is an entire world population of young people who are living under some type of unseen death sentence. What are we doing as followers of Christ to protect and defend our most valuable and precious resource? What can we do? I’ll talk about that in Part II tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve given a timeline listing below on school violence worldwide. Peace?

Timeline of School Shootings Worldwide
Feb. 2, 1996
Moses Lake, Wash.
Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
March 13, 1996
Dunblane, Scotland
Sixteen children and one teacher killed at Dunblane Primary School by Thomas Hamilton, who then killed himself. 10 others wounded in attack.
Feb. 19, 1997
Bethel, Alaska
Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
March 1997
Sanaa, Yemen
Eight people (six students and two others) at two schools killed by Mohammad Ahman al-Naziri.
Oct. 1, 1997
Pearl, Miss.
Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.
Dec. 1, 1997
West Paducah, Ky.
Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
Dec. 15, 1997
Stamps, Ark.
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Ark.
Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.
April 24, 1998
Edinboro, Pa.
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
May 19, 1998
Fayetteville, Tenn.
One student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
May 21, 1998
Springfield, Ore.
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home.
June 15, 1998
Richmond, Va.
One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway.
April 20, 1999
Littleton, Colo.
Fourteen students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation’s deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
April 28, 1999
Taber, Alberta, Canada
One student killed, one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy, had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his classmates.
May 20, 1999
Conyers, Ga.
Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.
Nov. 19, 1999
Deming, N.M.
Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School.
Dec. 6, 1999
Fort Gibson, Okla.
Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.
Dec. 7, 1999
Veghel, Netherlands
One teacher and three students wounded by a 17-year-old student.
Feb. 29, 2000
Mount Morris Township, Mich.
Six-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint, Mich. The assailant was identified as a six-year-old boy with a .32-caliber handgun.
March 2000
Branneburg, Germany
One teacher killed by a 15-year-old student, who then shot himself. The shooter has been in a coma ever since.
March 10, 2000
Savannah, Ga.
Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19, while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach High School.
May 26, 2000
Lake Worth, Fla.
One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes.
Sept. 26, 2000
New Orleans, La.
Two students wounded with the same gun during a fight at Woodson Middle School.
Jan. 17, 2001
Baltimore, Md.
One student shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton Eastern High School.
Jan. 18, 2001
Jan, Sweden
One student killed by two boys, ages 17 and 19.
March 5, 2001
Santee, Calif.
Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School.
March 7, 2001
Williamsport, Pa.
Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School; she was depressed and frequently teased.
March 22, 2001
Granite Hills, Calif.
One teacher and three students wounded by Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite Hills High School. A policeman shot and wounded Hoffman.
March 30, 2001
Gary, Ind.
One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had been expelled from Lew Wallace High School.
Nov. 12, 2001
Caro, Mich.
Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.
Jan. 15, 2002
New York, N.Y.
A teenager wounded two students at Martin Luther King Jr. High School.
Feb. 19, 2002
Freising, Germany
Two killed in Eching by a man at the factory from which he had been fired; he then traveled to Freising and killed the headmaster of the technical school from which he had been expelled. He also wounded another teacher before killing himself.
April 26, 2002
Erfurt, Germany
Thirteen teachers, two students, and one policeman killed, ten wounded by Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, at the Johann Gutenberg secondary school. Steinhaeuser then killed himself.
April 29, 2002
Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina
One teacher killed, one wounded by Dragoslav Petkovic, 17, who then killed himself.
October 28, 2002
Tucson, Ariz.
Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student at the nursing school at the University of Arizona, shot and killed three female professors and then himself.
April 14, 2003
New Orleans, La.
One 15-year-old killed, and three students wounded at John McDonogh High School by gunfire from four teenagers (none were students at the school). The motive was gang-related.
April 24, 2003
Red Lion, Pa.
James Sheets, 14, killed principal Eugene Segro of Red Lion Area Junior High School before killing himself.
Sept. 24, 2003
Cold Spring, Minn.
Two students are killed at Rocori High School by John Jason McLaughlin, 15.
Sept. 28, 2004
Carmen de Patagones, Argentina
Three students killed and 6 wounded by a 15-year-old Argentininan student in a town 620 miles south of Buenos Aires.
March 21, 2005
Red Lake, Minn.
Jeff Weise, 16, killed grandfather and companion, then arrived at school where he killed a teacher, a security guard, 5 students, and finally himself, leaving a total of 10 dead.
Nov. 8, 2005
Jacksboro, Tenn. One 15-year-old shot and killed an assistant principal at Campbell County High School and seriously wounded two other administrators.
Aug. 24, 2006
Essex, Vt.
Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend’s mother.
Sept. 13, 2006
Montreal, Canada
Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson College. Anastasia De Sousa, 18, died and more than a dozen students and faculty were wounded before Gill killed himself.
Sept. 27, 2006
Bailey, Colo.
Adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School and then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself.
Sept. 29, 2006
Cazenovia, Wis.
A 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal John Klang.
Oct. 3, 2006
Nickel Mines, Pa.
32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
Jan. 3, 2007
Tacoma, Wash.
Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in the hallway of Henry Foss High School.
April 16, 2007
Blacksburg, Va.
A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
Sept. 21, 2007
Dover, Del.
A Delaware State Univesity Freshman, Loyer D. Brandon, shot and wounded two other Freshman students on the University campus. Brandon is being charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless engagement, as well as a gun charge.
Oct. 10, 2007
Cleveland, Ohio
A 14-year-old student at a Cleveland high school, Asa H. Coon, shot and injured two students and two teachers before he shot and killed himself. The victims’ injuries were not life-threatening.
Nov. 7, 2007
Tuusula, Finland
An 18-year-old student in southern Finland shot and killed five boys, two girls, and the female principal at Jokela High School. At least 10 others were injured. The gunman shot himself and died from his wounds in the hospital.
Feb. 8, 2008
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
A nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.
Feb. 11, 2008
Memphis, Tennessee
A 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School shot and wounded a classmate in gym class.
Feb. 12, 2008
Oxnard, California
A 14-year-old boy shot a student at E.O. Green Junior High School causing the 15-year-old victim to be brain dead.
Feb. 14, 2008
DeKalb, Illinois
Gunman killed five students and then himself, and wounded 17 more when he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the university in 2007.
Sept. 23, 2008
Kauhajoki, Finland
A 20-year-old male student shot and killed at least nine students and himself at a vocational college in Kauhajok, 330km (205 miles) north of the capital, Helsinki.
Nov. 12, 2008
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
A 15-year-old female student was shot and killed by a classmate at at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.
March 11, 2009
Winnenden, Germany
Fifteen people were shot and killed at Albertville Technical High School in southwestern Germany by a 17-year-old boy who attended the same school.

