Speaking at Church

My gut clenches, sweat beads on my upper lip, my mind races is twelve different directions, my mouth goes dry, and my hands shake—why?  Because I’m speaking at my church this evening.  And it’s not because anybody has twisted my arm—I want to do this.  When I’m in the US, I want to speak as often as possible to anyone who will listen about Europe as a mission field.  But I’ve always had a fear of public speaking, and even though it usually goes really well, and the audience is very sympathetic and supportive, that fear is lurking just out of sight, ready to make my voice crack or make me forget what I was going to say.

Fear of speaking in public is one of the most common fears around.  Most of us would rather face a roaring lion, armed with nothing but a Twinkie than speak in front of an audience.  But like I said, I want to do this.  Facing-down this fear is the measure of how strong my calling is for Europe.  If I didn’t do this, I would feel like I had abandoned my calling.

Europe is the forgotten mission field.  A professor of foreign missions at Abilene Christian University told me that he asks his students at the beginning of the semester what is the mission field with the most need.  They invariably answer Africa.  Then after he has demonstrated to them that Africa is far more Christian than Europe, he will ask them again, and many times the answer is still Africa.  The economic need tugs at their heartstrings, even though Europe is in far worse need spiritually.  Operation World calls Europe by far the “most secular, least Christian” continent on earth (pg. 79).  Europe also has the most un-reached people groups of any region in the whole world—including the Middle East.  Africa is now sending missionaries to Europe.

