Rachel's newsletter

First of all, what a wonderful blessing the last month has been! It went by so fast that I finally remembered that it was probably about that time to send out an update. Most of you know that Kelsey (my sister-in-law) was here visiting me. That time with her was so precious to me! This was the first time in years that I really had some one- on -one time with her.

It was great just to see her and share with her my life here in Costa Rica. There’s just something so wonderful about having someone come here to see the people and ministries I talk about. She was such an encouragement to me and it was so hard to see her go….but….my work continues and God continues to bless me both on the good days and on the tougher ones.

Goodbyes are always difficult for me and this month not only did I have to say goodbye to Kelsey but also to a couple little twin girls at the Children’s Home (one pictured above). It’s always such a risk to love the kids there because sometimes it seems that right when I get attached, they get taken away. I constantly have to remind myself that this is what I want. I want these kids to have a forever home. Most of the kids there have very little hope of being adopted, so there is always a need for love at this place and always all the other kids to get attached to. I also have the privelage of reaching out to the “tias” ( house mothers) when times get stressful and to just hold them when they cry when a child moves on. I can’t imagine what it is like to take care of a child and love them 24/7 for an extended period of time and then see them leave. These are just some of the challenges of working at the Children’s Home.

My ministry in Los Guizaros has been tough, but I am learning so much through it. To be honest, this ministry has been a huge struggle for me. I was actually trying to pass it off to someone else but soon realized that there was really no one else to do it. Then I realized that it’s not just because I am busy but because in fact I am afraid to. With the chaos of such a small building packed with kids, packed with my inexperience, soft voice, and lack of resources, I felt that I just couldn’t do it. Then I came to the realization that it is just time to face my fears. The truth is that I CAN teach these kids and I CAN learn to use the things that I have. I CAN do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I have been sitting down and brainstorming how I can make this children’s program better.

One project I have decided to move forward with is building a little puppet theatre and starting to do puppet shows with the kids. God is helping me to get my creative juices flowing, now I just need to continue in prayer and give this feat to the Lord! I believe that he will provide the funds needed to complete this.

I’m slowly learning to step out in faith and do what is needed to be affective. God provides. I’m sitting in my apartment right now and I’m looking around…..God provided everything here! All my furniture and most of my dishes were donated by some wonderful people here! I stepped out in faith and bought a car and God has already provided the support to pay back half of it! I am a daughter of Christ walking in his will and he will provide always! What a lesson to learn and continue to learn. I am so human sometimes and just worry but then I’m reminded that I need to put my human logic away sometimes and just continue to step out.

This month has also brought on a lot of change. Keith Britton, the missionary I work with has headed back to The States for a 4 month medical leave. He will be getting a major surgery which involves taking his ankle out and replacing it with a titanium one. While he is away, I will be in charge of making sure the Rehab centre is taken care of financially, as well as buying monthly groceries for the centre, the children’s soup kitchen, as well as running errands as needed. Please pray for me as I try to manage these things while he is away.

Anyways, thanks so much for your prayers, they are so important to me and to my ministry here. We are a team and without you, I am unable to be here. I have been so blessed by all of you and look forward to seeing you all when I come to visit in December! I will be in Calgary from December 10th to January 4th and hope to touch base with all of you if possible!

Blessings in Christ,

Rachel Garber
God in Action Ministries
Apdo 428-1011
La y Griega
San Jose, Costa Rica


Note: Rachel has since sent the following note:


Hey Everybody!!!!!!!!!!

I am very excited to announce that the website for the sponsorship program I am working on is up and running!!!!!! It is a very interesting website and explains the areas we work in and the needs of these communities. Feel free to check it out and learn more about it!

Just remember that to help a child who lives in poverty get an education this year, it costs less than a family outing to the theatre. This sponsorship program is also unique because it is a one time donation and its completely your choice to intentionally continue in the future.

The website is www.sponsorcostaricakids.com

Anyways, God bless you all and thank you for all your prayers!

Rachel Garber
God in Action Ministries
San Jose, Costa Rica

Freedom Day

Diane and I went in for orthopedic follow up yesterday and now have clearance to start using our limbs. They removed the external fixator which I have been wearing on my arm for the past 11 weeks.

The removal was a unique experience to say the least. First the attendant unscrewed the connecting rods leaving the 2 couplings projecting from my skin, each supported by 2 pins. Then he loosened off each coupling and slid it off its pins.

This was not as easy as it sounds as I had conscientiously kept the bolts fairly tight and the attendant was using a sloppy adjustable wrench which kept slipping off the bolt heads. This is not a fun experience when you are working with something which is anchored in bone and I gently suggested that he use an open-ended wrench in future. I'm going to bring one for him next visit.

The pins in my 2nd metacarpal had stripped loose, as I had suspected from the escalating pain in my hand over the last 12 days, and as soon as the connecting rods were removed the coupling in my hand waggled around freely in the bone. I had to hold it tight with my right hand so the attendant could loosen off the bolts without damaging the metacarpal more than it already was.

After that it was time to remove the pins themselves. Again it was out with the adjustable wrench and the attendant first unscrewed the larger pins in my radius. He warned me in advance that it would be a strange sensation but I would say it was more of a "funny" sensation - as in funnybone. I noticed that the pins had self-tapping threads. Boy am I glad they put me out for the insertion!

The distal pins were much simpler since they were stripped and the attendant was able to unscrew them with his fingers.

The whole removal procedure was done without anaesthetic but except for the unfortunate matter of the metacarpal I would say it was well within my personal pain tolerance. Not a pleasant experience but nothing to be feared either and well worth it to be free of that device.

Still, there was something amateurish and tentative about the whole process which gave me the impression that they don't deal with external fixators that often. I would suggest that a proper set of tools would be a good start:

1) 10 mm open ended wrench for the bolts
2) larger adjustable wrench to grip the coupling while loosening off the bolt so it doesn't twist the pins against the bone.
3) T handle wrench for the pins so they can be loosened without torquing them from the side.


And now it's on to physio for both of us. The surgeon was well pleased with our x-rays so I trust that we will get the full use of our limbs again.

Afterward, Diane and I wandered around shopping and at one point kind of accidently turned into the parking lot of a Honda dealership. Since we were there anyway we spent some time looking at the bikes, specifically a CBF1000, a Varadero and the Wings. Do you offer demo rides? Great, but not today, thanks. Maybe in a month

It only takes a spark

I've gotten into the habit recently of following Dan Edelen's blog over at ceruleansanctum.com. In a recent post he poses for discussion the (to me) doubtful statistic that it takes 15-25 encounters with God before a person is born again.

I don't think that quantitative analysis lends itself to matters of the Spirit. Souls are not widgets, and the second birth is not a statistically predictable outcome which you can relate to a certain number of inputs.

There is only one kind of encounter which can make a difference in a person's life, and that is an encounter with the Holy Spirit. This can take place through any means which God chooses - through the printed word, through persons Christian and non-Christian, or Christians worthy and unworthy. A good description of how diverse influences can bring a person to put his faith in Jesus Christ may be found in C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy. In it Lewis ascribes a role to, among other things, Norse mythology which aroused in him a sense of the Sublime which he later found to be realized in its fulness in the Christian faith.

One of Edelen's concerns is the negative effect of a seeker's encounter with the graceless Christian. How many "good" God encounters does it take to overcome the effect of a single professing hypocrite? But the spirituality of the message bearer is not always important. The input which precipitated my decision for Christ was a sermon by a radio evangelist who descended from a gospel presentation straight into a cheesy money pitch. But it didn't matter to me whether his motives were pure or crass; his message resonated within me in such a way that I experienced it as God's invitation, not his.

