Dear Cherished Interested’s, September 28 - Oct 1st 2022



Hilda and I leave the Pacific Northwest from Portland Oregon October the 4th to return to Tanzania.

vwilliamson@sprynet.com / facebook messenger / Hilda’s Phone number 360-815-4302

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Sitting outside a post COVID Doctor’s appointment waiting for Hilda, whom I can no longer accompany inside the building without an appointment of my own, and, frankly, being home is strange. Don’t get me wrong, I know the strangeness is also often how others perceive us.

There is a four letter word that keeps coming to my attention and it is probably worse than any other four letter word. It is probably worse than any cursing of any kind because we do it to ourselves, consciously or not. I used to think that hate was the worst four letter word but have learned over the years that hate is very often just a wrapper for the worst four letter word. Even the most powerful four letter word, love, can become a smarmy sickly sweet wrapper hiding the worst one.

The worst four letter word, the one that excuses challenging status quo, injustice, stopping and looking, stopping and listening, stopping and reading, stopping and singing, stopping and asking, stopping and breathing in even the air of a different moment or place or person or even a different hope, is fear.

We like the devils we know. We like them as they keep us trapped in the comfortable and familiar even if that comfortable and familiar is painful and hurtful.

I pray not to offend anyone with this report but given how few we have discovered are familiar with these reports, I trust the rare few who do, to forgive me yet another strange, perhaps outrageous, challenge. The challenge of considering not some specifically named amorphous hate, as the culture demands, but fear as the worst four letter word and worse.. by far.

We do it to ourselves and let it stop us. We do it to ourselves and it leaves us talking in circles, the repetitious words coming from our mouths justifying all the other four letter words instead of.. sacrificing time, movement, effort, in anything we are not already certain of. Which is silly.

Who can stop change? We all face change as we grow older. We all face change as the various environments we occupy are all dynamic systems changing constantly. Technology changes and changes our immediate world, however small we strive to keep it. Death brings change no matter how many pills we consume to forestall or suppress it. Those pills, they can be miracles bringing tremendously good change for us.

We all have the power to believe we can stop change.

Church doors are now almost universally locked across America. This is because we don’t want anything to get dirty or broken. Sensible, but, if our minds were a little less sequestered by fear of a mess in or physical damage to our church buildings and free to consider human suffering, we might remember. We might remember that if the drunk or vagrant was our son or daughter, our father or brother, aunt or uncle, just how grateful we would be that they had found shelter in a church rather than shelter in a flop house, under a tree, or no shelter at all.

Is it our church? Is it God’s church? Jesus sacrificed His life, among people he loved, dying on a cross.

What would Jesus be willing to do with a thousand buildings?.. to give a life an opportunity, a chance, for real change?

I have preached where churches have no locks like the churches I remember from when I was young. Some of those churches have no walls. Are there places where valuable items are locked away? Yes. Items that the people of those churches may be blessed enough to have and can ill afford to lose? Yes.

Communion service is often staggered so congregations and churches can share the same vessels. Even the Cathedral where we have started our Sundays washes the vessels between servings to have them clean, full, and ready for each serving, in each service, from 6:am to noon or however long the day is, however many opportunities to worship there are.

If the church is a bank, then lock it up.

As the church strives to model our self-sacrificing Savior, Jesus of The Cross who died for us, then let us try to remember the sound of coins hitting the floor. Coins made of non-living, non-loving, stuff dug out of the ground. The sound of non-living coins hitting the floor of The Temple of Jesus’ day, at the hands of our Savior overturning tables, to clear the way for living and breathing people. People like you and me.

Hilda says that I am a radical. I’ve never felt like a radical. I’ve felt I had no choice. Someone has to speak up for life being more important than what fear demands. Why? Our lives are made by God. Each life is intended for growing, discovering, and for eternally longer than here and now.

Why is there more joy in heaven for the one lost sheep recovered than all the ones already saved?

Could it be that one sheep, just one life, restored for that one eternity is a longer, fuller, life than all the lives ever lived here on the planet earth ever, all added together? Do the math. It does.

What is more wondrous though is that the master of everything, here and now and eternity, wants such as us to fill eternity with. Wants us enough to die for us. We are the living creations of the ultimate creator, provider, savior who values us as having come from Gods heart.

Our fear, known to us and not known to us, can’t be bigger than that.

The lovingly created child of God who doesn’t know themselves anymore, if ever. The sick, the lost in addiction all those who shatter our stained glass, carve things in the woodwork, and leave blood or worse on our carpets are already hating themselves for their mistakes, confusion, desperation and fear.

