Saturday 26 May 2012

Along the Way

Along the Way Along the way I saw a little boy play Bull-Fight with a long horn African cow. He used a sheet of white plastic for a cloth which he dangled in front of the cow. He stared at the cow and challenged it to charge at him. The cow paid no attention to him, even as he stepped closer and closer! I saw the many roadside stalls along the way selling just about everything you can think of, from raw meat hanging on hooks in the sun, to manikins nailed to wooden crosses to display clothes! I saw a traffic officer clad in white trying to direct the traffic but no one paid attention to him. He blew his football referee’s whistle in vain. The drone of traffic noises overpowered him. I saw a vendor leading four goats on four strings, but one of the goats kept on lying down in the tall grass to rest! I saw a huge crane sitting on a steeple like a weather horn waiting for the wind to blow. I saw a deserted mission church in the jungle. I saw school children walk along the road in the villages balancing their books on their heads. I saw people walking on railway tracks because the railroad system is non-existent in Uganda.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Unsung Heroes

Martin Luther made a sudden vow to become a monk when a lightning bolt killed his mate next to him when they were on their way home from a drinking binge. Well, so the story goes!
Think about that...without that event Luther would never have gone into a monastery and the Reformation that changed the world would never have taken place and the bible would not have been translated into German! Wow!
But we do not know anything about the friend who literally gave his life to spark off the desire in Luther, or the fear, really, to dedicate the rest of his life to God!
Sometimes a friend's death is the thing that changes someone's life!
Well, Jesus's death changed millions of lives...When you realise He died for your own sins (that you should go to hell for) you suddenly feel like dedicating your life to God as well, maybe even become a reformer, like Luther!
It is often the unsung heroes that never get a mention in history that sparked off the bravery and dedication of the known heroes. Who will remember them? Who will reward them?
Barrabas was a murderer and a thief and he got set free instead of Jesus on the day of the Passover Feast. Jesus died in his place and he was allowed to go free! Imagine his surprise when the Roman prison warden came to tell him, 'You are free to go!' When he was told an unsung hero would die in his place he must have been flabberghasted! Imagine the scene...why would a stranger die in my place? Who is this man?
I wonder if he stayed to watch the crucifixion of his substitute? I wonder if he watched them kill the person that should have been him? Or did he just vanish into the milling crowd?
Who could bear to watch the torture of someone on a cross? Who could stand the torment and the pain? Only Jesus' mother and the beloved disciple John had the guts to stay close to the cross. All the other disciples fled away - even big mouth Peter! ('If all forsake you, I never will!) Big deal! Yet Peter preached on the day of Pentecost and 3000 got saved and baptised! Peter raised Dorcas from the dead! Peter's shadow healed people in the street! Peter sat with the leaders...yet when it counted he wasn't there.
In Charles Dicken's novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Darnay and his friend exchange clothes in a prison and the one dies instead of the other with the following words on his lips as he steps to the scaffolding of the French guillotine: 'It's a far, far better way to go...' so that his friend could be united to the woman he loved. What an amazing climax to a love story!
There is no greater life than a friend giving his life for his friends!
But often that moment comes unexpectedly, unplanned, uncalculated...who is ever ready for such a sacrifice?
But those men and women who died in the great wars of the world, who gave their lives so that we could carry on with life, who died so that we could be free from world domination by insane dictators...all we have for them are some statues, a flame somewhere, 'for the unknown soldier'...
In Christianity there are scores of martyrs, unknown to us, who died so that we could have the Word of God and experience salvation through Jesus Christ. Today coptic Christians in Muslim countries are still being executed for their faith...
Communism in both Russia and China destroyed the lives of multiple thousands of believers and we have no clue who they were. But they are the unsung heroes of our faith!
I have often watched cricket when someone scores a century and I've seen how others honour him as a great batsman, but his partner at the other end who kept on encouraging him, and kept on giving him the bowling, and kept on supporting him is often the unsung hero of the game. Its great to see a teacher go up to the unsung hero and say, 'you did your job well!' to a schoolboy who did his utmost to keep the partnership going.
When will our eyes open to see all the unsung heroes around us? The mother that kept on praying for her son until he turned to Christ; the mother that worked hard to pay the school fees of her daughter; the father who accumulated wealth for his children and grandchildren to enjoy; the old lady in church who gave her car to help with the purchasing of the church property; the boy who gave up his scholarship to obey the call of God in the ministry; the missionary who sold all he possessed to support his family on the mission field...
Have a look around you and see all the unsung heroes in your life and begin to thank them in whatever way possible, for you never know when you might be called upon to become an unsung hero as well!
It's a far, far better way to go...the way of love's ultimate sacrifice. Michael Caine once starred in a War Movie entitled, 'Too Late the Hero', which is also one of my favorite movies. Caine plays the part of a soldier that just wants to survive the jungle war, but in the end he gives his life to save a friend. He played the anti-hero perfectly and eventually became the hero.

