Deep in the rural area of Burundi, the life of this entire family has been enhanced by the ministry of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Burundi.  

In Burundi, a lady listen intently to the message of the day from Pastor Leopold Banzubaze.  

This young boy came to greet us at a farewell meeting in Nairobi. Pastors and Foursquare members from all over Kenya assembled in Nairobi to say "goodbye" to us after 8 years of working togething. We had a great meal of ugali, rice, mihogo (cassava), chicken, and cabbage.

The Golden Eagle

This morning I am sitting on the edge of a planter just outside of a small conference room at the Mayfield Guesthouse. I can "catch" the wireless network inside from here. Margaret and I are in Nairobi to say goodbye to our Kenyan friends that we have worked with for the past eight years. So, needless to say, this is a very emotional moment for us.

A bright spot in my morning: As I a sit here on the edge of the planter checking my e-mails I find a very interesting notice. I have received a prestigious CINE Golden Eagle award for my work as the field producer on a video we made in Burundi a few years back. We are being invited to a banquet in Washington D.C. in April--hosted by National Geographic--to receive the award. This is a great honor, and a great way to finish 16 years of service in Africa.

Already several churches have invited us to come for speaking and teaching ministry. Margaret and I are working to develop some one week "intensive" classes in missions and evangelism ministry. We hope to serve the American church by helping to ignite a passion for evangelism and missions in Christians of all ages.

GREG

The End of a Long Journey

Friday night Maggie and I walked out the customs area of the airport at Entebbe and into the hot and humid night air of Uganda. We were home once again. It was the end of a long journey to the USA to celebrate Christmas with our daughter and her family. Here are some of the special moments of the trip:

Sitting with my youngest grandson, Jarod Lorenz, in a huge movie theater and watching The Chronicles of Narnia. Jarod is only four years old, and he doesn't actually sport enough weight to hold down the "seat" part of those huge padded theater seats that are so popular in the USA. So, he sat quietly next to me....swallowed up in the folded seat like a small taco...and, watched intently as the story unfolded. It was a wonderful experience to take my grandson to see a popular movie, and be able to enjoy it...and, discuss it with him....and, not find myself pitted against the popular culture for a change. I once wrote to someone that happiest and most fulfilling time of my life was when my daughter was little and I would walk along holding her hand, talking to her and enjoying some special time together....I suggested in that note that if God was indeed merciful and gracious He would someday give me just ten minutes of that time back again. As Jarod and I walked out of the movie theater, his little hand holding mine as we navigated the darkened aisle I realized something: God is indeed gracious and merciful...and, I had just received more than the ten minutes of that experience that I longed for.

Introducing my oldest grandson, Austin Lorenz, to the story of missionary Jim Elliot. Austin had never been really too clear on what it was that kept Grandma and Grandpa in Africa. I was just eight years old when the story of Jim Elliot and the missionaries who were martyred for their faith was current news. That story had a huge impact on my life. Now, my grandson has been impacted by the same story--albeit in cartoon form. He was pretty intense as he asked his grandma, "Are there really people in the world who don't know about Jesus?" Yes, son...and, making the world aware of Jesus and His sacrifice at Calvary's cross with it's promise of redemption and liberation from the dominion of Darkness is what our lives are all about.

Celebrating My Auntie's 90th Birthday. My auntie Edwina cast a huge shadow across our family when I was growing up. My first memory of Christmas was in 1949...going to the old railroad depot in Burbank, California to meet auntie Edwina for the first time. She was a traveling evangelist in those days...preaching the Gospel message across the USA. I had been threatened with hanging from the highest pillar if I so much as thought about being disobedient in auntie Edwina's presence and causing embarrassment to my mother. Of course, even at the age of three I was poorly motivated by threats and then--as now--found it difficult to confine my life to the strictures of respectability. I made--I am afraid--a complete pig's ear out of that first meeting. Now, she was celebrating 90 years of life and we met together in Grass Valley, California at my cousin Mike's home and celebrated 90 years of God's goodness. I got to re-connect with family members I hadn't seen in many years, and remember Christmases past when we used to celebrate at my grandmother's house in Burbank.