• Slavery – Human trafficking is epidemic in Europe because the relaxed borders have made it easier to transport people from Eastern Europe (primarily Ukraine, Czech Republic, Moldova, and Romania) to Western Europe (Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany).
• Poverty – People think of Europe as a rich peoples’ playground.  And it’s true that rich people do vacation in Europe, but the average European makes far less money than the average American, and lives a simpler life.  Furthermore, the third world exists throughout Europe at the edge of every city: in gypsy camps of staggering poverty.  The gypsy children live in shockingly unsanitary conditions.  Many gypsy children are denied an education due to their nomadic family life.  Gypsy children are expected to bring money back to the patriarchs, the grandparents.  They beg, steal, or work as prostitutes to bring money back to the family, and if they fail to bring back money or to bring back enough money, they are beaten.  Sometimes their legs are broken and set in crazy ways that will turn your stomach.  Sometimes their legs are cut off—giving them more sympathetic appeal.   Many gypsy children are sold to sex traffickers or organ traffickers.
• Homelessness – Homelessness is a huge problem.  Budapest has an estimated 30,000 homeless people.  I saw lots of homeless people when I was there, and the homeless of Budapest are unlike homeless people I’ve ever seen anywhere else.  There are so many of them that they have simply lost all hope.  They don’t even ask for money, they just curl up in doorways and in the subway entrances.  (This is all recounted in my book, Look, Listen, Love.)
• Suicide – Suicide is rampant throughout Europe, especially in the current economic climate.  Fourteen of the top twenty countries with the highest suicide rates are in Europe.  Switzerland legalized suicide in 1941, and under Swiss law, you do not have to have a lethal diagnosis to ask for physician-assisted suicide; you don’t even have to be Swiss!  That means that if someone is depressed and wants to end their life, they can go to Switzerland, which is conveniently in the middle of the continent, and pay a doctor to help them kill themselves, and they don’t have to get any kind of counseling.  In fact, the doctors would be against counseling because they make money on each suicide.  Now suicide is also legal in the Netherlands. In Milan, where suicide is still illegal, and Switzerland is only an hour away, about once a month or so, somebody jumps in front of a speeding subway train.  In fact, it is such a common occurrence that people have lost all sympathy for the victim and his or her family, instead they just become annoyed at the inconvenience that the suicide has caused them as they rush through their day.
• Drugs – The city of Amsterdam is uniquely problematic because they have de-criminalized both prostitution and marijuana.  Legalizing pot use has been discussed from time to time here in the US.  The arguments for legalization seem very logical and reasonable, particularly when it comes to saving taxpayer money and law enforcement manpower.  But before getting onto the bandwagon, you should take a trip to Amsterdam to see what legalized pot use looks like.  Marijuana is only legal in the marijuana coffeehouses, but it doesn’t stay in the coffeehouses.  And because pot is legal, tourists think that other drugs are also legal—they are not.  No matter how harmless you may think it is, the fact is that marijuana is a gateway drug.  The dealers of illegal drugs situate themselves along the canal in the Red Light district (more about that in a moment) and peddle their drugs to passers-by.  They don’t stand around looking villainous, but instead they are very friendly.  The dealers speak English and often the major European languages.   Amsterdam is the number one partying destination in Europe, possibly in the world.  So lots of young men travel to Amsterdam for legal sex with prostitutes and legal marijuana use.  Many of them are lured into trying the harder drugs as well.  The result is that the streets of Amsterdam are filthy with trash and vomit and people that are either homeless or too high to remember how to get back to where they are staying.  The streets are also very loud all night long, with the sounds of hell-raising.  There are so many people who are addicted to heroin that the city has started giving out free needles to try and keep the risk of HIV transmission low.  So the parks are full of addicts that are shooting-up.  And the free needle program has done nothing to stop the spread of HIV.  Prostitution – Legalized prostitution in Amsterdam was supposed to help prevent the spread of HIV by having the Dutch Minister of Health responsible for making sure that all the window girls stayed healthy and conducted business in ways that reduced the possibility of transmission (i.e. washing the customers and using condoms).  However, that has turned out to be impossible to enforce.  Plus, the presence of legal prostitutes has not stopped or even slowed down illegal prostitution in the Netherlands.  Let’s face it, supply follows demand.
• The idea behind legalizing prostitution seemed like a good idea, but prostitution plays a part in all the above behaviors, like a European version of “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but worse because of the whole drug issue discussed above.  People believe that the window girls are independent businesswomen—they are not—at least not all of them.  Many of the window girls come from other countries, mostly Eastern Europe and Africa.  Those girls got there because they answered ads for jobs, and some even paid intermediaries who turned out to be traffickers to get them illegally into Europe.  Few, if any, of them set out to work in prostitution.  Like I said, the relaxation of borders within the European Union has actually worked to the traffickers’ advantage.  And even if some of the women are voluntarily working in the windows of the Red Light district, they have invariably been sexually abused as children.  As a woman, I can tell you that no little girl dreams of having dozens of sweaty, smelly men use and use and use her all day and all night long.  Prostitutes use the same survival strategy that victims of physical abuse use: they have learned how to zone-out and not be in their bodies while it is happening.  Despite the lies that the johns tell themselves, that doesn’t sound like it’s something they enjoy, does it?  All of this means that Amsterdam, an otherwise lovely city, has become a haven for potheads, traffickers, drug dealers, and drug addicts.
• Cynicism – The young people of Europe are among the most hopeless and cynical in the world.  They go to university only to find that they are still unemployed and unemployable.  East European youth are leaving their homelands in droves, seeking employment in the west.  The employers take advantage of that desperation and pay them lower wages, and giving them the jobs that West Europeans don’t want.  Most of the janitors in Italy are Romanian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, or Polish.  Because they feel powerless, the youth are drawn into witchcraft and satanism.  They recognize that there is genuine spiritual power therein, but don’t have the discernment to know the good from the evil.  Turin, Italy is the European capital for satanism.  Every so often, there is a ritually sacrificed body (either human or animal) found in the woods near Turin.  It has become such a common occurrence that the news agencies have stopped reporting these findings.  Many of these young people consider traditional religion a waste of time, and they don’t want to hear about anything of a religious nature.  For this reason, missionaries in Europe have had to be very creative in sharing the Gospel.

