Pastor Dave's Blog
My Table Group at Lausanne in Cape Town
Posted by: Pastor Dave Lee | Tuesday October 19, 2010
File under: People & Places
I'm currently in Cape Town at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. It is my hope to post a blog entry or two while I'm here, but i heard something crazy today. The Internet usage of our conference has put a record setting burden on South Africa's Internet infrastructure, exceeding even that used during the World Cup! So, depending on how things go i hope to get at least a couple of posts up.
One of the great blessings of this Congress has been the decision by the organizers to seat everyone at tables of 6 for the duration of the Congress to facilitate more meaningful connections and spur deeper discussions. Mission accomplished. I love my table group and feel it is a real gift from GOd that I was able to meet these people. Here's a photo of my group:
THese are some remarkable people. Our table leader and the only woman in our group is a woman named Sharon. She is from SIngapore and is a Cambridge educated chemcial engiuneer who left it all behind to serve the Lord in a parachurch creative arts ministry under the banner of Campus Crusade.
Next to her is Ojie. He's a pastor serving in the north part of the Philippines. He was once a gang member but was marvelously saved by Christ. He has a great sense of humor and is such a genuine person. He's added so much life to our little group.
Next to him is Sam, who is a medical doctor and the president of a network of major hospitals in South Korea. He is in his 50s and is moving in a new direction in his life, establishing teaching hospitals, medical schools, and nursing schools throughout Africa. He is also an elder of the church that sent those missionaries to Afghanistan, some of whom were martyred recently.
Finally is Fritz, the Missions Director of a major denomination in Germany. He once worked for the Mercedes corporation but entered the ministry. He has served as a missionary in Africa and plans to return there upon retiring in the near future.
I've truly enjoyed getting to know these folks and they have already enriched my life. There is such a sense of unity in Christ at this historic gathering, as over 4,000 Christian leaders from over 180 nations have converged on Cape Town. I am still humbled that i was invited to be a part of it all.
Please prayt hat this hsitoric meeting will continue to bear fruti for Christ for decades to come. I am grateful beyond words for the people of Harvest Community Church who have permitted and resourced me to take part in this Congress and are even now praying for me.
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My Friend Richmond
Posted by: Pastor Dave Lee | Sunday October 10, 2010
File under: People & Places
I want to introduce you to a remarkable man I met today, whom I am proud to now call my friend. His name is Richmond Wandera and he is from Uganda. I first saw Richmond when he was one of five people featured in a Compassion International video called One Act, presented at the Lausanne 12 Cities 12 Conversations event in Chicago.
The video presented the testimonies of five adults who had grown up as sponsored children in a Compassion International project. They shared of how the selfless decision of a sponsor, in most of their cases a teenager, literally saved their lives. It is one of the most moving videos I've watched in a long time.
I was surprised to find out that all five people featured in that video were currently students at Moody Bible Institute. One of our staff interns, Christian Park, is also a student there so he facilitated a connection with Richmond. He came to our church today to share his testimony and preach from Acts 3:1-10. My heart was shaking as I listened, and it felt to me like our entire congregation was riveted.
After the service one of our families opened up their home for an informal lunch reception and we got a chance to get to know Richmond and his story in a more intimate setting. As he shared, i kept thinking how I, and many others, give faithfully to Compassion because we're drawn in by the immediate needs of hunger, housing, and health. Yet I could see in Richmond that the real tragedy of poverty is that it could hide the light of such an extraordinary heart and mind under a bushel. What a loss to the kingdom it would have been if poverty had won the battle for Richmond's life.
In addition to being a student at Moody, Richmond also serves as the pastor of the church where he was saved back in Uganda. He also has a beautiful vision to train up the pastors in his home country, sharing with them the wealth of knowledge he's been given here at Moody. It was moving to hear him say that he studies so hard because so many pastors back home are waiting for him to come back and share what he has learned, and he just "can't get it wrong."
His vision has led him to start a ministry called Pastors Discipleship Network (PDN). He currently leads bimonthly training conferences for hundreds of pastors, all of whom work on a volunteer basis, often bearing the financial burdens of ministry out of their own pockets. They are not lacking in commitment, but they need more training.
Richmond also has a wonderful vision to create a place for pastors to connect, rest, and study. A place where they can sit and talk with an accountability partner or prepare for their next sermon in the library. It is a much needed kind of "third place" for these pastors and I am praying that God will provide the resources they need to see Richmond's vision become a reality.