At some point the good news must be heard to be responded to, but sometimes the critical influence is nonverbal. The clearest feedback I have ever received that something I did or said has had a lasting spiritual effect came 12 years ago when I received a call out of the blue from BC.

"Hello, this is Gurdev, do you remember me?"

Yes, I did. We had worked together 8 years before, but I didn't know him well and hadn't seen him since. He had had a nervous breakdown and checked himself into the psychiatric ward of the local hospital. I had visited him once on the ward, didn't talk about God, just asked how he was. And I prayed for him, not in his presence but later in private. A week later Gurdev was discharged, returned to work very briefly, then quit or was let go and dropped out of sight.

"You're a Christian, aren't you?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"When I was in the psych ward, none of the guys I partied with came to see me. You were the only one who came. I just want you to know that I am doing well now. I'm married with two kids and have a good job."

We chatted a bit and said goodbye, and afterwards I marvelled. Somehow my brief visit had affected Gurdev over the years to the extent that he had traced me down just to say thank me. Not only that, but he had evidently seen enough of Christian grace since that time that he was able to look back 8 years in memory and recognise its savour in that act. I felt deeply blessed that God had seen fit to let me know in this way that He was using me.

I don't know if Gurdev was yet a believer when he called, but if not, I can't help believing that someday he will be. Once one has felt the living water, one gets a thirst for it and wants it for himself.

Do I want to be more effective in my God appointments? Yes I do, and I try to achieve that by cultivating a habit of praying for the people I run into during the day and by listening for the direction of the Spirit in relating to them. But I don't do it with the idea that my little contribution will mechanically add together with others' to produce a new life in Christ after an average of 20 God appointments, with a standard deviation of 5.

The spark of love that God can shed through me or any believer in a single encounter may be the one that ignites a blaze which will burn in that person's life for eternity.

Rachel update

Hello Everyone!

Well, it has been about a year since I visited Costa Rica to pray about coming here as a missionary. I remember the things that God spoke to me on this trip and the people he placed in my path to confirm his calling for me to work here. God really used every moment of that time to show me this, including my flight home. He used strangers to inspire me and to calm my fears and let me know that he had my back. One promise kept being shown to me from that time, which was that there was alot of work to be done in Costa Rica. This has been nothing but true for me, and I am truly blown away by everything that has happened in the last months. This month in itself has been a huge adventure and I´m hoping that you will take the time to see what God is doing here.

I know that some of you may be confused about the work I am doing here in Costa Rica, since I am involved in so many different things. To summarize a bunch of roles in one, my job is to reach the poor in a variety of ways from building relationships, teaching, translating to administrative roles working in partnership with Keith Britton ( a missionary who has been working here for 6 years)

God has been opening up doors for me to work in areas very close to my heart. I have always had the desire to work with the poor and in a more specific light, in the slums. Since my last newsletter, I have started going to a church located in the heart of the slum of Los Guido. I´m looking forward to helping with the youth group at this church and in this way start forming relationships in this community.

Not only has this happened in the last month but another exciting opportunity! Me and Keith (the missionary I work with) will be starting a sponsorship program for the kids in the slum. The focus of this program will be to provide the uniforms and supplies needed in order for a child to attend school. Education is a major key to breaking the cycle of poverty so this is a great place to start. This way individuals can be matched to a specific child and be personally involved in our ministry in this slum. I will be responsable for organizing this feat by going house to house to gather information as well as post write-ups online, purchase supplies etc. God is doing some amazing things here, and I am excited and passionate to be a part of this ministry.

This month, I also had the opportunity to go to the small town of Guapiles with Keith to translate. Keith was invited to share his testimony in front of 3 church services, so my job was to essentially be his voice and deliver his message. This was my first experience translating in front of a crowd of people and it was scary. But God was so faithful and gave me the words I needed. What a stretch this was for me! I am constantly reminded that I am the clay and God the potter. He is forming me and growing me in certain areas all for his kingdom.

So as you can see, I have been really really busy. I am still working at the children´s home teaching English as well as teaching bible lessons on Saturdays at Los Guizaros so my time is pretty much filled. Needless to say....I will not be taking on anything else! Please pray for me and these ministries. I NEED your prayer!

Prayer Requests:

1) Pray that God will continue to give me the confidence needed in my ministries. God has been so good to me but I still struggle with certain insecurities in this area especially in regards to public speaking.

2) Continue to pray for my application process with CTEN (missions organization) that it will go through soon. This would help me raise much needed financial support.

3) Continue to pray for me regarding the stresses of working with those who live in extreme poverty. Its hard to see people live in extreme need, knowing that you can´t help everyone.

Anyways, thanks for your prayers, encouragement and support. All of which are crucial for me to continue in ministry here.

God Bless,

Rachel Garber
God In Action Ministries

On Calvinists, Mennonites and diversity in Christian belief

Not being a Calvinist, I usually refrain from commenting on Calvinism. I follow several blogs published by fellow believers which have a Reformed focus and appreciate their faith and insights. This being the occasion of Calvin's 500th birthday, there has been introspection on the part of some as to whether present-day Calvinism is guilty of being too Calvin-centred at the expense of a focus on Christ.

I will admit that I have issues with the Reform movement as it has manifested itself historically, because it persecuted Mennonites for many years, especially in Switzerland, putting some to death (including a possible ancestor), selling others into slavery and dispossessing and exiling many more (almost all my ancestors).

I don't take this history as a reflection on Calvinist theology, except to say that some aspects of it lend themselves to abuse by the flesh. Specifically, if someone doesn't believe that God loves everyone, then he won't feel much obligated to love everyone else either, especially those he identifies as reprobate. Ideas have consequences, and the fruit of that way of thinking has shown itself in the mistreatment by Calvinists of Anabaptists in Switzerland, Catholics in Ireland and natives in Pennsylvania.

But one might say the same thing about the Christian division of mankind into the saved and the unsaved. The abuse of a doctrine does not invalidate it; it is more a testimony to the ability of fallen human nature to twist divine truth to its own ends. In the hands of the unregenerate even the gospel can become a terrible thing.

As far as Calvinism being a basis of fellowship, and sometimes being more about Calvin than Christ, I can't hold that against Calvinists because it is a mirror image of the attitudes I grew up with. Among all Christian groups, we were the ones who had it right. Menno Simons or Sattler or Grebel were our touchstones. We allowed that there were saved individuals in other denominations, but they were hampered in their Christian life by defective theology. Sound familiar?

Even today, when the mainstream Mennonite movement is influenced more than ever before by the liberal or postmodern ideas of the culture around it, it has not escaped its Mennocentrism. How Menno would spin in his grave if he were to hear how some today refer to the "Mennonite faith"!

While I still self-identify as Mennonite and largely agree with classic Mennonite theology, that is not the focus of my faith. It is Christ alone who counts, Christ the living Lord, and the fellowship between those who know Him transcends the variations in theology which exist within Christian orthodoxy.

All Christian theology arises from the application of human reason to divine revelation, none of it is a substitute for the living water itself; it is at best a signpost to show where that water is. Any tendency to base fellowship upon a man-devised theological system rather than on our common life is really a form of religious humanism, no matter how much that system professes to exalt God.

May God save save us all from that and draw us together in His Spirit, especially as the time grows short!