I could continue, but I think this post is long enough.  So, I take a deep breath, pray for at least an hour, and go pour my heart out for an hour or so about Europe.  Suddenly, I understand exactly what Jeremiah meant when he said that if he tries to keep silent, God’s Word is like a fire shut up in his bones.  God is good, and I want more missionaries to share His goodness with this lost and dying continent.

Europe’s Most Hopeless People

Europe is a hopeless place, filled with hopeless people.  That’s something that most tourists have no clue about.  They come from places where there are jobs and plenty of money.  They see the majestic Eiffel Tower, the famous tower of Big Ben, the historical Colosseum in Rome, and the romantic canals of Venice.  They take pictures and go home thinking that they have seen Europe.

Trivia: Few have actually seen Big Ben because it’s the name of the clock’s bell

Trivia: Christians were fed to the lions in the Circus Maximus, not the Colosseum because it was a bigger venue and open to all, so it served as a warning not to join the Christians.  The Colosseum was only open to the nobility and was where the Gladiators fought to the death.

The tourists might have had their pockets picked or seen (or most likely tried not to see) beggars in these beautiful places.  If they were brave enough to ride the buses, trains, trams, or subway, they may have smelled someone near them who doesn’t use deodorant.  These tourists go home thinking that they have seen Europe, too.

But the reality of Europe (or any place for that matter) can only be truly known by living here.  Life in Europe is hard, and it’s hardest on immigrants.  Americans must learn how to navigate ancient bureaucracies that are full of rules that make no sense—that’s just the way it’s done.

The Europeans have a love/hate relationship with America.  They love our movies and TV shows, and the fact that we come in and spend money here, which boosts the economy.  But they hate our loud and often obnoxious presence.  America is the land of comfort and convenience, the land of efficiency and practicality.  Most of Europe is none of those things.  So when Americans come and complain loudly about the realities of Europe, it angers Europeans, who may wish that you would just quietly spend your money and go back to America.

The biggest difference between America and Europe is that Americans are an optimistic bunch.  Even the most pessimistic and negative American is more optimistic than the average European.  In a word, Americans have hope.  Europeans have mostly given up hope.  This hopelessness is what makes Europe “by far the most secular, least Christian” continent on earth, (Operation World, page 79).  Europeans love our optimism, love the fact that we smile a lot, but they consider Americans naïve.

Here are some of the most hopeless groups of people in Europe (and probably in the world):

The Roma

There are Roma (gypsies) throughout Europe, and they are the most universally hated group of people by far.  The Roma are not all lazy beggars and thieves, as most people think.  In fact, they are quite industrious.  However, because the majority of them have no legal documents, they cannot materially participate in European society.  They can’t get jobs, so they create their own work.  Some Roma are business owners, employing their family members.  Others pick and sell flowers, wash windshields at traffic lights, or play music on the subway—all of which are forms of begging.  Some of the gypsy girls visit the alley door of restaurants and shops, begging for food or money in exchange for sex.  Some sit outside of churches, grocery stores, and cafes, begging.  Some have broken and set their legs in crazy ways or amputated their legs, giving themselves a “beggar’s pay raise.”  And, yes, some of them break into houses and steal whatever they can carry away.

Most of the Roma could not integrate into the rest of European society even if they wanted to.  Their lack of legal documents also means that even if they have the money, they can’t buy or rent property.  So they live in camps at the edge of town.  Some camps are worse than others, but none of the camps are a place you would want to go, much less to live.  Roma hygiene is practically nonexistent, even if the facilities are available to them—and often they are not available.  Every Roma camp is the third world.  Just outside the beautiful European cities that attract so many tourists are Roma camps: Paris, London, Rome, and Venice all have their Roma camps.

