'Icken an' Fwies

So I just wanted an excuse to show you what a cutie Evelyn is! Brit and I took her to McDonald's for "'icken an' fwies," her favorite. You have to watch her around french fries because she tends to inhale them. I don't know how someone so little can find room for so many fries! She is also into calling her juice "coffee" right now. After our dinner we went to play on the playground. Thankfully it was vacated because Evelyn wanted Beebee and Deedee (Brittany and Lyndsey) to come play with her. Let me just say that plastic McDonald's indoor playgrounds really are NOT designed for anyone over 4 feet tall. I thought they might have to go get the jaws of life to cut me out of that monstrosity. But while my back might not appreciate it, it's always a treat to get to spend time with Evelyn (and Norah). We're blessed to be able to love on such precious ones.  

Chowing down on her fries!

Please be praying for Brittany and me as we head to Panama today for work (and probably a little fun too). We appreciate you interceding for traveling safety/ease, health, and rest. Also pray for the teenagers of staff members who will be at the retreat this week, that this will be a great time of spiritual growth, refreshment, fun, and connecting with friends. Pray for the adults leading the retreat time and for us as we share our own experiences and interact with the students. Thank you for your faithful prayer! 

In many communities across South America, International Mission Board missionaries and their local Baptist partners prayerwalk as a way to open doors for sharing the Gospel. Here, Venezuelan Baptists and IMB missionaries prayerwalk together through a neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela. 

Prayerwalking opens doors in Brazil

by Emily Pearson on March 20, 2012

FORTALEZA, Brazil – During their daily walks, Rob and Phyllis Hefner – now in their 50s – have been mugged, physically assaulted and narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping. Once, during a robbery a woman held a knitting needle to Phyllis’ throat.

Still, experts say walking is one of the best ways to stay healthy.

The Hefners – who serve as International Mission Board missionaries in Fortaleza, Brazil – walk 20 miles a day. Monday through Thursday they begin walking after breakfast and end about 2 p.m. On Friday, they walk until 7 p.m. When they don’t have other commitments, they walk all day Saturday, too. As they walk, they pray for their city of 3 million people.

For the missionaries, it is literally the first step towards reaching people for Christ.

This routine began shortly after the Charlotte, N.C., natives moved to Fortaleza in 1991. During their walks they began seeking God’s direction for their ministry. But even before that – back when they were appointed as IMB missionaries in 1985 – they prayed regularly as they walked for exercise.

“We didn’t call it [prayerwalking] back then,” Phyllis remembers, “but as we were called to missions, we began walking and praying for God’s leadership. After that, we just kept walking farther and farther – and just kept praying.”

In Fortaleza, the 20-mile journey sometimes begins with a strategy, sometimes simply depends on God’s direction and always includes four specific prayer points. First, they pray that God will show them the area He wants them to focus on. Secondly, they ask Him to tear down the walls of lostness in the hearts of the people. They then pray to establish relationships to prepare the way for the Gospel. And finally they ask God to connect them with those who need to hear about Him.

The journey is not without its perils, and often the Hefners’ walks lead them into areas of the city where even the police hesitate to visit. Phyllis says she used to pray for protection but now asks for boldness when they enter places where it is likely they will be targeted.

“If we become afraid to prayerwalk and get out in these areas,” says Phyllis, “then there would be so many miraculous things that would not happen.

“You get to meet the people. You get to see the needs. You physically get to see what you’re praying for.

“If I’m in my house,” she continues, “God hears my prayers, and I think I know what I’m praying for … but if I’m in the house, I would never get to meet the people that I meet.”

The Hefners use prayerwalking as an opportunity to stop and talk to people on the street –from beggars to shopkeepers to restaurant workers. They don’t give out money. Phyllis carries a bag of protein bars to hand out to the hungry during their walks. It allows her to befriend people who approach her. She then asks how she might pray for them and follows up with them on her next visit.

Prayerwalking takes up a good chunk of their day, but it isn’t all the Hefners do.

Rob works as a church planter and serves as a professor of church planting at a local seminary. He also teaches prayerwalking as a mission strategy. So far 85 student teams have begun ministries in the areas where the Hefners have walked. The ministries range from church planting, to working with the homeless and providing crutches to people with missing legs.

In the future, the couple plans on extending their ministry by driving to different starting points and taking new routes.

“Please pray for direction, health, protection and boldness as we continue to discover new prayer routes,” Phyllis says. “Please pray that we might be light and salt to those with whom we come into contact, so that they might come to know Jesus as their personal Savior.”

-----

Read more stories from the Americas here!

To shoot or not to shoot?

