Are you still praying for Afghanistan?

It was easy to remember to pray for Afghanistan when it was on every news headline. When there were pictures of cargo planes crammed full of refugees, stories of those desperately trying to flee the country and a looming deadline, we prayed.

Afghanistan doesn't make the headlines every day now. The Taliban takeover is not breaking news. 

The situation in Afghanistan is still heartbreaking though. Maybe even more so now, with news reports of families selling their children to buy food.

Are we still praying?

Wonder, not boredom

In our house, Wednesday is nature group day. At the start of September, I launched a nature group for home educated children, in conjunction with our church. Every week a group of us meet in a large park (large by British standards of maintained parks, at least) for a nature walk, story time and activities linked to a weekly theme. When the weather is particularly bad, we hurry down the road to the church hall into the dry. The vast majority of those who come would not describe themselves as having a personal faith in Jesus or regularly attend church so I hope it will be a low-pressure way to just get people comfortable stepping into the church.

We've wandered around the park eight times now. Occasionally we'll venture into some open access public land at the bottom of the park but our routes are familiar enough that the children who come regularly can usually predict where we'll go next. I try to mix it up some weeks and start off in a different direction but there are only so many paths in the park so sooner or later we end up on one of our usual paths. 

After the first few weeks, I was worried that the children coming would get bored. Familiarity would breed contempt and they would just want to go somewhere new. But just a couple of months in and I see that the opposite is true. We might be treading the same paths in the same park but every week there's something new to see as we watch the seasons change in the park, from summer through autumn and now entering winter.

I'm more enthusiastic than knowledgeable about nature so every week sees me researching and learning about that week's subject. I hadn't really been particularly looking forward to last week's fungi topic and this week's mosses and lichen. But I read a bit about fungi and last week we peered into undergrowth and poked around decomposing logs and I was amazed at just how many varieties and the sheer quantity of fungi that we found. I'd just never really been looking for them before.

This week we didn't need to hunt down at the ground because the moss and lichen was right in front of us on the trees - and even lichen growing on metal. We meandered through the park and I marvelled at all the moss and lichen that I'd never really noticed before. In fact, I had wondered beforehand if we'd even find a particular type of lichen, convinced that I hadn't seen it before in the park. There were so many trees covered with this type of lichen I couldn't help but laugh at myself. I'd just not been looking closely enough before.

As we walk many of the same paths each week, I'm starting to build up a mental map of the park. I know where we can find a whole collection of ferns and where the horse chestnut trees are and the pine trees. I checked today the small patch of ground where I was astonished to find the famous red-with-white-spots fly agaric fungi last week, to see if they were still there (they were). I know that if I'm lucky, I'll find frogs in the fountain at the right time of year and that the wildflowers bloom longer than I expected and the leaves change colour later. And it's only November. I wondered if the children (and adults) would get bored in the park and now I'm starting to see that there's so much to explore, so much that I don't even know that I don't know. I'm not asking if there's enough to keep a group of children interested now, I'm wondering how we'll ever fit in everything I want to cover. There's so much to wonder at.

I hope my knowledge and experience of, and relationship with, God is like that park. After being a Christian for a number of years, it's easy to think that maybe the familiarity of the Christian life is just a bit boring. I've trodden the paths of listening to a sermon at church each week, reading the Bible, praying and taking communion for a while (although nowhere near as many years as others) and there's a risk that I might think that I've been here many times before and there's nothing new to see. 

But I want to watch in awe as the passing seasons and years reveal the never-changing God from slightly different angles. I want to learn more about God by digging around in the undergrowth of the doctrines that I hold firmly to in order to find the things I'd never paid much attention to before. I want to learn more about God by lifting up my eyes and realising that there's so much in plain sight that I'd never thought to look for before. I want to see that same landscape in all the different weathers, to see that the core truths of the faith are just as solid and real in the foggy weather of doubt as they are in the blazing sunshine of God's clear and unmistakeable answers to prayer. I want to walk those means of grace again and again knowing that the paths may be the same but there is always more to understand, more to see, more to experience. More to wonder at, more to thank God for, more to turn into praise.

God moves in straightforward and mysterious ways

I spent many evenings sitting at our white IKEA dining table in our small flat in Istanbul completing my homework from that morning ready for my Turkish class the next day. I spent a lot of time listening to the audiobook of the Turkish translation of 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' on half speed while following along with a physical copy, trying to get my brain accustomed to hearing and understanding Turkish and pausing to look up words I didn't understand. I did my Turkish vocabulary flashcards on my phone and sometimes I even did them in the middle of the night while feeding the baby (although other times I scrolled through social media).

