When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
In the last few years we have had the great joy and privilege of training and equipping people from around the world in making disciples. Teaching people who love Jesus but come from a vast variety of denominational backgrounds and cultures has forced us to not build our teaching on traditions, opinions and experiences, but to earnestly search the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth (as Jesus promised He would). This often brings up a lot of questions as people have to acknowledge denominational and cultural lenses through which they have been looking at the Bible and at making disciples.
“Taking off the glasses” has been challenging, threatening, scary, lonely, rewarding and freeing for many people we have trained (and for us). Often, a lot of questions come up and are discussed over many weeks and (usually) many meals. “But what about this incident, Bible verse, personal experience or commonly quoted saying…?” We love having these conversations.
Do you know which topic usually brings up most of those questions? Baptism.
In this episode of Disciplemaking Mama, Hanno and I discuss the most common (and most existential) ones.
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
When Jesus gave His disciples their last instructions while He was still physically on the earth, He told them to go into all the world making disciples and baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Why did He mention baptism so specifically? What’s the big deal about a bit of water?
In this episode my husband Hanno and I are looking at passages in the New Testament and sharing some of our own experiences as we unpack the gift that God makes us with baptism.
Featured music: “From Death to Life” by Christ our Life, from the Album “Living Sacrifice” that is available for free here
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
One of the odd experiences of the last year has been to follow the Corona virus around the world, traveling on it’s heals from Asia to Europe to Africa. Thus we observed people hamster buy, get used to masks, go into lockdown (and run out of toilet paper) three times.
I remember talking to a friend in Germany when they had just gone into lockdown, just as Japan was emerging from its ‘first wave’ and restrictions were easing.
“What an opportunity.”, I said. “To be part of a generation that is forced to a standstill in their early thirties.”
“Until now, we’ve been so focused on becoming, achieving, arriving. Many of us got into a rut, if not a rat race. Many of us don’t like our ‘every days’ but sacrifice them on the altar of a ‘one day…’ Many of us have molded ourselves pathways that we run daily, but have stopped reflecting whether we want to go where that path leads, let alone if we even want to be people who run.”
What if we used this current crisis, the standstill and isolation, and yes, even the frustration and fear, to think about how we truly want to live as followers of Jesus.
And what if making disciples, living in the kingdom, reality and family of God became a more integrated part of our ‘every days’ as a result?
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
Let’s keep things real around here… This is how I feel around technology, I just want to pull my blanket over my head! Well, your unlikely podcaster has an announcement for you 😉
Oh friends, something went funny with the podcast and there seem to be two Disciplemaking Mama Podcasts out there: one has all the old episodes that I published last year, one only has the new episodes that I did this year. Sorry for the confusion!
Not quite sure what went wrong, not quite sure how to fix it, BUT:
All episodes can now be found under the following link:
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
As I’m embarking on another season of the Disciplemaking Mama podcast, passing on more principles and practicalities about disciplemaking as a Mama, it’s really important for me that you know where I’m coming from.
So, this is Anne from the past: This 👆episode summarises my ❤️
I’m pretty sure that Fuuka’s temperament is that of a sanguine. Reading the description of that particular temperament feels like Tim LaHaye spent a day with Fuuka and tried to describe her afterwards: “Sparky Sanguine is warm, buoyant, lively and fun-loving.”, “Sparky sanguine has an unusual capacity to enjoy herself” or: “When (she) comes into a room of people she has a tendency of lifting the spirits of everyone present by her exuberance.”
Ayumu, on the other hand, seems to be a choleric. “Rocky Choleric is the hot, quick, active, practical and strong-willed temperament. He is often self-sufficient and very independent. His is not an aimless activity, for he has a practical, keen mind, capable of making sound, instant decisions or planning worthwhile, long-range projects. He is not frightened by adversities; in fact, they tend to encourage him.”
Add Flip Phlegmatic (Hanno) and Maestro Melancholy (that would be me) to the mix and you’ve got an exciting mix brewing! (Little Nanya hasn’t done the personality test yet :-P)
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not trying to put my kids in boxes and I know it’s early days. But reading Tim LaHayes famous book “Spirit-Controlled Temperament” got me thinking a lot about raising my kids and discipling young believers.
Because, as I disciple both my kids and people outside my own family, I find myself in a tension between two statements that I consider true:
1. We are all called to obey the same Lord, the same Holy Spirit and the same Bible. There are no exceptions based on personality, history or circumstances. 2. We are all different.