Below is an interesting article from the New York Times about the growing trend of slum-tourism, written from the perspective of someone on the other side. It touches on an issue of balancing social awareness with respect for human dignity, something I have dealt with personally as a photographer and traveller. I don't know much about genuine "slum tours" but some would say that short-term missions trips are similar in some respects, and my experiences have put me in some similar situations. I was thinking about this article this week because we are the midst of a coverage of some colleagues' work in inner-city Lima and we began discussing some of these issues. Check out the article and let me know what you think, and please be in prayer for us today as we work in downtown Lima. :-)

Slumdog Tourism -By KENNEDY ODEDE -Nairobi, Kenya

"Slum tourism has a long history- during the late 1800s, lines of wealthy New Yorkers snaked along the Bowery and through the Lower East Side to see 'how the other half lives.'

But with urban populations in the developing world expanding rapidly, the opportunity and demand to observe poverty firsthand have never been greater. The hot spots are Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai — thanks to “Slumdog Millionaire,” the film that started a thousand tours — and my home, Kibera, a Nairobi slum that is perhaps the largest in Africa.

Slum tourism has its advocates, who say it promotes social awareness. And it’s good money, which helps the local economy.

But it’s not worth it. Slum tourism turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. People think they’ve really “seen” something — and then go back to their lives and leave me, my family and my community right where we were before.

I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.

When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”

For a moment I saw my home through her eyes: feces, rats, starvation, houses so close together that no one can breathe. I realized I didn’t want her to see it, didn’t want to give her the opportunity to judge my community for its poverty — a condition that few tourists, no matter how well intentioned, could ever understand.

Other Kibera residents have taken a different path. A former schoolmate of mine started a tourism business. I once saw him take a group into the home of a young woman giving birth. They stood and watched as she screamed. Eventually the group continued on its tour, cameras loaded with images of a woman in pain. What did they learn? And did the woman gain anything from the experience?

To be fair, many foreigners come to the slums wanting to understand poverty, and they leave with what they believe is a better grasp of our desperately poor conditions. The expectation, among the visitors and the tour organizers, is that the experience may lead the tourists to action once they get home.

But it’s just as likely that a tour will come to nothing. After all, looking at conditions like those in Kibera is overwhelming, and I imagine many visitors think that merely bearing witness to such poverty is enough.

Nor do the visitors really interact with us. Aside from the occasional comment, there is no dialogue established, no conversation begun. Slum tourism is a one-way street: They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity.

Slums will not go away because a few dozen Americans or Europeans spent a morning walking around them. There are solutions to our problems — but they won’t come about through tours."

______________________

Working in a region where there is plenty of poverty on display I am often faced with the dilemma of "To shoot or not to shoot?" as I move around. It's something like the proverbial angel and devil sitting on my shoulders arguing it out. On one hand I often remember an admonition from a photography professor when it came to being timid, "You are a photographer. It is your JOB to get the image." I am obviously required to produce good photographs for my occupation, and I feel an obligation to show things as they really are: good, bad, and ugly. I think there is a valid need to show those who have never left suburban America the reality of life around the world in order to awaken them to the needs and help them better understand the stories we tell them. I think we all  need to see the conditions people live in, see the challenges they struggle with, and have a face with which to connect. We need to hear how God is working in places in spite of poverty, or sometimes, because of poverty. I think it is important for us to recognize just how blessed we are and to be aware of how we can impact a hurting world. I think photos can help us do that. And I think it's my job to take those photos. 

But on the other hand, I have an overdeveloped sense of wanting to err on the side of respect to the individual. I know some people who have no problem getting in a random person's face and taking a picture without ever saying a word to them, and I'm fine with that in certain situations. But there's something in me that when I'm around extreme poverty or people in vulnerable states, while I very much want to be able to photograph freely, it restrains me. It's thinking of how I would feel to have a photographer show up in my world, snapping away at my simple life. "Oh! Look at how she holds her coffee while she browses facebook! Look how boney her hands look peeling those carrots. Let's get a closeup of that. Her uncombed hair and faded pajama pants will really sell this." For some people, being photographed without prior notice or consent can very much feel like an invasion of privacy. That's true no matter the level of wealth or status. But I think it is exacerbated by poverty because poverty so often robs people of their dignity in and of itself. They are already living in overcrowded quarters with little privacy and without some basic necessities, often working in jobs where they are looked down upon. Then someone comes by with a camera and exposes them even further. That's why my fear is making someone feel less than human because I come by with a big expensive camera and start snapping shots of them just trying to scrape up enough to feed their family. 

