I love watching for God’s surprises, like when rays of sunshine light up just one flower in a dark area.

This pair of falcons perched just a few feet from our front window the first morning we were home from Nepal. They were so close I took this photo with my phone. I was having my quiet time, and when these two birds flew over, it felt prophetic, like we had just come home from a long flight to rest and regroup. I love the routines of home, and I love travel. Nepal is very far away from Marabá. First, we flew 4-5 hours to São Paulo. Then we flew over the Atlantic Ocean, over West Africa, over the Sahara Desert (that alone took about four hours), and over the Mediterranean. We could see Italy off to our right and Crete and Greece under us. Finally, we landed to switch planes in Istanbul. That flight was 12-13 hours. Then we flew another seven hours (Vancouver to New York is 5h, 20m) over a couple of the Seven Seas and for hours along one side of the Himalayas. It was good to get home.

God created a magnificent and very large habitat for us to work out our stuff to determine if we will choose to live in a relationship with Him in a variety of scenarios.

The trip felt SO worthwhile. It felt like a family gathering. We felt right at home with some long-time friends and many whom we had never met before or only in passing. And we’re glad to be home.

This week we are traveling 1,000 km West on the TransAmazon Highway to help with a marriage retreat in Santarem and to visit pastors and friends on our way there and back. This will be our first road trip with the new Mission vehicle. Thank you again to all who helped with that project.

Question

Paternalism is a big word in some missionary or cross-cultural church work circles.

As I understand it, the idea is that paternalism is not a good thing because it has to do with power over. We are interested in mutual dignity and respect, being peers.

Question: How do we know when paternalism is gone? What would a no-paternalism group look or feel like in a diverse multi-cultural team?

A Dream

I had a dream this week. In my dream, I was in the courts of heaven, and God was talking to others about a person close to me for whom I had been interceding. “You can try this and try that, but if all that doesn’t work, Rick knows I don’t mind allowing some bombs to go off.” In my dream, I snapped to attention and spun around to where I heard God talking. I had been looking away or daydreaming, but suddenly, God had my full attention. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I didn’t know you liked confusion.” “Well, think about it,” God looked at me. “Confusion often brings people closer to me.” Then I woke up.

I reflected on this strange dream and realized I have come to appreciate the opportunities conflict brings to people and situations. Conflicts are symptoms that something is out of sync.

If our goal is to raise and release servant leaders who will work sacrificially to raise and release servant leaders, we need to learn to be comfortable sitting with our friends or family when they are struggling, even if we have the means to bail them out. When we help our children or those with whom we are working, sometimes that is the right thing to do. 

Training to Not Dominate

Peter says we are not to dominate those entrusted to us but to lead by example (1 Peter 5:3). In our families, we can see the progression from immaturity to maturity. A baby screams until they get milk. They dominate their parents. As the baby matures, in healthy families, they dominate less and less until they leave home, get married, and become peers with their parents, even though there is always an honorary bond as children must honor their parents. It’s in the big 10 (Exodus 20:1-17).

In mature relationships, the “I am the one who receives, you are the one who gives” changes to mutual servant leadership, children and parents serving one another through helpful help. There is unhelpful help that supports the over-under relationship, and there is also beneficial help from overflowing love and a desire to serve. And sometimes helpful service means letting your anxious, distraught friend, child, or parent work their stuff out with God by venting, and you, as an adult, are okay with that because you remember your process. Jesus also mentioned that when we give, we are not to let the right hand know what the left hand is doing (Matt. 6:3). Sometimes, we can bail our friends out to keep things rolling along. As with all things, the big secret is to know how to walk with God, to live in the moment, and to treat every situation in conversation with God.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; they shall become one flesh (Gen 2:24).

Two Examples

We were visiting wealthy friends in another country. Deanna wanted to buy a frying pan, so our friends took us to a high-end store where frying pans started around $100. We were in unfamiliar territory, but we were on a mission, so Deanna picked one out. Then we wondered if they would pay, as we thought the cost would be negligible to them. Nope. They let us pay. That was a huge favor to us because we realized our friendship was a peer friendship. They were treating us with dignity as peers. So awesome.

Another time, I was doing a Discovery Group with some financially challenged folks. They lived in a wooden house that leans about 15 degrees to one side. The house’s main lights were so dim that we could not read our Bibles. But they were all into the study. Then I asked, “How can we help someone this week?” Blank looks all around. Finally, the wife asked me, “Could you repeat the question? We don’t understand.”

“Who could you help this week?”

“What do you mean?” I could not understand what was happening or why they could not understand, so I explained with examples of helping. Finally, the mother of four children looked at me, “We don’t help people. We are the people that others help.” Over time, they learned to help people. Several weeks later, when we came to that question, the lady said, “I saw a neighbor walking by who looked sad, so I went and encouraged her.” I could clearly see the rising dignity in that lady.

Thoughts?

About paternalism, I’m still trying to understand the meanings people give that concept. Maybe you have some insight?

When have you helped people move toward maturity to become peers?

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This week, Steve Dolan worked with our team at Xtreme Mercy to help us. 
Thank you Steve, Dan, Roxy, Matt, and everyone who helped with this!
There are several ways to support us, including by credit card through Xtreme Mercy Canada (XMC) and, for Americans, through International Christian Mission Services (ICMS).
 As always, people connected to City Life Church may still support us through their website.
We are extremely grateful to everyone who works with us to bring the gospel to this part of the world.
Sincerely,
Rick Bergen.

Deanna, Tonhetta, Vanderlei, Izak, and Paula.

