Movies

Movies tell stories, motivate, entertain. Of late, a couple have captured my heart-strings.

The Alamo. Starring Billy Bob Thorton as Davy Crockett. I finally got to watch it in English, and it is better in English! Now what Texan doesn’t have their national pride stirred up with simply the retelling of the Alamo. Though the US story is more impressive, you just can’t tell the birthing of the US quite as succinctly. So, for us Texans, the Alamo gets our patriotic juices flowing. I’m proud to be a Texan. I’m proud to be an American. And I’m proudest to be serving God within the inheritance he has given me in Central Asia.

The Keys to the Kingdom. Rereleased on DVD in 2006, Gregory Peck (in his younger years) depicts a Catholic missionary to China in the 1800’s. Father Chisholm is determined, patient, and considers his ministry full of ineffectual strivings of little consequence. There are failures, miraculous answers to prayer, setbacks, gifts beyond his wildest imagination, personal loss, challenges, and struggles with the home office. Hmmm, sounds too familiar. Little by little he sees growth in his congregation and his congregants, and we see growth in his character and commitment. I have watched the movie a dozen times and cry every time – and I’m not a crier.

Nonetheless, these movies have gotten me thinking. I am an American, a Texan, all where God placed me, yet I know my call to Central Asia is for life. What are the long-term implications? That is not yet clear, but I am open to the possibilities. But for all my national pride, for all my arrogant pride as a Texan, that is nothing compared to the pride I have in my God. I am pumped by the telling of the cross, by the remembrance of Gethsemane or the crossing of the Red Sea. And just like our nationalism sometimes suffers from complacency until reminded once again, I can become routine, almost complacent, with the majesty of my God.

Azamat

Recently I was reminded once again of just how good is this God of ours. At our church in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, there was a murder-suicide. The 10-year-old son was the one to discover his mother’s body and witness his father’s leap to death. Azamat is going to have something to deal with his whole life long. There are extended family on both sides, and his mother’s sister, Zharkinai, has been granted legal custody. The church was glad I came back to Aktobe to minister to them all. But what to say? God is good. How to tend to their hearts? God is compassionate. How to encourage them? God is sovereign.

3 sisters
Omsanai (who died), Saule, Zharkinai (guardian)These messages are hard to understand from a human perspective. And Zharkinai (the custodian-aunt and church member) struggled with embracing God at this time. “Before your sister died, what was the worst that could have happened?” I asked. “I worried that her husband would frighten her, hurt her,” Zharkinai answered. “Now, what is the worst that can happen?” I asked. Zharkinai just looked at me – blank for a moment, “I guess the worst has already happened.” “So now what is happening?” I asked. “She’s with Jesus. She’s not afraid anymore. She’s not ever going to hurt again,” Zharkinai smiled through tears. Real tears. Real grief. Real hope.

God is good. We can’t see that sometimes because of so much sin in this world, but God is good. God is sovereign, and somehow in his omniscience and omnipotence he takes all the bad of sin and works it together for the good of those who love him. Somehow. It is only with an eternal perspective that we can see the beauty of that picture.

I know this is true from my own experiences. I had worried for years about my husband, ‘what if the worst happens?’ And then when the worst did happen, all I could think was relief, ‘nothing worse can happen.’ And there was hope. Real grief. Real, living hope. And comfort from a real, living God. A God who is good. A God who can take all the ineffectual strivings of our lives and make them into something that will last for eternity. A God who can take a slaughter and turn it around, like the Texans at San Jacinto cried “Remember the Alamo!”, a God who can take this slaughter and build courage, faith, hope and a future.

Azamat with Maymezhan
Just 1 week
before his parents’ deathsIt is amazing to me that God would have me offer this comfort in Aktobe at this time. You see, I was beginning to fret a little with this year of threshold – the year that I start saying I have been widowed longer than I was married. There was a psychological knife in that thought for me. Until, of course, I am faced with the goodness of God just now in comforting others. It is like complaining that my sons don’t like my cooking (which they don’t), but how can I complain?! Widowed without kids – and I have sons! Duh, Linda! God is good. God is SO good. And it will matter little how long I was married or how long I was widowed when I stand in the presence of Jesus for eternity. It will all seem as so little, so insignificant. Nonetheless, it is the life Christ has given me, and therefore not one moment is insignificant. Not one moment is outside of his goodness.

Please pray for 10-year-old Azamat and his aunt Zharkinai. They have a long road of grief ahead of them. Zharkinai is single and never had children, so this is a big adjustment for her and her lifestyle. Please pray for Azamat and all he will go through as he grows up and is repeatedly faced with grief. Pray for Nur Church in Aktobe, as they are being slandered as an evil sect, a growing number of people around them are saying “This is how Allah judges people who leave Islam!” The church has a ministry to both extended families, and both families are antagonistic to the church and to each other, so pray God’s peace to prevail. Pray for me as I minister to Zharkinai, to Azamat, and to the folks at Nur Church. Sometimes I get so tongue-tied I forget to say what all God has done in my life.