Folks, I’m still up against the deadline of March 1 for “the book.” My biggest (and best) critic Big D has convinced me to go back and rewrite chapter eight. So, the heat is on! (Well, literally too because it is 17 degrees out this morning). My blog stats say that very few have read The War Less Travelled parts 1 and 2. Mind taking a look at those and leaving a comment? I would love to know what you think about the ideas discussed there and hear your responses. We’re in a safe place! Blessings and I hope to have a new post tomorrow. In the meantime, I can sure use your prayers. Peace.

Sometimes I really, really wish that I could put God’s name in my Google search slot and come up with some answers. You know the way you do when you can’t remember the name of a movie or you can’t remember which State some national monument is in. All you have to do is put in the name, or a close facsimile, in Google, hit search and tah dah…there’s your answer!

Man I wish God worked like that! I bet He’d get a lot of hits. For example, I broke my ankle recently. First time I have ever had a broken bone. And the shocking thing is I have really thick ankles. So it was a surprise that the thing could break. Anyway, I’m lying on the landing of our stairs (yeah, I fell down the stairs. I wish it could have broken during ice hockey or even soccer practice though I don’t play either of those sports) freaking out because of pain and because I can’t find my foot. The break was so creepy that my leg went one way and the foot went another–like a “warning: curve ahead” sign on the highway. I called out to my husband and he came running to see what was going on. His white, I-think-I-am-going-to-hurl face confirmed that we had a bad situation on our hands (or my feet I should say). Big D runs upstairs to call 911. I am sitting there on the landing feeling pain, freaking out and crying, “Jesus. Dear Jesus. Please help me. Help me Jesus.” And something unbelievable happens. The ankle pops back into place! Seriously. Then the pain stops. No pain. Big D comes back from the phone call and he looks again at the ankle. “What happened?” he asked. “I think Jesus put it back” I replied. We stared at each other and then the EMT guys showed up. Now, the EMT guys, Rick and Bob, didn’t see the ankle pre-”please help me Jesus” cry out so they look at the thing and are sure it’s just sprained. Big D, who is very calm and quite the steady sort, assures them that the ankle had indeed been heading south whilst the leg was heading west. I don’t think they believed us. Rick asks, “Did you set it?” “No. It just popped back into place” I answer. “Impossible,” says Rick. “You would have passed out.” Then Rick asks if there’s any pain (Bob meanwhile is staring at the stairs left to navigate and at my height and weight figuring there is no way on earth he’s gonna get me on that gurney and out to the ambulance; now he’s white and got the hurl face going on). “No. There’s no pain” I tell them. And off we go to the ER. Exciting times. First ride in an ambulance.

