Dangerous Love

by Ray Norman

  This experience, and many similar ones that followed in the ensuing years, instilled in me at a young age that all was not well in this world. I was certainly struck by how good my lot in life was compared to many around me, but it was also at this early age that I first remember notions of service and vocational calling tumbling around in my head and heart—and the birth of a desire to do something with my life that would help make the world a little better place for those such as that woman and her tiny infant.

  After returning to the States around the age of fifteen, I experienced the typical challenges of disillusionment and isolation felt by most “third culture kids.” I had spent my developmental years largely outside the culture of my parents and was adept at crafting relationships in most cultural milieus. But I never fully owned any one culture, including those of my parents. I recoiled at the confines of suburban American life and longed for the freedom of the open savanna plains and tropical forests of my earlier youth, as well as the relative simplicity of life and relationships in rural Africa. I did not fit in with my American peers, and to me their outlooks seemed shallow, short-sighted, and dominated by ethnocentric and materialistic notions.

  What surprised and confused me more was that the same shallow and self-focused outlook on one’s purpose in life seemed to also pervade some of those who populated the churches we associated with; any claim God had on their lives may have included certain duties on Sunday and an occasional pull on their purses and bill-folds, but I was often surprised when I encountered church people who seemed to possess little notion of sacrifice and laying oneself down for the sake of others. In some of the churches we intersected with—many of them housed in magnificent edifices—coming together seemed to be more of a social event than a gathering of people who sought to encounter the God they served. This was all new and foreign to me, as much of my church experience to this point had been humble and sincere gatherings under a village shade tree. What little I knew of Scripture and what I saw in many American churches did not add up, and I passed through a season in which I was disillusioned and bitter. With time, however, I was able to stop mourning the past. I found that simply focusing on the potential of the future resulted in brighter mornings and increasingly more hope-filled days.

  By my late teens I had begun to wrestle with the claim God had on my own life, an exercise replete with thorny issues and considerably more discomforting than sorting out his claim on my Christian compatriots. A clearer sense of calling to work among the poor and unreached began to form in my own heart. I wanted to lay down my life in service to those in need, but I was still uncomfortable with the idea of stepping completely out of my comfort zone. More specifically, I had dreams of perhaps pursuing theological studies and then spending my years of service in a wild, beautiful setting with just a few creature comforts. After completing a day of good works, my evening would be spent watching herds of passing wildebeests silhouetted by the dazzling African sunset and framed by surrounding mountains. I never imagined myself in a blazing hot and dusty corner of some remote desert outpost.

  This was my alabaster jar of sorts, something I knew I would eventually have to break to let the contents flow out, hopefully somewhere near the foot of the cross. Moreover, I wrestled not only with what I might have to give up but also with what I knew I lacked. Having been raised in Africa by missionary parents, I had some understanding of the cost of such a commitment. I had watched them live through the challenges of loneliness, isolation, exhaustion, disease, and civil war; and I knew that obedience to God’s call, while deeply satisfying, could also be costly. But I also knew that to effectively touch the lives of those you are called to serve, you have to possess a genuine love. I wanted to serve him anywhere and with any people he might lead me to, but I also knew that many of the most unreached, broken, and hurting communities in our world are found among people who follow Islam—this was especially true for those parts of the world I had been privileged to be acquainted with up to this time in my life. Yet in spite of their overwhelming physical needs, I had little attraction to Muslim people, much less any real love. And this was my dilemma: I wanted to serve him in the neediest parts of the world, but how can you serve a people when you are deficient in the very thing that provides strength in your weakness and brings life to your service? So it was here that my journey truly began. I had genuinely counted the cost and told God I would serve him wherever he led. I could probably manage to pour out the contents of my alabaster jar, but he would have to work a love into my heart that was not my own.

  As college days loomed on the horizon, I had a strong personal interest and thirst to know Scripture better, and I seriously contemplated theological studies, as many young people who want to serve abroad do these days. But having grown up with the poor, I knew what kept them awake at night were the hunger-induced wails of their children, not the condition of their souls—and that Scripture is better lived out than taught, at least initially. So, pouring a little bit more of my dreams out of that alabaster jar, I set my intellectual sights elsewhere and soon found myself captivated by studies in agriculture and water resources engineering—a source of skills that would open wonderful doors of opportunity to both learn and serve in the years ahead. A few years later I found myself in the Niger Republic, situated in the dry Sahel region of West Africa and at that time the poorest country in the world, studying irrigation systems and collecting water data for my doctoral thesis.