Holding those two realities in tension is honestly one of the big challenges of motherhood for me! What am I supposed to do when I call “fun-loving” Fuuka to come to me (“RIGHT NOW!”) and she turns it into a “fun” game of running away from Mama? What do I do when Ayumu pushes a kernel of corn higher and higher into his nose because he “is not frightened by adversities; in fact, they tend to encourage him” (okay, this one is easy. And it happened a few days ago…)? And what do I do when sparky Sanguine in her “unusual capacity to enjoy herself” destroys rocky Choleric’s “worthwhile, long-range project” of LEGO towers?
And as I disciple young believers, how do I evade the temptation of making them cookie-cutter Christians who might rebel one day against biblical commands that their unique temperament finds stifling? How do I not yield to the other extreme of license and permissiveness, excused by “that’s just how I am”?
I find LaHaye’s differentiation between temperament, personality and character very useful in this regard. To find out why, listen to the podcast 😉
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim His Kingdom He sent them "as sheep among wolves". He is still sending His disciples in the same way today. In this episode, we look at Jesus' promises OF persecution and FOR those who are experiencing persecution as they are His witnesses.
A lot has happened since I published my last podcast episode: we moved continents – twice! We had another baby. We started renting a new house. Hanno started working a new job. My role has become even more one of a stay-at-home mama. There is a lot to learn about making disciples in this new context!
After a few weeks of praying whether I should continue doing the podcast, I felt the Lord give me the go ahead a few days ago. I (and we, because as you know, I like to have Hanno on for the more “teachy” and “meaty” episodes ;-)) will continue sharing about things we’ve learned and experienced in the last years while being missionaries in Japan. But I’ll also take you along as we learn more about being disciplemakers without the title of “missionary” (which, I think, is the reality of most people listening to the podcast). There are new opportunities and limitations that come with working a fulltime-job, less time thanks to more kids and new dynamics in a multicultural and more christianised culture.
In other words: welcome, join us as we unpack the boxes we brought along and figure out life here…
I do not come from a culture where we speak about personal birth stories a lot and a part of me feels very odd to talk about such an intimate topic so publicly. But before and during my pregnancy I have been greatly helped by other Christian women who humbly shared their unique experiences of child birth and thus built a mosaic of an idea what childbirth with Jesus can be. That helped me overcome a lot of fear in this area and I am very thankful to them.
While I had a homebirth (which meant 1-on1-care by my midwife who I knew and trusted, but no possibility of medical pain relief or other interventions), I am not out to promote or condemn any specific way of giving birth. All I hope is that my experience might help someone else to not fear the work of childbirth, but to experience our good God in it.
Leadup The morning of November 3 felt as heavy as the gray sky outside. I felt sad and somehow heavy with many thoughts and worries, but besides the practice contractions that I’d be having the last few nights I didn’t feel any physical signs that Nanya was on the way. After breakfast, Hanno said: “Why don’t you take some time with Jesus?” Amazingly, he decided to take off work for the morning, take care of the kids and give me some time on my own. I prayed and cried and felt relieved in my heart and spirit.
My brother invited us for lunch and interestingly, he asked me if I was afraid of the birth. “I’m not sure if you’re supposed to ask that.”, he added. He was the first person to ask me this kind of question. I’m not sure, why, but we seem to shy away from giving the space to speak about fears related to child birth, making them a hidden, lonely and kind of shameful thing (I haven’t asked any mom-to-be such a question either! But I will now 😉). Maybe we are afraid to not be able to handle the raw emotion of fear, to not have answers. Anyways, I appreciated his question and shared that I was nervous, both about the unknown and known aspects of birth, but also that I was determined to not come into a spirit of fear, but to trust that God had given me a spirit of power, love and a sound mind.
“We have been thinking about a passage in 1 Peter lately.”, Hanno added. Honestly, I had forgotten about that. But since he had reminded me, I listened to the passage of the audio Bible as I lay down to take a nap with the two older kids.
“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. 1 Peter 3:3-6
As I had prayed about the birth, the word “gentleness” had come to me, and here it was again: a gentle and quiet spirit. I did not want to panic, to get angry, to drown in the situation. I asked the Lord for a gentle and quiet spirit that would not fear anything that is frightening. “I will gently instruct you.”, is what I sensed the Lord say in response.
Opening phase I woke up around 1:30 with contractions, but thought that they were practise contractions again. After a while, I didn’t feel comfortable lying anymore and got up. Just then Fuuka woke up and came over to our room. I caught her just before she could wake Hanno up (I thought he’d need all the sleep he could get, anticipating many hours of labour since this was my first birth). I cuddled into bed with Fuuka, who was sharing a double bed with Ayumu at that time, so he was lying against my back like a hot water bottle, which felt very good. Being with the kids helped me to stay calm. I dozed off between contractions, listening to Bible verses about birth and about not being afraid and felt very peaceful.
