A tribute to Bill Stoll

Bill Stoll had a major role in my successful adaptation to missionary life and ministry in Brazil, and I thank God for his life.  In the words of Irma, his wife, he was "instantly cured" of all his earthly ailments on Friday, January 21.  He was 82 years old.

Bill taught Old Testament at the Baptist seminary in São Paulo (Faculdade Teológica Batista de São Paulo).  One of his students in the late 1970s was Lalia Pacheco, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in Christian Education and later became my wife.  She remembers Bill as a wise and gentle professor.

Bill also helped run the day-to-day operations at Edições Vida Nova, WorldVenture's publishing ministry.  This was no small task in the days of hyper-inflation and general political and economic instability.  When I started my career at Vida Nova in 1985, Bill took me under his wing.  He was always ready to answer questions and assure me that one day I would be able to speak and write well in Portuguese.

At the breakfast table this morning, Lalia remembered that Bill was instrumental in spearheading the Portuguese translation of the New International Version of the Bible in the mid-1980s.  She was invited to consult for the translation committee on matters of Portuguese style and grammar.  Alan was a baby at the time, and so he would also attend the meetings in his stroller.  At times, Bill would hold Alan's bottle while Lalia would take notes.

Bill, thanks for being an example of what real missionary work is all about--the incarnation of the good news of Jesus the Messiah.

Deluge in Brazil

God said that he would never again destroy the world with water.  But sometimes, in the middle of a gully washer, we wish for the protection of an ark.

After hearing about the torrential rains here, some have written to ask if we are well.  The answer is yes.  The hardest hit area is in the state of Rio de Janeiro, about 300 miles east and north of where we live (São Paulo).  At this writing more than 700 people have lost their lives in the mountainous regions north of the city of Rio, due to flooding and mudslides.  Hundreds are missing.  Children have been orphaned.  Many survivors have lost their homes and physical possessions.

We are in the middle of the rainy season here, so showers are a normal occurrence in December and January.  But certain weather patterns have caused unusually high amounts of rain in some areas.  Add to this the mountainous terrain, and the fact that human activity has stripped the hills of vegetation which could help prevent erosion.  Also, many people build their homes in high risk areas, hoping that nothing will happen.  Sometimes they are right.

Here in São Paulo it rains daily, sometimes heavily, but not for long periods of time.  Even so, low-lying streets fill up quickly with runoff water.  Most of the ground in the city is covered with asphalt or concrete, so the soil is not able to absorb much rain.  The result here is localized flooding as the storm sewer system becomes quickly overloaded.  Garbage in the streets often plugs the storm drains and aggravates the situation.

In our ninth-floor apartment we stay high and dry, if we remember to close all the windows!

We pray for all those affected by this disaster. Brazilians are generous, and donations of food, clothing and cash have been pouring in from all over the country.  Our mission (WorldVenture) and our local church are investigating the best ways to help at this time.

Film review: The Social Network

The Social Network is a dark film that makes me think twice when I log on to my Facebook account. In the opening scene, the somber lighting and edgy music tell us that something is wrong. Director David Fincher is not crusading for intellectual property rights, or even documenting internet evolution. He and Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, seem intent on ambushing viewers with the great ironies of our information age. For Sorkin and Fincher, social networks are just as much forces for alienation as they are for collaboration. Real-life friends are dispensable. Profits rule. In the final scene, Mark Zuckerberg’s character pathetically refreshes his Facebook page over and over, in the hopes that an old girlfriend (whom he publicly berated in a drunken blog post) will accept his friend request. Based on her icy attitude in their last encounter, we presume that she will click the “ignore” button. In the end, the gazillionaire creator of Facebook, a site which supposedly puts people together, is alone.

Behind bars, but still women

Lalia writes about her December visit to a prison for women...

First, just to set the record straight, no, I am not in prison, and I don´t intend to do anything that will put me there.

Yesterday I went with two friends to visit a women´s prison in a little city not too far from São Paulo. This was my second visit to that facility.

Conditions are horrible. Too many women crowded in four little cells. One woman was by herself in another cell; she couldn´t stay with the others because she was incarcerated for killing her son, and was in danger of suffering harm from the other women prisoners.