  It was there that I met my future wife and life partner, Hélène, a petite European of French nationality and a short-term missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). (SIM was originally founded as a missions agency to work among people in the tropical savanna region of West Africa. Today it works around the world as the International Mission Society while still retaining the acronym SIM.) I was living alone in a small town some nine hours out of the capital city, Niamey, and made the long, dusty drive in for supplies every few weeks. On one of these trips to Niamey I got caught in midday traffic, stuck in the stifling heat between a donkey cart and a broken-down truck. Hot, frustrated, and dreaming of finding a cool spot somewhere for a siesta, I heard a moped (a small, motorized bike) come puttering up from behind. Forcing myself out of a heat-induced daze, I watched in utter amazement as the moped’s owner gingerly wove in and out of the traffic and the sea of pedestrians, passed my jeep, and wound on past the traffic jam. A helmet and clothing were all I could see of the driver at first—that and a pair of well-tanned Caucasian legs sticking out from under a modest skirt and perched on the moped so as to avoid the spewing hot motor oil and the filth of the streets.

  Perhaps I had spent too many days in the desert sun, but as she waved at me before disappearing around the broken truck in front of me in a puff of dust, I found myself wheeling the little jeep out of the line of traffic, parting the pedestrians rushing to the local marketplace, and traversing the front courtyards of a few road-side stores to give pursuit. I had recognized her as someone I had encountered all too briefly at a small church meeting in the city some weeks before but really knew little about her except that she avoided the expatriate crowd, preferring the company of Nigeriens. I had no idea where she was headed, but when I pulled up behind her at the front gate of her home, she was obviously perplexed and a little cautious to find that a relative stranger had followed her there. I was clearly off to a rocky start, but in the months that followed, the more I learned of her, the more I was drawn to her. Being the reasonable person she was, she was doubtful at first; but after many exchanged letters, a few expensive phone calls, and four agonizingly slow months, we became engaged.

  Hélène, the daughter of a French father and an English mother, was raised in France and studied in England and Germany. While studying in Heidelberg, Germany, she became friends with a young woman involved with an evangelical pietist community who lovingly and gently introduced Hélène to Christ. Before leaving Germany, she was asked to assist as an English-German translator at a major missions conferenc
e in Switzerland, and while she listened to reports from around the world, a love for nations and peoples beyond her own familiar European communities grew in her heart. Returning to London to finish her course of studies, she spent a year working for the British and Foreign Bible Society before joining SIM as a one-year volunteer to Niger.

  Hélène had suffered through periods of deep pain and brokenness in some of her childhood and teenage years—experiences with which I was largely unfamiliar. But I soon learned that those who have traversed such valleys in their lives have a unique ability to distinguish between the things in life that are truly important and the things that are not. In the years ahead, her discernment played an important role in shaping her life and our family’s, as well as the choices we made at important intersections in our lives.

  In 1985 we were married in Niamey at a simple service in the home of friends. The small wedding was attended by a few of our American, European, and Nigerian acquaintances. I remember how privileged I felt when one of our street friends (a crippled beggar) came crawling in on all fours, greeted us with a big, toothy grin, and happily climbed into one of the guest chairs just as the wedding march was being forced out of the portable (and expiring) electric organ. At the reception that followed, wedding guests were served rice with local stew and their choice of a lukewarm soft drink. It was the grandest wedding I have ever attended. Three days later we loaded the small jeep with our meager belongings, and with our hearts fixed on David’s words from Psalm 57:9–10, we turned out of town toward the desert and headed down the long dusty road to our future: “I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love . . .”

  For the next fifteen years my wife and I were planted among Muslim communities in Africa and the Middle East, usually working among the poor. After six years in Niger, our journey took us to the Sultanate of Oman, Côte d’Ivoire, and Egypt before we landed in Mauritania. Our experiences in each country and with each people shaped us in unique ways. Overall, there was a gradual but major shift in the way we understood those we hoped to serve. But parallel to this was an equally important, and perhaps more necessary, shift in the way we understood ourselves—as God slowly peeled away layers of cultural ignorance, spiritual arrogance, and prejudice in our lives that hindered the ready flow of Christ’s passion for all peoples.

  Our journey, especially in the early years, was full of soul-searching lessons as we tried to reach across the cultural divides we encountered. As with others who come out of the enclaves of Western culture, we were used to never having to take a step from the comfort or security of our customary environments. But we soon found that effective living and learning in today’s global and pluralistic society require effort. It takes time—and it comes at a personal cost. It requires being deliberate about moving out of our comfort zones, placing ourselves in often vulnerable positions, and actively engaging across cultures.

  Not everyone will accept you right off; not everyone is going to understand or appreciate your efforts. There will be setbacks and even failures. But we found that persistence, mixed with humility and grace, pay off in the end, and the rewards are usually multiples of what you invest.

  But there were more painful lessons we encountered on a deeper level. Beyond the realm of honest blunders, we found ourselves increasingly encountering our own weaknesses, our own shortcomings—fractures, as it were, in what we thought were solid emotional and spiritual foundations in our own lives. When these weaknesses showed through the surface of our work and ministry, they plunged us into seasons of disappointment, self-doubt, and discouragement.

