Forced to choose
Read the full story.
Nirmala’s life had become one of tears. It seemed she did nothing but cry.
The young woman had returned to the home of her parents after a disastrous six-month marriage, one she had eloped into, against the wishes of her family and everyone who knew her.
Nirmala had fallen in love with a boy who drank and smoked and did many other things she didn’t like. Optimistic, she thought she would be able to change him after they were married.
“It didn’t work,” she recalls. And yet, despite all his faults and destructive habits, she still, desperately, loved him.
Now, confronted with her disgrace and failure, she felt that no one understood the deepest feelings of her heart.
“I never used to share with anyone. But I expected that somebody should know, even if I didn’t say anything to them.”
One night, around 11 p.m., as she sat weeping in the rain outside her parents’ home, she remembered her sister talking about Jesus.
As a daughter with seven other siblings, Nirmala had grown up caring for her younger brothers and sisters. One of her sisters had been very ill and in great pain, but none of the treatments she was given had worked.
When a neighbor urged the family to take the girl to a nearby church for healing prayer, they agreed, considering it to be their last viable option. The girl fully and miraculously recovered, and began attending church regularly. She soon gave her life to Jesus and talked about Him to her family.
Her parents were unhappy with her new spiritual path, which contradicted the religious views of the family and community. They were even more unhappy when she began bringing other family members to the church.
Taking the side of her parents, Nirmala had been angry as well.
“I used to beat or kick them, and kick them out of our home. I burned their Bible also,” she recalls.
When her sisters brought their pastor to visit, Nirmala scolded him, too.
But now, broken and alone, Nirmala cried out to Jesus.
“Then I called, ‘Jesus, if really you are my savior, if really you are my creator, please help me and show me the way, which way I have to go. Because people are saying you are the wrong way.”
God answered by reminding her of a story in which two men were clinging to a mountain, about to fall to their deaths. One called out to several gods and goddesses, but none of them answered, and he died. The other called out to Jesus, who rescued him. Nirmala recalls sensing that Jesus was telling her He is her savior.
“I feel like I got peace in my heart. What I was expecting from my husband, I found that love in Jesus Christ.”
Filled with a new joy and purpose, Nirmala carried evangelistic tracts and Bibles with her to the tailoring business where she worked; if anyone shared a problem with her, she told them about Jesus and gave the items to those who were interested in learning more.
Four months later, her husband showed up, asking her to return to him.
“It’s OK that you came back,” she told him, “but now I am a Christian. What do you say?”
He replied that they could not remain married if she was a Christian. He gave her an ultimatum: choose him, or Jesus.
“I said, ‘I want both.’ He said, ‘It’s not possible.’”
Nirmala realized that her husband had left her once; he might leave her again. But she knew without a doubt that Jesus would never leave her.
“So that’s why I don’t want to lose [Jesus],” she recalls. She told her husband, “I choose Jesus Christ.”
Her husband left again, but Nirmala held out hope that Jesus might change his heart, too, and bring them back together once and for all.
While she waited, she focused her life on discerning God’s purpose for her and growing closer to Him. She prayed for direction, and believes God gave her the verse, Isaiah 49:6, in which it says, “I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Nirmala took a year of training from Operation Mobilization (OM), a Christian mission agency. Her passion for serving God only deepened. OM sent her out to other areas of Nepal where she visited villages and shared the gospel with many.
Around that time, her husband remarried. Although she was heartbroken, and asked God why He had not brought her husband back, she read 1 Thessalonians 5:17, which urges all believers to praise God no matter their circumstances. So she made that choice and continued moving forward.
Nirmala studied theology at South India Biblical Seminary, which has a partnership with South Asia Nazarene Bible College, and afterward she went on to teach theology.
Yet, she had a growing sense of calling to missions, and often remembered Isaiah 49:6.
When she returned to Nepal from India, she spoke about her call with Rev. Dilli, the Nepal District superintendent. He told her that the Church of the Nazarene Eurasia Region was planning a cross-cultural volunteer training in Kathmandu in May 2017. Called M+Power, the regional program is designed to identify Nazarenes across the region who have sensed a calling to cross-cultural service, train them for ministry and deploy them to mission. Nirmala attended the training, which confirmed her calling.