Potatoes Sunny Side Up?

And so I was asked: 'What can I get you for breakfast? Boiled Potatoes, sunny side up?'
For a moment I was baffled. My mind raced to try to imagine what this dish looked like. Then i put two and two together and realized breakfast normally included the question about fried eggs, sunny side up? So it had nothing to do with eggs at all, it simply meant, the best we can offer. So I obliged and said, 'ok, let me have it!'I literally got small boiled potatoes for breakfast in my plate. I have never eaten potatoes for breakfast anywhere else except in Kiev, in the Ukraine, where I ate nothing but potatoes for a whole weak until I went with the lady of the house to buy some withered vegetables and a bit of meat in a shanty shop location two hour bus ride away from their community apartment.
But I was in a little village somewhere in Nigeria and in a hotel and the young man was put in charge of training the hotel staff. He was ambitious, energetic and high spirited and put his best foot forward all the time to impress the foreigner, but they did not have everything in place yet, not the right equipment nor the right products for meals. For instance they do not have Coca Cola in the bar. Only Sprite. They only serve from the bottles that are open - otherwise you have to purchase the whole bottle.
They are making great improvements all the time. They are training the staff - and the young man, whose name was Paul, was in charge of all the training, which happened openly. He corrected staff members on the spot and reprimanded them in front of the guests and also met with them every morning after prayer and worship, to give them instructions. He warned the older men not to be offended by his youth but to learn from him. He was giving them a three week window to improve before he would recruit other staff.
He felt obliged to look after me and ordered my meal, then sat with me at the table watching me eat it, all the time asking if I enjoyed it. It felt very uncomfortable being watched with every mouth full. If he had to go and attend to something he would asked to be excused and then rushed back to take up his position where he could watch every movement I made from the plate to my mouth.
When I went for a swim the pool man walked up and down the pool like an Olympic Coach. I felt hard pressed to swim faster with each stroke. Even if I felt like quitting after so many lengths I felt guilty and kept on turning and swimming to the other end.
I gave one of my blues CD's to Paul and to some of the other senior members. When I went to the pool bar they played my CD over the extremely loud sound system that was supported with speakers stacked up to the sky on both sides of the pool. I heard my voice being boomed out to the whole neighborhood. They particularly liked the slow songs such as 'Come sit by me' and 'Memory be kind'. It set quite a drastic contrast to their up tempo African rhythms that was all about dancing and not about melody.
In church I observed how they dance and being a trained actor, simply imitated them to their great delight! Legs bent, buttocks stuck far out, arms dangling in front as if you are playing a bush drum and head forward looking down at your feet, you cut your steps to the left and the right and move forward and backwards shaking the hands at intervals or clapping them once or twice. You let out a yell of excitement now and again, 'Jeyh!' and then throw yourself into interpreting the rhythm in a dance.
I preached in an unfinished church building in Umuahia in Abia State. The pastor received me well and so did the people. When I ministered on the I AM Principle the penny dropped after an hour and a half of preaching and suddenly people lay prostrate on the dirty worn out cement floor and started weeping quietly. You could hear them repeat the gist of my sermon, 'God wants me to be myself!' It was a revelation to them. They had been trying so hard to live up to all the demands of religion that the burden became to heavy to bear. The simply message I brought cleared up all the jet and flotsam of years of religious bondage and they were allowed to go free! There was a long silence after I preached where people just lay on the ground and some wept quietly - very unusual for Nigeria. The pastor eventually took the mike but said, 'I don't know what to say...' He dismissed the people but no one wanted to leave. It was a moment of divine glory and we all wanted to linger a little longer.
They invited me back for their annual conference.
On the Sunday morning a visitor stepped forward and offered to pay for th