Around 5am I went to the bathroom and saw that I was bleeding slightly. Only then did I start realising that this was really it: I was going to have a baby! I woke Hanno up and called my mom who would take care of Fuuka and Ayumu. At first, we arranged that the kids would go up to her around 8am, but already at 7am I told Hanno that I needed the kids out of the house. The contractions were coming every 5 minutes and I started to have to concentrate on my breathing to get through them well.
Call the midwife I called the midwife just after calling my mom and we arranged that I would call her again as soon as I felt that I couldn’t manage on my own anymore and wanted her to come. In the meantime I laboured in the bath tub and while walking around in the apartment (allowing gravity and movement to help get baby out) and listened to worship music (one specific calm worship album, over and over again). I had to breath through the contractions with great concentration, but to my surprise I could say with each contraction: “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for this contraction and the work it’s doing to get my baby out.” In fact, there were only 2 or 3 contractions during the whole time of labouring in which I did not feel this deep gratitude for what God was doing in my body.
Mental and physical work During my pregnancy I had tried to both understand the practical/biological side of birth and God’s intention and heart for birth. I was amazed as I learned about the interplay of different hormones that God had created to ease and bring along the birthing process. The undergirding force of productive labour is relaxation, I learned, a peaceful mother. If the mother is relaxed in body, mind and heart, the hormone oxytocin can flow, which not only brings about strong contractions that move the baby out of the mother’s body into the world, but also endorphins, that function as a natural pain killer. Is the mother stressed, fearful and tense, however, Oxytocin cannot be released and the contractions lack power, which leads to longer labour and more stress, fear and tenseness. This was new for me: strong contractions were not my enemy, but my friend. Naturally, I would have wanted to avoid the pain of a strong contraction. But now I learned that P.A.I.N. in labour was productive.anticipated.intermittent.normal. My association with pain began to change with regards to labour. I learned that pain did not have to equal suffering, but could equal good work. Now, I could “receive” the pain of the contractions. And truly, as labour began to intensify, I could cling to this and it helped me to breathe through the contractions: “Contraction begins – breathe in, breathe out – thank you Jesus – breathe – thank you for the work that this contraction is doing – breathe – contraction subsides – thank you Jesus.” And just to clarify: this was not just some mental trick, I was surprised myself how I was flooded with gratitude and peace.
Around 9am the midwife called me. How was I feeling, was I managing? I told her that I thought I was still doing okay on my own, but since I had 2 contractions in our 4 minute phone call she interrupted me and said: “I’m coming, Anne!”
I had only met my midwife 8 weeks ago, when we had come to Germany. Our original plan had been to give birth in South Africa, where we were moving after having lived in Japan for five years. But due to Covid 19, our plans had changed several times, with the final outcome of having our baby in Germany. Throughout my pregnancy, I had had a strange experience: whenever the word ‘Israel’ was mentioned, the Holy Spirit seemed to nudge me and say: “This is related to the baby.” I almost dismissed it, because, seriously, as a Christian you hear the word ‘Israel’a lot and I could not imagine what it could have to do with my baby. But as I contacted various midwifes and hospitals in Germany, they always had some reason why the birth could not happen with them. All except for a certain Mrs Israel! This experience gave me a lot of confidence and peace that God was setting up the way this birth would take place.
Baby comes! The midwife arrived and immediately my contractions intensified. I was kneeling on the couch at that stage, feeling quite nauseous and having back pain, but still feeling so peaceful and calm. She explained that the nausea was a result of the pain and asked Hanno to give me some Coke. She also showed him to massage my lower back with oil that she had brought – it was so good! “Baby’s head is pressing against your back.”, she explained. Being given explanations for what I was feeling helped me to relax and to “accept” the sensations I was experiencing.
After a while of enjoying the massage, I decided to go into the bathtub again. The midwife told me where Nanya was and showed me how to turn to help her along. When I turned on my right side, labour intensified immediately. I was getting louder with each contraction (it helped me a lot!) and for a brief moment I thought: “I don’t want this anymore.” But I also felt that the contractions were having an effect and that Nanya was working her way out quickly. Was this the transitioning period already? Again, knowledge helped me to stay calm. Having learned that most women want to run away and give up in the transitioning phase, but that this means that baby’s arrival is imminent, made me feel an ironic mixture of “I want to run away now and have this stop!” and “Bring on the next contraction because I know this means baby is almost here!”.