ER doctor asks, “Any pain?” “No.”

X-rays are ordered. A fracture is found. An orthopedic surgeon is consulted and away we go to the operating room. Fun stuff. Surgery goes well and then Dr. Surgeon tells me I’m off my foot for eight weeks. Eight weeks. Eight very long, very tough, very confusing weeks. Still no pain. Even after the surgery…no pain. When the orthopedic surgeon asked me who set the ankle I said, “I don’t know what your theology is, but Jesus put it back in place.” He smiled, more kindly than I had expected. He explained that he had 30 years of sports’ medicine experience and that he had seen plenty of rugged, big old boy athletes pass out when an ankle was set.

“But if you have the faith for that, who am I to complain?” His words moved round and round and round in my head for days–weeks actually.

“If you have the faith for that…” Okay, if Jesus was able to pop the sucker back in place, why didn’t he just go ahead and take the millisecond needed to heal the thing? If Jesus was kind enough to take away the pain (and believe me the pain was horrific), why didn’t he just go ahead and let me go back to normal? I needed to walk in August, September and even in October. I needed to be mobile. Let me explain.

For 25 years I have prayed, cried, worked toward and waited to enter North Korea. That’s right! The good ol’ Hermit Kingdom. I have been burdened for that nation since I looked across the Chinese/N. Korean border in 1983 and asked God to allow me to go there to live and work. Twenty-five years I have waited and prayed and cried and tried and finally, with ticket in hand, was schedule to fly to N. Korea on September 1. I was invited by the leaders of a new university there for the opening ceremonies scheduled for September 7. Instead, on September 7, I sat in a huge, brown, leather Lazy Boy recliner in my den with my leg elevated watching John LeCarre movies on DVD. (The university since called and said the opening ceremonies were postponed until November 27; still can’t go because doctor’s orders are no traveling for four months!) You know the old, trite expression, “I can’t seem to get a break?” Well, I got a break, just not the kind I was looking for. Because of the fall (mine, not Adam’s and Eve’s) I can’t go to N. Korea. Because of the Fall (theirs, not mine) a lot of crappy stuff happens that I don’t get; stuff I don’t understand; stuff that doesn’t make any sense and so I want to Google God and say, “What’s up with that?” But it’s not that easy and I guess this is where faith is supposed to come in. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen yada yada yada. I know I have to believe that God is a good God. I, by faith, have to trust what God says: All things are working for my good according to God’s purposes (Romans 8:28). Perhaps the Bible isn’t a search engine, it’s definitely not Google, but maybe there are some answers in that book. Answers like, “My ways are not your ways” (Isaiah 55:8). And “I know the plans that I have for you” (Jeremiah 29:11). And let’s not forget the all time favorite “God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). I guess it all boils down to either God said it or He didn’t. And if He said it, then as a follower of Christ I really should believe it. Right?

There are good people in this world, good Christian people, who are facing much more difficult circumstances than a broken ankle. Let’s be honest – this is not cancer. My ankle is not terminal and it will eventually heal. And hopefully, I will make it to N. Korea one day. If not, I’ll hang out with a bunch of N. Koreans in heaven and we’ll have delicious heaven-style kimchi at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. In the meantime though, there are good people, godly people, and yes some not so nice folks that have a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and are doing their level best to follow Jesus and yet they get a landfill full of crap dumped on them. Life can be so unfair and sometimes even cruel and one has to ask, “God where are You in all of this mess? Where are Your promises? Where is Your love for me in this hell hole?” I guess, especially without Google, we just have to hang on to what we know of God’s character (good, loving, kind, compassionate, full of grace, merciful, just, faithful) and trust. Trust that He is still near and that He still cares and that He has not forsaken us.

As the writer of Hebrews explains faith can mean having your loved ones raised from the dead or rejoicing even when being sawed in two. We are surrounded by those who have gone before us (the great cloud of witnesses) who by faith entered into Christ Jesus even in horrible and adverse circumstances. I guess I can hold on to, “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:12).

I’d like to know what was gained (besides a few pounds) from me sitting on my big bum for eight weeks. (I am still hobbling about and the doctor says my days as a runway model are over–no more high heels. Darn!) But what really matters is that I learn to walk by faith and not by sight. That I learn to trust God even when things don’t make sense. Because isn’t true faith, real faith, believing in something we may not see or feel? Isn’t it trusting God even though our circumstances scream to us that we cannot? C.S. Lewis writes in A Grief Observed, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” My pain wasn’t in my ankle, it was the excruciating pain of letting go of a dream, an opportunity, and now I feel a little stronger in the broken places. Peace.