Today, she has served as a cross-cultural volunteer in the western part of Nepal for the past year, and plans to continue for a second year. She has been leading a child development center, established by Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, and also leads a literacy program that helps children, youth and elderly people learn English. Every day, she teaches an English class to housewives in the community.
After her second year, Nirmala may be able to serve cross-culturally outside of Nepal.
To learn more about M+Power, visitwww.eurasiaregion.org/volunteers
Written by Gina Pottenger and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
I love reading novels, or watching movies about the Second World war, and how the resistance in different countries tried to organise itself in an effective way. I’m intrigued by the fact that the church in general was so silent when Hitler came to power, and that someone like Bonhoeffer (a German theologian) was so much the exception.
Recently Arthur and I watched the movies,Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. Both depict how the British army was trapped in France in May 1940. Large numbers of British and French troops were cut off, and surrounded by Nazi soldiers. It seemed as if the whole British army was going to be destroyed. Members of the British staff thought that only 25 percent of the British soldiers could be evacuated. There simply weren’t enough navy vessels to pick up people.
And then, on May 26, Winston Churchill, the new British prime minister, made an unprecedented move: he made an appeal to all the owners of small boats to sail to Dunkirk and participate in what was called “Operation Dynamo.” About 850 little boats and ships answered the call. Between May 26 and June 4, 338,226 soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk. There were 43 formal navy ships involved, but the majority of those rescued were carried by hundreds of private fishing boats, yachts, pleasure craft and lifeboats from Britain.
I feel emotional when I see these “ordinary” people involved in a rescue effort like Operation Dynamo, which helped to determine the outcome of the Second World War. I see a parallel with the relationship between the church and the mission. People in Eurasia are trapped because of the power of sin, or because there are systems that keep people in poverty and situations of abuse. Jesus has come to this world so that people can be saved, and that transformation can happen. But people need to hear, they need to see, they have to feel and experience that accepting Jesus is Good News.
The mission cannot be fulfilled only by the few missionaries that we have. We need the principle of Operation Dynamo – that everyone must be involved – for God’s rescue operation of the world. We must appeal for people to step into their boats, take the risk, and sail out to where God wants them to be. It is the ordinary people that made the difference with Operation Dynamo; the same will happen when lay people will answer the call that God has made upon their lives.
Christine Cleveland writes: “People can meet God in their own cultural context, but in order to follow God, they must cross into other cultures, because that is what Jesus did in the incarnation and on the cross. Discipleship is cross-cultural.” (Quoted in Canoeing the Mountains by Ted Bolsinger)
Will you become part of God’s rescue operation?
Written by Annemarie Snijders (Eurasia Region Mobilization Coordinator) and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Taking the side of her parents, Nirmala had been angry as well.
“I used to beat or kick them, and kick them out of our home. I burned their Bible also,” she recalls.
When her sisters brought their pastor to visit, Nirmala scolded him, too.
But now, broken and alone, Nirmala cried out to Jesus.
“Then I called, ‘Jesus, if really you are my savior, if really you are my creator, please help me and show me the way, which way I have to go. Because people are saying you are the wrong way.”
God answered by reminding her of a story in which two men were clinging to a mountain, about to fall to their deaths. One called out to several gods and goddesses, but none of them answered, and he died. The other called out to Jesus, who rescued him. Nirmala recalls sensing that Jesus was telling her He is her savior.
“I feel like I got peace in my heart. What I was expecting from my husband, I found that love in Jesus Christ.”
Filled with a new joy and purpose, Nirmala carried evangelistic tracts and Bibles with her to the tailoring business where she worked; if anyone shared a problem with her, she told them about Jesus and gave the items to those who were interested in learning more.
Four months later, her husband showed up, asking her to return to him.
“It’s OK that you came back,” she told him, “but now I am a Christian. What do you say?”
He replied that they could not remain married if she was a Christian. He gave her an ultimatum: choose him, or Jesus.