But the biggest barrier to integration is the Roma family, itself.  At the head of every Roma family are the patriarchs, the grandparents.  All family issues are decided by the patriarchs, and all money is brought to the patriarchs to administer.  Roma family values are so foreign to the rest of us that it makes them a frightening mystery to most people.  Understanding Roma family values will help you understand the Roma.  In a nutshell, the family is everything to the Roma, and you serve the family, the patriarchs, by bringing them money.  You might think, well my family is important to me, too.  But here’s some examples of Roma family values at work:

• Sending your daughter (or son or wife) out to sell herself as a prostitute brings money to the family, so that’s a good thing.
• Paying to ride the bus, train, or subway takes money away from the family, so that’s a bad thing.
• Passing your children around among the adults of the family to be used like sex toys trains them for prostitution, which will bring in money, so that’s a good thing.
• Passing up an opportunity to steal something when no one is looking won’t bring money to help the family, so that’s a bad thing.
• Selling your child either to traffickers or to black market human organ dealers brings money to the family, so that’s a good thing.

On that last point, the Roma are always happy with pregnancies because one way or another, they will find a way to bring money in to the family through that child.  Do they love their children?  Love doesn’t really enter into Roma family values.  Money is really everything for them.

The Homeless of Budapest

When I was in Budapest, I wrote about the homeless in my book Look, Listen, Love.  Budapest has an estimated 30,000 homeless people (Operation World, page 403).  The homeless people that I saw didn’t beg for money.  All over Europe, and indeed the world, homeless people beg for money.  But not the homeless of Budapest.  They have lost hope.  They sleep in doorways and in the entrances to the subway.  There are so many of them that the city seems to have given up hope of helping them.  So the police don’t chase them away when they camp in a doorway, in the park, or in the subway entrance.  I guess that’s help of some sort, but not much.

The Orphans

But the Roma and the homeless of Budapest, although hopeless, are not the most hopeless group of people in Europe.  The most hopeless people are the orphans of formerly Communist Central and Eastern Europe.  I met 1 just this week.

Mary came with a missionary family from Romania that stayed with me.  She is the nanny to their 4 children.  They are discipling her even though she hasn’t yet made a decision for Christ.  They had to be very careful talking about her because although Mary doesn’t understand English, the children are bilingual.  Little pitchers have big ears, and they also have big mouths!

What I understood between the lines is that Mary grew up in an orphanage.  Most orphanages in the formerly Communist countries keep the children under very tight control.  So they grow up sheltered, but not loved.  Mary had never seen an elevator before.  She had no idea how the thing worked, and preferred to take the stairs instead.  When I was introduced to Mary, I did as with any introduction:  I smiled and offered my hand to shake.  Mary turned her gaze from my smiling face and reluctantly took the hand.

Mary clearly loves the children, especially the oldest, Sally, who is 7.  She told the mother that Sally loved and accepted her when nobody else would.  I suspect that Mary feels safer with someone who is younger and still quite small.  Because she had never experienced love, she found it very hard to believe that anybody, the family, me, or even God could love her, only Sally.  It is very much an issue of trust.

What I know about orphanages in the formerly Communist countries is what I learned from Stella’s Voice, a missions organization that goes to Moldova and rescues orphans, and Nefarious, a documentary about human trafficking, and from talking with missionaries who work with prostitutes.  Orphans, particularly girls, need rescuing because when they reach their 18^th birthday, the orphanage gives them a bus ticket and a little money, and they are left on a bench at the bus stop.  The traffickers know this and come by to take the girls and set them up into a life of prostitution, usually in Western Europe.  Since they have no skills and no life experience, the girls go along without a thought.  Sometimes the orphanage directors will encourage the girls to “be friendly” with the traffickers even before they must leave the orphanage.  In this way they learn that their only value is sexual.

With the ever-present children, I never was able to learn very much specifically about Mary’s life.  All I know is that she is 29 years old, though emotionally I would put her more at 12.  She has been with the family for 4 years.  She has heard the Gospel and attends church with the family, but has never made a declaration of faith.  The mother, who is also Romanian, told me that Mary’s inability to trust has at times made her so difficult to live with that she almost gave up on her.  But the Lord told her that he put Mary into her home for a reason.