Thus my dilemma. I don't have the perfect answer yet. It's something I still mentally struggle with when shooting in those situations. Other photographers might disagree with me, but when I am in doubt, I don't take the shot. I would rather miss some excellent photos than just shove ahead shooting and risk leaving people feeling disrespected and resentful. Yes, I am a photographer. Yes, it is my job to get the shot. But I am a fellow human and a Christian first, and it is my job to be respectful and show empathy, compassion, and the Love of Christ above all else. So sometimes, that may mean letting a powerful photographic moment slip by. And I'm okay with that. 

What do you think? Is there value in slum tours or short-term missions to those areas? How can we balance the benefits that come from such interactions against the negatives? I've had this conversation with a lot of different people over the last few years and everyone seems to have a different opinion so I'm always interested to hear what other people think about it. 

Paraguay! Sugoi!

So... where was I? Paraguay? I should have written about it as soon as I returned. But you know how it is, at first you're playing catch up from traveling and are too tired, then you get back into the regular swing of work and forget. But yes, it was a great trip! I loved getting to know the very special family that we worked with there. We're working on a story about their autistic son Steven and the miracles God has worked in his life to bring him to a point where he is able to take the Gospel to Japan. He is such an impressive young man and a true testament to the dedication of his parents and the power of prayer.

This is Steven. Join me in praying for him while he serves in Japan!

I can't wait for the story to run!  God has done so much to weave all the details together that I can only imagine what else He is going to do in and through Steven and his story. I'd love to tell you all about it, but I don't want to spoil the story, so I'll just share a bit about the rest of the trip.

Port at Asuncion.

During this coverage we were in Asuncion, Paraguay, a small city in the middle of the South American continent. The weather felt like home: hot and humid. One afternoon it even poured rain and lightninged! (<--Wow that word looks really weird written out...)

RAIN!

What do you know about Paraguay? If you're like me...not much. I had to do some research, but thanks to all-knowing Wikipedia and my handy-dandy Insight Guide to South America I was able to fill in some gaps in my knowledge. So here is my condensed "highlights only" version. (And yes, the highlights are kind of long so skip down about 5 paragraphs if you don't want to learn some crazy things about Paraguay.) :

Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America sometimes called the "Heart of America" because of its location on the continent. Asuncion, the capitol, was founded in 1537, by Spanish conquistadors who had left the settlement of Buenos Aires, Argentina to go a'conquering up the Paraguay River. After battles with natives and food supply issues, the remaining settlers from B.A. evacuated to the safer and more lush outpost in Asuncion as well, and it then became the hub for exploration of the interior portions of the continent.

Me in front of the Presidential Palace

On May 14, 1811 Paraguay declared independence from the Spanish crown. Shortly thereafter, one of the new rulers, a civilian lawyer, José Francia, seized power (and you thought that reputation lawyers have was a recent one...) and in 1816 Congress named him "Supreme and Perpetual Dictator of Paraguay", or "el Supremo," for life (almost as impressive as Kim Il-Sung, the "Eternal President" of North Korea.) Worried about being annexed by Argentina or Brazil,  Francia closed the borders and didn't allow anyone in or out of the country for 24 years. He also banned Spaniards from marrying each other, decreed all dogs in the country killed and that no one could look at him in the streets, set up a secret police, kept a ledger of all the women he slept with, uprooted all the shrubs and trees along his riding route so no one could ambush him, and ordered executions of detractors carried out with a bayonet to save bullets. His iron-fisted rule left the country with accumulated wealth in the treasury, but also with a tradition of autocratic rule that would last almost uninterrupted until 1989. At his death, no Paraguayan priest was willing to say a mass, and a priest had to be imported from Argentina.

Our taxi guide looking over into the poor neighborhood behind the government buildings.  I walked over to take a picture and he decided he needed to come protect me. 

Francia's nephew, Carlos Antonio Lopez, was appointed to the leadership of the country following his uncle's death. Much like his uncle, everything was fine and dandy for the first few years until Lopez decided to go into the family business of dictatoring and took all the power. Fortunately he didn't rule with the same despotic tendencies as his uncle. Unfortunately, his son and successor, Francisco Solano Lopez, did. He made rash decisions that embroiled Paraguay in the Triple Alliance war with Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. In a cholera ravaged country, Solano Lopez ordered hundreds of executions and was eventually killed during the war either from injuries received in battle or by one of his own officers, depending on who you listen to. Regardless his dying words were "I die with my country" which was almost literally true. After the war,  half the estimated population of 525,000 were dead. Only 29,000 adult males survived. Paraguay was rebuilt mostly by women who resigned themselves to a polygamous society while the Catholic church pretended not to notice.

Poor neighborhood in Asuncion.

