Picture This: Our reality…

Often mission teams and missionaries come back to the States with stories of countless people giving their lives to Christ.  Lives transformed.  Stories accompanied with pictures of a long line of people waiting to get baptized in a muddy river with a backdrop of an African jungle.  Sure, there were sacrifices of extreme heat, struggles with (ahem) bathroom issues, challenges with the language but in the end, countless people gave their lives to Christ and for that, it was all worth it.  All that leads to this moment of hundreds braving a croc infested river to get baptized.  Insert picture here…  

Oh how we long for those days (minus the crocs in the river of course!).  We can't wait to see people coming in droves to surrender their lives to a loving relationship with Christ.  We can't wait to send pictures of people standing outside an overcrowded church building listening intently to hear the Good News of Christ.  We can't wait to send pictures of Zambians with Bibles open being discipled.  We look forward to sending those pictures and sharing those stories.  

Unfortunately that is not our current reality.  When we arrived in Lundazi just over a year ago there were 3 "preaching points" and 5 churches associated with our mission within a two hour radius of our home.  In the last year all three of those preaching points have gone under.  The five churches continue to meet… most weeks.  So instead of pictures and stories of lives transformed and believers following in obedience being baptized... we have pictures like this:  

And this:

And this:

So when were these taken?  Sunday, January 12, 2014 at 10:30 a.m.  Were they at a preaching point?  No, they were at one of the five churches, completely empty when it should have been full of believers gathering to worship and be discipled.  No one, not one person was there.  The benches were stacked and the podium that should have held the preachers Bible was laying across the top.  The sounds of believers raising their voices singing songs to their Savior were not to be heard.  The Gospel message was not proclaimed.  For at least this Sunday, the building was empty... and our hearts broke.  Not because these are the types of pictures we have to offer, but because the praises that should have reached to the heavens were silent today.  An amazing God was robbed of the worship due Him.  

These are not the kinds of pictures that we share when we come home on furlough, but maybe they should be.  John Piper once said "Missions exists because worship doesn't".  This is why we are here.  This is why we need your help.  This is why we need your prayers.  This is why we need more "boots on the ground."  This is… your invite.