I’m a total idiot. A spaz. I know that! I’ve always known that. So falling into the lake shouldn’t have been a complete surprise to me.

It was my third trip to Finland. I had made some really good friends there on my maiden voyage. People in the Christian community were so kind to me and took care of me whenever I passed through heading in or out of Russia. A sweet group there asked me to speak at their annual missions conference held every summer just outside of Helsinki in a Christian camp. I of course jumped at the opportunity and was thrilled they’d even ask me.

I got to the camp early. I was staying in the city because of other stuff I was working on. I got there about eight o’clock to check the place out and maybe bum a cup of coffee. I was scheduled to speak on China at ten. There was a huge group there. Bigger than I expected. They’d asked me to challenge the campers to consider China as a possible calling. My girlfriend Marja had shown me a book once about Finnish missionaries to China dating back as far as the early 1800s. I knew from that Finland was no stranger to China.

Praise and worship was to start around nine that morning. I got that cup of coffee and decided to walk around the big old lake near the camp. Finland has the most unusual landscape. Flat rocks slip into amber colored water. Even though it was summer, Finland was cold! I was wearing a new white blouse and a cotton navy skirt—very conservative, but so are the Finns.

Imagine me. Walking around the lake with the breeze blowing against my face. I looked up at the clear blue sky marveling at how great God’s creation was. (Birds were singing, the sun was shining much like a Snow White moment). I was walking along the banks of the lake when BAM! In a millisecond; in a flash, I slipped on a moss-covered rock and fell smack dab into the stinkin’ water! How’d that happen? You say, “Teri, how could that be?” Well, because I am a retard and that’s what happens to retards! The water was freezing cold and there was no one around. They were doing their Christian duty getting ready for the meeting. I tried to climb out of that stupid lake, but the moss on the rocks was so slick and slimy that I couldn’t get a grip. I struggled and struggled. I’d make progress and then slide right back down to where I started. I couldn’t touch bottom so I felt stuck—I couldn’t go down and I couldn’t go up. Somebody help that woman!

After several loooong minutes of struggling I finally swung my leg onto a rock and pushed myself up on the bank. I was exhausted, cold and well, a bit stunned! I took a moment to calm down and then I assessed the damages. My brand new white cotton blouse was completely covered with mucky muck. Brownish, greenish gunk covered me from my neck down to my ankles. Attractive. Very attractive. I was soaked and I was dirty…well…filthy. I had to speak in less than two hours. Yeah. Seriously.

Dripping wet and looking ridiculous I went around to the back of the building and came in through the kitchen. Finnish women of all ages were in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast dishes and starting lunch. When I walked in they all stopped what they were doing and literally sucked the air out of the room. They started shouting orders in Finnish (another language I don’t speak). Then they attacked me with dishtowels and dishcloths and handkerchiefs and spit and water and anything they could find. Unfortunately they didn’t make a dent.

The thing I love about Finns is that not one of them laughed and ya know I looked insane!

First order of business was finding me another blouse. The moss and mucky muck had completely ruined mine. The problem was my size. I am a big girl and none of those Finnish sisters were my size. Unless someone could sew a couple of blouses together, I was out of luck. Then one of the Finns remembered the old-maid missionary from England. Maybe she had something. We rushed up to her room and praise God she wasn’t as small as the others. She lent me a blouse that was about two sizes too small and I stretched that sucker until it finally did the job. I was scheduled to speak in about 45 minutes! What’s that smell? Oh, it’s me with stinky lake-fish-muck smell! Oh my word.

That morning with a too small blouse and a skirt smelling of old dead fish I shared the tremendous need in China. I told stories of everyday Chinese people who were disappointed by their government, disillusioned by communism, people looking for a new basis for hope. We had a time of prayer and then we all went to the cafeteria for lunch. I sat next to the British missionary lady who lent me the blouse. She had served most of her life in Finland.

For some in the Christian world, singleness is a scary thing. Corrie ten Boom (my all-time hero) used to say, “Some people choose singleness, others are born to it, and some have it thrust upon them against their wills. But regardless of how it comes about, God is able to give his children peace through it.”

Two questions I personally struggled with in my singleness were, “Who will take care of me when I am old? and Will I die alone?”