the Beatles 50 years later

The Beatles 50 Years Later Newsweek released a special collector’s edition celebrating the 50 years since the Beatles were launched in 1962. In that same amazing year Dylan, The Beach boys and The Rolling Stones also surfaced onto the music scene. But in the words of the late Steve Jobs, who introduced Beatle music to i-Tunes, ‘anyone could imitate The Rolling Stones, but no one could be Dylan or The Beatles.’ What caught my attention in one of the many articles in the special edition was a paragraph about John Lennon’s evaluation of his own guitar playing: ‘I am embarrassed at my guitar technique…but I know how to drive a band.’ When Lennon met McCartney the former could only play banjo chords on the first four strings on his guitar. Lennon and McCartney became the most prolific tune factory the world has ever known. They had 27 hits that lasted 100 weeks on the No. 1 spot on the hit parade. They have sold over 600 million albums and 1.8 million on i-Tunes. They introduced the stadium performance as an event to the crowds and headed the other bands in selling their wares and merchandise in shops all over the world. Their name became an adjective in the modern English language: e.g. Beatle mania. Lennon’s statement about his guitar playing is so painfully honest – just like his music. He was not ashamed to write about his mother or about his helplessness in life. There is a pic of him and Paul sitting at a grand piano, composing a song. Paul is at the bass end and John working out the tune. It is the tunefulness of the Beatle’s songs that remains with us today. Anyone can whistle, sing or play their songs because they have memorable tunes. The spark between Lennon and McCartney produced unforgettable tunes that the world is still singing and playing today. Every time you hear a Beatle song you know it is a Beatle song. It does not matter who is performing it – because you know the tune and the style of the Beatles. They transformed music and began to sing about things street people encounter in life, meter maids, lonely people and paperback writer. Ask anyone today, what is your favourite Beatle song and they will tell you without hesitation. This is 50 years after they were launched! Yes, Lennon and Harrison are no longer with us, but McCartney and Ringo are still around. The media quoted Lennon as saying, ‘we are more important than Jesus Christ!’ but that is not the truth of the matter. He explained later that he was misquoted (typical of the media moguls to seek sensation and misquote a pop star to sell a newspaper!). What he actually said was, ‘the way people treat us you would say that we are more important than Jesus Christ!’ It was not an anti-Christ statement as the media made it out to be. But here is a simple guy with loads of talent from Liverpool, embarrassed about his guitar playing but churning out one after the other memorable tune to fill the world with beautiful music. He was willing to give it a go in spite of his guitar technique. The fab four complemented each other perfectly: John the driving force and tune giver of the group, McCartney adding the chords and rhythm, George letting his guitar gently weep and Ringo providing the simply beat behind the music. When they split up it was no longer the same. The one lacked what the other possessed. The genius of the Beatles lay in the fact that each one contributed something valuable to the group. It was not one superstar doing it all and the other riding on his success. It was a real team effort. There is much we can learn from them. If any group can rely on each other’s strengths, they can achieve much. It is okay that Lennon’s guitar playing was not brilliant, because he was the rhythm guitarist. He left the deft technique of guitar playing to George, the lead guitarist. Steve Jobs observed how they operated in the studio: ‘they kept refining and refining their music; they kept on going and going.’ Their striving for perfection produced unforgettable music. They would not settle for less. There is a lesson in that as well. At the turn of the century they brought out a compilation of their greatest hits and it went straight to No. 1 spot again, starting off a spate of other bands following in their wake with their compilation albums. Somehow they pioneered so many different directions in their burst of creativity that they are the most unforgettable pop band ever. You cannot ignore something that stood the test of time! Here comes the sun…Strawberry Fields Forever…Yesterday…While my guitar gently weeps…The long and winding road…I wanna hold your hand…Let it be…Eleanor Rigby…Get Back…and many more. Which is your favourite tune?