 “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.” “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting….” (Acts 9:4-5) Dear Friends, I just finished studying the book of Ephesians with one of my groups of pastors and leaders in India, and I was impressed again with Paul’s use of the metaphor of the body of Christ. He uses it in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and the book of Colossians as well as in Ephesians. Have you ever wondered where Paul got the idea for that metaphor for the church? Jesus uses several metaphors for the church, such as a tree (Mark 4:31-32) or a building (“the stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone”, Mark 12:10-11). But in the Gospels Jesus never uses the image of the body of Christ to describe the church. I think Paul got his image of the body of Christ from his very first conversation with Jesus. In that encounter on the Damascus Road, Saul/Paul learns that Jesus so identifies with his followers, his church, than when Paul is persecuting them, he takes it personally. When Saul harms the church, Jesus feels the pain. I think Paul doesn’t use the “body of Christ” as a metaphor of the church, but rather as a description of it—in some deep way, the Church Universal is the incarnation of Jesus, as Jesus was the incarnation of God. And the church is at its peak body-of-Christness when it is the persecuted church. When Stephen was being stoned, Jesus was not just seated at the right hand of God, but he was standing there, attentive and pleading (Acts 7:56). The persecuted Church has Jesus’ attention and focus. And the church today is as persecuted as it has ever been, at least globally. Martyrdom is as common today as it has ever been, now especially in Nigeria or Muslim countries where Christians are persecuted and converts are treated brutally. I have now 12 weekly Zoom classes in India (and one in Nepal and two in Haiti) and every week I hear at least once a story of persecution and opposition from some of the members of a class. Chhattisgarh State is especially dangerous for Christians, and just last week I heard of a church being burned and its small group of believers being run out of their village there. I have seen recent photos of believer’s wounds after a Hindu nationalist mob action, and heard first-person testimonies of having been beaten, having church property destroyed or stolen, and of entire mountain villages being created after Christian brothers and sisters were ejected from their homes, land and villages because they had recently converted. One pastor asked for prayer for a baptismal tub he’s installing on his roof, together with a privacy tarp, so he can hold a baptism for 50 people without being witnessed by Hindus who might be enraged and activated by just the sight of a Christian baptism. (Please pray—the baptism is late November!) It is an encouragement to my partners in India when I teach that Jesus is organically connected to his body, most especially as it is experiencing opposition, persecution, slander, injustice, violence and suffering in his name. We in the West know very little about persecution, by Biblical standards or compared with the contemporary majority world Church. Indeed, we do thank God for our freedom of worship and assembly. But Jesus is with, most especially, the persecuted church, and we can stand with Jesus as he stands with them by praying for them. Please watch the video and then join me in praying regularly for the people of God who suffer in the name of Jesus. What does 2026 look like for Us? Lisa and I will be leaving Durham mid-December and spending 3 weeks in California, connecting with friends and supporters. We will then head to Malaysia soon after New Years’ Day to teach a course for St. Paul’s Theological College in Kuala Lumpur, and to connect with old friends and partners there. After that, we head to India and Nepal where we will teach in seminaries and with pastor and leaders’ groups. We will return to the US in April. You will hear more about our trip in the next letter. But we are full of expectation and looking forward to what 2026 will bring regarding both new partnerships and renewing old friendships. Please Pray:
In Jesus, Rich and Lisa (below) Lisa and Rich on a fall hike along the Eno River in Durham, NC 
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 “Tomorrow is our torture session.” I (Lisa) wondered if I had pushed my students too hard when one of them said this as class ended on Wednesday. (He was grinning good-naturedly, so I wasn’t too worried.) Rich and I were in a town on the east coast of India for ten days at a vibrant seminary there. Rich’s class had over twenty students and each session was inductive. Mine was a smaller group and more lecture-based, but I didn’t want to do all the talking! I gave them two assignments that I knew would stretch them, as first-year students. The first was to retell a story from anywhere in the Bible as a minor, possibly non-human character, such as a rock that became part of the temple, the dust that was made into clay and healed the blind man, etc. For the second tortuous task, I handed them each a small strip of paper with a doctrine (the atonement, the humanity and divinity of Christ, Creation) and asked them to teach about it for five minutes, including a brief testimony as to how this doctrine is good news to them personally. I told them that I would choose four of the narratives for them to preach in chapel on Friday. As Thursday’s class came, I wondered how it would go. A few of them struggled with English. They come from all over India, so English is the best common language for their school, but it is not just the second but the third language for some, such as the students who come from a mountainous region of Northeast India. A couple of them misunderstood and simply retold the story, but a few of them were simply stunning in their vivid description, creative angles, and dramatic flair. At chapel the next day, the electricity failed, as it often does in semi-rural India. Without fans, we were dripping with sweat, and without microphones, we needed to shout. But one by one, four brave students brought narratives from Scripture to life in fresh