Garden-Variety and Liberia-Style Crises

Blogging has taken a back seat to other matters, of late.  I was sick last weekend.  For about a half week before then I was sliding toward being sick and for about a half week after that I was climbing out of it.  Now I'm all better.

All of the local Iwashige households had a sick mom last week.  Only in this household did the mom not have to also keep caring for little ones.  Poor mothers of infants and toddlers.  No mom nearby, and the mom-in-law (me) no help at all.  

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The temperature went down to 21 degrees last night.  At the very end of the day I hauled out all the "garden fabrics" I had stashed in a big wooden box in the shop, and set about covering up the lettuce plants we had set out last week.  It was very windy, so everything had to be weighted down.  I carried bricks and blocks of wood and used anything I could find to weigh down the corners of the old sheets, blankets, curtains, etc. that made up the stash.  

For the first time this spring, I felt angry at the weather.   This usually happens only a few times a year.  My thoughts go something like this:  Can't you see we're just trying to survive over here?  We've already worked hard to get this crop out, and we've tried to take proper precautions.  Now you're trying to destroy it.  Could the wind at least die down so the covers would have a chance of staying in place?  Could these cold tolerant crops we put out at least be spared the mid-twenties-and-lower temperatures?  Enough already.  Show some mercy.  

In the end I usually abandon my plants and possessions into the Lord's care, and put the sorry mess out of  my mind as best I can, which would be a sensible thing to do before the anger kicks in.  

Hiromi checked on the plants this afternoon and reports that they look OK.  Just to stay safe and save ourselves another hassle like we had last night, we're leaving those covers in place through tomorrow night, when 23 degrees is predicted. 

Jason French at Stutzmans had told me that if it goes down to 25, you'd probably better throw a sheet over your plants.   

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Jacob and Ida's wedding reception yesterday was at the 4H Encampment building at the state fairgrounds.  We have often been there for the annual picnic that TSW hosted for their employees, but this was the first time for attending a wedding reception there.  I'm not sure if the kitchen is much more than a catering kitchen, but the gathering place is certainly big enough for a wedding-sized crowd.

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I saw on Facebook that, among our many guests at church this morning was a hiker who is walking across the US.  He slept outside the church last night and joined us for the service this morning.  The Yutzy clan invited him to stay afterward and share their family dinner.  He took a picture of those most nearly his own age--more than 20 of them--and posted the picture, along with a bit of the information here.  

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After church, Judy regaled us with tales of her and Lowell's recent trip to Liberia.  They planned the trip after Lowell was invited to speak several times at a conference, where a number of different speakers were to address a Christian gathering of up to 3,000 people.  Judy was to speak to the ladies several times.  

The reality was almost comically different.  The most that ever gathered was about 200 people--just the right size group, actually.  Also, the speaking schedule was just a nice thought.  In reality, hardly anyone spoke except Lowell.  Even when he showed up expecting to listen to whoever was on the schedule, he was told after he arrived that he would be doing the speaking.  When he protested that "David" was going to speak, "David" informed him that he was not prepared, and Lowell should just go ahead.  Never mind that Lowell wasn't prepared either.  He got up though and preached.

One evidence that the audience really "heard" what was preached was that people asked Lowell repeatedly how he knew what they needed.  He replied that he didn't.  He was just trying to preach what the Lord showed him to say.

More than has ever happened in an international setting, the music proved to be a significant interference with Lowell's preaching.  While he and Judy both have quite a bit of openness to different ways of worshiping, this time, after the first meeting, Lowell felt spiritually attacked while the tribal/pentecostal drumming-singing-dancing was underway, and for hours afterward.  After praying for a long time, he asked to meet with the conference leaders before the next day's service and told them how he was affected and asked to be excused from being present during any such future activities.  He also made it clear that he is not trying to tell them how to worship.  They were very apologetic and understanding, and things went well from then on.  Except for the scorpion incident.

One night, in their hotel room, Lowell and Judy were unwinding from the busy day, and trying to get sleepy enough to go to bed when, under the door, crept the biggest black scorpion either of them had ever seen--probably about eight inches long.  Lowell sprang into action and, with some effort, killed it under his shoe.  To Judy, it felt like an attack from Satan, and she had a very hard time going to sleep afterward.  She thought of a Scripture in Revelation that describes Satan's hosts as having tails like scorpions, capable of stinging that torments for five months.  Later, she remembered how the incident showed God's care for them.  It happened before they turned off the lights, and while Lowell was there to deal with it.  All was well under God's protecting hand.  