Soon, my body started to press. I did not make any conscious decision about it, just felt my body start squeezing. My midwife checked Nanya’s heart rate regularly, but other than that she just allowed me to do my work. Most of the time, she sat on the floor outside the open bathroom door, allowing Hanno to be next to me in the narrow space next to the bathtub, only giving little snippets of advice here and there: “Try to groan deeply when the contractions come, that will help you to give all your strength to the work of the contraction… During the contraction, breathe deeply into the area where you feel your baby…”
And then I saw her put on her gloves. “Anne, I’ve called the second midwife, the baby will be here soon.” I was relieved and excited. The arrangement was that the second midwife would come when Nanya’s arrival was imminent, to assist with the actual birth and then take care of the baby while “my” midwife looked after me. It would take her about 15-20 minutes to drive here, did that mean Nanya was going to be born so soon? I couldn’t wonder much longer, because my body urged me to press again.
As I had searched Scripture about God’s heart and intentions for birth, I had learned that giving birth was not a curse or punishment for a follower of Jesus, but that Jesus had carried any suffering and fear on the cross for me. This knowledge gave me great peace during my labour and almost felt like an anesthetic that took the edge of the pain of the contractions. It was intense work, but I was not suffering, despairing or overcome by pain. In reading about child birth in the Bible, I had also come across this verse in Exodus, referring to the Hebrew women in Egypt: “They are vigorous and give birth before the midwife arrives.” I had not thought about this much, but the night before Hanno and I had watched a documentary about the Exodus and somehow this verse came to mind again.
“You have to change your position now, the baby is coming!” It was only five minutes after my midwife had called for her colleague, but now she was very firm and concentrated. Hanno had to step back, as she helped me squat in the bathtub. “I can feel her head.” Another contraction came and I felt like being pulled up in an upright position. Later I realised that I had instinctively made space for the baby to come out. The head was born with a few more contractions and then the whole baby was there! “Anne! You did it!” Hanno exclaimed and I struggled to believe what had just happened. The midwife helped me lie back in the bathtub, put Nanya on my chest and finally I could sigh: “Hallelujah!”
After the cord was cut and the placenta was born, the second midwife arrived…
Nanya and I were transported to the couch where she started latching and had her first checkup. I was stitched up a little, got something to eat (which I had not felt like at all during the whole process and definitely needed after a brief moment of fainting as the adrenaline went down and I tried to get up!). It was 9 hours after labour had begun and it was truly perfect timing for me: had the birth gone any faster, I think I might have panicked a little. But I also never reached a point of exhaustion or of feeling that everything was getting too much.
After the midwifes were gone, Hanno and I were brought some dinner by my parents and even had a little date night, Nanya contendely asleep on my chest. And then, Nanya met her siblings, who immediately seemed to know that this little one belonged to us now.
I know, this is a loooong description… But as I am writing and reliving that day, I am again so thankful! God is truly good, He helps us in our time of need, He is close in our pain and takes away our fear. Hallelujah, indeed!
“I want to study the religions of the world – one day.”
Her brown eyes dove into mine with warmth and gentleness, but the way she pushed forward a row of teeth in a poised smile built a courteous separation between us. Her smile stood between us like a polite picked fence. We had a nice chat as I passed by, I caught a glimpse of what she had made the inside of her space to look like, but I was not invited in to sit down and stay a while.
We often meet in the passing and have become quite well acquainted over the last months. We speak about art and education, about children and social issues, things that interest us and passionately push our blood into our cheeks. We speak about bullying, depression and therapy, about the importance of freedom to express feelings and faintheartedness and we agree about the importance of creating spaces in which this freedom is found. But as soon as I mention the person in Who this freedom is found, in relation to Whom healing and identity, purpose and direction are found, we lose each other.
I told her about the women I met who experienced horrid abuse and death-wooing depression and who found that Jesus listened to them and spoke liberty and regeneration into them in a very real and tangible way. But my words fell to the ground like a glance over a crowded room that doesn´t meet the eyes of the one you were trying to connect with.
So here we were again, waiting for a concert to begin and whispering into the humming of the singers warming up their voices. The concert was taking place in a little church so I had asked her whether she had been visiting any churches on her extensive overseas travels. She replied with a smile and a simple yes, fixing her eyes on the singers coming on the stage.
“I want to study the religions of the world – one day.”, she continued, leaning back and trying to make herself comfortable on the hard bench.
Suddenly, just as the singers were arranging their sheets of music, she leaned forward to me. The picket fence smile was gone. “I want to study the world´s religions one day, to know what will happen with me when I die.” A split second later the smile was back in place. “But at the moment I am too busy for that.” She shifted back into her comfortable position and the music began.
