Djibot and Yaounde

I’ve had Jesus’s parable of the wheat and the weeds on the mind today. As you know, the point of the parable is that the church will be made up of both false Christians and true Christians, and it won’t be clear who truly belongs and who doesn’t until the very end. When wheat and the species of weed Jesus speaks of are young, they have so much in common that it is unwise to pull the weeds until they have matured.

I was wondering if the Baka church could be somewhat of a newly planted field as I sat in church this morning. Many of the attendees had the air of distilled spirits about them, especially the man who gave the message, who has been involved in the Baka Bible translation effort since it began many years ago. How can people who are true Christians stand up in large gatherings and denounce drunkenness and adultery (or enthusiastically agree with those who do) when everyone knows they are involved in these things themselves?

Jesus did say that whoever is not for him is against him, but he also said that whoever is not against him is for him. A greater mind than mine has said that while we look for true (“thick”) friends, we often find “thin” friends, those who will let us down when the going gets rough, as Peter denied Jesus, but then regret what they have done and become thick friends. We need to grant them space to fail and not confuse them with those like Judas, who will betray us and never repent.

In the same way, we have true enemies, and we want true allies, people with whom we agree on all important issues, to fight with us against them. However, those may be few and far between, so we may have the choice of fighting alone and losing or teaming up with “cobelligerents,” people with whom we have serious disagreements, to fight specific enemies. “If you can’t fight with the army you want, fight with the army you’ve got.”

The Baka church, those who gathered last week in Ndjibot, are a sorry lot. I hear the ghost of Casey Stengel wailing, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

But this is the army the Lord has called to fight the good fight among the Baka. The church is young, and it has been planted in difficult soil. The participants said many times during the closing ceremonies that they felt hindered by not having the Bible in their own language. When they could be doing other things, they come to an unimpressive building to hear the closest thing to a message from the Bible as is available. They sing the music that they have—however trite and superficial it sounds to our ears—with gusto, and some of the music they composed last week made real steps toward depth and variety.

And, of course, the American church is hemorrhaging members in part because it does not walk the talk. For that matter, the man in my mirror isn’t exactly Peter after Pentecost.

So as we have left and returned to Yaounde, we have been challenged to pray for the Baka believers and for those God has called to serve them, especially through Bible translation.

Tomorrow, we head in the opposite direction, to Edea near the coast, to work with the Esimbi, a comparatively wealthy and visibly discipled group. Torri, one of the interns, has been fighting a stomach bug, and Ginny’s energy tank has been getting low, so we welcome prayers for this second workshop.

Thank you for praying!