“I said, ‘I want both.’ He said, ‘It’s not possible.’”
Nirmala realized that her husband had left her once; he might leave her again. But she knew without a doubt that Jesus would never leave her.
“So that’s why I don’t want to lose [Jesus],” she recalls. She told her husband, “I choose Jesus Christ.”
Her husband left again, but Nirmala held out hope that Jesus might change his heart, too, and bring them back together once and for all.
While she waited, she focused her life on discerning God’s purpose for her and growing closer to Him. She prayed for direction, and believes God gave her the verse, Isaiah 49:6, in which it says, “I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Nirmala took a year of training from Operation Mobilization (OM), a Christian mission agency. Her passion for serving God only deepened. OM sent her out to other areas of Nepal where she visited villages and shared the gospel with many.
Around that time, her husband remarried. Although she was heartbroken, and asked God why He had not brought her husband back, she read 1 Thessalonians 5:17, which urges all believers to praise God no matter their circumstances. So she made that choice and continued moving forward.
Nirmala studied theology at South India Biblical Seminary, which has a partnership with South Asia Nazarene Bible College, and afterward she went on to teach theology.
Yet, she had a growing sense of calling to missions, and often remembered Isaiah 49:6.
When she returned to Nepal from India, she spoke about her call with Rev. Dilli, the Nepal District superintendent. He told her that the Church of the Nazarene Eurasia Region was planning a cross-cultural volunteer training in Kathmandu in May 2017. Called M+Power, the regional program is designed to identify Nazarenes across the region who have sensed a calling to cross-cultural service, train them for ministry and deploy them to mission. Nirmala attended the training, which confirmed her calling.
Today, she has served as a cross-cultural volunteer in the western part of Nepal for the past year, and plans to continue for a second year. She has been leading a child development center, established by Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, and also leads a literacy program that helps children, youth and elderly people learn English. Every day, she teaches an English class to housewives in the community.
After her second year, Nirmala may be able to serve cross-culturally outside of Nepal.
To learn more about M+Power, visitwww.eurasiaregion.org/volunteers
Written by Gina Pottenger and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Operation Dynamo
The mission cannot be fulfilled only by the few missionaries that we have. We need the principle of Operation Dynamo – that everyone must be involved – for God’s rescue operation of the world.I love reading novels, or watching movies about the Second World war, and how the resistance in different countries tried to organise itself in an effective way. I’m intrigued by the fact that the church in general was so silent when Hitler came to power, and that someone like Bonhoeffer (a German theologian) was so much the exception.
Recently Arthur and I watched the movies,Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. Both depict how the British army was trapped in France in May 1940. Large numbers of British and French troops were cut off, and surrounded by Nazi soldiers. It seemed as if the whole British army was going to be destroyed. Members of the British staff thought that only 25 percent of the British soldiers could be evacuated. There simply weren’t enough navy vessels to pick up people.
And then, on May 26, Winston Churchill, the new British prime minister, made an unprecedented move: he made an appeal to all the owners of small boats to sail to Dunkirk and participate in what was called “Operation Dynamo.” About 850 little boats and ships answered the call. Between May 26 and June 4, 338,226 soldiers were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk. There were 43 formal navy ships involved, but the majority of those rescued were carried by hundreds of private fishing boats, yachts, pleasure craft and lifeboats from Britain.
I feel emotional when I see these “ordinary” people involved in a rescue effort like Operation Dynamo, which helped to determine the outcome of the Second World War. I see a parallel with the relationship between the church and the mission. People in Eurasia are trapped because of the power of sin, or because there are systems that keep people in poverty and situations of abuse. Jesus has come to this world so that people can be saved, and that transformation can happen. But people need to hear, they need to see, they have to feel and experience that accepting Jesus is Good News.
The mission cannot be fulfilled only by the few missionaries that we have. We need the principle of Operation Dynamo – that everyone must be involved – for God’s rescue operation of the world. We must appeal for people to step into their boats, take the risk, and sail out to where God wants them to be. It is the ordinary people that made the difference with Operation Dynamo; the same will happen when lay people will answer the call that God has made upon their lives.