As we invested hundreds and hundreds of hours in learning Turkish, we didn't know which city we'd move to. We knew that we wanted to be working alongside a local church but we didn't know what exactly that would look like. But we knew we needed to speak decent Turkish. I imagined sitting on a sofa with a Turkish friend, sipping sweet, black tea and eating cookies, talking about the Gospel while our children played together. Or being able to understand a Bible study and contribute meaningfully without having to mentally rehearse exactly what I'd say. Maybe, if my Turkish got good enough, I'd be able to share at a ladies' meeting or do baptism lessons with a new believer.

Sometimes God moves in straightforward ways. I got to do those things in the city we lived in. Thanks to God, my Turkish was good enough, although it never felt good enough. And many, many times the ladies were gracious enough to overlook my grammatical errors, foreign accent and sudden realisation that I couldn't remember the vocabulary for a critical word.

In that city I met someone who would become a good friend. We met up regularly in parks for our children to play together and so we could chat. While I lived there, she was the non-Christian that I had the most Gospel opportunities with. One time our conversation turned to salvation and how we earn the right to enter heaven. I explained that the Bible teaches that we cannot earn our ticket to heaven through good works but salvation is only through trusting Jesus and his death on the cross. That both a murderer and the 'average' person who tries to do good things deserve God's punishment. That the worst sinner who puts their faith in Jesus on their last day on earth will go to heaven. And I knew she grasped it because her response spilled out immediately: "but that's not fair!"

That friend and I spoke English together. She was from another Central Asian country and her English was better than her Turkish. Hours upon hours of Turkish study and while I lived in Turkey, I got my clearest Gospel opportunities in English. That wasn't the type of opportunity I imagined when I was learning grammar and memorising vocabulary. Sometimes God moves in mysterious ways. 

Earlier this week I sat with eight other people around a couple of tables pushed together in our church hall for our church's monthly prayer meeting. Two of those there were Iranian, still in the early-ish stages of learning English. The person who usually acts as the church's Farsi-English translator was not there but I was there and the Iranians who were there understand Turkish better than they do English. So in line with our church's general language and translation philosophy of 'do the best you can with who is there', as the prayer points were shared, I translated them into Turkish, so that everyone in the meeting could join together in praying in as informed a way as possible. There were plenty of grammatical errors, vocabulary that disappeared out of my head as I reached for it and at least a couple of words and concepts I had no idea how to translate (though in my defence, we didn't exactly need to know how to pray about the distribution of church leaflets and for the church to have greater presence in the community in the conservative Turkish city that we lived in). 

In all the hours I spent learning Turkish, I never once imagined that I'd find myself using it in the UK with Iranians. I never imagined we'd be back in the UK after only spending five years in Turkey either. God moves in mysterious ways. 

It's easy to praise God when he works in the straightforward ways, when I can draw a straight line between effort and results, when I can see God's fingerprints over an outcome so obviously. But when the Lord takes my efforts, often feeble as they are and entirely enabled by him, and turns my plans, those plans I carefully constructed with good intentions and a true desire to see God glorified, upside down and inside out, will I still praise him? Will I give in to the temptation to believe the lie that my plans would have been better? Or will I humbly acknowledge that I am only human and that the plans of the eternal, all-knowing God, who loved me when I didn't deserve it, are infinitely better than anything I could dream up? Will I marvel at how God takes my ideas and experiences and investments of time and energy and hopes and dreams and does something so unexpected with them that my right and only response is to worship him?

Praise God that he moves in straightforward and mysterious ways.

Let's pray for Afghanistan

 This morning I read that the Taliban had taken Kabul and I read Psalm 24. 

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it;"

Yes, on the level of earthly political powers and military forces, Afghanistan is under Taliban control. But really, Afghanistan is the Lord's and everything in it, the whole country, and all who live in it.

There's reassurance in that verse. Afghanistan and every other country has always been the Lord's, and always will be. God is king of the world and the speed of the Taliban offensive did not take him by surprise.

It's also an unsettling verse. The believers in Afghanistan are in even greater physical danger now. From the comfort of the West, we long to see our brothers and sisters in Christ free from persecution. And yet at the back of our minds is the nagging thought that if the sovereign Lord's plan includes his Afghan children living under Taliban rule, after all the hardships that Afghans have already been facing, what might his plan for us involve?

It's a deeply sad verse. Afghanistan belongs to the Lord and he is rightfully due the worship of the people of Afghanistan. It has a population of over 39 million people and an estimated evangelical Christian population of 0.02% (source). There are millions of people living in Afghanistan who do not know Christ, who think Jesus was just a human prophet.