and profound ways. None of them had done an exercise like this before and they were so pleased with what they produced. I was asked to say a few words at the end. I teared up a bit when I said, “As I listen to you, I know that the future of the church in India is bright.” This is a counter-intuitive statement today. Persecution seems clearly to be increasing, as we shared in our last letter. We heard many stories over our time there of pastors being beaten, imprisoned, and even killed. It can indeed feel that the future of the church in India is dark, so I felt led to offer this word of hope. Their very presence in seminary, diligently preparing to serve in settings that may put them in harm’s way, is a sign of how deeply the gospel has permeated their hearts and how strong and resilient the church is in India. It was a great honor to make this small investment in the future of that church. From India, Rich returned to the US, and I went on to Malaysia. The primary purpose of that trip was to be part the faculty team of the Asia Graduate School of Theology (AGST) as we gather annually to encourage and guide the doctoral students who work independently around Asia. Once a year, they gather for three days of fellowship, and to share their dissertations’ progress. It feels like an extreme gym workout for the brain, as I work hard to focus and listen well so I can offer salient feedback to each one. With each presentation, I marveled at the different gifts and perspectives each faculty member brought, as each of us saw different strengths and weaknesses in the student’s work. We all worked hard to bring our critique with kindness and clarity. I first participated in this colloquium remotely while we were traveling in India in 2022, then in person while living in Kuala Lumpur in 2023, and remotely again last year, so I was glad to be able to be there again in person. This work feels as strategic as almost anything I do, as it raises up local scholars through a program that they can afford and that doesn’t require them to uproot themselves to study far from home. I was delighted afterwards to spend a day at St. Paul’s Theological College, connecting with the faculty and students who had become dear to me during our time in Malaysia. I’m so grateful for this trip! What’s ahead for us? We will spend the fall mostly here in Durham, NC, working with our church in various capacities, teaching remotely (in India, Nepal, and China for Rich, and at Fuller for me), and enjoying the fall foliage. We will be planning a three-month journey through Malaysia and India in the first quarter of 2026, which will culminate in a short-term missions trip we’ll lead to Assam and Nagaland for our church. Already, we can see that ten weeks in India is not long enough to visit all the places where Rich has been forging deep connections through his Zoom teaching, and we will need to discern together what is most strategic. Please pray for:
Love in Jesus, Lisa and Rich  Lisa, the other faculty, and the Doctoral Candidates for the AGST in Kuala Lumpur  Lisa with the Ladies of the Pastor’s Conference. Wherever we go,
both men and women appreciate hearing Lisa preach and teach.  Dear Friends, I (Lisa) don’t know how long Elijah stayed in Zarephath, but it seems it was brief enough that we could call this a short-term missions trip. I’m a big believer in short-term missional endeavors, despite some of their inherent limitations and potential pitfalls. Jesus sent out his disciples on at least one, and Paul planted many of his churches through a series of them. As we look at our next few years, it seems more likely that we will be carrying out our ministries through short to medium trips rather than through relocating to Malaysia or elsewhere in Asia. We’ll share here our hopes for our next two trips but first let me share what I think makes Elijah’s trip so successful and such a good model for those of us who go on them today. First, he entered a new context with a potent mix of confidence and humility. He wasn’t “bringing God’s love” to Zarephath, as some heading out on short-term trips might say. God had told him that he was already at work in the heart of a woman there. Elijah just needed to go with eyes wide open to discover who it was who had been prepared to welcome him. Second, he entered the new culture with vulnerability and need, and he was willing to ask for help. He didn’t show up to fix the problem with a giant truckload of water; he couldn’t. Instead, he came thirsty and every bit as hungry as the woman and her boy were. As the story begins at least, he is the recipient-guest, and she is the giver-host. His words and her willingness turned her from passive sufferer of the fate of death to an active participant in the future God was bringing her. Third, though he doesn’t bring much in the way of skills or resources, he does bring one thing that she lacks: his faith. He brought his relationship with the God who had commanded him to go, his testimony of having experienced God’s provision in the past, and his willingness to go out on a limb with a crazy, bold promise. Like many a newcomer coming in from the outside, he brings a fresh perspective, a new way of framing an entrenched problem. That is the way of trust that Yahweh will provide, even in this season of scarcity. August in India and Malaysia We are painfully aware that this is a season of hardship for the church in India. We share links below describing the rise of families and whole churches being evicted from their villages, of churches being burned and pastors beaten. We can do almost nothing to fix that, but we can come alongside these faithful disciples with words of hope, with solid training so that leaders can lead their churches well, and with our love. We hope to bring all of that when we serve at a seminary in the Southeastern part of the country. We will be there the second half of August, with Rich teaching leadership while I will be teaching preaching. We always avoid large gatherings, but we will be even more careful this time, and we do ask your prayers for the church in India and for our health, safety, energy, and excellence as we say yes to this invitation. After that, I will head to Malaysia