  This happened when we first arrived in the small, mountainous country of Oman, beautifully nestled along the turquoise-blue shores of the Arabian Peninsula and populated by a gentle people steeped in their Islamic traditions. In spite of the sincerity of our efforts, we blundered foolishly with a number of newfound acquaintances who reached out to us in genuine friendship. Whether it was in our enthusiasm and haste to share our faith, rather than first investing in the crafting of caring relationships, or the articulation of ill-informed comments about the Islamic faith, we quickly found that our actions were often unnecessarily offensive and hurtful. Our mistakes brought on by our shallow forethought caused us to examine our own hearts more carefully. Were we more concerned about the well-being of others, or seeing the tangible and timely fruit of our labors? Was our trust truly in God, in his timing and in his ways, or was it in our own ability to reason and convince?

  We knew God loves all people fully and unconditionally, but we recognized a temptation to dominate and control others with our personal beliefs and perceptions. And we also recognized that this flowed from our fear of weakness, our own insecurities, and the fragility of our own understanding of God and his ways. We began to see that initial inroads into the hearts of Muslims are perhaps best made through life and deed, rather than word. We also learned to relax and be more transparent in our relationships. With time—and in spite of our deficiencies—we were able to touch people’s lives and to see genuine fruit from our labors. The diagnostics we made on our hearts humbled us. We knew we were still apprentice workers in the vineyard and did not have all the answers. But the experience was an invaluable crash course in better understanding Peter’s admonition that, in sharing the hope that is within us, we must do so “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

  Our early years in Africa and the Middle East also taught us that we did not always have the answers for the dire physical and spiritual needs of those around us—the crushing poverty and heart-rending spiritual bondage we encountered each day. But slowly, ever so slowly, we learned that hardly anyone turns away an act of kindness, a shared laugh, or even a shared tear. We began to see that effective loving does not require having all the immediate solutions for the challenges facing those we serve, or even for ourselves. We did not have to come in with a fixed plan or strategy; rather, we needed to simply and genuinely seek to love and value those we encountered. And with time we began to view our painful lessons as much-needed reminders of our own brokenness, our own need of repair, our own need of reconciled relationship—the very needs we were trying to help meet in others. We were slowly learning that for this work, God was far more interested in yielded vessels than perfect ones, and that pursuing a yielded heart is wholly different than pursuing perfection.

  And then there was the most important lesson of all that slowly grew in our hearts with the seasoning of the years spent among people not our own. Simple as it may seem, it was the realization that in ourselves we did not have the capacity to love sufficiently. We saw that the limits of our love fell far short of the needs of those around us. But the more we offered ourselves as yielded vessels, the more we would begin to experience love flow though us that was clearly not of our making. We found that becoming acquainted with God’s love for those he called us to serve is far more deeply satisfying than wrestling with the limits of our own love. This is the love that the world needs: his love for the people he gave his life for, a powerful love for which we are only vessels, a love that flows from our innermost parts, but whose source is beyond ourselves.

  As I pulled into a parking place under the large acacia tree that shaded the front of our office building, my thoughts were joggled out of the past and back to the very real present. I noticed that the modest orange-and-white sign indicating Mauritania’s World Vision offices was covered with a greater than usual coat of dust on this stifling morning, but the logo’s star of hope was a quiet and reassuring reminder of why I was in Mauritania. In this isolated Islamic republic, where Christian presence is restricted and open witness prohibited, World Vision serves as an advocate for the country’s many poor communities and as a welcomed partner with the government in its efforts to combat rampant poverty. I was into my third year as national director of this strategic program, which continued to exist largely as a result of much prayer and the visionary leadership of those who had preced
ed me.

  Again I reflected on how grateful I was to be in Mauritania with my family and for the opportunities and lessons along the way that had led us to this place. When Hélène and I first chose to follow God on this journey among the nations, we made the conscious decision to count the cost, take up our crosses, and follow. We both believed that there is no country too far that personal sacrifice could not (or should not) be made for the sake of those who suffer and live with little or no hope.

  But counting the cost, in this sense, did not mean we had some window into the future. We could only see the cross, and we were compelled to look no further. We understood this. But we found our strength in the wonderful promise that wherever we were led, even to the ends of the earth, we would find Christ there. And we did, when we came to Mauritania. We experienced Christ’s presence on the first day we set foot in that land; we saw him working through the lives of our coworkers; and we felt the tangible power of his love for the poor as we lived and worked among them. Sitting there in the Land Cruiser on that hot, dusty morning, I never could have anticipated the life-changing events that were about to unfold in our ministry among the poor or in the life of each member of our family. But I was conscious that morning of a deep assurance that whatever tomorrow held or wherever our journey led us, Christ too would be there.

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  TOWERS FALL IN THE SAHARA

  What do you have against me that you

  have attacked my country?

  (JUDGES 11:12)