Rachel in her own words

Hi Everyone,

First off, I would just like to thank you all for your prayers and support as I am settling here in Costa Rica. God has been doing some really amazing things and he has been opening so many doors for me here. I would have never imagined that I would have so many doors open that I would have to pray about which ones to walk through!

Through my ministries, God has really been teaching me to be more of a leader and to step out from the sidelines and take on more responsibility. I am working WAY out of my comfort zone but it is teaching me to not only learn new skills, but to depend on God. I´m also realizing that I am better at some things that I never would have tried. So what exactly am I doing here?

For the last month I have been working in a Children´s home as a English teacher 3 days a week. The director originally told me that I would just be an assistant to him in class to help with pronunciation. Well, I arrived only to be told that I was the teacher and thrown into a class of very energetic kids with only a few minutes to improvise a lesson! This has been a real challenge for me as not only am I learning how to teach but I´m learning how to work with kids that come with so many issues. The majority of these kids were abused and abandoned by their parents. Most of them were old enough to remember it. They crave any type of attention whether positive or negative. So you can imagine what its like trying to not only teach, but teach in a second language. God has truly been good to me though and has given me the strength and patience to teach.

I am also working at a children´s feeding centre in a nearby neighborhood helping with the kids during the bible lessons, washing dishes and handing out food. Two people are leaving soon and it appears that I will be doing yet more teaching to the younger kids. With a bit of extra support last month, I was able to contribute to the cost to install electricity in this building. Thanks to everyone who contributed! The feeding centre is also used for bible studies in the evenings for men and women in this community. This is what I do on Saturdays.

Although I only have 4 set days per week of work, I am finding that God is filling those other days every week. I have been doing a bit of everything from helping with construction to translating for missionaries and missions teams. This week I will be helping with a missions team in Orosi with some translating and other odd jobs.

One door that has opened and that I am praying about, is the opportunity to work in the slums with a local church. I will be meeting with the pastor next week to see his ministries there. I am really excited for this because my heart and vision has always been to work with the poor and to just serve. This pastor´s church is right in the slums so its exciting to think that pretty soon I might be a part of this amazing ministry.

I will end off by asking for prayer in different areas and believe me, it is very much needed:

1. Please pray for the childrens home. They are currently running 4000.00 dollars short every month and have been operating on loans. This has been very stressful for the director there. Also pray for me as I learn how to teach and pray that I would be patient and loving.

2. Please pray for me. As I am surrounded by so much need, sometimes it is so hard to not be able to help in a financial way. Pray that God will give me discernment on which ministries to help with my time and also that God will move the hearts of people who can help in the areas that I can´t.

3. I have applied to a missions organization. Please pray that I will be accepted quickly. The process can take months before and if I am accepted. I know that this would open doors to much needed support financially and it would give me the ability to give tax deductible receipts.

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well, and I would love to hear what is going on in your lives as well. Thanks for being such a blessing to me and to my ministries.

God Bless,

Rachel Garber

Rachel's ministry update

Back in April (it seems like so long ago now) I shared our daughter's move to Costa Rica to carry out independent ministry. Now, after two months in country, Rachel reports that ministry opportunities are multiplying to the point that she has to pray about which to accept. One of the reasons for this is that a surprising number of North American missionaries in Costa Rica don't speak Spanish and therefore welcome her help in their ministries.

At this time Rachel is scheduled for 4 days a week working in a feeding centre and teaching children in an orphanage. In addition to that she will be interpreting for a short term mission tour group which is being hosted by one of her missionary contacts.

An established missionary, Keith Britton, has this to say about Rachel on his blog at http://keithbritton.blogspot.com/ (the caps are his):

THIS PAST MONTH I WELCOMED A NEW MEMBER TO GOD IN ACTION MINISTRY, “RACHEL GARBER“.SHE COMES TO US FROM “HIGHLAND MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH” IN CALGERY ALBERTO, CANADA. TO SAY SHE IS JUST A BLESSING WOULD BE AN UNDERESTIMATE. SHE IS A WONDERFUL BLESSING THAT GOD INSPIRED TO COME HERE TO BE ON MISSION WITH HIM IN COSTA RICA TO HELP HELP THE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES THAT LIVE IN POVERTY OR WITHOUT PARENTS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HIS LOVE AND MERCY AND GRACE THROUGH CHRIST JESUS.

WHAT IS REALLY COOL, IS THAT SHE ALREADY SPEAKS SPANISH AND HAS ALREADY BEEN TRANSLATING FOR ME. (I CAN SPEAK OK, BUT HAVE A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING SPANISH). AS OF NOW, SHE WILL BE HELPING AT LOS QUIZAROS (WERE WE FEED THE CHILDREN) EVERY SATURDAY AND TEACHING ENGLISH AT AN ORPHANAGE UP THE ROAD FROM MY CENTER IN CORONADO ON MONDAY AND TUESDAYS. SHE CAN ALSO HELP ME ADMINISTRATIVELY, RACHEL HAS OPENED HER HEART TO SERVE GOD WHEREVER HE IS.

SHE IS AN INDEPENDENT MISSIONARY LIKE MY SELF, …PLEASE WELCOME HER TO GOD IN ACTION MINISTRY ON MISSIONS IN COSTA RICA.

......and strikes back!

I am typing this with 3 fingers of my right hand, primarily to occupy my mind during T3 withdrawal (a decision I am beginning to reconsider). The good news is that I no longer have nausea, the bad news - well let’s just say that I have good minutes and then I have bad minutes. But since I am writing this anyway, I’ll share it to let those who are interested know exactly what happened. By the way, thank you very much to all who have left their prayers and wishes for us. I really desire your continued prayers, especially for Diane.

Diane and I were involved in an accident on our motorcycle at about 6:00 pm Saturday. The situation really blindsided me. We were going 55 kmh west bound in the the left lane of 16th Ave NW a few blocks before Home Rd when a car travelling ahead of me in the right lane slowed down and waved out a guy who was waiting to pull out from a driveway on the right. He peeled out across the westbound lanes to make a left on 16th, saw me and stopped dead across my lane.

I had 50 ft to react. Couldn't go right, there was that car stopped in the right lane, couldn't go left, there was oncoming traffic. All I could do was hammer both brakes and wait. My front wheel locked and we went down and just had enough time to bounce and tumble once before I slammed into the car. Diane missed the car and rolled to a stop beside me. We were both conscious but groaning.

Diane had multiple fractures in her right tibia, just below the knee. I understand the joint is uninvolved. She will need surgery for that once the swelling subsides, as well as to replace a chip out of her cheekbone. The small mercy in her case is that I had bought a Kevlar jacket for her just before the accident, so she was spared from road rash.

I hit the car facing backward as I rolled along the pavement, contacted its front tire around my right shoulder blade, broke that as well as 5 ribs both front and back. The tumble itself blew out my left wrist, tore the flesh of my right pinkie finger clear away from the bone and gave me road rash on both arms and knees.

I’ve rerun the accident in my mind and wondered if there was any way I could’ve/ should’ve avoided it. But I don’t know. I usually watch for those scenarios when I drive and try to make eye contact when I see someone waiting to pull out, If not, I will slow down. But in this case, we were in the second lane out from the curb with traffic in the lane between us. The vehicle of the “considerate” driver who waved out the other guy was also screening him from my vision and me from his. The other guy of course was wrong to trust her wave and not look for himself, but the ironic thing is that the person who is most at fault for this will never be charged. Does she even know what she did wrong?

