September 29, 2009: They Surfed The Tsunami

Last night I had dinner with an amazing missionary couple who are helping to supervise the translation of the Bible into several languages in Papua New Guinea.

Eleven years ago they were trying to get the Bible into just one language. Then a tsunami wiped out their village, killing many. (They weren’t there at the time, but their friends and co-translators were.) It seemed that their life’s work had come to an end.

If they were now atheists, you would probably point to the ’98 Tsunami as the trigger of their loss of faith. (See Pastor’s Pages January 4 and 9, 2005, for my responses to an Eric Zorn essay about the how the 2004 Great Tsunami confirmed his disbelief in God.) But John and Bonnie are still theists, still Christians, and are still putting the Bible in languages that don’t have it. They have even seen their work expand remarkably in recent years. The same God (there’s only one!) who destroyed their village and killed their friends has now led them to pioneer a technique for getting multiple translations done simultaneously. In fact, John has been asked to write a book whose working title is something like Waves of Change: How a Tsunami Furthered the Cause of Bible Translation. (My suggested title How We Help Jesus Speak Weird Languages is not being given serious consideration.)

After John and Bonnie left I told my wife that I didn’t feel worthy of them. I regard with humble awe those who, by God’s grace, turn adverse circumstances to ministerial advantage. I know that that is exactly what we servants of God are supposed to do – it’s in the manual for Christ’s sake (Philippians 1:12; James 1:2-3) - but that’s a lot harder to do than it sounds. When I was “tsunamied” by a loved one’s apostasy and desertion (on top of some other things), my outlook was less like that of St. Paul and St. James and St. John and St. Bonnie and more like that of prophetic mopes Elijah and Jonah. Look up 1 Kings 19:4 and Jonah 4:8 and you will see how those dispirited prophets basically prayed, “Lord, this isn’t working at all. What do you say you just take me home now.”

I thought about a friend who is enduring a personal tsunami. His daughter is handicapped, his wife has a disorder that leaves her unable to digest food properly and is profoundly depressed, and the economy has washed away most of his business. But he still looks to God, maker of heaven and earth, only source of comfort in life and in death. And I know that God will reward the faith he maintains even while “pinned and wriggling on the wall” like a bug in T. S. Eliot's poetic imagination. Perhaps in this life - certainly in the next – he will see how his daughter’s disability and his wife’s condition and his financial upheaval all uncovered hidden graces and resulted in ministries that would not otherwise have come about.

In 1787 John Rippon published “How Firm A Foundation”, a hymn that includes the words,

When through the deep waters I call thee to go
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress

Not all tsunamis drown. Sometimes they lift you off your feet and tumble you end over end and deposit you miles away from the place you thought was going to be your permanent home. There – wet, bedraggled, shivering, surveying only a wasteland of destruction that stretches to the sea – you have finally arrived at the place where God has determined you can do the most good and bring him the most glory. And eventually (again, if not in this life, in the next) you will have joy.