To be alive is to be influenced by both joys and trials in our lives. We cannot escape the trials but we can at the same time practice peace and joy in our lives. This fruit of the Spirit which God wants to develop in all of His children - JOY. Many times trials and conflict can drive us closer to our heavenly Father - which we have experienced many times.
Dad went to Nigeria for seven years, making that trip a couple of times each year. I went twice with him. After experiencing Nigeria, I was glad God called us to Burkina. The Nigerian people are great, but when we were there their country was a circus! We lived through some unbelievable trials in Nigeria. Just driving with a Nigerian pastor on the highways was hair raising. We had been warned to never ride with him at night as he did not see well!! When our taxi driver lost the bolts holding in place his gas tank and he kept going, with the sparking tank bumping along the road, we thought maybe we would not make it back to calm Burkina. We finally got him stopped and he got us in another taxi, but it was a close call. Andrew and Esther Schaeffer lived in Nigeria as long as they could, but the uprisings there forced them to leave finally - and Burkina has been blessed to have them.
When Dad reached the age of sixty-five - and I was five years behind him - we were so busy in ministry - planting churches, translating the Bible for the Bobos, teaching - with no thought of retiring. Bob Fetherlin came for a field visit and we invited him for dinner at out house, as we always did. His first comment was something about starting the process for getting us retired! We were flabbergasted! This was the farthest thought from our minds. I guess we finally convinced him and we stayed on another term or so. And to his credit, when Bob needed a couple to fill in on two other fields - Côte d'Ivoire and Mali - he called us back into harness. And we were a lot older then!
The missionary who is very close to the local people sometimes has a hard row to hoe. He is often told everything that is going on in the church, including the scandals that are sometimes brewing. This was our lot. What do you do with that information? We heard early on of a high church leader who was involved in adultery and other missionaries did not know it - and had a hard time believing it. It caused some division among mission personnel. In one case, the man was someone who had been very close to us - his wife was my close friend, he and I taught together and served on a board together. His sin also raised real conflict in the church. This was towards the end of our ministry, and caused us much sadness.
There was also serious sexual misconduct on the part of a missionary which shocked us all and threatened to cause division in the missionary staff. Disaccord over national church issues also caused conflict within the mission, and this was a difficult time for all. In all of this, we continued on in our work, pleading with God to regularize certain conflicts. Some of them were resolved and others never did come to a good conclusion. One thing we learned was that sometimes we have to just leave some trials in God's hands and accept the results. A good lesson to learn. We came out of it all with sorrow, but no bitterness, and that was all God's doing in our lives.
Perhaps some of that last term conflict in Burkina, which we experienced and resolved for ourselves, was the thing that some years later helped us to face a year in Mali without going under! We loved the Malians and our ministry among them. Several pastors were men I had trained at Maranatha Bible Institute and that was a gift to me. Dad also had many friends among the Malians from his years as field director of both countries, the Mali-Upper Volta field. We had some great missionaries - there were thirteen new ones, and it was my delight to meet with them once a month for cultural classes and discussions. This was a field of many nationalities of international workers. And they did not always think alike! Too often we had to be the arbitrers of conflicts that arose. Our Chilean couple did not understand much English and a little French only - Spanish was their language which we did not speak. This family arrived to spend a lifetime in Mali with only a couple large suitcases, period. We were able to help them getting a house furnished. They looked at us like parents and we learned to love them very much. But in a staff like that, there were a lot of conflicts that developed. We found that the church and the Mission were not speaking officially to each other - never met together. Dad worked hard on that one and brought about some good things. We felt like it was one of our hardest years - and yet a very blessed one as well.
In spite of the vaious kinds of testings and conflicts we went through during our forty three years of overseas service, we have to force ourselves to remember some of these negative incidents. We saw God do wonderful things in the lives of others and in our own lives. And He preserved us through the testings and trials and conflicts we encountered as well as through the great host of good times. We are most blessed!
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