The blouse lender was 80 years old. She had a very quick mind (quicker than mine, but that’s not really saying a lot). She had one of those beautiful voices. You know, the kind you hear on Masterpiece Theater, or an Emma Thompson movie? We talked about her years of service in Finland and the unique peculiarities of serving the Finns. I found her fascinating.

“I have a question for you,” I leaned into her as if it was some kind of secret that only the two of us could know. ..

“Don’t you ever worry about old age? Like, who will take care of you and help if you have health problems?” I was dead serious and she burst out laughing right to my face! That’s not very British.

“Teri! I’m already old! What do you mean?” She smiled at me and patted my knee as if I was a little girl. “Let me tell you a story…” And Sister Margaret began telling me her story.

Sister Margaret Nelson became a missionary nurse at the age of 19. She spent some time in other countries but by her late 20s she felt a call to Finland. She worked hard to learn the very difficult language. Her ministry was to street people and drug addicts. She loved and cared deeply for the Finnish people. For nearly forty years she ministered there. Her family and friends urged her to return to England worried that she wouldn’t qualify for Britain’s form of social security. But Sister Margaret took it to the Lord and what He spoke to her carried her throughout her missionary life, “You focus on Me Margaret and concern yourself with the things I am concerned with and I will perfect the things concerning you.”

She paused and she looked me straight in the eye, “And well, Teri love, that has been my motto all my life.”

When Sister Margaret hit 65 her health failed her and she needed more and more medical attention. With great sorrow she returned to England. Because she hadn’t been paying into the system all those years, she had very little to draw from it. She read an ad in the London paper for a caretaker and companion for an elderly woman. Sister Margaret applied, and though the family was not thrilled with her age, they did like the fact she had medical training and she was cheap, uh I mean, inexpensive. She got the job.

The old woman she cared for lived on the outskirts of London in a beautiful old Victorian mansion. The family was very, very wealthy. However, the greed of the children and the bitterness of the old woman prompted all the family members to constantly remind Margaret that there would be nothing in it for her. “When I die you get nothing!” the old woman would say almost on a daily basis. The children and grandchildren had told Margaret early on that she better have her bags packed and her belongings together because the moment the old woman died, Margaret had less than 24 hours to be out of the house.

“Not the warmest environment I have ever worked in,” Margaret told me. The story was sad and cruel. It reminded me of a Charles Dickens’ tale.

After nearly 11 years of working for the old woman, the mistress of the house died, peacefully in her sleep. Margaret notified the family immediately and then began packing up her things. “ I was heading right out the front door when the barrister stopped me in the hallway. He said, ‘Miss Margaret, will you please come into the study?’” Margaret said she was scared to death. She was afraid the family was going to accuse her of stealing or breaking something. “I thought surely I was in a heap of trouble.”

All those hateful children were present and about half the spoiled grandkids were there. The barrister told Margaret to have a seat. Of course the family was furious at her presence and tried to give her the evil eye!

“It seems,” said the barrister, “your mother indeed did have a kind bone in her body despite what most of us believed. Last year I witnessed a revised version of your mother’s will. She decided to leave the house and its contents to Miss Margaret Nelson with enough sterling in the bank to cover taxes and insurance each year.”

“So,” goes Sister Margaret, “the will was quite solid and the old woman had added a clause that if any of the children tried to contest the will he or she would be immediately disinherited. So the house was mine, the furniture was mine and there was enough cash on account to cover my taxes and necessary insurance. A few months after the estate was settled my dearest friend from missionary training school came home from over 40 years in Africa. She had no place to go and no place to stay, so we took a little money and put a wall down the center of the house and made ourselves a duplex. We have a lovely vegetable garden in the back and we are as happy as two peas in a pod.

“You see dear Teri, when we focus on the things that concern Christ, He will perfect the things concerning us. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.’ God’s words are true and trustworthy. And don’t ever forget that Teri. Don’t ever forget that.” And I haven’t. Peace.

The Chinese government had a funny way of doing things back in the early 1980s when I first started teaching there. The Communist Party had a strict policy to protect its citizens from the invasion of foreign ideas and philosophies coming into the country through the massive influx of English teachers from the West. Their policy (loosely translated) was called “The Crackdown on Spiritual Pollution.” Christianity topped their list of biohazardous materials.

The policy dictated that foreign teachers meet with the Party Secretary of each campus every week to discuss the dos and don’ts of the “crackdown.” We were not permitted to wear nail polish; we could not wear bright clothing, like my favorite red sweater. We were not allowed to wear bluejeans. Foreign films were forbidden, unless prescreened and approved by top Party officials. And to ensure that we followed the regulations of not discussing democracy, religion or politics in the classroom, each class was given a monitor—the human kind. The monitor was someone that actually wanted to be in the class to learn English, but was also a person the Party could trust to report to them any hazardous use of materials. i.e. Christianity, democracy, human rights, etc.