to be one of the faculty for a colloquium of doctoral students from around Asia with the Asian Graduate School of Theology, a consortium of schools that have banded together to offer a number of degrees that no one school could field on its own. I have not been back to Malaysia since we had to leave somewhat suddenly 15 months ago, so I look forward to connecting with friends and colleagues while there. Fall in Durham, Winter in Asia I will be in Pasadena in late September and would love to see Southern Californian friends when I’m not pawing through our basement boxes, but other than that, we’ll stay put in Durham, NC for the fall, happily serving at our church here through leading the Young Adults group and hosting an Adult Sunday School course in Global Mission. We will also be gathering a team that we hope will meet us in India for a short-term trip. Our plan is to head to Malaysia in January, then be in India February and March, serving in various schools and churches and laying the groundwork for our church’s visit mid-March. After that, we will be in the US, discerning our long-term home and continuing to serve both from a distance and through extended visits to Asia and elsewhere. We are so grateful for your friendship, financial gifts, and prayers as we prepare for this upcoming trip. As always, feel free to reply here with a way you are seeing God at work where you live or a way we can be praying for you. With gratitude, Rich and Lisa Every conversation with pastors and partners in India also includes a reference to heightened persecution, scrutiny, unjust imprisonments of Christian believers and pastors (and nuns!) all over India. Please pray for our brothers and sisters! To Learn more about the church in India today:   Lisa preaching at Triangle Grace Church May 25th “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us…The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” Acts 16:4
“The crowd kept shouting, ‘Away with him!’” Acts 21:36 As teaching moments go, it doesn’t get much better than encounters like Paul and Silas had with Lydia. She came ready and eager to learn, made so by the Lord himself. She listened intently and then responded with faith, opening her heart and her home in glad welcome of the good news that they brought. I’ve had a few tough teaching moments recently. It gives me perspective to remember that Paul, while he had gloriously successful teaching and preaching events, hit some really rough moments as well. In my case, no one tried to run me out of town, but in a recent week-long intensive course, there was a mismatch between what a few students in a class were hungry for and what I brought. Two students whose questions and comments were quite adversarial whispered to each other all of the first two days, and only reluctantly agreed to stop when I asked them to. At least five distinct technological challenges arose that were not solved until well after class should have begun on the first day, which left me visibly flustered. I had looked forward to being back in a classroom after teaching only via Zoom for the last year, so it was disappointing that it proved to be so very challenging. It did end on a really good note, for which I am grateful. I'm learning to count both the “Lydia moments” and the “Away with him moments” as gifts. Sometimes we have to stretch ourselves to communicate in challenging contexts, and sometimes what we bring clearly meets a need. For the past several months, I have been meeting weekly via Zoom with a bright young woman in Ghana. She is a recipient of a Scholar Leaders scholarship to study at Duke Divinity School but was unable to get to the US last December due to a backlog in visa applications at the US embassy there. One of her specific hopes had been to study Greek, so I offered to give her Greek lessons once a week. Within weeks, she was reading passages from the book of John, and now she is making connections between Greek and English words that startle me and noting connections between sections of John’s gospel that delight me every week. To all of you who teach, whether that is teaching your own children or a classroom full of unruly middle-schoolers or equipping a team with new skills in your workplace, we pray for grace and good humor, wisdom and love as you live out that vocation. We are so grateful fort hose of you who pray, give, and cheer us on as we teach and learn to teach even more effectively! Please pray for:
With gratitude and love, Lisa and Rich PS: Lisa preached last week (May 25) and here is the link for her sermon on the Bible and Theology, including her brief children’s sermon before she begins. Rich preached three weeks before that and here is the link for that sermon, with stories from India, on the topic of Worship. Dear Friends, As many of you know, this was a challenging month for me (Rich) and for Lisa, in very different ways. We had agreed several months ago that we would release each other to do more missional travel, one at a time, in 2025. Lisa had a good week in Albania, which she reflects on in a paragraph below. I had a sweet week caring for Lisa’s mom, Nancy, with several meaningful conversations. The next day, I set out on a 3.5-week trip to India and Bangladesh. Yet the day after I left for India, the nurse said she thought Nancy was likely to be in her final week. Lisa managed that valiantly, with attentive help from our daughter and son-in-law and two church communities. Nancy died March 17, for the most part peacefully. I was very sorry not to be able to help Lisa with the many tasks and emotions involved in that season, but we both felt good about my continuing the trip, especially because she had such a great support group around her. I’m so proud of her and grateful for all that she handled in my absence. She’ll offer reflections on that below as well, but I would love to share here what I’m most grateful for about this trip.  