There’s a profound discussion about service and suffering going on over at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/globalconversation/august2010/index.html

The original article is long and meaty, as are the responses to it from various folks. It certainly makes me relook at serving in the west and the relative ease of it compared to serving in the rest of the world. 

Libby Little, a missionary in Afganistan wrote a response made all the more poignant by the recent news that her husband was murdered while serving on a medical trip.  She is talking about choosing to stay through war torn conflict while many other foreigners left for their own safety.  She offers no judgement on those who left, but here is what she writes about staying,

“During a brief lull in fighting, a military convoy was organized to take foreign advisers and government sympathizers to a safe place. We were offered a place in the convoy. Our neighbors, however, assured us the worst was over, so the convoy came and left without us. As the fighting worsened, and streets were abandoned, our neighbors fed us fresh bread and sweet milk. Some took turns guarding our gate, motioning angry mobs to “pass by” our home. When the fighting ended, they referred to us as “the people who stayed.”

and then later on, at Christmas, the fighting started again and bombs were exploding all around their home and neighbors gathered in her basement as she, stricken with fear simply whispered the name of Jesus over and over.  Later, as she reflected on that event, she writes,

“God blessed those occasions and visited us with his power. His amateur followers, stricken with stage fright, forgetting their lines, were acting out in miniature something of his own Grand Narrative—Immanuel, God with us—in the miserable mess. The scenes set the stage for the Holy Spirit to work in a mighty way.”

Reading stories like this make me realize I really have no idea what life is like for the rest of the world and as it relates to ministry, I don’t know suffering at all.