The monitor’s job was to keep an eye on the wily foreign teachers, but, just as important, their job was to watch over the students and make sure they didn’t make any comments in class that would make China or its governing leaders look bad.

The first day of class Mr. Xu came up to me and introduced himself. “I Xu Yao Shi. I am class monitor.” He spoke the sentence with some difficulty. I could tell he had been practicing it for a while.

Mr. Xu was a little heavier than the average Chinese man. He was in his mid 30s, wore very thick horn-rimmed glasses and had kinky curly hair which he wore very short. All the male students wore Mao jackets and dark colored pants. Mr. Xu’s jacket was not the usual army green or navy. His was a dull gray.

One afternoon I was in my room reading when there was a gentle knock on the door. I opened the door to my small room and was surprised to see Mr. Xu standing there all alone. First of all, no students were allowed to visit the foreign teachers without a buddy. Secondly, the monitors never came by for a friendly visit. I thought I might be in trouble.

“Mr. Xu,” I said warmly, “Won’t you come in?”

He wouldn’t pass over the threshold. “I can only stay a moment Miss Teri,” he was struggling with the language.

“I have to stop coming to class and I am very sorry about it,” he was twisting his woolen cap in his hands.

“Mr. Xu,” I began, “why do you have to drop out of the class? Is there a problem?”

Even though he was the monitor, I really liked the guy. He was a gentle soul and always a help in class. He straightened up the room; cleaned the chalk board; made sure I had chalk each class period. These were really big things back then.

“It is my wife,” he said. “She is very ill. The doctor have found seven different cancer in her body. They told me she to die. So I must stay with her in special part of hospital just for dying.”

His face was ashen. His voice was soft and low. Without a doubt Mr. Xu’s marriage was one of love and not convenience as so many were in this mixed up place.

In Chinese hospitals at that time nursing care was unheard of. If someone had to be in the hospital, it was their family’s duty to take care of them. The family was required to provide the bed linens as well as all the patience’s meals.

The ward Mr. Xu was talking about was the ward for the terminally ill. His job would be to watch over his wife twenty-four hours a day, feeding her, bathing her, caring for her every need until she died. This was the Chinese way.

Mr. Xu said again how sorry he was to miss the class. He thanked me for being his “most excellent teacher.” As we stood there in the doorway of my little room I felt sorry for Mr. Xu. I felt sad that he was suffering this tragic blow. About that time a voice sounded off in my head, “Tell him you’ll pray for her. Go on, tell him!”

I wasn’t going to tell the Communist Party monitor that I would pray for his wife. I had two very good reasons: He would report me to the authorities and if she died he would be even more convinced that there is no God. Forget it.

Mr. Xu and I bowed to each other and shook hands. I expressed my condolences and offered my help if they needed anything. I watched him walk down the long concrete corridor of my building leaving my room and heading toward the foyer.

Then the voice shouted at me, “Tell him! Tell him you will pray for his wife!.”

“I can’t,” I argued under my breath. “You know I can’t and besides, what if she dies?”

Then, on an impulse stronger than fear or reason I shouted after Mr. Xu. My voice echoing and bouncing off the long concrete hallway walls, “Mr. Xu! Mr. Xu!” I shouted. He turned and looked back at me.

“I’ll be praying for your wife that God will heal her.”

He smiled and nodded the way an adult does when a child speaks of the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

I slipped back into my room and shut the door, I leaned against it. “You idiot!” I said out loud to myself. “Why did you have to add the healing part? Why didn’t you just leave it at ‘I’ll be praying for your wife’?!?”

I really beat myself up over that one.

The months passed and spring finally came to the city whose name is ironically Eternal Spring, although it snowed on May 1st that year. Classes wrapped up and I successfully completed my first year of teaching in China. With the summer break many of the foreigners decided to head home to pick up supplies, see family and get some R&R from the strain of living in a Third World country with a Communist government. I decided to join them.

Summer back home was fun. I asked all the women’s groups and churches where I spoke to please pray for Mr. Xu’s wife. Since the day he visited me I had kept my promise and habitually prayed for her healing. Now I was asking for good, strong backup. Many people across the U.S. were praying for Mr. Xu’s wife.