Two weeks ago, I (Rich) returned from my 16 days in India and another six days in Bangladesh. In the map above, the straight segments are flights, and the squiggly segments are a crude approximation of the driving we did. The black segments indicate week 1, flying into Delhi and having a few days in North India and then a few days in Northern Orissa (segment 5). In Northern India I was in two places I’ve not been before, meeting up with pastors and lay leaders and connecting with two capable translators who are helping me to begin new Zoom classes with pastors in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab states. It was a very encouraging time with new networks of pastors. In Northern Orissa I was with the partner and translator with whom I have had the longest collaboration. We held a graduation ceremony for the 18 pastors who have gone through my Sketches of Leadership course, as they were awarded a “Certificate of Completion” from Church of the Rock Theological College. My translator is educated and has a MDiv from a theological seminary in India, but many of these pastors do not have any diploma beyond high school; for some of them this certificate may be the one they display on their wall indicating their Biblical training. I was deeply moved as they testified to how their own teaching has deepened and changed to become more inductive and interactive, and how that has strengthened the growth of their churches and their church members. The second week of my trip took me to Dhaka, Bangladesh (marked by the orange line on the map). There I taught 20 organizational leaders in a MA program about fundraising, emphasizing that it is Biblical and in fact is honorable ministry, to the people we are asking to join our team who make our ministry possible. Training developing world leaders in fundraising is very satisfying for me, as it is an important skill for them, especially as the focus is sustainable fund development, helping them to build up a culture of local giving for local ministry, not just relying on big granting institutions or generous churches from the West. These students lead organizations serving the poor, children and others rescued from trafficking, and other vulnerable populations throughout Bangladesh. The final 9 days of time in India was spent visiting 19 villages and medium-sized towns, teaching church members and training pastors in inductive teaching, mostly using the first five chapters of Mark. This was a tiring but rewarding and gratifying itinerant mission. We were several times in strikingly remote locations, including where every family had a big pile of wood in front of their house, collected from the surrounding scrub land and small trees and used in cooking their daily meals. At the same time, I noticed no small amount of cell phones, and several times when the electricity in the building shut off, cell phone flashlights popped on and we were able to continue the teaching with their light until the power resumed a few minutes later. An odd mix of premodern technologies (cooking meals over a wood fire) and ultramodern smartphones! During the first week, I taught on Elijah on Mt. Carmel, describing the showdown between Baal and Yahweh and Elijah’s boldness in defeating the vast number of prophets of Baal. One 16-year-old girl, “Ranjita” responded to this teaching by returning to the home village she had been chased out of a few months before. She is a new believer, and both her Hindu parents and occult-supporting people in her home village had expelled her. Upon returning to her village, she found a young man who was sick and being prayed for by his Hindu family. She told him that the Lord was God and more powerful than the Hindu gods to which his family were praying. She prayed to God in Jesus’ name, and he was healed. The man’s family was glad for the healing but not happy about her preaching about Jesus. Then a second person, whose family practiced occult rituals, was sick. She again spoke powerfully about Jesus and prayed for complete healing, and the boy was healed. The family and the occult leaders were so angry that they prayed to their demons to kill Ranjita. The demon’s response surprised them all! “We cannot touch Ranjita, because her God is the Most High God.” Now Ranjita leads a small group with seven families who have turned to her God! All this happened in the last month. Visiting relatively remote villages, I taught two or three times per day. Everywhere in India it is hard to miss the gender imbalance in the church. The pastors are (mostly) men, but the church members seem to be 75% women. The young women and teenage girls come to church with their notebooks, in which they write the words to new songs and take notes on the Bible teaching. It was much rarer to see teen boys with notebooks. So, it was encouraging to hear that, as a result of the teaching, 3 young men have come forward to receive a six-month training internship with my translator and partner in Southern Orissa. They will stay in his little guest room for a few months and will travel with him to remote villages. They will go through both the Sketches of Leadership classes I am teaching as well as additional training done by my partner. He was very encouraged by this development, and is well poised to see these young men grow up to be rural church-planting pastor-evangelists. Since getting back, 3 new zoom classes are starting, the early fruit of the trip, and the existing groups in the locations I visited have added new members. I get lots of feedback that people enjoy the training, but the feedback that is the most gratifying is when I hear stories of people who hear the word, accept it, and act on it in ways that produce a harvest, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some hundredfold. It is a privilege to be able to teach people who are so consistently good soil! I have been teaching Mark 15 for many of my Zoom classes this week, in light of Holy Week and Good Friday. If you would like to read my Good Friday reflection (about 5 minutes reading), visit my blog post here.  Lisa Reflects on the past month:
