Continued from last issue...
The mid-1980s seemed to be a time of change and transition,
not only for me and my family, but for a lot of Christians we
knew. The revival among young people that had been brought about
by the "Jesus Movement" of the 1970s had now pretty
much faded away. People who had been a aprt of the Jesus Movement
revival were now well into their late twenties or thirties,
and most had gotten married and had children by this time. Although
some still maintained their zeal for the Lord, many settled
into the status quo of the typical American lifestyle: getting
a steady job and working long hours to pay for nice, new cars,
nice homes, and all the appropriate furnishings.
Nothing wrong with having a good job, a good car, and
a decent home for the family, of course. The problem was not
that people possessed these things; the problem was that some
Christians let these things possess them. They let the cares
of this world take their focus off the Lord. Some of these Christians
had formerly been very zealous for the Lord. Now their spiritual
activities consisted of little more than going to church once
a week on Sundays.
It seemed like most of our generation were now just doing
what our parents had done a few decades earlier. We had turned
into go-to-church-once-a-week Christians like our parents. saw
in this some spiritual parallels to the hypocrisy of former
anti-establishment hippies who were now firmly entrenched in
the very establishment that they once opposed. In the same way,
many Jesus people were now firmly entrenched in dry, traditional
churches like the ones they had formerly criticized. This parallel
became even more apparent to me when I saw a cartoon that appeared
in the paper during the twentieth anniversary of Woodstock.
I modified the cartoon and adapted it to express my own frustration
with many of my Christian peers. I did not draw the cartoon
for publication. I just sent copies to a small handful of friends
who could understand and relate to it.
Some of us refused to settle for the status quo of the
typical American lifestyle. Like other Christians, we had homes
to live in, cars to drive, and jobs to pay our bills, but we
refused to let these things get in the way of our spiritual
pursuits. During the years 1983-1985, my closest fellowship
was with my two closest friends, Mike and John. The three of
us, along with our wives and children, met together a lot in
our homes for prayer and Bible study. We also conduced an English-Spanish
Bible study (much more English than Spanish) in my sister's
home one night a week for a few months.My sister had married
a Mexican, and some of his relatives and friends came over on
Sunday nights. Between their limited knowledge of English and
our limited knowledge of Spanish, we were able to share from
the Scriptures. We had good fellowship, and often ended the
evening by eating tortillas and roasted cow head (a Mexican
specialty dish, I guess).
When weather permitted, Mike and John and I did street
evangelism after prayer on Saturday nights. Main Street in Peoria
was packed with young people then, so that was where we went.
We spoke to a lot of sinners about following the Lord. Some
were rude to us, some listened politely, but none were interested
enough to make a real commitment. I suppose if we had watered
down our message and told them that all they neded to do was
repeat a "sinner's prayer," we might have gotten some
converts. But we wanted to convert people to the real thing,
not to a religious experience that would give them nothing more
than a questionable conversion and a false sense of security.
The summer of 1985, Mike decided to quit his business,
sell his house, and take his wife and four children to Mexico
to do missionary work, trusting the Lord to lead them and provide
their needs. John decided to take his wife and two children
and do the same. I did not at all feel led to go to Mexico.
"Waiting For Apples"
oil on canvas by Daniel Botkin, c 1998
|
Ñ I liked Mexican people, I knew some Spanish, and I had
done some work in Mexico when we lived in El Paso, Texas, but
I did not sense any calling to go to Mexico as a missionary.
The only foreign country that stirred any sense of calling in
my heart was Israel.
I had always harbored a hope of returning to Israel to
settle there with my family (which had now grown to five with
the birth of Betsy in 1984). With my two closest friends going
away to Mexico, I began thinking more seriously about trying
to find a way to move my family to Israel. We had been unable
to stay there in 1981 because I could not find work, so I knew
that it would be helpful if I had some skill that would improve
my chances of finding employment there. I had been told that
English teachers were always in demand in Israel, and that having
a certificate to teach English would almost guarantee employment
somewhere in Israel.
My friends left for Mexico on a Sunday in late August.
The next day I drove to Illinois State University, about forty
miles from Peoria, and talked with teachers in the English Department
about returning to school to get a Certificate in TESL (Teaching
English as a Second Language). They told me that since I already
had my four-year Bachelor of Science degree, I could enroll
as a graduate student. Even though ISU did not have a program
that offered a formal Certificate in TESL, the head of the English
Department said that they did offer courses that would qualify
me to Teach ESL. If I would take courses in linguistics, the
history of English, and other ESL-related courses, he would
write up a certificate for me when I completed the program.
I signed up that day for my first course in linguistics,
and started class that Wednesday night. I had a daytime job,
so I took night calsses and drove the forty miles to school.
Some of the courses were difficult, but with God's help I was
able to complete the program with an "A" in every
course.
During the time I was going to school, it was financially
difficult. We not only had the cost of tuition, books, and travel
to deal with, but a cut in my salary at work as well. I drove
a delivery van, and our company was bought out by another company.
When this happened, my net wages were reduced by about $300
a month, which was the amount of our monthly house payment.
