Telling or Displaying the Gospel

Back in February this year Brooke and I were able to attend the South African Missionsfest held in a massive Dutch Reformed Church just outside Pretoria, SA. The founder and CEO of our NGO Hands at Work was a speaker there. It was an amazing opportunity to hear him speak to the church. He was also asked to contribute an article for the program guide. The following is that article.

"He has told you, ow man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Earlier this year I was working close to the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border when I met Tamara. She was not home at first, and while we waited for her, curious neighbors began to gather around us. Eventually a young girl, out of breath and sweating profusely, came walking up to us. I could see her surprise at finding a white man sitting in front of her humble little house. I could also see immediately she was sick, and it didn't take me long to guess at the cause. I have seen too many young girls dying of AIDS. She was eighteen years old.

Our conversation began with this and that (the real African way). Many in the community knew Tamara and her difficult history. Tamara was an illegal immigrant in Mozambique. She and her parents had fled from Zimbabwe to Mozambique, and she ended up being the only survivor. As I listened, I could not believe this was happening to a child of eighteen: a refugee in a foreign country, dying, slowly, without a single person caring for her.

I looked at this smiling girl, and I thought to myself, "the worst is yet to come for you, young girl." So I asked her, "If I could take one problem from your life, what would it be?" Immediately, she wept. But she pulled herself together, and her quiet answer surprised me. "Please, please," she said, "find me another house to stay in." The request seemed strange, but slowly she shared more, and I came to understand that though this little home was clean, she was being abused daily by the others in that place. Listening to her story hurt badly. I couldn't sleep that night, thinking of the pain Tamara had gone through alone. I wrestled with my faith. As a Christian, I was embarrassed to think of all the churches within walking distance of Tamara.

Feeling very vulnerable myself, I prayed that night. "O God," I said, "Please don't come back yet...we have not displayed Your Son. We have failed you! I have failed you! I know we failed Tamara and her community. Today the whole community watched us, what an opportunity it was to display your beloved Son!"

When I think of that night now, my mind wanders also to the old grandmother I met in Malawi late one afternoon as she returned from the fields with a baby on her back. I was with a group of local pastors speaking to these grannies. It went well, I thought. Until I asked the question that ripped the air open. "Tell me about the Church," I asked. Immediately, the old granny stood and, softly, said a single word: "useless."

I responded with surprise. "Why would you say that of the Church?" I asked. And I still remember the voice in which she answered, such a shaky voice, yet somehow firm. She pointed to the pastors, but spoke to us all. "All they will do is come to us, carrying their Bibles, saying, 'If you don't pray and read your Bible, you will to to hell.' We can't go to hell! We are already in hell!" We left that day in silence. "Oh Jesus," I thought to myself, "Have mercy on us." I was awake for another night of wrestling.

Four years earlier I had sat with five thousand others at the African AIDS Conference in Dar es Salaam listening to international statesmen speaking on the AIDS pandemic. Each of them, without exception, including Peter Piot and the UN's Stephen Lewis, spoke the same message to the Church: "You are the agent able to save Africa from this. People look up to you. Tell them to care for the dying, for the orphans. Tell them not to judge the infected."

Sitting in that crowd, tears rolled unashamedly down my cheeks. The World was standing on an international stage pleading, begging us to simply practice what we preach. Thinking of Jesus with the leprosy-filled man, with the tax collector, the adulterous woman, the criminal on the cross, I wondered how we got this far from the truth?

When I think about the work of the church, I can't help but think also about Tamara, about the old grandmother. What will it take for us to have true revelation of the Father's heart? God's throne is built upon Righteousness and Justice. Righteousness is our relationship with God, and the work of this was done by Jesus who brought us our salvation. Justice is our relationship with our neighbors, and this is where we show the world that we understand the grace Jesus had on us, that while we were still sinners, He died for us. Only if we truly understand and make this truth our own can we live lives of justice. As Isaiah the prophet call it: "Spending yourself on behalf of the poor."

The first step of love is wanting for others exactly what you want for yourself. I have come to the conclusion that it is easy to tell others about Jesus' love, but much harder to display that love to our neighbors. Yet it is what we must do.

Hands at work in Africa is striving to reach 100 000 orphans and vulnerable children by 2010 through our community-based projects across southern Africa. We believe that each vulnerable child is God's child, and as part of the body that makes the vulnerable child our responsibility.

George Snyman

Hands at Work in Africa