Summer faded and before long I was back in Changchun unloading my suitcases full of bounty. It was unusually warm for Changchun so I had my windows open and was giving the small room an airing. I jumped when I heard a loud pounding at my door. I opened the door and there stood Mr. Xu. He lunged toward me, closed the door and then he said to me, “Your God healed my wife!”

I was stunned. I was absolutely shocked out of my mind.

“What? Tell me what happened,” I said anxiously.

“After I left your room that day I went straight to the hospital and told my wife about your kind words, how you said that you would pray to your God to heal her.

“Soon she was feeling much better and within weeks the cancer was gone—completely gone. She is home. Doctors cannot explain to us why. We had a very good and active summer. She is stronger than ever and your God did it. Your God healed her. Now we want to believe in your God. How do we do that?”

Twelve months of praying, interceding, hoping for a convert in China and this was my first one. Mr. Xu and his wife were the only people I led to Christ my first year there. But what a miraculous conversion it was. Everything about them changed—their countenance, their conversations, their outlook on life—everything.

Mr. Xu was once again assigned to be my class monitor that fall. He gave me total freedom in the class. My students, most of them graduate students, were eager to discuss the deeper things of life and the hard issues. We had lively discussions; we put on plays and learned English songs. One afternoon after class Mr. Xu and his best friend Mr. Yang, also in that class, came to me and made an outrageous suggestion. They thought it would be a great idea to put on a Christmas play in December. They wanted to do the story of Jesus. Would I mind writing it?

“You see,” Mr. Xu stated his case, “Christmas is culture for Americans. We need to learn your culture. Also, if all the parts are in English, we can say it is a tool for learning the language. Last year one of the classes did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This might be considered by some as just another fairy tale put into play form.”

“Do you think it is safe?” I asked them both.

“Let us worry about that and you just take care of writing the play,” they responded. After all, Mr. Xu was the class monitor.

The gospel according to Luke was the best place to start. I wrote the play and made sure there was a part for each person in the class. The one Muslim student insisted on playing the Inn Keeper who refused Joseph and Mary a room. He was hilarious.

Mr. Xu and Mr. Yang wanted to be the shepherds and we all agreed that Mr.Wu, 4′ 11”, had to play Herald the Angel.

We had a Mary, a Joseph, shepherds, an angel, we had three wise men, an inn keeper and a narrator. Two weeks before the play was scheduled to be performed, someone showed up with a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white-skinned plastic baby doll and that was our baby Jesus.

The class really got into the idea of putting on the play. They made costumes and rehearsed and everyone memorized their parts—all taken from Holy Scripture.

One afternoon during rehearsal, in front of the entire class, the angel Mr. Wu announced that he believed in Jesus Christ as his Savior. I just stood there and looked at him. We all were shocked. Some even laughed nervously. “Why do you say that Mr. Wu?” I asked, trying to break the silence.

“Well I was thinking about the words I say in the play, ‘Fear not for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all people. For unto you this day in the city of Bethlehem a child is born, a Savior who is called Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward all men’.”

“I like those words and they made me feel something. So, I decided that I would receive the baby Jesus as a Savior and when I did His peace came to me. My wife did this also.”

What could I say? Mr. Xu and his wife had done the same thing months earlier. Mr. Yang was contemplating it, but hadn’t quite made up his mind.

“Well Mr. Wu, thank you so much for sharing that with us.” I patted him on the shoulder and we continued with rehearsal.

Mr. Wu and I got together several times later and discussed what it meant to accept the baby Jesus and I provided some discipleship materials for him and his wife.

On December 25 we had our opening night. Mr. Xu had asked permission to perform the play before the entire campus. The school had agreed believing it would be a good English language exercise for everyone.

The room was packed with old cadres, students, parents with children, grandparents, husbands and wives of the cast. We were all dressed up and the set looked beautiful.

Mr. Xu spoke to me and suggested that he give a brief introduction in Chinese to explain the story about Jesus so that those whose English wasn’t so good wouldn’t miss the really important message of the play. We agreed and he blew them away.

So there, in full shepherd’s costume, Mr. Xu eloquently explained to the audience the story of Christ’s birth. The play was a great success. Quite honestly, I think Mr. Wu came under the anointing as he said his part. His face literally shone and I “got a witness!”

Baby Jesus was laying there in the manger all wrapped up in a Chinese baby blanket and split pants. “Oh baby Jesus,” I prayed, “please come and visit this place the way you did 2,000 years ago. Please reveal yourself to these dear ones and their loved ones whom I care for so very much.” And I think he did.

The Christmas story has never quite been the same for me since that night.

