Mike

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

I love Emily Dickinson, but never had her heart.  I’m somebody, and the cry of my heart is “Know Me!!  I’m somebody special!!”  It is in me like a personality, like a big lollipop or Easter Egg, waiting to be found.  It is the perfume that follows me everywhere I go . 

Lately, I have noticed that it is the distracting thing in my relationship with my Father, my Savior...the voice of His Holy Spirit that knows me beyond what I can be known here on earth and who has greater things for me than the things I can imagine for myself.

This morning, as I bounded out of bed to check email, I found Mario at the computer, looking at a web page from Abiding Life Ministries, International.  He turned to me and said “Mike Wells died”.  In my early fog, it took a few seconds to connect the dots. 

Mike (we know about 100 Mikes) Wells (Mike Wells, got it...southern drawl and Holy Spirit) died (Impossible. He was our age).  Hearing turned into “Are you sure?” but I could see over his shoulder...the news that astounded me. 

Mike Wells was one of the first Christian lecturers we ever met.  Thank God. 

I know many people who are exposed to the ministry of superstar Christians... with ministries that are named after them and run by them and tout their own personal philosophies with a little of Jesus mixed in. 

Abiding Life Ministries was different. 

Mike was a short man who spoke like he was on his porch in Texas... and he made us laugh.  He did a conference at our church in Arnold, a little one in the mountains of California that many people said was full of messed up people. 

The conference was about the Holy Spirit and listening to God’s voice.  Abiding in Christ because He is our life – was something I had heard in my spirit the first day I decided to believe and let Him in to fill up my life.  As many notes as I took, I knew I couldn’t remember... so we bought cassette tapes with the same teaching on them.  The tapes were called “Living the Abiding Life” and we gave them away the month before we moved to Africa. 

Mike wrote a book called “Sidetracked in the Wilderness” which seemed like a strange book for a new Christian to read, but I did.  We gave it away several times and had to keep ordering more.  “Problems, God’s Presence and Prayer” was another one he wrote, and we kept ordering more as they made their way out of our front door. 

Mike was married to Betty, a woman of incredible strength who supported the ministry in more than words.  She saw Mike travel the world as He took the message of a beautiful and simple salvation in Jesus all over the world.  Every year we’d get a long letter with our Christmas card from them asking us how things are going with us here in Africa, how our kids are...like we were porch friends shooting the breeze. 

This year, an email (with a request for more material) to Betty was returned almost immediately.  “Guess what?” she wrote, “Mike is in Pretoria! She gave us the details and where he would be speaking...and we abandoned our schedule to go see him. 

We got there early, a Dutch Reformed Church we’d probably never set foot in, since it was so “not our cup of tea”...but Mike was there, and we knew he’d be Mike.  After the hymn we sung in Afrikaans, he was introduced and went up to the podium to speak.  There he was, his own southern drawl we heard all the time (now on cd) but he had grey hair. 

Same message, same abiding.  “There is nothing that the nearness of Christ cannot heal....”   He had just come back from an African trip and spoke a bit about that.  His real message was that Jesus is near, the Holy Spirit in us and our Father makes us who we are....

Afterward we waited for an admiring crowd to dissipate to greet our friend.  He smiled broadly, hugged us and said “Betty said you might show up here!”

Today, I read that he passed quietly in his sleep on a trip to Costa Rica, there to preach and build relationship with the guys there.  All I could think of was Betty... how did they get his body back home?  What if that happens to us?  Life is so fragile....

As I voiced my concerns to Mario, he was so calm.  “When I go, I want to go doing what God has for me to do.  I know where Mike is now.”  So matter of fact...

On the ALMI website this morning (http://abidinglife.com/2009/), I read carefully, seeing that Mike’s body came home to the USA for burial, where friends lowered it into a simple grave with surrounding mountains and clear weather.  A video of his memorial ...and his last letter to his friend, Dr. Alex Matthew in India:

“I see why God put you in my life to be an influence and to steer me in the right direction.  I remember being 16 and buying an old truck from the farmer next to us.  It was so old that when I pulled it, by tractor, from his barn, the barn caved in.  I made that truck like new.  The old man was really happy.  I had it for years and nearly wore it out.  Then I sold it to a young fellow that rebuilt it like new and took it to Canada.  I think of that in the context of abiding.  You were given an old message and made it relevant to me.  I will pass it on, as an old message, to someone younger to make new for their generation. You have been blessed and God has put the message, through you, into others.  It is up to them to make it “new” for their generation.

It is interesting that at 60 I can’t be motivated. I was invited to speak to 2,000 pastors (more of that later).  I just said, “OK.” That was it.  I have done little things as though they were big things (I have done three full conferences for only one person), therefore, God has allowed me to do big things as though they are little. I am not motivated by being someone. I, like you have taught me, only care about Him and what He is saying. I was offered to be on television with a “famous” American evangelist and I said, “No, I like what I do in villages.” Brother, there is the tree of good and evil and we are not to eat from it. Therefore, I cannot say that what I have done in my Christian life was good or bad, a success or failure, productive or not, expansive or not, or that people were trained or not. Eating from the tree of life has freed me from such thinking.

I only want Him.”

Their last Christmas card is on our refrigerator still, their smiling faces remind me of how fragile our life here is.  

Michael

Mario with Michael at a party at our house, Feb 2011

If I were honest, I would say that when we came here four years ago, I thought we would change the way that the church was being built in Africa.  We had come on three ocassions for ministry trips and were part of the greatest team raising up new leaders in all communities.  The greatest of these, were the poor.

