Notes From My Journey

1988

We had recently moved to Kingston from Linstead and were getting busy with the development of Children’s Ministry training material for the seminars we were doing with Whole Life Ministries. At the same time, relationships were developing within the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches which we had become increasingly involved with.

Most weekends were filled with ministering in the member churches, sometimes Jean and I speaking in different churches on the same Sunday. As I mentioned in a previous post, Jean was the Secretary for the Association and I was participating in the monthly meetings and with many of the other activities. It all seemed to happen so fast!

Right in the middle of all this growing activity and involvement, I had a “chance” meeting with a young American minister named Larry Bridge who had come to Kingston with a group of other families sponsored by Calvary Ministries in Jacksonville, FL. They had come specifically to establish a Bible teaching centre in Kingston. Larry and I hit it off right away and he soon introduced Jean and me to the other team members and their families.

It was a young team! They had “vision” and faith and enthusiasm, but they had little experience and no real contacts or relationships in Jamaica. As we talked and prayed together, Jean and I came to realize that what they had come to do was almost exactly what we wanted to do a couple of years down the line. You see, Jamaica had several Bible Colleges and one Seminary and most of the denominations had Schools and Colleges in the US and the UK that aspiring pastors could attend for training. What Jamaica lacked was a local training centre aimed at “regular Christians” who had jobs and businesses and other responsibilities but felt called by God to serve in their local churches and communities.

There was nothing available for people who had jobs during the day to receive encouragement and discipleship and training. The team from Calvary Ministries had a vision to open Calvary Ministries Bible Training Centre in Kingston with evening classes, practical training, and opportunities for students to put what they learned into practice. We had been in Jamaica for a few years and saw that this was exactly what was needed, so Jean and I became teachers and advisors to them and opened up connections and opportunities to them for recruiting students from local churches in the city and surrounding area. Our connection with Al Miller and Whole Life Ministries and also our participation with the JAFGC was a real door opener.

The Bible Training Centre got off to a great start in 1987 and had a good first year. There were students from a variety of churches and denominations. The men of the Calvary Ministries Team taught sessions, they brought in visiting speakers to teach, and Jean and I taught frequently. My daughter Stephanie played keyboard for the nightly worship time and I led worship part of the time. Stephanie also tutored some of the missionary kids. The school was good, but it lacked cohesiveness in both doctrine and emphasis. And there wasn’t much room for women in teaching and leadership. We prayed about that.

And then in 1988 Hurricane Gilbert struck Jamaica! It was the first hurricane to make landfall on the island in over fifty years. It was absolutely devastating! Lives were lost, property was destroyed, infrastructure failed, roads disappeared, and Jamaica went into survival mode. The young couples from Calvary Ministries really struggled. A couple of them lost their homes to storm damage. Power was out across much of the island. We were without electricity at our home for over six weeks. The level of disruption and uncertainty was just too much for the members of the Calvary Ministries Team and they decided to leave and go back to the US.

During that time as we were all struggling to keep an even keel and the entire nation was in survival mode I felt that I heard the Lord say to me very clearly, “Don’t let the school close!” No words of insight on what to do, no promises of “If you do this, I’ll do this!”, just “Don’t let the school close!” This is one of my God Encounters that I’ve experienced through the years. They don’t happen often, but they’ve always been at a turning point or a learning point. (Here’s a story of a God Encounter in 1967 and here’s one from 1983). There’ll be few more before I’m done telling these stories!

So Jean and I proceeded to “Don’t Let The School Close!” We met with Al Miller and the Whole Life Ministries Leadership Team. We asked if Whole Life Ministries would embrace the Bible Training Centre within its growing assortment of ministries. Yes! We asked the landlord if Whole Life Ministries could assume the lease for the building (we had the upper floor of a three-story commercial building on Constant Spring Road in Kingston). Yes! Calvary Ministries graciously passed over the chairs, desks, overhead projector and screen, and the sound system to us! Yes!

Then we met with Al Miller, Melrose Rattray, and Pam Johnson at our dining room table and began to work out the details of curricula, teaching staff, and administration. The previous approach to the course material was to simply ask teachers to teach their favorite topics! We needed to get more specific and focused! So we divided the school year into three terms: Term 1 – God the Father – Old Covenant – Foundation; Term 2 God the Son – New Covenant – Life Transformation; Term 3 – The Holy Spirit – Living it out through Spiritual Gifts, Callings, and Ministries.

When we opened Whole Life Ministries Bible Training Centre for the next term, there were students from over thirty churches and almost as many denominations! Jean and I carried the weight of the teaching, developing the course material as we went along. Al Miller taught regularly, as did Pam Johnson and Melrose Rattray. I’ll include another story about the Bible Training Centre in Kingston before we move on… By the way, Jean and I were invited back to Jamaica as honored guests for the Tenth Anniversary Celebration of Whole Life Ministries Bible Training Centre! We’re so thankful God said, “Don’t Let The School Close!”

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

January 1985

In September of 1984 we were getting all the final stuff done for the move to Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica to be the missionary pastors at Bread of Life Church and to identify and prepare Jamaican leaders to lead the church. We left our home in Medford OR and traveled in a borrowed van to Springfield, MO to begin developing a relationship with a small group of churches in the Midwest and prepare for moving the four of us – Jean, me, Stephanie, and Melissa, to another planet!