Christine Cleveland writes: “People can meet God in their own cultural context, but in order to follow God, they must cross into other cultures, because that is what Jesus did in the incarnation and on the cross. Discipleship is cross-cultural.” (Quoted in Canoeing the Mountains by Ted Bolsinger)
Will you become part of God’s rescue operation?
Written by Annemarie Snijders (Eurasia Region Mobilization Coordinator) and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Miracle in the red-light district
Mobile medical workers in Moldova help a distraught new mother find her way home.As we went out to the red-light district in Moldova in the Mobile Medical Intervention Clinic, we approached a young woman dressed in a silver dress. She was very young, nervous, and visibly upset. She did not want to talk to us.
We approached her with a gift pack and told her who we were. She recognized us from our previous visit. That is when she opened up to our volunteers and translator.
Sobbing, shes said she had given birth only four days before, through a C-section. Even as we spoke, she began lactating, marking her dress with the signs of new motherhood. Though she had given birth in our city, it wasn’t her home and she couldn’t afford to return there.
She told us that she did not have money to go home. Each night she stayed at the hospital she incurred a 200 lei ($12) charge, plus the cost of her C-section, and cost to purchase a ticket home to her area, over two hours away.
In this work, we must be wary; we wondered whether she was telling the truth. She said she wanted to leave the street; she didn’t want to be there, doing what she thought she had to do to get her child out of the hospital, and go back home to where her mom was waiting for her.
We needed to confirm her story. Our team made a plan: first, we would go to the hospital with the woman; second, we would have a conference call with her mother. In the call we hoped to confirm if their home was where she said it was, if it was a safe situation, and if her mother was truly ready to receive her daughter and new grandchild into her care.
As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, the call patched through. The woman’s phone screen said “Mommy” in Russian. Everything she had told us checked out to be true. We got to work checking out the woman and her 4-day-old baby, “Christian,” from the hospital.
The young mother cried and cried and cried. She said that over the past four days she had been praying for a miracle. Moldovans and people from Eastern Europe are slow to trust, but because she had been praying, she believed God sent us in answer to her prayers.We took the new mother and her baby to the church office. Our local church had just taken a generous love offering for another of our beneficiaries, and there was much left over. There were things for this new mom, too. We enjoyed spending time with her and the baby while we waited to take her to the bus station.
Written by Becky Sukanen and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Read the story.
“Humble,” “hungry” and “smart” are the three virtues that Patrick Lencioni, author of The Ideal Team Player, argues are the core character traits needed to make someone an ideal part of a team.
After reading more about these three characteristics in his New York Times-bestselling book, it’s easy to see how these virtues, as he sketches them, are supremely desirable for team members in a mission team context.
I recommend that anyone planning to become part of a mission team, or who is leading and developing a team in a missional context, read this book and seek to embody these characteristics, as well as recruit others who exhibit these virtues.
Characteristics of an ideal team player
Over years of helping workplace teams within churches, universities and businesses to become functional and healthy, business consultant Lencioni developed his theory that the ideal team player is humble, hungry and smart.
He defines the three virtues in the following ways:
Humble
Starting with “humble,” an inarguably Christlike quality, Lencioni writes, “Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status…. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collaboratively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, then, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”
Conversely, when adding someone to the team who is arrogant, the leader risks “fostering resentment, division, and politics” within the team.
Insecurity is another opposite of humility. Lencioni claims that someone with low self-worth hurts the team just as much as someone whose ego is inflated. He quotes C. S. Lewis: “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
Hungry
Lencioni describes “hungry” people as those who “almost never have to be pushed by a manager to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent. They are constantly thinking about the next step and the next opportunity.”
He qualifies the kind of hunger he is talking about as a commitment to doing a job well, and going above and beyond what is expected, without allowing the job to consume the worker or dominate his or her life. A “hungry” team member will work hard and go the extra mile, while also taking sensible amounts of time for personal rest and recovery, and observe Sabbath.