What a momentous five weeks it has been! On March 2, I flew to Albania, where I joined 160 theological educators from around the world, gathered to consider the challenges and the opportunities ahead for the church. Every meal was a chance to meet with faithful faculty, deans, and doctoral students from Egypt, Brazil, Ethiopia, and everywhere in between. The conference featured Impact Teams, like daily tracks, and mine, Women Thriving, considered the challenges of female students, faculty, and leaders and how they are courageously and creatively facing them. I was able to pull together a wonderful team of presenters from around the globe, and was so pleased with the conversations at each session. I'm so grateful to have been able to attend this gathering. I returned very late Saturday, sent Rich off to India Sunday, and on Monday, my mom's visiting nurse team declared her to be within a week of her death, due to her congestive heart failure. This began a whirlwind of details, getting her oxygen, a hospital bed, and palliative medicines. While I missed Rich immensely over the next three weeks, I can truly say that I experienced God's care, provision, and even a minor miracle or two! Both Becca and Avery's church and our church mobilized to bring me meals, and various friends and pastors came to pray and say final goodbyes. It was truly remarkable that a woman who moved here during a pandemic, at age 91, became so dear to many people here. She rallied to thank them, tell a joke or two, and receive their prayers for the first half of the week, but by Thursday she was too weak for that. One of her final conversations was with a dear friend here whose child was in need of an organ transplant. My mom told her that her first words to God upon entering heaven would be about that! On Sunday, March 16, she began to be in real pain, which we met with medication, and she died that night. The following day, these friends received news that a matching organ had become available, and she had a successful surgery the next day. Now, we don't know exactly how that all worked in the divine plan; we will simply say that we are so grateful! Lesser miracles in terms of provision included that a dear friend from CA had already planned to come for much of the next week, which was a huge help to me, and the kind friends I've made here who are nurses or doctors who were able to pop in with helpful advice and encouragement throughout the final week of my mom's life. Thanks as well to all of you who sent notes and messages of care as well. If you have interest in reading my sharing about my mother at the memorial service, visit my blog post here. We both very much appreciate your prayers as we continue to serve both in Durham and in Asia, and as we seek God’s guidance regarding our next steps in the coming months. As Jesus goes to the cross, he stops teaching, but Mark starts teaching us in parables. He introduces two characters who are the human face of the implications of the cross.
It is ironic that the Chief Priests, Scribes, and the crowd at Pilate’s audience clamor for him to release Barabbas. Barabbas is the kind of man they are portraying Jesus to be—one who has rejected the authority of Rome, a challenge to Caesar. But Pilate knows that if Jesus were such a man, they’d be clamoring for him to be released (because they hate the authority of Rome). Barabbas is one such man, and until a few hours ago, the third cross being prepared for the condemned men had his name on it. But in a moment of unexpected grace, Barabbas is set free, while Jesus goes to his cross. Lucky Barabbas! But Barabbas has a significance beyond his own story of freedom. Barabbas is the only untranslated Aramaic in Mark’s gospel, but Mark has given us the pieces of Barabbas’ name to be able to work it out ourselves. In Mark 10:46 we learn “bar” means “son of”, and in 14:36, in Jesus’ prayer, we learn that “abba” means “father”. Barabbas was a rebel, a “son of a father”, which is about as generic a boy’s name as you can get. We are all rebels, children of our parents. Barabbas is “Joe Everyman” and his cross was ours. Jesus took our place upon that cross. As he himself said, he came “as a ransom for many”. Then Mark introduces another new named character in his story, Simon of Cyrene. Usually, if you want to name someone, you might say, as Mark does, “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.” But it was rarely done to identify someone by their children, unless the children would be known to the people you are writing to. Indeed, I assume that Simon of Cyrene became a believer, and his (now adult) children are known to the people of Rome, where Mark is first putting his gospel on paper. And Paul mentions a Rufus living in Rome (Romans 16:13) when he writes his letter to that church, before he arrived in Rome shortly before his death. So the most logical explanation of this is that Simon of Cyrene, a random passerby at the time of Jesus’ death, became so taken up by the story that pressed itself upon him that he followed up with it, joined the believers in Jerusalem, and eventually his children were believers in Rome. Jesus, in Mark 8:34, said to his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Simon of Cyrene is the first person to take up the cross, literally Jesus’ cross when he no longer could carry it, and follow Jesus along the way to his death. This would have had a profound impact on Simon, and he is a model for us of one who follows Jesus, saying yes to suffering, to the cross we each must bear, and saying yes to Jesus’ call to follow him to our death, whatever death comes. Jesus’ death, not ours, is the ransom. Our suffering or death cannot save anyone. But Jesus does promise that, as we follow him, saying yes to suffering in his name, our death can be, like his, redemptive. Our suffering can be meaningful, purposeful, healing and redemptive in our own life and the lives of many others. By the power of Jesus’ cross, our suffering too has power. So Jesus’ death is a ransom. Jesus faced a grim and painful death on a cross marked out for us. He died for us. Yet also Jesus’ death is a model. We are called to follow him and embrace redemptive suffering in his name.  Nancy Washington February 10, 1929 -- March 17, 2025 “I choose purple and green!” I felt downright giddy as I announced this at the dinner table, at age 8 or so. “And I choose blue and gold!” my older sister Ruth chimed in, equally exuberantly. These sentences were in answer to my mom’s offer to paint our bedrooms in any two colors we chose. She may have had something more subtle in mind, but she stuck to her promise.
