The State of Sudan

My in-laws are missionaries in Sudan.  They've passed this article along as a good summary of the situation.

From the Economist:

Under the terms of a peace agreement with the northern government of Mr Bashir signed in 2005, the south is expected to vote for secession in a referendum in 2011. The prospect of gaining a new country, South Sudan, raised hopes of an end to Sudan’s civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, which lasted on and off for the best part of 50 years. At last, the flattened south would rebuild itself.

Now, however, even many southerners, let alone their fiercely partisan foreign backers, worry that the region’s progress towards independence is going awry. Not only is there the increasing rate of intertribal violence and the hostility of the north to contend with. But the south’s woes have been added to by the incompetence and corruption of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), mainly composed of former guerrilla fighters in the SPLM, the political movement of the SPLA. They have managed to spend about $5 billion in oil revenues over the past four years with very little to show for it, apart from weapons. At the present rate, South Sudan will fail before it has even been born.

Testing Your Faith

From First Importance:

“Missions are the test of our faith that the gospel is true.”

—Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 127

Fake Beauty Gets Ugly

So China faked the "footprint" fireworks...ok.

But here's more: the young lady who sang so beautifully as the Chinese flag was entered the building was dumped for a lip-syncher.  Here's the owner of that pretty voice:

Why the replacement?  Evidently, she wasn't pretty enough.  The explanation:

"The main consideration was the national interest," he said. "The child on the screen should be flawless in image, in her internal feelings, and in her expression. In the matter of her voice, Yang Peiyi was flawless, in the unanimous opinion of all the members of the team."

Another insult to the precious young ladies of China, and a lie concerning the things that are truly impressive. Consider Mark Altrogge's thoughts on that matter. 

Unreached Peoples

Consider again the mandate of Romans 15:

Romans 15.18For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, 21but as it is written,

"Those who have never been told of him will see,
and those who have never heard will understand."

And Matthew 28:

Matthew 28.18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Now have a look at the Joshua Project and their information on unreached people groups. Christians, the mandate is ours!

The Road is Hard

This is the main road in south Sudan - where my in-laws are missionaries. As one pilot put it, this is strong apology for AIM Air.

Pray for our missionaries!

"Pathetic Pietistic Backwater"

In his blog, The Oversight of Souls, Ray Van Neste quotes the Scottish preacher and theologian James Stewart who wrote:

“no church is anything more than a pathetic pietistic backwater unless it is first and fundamentally and all the time a world missionary church.”

It might be overstated. It might be too harsh. But at least in part, it's probably true. And it stings.