Dials January 2010

January 22, 2010

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:7-8)

Dear Faithful Prayer Partners,

There are times (a lot of times) when I wish I were smarter, wiser, even more cunning, and today is one of those times. I awoke this morning and as is my habit after the ablution, fetched my first cup of coffee and sat down to the early addition of CNN International … Haiti, earthquake, destruction, death, despair, everyone everywhere mobilizing to make a bad situation better.

Collective cheers when someone is pulled from the ruble alive, collective tears when we see the outline of a child’s body under plastic or in the arms of a distraught parent. Today is day nine of this terrible saga and each moment brings various news agencies to battle as they bring you the latest in gore and grizzle. This morning as a CNN team raced (?) through downtown Port Au Prince chasing down a rumor; they were bested by another team from the same outfit to reach this news worthy item, someone shot in the streets … the gorier the better, bodies in the street rotting in the hot Caribbean sun bested only by the police shooting a suspected looter.

The world has discovered Haiti in the aftermath of an earthquake. … Newsflash! … Haiti has been there all along, and the conditions weren’t much better then than they are now … earthquake notwithstanding. People have been dying in the streets of Haiti for years; of starvation, crime, ignorance and disbelief. Haiti has been the evil one’s personal playground since, well, since it became Haiti. Corruption, graft, greed, poverty … a litany of crimes against humanity. Haitians have been trying to escape Haiti in droves for years. Trying to escape in waterlogged, overloaded wooden boats, making for the coast of America, bailing for all that they were worth, a battle against time and tide, humanity lying on the sandy bottom of the straits of Florida.

Hey folks, earthquakes are terrible, but terrible is nothing new in Haiti. … One wonders, if the world had responded (in mass) earlier to the problems of Haiti, would there have been the terrible problems we face today. Would half the money contributed today spent a few years ago, built a earthquake proof infrastructure, subdued a ravaging HIV/AIDs problem, quenched a desiccated population, provided for countless orphans? We Southern Baptists have been battling in Haiti for years, missionaries and volunteer teams digging wells, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, treating the sick. …

Battling in the devils back yard along with a few world governments, secular NGO’s and other faith based Non-Governmental Agencies and Great Commission churches, trying to provide living water along with water to satisfy physical thirst. Well, now we are faced with the reality of earthquake and famine courtesy of all the major media and everyone’s conscience is tweaked to action.

News flash! There are a hundreds of Haiti’s in the world. The Basotho People of Lesotho and South Africa are only a tremor away from being a Haiti, a drought away from starvation, one more despot away from anarchy. Maybe it’s better to wait for the fire before we look for the extinguisher, the flood before we plan an escape route.

If I were wiser, I might even believe that an earthquake could be the best thing that ever happened to Haiti. Hard to think like that if I were a parent carrying my child’s remains down a dusty rock strewn street, or searching for my wife in the ruble of a collapsed building. There are hundreds of countries like Haiti needing The One True Savior, The Prince of Peace, The Living Water, The Bread of Life. … The world doesn’t know it but all the aid in the world won’t help if they don’t know Jesus and all the collective conscience of humanism will only prolong the inevitable.

Some will survive today to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ tomorrow. … Hallelujah! For others it is too late… Shame on us! Last year we faced a short fall in contributions to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering … money that puts and keeps missionaries on the field. Hey, times are tough, money is tight and one needs to think frugally…right? Because of that, many called by God to go to the Haiti’s of the world remain at home, some on the field might not be renewed.

One wonders, if the pre-emptive expenditure of our dollars to place missionary families in all the Haiti’s of the world would not be better than the race to reach those lost after a prophetic truth becomes a present reality. In other words, … isn’t it better to be there before the quake, on-scene with the Gospel, in obedience to the Great Commission? I pray that those lost in the earthquake had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and knew Him as their Savior.

Today, I wish I was smarter, wiser, maybe even more cunning! Could I read the prophecy from God’s word and make a decision that would reach people before it was too late? Maybe I could understand the Great Commission was written to and for me and respond in obedience before time was no more. I am thankful that our world answers the cries of a people suffering … but, Haiti has been crying for a long long time.

Please join us in prayer:

For those who do not know the life giving Savior.

For those that suffer and wait.

For every child that goes to bed hungry, for the grief of the parent as they watch their child starve.

For those that live in fear.

For those that seek, that someone will tell them about Jesus.

For Chief Sekonyela who is very ill.

Please join us in Thanksgiving:

For those of you that sacrifice for the cause of carrying the message of salvation to the nations.

For our son Mohau…who asked Jesus to be his personal savior.

For our son Daniel…who led his brother to Jesus.

For those that answer the call…to pray, to know, to give, to go.

For our leadership.

Thank you for loving us, and allowing us to love you.

In His Name, Alan, Babs, Mohau and Daniel Dial

Lesotho and the Republic of South Africa K² Cluster