It's a hopeful verse. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Every country of the world, including Afghanistan, and every person. And one day people from every tribe, tongue and nation will worship at the throne of the Lamb, and that includes the Afghan, Pashtun, Hazara and other peoples of Afghanistan. The earth is the Lord's so there is hope for Afghanistan.

Let's pray for Afghanistan.

Changing our model of ministry

 A few months ago, we relocated from Turkey back to the UK. We will be continuing to work alongside a local church in Turkey, but it will be through a model of in-person visits and remote work (i.e. Zoom). The plan is that going forward, and once COVID restrictions have eased, we will make one long annual visit to the city we used to live in as a family and my husband will make more regular shorter trips. We’ll do work such as discipleship lessons via video chat while in the UK and in-person when we visit.

Why are we doing this? Living in one country and visiting another for ministry purposes is, in many ways, not ideal. Wouldn’t it be better to accept that God has closed this door for us and move on?

Here’s a few reasons why:

Our local pastor asked us to

When we, in conjunction with our local Turkish church pastor, our sending church and our organisation, came to the reluctant conclusion that there was no good way for us to stay in our city long term, our local pastor pointed out that relatively speaking, the UK is not so far away from Turkey. He asked us if we’d relocate to the UK and come back and visit for ministry purposes. Cross-cultural workers foisting their own ideas onto a situation where there is already a local, Bible-believing church with its own leadership with no regard for the church or leadership is not respectful or helpful. But the flip side is that when our local church pastor asks us to do something, we need to think seriously about it.

It is possible

In some ways, it’s not possible to know how realistic something is until you try it. But we’ve talked with our sending church and organisation and we all think it can work. The time difference isn’t too big, plane tickets aren’t too expensive, visas are not required and we speak the language. My husband will be making many of the visits by himself (once travel restrictions ease up) and we think our location and situation will allow us to manage that strain and impact on our family. Home educating our children makes a longer annual visit as a family possible.

It will (hopefully) be useful

Ironically, we will actually have more time to spend with our local Turkish church as visitors than we did living in that city, with my husband working nearly full-time to get a work permit for us to be able to live there. With non-Christians regularly getting in touch or turning up to the church building because they want to investigate Christianity, start reading the Bible or even become a Christian and start baptism lessons, there is plenty that can be done on visits and some of it can be continued via calls/video chat from the UK.

Our local church is the only Turkish church in the city of 1.5 million but more than that, there are no churches in the neighbouring cities 2-3 hours drive away. The church doesn’t currently have much manpower to visit isolated (mostly male) believers in those cities but the hope is that my husband will be able to visit some of those men in person when he’s in the country and be in contact via calls/video chat when he’s in the UK.

And the critical factor in this is that we already have the relationships with the church, having lived there for three years. In the Turkish culture, relationships are absolutely crucial and they take time. We know the church and they know us. Our pastor trusts us. We can visit and encourage church members and provide pastoral support as necessary.

Why not?

It is the Lord’s harvest and at the same time it is our privilege as God’s children to be involved in the great task of taking the Gospel to the nations. There are countries which, after a period of openness, are getting harder to get into again. It’s not a ‘traditional’ model of cross-cultural work, but new challenges of access and new opportunities through technology demand different solutions. There’s a little church in a big city with a faithful pastor in a country that desperately needs the Gospel and they’ve asked us to come and help in this way. Why wouldn’t we try and say yes to them?

Come

In a couple of months we will relocate back to the UK and continue ministry here through visits and working remotely. We will have completed five years of overseas service. So few years compared to the years we had hoped and planned to spend living here and yet deeply significant years. It's no exaggeration to say that we're not the people we were when we came.

As I've been reflecting on our time here, I've wondered what I would have said to myself five, six, seven years ago when we were thinking and talking and dreaming and praying about serving God overseas. And what would I say to someone in a similar position now?

This is what I would say:

Come.

Come, even though it will be harder and more humbling than you could ever imagine. Come, knowing that there will be days that you feel so lonely, so worn out, so inadequate. You will cry, you will wonder how you will keep going, you will feel homesick, you will miss family and friends. You will try your hardest to fit into a culture where you'll always stand out as the foreigner and then find that you've left a piece of yourself here so that you don't fit so easily into your passport culture any more.

Come, and you will change. You'll be thrown so far out of your depth that you can do nothing but cling to Christ. You'll find that when you feel lonely and misunderstood by those around you and those back in your passport country, you can spill out your words to Jesus and he will truly understand you. You'll trust in God's sovereignty like you never have before because you see the reality of how not-in-control you are of your life. You'll find you are weaker than you ever supposed but Christ is stronger than you ever imagined.

Come, and you'll make friends with people from other cultures, eat new foods, learn a new language, explore a new country and rejoice in the diversity of God's creation. Come, and learn a little more about what it means to have citizenship in heaven and to long for our true home.