Smart
Lencioni is not talking about IQ or braininess when he uses the word “smart.” What he’s describing is what some now call “emotional intelligence.” Smart people, in this sense, know how to relate to others and communicate in healthy and productive ways. They are consistently appropriate, respectful, kind and sensitive in their behaviors, conversations and relationships. They listen well, and take an interest in the thoughts, ideas and well-being of others.
Basically, they exhibit common sense about people and themselves.
While there may be many other qualities that team leaders look for in potential team members, Lencioni distilled such longer lists of qualities into these three core competencies as the most needed for success of a team.
Dangers of lacking one or more
Many people possess one or two of these traits, but Lencioni argues that cultivating all three in oneself makes one the most effective team player.
People who possess just one of the traits could fall into certain undesirable roles.
For instance, someone who is humble, but not hungry or smart, may end up being used and manipulated by others on the team, or simply left out.
Someone who is hungry – a high achiever or ambitious – but not humble or smart risks being seen as a bulldozer, “determined to get things done, but with a focus on their own interests and with no understanding or concern for how their actions impact others. Bulldozers are quick destroyers of teams.”
If someone is only “people smart,” but lacks humility or ambition, the team member may be charming and likable, but quickly becomes a drag on the team’s productivity and morale.
Lencioni spends a few more pages describing further dangers to people who possess a combination of just two of the qualities, before moving on to some tips for leaders seeking to identify those people for their teams who possess all three characteristics, making them the Ideal Team Player.
Self-evaluation
One of the best uses of the book may be for personal evaluation and assessment. The “fable,” or story, which launches the book, concerns a young man who steps into leadership of an American-based construction company after its previous leader retires. His journey of learning about the company and some of its problems and dysfunctions illustrates what happens to organizations when their employees lack the three virtues. The story also depicts possible ways to help team members cultivate the traits, as well as how to identify and add members who already have them.
While some of the characters’ language in the story could be mildly offensive to some readers, the value of the narrative is that the author’s theory is demonstrated in practice, albeit a fictional scenario.
Reading the book with an eye to self-development will enable people already on mission teams, or those preparing to deploy, to cultivate attributes that will make them valuable members of a mission team. Humility, healthy approaches to interpersonal relationships, and ambition to do one’s best in the service of Christ and others, can only give one an extra edge for positive experience, and for bringing value to a team and its mission.
Perhaps, after reading the book, find a mature, wise, spiritual mentor (who is willing to speak the truth in love) to help you evaluate where you measure up on the three virtues, and to help you as you work to cultivate these virtues in your own life and character.
The tips for sniffing out the three virtues – or their lack – in job candidates, and the list of hiring questions given at the end, are an added bonus for those interviewing candidates to join a mission team.
Written by Gina Pottenger and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Book Review
How can we cultivate the three virtues -- “humble,” “hungry” and “smart” -- that Patrick Lencioni argues are needed to make someone an ideal part of a team?“Humble,” “hungry” and “smart” are the three virtues that Patrick Lencioni, author of The Ideal Team Player, argues are the core character traits needed to make someone an ideal part of a team.
After reading more about these three characteristics in his New York Times-bestselling book, it’s easy to see how these virtues, as he sketches them, are supremely desirable for team members in a mission team context.
I recommend that anyone planning to become part of a mission team, or who is leading and developing a team in a missional context, read this book and seek to embody these characteristics, as well as recruit others who exhibit these virtues.
Characteristics of an ideal team player
Over years of helping workplace teams within churches, universities and businesses to become functional and healthy, business consultant Lencioni developed his theory that the ideal team player is humble, hungry and smart.
He defines the three virtues in the following ways:
Humble
Starting with “humble,” an inarguably Christlike quality, Lencioni writes, “Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status…. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collaboratively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, then, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”
Conversely, when adding someone to the team who is arrogant, the leader risks “fostering resentment, division, and politics” within the team.
Insecurity is another opposite of humility. Lencioni claims that someone with low self-worth hurts the team just as much as someone whose ego is inflated. He quotes C. S. Lewis: “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
Hungry
Lencioni describes “hungry” people as those who “almost never have to be pushed by a manager to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent. They are constantly thinking about the next step and the next opportunity.”