I sat through the concert, a thousand replies swirling through my mind. Half way through the recital she looked on her watch and excused herself. She had another appointment waiting.
She had brought a friend of hers, a gentleman who had been diagnosed with cancer. A friend who would have to begin thinking about “what happens when you die”…
Sensitised, I began hearing the stories everywhere.
My good friend`s father had not wanted to live with Jesus all his live, but a month before his death he told his family that he believed what the Bible said about God and got baptised.
A while ago I visited a dear elderly lady in hospital. Cancer had eaten her body down to a frail frame that was hardly visible under the blanket. Shortly before that the doctors had told her hopes were slim to ever leave hospital again. In that time she had agreed to pray to Jesus with a friend of mine, asking him for forgiveness and new life with Him.
Another friend told me about an acquaintance`s mother having passed away a few days ago. She had gotten baptized a day before she died.
As I listened to account after account I got more and more confused. I wanted to be happy about these lost sheep having been found just in time. But…wouldn`t there be so much more reason to rejoice if the lost sheep hadn`t come home just before he died? Of course, its wonderful to die with peace and hope. But wouldn`t a LIFE of peace and hope have been so much more of a wonder?
How did becoming a follower of Jesus become a comforting pill to quickly swallow when faced with your own death? Why do Truth and God – and the One who said to be both – only seem to become relevant when life is about to be over?
///
Hanno and I sat at the river, catching the last bit of sun before the forest that reflected in the steady stream would turn yellow and red, and then brown and barren. The wind was already filled with a cold sharpness. It was a Sunday afternoon and before the week of language and culture study began again, we had been talking about raising children in the cultural intersection of Africa, Europe and Asia, about discipling well in a world of agnosticism and religious allegiance to science founded on an atheistic worldview – and about our own experiences of having to research thoroughly, think well and jump trustingly in order for our faith to grow up into a solid and well-based reality in which we now live.
We chewed through the Christian thinker Nancy Pearcey`s observations who seemed to give words to our thoughts:
When faith is not considered to have any relation to facts, when belief is split from our everyday business and when our religion is not experienced as providing any explanation and purpose to our reality – then we are right there, caught in the sacred secular split. Then Jesus becomes a comforting thought to die with, but loses His power as Lord to live with.
I get it – it can be uncomfortable to actually live as if we really believed what we profess, all the time, not only in church and around our Christian friends.
I also feel odd at times when I speak about an experience with God upon being asked why we moved to Japan or why I chose my profession or why I don´t want to buy mass produced meat or t-shirts from children in Vietnam. And those are the easy things, no one thinks that beef on antibiotics and child labour are great achievements of modern society, and social protocol allows me to base my personal choices of life and work on whatever I want.
But what if I actually stand up and tell you that I do believe in absolute truth and that He is called Jesus Christ, that He created the world and that He is the only way to a full and forgiven life with God? What if I put my trust in the reality of God and not in the reputation of an insurance company? What if I think God has an opinion about poverty and labour laws, social justice and refugees, sex and birth control, fast food and cell phones – and what if I try to act upon that opinion? What if I believe that God was creatively involved when it came to the development of the Japanese language which I spend most of my day studying at the moment, and that I can ask Him to make grammatical structures clear to me?
I lie in bed and struggle to sleep, so I plug my ear phones in my phone and listen to a sermon about the prayers of Nehemiah. “I love this man Nehemiah”, the preacher explains, “because his prayer didn´t take him into the clouds, it kept his feet firmly on the ground. This man was a sensible, practical man.”
Nehemiah was a Jew in exile when he heard that the wall of Jerusalem was destroyed. This affected him so deeply that he tearfully prayed – for months. And then he made very pragmatic arrangements for the wall to be rebuilt. “This a lovely combination: the men who can pray and work, the men who can lift holy hands unto heaven and the men who can take a trowel in their hands and do a bit of brick laying. And that was true of Nehemiah: he was a lovely combination of heaven and earth.”
I listen up – no thought of sleeping anymore. There was no sacred secular split in Nehemiah´s life! And what positive change did he drive, both from a practical and spiritual point of view.
“It is sometimes said of saints that they are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use. Some (people) are so earthly minded they are of no heavenly use – and God needs men of both. After all God made the heaven and the earth and he wants us to be equally useful in both.”
After all, God made both the heaven and the earth and He wants us to be equally useful in both…
No separation. What if that were true of us, if all we did and thought was with and for and about God, whether we close our eyes in prayer or fix them on a screen, whether we do preaching or computer programming, whether we attend a service or do shopping, whether we speak about the weather or the Gospel?
To the edge of the Earth 