When you think of Europe, please remember that the beautiful places you’ve seen in pictures are only a small part of the reality.  Europe is desperately in need of missionaries.  There are some countries with almost no Christian presence—and that presence is hardly Christian, being either steeped in worship of the Madonna or loaded up with traditions that include curses for sale from the priest.  Please pray for missionaries to answer the call to serve in Europe.  Pray for the missionaries and pastors of Europe who have been laboring for years to bring in the final harvest.  And if the Lord is calling you to come serve Him in Europe, please be obedient and answer that call!  God is good, but there is no time to waste.  The Day of the Lord is upon us.

I Missed the Train, But Made it to the Divine Appointment

I have learned that when I pray to make it to a train, plane, or bus on time, but miss it anyway, it is because God has some higher reason.  And yesterday was no exception.  When my train arrived from Pescara, I had to go back to my apartment to pick up copies of my new book, “Laughing in My Dreams,” to take to friends who pray for me in Biella.  I give my books to people on my prayer team because it is their prayers that help me along in my ministry travels.

Of course, I did my best to make it to the train.  I had calculated that although the time would be tight, I should be able to make it.  However, I got to the train station just as the train was departing.  I said, “Thank You, Lord, for whatever reason I missed the train.  Your plans are always better than mine.”

There was another train an hour later.  Since I had waited at the train station for an hour, I was one of the first ones on the train.  All the seats filled up very quickly, and I wondered if one the people near me might be a divine appointment, but two of the people talked the whole time about people they know, and the young man who took the fourth seat immediately opened his computer and started working.  It was the same on the connecting train.  Pastor Fabio was going to pick me up at the station on the original train, but he had a Bible study to lead.  Instead, he sent Gabriel to pick me up at the train station.

I didn’t know Gabriel or Mary very well, just brief encounters over lunch months ago.  Gabriel started telling me about their ministry.  They are starting a shelter/soup kitchen for the street people of Biella.  Immediately I understood that this was my divine appointment for the day: Gabriel was feeling the weight of his ministry, but was discouraged because things didn’t seem to be moving along like he had hoped.  I felt the Holy Spirit rising up in me to encourage him that this is important work.  Honestly, I don’t remember exactly what I said.  That’s the way it usually is when the Holy Spirit speaks through me.  The words don’t go through my human brain, so as I speak, I’m hearing the words for the first time, and often I don’t remember afterwards what it was that I said.

And that’s the way it was yesterday.  I missed the train, but made it to my divine appointment right on time.  Every day is a new adventure if you don’t let the little things like a missed train get you down.

P.S.  After posting this last night, look what was in my inbox this morning: http://www.guideposts.org/faith/bible-resources/turn-disappointment-to-god-appointment?utm_source=Bible-Alive&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-2-11_nl_turn-disappointment-to-god-appointment.  God is good!

A Godly Legacy

The Olympic Games will soon begin in London, and while I was there, I couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast of the modern world in the midst of a city so old.  London was founded by the Romans about the time when Jesus walked the earth.  I even saw Roman ruins among the glass skyscrapers.

But even more striking than the contrast of ancient and modern was the contrast of godly and worldly.  London is a city like most, bearing the smudge of the world’s fingerprint upon it:  crime, drugs, homelessness, prostitution, etc.  Two things especially struck me about the spiritual state of London’s population, the first was violent crime.  I had picked up one of those freebie newspapers, and it was full of stories about murder—most of which had occurred in London.  The majority of the murders I read about were random murders—murder just for the sake of killing.  And the violence of these murders was astonishing.  For example, a heavily pregnant 20 year old woman was beaten to death at a bus stop.  Her unborn infant died with her.

