Opening up doors!!

Dumelang!

An exciting praise is that we now have the full go-ahead from the headmaster at the prestigious private school in Gaborone to start working there with YFC. This is the school that leaders keep describing as a major breakthrough—the school where the music teacher who invited YFC is the one I happened to email with even before I left the U.S.! I found out on Thursday that we have access once a week for a 15-minute break time. After my initial excitement and thanksgiving, my thought was, “That’s it?” but a verse came to my mind about not despising the day of small beginnings. Then later I saw that Zechariah 4 was part of my daily bible reading plan for that day. That verse about the day of small beginnings is Zechariah 4:10!

Yesterday I happened to be looking online to learn about a choral society in Gaborone I’ve heard of (in fact it came up 3 times one day in 3 different places so I figured I’d look into it!), and I learned that they meet at the auditorium of the same private school, and their website had a picture of the auditorium. I thought, Someday it would be cool if we could be in there, leading worship and talking about Christ. A couple hours later, I learned at our staff prayer meeting that the headmaster has said we will meet in the auditorium so more kids can come and check it out! And that if things go well, we could possibly meet for the whole lunch hour! I found out last week that this school is described as not only one of the best schools in Botswana, but in all of Africa! Over half the students are from Botswana, and the rest are from 40 respective nations. I am so grateful for this opportunity. We start June 8th – please pray for our preparations!

Another cool opportunity opened up this week. To understand it, I’ll go back and share the story. Recently at the Scripture Union club at a school in Mochudi, we shared the gospel in a memorable way—having Clive do 10 push-ups for every person in the room so they could have a chocolate egg. When Clive was getting tired, Sara asked if she could do her own push-ups to merit the egg– No, only Clive could. Some students did not want the gift, but Clive still did push-ups for them. By the end, his whole body was shaking, and his face was pained. When he had completed enough for everyone, he collapsed in exhaustion. Then we read how Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30) and collapsed and died on the cross. We were portraying an analogy of how Jesus suffered so that we could have new life, and that we cannot do anything to earn this gift. And also that Jesus died for everyone but that they have to personally receive the gift or it does not benefit them.

Then I summarized a story I had just read a few days earlier in a book in the YFC library that came to my mind as we quickly planning. Here’s the excerpt from Revolution Within by Dwight Edwards:

“In 1829 a man named George Wilson was arrested for robbery and murder in a heist of the U.S. mail. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging. Some friends intervened on his behalf and were finally able to obtain his pardon from President Andrew Jackson. But when Wilson was informed of his pardon, he refused it, saying he wanted to die.

This left the sheriff with quite a dilemma. How could he execute a man who was officially pardoned? An appeal was made to President Jackson as to what to do. The perplexed president turned the matter over to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall gave this ruling: A pardon is a piece of paper, the value of which depends on its acceptance by the person implicated. Anyone under the sentence of death would hardly be expected to refuse a pardon, but if it is refused, it’s no pardon.

Thus, George Wilson was executed on the gallows while his signed pardon lay a few hundred feet away on the sheriff’s desk!” (55-56)

I shared that the pardon story is similar to what God has done for us in Christ – provided a pardon through his death on the cross – but that it needs to be received to be effective. I shared that it did not cost Andrew Jackson anything to write the pardon, but imagine if he could’ve only written the pardon for George Wilson if his only son were hung instead of George. How much more puzzling it would have been if George did not accept the pardon…and how much more painful for Andrew Jackson to give his only son only to see that incomparable gift was spurned and thereby in vain because George still bore the punishment that his son bore for him.

And is that not similar to what God has done for us in sending His only Son to die so that we could be pardoned for our sins and live? He loved each of us and didn’t want us to bear the penalty for our sinfulness, so He sent His only Son to die for us—“But God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The pardon offered to each of us comes only because Christ bore the punishment for us—“He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that brought us peace, and by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). And yet that pardon must be received, and it grieves God’s heart when the people Jesus died to pardon spurn that incomparable gift and still bear the punishment themselves that he bore for them on the cross.

It must deeply sadden the Lord’s heart, for, “He is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9); “He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). He yearns for a close relationship with every person on this planet, and the pardon has been purchased with Christ’s blood. The question is whether we will receive it. His heart cries out, as it did to Israel—“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11). Why will you die, why will you bear the punishment Christ has already borne for you out of love? Will you be like George Wilson and bear the punishment though the pardon was provided? Or will you receive the pardon? And if so, what does that practically mean?

In short, it means receiving by faith what Christ did for you in saving you through His death, and, like the Ezekiel passage mentions, it involves turning back to God from your sinful ways (confession and repentance) to follow Jesus as the Lord of your life.

And for those who have already received the pardon and eternal life through Christ, Sara felt led to exhort them to reach out and tell others about the pardon available for them. I shared that if Clive did push-ups so that everyone in the whole school could have a chocolate, but only the Scripture Union kids knew about it, Clive would be saddened that his work and suffering did not actually benefit the people for whom he did it. How much more then that some people do not know that Jesus suffered and died for them so they could receive the free gift of eternal life and get to know their Redeemer?

At that moment, I recalled and shared a saying of the Moravian missionaries: “May the Lamb that was slain receive the full reward of His suffering!” Two young Moravians in the 1700s heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist slave owner would not allow any preachers or missionaries to enter his island with 3,000 African slaves. Moved with compassion for these thousands of slaves with no opportunity to hear the gospel, and the recognition of Christ’s sadness that they could not receive the gift of His suffering, these young mean decided to sell themselves into slavery for life to be able to live among the slaves and share Christ. As they boarded the ship and set sail from their loved ones, knowing they would never return, they linked arms and yelled across the waves, “May the Lamb that was slain receive the full reward of His suffering!”

The whole thing was quite powerful, and I could tell by the students’ reactions that it had made sense to them. It was beautiful how it came together – on a day we had hardly any time to plan because our whole morning had been unexpectedly taken up with painting and cleaning the daycare. We really needed God to guide us, and we had prayed to that end. And then I’d recalled that we never did the push-up demonstration before Easter as we’d planned. Then that story about George Wilson’s pardon had come to mind…and then as we shared with the students, those other things came to our mind on the spot. Sara can’t even recall what she said…just that she felt led to start sharing (it was basically a passionate reflection on just how much it cost Jesus to provide us with the gift of eternal life and the exhortation that we should share this message with those who don’t know yet). We left just in awe of how God had showed Himself powerful yet again in our weakness.

And it gets better! I learned yesterday that the teacher who was observing us that day at the Scripture Union club was so impacted that she replicated the push-up demonstration to the whole student body at an assembly! Other teachers were quite impressed, and they have invited us to share about Christ with the whole school at the general assemblies in the mornings!!!

Last week I shared the George Wilson pardon story analogy at the Coffee Bar as well. Tonight we have a visiting Canadian singer/speaker Sam Rowland presenting at Coffee Bar. He has been here about 2 weeks on an outreach, presenting in schools, prisons, churches, etc. Many youth have been impacted and started our follow-up discipleship program.

It’s an exciting time watching God open up doors! Now may we be faithful stewards of these opportunities. Thanks for any and all prayers offered for the work and the youth here.

Modimo a go segofatse! (God bless you)

~Em