This feels emblematic of my mom—her eagerness to make everything a team sport, her willingness to relinquish control and trust people, and her enjoyment of the unconventional and the colorful. I didn’t know how unusual this was until later. I had never really thought about the fact that our backyard was the place all the kids naturally landed after school, until one kid pointed it out. He said it was because, “Your mom lets us have fun. Our parents are worried about us making a mess, but your mom likes mess! She listens to us like we’re real people. She bakes us cookies and teaches us games and turns on the sprinkler for us to run through.” That side of her was out in full force at the Halloween party where she stuffed herself inside a fold-out ladder and had my dad drape it with sheets, so she could turn on a flashlight and shout “Boo!” as each child came up the driveway. She loved to host parties for adults, too, even though she was not, truth be told, a great housekeeper or cook. It didn’t matter. I remember the handmade signs she and my dad made inviting international students at San Jose State to come over for Thanksgiving dinner, and the motley groups that gathered around our ping pong table. It wasn’t about the food; it was about friendship and the wide-open table. It was also about the laughter. I remember the fancy molded Jello salad that hadn’t set quite enough by the time everything else was ready at a dinner party. As she and two of her friends were trying to get it onto a platter, the operation went south, and somehow it slid right into the kitchen sink. Instead of this upsetting them, they threw back their heads and roared with laughter as it shimmied down the drain! I distinctly remember looking up at their faces with a mix of disbelief and fascinated attraction—I couldn’t understand why they weren’t devastated. But I longed for that kind of freedom to fail, to let go of what one had hoped for and to simply delight in what is. To find humor in any situation, and to do life with dear friends at one’s side. These were life skills that served my mom well as she weathered many challenges. My mom was quiet, but she was so brave. I remember her saying, as we faced the large waves of Santa Cruz, CA, “The ocean is your friend. You don’t need to fear it. If you get caught in a wave, just relax and think of it like a trip through the washing machine. You’ll come out alright in the end.” This had in some ways been her life experience. Her childhood had been really hard, with a father who was both physically and verbally abusive. But by the grace of God and sheer pluck, she came out more than alright in the end. I think that’s why the story of Emily the Cow resonated so deeply that she specifically requested it be told at her memorial service. Emily was a cow headed to slaughter in Massachusetts in 1995. The workers were on their lunch break, so Emily saw her moment to break free. She got a running start and leapt in all her bovine glory over a 5-foot-tall fence and ran deep into the forest, where she evaded capture for six weeks, until a farming family bought her from the slaughterhouse and let her live out a happy life in their meadow. I think my mom’s leap out of destructive mess of her childhood home came in stages and through surprising choices—the unlikely choice to spend a summer during college serving Mexican children in a migrant camp with her church young adults group. Or the bold choice to buy a used but sporty Studebaker Coupe convertible while she was a single woman working in San Francisco after college and go charging up and down the hills of the city in it with her friends. The choice to see a very quirky man, with epilepsy and mild autism and the odd name of George Washington, and say, “Now there’s a man with a heart of gold. He’s the one for me.” They leapt together out of the hardships of their childhoods by the grace of God, into adult lives that were brighter and more colorful. She and my dad followed Jesus together joyfully and wholeheartedly. The world of careers was frustrating and disappointing for her. She worked after college for the Methodist publishing house, work she genuinely enjoyed, and then later teaching English as a Second Language and as a popular substitute teacher in elementary schools. But her primary vocation as of 1960 was lavishing care upon a child with disabilities, my sister Ruth, advocating tirelessly for her full inclusion in schools well before that was common, and watching in amusement as Ruth introduced herself to literally every person in the grocery store, to the chagrin of her more introverted sister! My mom didn’t have a career, but she had a vocation, which she lived out faithfully and well. She was also an eager supporter of my vocation from a young age. I remember the time I was about ten or eleven and in wide-eyed wonder after having stayed in the adult service at church for the first time. The pastor had preached a rather mediocre sermon, though I was not discerning enough yet to know that. I asked, “Could I do that someday?” Her response: “Probably a lot better than he just did!” She marched me on up to him and had me ask him how one becomes a pastor. His rather uninspired reply was, “Uh, well, you go to seminary.” She fulminated to my dad all the way home that he’d missed a chance to talk with me about becoming a leader who loves people and cultivating my love of Scripture. I love this story because it shows her quick wit, something so many friends and relatives have commented on, which stayed with her even to her final week, and it shows that she took faith and ministry seriously, from her own work as an elder to her deep gratitude to those who pastored her well in her final years. Her willingness to risk and trust God took her life on a surprising twist near its end. Becca shared about that, but I want to add one more thing she said about it. When Rich and I began pondering a missional venture back in 2019, she said, “I don’t want you waiting around for me to die before you say yes to God’s calling. Make your plans to go and something will work out for me.” Little did she know how warmly the amazing church community of Emmaus Way would welcome her. But this past spring it became clear that the arrangement with her facility was no longer working, and we needed to make changes quickly. That was when a friend of ours and of Triangle Grace church raised the possibility of us living here, in a home that has been a forested haven of peace for my mom’s final months, and with kindness from many here as well. We are so grateful to both church communities. My mom had some strikingly vivid dreams toward the end of her life. Last year, she dreamed that my sister, who died in 2016 and had never driven a car, pulled up in a car and drove her around, with my dad in the backseat. They were excited to give her a tour of a stunning new place, with mountains like nothing she’d seen in their beauty and vastness and the intensity of their colors. Truly a foretaste of heaven. I like to think that the skies, trees, flowers, and mountain ranges she saw were filled with vivid colors…colors like purple and green, and blue and gold—like the colors she so generously gave to us.  