We are back in Entebbe. January will be our final month in Africa. The travel and ministry schedule this month will be nothing less than brutal as we say goodbye to hundreds of friends and begin the journey back to America. Maggie is fluttering around the house keeping things organized and packing our belongings. I am doing the thinking and planning for a new ministry experience in the USA. More about the 'new" later...but, for now we need to concentrate on January 2006 and Africa.


GREG FISHER

I'll Be Home For Christmas

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Margaret and I are in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week to celebrate Christmas with our daughter's family. For people who have been living in Africa for the past 15 years this is a cross-cultural experience; a very cold one. We are re-learning what all the folks living in North America instinctively know: dress in layers. The question is this: How many layers of Kitengi shirts does it reguire to stay warm? Answer: All the shirts in the known universe won't do the job this week in Tulsa.

We're surviving, and doing well. The future looks bright at Christmas.

GREG

Corruption

Where Are The Leaders Of Good Judgement?

"A leader of good judgment gives stability; an exploiting leader leaves a trail of waste." (Ancient Proverb)

^[1]


I have just set the telephone down. Once again I am being asked to participate in a meeting concerning the HIV-AIDS crisis in East Africa. I will go, of course. Since this meeting is being called by an evangelical organization, the meeting will not be held in one of Kampala's more luxurious hotels. Evangelicals are routinely denied access to funds for HIV-AIDS projects yet continue to provide important community services on slim budgets. Even so, the participants will be well dressed, well educated, and articulate in their presentations. The entire exercise will be held far from the jammed slums and crowded streets where the majority of HIV-AIDS sufferers are living. And, the conference will most likely studiously ignore an important aspect of the problem: official corruption.

Corruption will be on everyone's mind, it just won't be mentioned is all.

Corruption is defined broadly as, ". . . the misuse of public (governmental) power for illegitimate, usually secret, private advantage" Wikipedia. It is a disease which kills more people in Africa than Malaria, HIV-AIDS, and Tuberculosis combined. Even so, I doubt very much that we will be seeing any internationally famous rock stars spear-heading a drive to raise funds to combat this disease. The world's outpouring of concern for the plight of the victims of HIV has become a point of strengthening the grip of corruption more than alleviating the disease. This has led one international newspaper to observe, "Money for AIDS projects can make things worse: the Global Fund had to suspend grants to Uganda in August after uncovering evidence of systematic embezzlement." The Standard

Case in point: The Uganda experience with Global Fund initiative to fight HIV-AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. In 2002, Uganda received a generous 201 million dollar commitment from the Global Fund to fight disease. You may remember that this fund was a Bush administration initiative to fight the three deadly diseases. (At the time, I once met with one of the Senators spearheading this initiative and answered questions about my experiences in dealing with the HIV-AIDS crisis). By December 2005, when the light of Justice James Ogoola's inquiry began to shine into the fund, the trail of corruption, theft, and mismanagement was staggering. Here is an example: The DFCU Bank in Kampala agree to pay a generous Ush 350 million ( $190,000 ) brokerage commission to a Kampala lawyer for influencing the choice of the DFCU Bank to handle the Global Fund account. What exactly did the lawyer in question do to earn this hefty slice of the global fund pie, Justice Ogoola wanted to know, ". . .he gave the bank transcripts from an Internet website detailing the US government's commitment to disburse US$201m to Uganda." AllAfrica

Cool work if you can find it! I can imagine the Kampala lawyer starting a new scam--selling instructions over the internet on "How To Surf The Web And Earn Big Money Fast".

To anyone in Kampala hearing this, it would be a huge laugh. "Brokerage" is almost a way of life here. Brokers in Kampala are a growth industry. "Broker" is a term for a person who somehow ingratiates their way into a business deal and demands a "cut" from one or both of the principals. What happened with the Global Fund money differs little from what happened to me last week at my office. I was selling Margaret's white 1989 Toyota Corolla, and hoping to get the top price for it. Two men showed up, looked at the car, and later in the week contacted my office staff about the price. Later, a deal was made to sell the car to one of them. When they came to do the actual transaction with me at my office, four men gravely filed in and took places on the small couch and two chairs opposite my desk.

"Uh huh" I began, "Which one of you is the buyer?" The man in the chair directly opposite of me indicated that he was the buyer.

"And you?" I asked, pointing at the man next to him, "What part do you play in this transaction today?" The man responded that he was the "assistant" to the buyer. (Right. A two thousand dollar deal would by all means require an assistant).

