Dr. Rodney Plunket

Last Sunday we focused on  resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  This Sunday we want to focus on the joy that this inheritance brings.  Since today is the Sunday on which we feature Broadway’s foreign mission program, we will especially focus on the joy that the inheritance brings to people who live in nations where our missionaries are preaching.

I want to begin in Peru.  Since two Broadway teams have gone to Peru in the last few months, we have heard lots of recent stories about the place where our missionaries, Hipolito & Francisca Triveños, minister and teach.  But a new story from Peru burst onto the national scene on April the 20^th when a Peruvian military jet, alerted by an American CIA Jet, mistakenly shot down an unarmed Cessna carrying Christian missionaries.  Killed were thirty-five year old Veronica (Roni) Bowers and her seven-month-old daughter, Charity.  Roni, her two children, and her husband, Jim, lived on a houseboat and did missionary work along a 200-mile stretch of the Amazon River.  They gave out food and medicine, and they dispensed the message of the Bible.  The current issue of Time magazine (May 7, 2001) carries this tragic story, but it also reveals the need for the gospel in this impoverished nation.  It cites a recruitment video in which Jim Bowers describes Peru as a “spiritually dark corner of the world” where many people have never even seen a church.  He says, “They go through life with no knowledge of the living God.”  Roni, the woman now dead, asks from that video, “Can you imagine never having the chance to listen to a Bible story as a child.”  The Time article also contains a statement from a woman named Sherry Boykin who worked upriver from Roni until last year.  She says, “You have no idea what a wonderful thing it is to do.  The people, literally, physically tugged at us.  Every ear held on every word we said” (p. 44).  Feel the hunger and the need for the Good News of the inheritance.

Now feel that inheritance’s joy and power.  Ascencio Tacusi is a fifty-eight year old Peruvian preacher with whom Broadway’s missionary, Hipolito Triveños , studied in the early days of Ascencio’s walk with the Lord.  Here is a story that Ascencio tells.  Ascencio lives in Tinta, Peru.  His conversion was not at all well received in Tinta.  In an email that Hipolito sent to us last year, Ascencio says that after his conversion the people of Tinta began “to complain incessantly” against him and his wife.  He also says, “The drunkards of the town would molest us a great deal.”  As a result of all the disturbance that their conversions caused, a town meeting was held.  Two solutions to the problem were considered. One was to throw Ascencio and his family out of the town.  Here is the other:

To have a gasoline stick throwing party and burn us alive.  The decision was to burn us alive.  But, before they could carry out their plot, I stood before the town with confidence in our Lord and Father God and began to pray aloud and asked for justice.  Thanks to my request and prayer to God they did not come to burn me. I give the glory to God.

A thriving church is in Tinta now “with over 100 members.”  Feel the joy of the inheritance as a Peruvian Christian stands before an angry town and prays away the danger through the power of the living God.  Feel the joy of the inheritance as over one hundred citizens of that town have been brought to the Lord and now make up a thriving community of faith.

Now let’s go to England and feel the joy of the inheritance.  Let’s go to the city of Washington, England where our missionary couple, Rodney & Michele Thomas, minister in the Name of Jesus.  Michele sent us this story of a man named Jack Cumpson.

Jack was born on Feb. 20, 1916 in Usworth, which is now a part of Washington.  He was an only child.  Jack’s father was a coalminer, and that was what Jack was expected to be, so at the age of 14 Jack went to work down into the Usworth [coal] Pit.  This was a common practice here. . . .  This was not what Jack wanted to do with his life; he had started working as an apprentice for a gardener and loved the work, but it went against the tradition.  He was from a mining family, so that was what he was expected to do.  So for 35 years Jack was a miner in the deep pits at Usworth and Washington.  For the whole of his life, he carried a deep anger and resentment toward his father and mother for forcing him to be a miner.

Jack did not marry until late in life.  He was about 65 when he married.  They were together for only a short 10 years.

We met Jack through the coffee morning that the church started.  We invited the residents from a neighboring care home to come over once a week.  Jack was able to get around on his own, so he came with several others every week.  I noticed that every time Jack came into the building, he would first go into the hall (the closest thing we have to a sanctuary) for a few minutes before joining the others.  One time I asked Jack what he was doing.  He told me that he was spending time with God.

One day Jack asked me if it would be OK for him to come to our church, if he would be allowed in. . . .  I told Jack that the Church was for everyone; there was nothing special about the people that came to our church; we just loved each other and wanted to worship God.  The next Sunday Jack was picked up from the Care Home where he lived and brought to the building and loved.  Jack was loved to the point where he told me this was the happiest time of his life, just to be with people who loved God; this had shown him the way back to the God of his childhood.