Duke ThM Students and their Scholar Leaders Friends “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient until it receives the early and late rains. You also must be patient…. You have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” James 5:7-8, 11 I (Lisa) have never listed patience as a top strength. It does not come naturally to me. I do not willingly enter into slow processes like lengthy board games. But many of you can relate to the feeling that much has been stripped away that we used to count on for swift and unimpeded journeys to our chosen destinations, whether by fires or changing political landscapes, the loss of robust health or the loss of a loved one. We find ourselves only able to pray and wait. The book of James seems designed to form a people capable of receiving their lives rather than achieving them, a people who count life as a gift and look in hope to the giver of wisdom and of “precious crops,” the fruit born of patience. Patience is funded by deep confidence that the Lord is merciful and kind. My current circumstances (a primary caregiver, living in an unfamiliar city, and working within three new-to-me organizations) have caused me to ponder often the virtue of patience and the value of waiting. The farmer here is presumably not passive as he or she waits; animals need feeding, weeds and pests need removing, and soil can be improved. But for that key big-ticket item, rain, the farmer can only wait. It will come as gift--or not at all. James writes to people who are enduring suffering, in part as they work out how to live together as a socioeconomically diverse community sprinkled with folks who prefer boastful speech to humble listening. He encourages them that by choosing the path of patience, they will receive two incredible gifts from their generous God: wisdom and endurance. What is more, they will see the purposes of the Lord and experience his compassion and mercy. I don’t see all God’s purposes for this season yet, but I am getting early glimpses, and we have seen the Lord’s abundant mercy towards us in so many ways. One of the biggest challenges of this season for me has been navigating new territory and tools. I have had to learn many new pathways to access aid for my mom and have had to learn new acronyms and organizational cultures within Scholar Leaders, the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE), and Duke Divinity School (where I’ll teach a course this spring). I had not anticipated being so stretched vocationally while being challenged physically and emotionally as a caregiver. But the work that I knew how to do, teaching preaching, has not been readily available to me, so I have tried to plow a new field, and am eager to see what this crop will look and taste like. Rain is beginning to come, and buds are appearing:
(Below) Lisa and I join our son Mark in London, our first in-person visit with our son for 1.5 years. It has been great to see him this week! (We arrive back in North Carolina on Sunday.)   Luke 1:5-23, The Angel appears to Zechariah Lk 1:18: Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ Luke 1:34: Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ (Lk 1:34) Luke 1:43: Elizabeth (said), “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Luke 1:66: All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ Dear Friends, Once Luke’s gospel gets underway, it is focused like a laser beam on Jesus. Why then does it start with 50 or more verses telling the story, not of Jesus’ birth, but of John the Baptist’s birth, and how his parents experienced that? It seems odd to give so much air time to two characters who will exit stage right and never be heard from again. It feels like throat-clearing on the part of a speaker before he or she settles into the topic at hand—something I tell my preaching students to avoid! As I have pondered this, a few things strike me. First, by taking time to narrate the poignant lack and then joyful gift given to Zechariah and Elizabeth, Luke brings in a theme that will pervade his gospel—that it comes into our lives at our points of deepest need, where we are most discouragingly, sometimes desperately, aware of our emptiness and incapacity to bring about the futures we desire for ourselves. Second, the story is replete with Old Testament echoes, from Abraham and Sarah to Samson’s parents, to Elijah, the joyful promises of Isaiah, and to the exhortations of Malachi. This opening scene anchors Jesus’ story firmly in the stream of all of Scripture. But the story is also packed with drama, confusion, and joyful expectation, so it sets the stage so well for the birth of Jesus in the next chapter. I want tto consider the four questions we find here, but first, let’s look at Zechariah’s journey from doubt to joy. What a moment it was for him, even before the angel showed up! It’s estimated that there were around 20,000 priests in Zechariah’s time, and they served in the temple in twenty-four two-week stints. From those 830 or so, one was chosen by lot each day to offer incense. If your name was called, it was removed from contention, so this was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event, if even that. Imagine how excited, and perhaps frightened, Zechariah was. “Must. Not. Spill the incense!” Then, to have the angel Gabriel appear. He was terrified, so Gabriel spoke words of comfort to him. Then made wild promises, promises of joy and the fulfillment of his deepest longings. I love that it is in the course of serving others, interceding on their