Dilemma of Kazakh Christian Funerals

Our young church here has much to discern about this topic of funerals. When the father of one of our employees died last week, there was a serious problem. The father and mother, adult son and daughter are all Christians, but everyone else in the extended family are Muslim. And they are Kazak. So the family was going to follow the Kazak/Muslim traditions. They called in the Mullah to prepare the body for burial, and lead the whole process. But there was a big ruckus over the issue of the man being a Christian, and the Mullah used this opportunity to preach to the Muslims of how sinful it was for someone to leave the faith of their fathers, and he stormed out. Meanwhile the grieving family was frustrated with how to proceed. Finally someone just took up the responsibility to prepare the body, recite the Koran through the burial, and then move the family back to the house for the meal. But he was just a “regular” guy, not a Mullah, not a pastor, so there was a feeling of hopelessness for the departed – he might just rot in hell because his departure was not handled correctly. At least that is how it seemed to the Muslim extended family, who started cursing the believers, including the widow, for messing everything up. Not a good way to handle a funeral.

Our staff that participated in this particular funeral came back with a heavy burden – how can we help to have appropriate funerals? Can there be common, Christians and Muslims together, rites of passage? Or will there need to be “Christian only” or “Muslim only” events? Our guys are leaning towards separate functions but I think there needs to be something integrated, because survivors, whether Muslim or Christian, are all of the same family and need a funeral rite. But how? There are many questions for the whole process, from the preparation of the body to the 1-year memorial, and we have people wrestling with what is appropriate.

Sad News - A Funeral

Last month Nurzhan’s oldest brother, Bolat, died unexpectedly. He was only 50 years old, a Muslim Mullah, leaving behind a wife and four married children, and nine siblings (including Nurzhan). I was not able to attend the funeral, but was able to go to Chimkent for the 40-day memorial. Kazakh culture defines the burial, the funeral, then the 3-day memorial, 7-day, 40-day, 100-day, 1-year, and 15-year memorials. I’m still learning a lot about this part of the culture. Since Bolat was Muslim, everything has been done according to the Kazakh/Muslim culture. All four of Bolat’s children, at one time or another, confessed Christ, yet presently all have returned to the Muslim faith. So there has been no conflict about how to integrate Christians or Christianity into the day.

For me, being at the 40-day memorial was interesting. There were as many people as had attended the funeral, 100-120 or so. A big meal was prepared, with rented tables and dishes spread out in the yard. Where we were, just outside of Chimkent, was hot and dusty, not a tree in sight beyond the few saplings neighbors had planted in the past year in this new “settled” region. So besides the mud-brick homes and small garden plots, the rest was wide open steppe. At near 100’F with no shade, I was hot, reddening quickly and sweating like an iced-tea glass. This was one time I wished I had skin from my American Indian heritage rather than the Irish cast that so easily burns.

I held Bolat’s widow, Zhagira, in one of many long, tight hugs we would share that day and then sat on the floor inside the house along with other mourners. We shared hot tea and prayers, passages were sung from the Koran in Arabic (which few understood). Folks moved about freely, from one room in the house, to outside under a shade tarp, to inside the house in another room, back out, etc., drinking hot tea, eating snacks wherever, until the main course of ‘plov’ (rice pilaf with meat) was served and then there were a few more rounds of hot tea, more recitations from the Koran.

Everyone was expected to share something good about the deceased. I really had no clue what to share, as I barely knew Bolat, and dare not say that I rejoiced when his children became Christians. Everything was in Kazak and with no meaningful Kazak coming from my mouth I kept comments to a minimum. Some people brought gifts, food stuffs, cash, a nanny goat. I understood that there would be a record kept of who gave what, so that when there is a “reciprocal” funeral (where the comforter becomes the mourner, and the mourner the comforter) that there must be a reciprocal gift. Part of me wanted to drop a wad of cash down, since I know the widow will be hurting financially without her husband’s income, but I dared not do that at this time, as then she would have to give that same amount back for my funeral (or funeral of someone dear to me). It is a tough dilemma.

Though I rather enjoyed the visits with so many, I would say this really didn’t go so well as far as my involvement. After reading through some recent survey information regarding Kazak culture for funerals, I realize that I made several serious cultural blunders. I knew better than to smile. But I failed in so many other ways, and Nurzhan’s sisters made it quite clear that I was more nuisance than comfort. They were none too happy to see me there at all (maybe because I was a Christian, maybe because I was not their mother but encroaching on ‘her’ space, maybe because I am a foreigner, maybe because I didn’t finance the whole affair, maybe just because they were heart-broken). Nonetheless I stilled loved them, and refused to take on humiliation, simply stay humble. So much to learn on how to fit into such an event.