Zambia Celebration Chapel Final Talk

Here's the text of what I shared with our student body in yesterday's chapel as we closed 6 years of responding to the needs of the Kakolo Village community in Zambia as they move toward being self-sustaining and community led in their leadership...we are forever changed because of God's invitation to join Him in His work in Zambia and because of the relationships we now have with our Zambian brothers and sisters...it was a day of celebration and sadness and reverence at all that God has done in the WA community and the life of Kakolo Village, Zambia...

Well, to be honest, I don’t think I could have ever imagined it…the fact that the God of the universe would choose to connect a white suburban private school in the middle of the United States to a small village of people in the northern part of a sub-Saharan nation called Zambia…truly you have to say, “Only God could do this one…” And then to watch over the last six years a truly unprecedented release of passion and compassion in our community from a quite unlikely group of students that the world would have never expected to care so deeply about the children and people of Africa suffering from a disease the church had often condemned and branded as getting exactly what they deserved has been truly something only the Holy Spirit could orchestrate…and today we get the chance to celebrate the transformational work of God
in two very different places and way, the transformation of our hearts so that we might care about the people and things God is passionate about and the physical and spiritual transformation of a place that is one of the most poverty and disease stricken places on our planet…in many ways I do think we celebrate a miracle, the miracle of new life we have in Jesus, the new life that we find in a life of service and sacrifice and real joy, and the new life of learning and clean water and good health and food for mealtime when one’s hopes and dreams were being extinguished…so in this moment I feel so blessed, so privileged, so overjoyed that God has written a story like the Zambia Project…

As I wrestled with what to say today, I went back to this basic notion of what is God's greatest desire for us as His creation...and I went back to Matthew 22:34-40 where Jesus answered the question of the Pharisees as to what the greatest commandment was in all the law, the one thing that stood above all the hundreds of other laws and commands in the Jewish system of faith...and He did it by actually going back to the Old Testament, to Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, for the timeless truth that life is all about loving the God who created you and loving the other people He has created that live with us on this planet...(read the passage)…Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."…What the Pharisees and the Sadducees and perhaps many people today try to make so very complex, Jesus made very simple and clear...and as I reread this passage for perhaps the hundredth time this week, I was stuck by the notion that this Greatest Commandment reflects the things that I wake up every day having a sense that these things are the very best things I can do and even want to do with my life...that God, I want to know you, I want to experience your love and I do long for others to do this as well...these words from Jesus remain a truly amazing challenge and call for my life...

And as I play back the last six years of my life and the life of our WA community in relationship to the Zambia Project, I see so perfectly how this vision hatched by a team of students has allowed me and hundreds of others to more fully experience what it means to do that which the passage asks us to do in loving God with our mind, our hearts, and our souls as we have loved our neighbors in Zambia as we love ourselves...

MIND...I have seen how the very way that I think about people and the world has changed and I think I now view them more like God does...to now understand the reality of the world for most people that I'm never in myself...I am so cognizant of the reality that every person is made in the image of God, that I can and ought to love people and enter into relationship with those battling AIDS, who are poor, whose skin color is different than mine, whose clothes aren't the same, whose abilities and interests are not similar, whose moral choices may not reflect my standards...those who are not at all like me but who I now know are in fact so much like me...in reality, I've see Jesus in them, at work in them, and our connectedness as
communities...for as I see and read Scripture, the whole of Scripture, with new and fresh eyes, (see list of references dealing with the poor outside in the foyer) I can have my mind love God and my neighbor...

HEART...I have been broken (how many times have I shed tears on this stage compared to my previous year’s chapel appearances) by the suffering of those dealing with unthinkable poverty and disease...I've fallen in love with the people, (Fordson, Victor, James, Dimuna, Agnes) the children, (our family's 4 sponsored kids Anthony, Monica, Peter, and Gracious, a boy named Gift and a girl named Maggie whose stories are truly unbelievable) the church in Zambia (where our community worship times in the African sun have been what I imagine worship in heaven might look like) and the continent of Africa...and as my heart has been broken and remade by the people of Zambia, it has produced a new love, a deeper compassion for my neighbors who help coach my son's t-ball team, the kids from West Chicago who want to play soccer in the wrestling room every Friday night, and for my friends and students here at Wheaton Academy...my heart is full of the love that comes from my Savior who has loved me with a truly everlasting love...

SOUL...and in my soul, the deepest and most personal of places, I can say that because of the invitation from the One who knows me in all my darkness and gifts and fears and struggles and successes to join Him in being part of something extraordinary in a place I couldn't pick out on a world map seven years ago, I have never been more passionate about Jesus and more fascinated at what He did and how He lived while here on earth; I've never been more engaged in seeking to read and discover the deep, life changing words and themes of Scripture; and I've never had more energy (even as I get ready to turn 40 this summer) to try and change the world and have it reflect the desires and values and beliefs and nature of the God who has reached down and cause my soul to sing of His grace and mercy and love as we get opportunity to be the visible, tangible representation of the invisible God...

SO MY QUESTION FOR YOU TODAY IS SIMPLE JUST LIKE THE ANSWER JESUS GAVE TO THE PHARISEES...Has the Zambia Project affected your mind, your heart, your soul? And how are you responding daily to Jesus' call to love your God and your neighbor as a follower of Jesus?