As I was lying on the operating table, the surgeon leaned over and said, "What were you riding?"

"A Vulcan 750"

"So are your riding days over?"

"No."

"Well if you are to continue riding, I suggest you get a newer and larger bike. That model is a little small to be riding two up."

I kid you not, those were the doctor's orders. But I'm taking that under advisement for now.

The Midlife strikes

In February when Diane and I were in Maui a shortage of rental cars on the island forced us to rent a motorcycle as an alternative for the duration of our stay there. For 10 days we rode around together on 2 different Harleys, a Buell and a Vulcan. It was a blast, Diane actually got to feel comfortable riding on the back and for me it brought back memories of an earlier time when for 2 1/2 years I went almost everywhere astraddle a 1969 Honda CB450.

The 450 was a sweet machine. An engine size of 450cc may not seem like much today, but at the time it came out it was the largest Japanese bike available. It had a top end of 104 mph (109 with the wind blowing just right) and cruised quite easily at 80 mph. Its only drawback at such speeds was the engine vibration which travelled up through the handlebars and rendered my hands numb after an hour or so. (This was before the days of counter-balanced, rubber mounted engines.)

Some have criticised the CB450 as topheavy, but I found it to be not only agile but very well balanced and stable on the highway as well. I once had a catastrophic blowout of the rear tire at 60 mph on the 401 near Windsor, Ontario. The flapping tire caused the bike to yaw uncontrollably up to 45 degrees from the direction of travel, first to the left, then to the right and then to the left again before I slowed down enough to pull off and stop. Each time the rear end threw itself from one side to the other, the motorcycle amazingly seemed to self-correct its steering without any conscious input on my part. (Or was it the hand of God? I guess I'll find out when I get to heaven!)

Such hair raising moments aside, I enjoyed every mile I rode the 450 - all 14,000 of them. I finally sold the bike in 1978 when Diane and I moved out west, and aside from a six month period in the 90's I have been off two wheels ever since. Until Maui, that is.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that I got the motorcycle bug back, and started shopping for a bike after we returned from Hawaii.

I decided that I was too old for this:

and that I was not yet old and fat enough for this:


Besides, the price tag on both models was a little rich for my budget. So I settled for something a little more age-appropriate:


This is a 1986 Kawasaki 750 Vulcan. It is a light cruiser now out of production which was a standard for about 20 years and is now considered somewhat of a classic. It's a good way to go for a used bike - proven reliability and parts are easy to get. It cost me all of $1,900.

Like me, it was in its prime 20 years ago but has been reasonably well maintained. When it was rebuilt 8000 km back it was bored out to more like 850cc, so it may have improved on its designed top speed of 124 mph. It is unlikely however that I will ever find out if that is so. (I will make that concession to age - or to the wisdom which comes with age!)

The motorcycle handles well though with Diane on pillion I find it wallows a bit on the bumps and wanders slightly on a tight curve. I'll try tightening the suspension which should fix the first problem. I not sure what I can do about the latter however. On the cruiser frame the centre of gravity is a little further back than what I am used to, and at 483 lbs I'm guessing that the bike is not quite heavy enough to offset the effect of Diane sitting over the rear wheel. As a result, the front wheel is just a little light, hence the wandering.

The carburetor flattens out somewhat at 7000 rpm, which is not surprising since it has sat for 3 years. Taking it apart and otherwise servicing the bike will be a weekend project once tax season is over.

Then I'll be able to try its legs.

One flew away.....

Ten days ago I returned from a week in Costa Rica, having flown down to accompany our youngest daughter Rachel in her move to that country. Rachel will be serving there with one or more local missions in outreach to the poorer people in the slums around San Jose. She doesn’t plan to return in the foreseeable future.

This move has been a long time coming. When she was a child, Rachel gravitated to the missionary stories in the church library; she had no notion of becoming one herself, but such books drew her in a way she couldn’t explain. It was not until she went with her church youth group to inner-city L.A. on a short term mission trip that Rachel began to get the idea that such service might be for her.

In her high school junior year Rachel asked us for permission to go to Latin America on a student exchange. We put her off until graduation, but when she finished school she hadn’t forgotten. Rachel worked a year, and then with her savings and a newly arranged line of credit she launched out and went to Costa Rica to study Spanish in a home stay program for nine months.

Upon her return from Costa Rica, Rachel worked for another year and then enrolled in the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Lima, Peru. During this time Rachel felt a growing, newly definite sense that God was calling her into missions. It was not so much an aspiration or an ambition so much as an imperative, an undeniable sense that this is something that she must do in obedience to God’s Spirit.

In reponse to this, Rachel began working singlemindedly to pay off her debts upon her return from Peru last April. Her goal was to become free to go back to serve in Costa Rica on a full time, permanent basis. She largely succeeded in reaching her goal and now she has followed through.

In doing so she is going against the grain of conventional thinking. Rachel has no training other than the year in bible school, no sending mission (she is being supported directly by family and friends) and no firm arrangements at the other end. She also has had to come to terms with the knowledge that any marriage hopes she might have (and she is a normal young woman in this respect) must take second place to God’s call for her.

Rachel also has been discouraged at times by the voices of our comfortable Christian culture: “What are your qualifications?”; “Why do you need to go away? There is so much to do here”; “What about a career? You need to think about your future” and perhaps most insidiously, “The era of Western missions is over; don't go, just send money”. (Rachel says that when she first encountered this thesis in K.P. Yohannan’s Revolution in World Missions she became so angry that she threw the book across the room.)

But what Rachel does have is our wholehearted support. We are very proud of her decision to put God first in her life, we trust her ability to discern His call and we know that whether or not she is specifically supposed to serve in San Jose, she is walking God’s way and He will steer her right.

Still, it’s not easy to see Rachel go. As our youngest she is the one we feel most protective toward even at the age of 23. And she is a young 23, dewy-eyed and innocent looking. No one would know to look at her that at 19 she traveled alone in a dodgy part of Nicaragua, or that she made her way at age 21 through bandit-infested jungle to visit the Peruvian headwaters of the Amazon.

As the time approached for her departure, I became more and more aware that in the busyness of our arrangements we would have very little quality time together. I therefore asked Rachel if she would mind if I flew down with her. “Since this is to be your future”, I said, “I want to be the one who walks you down the aisle into your new life.” And she agreed.

We flew out on a red-eye flight March 30, arriving in San Jose about noon. We rented a small third world style SUV called a Terios and spent the next four days at Manuel Antonio beach on the Pacific coast and driving around the interior before ending up in the Orosí valley near Cartago Thursday. During these days Rachel and I walked and explored and prayed together. We talked perhaps more than we ever had- about her dreams and her feelings and how God had brought her to this point. It was a precious time and passed all too quickly.

On Friday we spent an hour wandering around Desamparados looking for the place where Rachel would be staying. Our job was made especially difficult by the fact that Costa Rica has very few street signs or numeric addresses. All we had to go on was the vague description “700 metres south of the playing field close to Dos Cercas.” We spent all of our time looking without success for these two landmarks, until in our random driving we stumbled on the condo complex itself. Only then could we backtrack on the directions to find the playing field and fix its location so that we could find the home again the next day.

That night I treated Rachel to a fairly sumptuous meal at the Outback steak house in Escazú. We were both aware of the irony that the price of this feast was a quarter of what would be her monthly budget for living expenses (Rachel is adamant that she will live according to local standards). Say farewell to North American affluence!