Richmond really left a lasting impression on my heart, and i hope you will take the time to follow some of the links and get to know him a bit better. I also hope that you will seriously consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International, and that if you already sponsor a child, you will take the time to write him/her a letter. It will mean so much to them.
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The Harvest Stooges
Posted by: Pastor Dave Lee | Friday May 1, 2009
File under: People & Places
I love the fact that I serve a church where a picture like this can be proudly displayed in a frame on the desk when you first walk into our office. What i love even more are the two men pictured with me in this photo. It has been one of the great joys of my life to serve with these men. In some ways Frank, Matt, and I could not be more different. In other ways we are most definitely birds of a feather.
One dictionary defines stooge as, "One who allows oneself to be used for another's profit or advantage." While that definition carries the implication of being a sucker, I think it is actually captures one of the things I love most about these brothers. They are so selfless and are willing to suffer loss for the sake of Christ and others.
It is my sincere hope that I will get to serve many more years alongside these guys. And we are hoping that our ministry will raise up many more men and women who will find their joy in serving Jesus side-by-side with others who they can genuinely call friends.
BTW, big props to Sunny, our Communications Director, for a masterful piece of Photoshop wizardry.
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If you hate bugs, don't read this...
Posted by: Pastor Dave Lee | Wednesday January 16, 2008
File under: People & Places
The other day I received an email from my brother in Kenya. It was a relief to read about something other than the political unrest in that country, but what he wrote filled my mind with horrific images.
You see, I am not very fond of bugs, and the situation he described had my skin crawling. As you read this, perhaps you will appreciate how different life can be in another part of the world. I've presented the essential text of his email with only slight modifications.
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Last night Noelle started noticing all these spiders crawling around in the school room after dinner. We had problems before with spider broods hatching in our house and then having to kill hundreds of spiders, so we thought it was the same thing. We had the kids running around with tissues killing dozens of them. Judah especially got a kick out of this exercise. :-) Then, they started noticing dozens of ants in the other end of the room. I also noticed that the spiders seemed to all be pouring in from the crack under the back door. I realized something strange was going on outside, so I got a flashlight and a couple of cans of Doom (like Raid) and went to the
backyard to investigate.
There were dozens of these huge black circles on our backyard that, in the dark, looked like dirt patches in our lawn. On closer inspection I realized that they were huge ant piles with thousands of ants crawling on top of each other. They were all connected by these thick highways of ants in this amazing network. I then looked up at the walls of our house and realized that there were hundreds of crickets, roaches, and spiders all climbing along the back walls of our house, trying to get away from these ants. Some of them had found cracks in our windows and doors and were pouring in through them. I'm not sure if this was some kind of a coordinated "hunt" that the ants were doing, but it sure seemed like the other insects interpreted it that way.
I had to be really careful because if I accidentally stepped into one of those ant piles or highways, I could have hundreds of biting ants up my leg in seconds. (I know this from painful experience.)
Carefully avoiding the ants, I began to spray a heavy perimeter of Doom around all our windows and doors, killing many ants and other insects along the way. By the time I got to our back porch where all the spiders were entering I found spiders and other bugs everywhere--it was a like a big sanctuary for them. I began to just spray a fog of Doom everywhere indiscriminately, and then seconds later I heard what basically sounded like rain--but it was hundreds of bugs falling off the walls and ceiling of our porch onto the floor. It was a really sickening sound.
I started choking and gagging on the Doom and then went back into the house and then sealed the entire backdoor with duct tape so that more spiders couldn't enter. After that, things calmed down for the rest of the night. There are these huge ant colonies all over our station and when they decide to mobilize it really is like something out of National Geographic. We've had some other interesting wonders related to insects like witnessing the migration of tens of thousands of butterflies and seeing hundreds of thousands of termites hatch and take to the skies to form new colonies. One of the fringe benefits of living in Africa.
Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of last nights events. :-( Maybe next time, but it's usually such a hectic scene that it's hard to think about taking pictures during the actual attack. Hope that gave you something entertaining to read with your morning coffee. :-)
Steve
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An Amazing Little Artist
Posted by: Pastor Dave Lee | Friday December 21, 2007
File under: People & Places
I just received a CNN video clip of a most remarkable story. It is about a little girl named Akiane who at age 4 began having vivid visions of God and heaven. She described them in great detail to her atheist mother but soon started to sketch, then paint her visions.
The works she produced starting at that young age are stunning. You can visit her web site and see more of her work. The painting on the right is called Prince of Peace and was done when she was 8 years old!
According to the video clip she took up piano a few months ago and is already composing her own pieces. Amazing!
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