New Life

"They say that new life makes losing life easier to understand." -Jack Johnson, "If I Could"

You know things are bad when I feel the need to preface a post like this by saying that no one has died this week, but that is the state we find ourselves in these days.

What I want to tell you about is one promising story and one disappointing story. First of all, a lady has started coming to church in the last couple weeks. It's a wonderful story about how she got here. She was given a Bible five years ago by someone. A few years ago she watched the Passion of the Christ. She has been curious for a long time. Then, a few weeks ago when our friend Mr. Shelby came to town, they had a random (read: providential) encounter. Mr. Shelby's taxi driver didn't know where to go and ended up dumping Mr. Shelby off on a street corner. Seeing a lost white man, and knowing English herself, she offered her help. In return, Mr. Shelby introduced her to Miss Kitty, Crack, and the Anti-Girlfriend. They shared the Gospel with her and told her she should come to our church to hear it from other Turks, and in Turkish. So she came and has been coming since. She claims to have "put her trust in the Lord." We can argue over the true meaning of that later because it will only be later in time that we know what it truly means (Yogi would be proud). What I mean is, I am slow to count her as part of the elect at this point. Why?

Because of the Butcher. I never really hit it off that well with the Butcher. He's always sort of been a little unreliable. Some weeks he'd be at home group and excited, other weeks we wouldn't hear anything from him. This isn't totally out of the ordinary for even the most devout believers, but for him, it was obvious he wasn't all there at times. Well, with that background, he gave a short testimony in the service Sunday. He told about how he had struggled with tithing, but that once he started giving, God had really blessed him. When he was done, everybody clapped, everybody but my roommate (his small group leader) that is. After church, a group of us went to a cafe to eat dinner and hang out. My roommate started in on the Butcher about his little testimony. You see, my roommate, as his small group leader, knew that he hadn't been tithing. So that's where the conversation started. Before it was over they were talking about whether or not the Butcher truly believed God and God's word. The Butcher admitted that even though he believed the Bible was God's word, he was not following it. He said that God just asked too much. This was especially troubling for him in regards to the fact that he had to marry a believing woman, since those are in short supply around here. So he quit. He gave up. He decided that he was not going to follow Christ anymore. Right then and there, in the cafe, the Butcher denied God.

This is the ebb and flow of the work in this country. The White Guy left, if you remember, last fall. He had not even been "following" for a year yet and it became too much for him. Ironically, it was the same desire to be married that really wore on him too. After he left, a high school aged boy started coming. He claims to believe and, so far, has shown himself to be pretty devoted. They canceled each other out. Then this new lady (no nickname yet) started coming. It seemed like we were finally getting ahead and making some progress. But then the Butcher had to go and do this. Back to zero.

Whether this new lady is for real, only time will tell. Whether the Butcher can really just walk away from Christ for the chance at a wife and kids, only time will tell. It's easy to start into the Christian life. It's hard to finish. I pray that for myself, and for the believers that I work with here, and all the new brothers and sisters that will come during my time here, that one day we will all be able to say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."