  

When they showed a picture of the scorpion to their Liberian hosts, they identified it as "The Devil."  They went on to say that in Monrovia, where they were at the time, they never see scorpions of this size, and only rarely in the bush elsewhere in the country.  Some Monrovians have never seen a scorpion of any size. 

Another interesting encounter was with a 22-year-old lady.  When they first saw her, she seemed scary.   When she sang at the front, she seemed almost beside herself.  She dressed less modestly than most of the women there, and wore no head covering, unlike most of the other women.  

At one point, however, she sought out Lowell and Judy, and wanted to talk.  At first she said she was moved by what she heard about forgiveness, and she reported that she had cried.  Then Judy began to ask her questions, in an effort to get to know her, and to learn what she was seeking.  

The story of her life explained a lot of things.  At the age of eight, she, along with her three younger siblings and her mother, had to watch while her father was lined up with the other village men and they were shot, one by one.  It was wartime in Liberia.  Her mother struggled intensely in the following year, and then died.  The nine-year-old became the family's provider, and they barely survived.   When she sang in churches, sometimes people would give her a "blessing" (money), and the more energetically she sang, the more money they would give.  She also made a little money when other people paid her to braid their hair.

Lowell and Judy prayed with and for her, and she kept coming back to the meetings.  Later, she sang again, powerfully, but calmly and sincerely.  She began to wear a head covering. Near the end of the meetings, she spoke again to Judy and described what was in her heart--freedom, and peace, and joy.  She said that she had determined one night, in bed, that she could "do this," live with hope, if Jesus would stay with her and help her.  She sang, out loud apparently, during the night in a crowed bunk room, "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." 

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Hearing about Lowell and Judy's experience with the music stirred up my thinking again on music, and how "good" and "bad" music are properly defined.  

I spend a lot of time around teenagers, and sometimes I wonder if they have any standards by which to evaluate music.  They are very capable of forming opinions, but I've learned a long time ago that opinions are a dime a dozen, and I'd hardly pay even that for another person's music opinions, without some evidence that an objective standard is being referenced.  

In the youth crowd I'm familiar with, I never hear anyone raising questions about rock music.  Some of their favorite groups are rock musicians.  This is a category of music that was much vilified when I was growing up.  Even in the public high school I attended, a major flap between students and administration occurred when a group the students chose for an appearance at the senior prom was unacceptable to the administration because of the kind of music they played.  I can't prove this, but I'm guessing that what was forbidden in our public high school is exactly the kind of  music a lot of young people I know would drive four hours to listen to, live.  

Bill Gothard led a frontal assault on rock music.  Given his utter lack of credibility on many matters, I won't be trotting out his teaching on this matter.  

I'm not sure that rock  music is as bad as Bill Gothard says it is.  Neither am I sure that it's as wonderful as young people say it is.  I'm not even sure that it's as neutral as most people seem to think it is.  What I am quite sure of is that somewhere there's a line that divides good music from bad, but even that is a matter I'm not sure I could find agreement on among the young people I know.   

As demonstrated in Lowell's experience, it's not only a matter of whether or not the lyrics are acceptable.  The music itself, and the way it's presented is part of what determines whether music results in worship of God, or whether it results in a "thrill" of another kind.  

Where do the smoke and light shows fit in?  They're not music and not lyrics, but, given the huge draw to live performances, apparently they provide something the audience is in search of.  Is worship enhanced by these theatrics?  

I'm not sure that differences in what people like boils down to liking the kind of music people grew up with, although I certainly recognize that this has some effect, perhaps even a major effect. What I don't "buy" is that it doesn't really matter much what you like.  

Traditional/tribal music was much in evidence in Liberia in the music that proved to be very spiritually troubling, but part of it sounded much like the music in Pentecostal churches in the US.  In the young woman who sang throughout the gathering, her music "style" changed after she experienced forgiveness and decided to follow Jesus.  That seems revealing to me.  What she grew up with didn't seem "right" anymore after the peace of God reigned in her heart.  

Does anyone wish to weigh in on the matter of good/bad music?  Are there good books on the subject that others should know about?