Since they can't afford medicines, hospitals or even over-the-counter medications, poor churches were relying on the healing power of God, and we saw Him come through with amazing results, partly because of their incredible faith.  Since they can't afford schooling or seminary, the average poor pastor will "educate himself" with the Bible.  Some read all the way through their Bibles a few times a year.  In some very poor countries, rural Pastors may split their Bibles in half and share them with another pastor who doesn't have any.  Many are from heavily tribal areas.  Many are just learning to read.  Many have come from worship of idols and ancestors to a new faith of believing in ONE GOD - and trusting Him with everything.  Some have lost relationship with families who find this a threat and a dishonor... to turn away from tradition and walk by the light of God only.

Watching this as an American, used to American church with American finances, was not only inspirational, it challenged me to throw away my version of faith and take on the radical belief that God is who He says He is.  I have never, ever given my life to anything the way I have given myself to the spread of the true Gospel through Africa.

After awhile travelling the continent and seeing amazing things, Mario decided to take on the role of an elder at Junction and our ministry "settled down" to Northern Johannesburg.  Building up the local church, or encouraging the people here to have accountability and relationship, brought to light the struggle of the average pastor, or lead elder: they must encourage the same people day after day to grow in their destiny, what God has called them to do.

There are two unwritten rules of helping to lead a local church:  1.) You must take care not to burn out; and 2.) You must take care to raise up leaders to replace you.   Without minding the second point, a leader turns into a one man show - taking the place of Jesus.  If you build toward yourself, rather than toward the Lord, the people you are trying to reach become dependent upon you and never learn to lead....

One of the leaders that God put in front of  Mario to "raise up" is a man named Michael.  He is married to a woman named Cynthia, both are active at Junction Church, both are influential in their communities, their families and the church.  They are the kind of people you can count on to do what they say they will do, and are peppered.  Few leaders want to lead in small ways - they usually want to preach to thousands, lead worship, lead prayer or give prophetic words in front of the whole church....especially in traditional churches in South Africa.  We are not a traditional church.

Michael has been leading by example in our church and his community.  He has done a lot of un-glamorous work at Junction - set up the hall, organized public transport, supervised sound and music at weddings.  He cooked food for our pre-service lunches...and all of this was done well.

For years we did the same thing: set up chairs, halls; cleaned the unseen corners of church that could never be seen.  Work like this is never mentioned or acknowledged as great.  Mario's heart has always known that  God saw everything, and everything he did was for God, and that's enough.  I am not as noble, and many times wondered why other people didn't help us get all of the un-glamorous work done. Building a church, I thought, involves servant leadership on many levels - including the grunt work.

Michael and Mario are two men that are rare: not seeking attention, but getting stuff done.  When Mario began a life of church eldership,his main role changed: focusing more on the study of the Word of God, prayer and government, directing the growth of the church God had entrusted him with.

The transition is not as easy as it seems.   A servant setting up the unseen things usually has the heart of a servant, and notice others who do as well.  We became aware that some were doing too much hard work, (Michael among them) and challenged them not to become burned out with the work he was doing.

While they worked together to build up new leaders, Michael became sick.  For the last three months, Michael has been in and out of the hospital for a myriad of health concerns:  a swollen heart, TB, pneumonia, and lungs and feet with edema.  No one here asks about or talks about the virus.  It is a taboo and private thing, especially in the townships.

Our church has been noticing Michael's absence in real ways, and seeing its effect on Cynthia, his wife of many years.  She is part of worship team, and her passion for worship, or praising God is felt every time she sings.  Last Friday we asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital with us when we went to see Michael.  She said yes, and we picked her up from her workplace. We chatted on the way, of new directions we were taking as a church, and a controversial decision to transport church members differently.   By the time we got to the hospital, we were all ready to visit.

Michael was sitting up in bed, seemed like himself and was wrapped in two blankets, a pillow behind his back.  We talked chatted, laughed (his sense of humor is amazingly American, dry and witty)... and gave him a supply of soup for the next couple of days.

Michael's bed was one of eight in his corridor; one of twenty-four in his ward.  The public hospitals are usually known for being inefficient and their staff overworked, and today seemed no different.  I couldn't tell if there was a nurse assigned to his corridor, there didn't seem to be one for the whole ward, so we all made sure he was well taken care of of before we left.

The weekend (as usual) was busy...  Sunday (our day to celebrate) was Mario's birthday...and Father's Day.  It was a wonderful day, although a little chilly.  My trainer came to church; we sat and had coffee afterwards. Mario preached the second service and was awesome.   All the kids called him and we got to see their faces and hear their voices....

Monday (the day filled with meetings) was busy, and we looked forward to the next day, when we had an evening out scheduled to celebrate Mario's birthday.

On Tuesday, Mario went out to the hospital again.  Taking the load of soup and snacks we try to keep him supplied with, we went separate directions, and at 2 o'clock when I came home, Mario was already home and looked sad and tired.

He told me that Michael was very much worse.  He had come to the hospital and found Michael much weaker, winded and discouraged.  He cried, suffering, and told Mario he wasn't sure if he'd pull through.  Many times he told Mario how much he meant to him.  Mario had to feed him the soup he brought, since Michael was too weak to do it himself.

As Mario shared with me, I could see it was weighing heavy on him.  How could we celebrate his birthday when our brother was in the hospital and getting worse??  We prayed, then called the whole church to pray.  I sit and write this, asking you to pray.

We don't have a fool-proof plan on prayer and healing.  I have seen many healed, and I have seen many die.  I do pray, though, that God would heal Michael because I am would like this world not to lose him yet.  Please pray with us...and believe God will do what He promises.  Blessings and Peace....