Mike’s Sea2sea Blog

So here in the middle of so many people, God grants me the joy of seeing Andy Bayer!

Andy (Cobourg AC) was on our very first “exploration” Fusion team to Mexico City. It was a largely a journey of prayer, and of hearing the stories of our International Workers. Lisa Clarke (and Wendy Boon!) and Paul & Cindy Ens shared their hearts for the city. God used that trip in my life to teach me what it meant to share a burden for a people and a place.

I remember being taken by Pastor Arturro to a neignbourhood to be introduced to a family fairly new in Christ. They treated us to lunch and then asked for a testimony. It was Andy’s turn!

“Oh, I don’t have much of a testimony..” he says humbly. After more encouragement he starts out, “well, my grandparents were Christians, and my parents were Christians, and now I’m a Christian too.” Ha! I remember seeing the interest of these new Christians holding on to their faith under very difficult circumstances! Imagine a vibrant faith being passed on from one generation to the next! Andy went on to share about his grandmother’s hope that he would do a missions trip, and had actually saved money just for that purpose without him knowing. When he decided to come, she presented to him.

Seeing Andy at Urbana 09 was great, since he went off to Brock University for the past four or five years and I always felt God had special plan for him. Here he is, sorting out what God is calling him to in the years ahead, putting everything on the table.

I also met Richard, a retired United Methodist pastor from Tulsa, who since his wife passed away has given his time to ministering to students at a university. Richard was a student like Andy at Urbana 67, and shared with me what an amazing time of Biblical study that was with great preaching by John Stott. Then I met 4 people from Montreal; African, Haitian, Tunisian! Go Montreal! It’s pretty cool that the main speaker Ramez has a long history of serving there.

So why was I weeping yesterday morning?

A lady who has been in war torn country very much in the news for the past 30 years, gave an incredible appeal for young people to consider long term missions. Bombs, different brutal governments were constantly part of her family’s experience. I realize that I can’t really do it justice – it was just beautiful testimony of God’s grace in her and her husband’s life. God was sufficient to help them be his light in as impossible a place as there ever was. She told a story of violent extremists coming to the village where they were, confronting local village leadership with being “backslidden” from the tenets of their faith because of their welcome to the foreigners. The local leader stepped forward boldly, confronted them right back saying, “You have insulted our guests. These people have served here for years, eating our food and taking care of our sick. We know why you are here, to change our minds. Get lost…” The band of extremists left, out numbered. This woman and her physician husband remained in perhaps the most dangerous country in the world, because they couldn’t imagine leaving. Like Richard who I met earlier, they committed their lives to God’s service at Urbana ‘67.

Ramez also was hot yesterday morning – preaching on the text where Jesus goes to the temple and clears it of the businesses that were going on in the Gentile courts. It was so good. As he gets near to the end of his messages, he starts to really pour out his heart. He spoke on the tie money has on us, and applied the passage to when our “means” to do God’s work overcomes the “message” we were originally charged with. He shared a story about a young couple at an Urbana in the early 80’s that decided to dedicate themselves to God’s purposes. They wrestled through the promptings of God, and ended up not going into missions. “End of story, right?” says Ramez. They ended up establishing a business, and made steps very early on to live a simple life no matter how successful it got. They pay themselves a very modest salary, and the rest of the profits go to missions. They now give about a million dollars a month to missions, and their lifestyle is unchanged. Ramez gives a few principles on giving that I need to put into a curriculum soon. Then last night Shane Claiborne talked about taking a hammer to our Ipods! (Much nervous laughter – if you know about this guy, that could be an altar call!).

Oscar Muiru’s message last night was also very profound, wise and continued to shatter my stereotyping of African worldviews. I highly recommend it.

Urbana site with all the videos, theatre presentations, sermons of the past 3 days: http://www.urbana09.org/program.webcast.cfm

Thank you for all who are praying. On the way in this morning on a shuttle bus, I talked with Joel Sjaarda of Rexdale. We started talking about how God speaks to us. Joel shared some personal and wise reflections, and said to me: “It’s a strange access we have to God”. Oh, man. Tell me about it. But it seems to me that God declaring, stirring, prompting powerfully at this conference. Continue to pray for our many young people to receive it!

Off to day 4!