The next morning I brought Rachel back to her new home at which we met the woman whose apartment she would be sharing. Yahaira (sounds like Elvira) is quite friendly and invited us in to chat for a little while. When she asked Rachel in Spanish if our family was Christian I found myself giving her an impromptu testimony of faith.

Our introduction stretched to include the serving of a crepa and coffee and the review of Yahaira’s family pictures (one can’t decently rush these things in Latin America, even with a plane to catch), but the moment came when I could delay no longer. I gave Rachel a hug and a kiss and that was that. Our little girl was on her own.

Primeval Sin

On my flight back to Calgary early Sunday morning I sat beside a businessman who was flying in to to see his sales rep in the city. As we landed he said "My salesman will be here to pick me up".

Since it was 1:30 am and there were plenty of taxis at the curb, I thought that was a little over the top on the salesman's part and commented "Wow, that's dedication".

"Well, he knows what to do to keep his job in a recession."

My neighbour must have read my mind, because after a pause he continued in an attempt to justify himself: "In these economic times things get a little more primeval."

I'm not sure what the man meant by "primeval" but in the context I gathered he was describing a Darwinian order of relationships based on raw power: dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, etc. In other words, he was pulling his employee out of bed at an ungodly hour rather than pay a $25 cab fare - just because he could do so.

I could only shake my head at how foolish and shortsighted this fellow was. Did he really think that his employee could not make him pay for this in some other, more significant way? Many employers really do not understand how often their people go the second mile for them unasked, and how poorly the business can operate when they stop doing so. And they forget that grinding the peons will only make the good ones flee at the first opportunity. But sin is like that. It's not only wrong in itself, but it's self-defeating as well.

I retrieved my luggage and walked outside to catch a taxi. I was going to stay at my son and daughter-in-law's for the night, but since I could get my own ride I didn't wish to disturb their sleep.

Jesus believes in you

The lyrics below were written by our son a few years ago. The title may raise a few doctrinal eyebrows, but if you read it through you will see how it makes perfect sense. The song encourages us not to have faith in ourselves, but to have faith in God's purpose for us and in the sufficiency of His Son's life in us.

Jesus Believes in You

He kneels down to wash their feet,
They know not what he sees
The night before He dies,
The next day to be crucified
And they wonder why
As He looks up at these men,
They are broken, imperfect reflections
But He doesn’t just see them as they are
He looks on past the scars
Sees who they can be,
When He dies and sets them free

Jesus believes in you,
Jesus can see right through,
He sees past the pain
Past the guilt and shame
Jesus believes in you

After the deed is done,
After Satan thinks he’s won
The disciples run away,
Hide in fear and shame
Peter was one of them
Back to the nets he went.
What kind of man was he?
Denying his Lord times three

Jesus believed in him
Called him to feed his sheep
He looked beyond his pain
Past his guilt and shame

Jesus believed in him
Saw who he could be
That in His name
Peter could set men free
Jesus believed in him

So what are you going to do?
When you screw up, without a clue?
Will you turn your back and run?
Or will you stop and face the Son?
Will you dwell on your shame?
Or will you find hope in Jesus’ name?
Look and see the truth
Jesus sees life and Him in you
Jesus believes in you

- Carl Garber, 2006

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant...

II Cor. 3:5,6

The Innocents and the timeshare (I)

Two years ago we went down to Puerta Vallarta on one of those all-inclusive packages which allow you to fly in and stay for a week at a three star hotel for about the normal cost of the airfare. When we landed we somehow got signed up for a timeshare presentation in exchange for a handful of free activities. It seemed like a no-brainer. Three hundred dollars worth in excursions in return for a few hours of our time. What could we lose?

As it happened, we almost lost the price of a timeshare. Until I experienced it, I never would have given that much credit to the ability of an accomplished sales team to finesse me into buying something I didn't really want. In the end, my wife saved me. She usually defers to my judgment in matters financial, but as we moved through the steps of the purchase, I noticed that she looked more and more uneasy.

If I have learned nothing else in our married life, it is to respect Diane's gut instinct, so I woke up and dug in my heels. It took a hour and several sessions of the rack and thumbscrews to get the staff to unwind a deal which we had already signed, but in the end we left free and unencumbered by both a property we didn't need and a debt we couldn't really afford.

Later in the week, we were approached in downtown Puerta Vallarta by a hawker who offered us $300 cash to go to yet another timeshare presentation. When I respectfully declined, he asked why.

"I've already done that. Too much pressure."
"Where did you go, Señor?"
"To Grand Mayan."
"Oh, Señor, they are the hardest sales team. They have a saying: 'Make the prospect buy or cry.' If you can resist them, you can handle my timeshare people, no problem."

So we moved on, having learned two valuable lessons. One, that if we ever ended up broke and stranded there, we could survive by taking money off Mexican timeshare hawkers; and secondly, that we were now well and truly immune to such sales tactics....

.....until we went to Hawaii last month, that is. And then somehow we did it again!

It started the same way as in Mexico. When we went to book the standard activities - the luau, the snorkelling, the trip up the volcano, we found that cost was much cheaper if we would only agree to attend a timeshare presentation up in Kahana. Diane was reluctant but I was confident that we would be in and out in 90 minutes, no problem. After all, we had survived the Grand Mayan!

As it happened, the affair lasted 4 hours, and once again we signed on the dotted line. I won't go into our mental processes, but I'm sure it would the subject of a fascinating psychological study. If scientists can figure out why we purchased a timeshare after walking in determined not to buy anything, then perhaps we would be able to understand why Adam and Eve bought the serpent's bill of goods.

The one thing I will say in our favour is that we signed knowing that under Hawaiian law we had seven days to rescind the deal without penalty. That was almost precisely the time we had left in Maui, so we had time to think things over before leaving the island.

The deal had two basic elements: the use of the timeshare and membership in a timeshare exchange program. Each element had an attractive aspect as we understood the sales presentation: (1) should we wish not to use it, we could rent out the studio unit we had bought into without restrictions for upwards of $200 per night, allowing us to net $700 after maintenance fees for our annual week; and (2) the property would be rated as a 5-star one bedroom suite in the exchange program, allowing us to change out our week in Maui for a week in a high-end resort anywhere else in the world. As a bonus, we would able to book additional weeks in similar properties elsewhere for only $400.

However, before finalizing the deal we had to check those understandings against reality, so on Day 5 I sat down with my laptop in the Maui Lu lobby and did some online research. I was unable to assess the quality of the exchange program because we had not yet received a user id for their website, so I looked at timeshare itself. As I did, I found that our understanding was false in two respects:

1) The unit we had bought into rented on VRBO for only $130-140 per night in high season. Since our maintenance fee was $656 per week, that meant that the incremental benefit of ownership over renting was only $300 per week. This little bit of information fundamentally changed our perception of the deal.

On these terms payback on the purchase price of USD 13,500 would take 45 years - without taking into account the time value of money (please forgive me if I turn a little geeky here; this sort of thing is what I do). If I assumed a fairly modest annual discount rate of 5%, the value of the cash flow in perpetuity was still only $6,000. (This was confirmed by further research after we returned to Canada; the identical unit was listed online for as low as USD 6,500.)

2) So maybe the timeshare itself wasn't a great deal, but perhaps the exchange program would make up for it? However, the same vacation rental sites we referred to also described the property that our unit was in as a 3-star.

This planted doubts in our mind as to the validity of the benefits promised in the program. If we could change out out our 3-star studio for a 5-star one bedroom elsewhere, someone was getting scammed. Or would we be receiving tarted up 3-star accommodations in exchange ourselves? Regardless of the answer to that last question, the trust factor was gone, and without trust there is no transaction. We decided to revoke our purchase.

