Humbled and Humiliated 2

 

You can imagine the shock on my face when listening to the Pastor tell me the concerns of his congregation. My mind raced as he was speaking. The Pastor also told me that he explained to his church that Haiti has it’s custom’s and the U.S. has different customs.

 

First thought… Legalisms rears it’s ugly head!!

Secod thought… Lord give me the grace to answer respond to this in the best possible way without offending them further.

 

I started by apologizing to Pastor Desir. We had no idea and would have never done anything to offend them intentionally. I then told him about my growing up in a church where women were not allowed to wear pants, jewelry, make up or shirts that didn’t have 3/4 length sleeves. (this is just a partial list of all the DONT’s we had) It wasn’t until I was 18 that I started to break free from the traditions of man. I then explained that while we feel complete freedom in the Lord to wear what we were wearing, we will follow the example of Paul who said, to the Jew I became as a Jew etc…  We don’t want people not to receive the gospel that we are attempting to share, simply because of what we are wearing. As Missionaries and Christians, we are called to a life of sacrifice. This instance happens to be a sacrifice of our personal liberties, for the sake of the kingdom. If some people can be brought to the Lord and others faith stengthened because I gave up my right to wear capri’s then so be it. Our dialogue continued for over an hour and I left him with a promise to speak to the team.

 

My next thoughts went to how to apologize and explain this to the team. Quick prayers were going on as we were driving back to the base. AIM as an organization and I as a leader would never want to put a team in this situation. I had a bit more time with the Lord as our truck broke down on the way back. I sent the team with our co-leader to walk the few blocks to the base while I waited with the truck.

 

Our team took the news in stride. They immediately asked how we could make it better. Many of the girls only brought one skirt with them and they were concerned that we would offend them by wearing the same one each day. I told them to switch skirts among themselves and wear different tops! No one would know but us.

 

We were encouraged that no one from the church was rude or mean to us. They did not ask us to leave. They still engaged us and asked questions. We didn’t find out that they were even offended until the 2nd day. They went to their Pastor after we left to question him and he brought it to me as the leader when we returned. What an amazing display of grace and the love of God. When we returned for our afternoon VBS, (in our skirts,) one of the male church members said, look at your women, how beautiful they are!! The Pastor thanked me for making the change and all was well. So today, I sit in my sarong, preparing for ministry.

 

I was questioned about promoting legalism, do I want to do that? The answer of course is no. I DO want to promote Christ and for Him I will do whatever is necessary!