Some of the women are waiting for a trial before a judge, others are waiting for their release papers. Some are there for theft, sale or possession of drugs, petty crimes... you name it. A couple of them are pregnant. One had recently given birth, and was thankful to God because she was transferred to a facility closer to the foster home where the baby was sent.

With all this diversity, they all have one thing in common: they were made in the image of God and are loved by Him.

Behind bars, but still women. When we arrived, one was having a manicure and pedicure!

It was all I could do to not cry when we gave them the few gifts we took with us. The women were so excited to receive a notebook, a pen, a hair barrette and a little devotional book (they all know how to read).

My friends and I were separated from those women by heavy metal bars, but we united our voices to sing to the Lord. Not all of them came close to us. Some stayed in their cells, others stayed by the door of their little cubicle, but they all heard the message that Jesus was born because God loves them all.

Some of the women have decided to follow Jesus since they were put in prison. The difference between these and the others is hope. They are free in their hearts. They know God will use their circumstances “for good”. They want to tell their families about Jesus.

The three of us spoke a few words to the prisoners. Then we sang some more. While we were there, the police came and took one of the youngest women (she was no more than 19 years old) to the doctor. She may be pregnant.

When we finished, one woman came very close to the iron bars and said: “I speak for me and for my friends. Thank you for coming here to speak to us. Thank you so very much for the gift of your time.”

The gift of time! I left the prison thinking about that phrase. For those women who can´t go anywhere, who aren´t too busy shopping for Christmas; for that young mother who has all the time in the world to hold her baby, but cannot; for all of them our time was the best gift of all.

Please, this Christmas, let´s not get so busy with shopping and cooking for our loved ones that we´ll not have time for them.

Ah, yes, I was so very thankful to get home to my beloved husband, my nice shower, my soft bed.

Next Thursday, we´ll visit another women´s prison. This will be a different type of visit, because we will talk individually with the prisoners, without bars between us. All of the women are close to being released from jail so they will not do anything stupid... we presume! We will see as many prisoners as the number of women we have from our church. So, pray that many will go. Honestly, I´m a little nervous about the visit. I´ve never been with a prisoner without the bars to keep me safe. I know the guards will be around, still... Pray that I will show God´s love for “my prisoner,” whoever she might be. Pray that many will be free from the hands of the Enemy of their souls.

A big hug.

Free because of Him,

Lalia

Hands and feet

PROMIFÉ (Vacation Missionary Project) starts tomorrow in Ribeirão Preto. Young people from Brazil and the U.S. become the hands and feet of Jesus for one week in a neighborhood of the city. Together they live, eat, laugh, cry, witness, pray, study and sing to the glory of God. We're participating vicariously through the many friends who are there on the front lines.

Reel Spirituality

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, book 7, cited by Robert K. Johnston in Reel Spirituality, writing about the paradox of God's immanence and transcendence in our world, especially as it relates to encountering God in films.

Radical Christmas

Matthew's Christmas story begins with the names of a bunch of dead people. Ray Bakke calls it a "graveyard tour." While we might find this approach boring, Matthew's Jewish audience would probably not be snoozing through this family tree. In the first century a genealogy established a person's heritage, inheritance, legitimacy and rights and therefore was attention grabbing. But Matthew creates a very unorthodox genealogy for the Messiah, "the son of David, the son of Abraham"!

The big surprise in the first few verses of Matthew's gospel is the presence of five women (Mary plus four). This was not standard procedure for male-oriented Jewish culture.

But Matthew doesn't stop there. He wants to increase the shock value of his genealogy, so some of these women are non-Jews. Rahab and Ruth were definitely Gentiles, and possibly Tamar. (In this light it is interesting to note that Matthew begins and ends his gospel with the nations.)

As if that wasn't enough, Matthew includes women with questionable character. Tamar purposely had sex with her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was from Moab, a people who were shunned and hated by Israel. Bathsheba was part of King David's sin story. (Before you jump to conclusions about Matthew's view of women, check out some of the despicable men in his list.)

This messy genealogy is Matthew's way of saying "the Word became flesh and lived among us." God became part of our dysfunctional world, right down to his Son's scandalous family tree. And if God admits this kind of ambiguity in the story of salvation, maybe there's room for messed up people like me.