can i trust a god without wrath?

After 3 ½ weeks living in the bush, there is a lot to process.

It was a scary step for me to go out alone (with only one friend and translator, Lloyd Kaputula) to the remote village of Kangwali. I felt very intimidated. The step seemed a little too far, too lonely, and too scary. We had no food or provisions except to get there. Just as I left, Stephanie said, “ ‘Do not be worried about what you will eat, and what you will wear…’ a little life application, yeah?”
But in those moments I can lose sight of God’s faithfulness. I forget how good and trustworthy He really is. I would rather not put myself in a place of complete dependence, relinquishing all of my control. Honestly, whatever I may say, I often prefer control, power, and independence instead of trust in God.

“Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece.” Luke 9:3

While we did have bags with our sleeping gear and a change of clothes, it still felt like such a risk! But God is more than faithful.
Lloyd and I were received in every village we went to. People asked us to stay with them and begged us to return. Everywhere we went people wanted to hear about God, Jesus, and the Bible. We were always offered food (whole fish and nshima for 3 ½ weeks!) and given heated water to bucket-bathe (I bathed more often in the bush than I do in the States!). And, neither Lloyd nor I felt the least amount of sickness our entire 3 ½ weeks in the bush while eating only what was given to us.

While I could just talk about only the many positives of our time in Kangwali and surrounding villages, there was some difficulty that I’m still trying to digest. I wonder how Jesus would respond to the men, the patriarchal society, and the exploitation of women in the region.

These villages have heard about God’s love for people prior to our arrival there. Unfortunately, that is all that was heard. They know of “God’s grace” without ever believing that sin exists, feeling convicted of their selfishness, or changing their lifestyles to truly follow Jesus.
While I am one of the last people to ever emphasize God’s wrath (love and not fear should be our motivation!), my entire view of the necessity of God’s patience and wrath in the Old Testament has been changing. Truly, the law “has become our tutor to lead us to Christ.” (Gal. 3:24)

Men in these villages live lazy lives of drunkenness where they build a house (a one-time endeavor), let their cattle in and out of their fences, and go on fishing trips. In reality, their fishing trips often mean they are going to other villages to commit adultery or visit other “wives” and children. This is not even hidden. Their exploitation of all the women is just the way things are. And it’s disgusting.
Women are left to take care of children, weave baskets and mats, go fishing with baskets, work in the fields to plant and harvest corn and cassava, grind corn and cassava into nshima, cook, clean, and prepare water for drinking or bathing. The women don’t need the men except for protection and maybe some slight additional provision if they have a good one. If they don’t, they may be beaten to death by their husband or another man as just happened last week (not where I was staying in Kangwali but in another village).

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." ~Richard Niebuhr

The truth is that most men in those regions did not want to follow Jesus when they realized that their lives must change. They have an alternative “gospel” that tells them that God loves them as they are if they pray one prayer or are baptized once, and they can continue leading lives of drunkenness and adultery.

They love their sin.
Still, God did so much in many lives. Many women found so much more freedom and hope that God is not like the god that they have learned about: a god who is distant, uncaring, and who honors hypocritical words. And, many men seemed to truly grasp how much sin is like a disease in our lives. We want to do evil. They also seemed to begin to understand (yet most were hesitant to follow) that God isn’t interested in just letting criminals off the hook by praying a prayer, but He is interested in changing the heart of the criminal by healing that sin disease in each of us.

Honestly, the ways God moved seemed to overshadow the disappointment. So much good happened in Kangwali and the surrounding villages!

• Swinging kids around, tossing them in the air, Lloyd’s magnetic smile, and all his songs seemed to generate much more genuine joy and laughter than the villages are used to experiencing.
• Women asked how to prevent stomach illnesses in their kids and we showed them how we were boiling our water the past 3 weeks. We explained that boiling water, especially for the youngest and most vulnerable kids, can prevent so many of the common stomach illnesses due to dirty drinking water.
• While living in the villages we built two latrines from local materials and explained how latrines prevent contamination of their drinking water and the spread of disease.
• Young, single women took it to heart that there are other better ways to generate income than making alcohol from maize and selling it to the men (though women are partially complicit with the perpetual drunkenness, even most sober men don't actually help them). They began fishing with baskets more frequently so that they could produce a small income for needs such as soap and clothing.
  
• The Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection to heal us of our sin disease has taken hold in many lives in Kangwali, Mashili, Nyalenga, Lucombo, Zambo, Kapeji, Kusembi, and many other villages along the Lungwevungu and Kashiji Rivers. The seriousness of their conviction to follow Jesus was evident in many questions, comments, and lives as we stayed in the region.
• Costa, a few other inconsistent men, and many women came to our daily discipleship teachings to learn how to live out their desire to love and follow Christ through their love and service of those around them in their villages.
  

So, mission accomplished! Costa returned here to go to Bible School for 4 weeks in Mongu with the Zambia Project before he will return to Kangwali. There is a faithful core group of men and mostly women who will remain under Costa’s leadership. The gospel was heard by hundreds of people who have never before had the chance to hear, so pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to work through the seeds of conviction and hope that were planted these last weeks!

Thanks so much for your prayers for safety and God’s grace!