At first I was annoyed at the salesman's bald misrepresentations, but as I reflected I realized that I was the victim of something much more subtle. The salesman's sin was one of omission, not misrepresentation. The information he had given us was in fact correct - for the property in which the initial sales presentation took place. But somewhere along the line we had been moved over to an adjoining building where the unit we eventually bought was located, without being advised of the difference between the 2 locations. It was a variation of the old bait and switch.

On Day 7 we returned to the timeshare sales office with the completed rescission form in hand....

To be continued.....

The Innocents Abroad

We are back from 2 weeks in Maui and Oahu.

Our stay there was a very good time, undisturbed by the distractions of daily life. My business partner called once to get my input regarding a situation in the office, but then he stopped himself, apologized, saying "Never mind, it's your holidays, it can wait till you get back."

Not that our trip was without its hitches. There were no unreserved rental cars available on the island, so we rented a motorcycle for the duration of our stay on Maui. Since it was Hawaii, I tried riding in shorts and promptly got a nasty burn on my calf which kept me out of the water for the duration of our stay. As a result we spent 10 days bombing around Maui variously riding a Harley Dynaglide, a Buell and finally a Vulcan.


It was a lot of fun and brought me back to an earlier time when I pretty much lived on a bike for several years. We rode helmetless...I just because I could and Diane because no helmet could be found small enough to fit her head properly (and a loose helmet is worse than none at all). Diane learned to be comfortable on the back once she acquired the skills of a motorcycle passenger (don't try to lean, just be the bike).

There is a surprising amount of island to cover on Maui and we didn't get through it all, but we were able to circumnavigate Haleakala. It's a nice run. The road runs more or less straight to Paia and then winds the remaining 30 miles to Hana around 600+ curves, passing through groves of bamboo and under the mist of waterfalls.

Coming around the backside of the volcano, we passed through miles of range land before coming out in the uplands on its western slope. If I ignored the ocean I might almost have thought myself in Alberta.

In between the riding we found the time to bicycle down Haleakala, do the luau thing, go on a sunset cruise and almost buy a timeshare (more on that later).

We hopped around beween accommodations but enjoyed most of all the 3 days during which we shared a tourist bungalow with a 60ish missionary couple on their honeymoon and a doctor. We would all go out separately during the day and then end up hanging around together in the late evening sharing food, wine and stories. Lots of stories - we had almost 3 centuries of combined life experience including travel and cross-cultural involvement.

The doctor is not a believer, but I got a chance to share our faith with him when on our final evening there he leaned across the table and asked "Tell me, what would you say is Christianity's greatest contribution to the world?"

"Love", I said.
"What do you mean?
"Love, not as an ethical system, but as something you receive from God so that it overflows in a natural way to others...."

And so it went for 2 hours. It was a blessing to know that God was using us, that even in the pursuit of pleasure we and the other couple were able to keep a divine appointment for the sake of God's grace in this man's life.

The last 3 days of our holiday we hopped over to Oahu and stayed in Waikiki. I had learned from my experience and reserved a mid-sized car, which the agency upgraded to a Cadillac for no extra charge. We explored the island, did some hiking, sailed on a catamaran off Waikiki beach and sampled the island's cuisine. Not much food though that was identifiably Hawaiian. There were sushi bars and Chinese restaurants everywhere, and even in the small towns it seems Korean fare is offered at every lunch counter.



Oahu has a very different feel from Maui. The Pearl City/Honolulu/Waikiki conurbation dominates the island making it more urban vs. Maui's rural. The city especially is very Asian, or should I say Eurasian; Waikiki is full of Japanese and many of the inhabitants seem an indeterminate mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, white and Filipino. The process of racial fusion seems far advanced here - much more than at home, which is still pretty much a mosaic of cultures. I wondered if we were looking at Canada's future.

The holiday was a sweet time for us. I so much enjoyed riding around together, feeling Diane holding on to me behind and speaking together as we rode. The experience took me back and it felt as though Diane were my girlfriend again rather than my wife of 31 years. And through it all like a thread was the pain and care of my wound which drained steadily and later required treatment for infection (it is still not healed). But somehow that only added to the piquancy of the experience in a way I can't explain.

On February 24 we flew out on a red eye flight, arriving in Calgary at noon the next day thoroughly exhausted but content. This holiday was easily the most expensive one we have ever taken, but it it was well worth it.

I'll fly away

I am invoicing to the music of Danilo Montero: Te Alabaré Mi Buen Jesús. It is the Lord's Day, but I know that God will forgive me because I am about to take a two week sabbath, which is why I'm in the office on Sunday morning trying to get through a slug of paperwork. On Monday evening Diane and I will fly away to Maui, returning from Honolulu on February 25.

I will bring my laptop, but due to the nature of our vacations I expect to post only irregularly, if at all. On our agenda is a bike ride down down Haleakala, parasailing and perhaps for myself (I'm toying with this one, thinking how to get Diane comfortable with the idea) getting started on my "A" License in skydiving. We each jumped tandem in Mexico a few years ago, so I know I can get out of the plane; it's just getting down on my own that I would like to learn now.

I wish anyone who drops in here God's blessing in the meantime.

The Shack and the passion of God

We've just gotten through the chapter entitled A Piece of Pi in our study group and I am realizing more and more how much the book owes to the gospel of John. In fact, this chapter is more or less a fictional exposition of the relations within the Trinity as revealed to us in John.

Overlooking the elements in the book which I personally find irritating - like the anti-authoritarianism and disdain for the organized church - overlooking all that, Paul Young is on to something very important here in his emphasis on God's relational, empathic nature.

We see this first of all when Mack meets the Father and sees the nail holes in His (sorry, I just can't say Her) hand. Elousia goes on to explain that this was because He was with Jesus on the cross, that He had never actually abandoned His Son even though Jesus felt like it at the time.

Paul Young has been accused by some on account of this of the ancient heresy of Patripassianism, which I (and I suspect Young as well) had never heard of before this, but I don't think the charge will stick. The image of the Father bearing the stigmata of His Son's sufferings seems to me a very fair representation of the intimate nature of their relationship as described throughout John:

"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does..." "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me." "...the Father abiding in Me does His works."

Jesus' suffering on the cross was pre-eminently a work of the Father ("God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself"); are we not to believe that His Father was abiding in Him at that time as well?

The significance of the stigmata in the book is that because of the closeness of their union within the Trinity, the Father felt through His Son the suffering of the penalties of sin just as much as Jesus did. This may be theologically unprovable but it is emotionally authentic to the description Jesus gives of His Father, and for a work of fiction, that's good enough.

So kudos to Paul Young for bringing out this neglected truth of God's love. And it is neglected. Why do we go on about the great love that God showed in sending His Son and yet at the same time believe in our hearts that the God Who is Love somehow loves less deeply than we do ourselves? We so often make of His love a hieratic, dispassionate thing rather than something that is tender, empathic and passionate. No wonder many Christians are emotionally starved and burned out.

In the group we looked at Jesus' encounter with Mary and Martha at Lazarus' tomb for an example of this empathy. Why did Jesus weep? Not for Lazarus - He was about to raise him. Not for the sisters - He was about to fill them with joy. Rather, He wept for the pain they were feeling then and there; because He loved them, He felt their pain as they did, just as we do ourselves when someone we love is suffering.

