THE POWER OF DISCOURAGEMENT

Back in 1980, our family was preparing to go as missionaries to what was then called Zaire (now DR Congo).  I was leaving many ministries in which I had been involved in the US, some of them in our local church.  I had put my whole heart into those ministries.  Now that we were leaving, I had been praying about what I might do to help my local church in a longer term way—something I might do now that would still help while we were in Africa.  I had done some teacher training for the church, so one idea I had was to make tape recordings of my ideas for different areas of ministry.  Those who came after me could learn from the recordings.

I was quite enthusiastic about the project.  During Junior church one week, my helper taught the memory verse.  I felt I had a lot of ideas that could help her, so I made my first recording on teaching the memory verse.  It was designed to be part motivation and part instruction.  I gave her the recording.  The next week I was very gratified at how much more engaging the memory teaching was.

The subject came up with a friend who was related to the memory helper, and I mentioned how helpful the tape had been.  Right away she snapped, “Did she tell you that?”  I stared at her with my mouth open.  I was confused.  My helper had obviously done a much better job, so I had assumed that the tape had been helpful.

“She doesn’t want to have to be listening to all that just to teach the memory verse,” my friend explained.  It’s too much.

Her words stung.  Had I been presumptuous to think that I had some ideas that other teachers might want to hear?  Did God want to humble me to that I would not go to the mission field feeling I had all the answers?  Was the recording just a little too long?  Had I mistaken God’s voice entirely in telling me to make the tapes?  I still don’t know, but I never made another recording, nor did I ever again loan out the first one I had made.  In fact I entirely gave up the idea of doing something before I left that might help my local church after I was in Africa.  As I look back on the incident, the only thing I am sure of is that it taught me the power of a discouraging word.  It showed me how quickly a single discouraging comment can bring a project to nothing.

Fortunately, it was many, many years before I again was the recipient of such discouraging words.  Thank the Lord, in the meantime, many people spoke positive, encouraging words into my life.

The experience left one thing with me very profoundly:  Whether other people’s attempts at ministry are all they should be or not, I want to be an encourager and not a discourager.

 

 

A Little Child Shall Lead Them--in the ABC's, too

I was incredibly encouraged by my visit to ECM's team of Americans and Ugandan nationals working in the Gulu District. I visited our sponsorship program in the Tegot village (formerly called an IDP camp, but the government now wants to call it a village in keeping with its policy of encouraging people to return to their home areas).



My job, besides seeing how the team was working together, was to visit with the guardians of the children in our sponsorship program. Only a very few have living parents. Most of the parents were killed in the war with the LRA or died of AIDS spread in the war. Many of the kids live with a very old grandmother.



I was supposed to encourage the parent figures in the kids' lives, but they did so much to encourage me! One of them was thrilled that her little grandchildren are coming home and showing her what they learned in school. She herself was never able to attend school at all because the war brought education to a standstill for two generations. Now her grandchildren come with their papers and say "Look, grandma. Today we learned the letter b. See, this is what it looks like. This is what it sounds like: bbbbb. This is how you write it. Look, Grandma."

Encouraged by one albino child

Our mission agency, Every Child Ministries, is in the midst of starting a new project to help albino children in Africa. The project is still in the preparation stages, but I was really encouraged that we have already helped one. A worker with another NGO (non-governmental organization) in Africa saw our ad asking for sunglasses to help the children because their eyes are super-sensitive to light. She had observed an albino child in one of their programs who always went around with his head down, but she didn't have a guess as to why he did this. When she read our ad about albino children, she immediately recognized his problem. Soon, he will have sunglasses to allow him to raise his head, and will come to our party for albino children. It will be his first chance to know that there are other children in the world who look like him.



Since this worker wrote, I've thought often of this child, and the whole scenario has been a special encouragement to me. I'm not sure why this one is so meaningful. ECM has helped hundreds of thousands of children, and I've listened to some of the worst horror stories possible and hugged some pretty undesirable looking kids. I've seen so much abysmal poverty and misery I can't even begin to describe it. Several times in my work I feel I have lifted the lid off of Hell itself and peered in to its awful pit. But I was encouraged by this one child. Maybe it's because he was a "bonus". We hadn't begun the program yet, but already the preparations had helped a child. I thought a lot about what it would be like to have a condition that no one understood--not even aid workers who were trying to help. That child must have felt pretty much alone. I pray that our explanation of his condition and our simple suggestions for helping him will REALLY help him to feel God's love. Thank you, Lord, for these little tokens of Your care for EVERY CHILD.



Learn more about albinism or albino children on our website at www.ecmafrica.org/albino.