For me a real highlight of our last year in Africa was our visit to Nigeria, where we spent thirty of our thirty-seven years; the continent God gave us as the home of our hearts. On that visit we enjoyed countless reunions with friends with whom we worked during out time there. We experienced great joy in reuniting with colleagues and students at Baptist High and Hillcrest schools; along with those who worked with us at home, among the churches and in the Nigerian Baptist Convention. We delighted in hearing so many tales of God’s blessings upon so many lives down through these years since we have been together.  On graduation day at Baptist High I had the privilege of visiting together with the then principal, Emmanuel Musa and the principal who had followed me, Frama Abraham. We all enjoyed the opportunity to visit together. Both of the  others had been students at Baptist High. Both exemplified the missionary focus of Baptist High School, keeping themselves, staff and students focused on taking the light and life of Jesus to people in Jos, Nigeria and to the world. So, it came as a shock to me when just a short time later, I learned that Deacon Frama Abraham had been killed during rioting in Jos. Then a few months after that I learned that Mrs. Abigail Ajagbe, the other Vice-Principal that had served with Frama and myself on the leadership team at Baptist High, had also died. Just this week I heard that Rev. Remi Odusanya, the Games Master and a gifted and consecrated leader of the Praise the Lord Singers, while we served together at Baptist High School, had died. All three had lived inspiring Christian lives, and I know they now live in glory, but it certainly strikes me that these three dear people who walked so closely beside me at Baptist High were suddenly gone. I have had to reflect on my ambivalent feelings about their death; mixing the shock of their passing, sadness for their families and friends’ loss, and joy at the prospect of their being in the presence of our loving Savior. As I have done so I have realized Jesus also had an ambivalence in His dealings with death. He wept at Lazarus’ tomb before He also called him triumphantly risen from that tomb. He also promised the thief on the cross that he would join Him in paradise as they died together. Like so much of our lives here on earth, there is a complexity to living saved in a fallen world. Our best words are much too poor to express the wonder of what is to come.

“Death is ambivalent.”
C.S. Lewis

Because His plans are not the same as our own
And because His actions clearly differ from our own
And because we can never fully comprehend His ways
Death always seems ambivalent in our eyes
For He weeps in bitterness before Lazarus’ tomb
And demands that he, Jairus’ daughter and the widow’s son
Return from death’s mysterious land
Though their shock be great, their confidence sure
For now they know this certainty, God is good
Beyond all knowing and language too poor
To express the wonders that He prepares
For those He calls who obey His word.

M.S.
January 17, 2018

John 11: 25-26

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
 Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?”