We discussed how this knowledge applies to our daily walk. We accept that God brings us through hard experiences to perfect His nature in us. But he is not just the surgeon, steady and detached, who is bringing us through sufferings that He Himself has no sense of. Because He is in us, He is in a way on the table with us and suffers along with us. Just knowing that can help us trust in His grace that much more in our trials.

In other words, because of the nature of love, "Abide in Me, and I in you" must be a two way street experientially. It is not just me partaking of Jesus' life and grace, but it is Him receiving and experiencing something through me as well. The implications of this are very deep and I'm not sure I've got to the bottom of it.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (I John 4:16)

The idol of Tactic

I think I've finally put my finger on one of the subtly off-putting aspects of The Shack’s depiction of God. It lies not so much in how He is depicted, but that He is depicted at all. Jesus I have no problem with, nor the Holy Spirit (though a dove would suit me better), but the Father has never appeared as Himself in bodily form and to show Him as such, even imaginatively, seems a little…..transgressive.

Young has been criticized by some for setting up an image of God and thus breaking the second commandment. Technically that is not true because a verbal description of God as in the book is not a “graven image” of Him by any stretch. In spirit I think it’s probably also okay because Young is not seriously putting forward an image of what God actually looks like but only describing how He chooses to present himself in the context of the story (this is fiction, after all). So I’m prepared to cut him some slack as an artist. After all, it’s hard to write a dialogue with God where the protagonist is talking to an empty space.

However, it’s worth thinking a little about the ancient prohibition against images. Is it still relevant today?

I've done business for years with an order of nuns and recognize their faith as a genuine belief in Christ as their Saviour. In their residences they have crucifixes and artistic representations of Jesus and Mary. Though I don’t make use of such images myself, I know they don't worship them and I personally have no issue with that. However a statue that is just a statue to me might be a stumbling block to someone else

As an example of that, I remember a Catholic church I visited in Tactic, Guatemala which in its sanctuary has a large, somewhat gruesome crucifix. The people venerate it and call it "el Señor de Xi-Ixim" (the Lord of Xi-Ixim, Xi-Ixim being the name of the place) and pray to it for miracles. A little room off the sanctuary is filled with testimonial plaques from people who have been healed or had their prayers answered.

Most of the plaques are addressed to el Señor de Xi-Ixim, but one of them gives the game away. It thanks "Señor Xi-Ixim" (Lord Xi-Ixim), which also happens to be the name of the local Mayan pre-Columbian deity. To clinch the identification, outside the church, directly in front of the main entrance, stands an altar covered with the remains of burnt offerings to Xi-Ixim.

Are the crucifixes of the gentle sisters idols? Not at all. Is this crucifix in Tactic one? I would say yes. It is a full-on idol in the old school Canaanite sense - its worship not just the mental error of uneducated peasants, it is an instrument of deception through which dark powers work to enslave the worshippers.

I don't blame the church entirely for this. I don't think it intentionally set out to create an idol in the crucifix. But its use of the crucifix as visual imagery has put a stumbling block in the way of the people which allows them to perpetuate their idolatry under the guise of a worship of Christ.

The upshot of all this is that though the old commandment given to Israel applies as a law only to them in the context of the Mosaic covenant, it does contain an important spiritual principle which God means for us to apply to our lives today. As Paul wrote:

Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. (I Cor. 10:11)

True love does leave traces

I once came across a reference to a Leonard Cohen song, True Love Leaves No Traces, and became curious as to its lyrics. I obtained a recording of the song and found it disappointing, which didn't surprise me since I am not a Cohen fan.

However the song got me thinking about the truth of its statement and I realized that Cohen got it only half right. He was referring to that rare kind of love between a man and a woman which needs no physical consummation and therefore leaves no traces in the beloved. But the deeper truth is that true love does indeed leave traces - in the lover.

These marks endure. They are not replaced by other loves, because each love that is truly love is tied uniquely to its beloved.

So it is for a mother who loses a baby. She may go on to have other children whom she loves deeply, but a piece of her heart will always and only belong to the child she lost. Her love for it will not be displaced by the others because those are different loves, also dear, also loved uniquely but none in any way a substitute for each other.

So it is also with God's love. Have you ever thought about how God loves you really, personally, uniquely? That Jesus' hands were pierced and He died specifically for you?

In the same way, God's grand plan is not just one of general benevolence, but He intends His kingdom to come in your life in a way which is unique and irreplaceable. It consists first and foremost in an intimate relationship with you through Jesus Christ which at the deepest level will not be shared with anyone else.

I caught a glimpse of this in Jesus' word to the church in Ephesus:

To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him... (Rev. 2:17)

God's whole purpose in your life begins in this relationship with Jesus when you receive Him, and unfolds from it like a flower. He wants to bring it about in its fulness - not just in eternity, but as much as you allow Him to here and now.

If you have put your faith in in Jesus Christ, please know that the whole sum of your spiritual growth is measured by how you grow in this communion with Him.

If you are not yet a believer, this is the inheritance which is waiting for you today. Please don't let it pass you by!


Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.
Isaiah 49:16

The God of sloppy kisses

It doesn't really bother me that Paul Young portrays God the Father as a woman per se. George Macdonald did so with profound effect over a century ago. But.....Aunt Jemima?? Macdonald's Wise Woman, whether kind or severe, was always gracious, but never to be trifled with and certainly not a dispenser of sloppy kisses. Young's though is not merely an African-American woman; she's a stereotyped African-American woman, and as such comes across to me as cartoonish and silly.

To see God rendered this way is like coming across one of the earlier attempts to animate the Lord of the Rings; it falls so far short that one wants to cry out "Noooo! Don't even try!"

This I believe is symptomatic of a wider problem with Paul Young's view of God. And that is, how shall I say it, the trivialization of God and of the impact He has on those who encounter Him.

What I mean is this: that when men encounter God in Scripture - or better to say, He encounters them - they are never unmoved. They fall on their faces, they repent in dust and ashes, they cry woe to themselves - in short, they are undone. Job, for example, after 30 chapters of nonstop kvetching, is silenced when God finally appears to him. The man who couldn't wait to confront his God suddenly has no more questions.

In The Shack, both the order of questioning and the role of questioner seem to be reversed from Job's experience. Mack has always brooded about the absence of God, until God appears to him in order to cajole him out of his sulks and entertain any and all questions he may have. With the opening of a door, we go from the Silent God to the God Who Can't Stop Talking. While Mack is taken aback by the idea of actually speaking to God, the God he faces has all the gravitas of a talk show host and we are not surprised that Mack is not moved in any deep way by God's very presence.

It seems to me that this portrayal is a deeply unworthy view of God. I understand what Young is trying to do. He wants to give us a picture of a God who will stoop to woo us - and in a certain sense that is correct. God spoke to Elijah in a still, small voice, Jesus humbled himself by "taking the form of a bondservant" and Augustine heard God's voice as that of a child chanting "take and read".

But the ingredient of awe is completely absent in Young's picture of God as a jolly, smoochy aunt. It lacks....verismilitude (to use a literary term). God is simply not like that, not in Scripture nor in my own experience.

God explains this approach to Mack as a device to disarm his resentment against God as an imagined cold and distant father and to engage him in dialogue. However, since we all know that any boy over the age of 10 would recoil from such embraces, it is hard to imagine them having much disarming effect on a grown man.

As a result, it is hard for me to enter imaginatively into the ensuing dialogue as a conversation with God. As I read it, in my mind's eye I keep seeing this scrolling disclaimer as if across a television screen: "literary vehicle for author's views".