behalf, that God generously grants Zechariah’s prayer. In some ways, I would have liked Zechariah’s next words to be, “Blessed be God Most High!” But they aren’t. Instead, he gets a little demanding, a tad suspicious. “How will I know that this is so?” He wants proof, a sign, even though he has a sign—an angel right in front of him. But in other ways I’m glad he responded as he did; it’s just so human, so normal. It’s what we all might well have done. We can wish we’d bowed in wonder, but the reality is, we’d have doubted as well. I used to think that Gabriel punished Zechariah for this petulant outburst by hitting his mute button, but the text doesn’t say that. It simply states that muteness is a consequence of his disbelief. I believe there was a gift for Zechariah in this involuntary season of silence. He is invited to listen, to savor, and to hope, as he watches Elizabeth’s belly swell and perhaps overhears Mary sing. She sings a song that will inspire his own proclamation of God’s merciful salvation (Luke 1:68-79), when his voice is at last restored. Which questions are you asking in this Advent season? Are you in a bit of a cranky phase, like Zechariah? Perhaps the practice of silence, watching and waiting is the invitation for those of us who find ourselves there. Are you a bit overwhelmed and baffled as you ponder how your current situation will morph into a promised better one, like Mary was? Going to God with those honest “how on earth will this all work out?” questions served Mary well. Are you finding yourself in humble awe at the goodness of God toward you, like Elizabeth when she asked why she got to be in the presence of the mother of her future savior? Elizabeth was free with her blessing of Mary in that moment. Or are you more like the villagers, curious, expectant, hearing good news and now on the lookout for how it will take shape? These all seem to be postures of Advent that God desires, soft clay that God can work with. We find ourselves in all four of these stances in this Advent season. Like Elizabeth, we are so honored and grateful for God’s provision of a home, a church, and family nearby as we seek to care well for my mom. Like Zechariah, we get cranky and demanding at times, and like Mary, we’re not entirely clear how this will all work out, but we are also, like the villagers, happily expectant for the good work of God as it unfolds. What we’re up to these days:
Rich and Lisa Lamb   One of the Orissa leaders in my Sketches of Leadership training sessions who is teaching in a discussion format to an engaged crowd of young people. In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-5 Dear Friends, (From Rich) I love the photo above sent from my friend and translator Pastor S, who has been helping over 100 pastors and church planters use the materials we have been teaching in Orissa and Andra Pradesh states of India. This young man has been entrusted with both teaching from scripture through our sessions together and a model for inductive teaching that people, especially young people, are very much responsive to, and you can see it on their faces in this photo. In my teaching ministry with pastors and lay leaders in Asia, I often teach the first eleven chapters of Genesis, since they are fundamental to shaping our identity as humans in relationship with God. And this week, here in Durham we began a series for the Young Adult Ministry at our church on “God at Work.” We began in Genesis, looking at the first workers, both divine and human. The Bible begins by telling us that God had a problem at the beginning; the “earth” was a formless void. “Earth” is in quotes because the “Earth” as we think of it wasn’t yet created. God began with a formless void: formless, because it lacked any structure whatsoever, and void, because it was empty. So, two steps were needed to solve this problem: 1) create the structures of life (day and night, the heavens and the seas, dry land), then 2) fill those structures with lights, birds and fish, animals and people. Days 1 through 3 God was creating the structures; days 4 through 6 God was filling them. I am now in full-time supported ministry but I have had several secular jobs. I have always been in ministry to people who work in some trade or profession. Most legitimate work can be described by either bringing structure where it is needed or filling emptiness. Legal and accounting work provides structure to facts and knowledge and contracts and numbers, and truck drivers fill their trucks with goods and then bring those goods to places that need them. Teaching at any level can be viewed as bringing structure to knowledge, to facilitate learning. In these professions and many more, when people perform their work with diligence they are acting in the image of God, providing structure and creatively filling. Last night, we identified several insights in Genesis 1-3 that help us think about the significance of our work: 1) the Bible describes God as a worker—he worked six days in creation and then rested on the seventh. God evaluates his work as good. And we can see God was trying to problem-solve, to leave “the world” better than he found it, moving from empty chaos to order to abundance. 2) Humanity is created in God’s image and hence work is an important part of human identity. Indeed, work was given to humanity before the fall: even in paradise, people were given creative work to do. 3) With the fall came toil and sweat: all work, no matter how elevating, can be frustrating and sometimes even futile. We shared honestly the ways our work feels like toil and also reflected on the ways that our work and all workers have dignity. These insights should shape our days and our discipleship. While work is not our ultimate source of fulfilment, Lisa and I are grateful to be given meaningful and purposeful work to do, as teachers and leaders, as servants and coaches to leaders in Asia, to young adults in our church, and to Lisa’s mom here in our home in Durham. We do not now know how long we will be in Durham, but we can see how God is blessing our choice to come here, and others through our coming. Two weeks ago, I preached at our church in Durham, and I invite you to watch it if you’d like. Please pray with us:
Rich and Lisa Lamb Rich preaching at Triangle Grace Church on Sunday, October 6  |
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