Deanna was happy when Vanderlei, our neighbor, invited us for lunch when we returned from Nepal. It ended up being at our house because other out-of-town guests, Izak and Paula, came for the night. They were in Marabá on business.

Only one couple in our neighborhood ever invites us to eat together. Granted, our economic realities are different. But when people act like peers, and there is give and take on both sides, those involved in the relationship are heading toward a healthy peer friendship and are more likely to mature in other areas, such as spiritual, financial, and emotional health.

Clenildo told me a story recently of going to a desperately poor village to see if anyone wanted a ride to where the dentists were doing a free dentist campaign. He had to drive over a rickety wooden bridge, plus miles of overgrown roads, to get there. When he arrived, the people told him, “We are the people God forgot. No one remembers we exist.” Clenildo said, “God remembered you. He sent me to come a visit you to see if anyone wants their teeth fixed.” It was late, so Clenildo stayed the night. The hammock they lent him was so filthy he finally took off his tee shirt and wrapped it around his face to dim the strong odors. Then the mosquitos attacked. “That night was longer than a day of hunger.” The next day, he took a pickup load of people to the dentist’s site. The people’s teeth were in bad shape, and they were overjoyed. They insisted on giving Clenildo one of their best chickens when he brought them home the next day. He was kind of embarrassed to take something from these desperately poor people, but he accepted. If I remember right, they butchered the huge chicken and cut it into 45 pieces for lunch for the volunteer dentists and helpers. As he told me the story, I thought, “There is a good chance this group will escape poverty. They want to do their part to be peers, starting with what they have. It’s a good sign.“

Clenildo and Angelita went back to this village the other day, on a roundabout route about 70 km out of their way to avoid the rickety bridge, to see if the people there were interested in doing Discovery Groups to learn about how God reveals Himself in the Bible.

God wrote two books, the Bible and the Book of Nature. Both books continually reveal God’s abundant nature.

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20). 

The big swing is a bit hit! Brazilians love doing things together.

Dave and Colleen Pedersen are pastors in Elizabethton, South Africa, national directors for the Association of South African Vineyards, and the leaders of the Global Mission Team. Dave’s leadership style is inclusive and collaborative, and I feel extremely grateful that he is leading this team.

We LOVED these meetings! Each day was excellent, even when conversations veered unexpectedly. When you have a safe environment, people are free to speak their hearts, which is often different than you hoped. It is easier when the people you work with simply try to please you. But long-term power and unity are available on the other side of real conversations.

• The Global Vineyard church-planting movement is heroically working to spread the gospel around the world.
• The themes from this conference included the desire for relationships, collaboration, and the necessity of information sharing.
• Another theme was the variety of expectations, especially expectations based on the “obvious” implications of keywords like “partnership” and “family.”
• Fourteen Associations of Vineyard Churches were represented at these meetings. The variety of diverse cultural assumptions is almost infinite and, in many cases, unexpected because we often don’t even realize the meanings we attach to words and situations. Normal and obvious varies wildly among and within cultures.
• We heard amazing stories of how God is on the move! One of the men in the following photo was a rebel warrior, captured and sentenced to execution. When the captain came to execute him, God spoke to the captain and said, “Not this one. I have plans for him.” The captain stopped the execution, and the man is a church planter now. In another case, a man’s great-grandfather was a holy man in a village. Jesus appeared to him. He went outside, got a sledgehammer, knocked the nose off an idol, shared his testimony in the village, and started a church. God is on the move. How can we get in sync and move with Him?

Five leaders from five vastly different regions. Thailand, Australia, Zambia, the Old City, and Brazil/Canada.

Just as the Amazon contains many of the largest rivers in the world, the Himalayan mountain range contains many of the highest mountains in the world.

The Himalayan foothills are dotted with villages. While the ones in these photos I took from the airplane have roads, many villages are only accessible by trekking along narrow paths on the face of sheer cliffs. The people we were with are planting churches among these remote dwellers.

There were several of these awesome Royal Enfield 350s in the old city.

Creative geniuses live and work in the ancient 1,000+-year-old downtown core. Who wouldn’t want to dress like one of these cool mannequins?

Every dad’s dream shirt.

We raise our children with the hopes that they launch well.

These monkeys run around wild.

Our hero, David Ruis, was honored in an impromptu Spirit-led ceremony. David is one of these people; the longer you know him, the greater the breadth and depth of the stories. What an honor to spend time with David and all the others at the gathering. Heroes of the Faith are walking among us. David and Anita are the leaders of Vineyard Canada and pastors at the Kelowna Vineyard.

The distance from Marabá to the conference is almost equal to the globe’s circumference. This is us on our final flight home.

Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful (Col. 3:14-15). 

This morning a new friend explained to me, “We have to thank people. We cannot just thank God in our hearts or in church. I have never seen God. But I see people who are made in the image of God. When I love people, I am loving God. When I thank people, I am thanking God. We have to look around and find things about people for which we can thank them. This is very important for our spiritual life. This is what God is telling me for three months now.”

Today I went for an early morning walk for about an hour and ended up in a temple area. I have read about it and seen movies or documentaries, but being here was completely different. I had no idea whole communities made gigantic statures about being dominated by a serpent.

I have a dream of helping Brazilians get connected to other peoples around the world, to bring the powerful and joyful gospel message to others, and then to share the stories with their home churches. I see this enhancing local evangelism and church planting at home because God is abundant far beyond our imagination.

Rather than moving from a scarcity mentality which leads to managing limited resources, I see us moving in abundance as God opens the windows of heaven to help His people show others how to move away from being dominated by the serpant toward freedom and joy.

I believe that more church-planting around the world will result in more church-planting at home. People are longing for a reason to live sacrificially and joyfully.