And the whole notion of God needing to dialogue with Mack to bring him around also seems counterintuitive. This idea is encapsulated in God's statement "I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later". Again, this seems to be the wrong way around from how God really works.

In my observation, it's not the head issues which typically keep people from God. More often, it is precisely the heart issues which do - and the head issues are thrown up as a defensive screen. When the Holy Spirit is working, a single word will find the chink in the armour and the proud tower of intellectual opposition comes down.

I believe that the reason it works this way is this: when God reveals Himself to anyone, He gives them a direct (though limited) perception of His nature. If I have misperceived Him as a cold indifferent father, the misperception falls away before the direct sense of Him as someone who loves me and knows me by name. No words are needed, God does not need to cajole me or draw me into dialogue.

Nor did He need to do so with Job. That is why Job, unlike Mack, fell down and fell silent before God. He was not just awed or intimidated into ending his questioning of Him but as he said: "I had heard of You second hand, but now I have met You."

And that was enough.

The Shack: God and gender

In The Shack Paul Young does a great job of trying to address the heart issues which many hurting people have with God.

I disagree with many of the answers, though I applaud the attempt. Paul Young obviously knows the Bible well, but his weakness is that he tends to provide his own answers when those he finds there are unpalatable to him.

All the same, The Shack is a great discussion starter, and even the parts where it is off base provide a good opportunity to go back to Scripture for the real answers, which is why we are covering it in our home group.

We discussed the gender issue last night, and the conclusion was that we should allow God to speak for Himself. If he presents Himself as a male, then it is His intent for us to relate to Him as such. If one wants to be politically correct in referring to God, the essence of political correctness after all is that you refer to a person as they wish to be named.

As to why, one might observe that the first attribute God reveals to us in Scripture is that of sovereignty or authority as Creator, that He invested authority in the first man and continued to do so in his male descendants throughout Scripture, and that an instinctive desire to exert authority and leadership exists in the male personality to this day.

In speaking to us as a male then, maybe God is speaking to all of us as our proper authority, or head, in a way which would not be communicated if he presented Himself as female.

But that is speculation.

Aside from that, I personally feel that gender goes beyond biology, that there is a spiritual aspect to it as well which is reflected in our personalities as men and women. In the resurrection we will not marry, but that does not mean that we will be without gender, any more than we will be without personality.

In other words, if we are raised with glorified versions of our bodies then we will be raised up as completed men and women, not as sexless Teletubbies. And if this is so, it is reasonable to assume that after death we will remain in some sense male and female in whatever ethereal state we exist in the interim. So I question the book's statement that God should be regarded as being without gender simply because He does not have a body as we do.

The above is just a personal objection which I can neither prove nor disprove from Scripture. However, I have a more serious issue with how God is portrayed in the book which I will deal with in the next post.

Questioning God

David Porter at boomerinthepew.com questions:

"The word just, or justice seems to fail me as well. Can I presume that somehow God is unjust? Somehow, using that word makes me shudder.

All this comes about, by the way, in considering God's condemnation of a fictional Masai warrior, who lives is the depths of Africa, has never heard the gospel, has not therefore been born again, dies, and subsequently spends eternity in hell."


Any believer who has any sensitivity has or does ponder about that question from time to time. If a professing Christian did not, I would really wonder if he had any inward workings of grace.

David wonders if it is not insolence to ask such a question of God, but I don't believe that it is, if it's asked sincerely and not as an invitation to doubt God. The Bible shows that God works in very different ways with those of His people who question Him, depending on their motives. Those who murmured against God fell in the wilderness (Numbers 14:27), while Jeremiah complained bitterly to God's face, even going so far as to day, "Lord, You have deceived me, and I was fooled!" and was not punished (Jer. 20:7). Instead of being consumed on the spot, he received such grace that he was able to later say, "They [Your mercies] are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness."

The difference between the two I believe is that the Israelite directed their complaints against God to justify their disobedience and wilful alienation, while Jeremiah complained to God within the context of his faith-relationship.

Not only are such questions not "punishable", but I believe that there is a spiritual value in the questioning. We need to be honest to God about our doubts and "unworthy" thoughts to keep a free and open relationship with Him. If we do, we bring them within the realm of His grace. If we try to suppress them, they will not go away; they will just stay there under the surface and poison the relationship.

And if we find it hard to understand why God can show grace to such "affronts" to His dignity, I think it is because we really lack a conception of the humility of God. But that is a fit subject for a whole 'nother post.

In the case of the "Masai" question, I don't know the answer....and perhaps it's better that I don't. If I did - if I found some explanation to justify the lost which perfectly satisfied my reason, would not my fleshly nature use it as a rationalization to close my heart off from their fate? And if I did, how could I be said to have the mind of Christ toward them?

It may be the working of God's grace which leads the believer to care enough about a total stranger's destiny to want to know God's heart on the lost. But the believer who wants to know the answer must also be willing to become the answer.

One can debate the fate of the Masai warrior....or one can go speak to him. The link below is the fascinating story of a man who did just that.

http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/01_3_PDFs/1_3%20Christianity%20Rediscovered%20Buswell%20fixed.pdf

Thanks to this believer's obedience, we'll have to find another hypothetical hopelessly benighted person for the purposes of David's question, because such no longer exist among the Masai. As a replacement, may I suggest the present generation of Western youth? Many have heard the name of Jesus only as a swear word and have no idea what the gospel is.

It is idle for us to wonder about God's fairness when people are living in darkness within our reach. Now that is unfair. I'm convicted that we believers really need to seek the Lord more about this.

I know from my all too inconsistent experience that I tend to stop wondering about God's purposes when I know I am living in His purpose. Somehow being the answer makes it less necessary to know the answer.

Back to the Shack

We are covering William P Young's book The Shack in our church fellowship group. As we go along I will post excerpts from our discussions if I think there is anything worth sharing. However first I will give my initial take on the book:

Eugene Peterson has ranked The Shack with Pilgrim's Progress in its impact; however I think such a judgment premature in spite of the book's popularity. I would compare it instead to C.W. Sheldon's In His Steps: theologically incomplete but presenting an important truth; very popular for a season but destined to fall into obscurity until perhaps a later generation rediscovers it for a time. Move over, Prayer of Jabez.

More important than the book itself is what believers' reaction to it says about the state of the Body. It has obviously touched a nerve; the the novel has gone through our Christian community like wildfire and Mack's struggles speak to many people I know. The message to me is this: that there are many wounded believers out there and the church as a whole is not ministering to them. Many are alienated as Mack is in the book and are no longer attending fellowship; many others are still attending and doing the right churchy things, but they are inwardly alienated and their heart is no longer in it.

I have felt increasingly burdened by this state of affairs locally for some time. Just as Jesus sent His disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, I wonder who will He send to the lost sheep of the house of Canmore? Or Calgary? Or Medicine Hat?

There are some sweeping statements made by the Godhead characters in The Shack which are inconsistent with Scripture as I understand it. I will touch on them but not major in them; there are much keener doctrinal eagles than I on the internet already picking at the novel's entrails. Exploring The Shack in our group I think will really mean exploring the heart issues I see in the Body and that this book addresses.

One thing I will add: I have been to Paul Young's website and by the long queues of adulatory comments there it appears that The Shack is well on its way to gathering a cult of its own. It appears that to many Paul is a surrogate pastor - almost a guru of sorts. He will need much grace not to lose his spiritual equilibrium.