He qualifies the kind of hunger he is talking about as a commitment to doing a job well, and going above and beyond what is expected, without allowing the job to consume the worker or dominate his or her life. A “hungry” team member will work hard and go the extra mile, while also taking sensible amounts of time for personal rest and recovery, and observe Sabbath.
Smart
Lencioni is not talking about IQ or braininess when he uses the word “smart.” What he’s describing is what some now call “emotional intelligence.” Smart people, in this sense, know how to relate to others and communicate in healthy and productive ways. They are consistently appropriate, respectful, kind and sensitive in their behaviors, conversations and relationships. They listen well, and take an interest in the thoughts, ideas and well-being of others.
Basically, they exhibit common sense about people and themselves.
While there may be many other qualities that team leaders look for in potential team members, Lencioni distilled such longer lists of qualities into these three core competencies as the most needed for success of a team.
Dangers of lacking one or more
Many people possess one or two of these traits, but Lencioni argues that cultivating all three in oneself makes one the most effective team player.
People who possess just one of the traits could fall into certain undesirable roles.
For instance, someone who is humble, but not hungry or smart, may end up being used and manipulated by others on the team, or simply left out.
Someone who is hungry – a high achiever or ambitious – but not humble or smart risks being seen as a bulldozer, “determined to get things done, but with a focus on their own interests and with no understanding or concern for how their actions impact others. Bulldozers are quick destroyers of teams.”
If someone is only “people smart,” but lacks humility or ambition, the team member may be charming and likable, but quickly becomes a drag on the team’s productivity and morale.
Lencioni spends a few more pages describing further dangers to people who possess a combination of just two of the qualities, before moving on to some tips for leaders seeking to identify those people for their teams who possess all three characteristics, making them the Ideal Team Player.
Self-evaluation
One of the best uses of the book may be for personal evaluation and assessment. The “fable,” or story, which launches the book, concerns a young man who steps into leadership of an American-based construction company after its previous leader retires. His journey of learning about the company and some of its problems and dysfunctions illustrates what happens to organizations when their employees lack the three virtues. The story also depicts possible ways to help team members cultivate the traits, as well as how to identify and add members who already have them.
While some of the characters’ language in the story could be mildly offensive to some readers, the value of the narrative is that the author’s theory is demonstrated in practice, albeit a fictional scenario.
Reading the book with an eye to self-development will enable people already on mission teams, or those preparing to deploy, to cultivate attributes that will make them valuable members of a mission team. Humility, healthy approaches to interpersonal relationships, and ambition to do one’s best in the service of Christ and others, can only give one an extra edge for positive experience, and for bringing value to a team and its mission.
Perhaps, after reading the book, find a mature, wise, spiritual mentor (who is willing to speak the truth in love) to help you evaluate where you measure up on the three virtues, and to help you as you work to cultivate these virtues in your own life and character.
The tips for sniffing out the three virtues – or their lack – in job candidates, and the list of hiring questions given at the end, are an added bonus for those interviewing candidates to join a mission team.
Written by Gina Pottenger and previously published in the September 2018 edition of Where Worlds Meet edition.
Read the story.
The Eurasia Region Church of the Nazarene is one of six regions in the Church of the Nazarene global denomination. The Eurasia Region is home to about 8,000 churches in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. Learn more about us at www.eurasiaregion.org.
Founded in 1908, the global Church of the Nazarene denomination is the largest in the classical Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, with 2.3 million members, in 29,000 churches, sharing Christ’s love with their communities in 162 world areas.
Founded in 1908, the global Church of the Nazarene denomination is the largest in the classical Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, with 2.3 million members, in 29,000 churches, sharing Christ’s love with their communities in 162 world areas.
Learn more at www.nazarene.org.
Copyright © 2018 Eurasia Region, All rights reserved..
Our mailing address is:
Eurasia Regional Office
Junkerstrasse 60
Buesingen Am Hochrhein
Switzerland 8238, Europe
Email us: communications@eurasiaregion.org
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