Mr. Xu and his wife and son still follow that Star. I saw them a few years later on their way to the market, the three of them riding on the family bike. Mr. Xu driving, junior on the handlebars and Mrs. Xu balanced sidesaddle on the back fender. They glowed, all three of them. And I quietly thanked a trustworthy God for saying yes to the weak and feeble prayers I had offered up for Mrs. Xu’s healing all those years before. God truly does use the weak things of this world to confound the strong. Peace.

Sorry folks, here’s another rerun. Still focusing on the book. Here’s the blog I mentioned in The Love Shack posting. This might explain why I loved Young’s ideas so much. For those of you who follow Christ with a complete awareness of and security in God’s Abba Love, it doesn’t make much sense (Big D, BFF Margo). But here’s why The Shack ministered to me so powerfully. Thanks for taking time to read my blogs. It’s humbling to see that it is read.

All my life I have lived with a strong sense that God is always angry with me. I mean, mad at me. You know: ticked off. I struggled even being a Christian for the first half of my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God–I did. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the Bible–I did. It wasn’t that I didn’t love God–I did. It was just so hard to appease the God; to find favor with Him. At 21, I was blessed to have an incredible, supernatural experience with the Holy Spirit that changed my life forever. (And my family’s life as well). Call it what you want–Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Sanctification, being “Tim LaHaye” filled with the Spirit–all I know was that once I was blind and now I see. Through that experience I was able to believe that Jesus loved me. Jesus, my Savior, my King, my Beautiful Elder Brother, my Lord, my High Priest, my Advocate really loved me. No doubts. But God, well, that was a whole ‘nother matter.

The great theologian Lewis Smedes (1921-2002) in his autobiography My God and I shares how he lived his whole life believing that God was always angry with him. He writes so poignantly about his struggle to accept God’s love. His wife played a major role in his ability to believe in God’s grace. It was through her love for Smedes and her life with him that Smedes accepted “by faith” that God really did love him. She was the evidence in his life that only a loving and accepting God would give him such a gift as her.

Mother Teresa struggled greatly with the idea that God hated her. In the book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light in which her letters are published, she writes, “Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of Your love–and now become as the most hated one–the one You have thrown away as unwanted…unloved. I call, I cling, I want and there is no One to answer–no One on Whom I can cling. No, no One. Alone. The darkness is so dark and I am alone. Unwanted, forsaken. The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable…I trust that all (the pain, the loneliness, the suffering) will end in Heaven with Jesus” (p. 187). The book states that Mother Teresa suffered this pain and rejection from 1948 until her death in 1997. She loved. She smiled. She ministered. She served. She spoke with fervent passion and conviction and all the while she suffered with this feeling of isolation and rejection from her Heavenly Father. That to me seems like a tremendous weight to bear.

Of course, I can’t leave out St. John of the Cross. You know, the 16th century Spanish priest who wrote The Dark Night of the Soul? St. John of the Cross explained the dark night as a time when prayer is extremely difficult; a sense that God has abandoned the Believer. But he said that it was a blessing in disguise teaching the follower of Christ to walk by faith, not by the senses. SJC believed the dark night of the soul was a type of “purification of the senses.” Though I cannot imagine Mother Teresa needing such a purification.

In my own life the feeling that God is angry at me also manifests itself in the strong sense that God just doesn’t like me. Does it stem from my Mom’s constant proclamation, “I will always love you Teri, but I don’t have to like you”? Did Smedes struggle with father issues in his childhood? Surely not Mother Teresa. I think it is greater and goes deeper than some hidden away psychosomatic issues about childhood and parental mistakes. I think it relates to what CS Lewis calls “the weight of glory.” Some of us, for whatever reasons, struggle with God’s acceptance and love for us. Some of us who follow Christ struggle with a real sense of God’s approval of us. Not because of some sin in our past, or because we don’t feel worthy, but because we are incapable of it. Maybe this is the thorn in the flesh God Himself has chosen for us to bear. Perhaps this is the weight we carry so that we do walk by faith and not by sight. Perhaps this weight keeps us broken and prevents us from straying from the Shepherd.

In CS Lewis’s sermon (June 8, 1942, Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford) titled “The Weight of Glory” he refers to the parable found in Matthew 25. Lewis said, “Glory suggests…approval by God…I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant’…And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him Whom she was created to please…With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever…”

I look forward to the day when I see my Heavenly Father and I look upon His face and see perfectly well His love and acceptance of me. My heart is anchored to heaven as a result of the weight I carry knowing that one day in just one moment I will, along with so many others, most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made me to be and by faith I will hear those words of approval, “Well done thou good and faithful servant…enter into the joy of your Master.” Peace.