The other thing that struck me about the spiritual state of London was the hostility towards Christianity.  In addition to the same anti-Christian attitudes found in America, I was told that it is popular in London now to have un-christening ceremonies in which they become un-baptized.  I don’t know anything about the ceremony, but they sign an un-baptism certificate in front of witnesses, and send a letter to the church asking to be removed from the baptism records.  They even send letters to their god-parents, informing them that they will now be solely responsible for their own spiritual choices.

So it is against this backdrop that we visited some of Christianity’s most important places.  The first place we visited was the Buxton Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Victoria Tower Gardens.  Abolition was promoted by Christians.  Sadly, there are more slaves today than at any other time in the history of the world—and this despite virtually every country in the world having laws forbidding slavery.  The modern name for slavery is Human Trafficking, and it is virtually everywhere.  The removal of most border controls in Europe means that transporting slaves throughout Europe is easier than ever.

From there we walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was built by Christopher Wren.  His tomb inside the cathedral proclaims it as his memorial marker.  Wren was one of the founding Freemasons of London, and all around the cathedral are masonic symbols like obelisks, which originated as an object of sun worship and fertility.

Then we went to Tower Hill.  In Trinity Square Garden is a plaque showing the site of the scaffold where many people were executed, including members of the clergy and two Archbishops of Canterbury.  This was not the only place in London where Christians were martyred.  We also saw the site where Christians were burned at the stake for heresy.  When I refer to Christian martyrs, I mean both Catholic and Protestant.  In London’s history, when the Catholics were in power, Protestants were martyred as heretics, and vise-versa.  Either way, it is a sad historical fact.

The Tower of London was both a castle for visiting royalty and a prison.  I guess that was handy for keeping visitors in line.

The day was hot, 29 (about 85 Fahrenheit) degrees.  I know my Texas friends will laugh, but that seems much hotter than it actually is when you factor in no breeze and standing in the sun a lot.  So in the early afternoon we went to a cool, shady place:  Bunhill Fields, which was the Nonconformist burial grounds.  John Bunyan, pastor and author of Pilgrim’s Progress is entombed there.  Susanna Wesley is also buried there, and her headstone is visible from her son, John Wesley’s house, where we went next.  The house is small and simple, like the man (he was only five feet, maybe five-foot-two).  The most impressive feature of the house was his prayer room, adjacent to his bedroom.  There was a padded kneeler in front of a small desk with an open Bible on it.  He was said to have risen at four and spent many hours in prayer.  We were told the following:

One day John Wesley was riding along a road when it dawned upon him that three whole days had passed in which he had suffered no persecution.  Not a brick or an egg had been thrown at him for three days.  Alarmed, he stopped his horse, and exclaimed, “Can it be that I have sinned and am backslidden?”

Slipping from his horse Wesley went down on his knees and began interceding with God to show him where, if any, there had been a fault.

A rough fellow, on the other side of the hedge, hearing the prayer, looked across and recognized the preacher.  “I’ll fix that Methodist preacher,” he said taking a brick and tossing it over at him.  It missed its mark and fell harmlessly beside John.

Whereupon Wesley leaped to his feet joyfully exclaiming, “Thank God, it’s all right.  I still have His presence.”

I wonder how many Christians today would be so happy to be persecuted.

Next door to the house is Wesley’s Chapel, which has the organ on which Charles Wesley (his brother) wrote such wonderful hymns as “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” (lyrics:  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Christ_the_Lord_Is_Risen_Today), “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (lyrics:  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/O_for_a_Thousand_Tongues_to_Sing), Christmas favorite, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” (lyrics:  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Our_American_Holidays_-_Christmas/Christmas_Day), and many others.

Downstairs is the museum, where I got the following wonderful quotes from John Wesley:

The Covenant

I am no longer my own, but Yours.  Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will, put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for You or laid aside for You, exalted for You, or brought low for You; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine and I am Yours.  So be it.

And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in Heaven.  Amen.

I wonder how many Christians today would pray for suffering.

And I’ll leave you with the last quote:

John Wesley’s Rule

Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.

I can only add:  Do good because God is good.