One choice at a time, one opportunity at a time, and we can model something different for us to see and for others to see. I don’t pretend to know what those choices should be. I do believe deeply however, that choices should be never be made in fear.

Let’s start with killing fear. Jesus took death unto himself on the cross. Jesus killed death. Jesus killed the fear of death. Let’s try to be part of each-others resurrection and let fear stay dead.

Some fears I may need to strive after keeping dead:

Dying before seeing our children and their children again even after just holding them / Making mistakes / being misunderstood and thrown away / Not trusting God with our children who were all his long before and remain his long after me / Not loving all God’s children like the ones entrusted to me / Not trusting God with implacable problems that are beyond my control / judging others / not hearing others / being voiceless / leaving someone else without a voice / Living my plans before Gods best for others / Missing opportunities to be part of providing the best good in each moment ahead / Consequences, all sorts, for all people, because I missed my part in providing the best good / not trusting GRACE to keep cleaning up after me

Just a few.. how about you?

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Also please continue to Pray for:

Travel mercies for Hilda and I. Plane travel represents a supreme physiological trial to someone my shape, size and medical history.

Gratitude for our time in the Pacific Northwest and over to Colorado for those dear children and grandchildren who miss us and whom we are overjoyed to have had time with.

Makumira Secondary School, my brilliant helper Elisha’s school, is looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

Hilda’s invisibility to those who can only see their own authority –

Visa situation, we will be good again until after we return -

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us, for us to let our health fail so others can shine –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it –

For you who find other ways to uplift and support us -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, skipping stone and even groaning prayers make all the difference..

If we should ever cross your mind, even if we are strange and confusing, just grunt, crumple us up and throw us at God. That is where we need to be..

Vern W

May life be as Music to your Heart – May Music be as Heart to your Life – May Heart be as Life to your Music

This video made for Hilda and I by

Vainqueur Birembano  

 

 

Dear Cherished Interested’s,

Hilda and I are home and in the loving care of children and grandchildren. We leave the Pacific Northwest from Portland Oregon October the 4th to return to Tanzania.

vwilliamson@sprynet.com / facebook messenger / Hilda’s Phone number 360-815-4302

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We teach, when we can, the willing. We may never see if we teach anything to the unwilling.

How about learning? Am I willing to learn?

Our trip home had a flight that was nearly 17 flight hours and covered the distance from Doha, Qatar, to Dallas Fort Worth, Texas, USA. After leaving Hilda’s house around 4:30am to get to the airport and our first flight of about 8 hours then waiting in Doha about 8 hours, I sat in the wrong seat. I very kind gentleman from India came and looked at me but noticing my head nodding said nothing.

It was a packed 777 with fascinating linguistic properties. Most conversations were in English but not the English common to English speaking countries or regions. The conversations were in the English of the 3rd, 4th, or further removed language from the speakers’ native tongue. We were in a sea of Asian and Arabic brown in which one could fool oneself that we pale-faced ones were the only outsiders. But no, as the flight spread into its 8th or 9th hour barriers were coming down. Folks were milling about the steerage parts of the flight we occupy. They were happily assisting those who may have looked or dressed like everyone else but did not have English, did not have Hindi, did not have Arabic and were isolated by a tribal or regional tongue that was rare on any airline flight.

Starched up businessmen, now rested and calm, happily wandering the aisles taking notice of grandmothers who had said nothing to anyone and trying the many lesser known languages they knew from their youth and villages nearby where they grew up. That is when that very kind man from India returned to greet, take my hand, and bridge my ignorance with his gracious English of India.

I had taken his seat on a packed flight. He didn’t care. He simply found another and when the opportunity returned he let his feet and curiosity take him back to the sleepy oversize one who had displaced him. We were able to shift and return his seat to him but he was interested in discovering who we were. He is T.D. Lazar Chennai, Pastor. He is a grandfather like me. He is a Pentecostal leader of a missionary movement based in India with outreach and churches now also in the U.K. and Dallas.

We had a very good conversation about how God uses us. We had a very good conversation about how leadership that does not reflect what Christ did on the cross, is typical in the governments of most countries. It was very good to have a conversation with another older one who shares a conviction that the most important thing we can do is leave room for God to reveal God-self to those who need to know that here and now with faulty human leadership is not all we are intended for.

He has many degrees but wants more. He did not care that I lack the requisite degrees for North America. He asked questions and laughed. Smiled, listened, challenged, spoke about family and left the flight after a very long joyful conversation calling me Pastor. Someone, such as he, serving outward from his home continent of India through many churches, in many places, willing to discover and identify with such as me.