"And who is the broker today?" I asked, casually as possible. A third gentleman brightened up and indicated that he was, indeed, the broker for the deal.

"Uh huh" I continued, "So, are you an agent for the buyer?" The broker indicated that he understood himself to be an agent for both the buyer and the seller. "I view it as a two-way street" he explained.

"Right." I replied, "And, you are expecting me to pay how much for your services?"

The broker indicated that a fee of two hundred thousand shillings (about 5% of the money) would be sufficient compensation for his services.

"And, for my two hundred thousand you are doing what for me in return?" The broker sat there, slack jawed with an expression of utter and complete befuddlement on his face. He hadn't actually planned to do anything. He stuttered and stammered about phone calls and transportation, but it was clear he had no idea of how to justify his "services" or his fee. Besides, I wasn't playing the game correctly. He was, after all, the broker. After a lengthy discussion, in which the broker continued to press his claim for fees regardless of how little his services were wanted, I finally agreed to pay him a greatly reduced commission of fifty thousand shillings...to look over the transfer documents and comment on them.

The Global Fund money apparently was divyed up in much the same manner...except not in my office. The venue for that unwritten, unrecorded deal was apparently the golf course.

It gets worse, but the recounting of officials arrested, money wasted and not accounted for, and "brief case" NGO's funded is long and tiring to read. A good idea, with a noble motive, has once again been hijacked by corrupt officials for personal gain. All of this at the expense of the victims of HIV-AIDS. This experience merely serves to underscore the moral dimension of the problem.

Corruption is a moral problem. It thrives in a juvenile environment of "good old boys" who slap each other on the back at the local golf course and divy up the money pie with a big wink.

Where are the good leaders? Africa needs them more than another boatload of money from the west.

^[1] Peterson, E. H. The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 2003.

A Growing Gap

Margaret and I are busily making arrangements for our transition back to the USA. We’ll be heading back at the end of January, 2006. How does one close out nearly 16 years of life and ministry in Africa? How does one re-integrate into a culture that is now foreign?

Those are key questions for us to consider. After all the American culture has re-invented itself at least four times during the time we have been gone. What we are returning to no longer resembles the society that we left behind. Of course, we are doing the reading on re-entry stress and issues for returning missionaries. So, intellectually, we are well informed. Unfortunately, re-entry isn’t an intellectual exercise...it is a highly stressful emotional adjustment. Many times emotions don’t keep pace with intellect. I’ll blog my way through the adjustment...and the establishment of our new ministry assignment in the USA.

There is one aspect that deeply concerns both of us: The growing gap between global Christianity and Christianity as it is practiced in North America. I can remember 16 years ago when we were visiting churches beginning to raise our support for our work in Africa. We used to tell people that by the year 2000 the center of Christianity would have shifted south from North America to Africa. Largely that happened on schedule just as we foresaw. Now, we are returning to a land that is largely post-Christian in culture.

A Growing Gap

I’m not the first–or, only–person to notice this growing gap and to write about it. Philip Jenkins in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity has written extensively about this gap. Larry Poston in The occasional Bulletin of the Evangelical Missiological Society of North America takes up the same issues. Unfortunately, North American Christians can become quite defensive about what constitutes this growing gap.

The emerging Global Christianity differs significantly from North American Christianity. For one thing, the Christianity of the southern hemisphere has not had the advantage of living in a majority Christian society. Here in Africa persecution and martyrdom were more the norm than respectability and acceptance. In the society that I grew up in 1950's Southern California, the Church was still a center of the society, and pastors and church leaders commanded a huge amount of respect in the society. The North American church has lost much of that political and social capital over the past decades. Now, I see North American Christians are often engaged in a hopeless crusade to “take back” the political and social influence that has been squandered over the past 4 decades.

The North American Christians might need to learn some lessons from the Church in the southern hemisphere. The church here has not only survived but prospered under totalitarian governments, hostile cultures, the overwhelming HIV-AIDS pandemic, and hopeless poverty. None of the rights and privileges that Northern Christians take as granted by God existed here. This has forced the church in the South to become much more focused on the micro-issues of living out the Christian gospel in a local community as disenfranchised individuals–very much as the early Church did in the first and second centuries. The Church of the South is much more reliant on prayer and fasting as a common necessity for life. It is a church that has no economic or social entitlements, but still impacts society as a living prophetic voice.