Just before he died, Jack told me about his feelings toward his parents and how coming back to the Lord had allowed him to resolve those feelings that he had carried for so many years.  He felt at peace.

Jack died on Sunday August 6, 2000.  We had been on our way to visit him at his new nursing home.  When we arrived, it was to learn of his passing just moments before.

When you walk into our church, there is a board with all the members’ pictures on it.  You will find Jack’s picture still on the board.  The children of the church wanted it to stay.  They see it as a reminder that they will see Jack again.

Feel the joy and the power of the inheritance.

Now we go to Kenya.  Some of you will have already seen Tim and Rebecca Talleys’ most recent newsletter.  In that newsletter Tim tells the story of two funerals that he conducted within a few days of each other.  He also emailed me some additional details not found in the newsletter.  His story of those two funerals illustrates powerfully the joy of the inheritance.

The funeral was well attended.  In fact, it may have been the biggest funeral that Malindi has ever seen.  The rich and the famous of Nairobi had flown down to be there.  In fact, Kenya Airways added two extra flights to Malindi in order to accommodate those who wanted to show their last respects.

He was a popular guy, my friend Johnny.  Johnny Hellier was a British Kenyan, well known throughout East Africa as a successful rally car driver.  He had even been the national champion one year.  Johnny Hellier had it all . . . Sean Connery type good looks . . . athleticism . . . charm.  He had a successful car repair business, family money, a loving wife, and two admiring children.  I always felt lucky to have him as my friend.  But just in his early fifties, he had died of cancer.

Johnny was also a great friend to our whole missionary team throughout our years in Malindi.  I had tried many times to talk to Johnny about Christianity.  He was a very good man, but to my knowledge he never made any commitment to our Lord.

There was no lack of good things to say about Johnny’s life the day I spoke at his funeral.  Yet it proved difficult to give much comfort to the family.  The faith he had rejected in life left no hope in death.  It was a sad funeral.  The sweet reminiscing about years gone by could not fill the deafening silence about the years to come.

The funeral was well attended.  The poor and lowly from as far away as Marafa walked and rode their bicycles to be there.  The country bus didn’t have a route that far in the bush, nor would they plan one.  The profit wouldn’t be worth the damage on the bus.

Few people really knew Elizabeth Sidi, the little girl named after my oldest daughter.  She was 18 months old when she died, but looked half her age.  She had never had a crib.  I don’t think she ever had a pair of shoes or ever wore anything new.  She didn’t even have a house, just a mud hovel that had fallen down during the last rains.  Her father had no job, no family money . . . only seven kids and a small plot of land to farm.

Elizabeth died of cerebral malaria in the hospital in Malindi.  I donated a pint of blood a few hours before she died.  They joked that “surely the blood of a white missionary would save her.”  It didn’t.  I carried her body, her family, and wood for her coffin to her home the next day.

There was no lack of good things to say about Elizabeth’s short life the day I spoke at her funeral.  My words of comfort joined the encouraging words of many other Christians who spoke.

Elizabeth Sidi was the daughter of Jacob Safari.  Jacob is the man who had an older daughter attacked by a crocodile a few years ago.  His second born son drowned in the same river last year.  He seems to have had more than his share of disaster and misfortune.  He is a man of great faith.  He speaks little English; he is poverty stricken; yet he is undoubtedly the greatest communicator in the churches of Christ in Malindi District.

Jacob said some incredible things at his daughter’s funeral . . . basically thanking God for the gift of his daughter for a short time.  And then he gave her back to God.

The faith Elizabeth’s parents had accepted years ago now brought its dividend of hope.  It was a joyful funeral.  The sweet expectation for a reunion one day filled the void left in their broken hearts.

I spoke at both of these funerals within a few days of each other.  Two funerals couldn’t have been more different.  One lasted thirty-five minute, the other all night long.  One had elaborate hors d’oeuvres served as we sat by a swimming pool.  The other had cornmeal mush and bitter greens served as we sat on the ground by a campfire.  One was bitter, the other bittersweet.

Johnny had everything, but he had nothing.  Elizabeth Sidi had nothing, but she had everything.

Feel the joy and the power of the inheritance.

For the last several Sundays and again today we have sung the song, “Let Your Glory Fall.”  Listen again to the first two lines of that song.  “Let Your glory fall in this room, let it go forth from here to the nations.”  This Mission Special Sunday is explicitly focused on the goal expressed by those words from that song.  We want the joy and the power of the inheritance in all of its glory to fall upon us in this room.  And we want the wonder of that inheritance to so fill all of our members that we give generously, lavishly to spread it all over the world.

My good brother, Glynn Morgan has a wonderful way of speaking to my heart when it comes to giving toward the cause of missions.  I want him to come to the microphone now and to be in charge of this very special contribution.