The Gospels in Today's World

Have you ever wondered what it must've been like for Jesus and His disciples to travel from town to town ministering as they went along? We all read accounts of Jesus' ministry in the four gospels and most who have an imagination have a mental picture in their mind of what it must have looked like and felt like.
I had the incredible opportunity of being there, in the flesh... well, as close to as I think one could ever come on this earth today. I found myself on dusty streets, in a small village on the Eastern Escarpment of the Great Rift Valley looking towards Lake Malawi in the distance, dotted with fishing boats. Wherever we walked, (because that's how one gets around), we were followed by inquisitive children, their faces animated with grins and sometimes fear as I pointed the camera in their direction. We sat on mud plastered "patios" of small thatch houses and read accounts of Jesus' life and His character. People literally appeared in the hundreds almost as if from nowhere to join us.
Ladies sat on their sarongs or simply in the dirt and listened to what the "Baba" (a distinguished man) with us had to say about this Son of God. Men chatted at the back amongst themselves inquiring as to these people's intentions, children forced their way to the front to prove to each other, they could get closer and mothers nursed content babies while they listened.


It wasn't as much what he spoke about, as much as it was the acts of service and love that had attracted these people's attention in the first place that captivated me in a different place, in a different era. It was the eagerness of people to hear what had to be said by Christ like characters who had earned respect over many years by providing practically for people's needs, just like Jesus himself did. It was the hospitality that people showed us, just as they must have shown to Jesus and His disciples. It was the smiles on people's faces despite their conditions because of the hope that was represented! It was the kids who didn't have a care in the world but to get closer to these strangers in their simple yet familiar world just to listen to stories.
As the sun set over the lake, I prayed and thanked Jesus for taking me back to a time where He walked and talked among people, where he sweated in the heat and became hungry after a long day and sought rest for his tired body and I thanked Him for the hope that he brought to so many in this small village, 2000 years later.

Contrasts!!

We live in a world of contrasts... Within one month, in one moment I found myself in the hustle and bustle of Bangkok with it's endless traffic jams and oppressive Carbon Footprint, multi story shopping malls and polluted river courses and in the next, I was experiencing the serenity and simple life of a small village at the edge of the Great Rift Valley overlooking the Eastern Shore of Lake Malawi.

If I ask myself where I'd prefer to be or more specifically, which lifestyle I would choose to adopt, I'd most definitely have to go with the simpler, more "chilled" of the two, Malawi. Why then, do I find myself in an environment resembling Bangkok more? Why do I allow complicated schedules and deadlines, bank accounts and house bonds to crowd out the simple things in life? I had to ask myself, is it purely economic or is it my "Western mentality", my human need to feel "productive"?

The reason for my visit to Malawi was to film some friends of mine who have committed 12 years of their lives to missions. He had an interesting point, "We can adapt to another culture to the point where we exist within it but we will never loose our own." He is an example in the flesh, a project driven individual who seeks to make life easier and more comfortable and more healthy for the people he works amongst. What he does among the people, piping water into villages, installing sanitary slabs for their toilet pits and building sturdier houses could be perceived as the first steps towards technology... does this make him wrong, introducing Western ideas into a community that has functioned adequately for several millennium? Contrary to that, when a local man turns down the offer for a potential income because his crops were good this year... despite the fact that two years ago he was pleading with the same "westerner" for famine relief because his crop failed, does this make him wrong?

There is a fine line between simplicity and productivity? God will most certainly not reward productivity one day when it was at the expense of sleep and healthy family relationships. By the same token, he will not reward the sluggard who does not work to feed his family and accept his lot in life.

I have to admit, I too would look for projects to inspire, motivate and create if I lived within simplicity and maybe that is why I have chosen the "city way". However, I respect and crave what the simple, less complicated, and lets face it, less materialistic side has to offer. It is this contrast that determines who we are, may we be lead by Christ in our determination to find rest in attaining our purpose.