How about learning? Am I willing to learn?

In Tanzania I now have, a helper/fixer, who is a catholic professional man who calls me father and is, among other things, helping me strive after a pathway for matriculation into theological training in TZ. A day before flying he notified me that at least one of the commissions or departments or ministries of the Government that certifies institutions, instructors and students into educational opportunity needed not only all my limited college work but also my High School Transcript from over 40 years ago.

I was dubious at best as it was so long ago and I had been a severe minority working kid who could not afford the time for school when I was there. I shook my head and put a posting on social media for those who went to High School with me to send me anyone, any contacts they might have so I could try. Within 36 hours of that post two of the beautiful women I had grown up with had found and e-mailed my High School Transcript to me, and my primary school records as well, and some standardized testing results too. We had a brief moment of internet connectivity in Doha that lasted long enough to receive that e-mail and then share it on to Tanzania.

How about learning? Am I willing to learn?

Yesterday we left early to drive north of the border into Longview WA. There we got a minimal breakfast at a diner near to a medical services provider I needed paperwork from before trying to organize a Commercial Driver’s License(CDL) Physical. Given that I’ve unexpectedly taught defensive driving in TZ and I don’t know what is ahead and I’ve had my CDL since ’83, before Hilda, I’m trying to keep it.

After finishing breakfast I headed to wash my hands and passed a table full of clear-eyed guys of a broad age range. I looked them over and they looked back. So, I said that they looked like a meeting I might like to join. There was laughter and a conversation and Hilda came over and we did not pay for our breakfast. I had found a local Mens’ Bible Study regular Tuesday morning breakfast.

We went to the medical services provider and I was informed that my account was with the branch up north in Mount Vernon so they could not help me. I asked more questions and begged.

The young man tasked with telling me to go away called his boss at home and together they found a solution that got me the paperwork I needed for a CDL Physical. Then, they sent me to a practitioner for a physical without an appointment. When that provider was not available, that unavailable providers staff sent me to another provider in a nearby community calling and organizing my appointment for that afternoon for me.

Hilda’s phone was not working so we were travelling unfamiliar ground without maps, only what little was in my head. She got that figured when we were 3 travel minutes from the provider that gave me my physical. That provider was not happy with my blood pressure so required me to rest for an extended time while sending staff in to check on me and re-take my blood pressure until he was happy with the reading to document. Official medical passed, paperwork e-mailed to WA State last night.

Yesterday = breakfast paid for by others, impossible to do paperwork done, CDL medical completed without prior appointment, and when leaving the first provider to go to the second provider, someone driving by on the street called my name. It was one of the guys who bought our breakfast way across town.

How about learning? Am I willing to learn?

Brothers from India on a long flight to America, Sisters from decades ago who still care, brothers from an early morning diner breakfast, sibling strangers daring the impossible to happen in one day without appointments..

I’m trying..

Your, sacrificed time, thought, and prayer to throw us at God makes everything possible. Thank You, thank you, thank you.

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Also please continue to Pray for:

Travel mercies for Hilda and I. Plane travel represents a supreme physiological trial to someone my shape, size and medical history.

Affordable time in the Pacific Northwest and over to Colorado for those dear children and grandchildren who miss us and whom we miss deeply.

Makumira Secondary School, my brilliant helper Elisha’s school, is looking to share stories and partner in some way with a foreign school, Great leaders, teachers, students, programs, strong backs, minds, and hearts –

Hilda’s invisibility to those who can only see their own authority –

Visa situation, we will be good again until after we return -

Our armed forces families, our leadership, our people, whole world round, all of Gods kids -

All the tough and blessing expressed above –

The love of folks –

Whatever is on your hearts and minds for us –

I continue to be under much harsh spiritual attack concerning my sense of self-worth and those many things I have yet to get to, please, only as you are comfortable, remember me, indeed us.. the world doesn’t like what we are doing out of love we don’t own.. yet have none the less -

For our health to stay ahead of whatever is before us, for us to let our health fail so others can shine –

For a way for us to invest with our experience and even financially in support of local industrious people so we can afford to stay and continue to make a difference one face at a time –

For those who have braved the donate button to discover Kajun Crofton, our daughter who helps getting each one of your donations to us and every blogpost to where you can read it –

For you who find other ways to uplift and support us -

For each and every one of you –

Each and every one of your prayers, your precious conversations with God –

Prayers, Your Prayer, skipping stone and even groaning prayers make all the difference..

Vern W

May Life be as Music to your Heart - May Music be as Heart to your Life 

- May Heart be as Life to your Music -