Today we have been able to testify to how incredible it has been that the Holy Spirit has fallen upon us and given a unique blessing...the blessing in realizing that that the notion of announcing and demonstrating the Kingdom of God is indeed here is a pursuit worthy of your life, of my life...and the greatest tragedy would be if we would go back to an internal focus only--to believe that we only need to worry about ourselves, about Wheaton Academy, about what we see in our own worlds--for there is too much joy in giving and loving and serving to miss out on, and God is doing too much in too many surprising places all over the globe to not join Him...to be honest, we don't exactly know what the next focus/the next project will be at this moment as we look at the world and ask God about this word "Next"...but I want to invite you to continue to pray with us and to follow Jesus, a Savior who created, who loves, who dies for each person in Zambia, West Chicago, and the world...and then says that you and I are very much part of His mandate to make the Gospel, the good news, known in all its fullness to the whole earth...AMEN and AMEN...

Wiping Out HIV by KAY WARREN

Six years ago I began a journey with a small group of students to respond and fight the HIV virus...I had no idea where that journey would take me, take hundreds of students, impact a Zambian community, and change forever the condition of my own soul and the faith that guides every step of my life...there has nothing in my own spiritual journey that has made me more passionate about Scripture, given me more opportunities to talk about Jesus, and nothing that has stirred my faith into response than being the visible presence of Jesus to those suffering from this disease...as we wrap up the Zambia Project next week at Wheaton Academy, this too is my testimony...responding to the call of a God who loves people with HIV more than IO can believe is indeed the best thing I can do for my own life and soul...what a paradox and what a privilege to learn and experience this lesson Kay Warren communicates in this piece...

It's good for the soul to fight the virus.

Five years ago, I became a seriously disturbed woman. Through a single magazine article about AIDS in Africa, my attention was captured and a sense of shock, horror, and doom awoke within me.

How could there be more than 30 million people infected with a lethal virus, and I not know even one of them? How was it possible that there were 12 million children orphaned by this horrible virus, and I couldn't name a single one? Those questions sent me on a search to discover God's heart for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS; within a very short time, I became seriously and permanently disturbed.

Once I became disturbed, I became passionate about ending AIDS in Rick's and my lifetime. We are not content to merely manage AIDS, any more than we're content to manage cancer, TB, or malaria. Our goal is to wipe it out.

So you may ask: Where's the message of Jesus in all of this social gospel stuff? The answer lies in the life story of David Miller. Rick met him two and a half years ago at a conference in New York. After the meeting, this rough and tumble man who had served in the Marine Corps approached Rick and told him, "I've had AIDS for 20 years. I'm a member of ACT UP in New York, and have been arrested over 200 times protesting drug companies and the government's response to AIDS. Where was the church when I needed help?"

Rick responded by asking for forgiveness, saying, "I'm sorry for all the hurt and pain that has ever been caused to you in the name of Christians or Christ." David jumped backwards, shocked by the apology. That day, they spent hours together talking, and Rick invited David to our upcoming Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. Much to our surprise, David accepted.

At the summit, David accosted anyone who came near him with loud diatribes against the government, drug companies, and politicians. Near the summit's end, he reluctantly joined other HIV-positive men and women on the stage to receive prayer. The next day, Rick and David met again, and David explained how it seemed impossible for him to ever stop hating those who had failed him.

Over the next year, we called and e-mailed David, and sent CDs that we thought would answer his questions. I visited his beloved Bronx neighborhood. He pointed out the crack houses, the junkies, the pimps and prostitutes. Tough as nails on the outside, David had a deep heartache for "his people." He choked up as we walked those mean streets. He quietly murmured, "You came; I can't believe you came here."

There was a gradual softening in him—a tiny sprout of hope. One day he said to me, "I'm beginning to think that if you guys are real, and you love me, maybe God is real and loves me too."

The following November, the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church took place. A less hostile, though still wary, David attended. On World AIDS Day after the summit, Rick had the joy of leading David to the Lover of his wounded soul, Jesus Christ. David's world, AIDS, and his newfound faith finally collided. We laughed, cried, and celebrated together. Hope had sent roots into David's life.

Soon David began to complain loudly that no one had showed him the fine print ahead of time. As only David with his Bronx accent could say, "Being a Christian is the hardest thing I've ever done! I can't call the mayor of New York a Nazi anymore; he's a human being that God made. I can't hate my enemies. I have to love them!" The fragile sprout was turning into a seedling.

The 2007 Global Summit took David one step further. He stood in the pulpit at Saddleback and gave his testimony. The next day, World AIDS Day, Rick put a shaking, terrified David under the waters of baptism. David propelled himself out of the water and into Rick's arms, sobbing with joy. Minutes later, a fellow Marine who had just heard David's testimony asked David to baptize him on the spot. And so it was that David Miller, a man hardened by years of battling the system, came full circle. As a new creation in Christ, David assisted Rick in the baptism of another new creation in Christ.

Where's the message of Jesus in all of this social gospel stuff? Ask a transformed David Miller. The thought that God cared about his body as well as his soul pierced his steel plates of defensiveness and allowed him to dare to believe that he was loved by God.

Our task is to make the invisible God visible. By opening our arms in acceptance, by being his hands and feet, we make him visible.