The Massawa Miracle

PC was an ambitious young man brimming with so  much godly enthusiasm when he travelled to Ethiopia in the early 1970s. He was accompanied by his wife. Though they had got married only a week ago, the purpose of their travel was not a honeymoon.
Their purpose was to meet Emperor Haile Selassie. They were to meet the Emperor and get permission to bring the OM ship logos to Ethiopia. His Christian friends who knew the political situation in Ethiopia laughed at his idea. He had a  no political contacts, he knew no one in Ethiopia.
However, to cut the story short, he did get an appointment with the emperor! The emperor allowed the ship to be docked at port Massawa which is now a thriving port of Eritrea. Not only that, the emperor opened the book exhibition cutting a ribbon!
That was more than what PC and his wife had imagined. Thousands of pastors and lay leaders came to visit the ship, the bookstore on board and for the seminars that were held on the ship.
As years went by, Ethiopia went through drastic political upheavals. Emperor Haile Selassie lost power. Eritrea was carved out of Ethiopia. Many Ethiopians and Eritreans migrated to all parts of the world, including the UK.
Now fast forward.... Years later, PC now much older, walked into a Starbucks coffee house in the UK. It was packed, but there was a vacant chair in the corner where a young man was keenly reading a book. PC settled into that only vacant seat available to him in the packed coffee shop. Then he noticed that the book the young African man reading was a Christian devotional book.
So, they started a conversation. The young man is a pastor to a small Eritrean congregation in the UK. I call him JB for short now. As PC implored, he shared his story of how he became a Christian. He found a book in his father's collection. He knew that book has changed his father's life radically. It was a copy of the Living Bible. His father told him that he bought it in a bookstore in a ship that was docked in the port of Massawa in the early 1970s.
Then the Eritrean pastor asked PC to tell his personal story. With tears of joy welling up in his eyes, punctuated with sobbing PC told his story. His story of travelling to Adis Ababa. Meeting Emperor Selasi to bring the Logos ship to Ethiopia. Docking the ship in Massawa. The memory of long lines of Ethiopians who queued up to enter the ship. Those who spent their hard-earned money to buy books and bibles. Yes, it was one of those bibles that JB's father bought. That is what changed his life and his son's. That is what is changing the lives of Eritreans living in the UK. Who can ignore the beginnings of small things?
(Special thanks to PC who told me this story and encouraged me to keep telling stories!)

Praying is Doing

Our language of prayer has changed dramatically over the years. When people come to us with their problems we used to assure them that we will pray for them. Sometimes, we say ‘I will pray for you’ or sometimes we say, ‘you will be in my prayers.’ In reality, we often fail to keep the promise and forget to pray for them. Still, we keep saying that; it has become part of our formal language, like ‘thank you!’ We say that even when we really don’t mean it. It is like saying ‘good morning’ to our neighbour as we step out of the house in pouring rain on a clouded, bleak morning. So meaningless.

However, many people have polished this language now to be more honest and be real. It is rather popular now to say that ‘you will be in my thoughts’ than ‘in my prayers.’ That helps us to bail ourselves out of the guilt of not praying.

A promise of prayer is sometimes the best way to dismiss responsibility. Many times when we approach authorities and they say that they will pray about it, you can go home pretty sure that you are not going to get it! The language is so corrupt, it is something to hide behind and to dismiss the action.

However, Jesus seems to have given it a new meaning in Matthew 9:38. On his return from preaching the Kingdom of God in the various villages and towns in Galilee, he told his disciples what he saw over there. He had compassion on them since they were helpless like sheep without the shepherd. He also said that the people are ready for the goodnews of the Kingdom. Then he asked them to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’ (Matt 9:38).

However, they did not have a prayer meeting after that! In the following verses (which is continuous with the previous, though in a new chapter) Jesus called them and sent them out to the fields that are ‘ready for the harvest.’

What do we make out of this? When Jesus said ‘pray’ to send, he really meant be ready to go! For Jesus, praying is preparation for going and nothing less. It is not praying that people other than the one who pray will go. It is a prayer where the one who prays gets ready to go.

This leads us to conclude that when we pray for something we take up the responsibility for that. For example, when we pray for the poor, we also take up the responsibility to do something about their poverty. Then we may pray for what is beyond our capacity having done what we can. Jesus, when he asks us to pray intends that we get involved first.

The Ready Harvest

Jesus looked at the world around him in a way that is quite different from that of contemporary Christians. In India, Christians are constantly intimidated by the news of persecution of Christians in various parts of the country. Laws that hinder preaching the gospel are passed in many states, pastors are attacked, churches are destroyed, etc. These pieces of news do make us view our world that is hostile to the gospel and the kingdom of God.
However, there is another way of looking at the same world. That is the view of Jesus. Don’t imagine that Jesus’ world was not hostile to him. He was ridiculed, physically attacked, finally killed. Though he had his share of enemies who from the very beginning was plotting to kill him, he looked at the same world as the world ready for the rule of God.
Jesus told his disciples that the world is ready for a big harvest. ‘Do you not say, There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.’ (John 4:35, ESV).
It is true that a cereal crop like rice, wheat or barley takes three to four months to grow and ready for harvesting. But when Jesus says that the harvest is ready right then, before four months are over he implied the readiness of human hearts for God. Disciples waiting for the process of growth and fruiting, but Jesus says don’t wait for the process is already over and it is ready.
This is a real challenge. We have to have to have a positive outlook on the world we live. Christians should overcome the negative thinking that everyone out there is looking to kill us. No, they are looking for life. They have questions of life for which they are seeking answers. They have crises in life and are looking for solutions. The bible has the answer to all these but someone should go to them and tell them.
Here is the ready harvest. You will find them in your office floors, in the person sitting in the cabin next to you. Maybe the person sitting near you in the metro every day on the way to office is another heart that is ready for the harvest. If we don’t reap the standing corns of grain will be lost forever. It is time to get to the harvest.