Come, one sent by and with the support of your church 'back home', because the church is the bride of Christ and God's means of advancing his kingdom on earth. And because you are going to need the support of your church family. Come, listening to the advice both of older believers who know you well and of those who've been out on the field a long time, because you know less than you think you do and there are so many things that you don't know that you don't know. Come, in partnership with the local church and believers where you'll be serving. There's nothing worse than foreigners who turn up and think that they know better than mature, respected local pastors.

Come, because although it might feel safer to stay home, you are safe with God. Come, even though you will see how deeply rooted the tendrils of pride and self-dependence are rooted in you. Come, knowing you are weak and not up to it, because God delights in using weak people and his grace is sufficient.

Come, because there are millions of people here who have never truly heard and understood the Gospel and the consequences are eternal. Come and know that results are not guaranteed because it is God who saves. But you may see lives changed and people saved and God might even use you - yes, you - as a means of accomplishing his work.

Come, even though people will disappoint you and hurt you and oppose you and you will invest so much only to see people walk away, because Jesus will look even more beautiful then.

Come, because the work is not yet done and the harvest field is ripe. Come, because God is at work and it is our privilege to be part of it. Come, because Jesus is worth it.

Life in a goldfish bowl

"We've seen you around here. You live in that building, in that apartment don't you?" 

We're outside on the grass that sits squashed between the mosque and the back of our apartment building. I've carefully chosen this time in the afternoon so that my children are not running around pretending to be knights and sword-fighting with sticks while on of the daily prayer times is going on. Three women have crossed over the street to talk to me from the apartment building opposite. A young woman, her mother and a grandmother. The grandmother leans on her granddaughter's arm. 

"We've see you out on your balcony. Your children are so sweet. We've seen how your husband plays with the children too, how much you both love them," one of them continues. The grandmother had wanted to come and say hello in person. I nod and smile and say something politely back to them, mentally noting that our balcony is under observation.

Another day, we're in a park with friends. A Turkish lady I don't know is talking to my friend. My friend tells me later that I'm apparently well known enough in the area that this Turkish lady, who I've never talked before, used me and the building where I live as a landmark to explain where her shop is located. 

Before we lived in this city, I read about some European workers living in China in the 1800s. They had to get used to curious faces looking in at the window, watching what they were doing and commenting among themselves on the actions of the strange white Westerners. I thought to myself then that I was glad I didn't live in a goldfish bowl. Imagine how discomfiting it would be to feel like you are constantly on display. 

I remember living in Istanbul and consciously thinking that there were enough foreigners that we didn't stand out too much. Walking down the street, we didn't blend in with the Turks but it wasn't unusual to go to a children's play area in the part of the city we lived in and hear other people speaking English.

Now we live in central Turkey, in a tall apartment block surrounded by other tall apartment blocks. We don't live in as small a goldfish bowl as those workers in China did. There are no wondering faces pressed up against the glass here. That's one benefit of living in a second floor apartment. They're just looking out of their windows, across 10 metres and into our windows instead.

We live in a large goldfish bowl. In a city where there are very few Westerners, it's easy to stand out. With three small boys, closer in age than Turkish children often are and all with varying shades of light-coloured hair, we stand out a mile. We walk down the street and I know that people are looking at us. Some of the elderly men say maşallah, maşallah approvingly as I pass, a throwback to the old agricultural economy which prized boys. I hear murmurs of çok tatlı (they're very sweet) from others about the children. Somebody stops me outside the small supermarket to say hello because they've seen me in the park with the children before.

Some days, I love living in such a friendly and sociable community. I know that I'm challenging some of their preconceptions about how Christians (because all Westerners are considered Christians by most people here) dress and act and speak. I hope that helps break down barriers for the Gospel, or at least raises a question in their minds. Other days I long for anonymity, to not be watched and talked about and commented on.

The truth is, though, all of us live in a goldfish bowl. No matter what country we live in, our family, friends, colleagues and neighbours are watching how we live. They may not tell us that we're under observation quite as bluntly as my Turkish neighbours do. But they're taking note of us. Of whether we practise what we preach, of whether our claim to follow Christ truly impacts how we live. 

And when we close the curtains and shut the door, it is tempting to think that we've managed to gain some privacy. It's all too easy to forget, though, that the sovereign God is watching. The drawn curtains might give us some privacy from the neighbours but every part of our lives is on display to God. God - mighty, merciful and unimaginably holy - sees my every thought, my every word, my every deed. 

My family is highly visible in our community. That's just part of life here and it regularly, rightly, gives me pause for thought. But how much more should I pause to think about the whole of my life being visible before God.