Between the fall of Solano Lopez in 1870 and the bloody Chaco War with Bolivia in 1932, Paraguay changed presidents 32 times, endured 2 presidential assassinations, 6 coups d'état, 2 successful revolutions, and 8 attempted revolutions. Paraguay won the Chaco War but the male population was once again devastated. A series of dictators ruled from then until 1954 when the son of a German brewer, Alfredo Stroessner, seized power in a coup d'état and ruled strictly for 35 years. He declared a "state of siege" soon after taking power so that he could suspend constitutional freedoms, and it was renewed every 90 days for the entire time he was in office (justified as a necessary step to protect against Communists), except when it was lifted for "elections." His regime was blamed for torture, kidnappings, and corruption and provided a haven for fleeing Nazis and narcotics smugglers, and in 1974 the country was accused by the UN of slavery and genocide because of their treatment of the Aché tribe of eastern Paraguay. The US maintained relations with Stroessner during the Cold War era because of his staunch anti-Communist stance, but the Carter and Reagan administrations began boycotting the country because of the human rights abuses. Although he did oversee several large hydroelectric and infrastructure programs that brought increased prosperity to the country, he was eventually ousted in a coup d'état by his closest confident, his daughter-in-law's father, General Andrés Rodriguez, in 1989. Stroessner was exiled to Brazil, and Rodriguez was officially elected president of Paraguay.

Some unflattering political graffiti by the presidential palace.

Rodriguez ended the state of emergency and most of Stroessner's repressive measures, allowed freedom of the press and oversaw a gradual transition to genuine democracy which included signing a new constitution that limited the president to a single 5-year term. There have been continuing issues, including an attempted coup by a general in 1996, but democracy seems to have a foothold in the country which elected a center-left president in 2008 after 60 years of continuous rule by a single conservative political party.

A little overwhelmed by that military-political history? Yeah, me too. So here's some other random info about Paraguay. The country is officially bilingual, speaking Spanish and Guarani, with only a very small portion of the population that speaks only Spanish. In rural areas it is more common for people to speak only Guarani. Many also speak Jopara, a type of Guarani mixed with Spanish. Guarani has a bunch of folk proverbs and jokes that give it a unique flair (and make less sense translated, but if you speak Spanish you can learn some here). Many ruins of Jesuit missions can be found across the country from their period of work in Paraguay from 1587-1767. The Chaco, the desolate, arid, and sparsely-populated region of the country, has attracted unusual immigrant communities for generations. The best known are the Mennonites who began arriving in 1927 and mostly speak German. Despite being a small minority they produce most of Paraguay's dairy products. More bizarrely, Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth, and her husband attempted to found a pure Aryan colony in 1886 but could not overcome the extreme living conditions of the Chaco.

Other ethnic groups have created small cultural pockets in Paraguay and manage to retain their language and culture. This played an important part in the story that is being done about Steven, since he was able to study the Japanese language and be discipled by a Japanese pastor and assist in the Japanese church, all in the heart of South America! Attending a bilingual church service isn't anything new to me, but attended one in Spanish and Japanese certainly was a new experience! The mix of cultures was remarkable. I had a great time watching the adorable kids play and using the few Japanese phrases I learned during our trip to Japan years ago. I never thought those would come in handy on a trip to Paraguay. Steven taught me a new word, "sugoi" which means "great" in Japanese. It's making my list of new favorite phrases. :-)

My favorite thing in Paraguay (aside from the wonderful people we met and the weather) was the handcrafts. They had so much neat stuff! And I definitely did my bit to help the Paraguayan economy by bringing home lots of souvenirs, especially the exquisite colorful lace pieces.

Handcrafted Nanduti lace. 

My new hand-tooled leather Bible cover.

Me with Steven and Cema.

Praying for Steven during his commissioning.

There was lots of awesomeness that happened during the few days we were able to be with Steven and his family, but one of the most exciting things had nothing to do with the story, Paraguay, etc. Nope. On February 18th my wonderful friend Della got engaged!

When we were silly freshmen in high school talking about our future husbands and getting married and all that fun stuff, never once did I imagine that I'd be staying up until the wee hours of the night in a hotel room in Paraguay to get to talk to her on the phone and hear about the proposal all these years later. Thanks to her sweet fiancé (so weird to say that...my best friend has a fiancé...woah!) he had kept me in the loop on the planning and had even let me be involved with arranging part of the proposal day.  It kills me to be so far away during these exciting life moments and the wedding planning, etc. but I am so thrilled that I'll at least be able to travel back to the states to be Della's maid of honor. I can't wait!
As Steven would say, "Sugoi!"

The Relinquished Life

Found this page from Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest" convicting. What would it look like for you to fully relinquish your life, all of your life, to Christ? As Chambers writes, "Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?"

 The Relinquished Life

“I am crucified with Christ.”- Galatians 2:20

"No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.

Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?

There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that He requires of you."