For a long time we tried in vain to sell or rent our house.
We finally had to give it back in lieu of foreclosure, and lost
all the money we had invested in it. We moved from a large,
eight-room house to a tiny two-bedroom cottage that I rented
from a friend for $30 a week. Here we stayed while I finished
my TESL program at the university.
After I got my certificate to teach ESL, I began praying
about a way to get the money I would need to move my family
to Israel. I sensed a very strong leading of the Holy Spirit
to do a lengthy fast. I had done fasts of up to nine days before,
but I had never before done what is sometimes called "a
complete fast." When a person fasts, the hunger pangs usually
disappear (or are at least greatly diminished) after a few days.
Then when the hunger pangs later return, this is a signal from
the body that the fast is complete, because starvation will
soon set in if the fast is not broken. (This is why Matthew
4:2 says that after fasting forty days, Yeshua "was
afterward
an hungered.")
The hunger pangs that signal the completion of a fast
usually return after three to six weeks, depemnding on the individual's
health and activities during the fast. My hunger pangs returned
after twenty-three days of taking nothing into my body but water.
My delivery job required some physical exertion, which may account
for a somewhat early return of my hunger pangs. I give God all
the glory for enabling me to abstain from food for that many
days, because I could not have done it by my own will power.
I was able to do it only because I was so strongly convinced
that the Spirit was leading me to do it.
My main purpose for this fast was preparation for our
move to Israel. God never did open the door for us to return
to Israel, in spite of my prayer and prolonged fasting. However,
He did do something unexpected for me near the end of the fast,
when I had what I believe was a genuine vision. The vision was
not something that I saw with my physical eyes, like a hallucination.
It was an image that came out of nowhere and flashed through
my mind just long enough to be seen with the eye of my spirit.
In this vision I saw myself sitting between two apple trees.
I appeared to be very hungry, and was looking at a tree on my
left that had twelve very large apples. The way to this tree
was blocked by a picket fence. On my right side and slightly
behind me, there was another apple tree, loaded with apples
of a smaller size. The gate to this tree was open, but I did
not see either the apples or the open gate, because my gaze
was fixed on the tree with the twelve large apples.
I did not immediately understand this vision, but as
I pondered it, I realized what God was showing me. The tree
on my left was Israel, the twelve apples representing the twelve
tribes. The tree with the numerous smaller apples represented
the Gentile nations. In Jewish thought, the traditional number
of the nations is seventy, and there were seventy of the smaller
apples. (I had not had time to count them, but I intuitively
knew that there were seventy.) If the door to Israel was not
open, then I should look for an open door elsewhere and help
to reap a harvest from among the Gentile nations.
This vision did not diminish my desire to move to Israel,
but it did help me to accept the fact that God might have other
plans for me. I thought that perhaps if I faithfully labored
for a season among the Gentiles, that God would eventually open
the door to Israel. So I began looking for an open door to work
among non-Jews.
One of the towns that my delivery route took me to each
day was Macomb, a college town that is home to Western Illinois
University. One day I happened to see an article in the Peoria
newspaper about the large number of international students at
WIU.Here was an opportunity for someone to be a light to many
different nations, I thought. I began wondering if perhaps I
should move to Macomb. I prayed about it and spoke to the pastor
of the church we had been attending for about a year. He had
no objections to the idea, and said he trusted my judgment.
One day when I was in Macomb, I picked up a copy of the
WIU student newspaper. There was an article about a couple empty
houses that the city had threatened to condemn if the owners
did not repair them. The thought occurred to me that if the
repairs were something I could do, perhaps the owner of one
of these houses might be interested in renting me a house at
a very low cost in exchange for my labor.
I checked out the houses, and one of them looked like
it had potential. I contacted the owner and he liked my idea.
He agreed to make sure there were no gas or water leaks. He
would hire someone to do the major repairs that I could not
do, and I would move in and do the rest.
The day before our move, I drove to Macomb to meet the
workers from the utility companies so they could turn on the
water, gas, and electric. When they turned on the water, the
pipes leaked profusely. When they turned on the gas, there were
gas leaks. The owner of the house had not done anything he had
promised.
I had quit my job, we had our belongings packed and ready
to load, we had rented a moving truck, and had people lined
up to help us move the next day. We had to move the next day,
but it was obvious that we could not move into this house. It
was late afternoon, and I had only a few hours to find a place
to move. I prayed. I drove aimlessly around town and prayed
some more. Then I spotted it: a house on a quiet street with
a "For Rent" sign. It was an old house and needed
a good cleaning, but it was in a very nice area, just three
blocks from the college campus. It had three bedrooms and a
nice, large yard. And the price was right: $150 a month.
We moved into this house on October 29, 1987. After paying
all of our moving expenses, rent and utility deposits, etc.,
we had around $150-$200 left. I had no income and no job (and
would not get a job for almost a year), but we had faith. We
started a weekly Bible study and prayer meeting in our home
with a few Christians we had met through a friend from Peoria
who did campus ministry there with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.
I eventually got a position teaching ESL to the international
students at the university, but before that, I would travel
to India to preach and teach. To be continued...