As I return to USA my thoughts are centering around how to do ministry in this new environment. On the outside I look American. I can still talk like an American. My passport tells me that I am an American; however, inside of me is a southern hemisphere Christian. I am approaching this transition in a typically “southern” way: with fasting and prayer.

GREG

Centrality of Jesus Christ

How Important Is Jesus Christ, Anyway?

I signed on to my computer today and discovered yet another e-mail "petition" for me to sign; a protest against Target Stores (or, some other retailer) for "taking Christ out of Christmas". That e-mail raises yet again the question of importance. Just how important is Jesus Christ, anyway? Does He belong in the public domain? Or, should Jesus Christ be reserved for the church building and the privacy of the home? Since the church in the western world seems to have lost its impact on--and, place in--society, should Jesus Christ be consigned to the same scrap heap as the Church which bears His name?

Without Him ...

I am very often reminded that we live in a pluralistic society. This pluralism is an increasingly popular value of our society. Pluralism affirms more than just the fact that there are many different faiths and belief systems among us. It positively affirms that each of these faiths and belief systems is equally true and valid...independently of any other faith or system, and goes on to account any claim of exclusivity as arrogant in the extreme. That is the exact point of conflict, isn't it? The arrogance of Christians to make those exclusive claims about Jesus Christ. In truth, outside of the western world, the religious world is not a very pluralistic place at all. This is especially true in the world of Islam with its exclusive claims for the prophet Mohammed. No, while the west has bought into the idea of pluralism, they are nearly alone in the world in that belief. In debating with those who espouse pluralism, they will cast evangelical Christians as religious bigots because of their faith in Christ and their evangelistic activities. That leads me to ask, "Which do you object to: The presence of evangelical Christianity? Or, the practice of evangelical Christianity?" In reality they object to the practice of evangelical Christianity--with its mandate to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel. But, in objecting to the practice--which is our defining practice of faith--they are also saying that they object to the mere presence of evangelical Christianity as well. That does not bode well for the cause of pluralism, by the way, because it essentially establishes a unique claim for pluralism as a religious philosophy: The innate and exclusive ability to define "in" or "out" any religious claims that run counter to the presuppositions of pluralism.

But, the claims of Jesus Christ are not merely the claims of a religious organization or doctrine; they are the claims of Jesus Christ Himself. The Gospels in the New Testament record His exclusive claims--claims which He made for Himself--as fact. Unlike other notable religious founders, Jesus Christ laid claim to divinity. His claim is recorded in John 14:9 (The Message) “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’^[1] He brought down the wrath and scorn of the religious establishment with His claim that He pre-existed Abraham (considered the Father of the Jewish Nation). This is recorded in John 8:58 (The Message)“Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.” ^[1]

And, it wasn't simply His friends and followers who listened and accepted His claims to divinity...his enemies also credit Him with those claims.

John 10:33 (The Message) "The Jews said, “We’re not stoning you for anything good you did, but for what you said—this blasphemy of calling yourself God.” In these claims to divinity Jesus Christ of Nazareth has no competitors!

^[1]

In the same way in which Jesus made exclusive claims to divinity, He also made exclusive claims to be the way of salvation for sinners. John's Gospel records Jesus making this statement, John 8:24 (The Message) "I told you that you were missing God in all this. You’re at a dead end. If you won’t believe I am who I say I am, you’re at the dead end of sins. You’re missing God in your lives.” ^[1]

John goes on to record yet another claim of Christ, John 14:6 (The Message) "Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. ^[1] So, in the claim to exclusive salvation Jesus Christ has no successor as well!

Take Jesus Christ and His divinity and His salvation away from Christianity...and, the institutional church folds up like cheap suit! And, that is why the critics of Christianity would love to see us tucked neatly away in a corner...and, why we can never give up the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ as the only savior of the world.

Meanwhile Back At The Petition

I'm not signing the petition about American retail stores and Christmas. I don't need to. The retailers are going to do what they're going to do...and, I'm going to do what I'm going to do: Continue to preach and to hold up the mighty name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth the only hope of salvation for mankind.

GREG

^[1] Peterson, E. H. The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 2003.