As soon as we arrived in Missouri, we realized the “group of churches” was much less a group than we had expected and that the missions organization, “American Caribbean Mission” was more of an idea than an organization. For the next couple of months, we traveled a bunch in Missouri and Kansas, where the churches were located, and began to connect with the pastors and churches as quickly and effectively as we could.

I made a trip to Jamaica to meet with the leaders and congregation at Bread of Life in Linstead, and initiate the work permit process that would allow us to stay in Jamaica for longer than six months. While I was in Jamaica, Jean flew to Miami where she purchased a used 1981 Ford Escort Station Wagon for us to use on our travels and then to ship to Jamaica for our use when we moved there.

Sidebar: There were no cars available for purchase in Jamaica at the time due to ongoing issues between Jamaica, the US, and Cuba. We would have to purchase a car in the US and ship it to Jamaica. To qualify for import, the car could be no more than three years old, hence we purchased a 1981 car in 1984. The import duty to bring the car into the country was 100% of its purchase price. Whatever price we paid for the car, we’d have to pay that much again to drive it off the dock in Kingston when it arrived! And we were on a very tight budget!

So we bought our little Ford Escort Wagon as the fine-line compromise between “new enough to import into Jamaica” and “cheap enough that we could afford to buy it twice!” (As well as pay $1100 for shipping and a few hundred for agents’ and handlers’ fees before it cleared customs).

We put lots of miles on it in the month we had it in the US and then when it was time to go, the four of us and all our luggage made the 1330 mile trip from Springfield, MO to Miami, FL and left the car with a family we had never met, with the understanding that when we had all the paperwork ready for shipping the car from Miami and importing the car into Jamaica in Kingston, they would drive the car to the port and drop it off with the shipping agent where it would be placed on a ship, transported to Kingston, unloaded at the port, and then we would go and “buy it again”.

Well, it all eventually happened! In early January we got the notification that the car had arrived in Kingston and was waiting at the port for us to come and claim it and clear it. We lived miles away in Linstead, but our friends Emile and Sophie Azan loaned us their pickup and their driver Mackie. For three days, Mackie would pick me up at the house just after daylight, we would drive to the port, and I would step-by-step clear the car. This involved lots of waiting in offices, being told, “No, you must go to another office first and get this paper stamped, then come back here”, while Mackie waited in the shade somewhere. Then in the evening he’d drive me home to Linstead. Finally, about 1 PM on the third day, the final money was paid, the final papers were signed, the last document stamped, and the agent handed me my keys and led me out to the wharf where I actually saw my car for the first time since October! It started right up and I drove through the gate and headed home to Linstead!

At some point, on the drive to Linstead, I realized that the beautiful teardrop cut crystal that we had hanging by a ribbon from the rearview mirror was missing! When we left the car in Miami, I should have removed the crystal and brought it with me. Somewhere between that moment and now, someone had taken it and I felt sad about that. We’d always had a nice sparkly crystal hanging from our mirror on a ribbon. Now we didn’t! I know, it’s not a big deal, but we missed it anyhow! And life goes on!

A few weeks after that, on our daily stop at the Linstead Post Office, there was a notice in the box that there was a package for us. I went inside and joined the queue and at the window I paid a small customs duty for the package and went back to the car where Jean was waiting for me. The package, about the size of a pack of playing cards, was from an old friend, Don Shelby, in Seattle. It had been on its way to us for a few weeks. What a neat thing to get a little package from an old friend far away! The package wasn’t heavy, a little box wrapped in brown paper. What could it be?

We opened the package and the only thing in it was a teardrop shaped cut crystal on a ribbon – wrapped in tissue paper! It was so sweet it made us both cry! A couple of years later, Don and Jeanne Shelby visited us when we were living in Kingston. The crystal was hanging from the mirror when we picked them up at the airport. We told him about our lost crystal and how much his thoughtful gift meant. He couldn’t remember what prompted him to send it. He thought he had just been walking through a craft fair and saw it hanging in a booth and thought of us. No big deal!

How does God do this kind of stuff? And why? Only a God who loves us as much as he says he does, and actually likes us as well, would prompt a friend to send a crystal to a friend far away! And I believe he smiles when he does it!

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

 

1987

My mother was an interesting woman. Born in Oklahoma in 1917, she traveled with her family in her late teens during the Depression Years to Southern California to escape the dustbowl drought in the Midwest. Her family settled in Southern California, in Compton, and worked hard to make a new life there. My mother was a devout Christian and somehow decided to attend Portland Bible Institute (an unusual thing for a woman in that era). There she met Joe Stephens, another student at PBC and an aspiring pastor in training and they were married in my mother’s church in Compton in 1941. They then moved to Eastern Oregon and lived on the Stephens family ranch near Heppner while my dad helped with the ranching and began pastoring a small Baptist Church in Spray, Oregon.

My mom was a natural-born teacher and a passionate writer. As the years passed and my dad continued in pastoral ministry, she began to write Sunday School material for churches in her denomination and also wrote many lessons, stories, and missions studies for Gospel Light and David C. Cook Christian publishing companies. If you were in an evangelical church Sunday School or Vacation Bible School in the USA in the 1960s or 1970s it’s very likely you were taught at some point from curricula she wrote.

My parents also opened our home to foster children for most of my growing-up years and sometimes my brothers Skip, Bill, and I were outnumbered by foster bothers and sisters in the house. Some of those foster relationships were lasting and deep, in fact the very first of those foster children, Jim Russell, became a life-long member of the family and was like a ten-years-older brother to me, just as I’m a ten-years-older brother to my brother Bill Stephens.

My parents eventually helped start a Boy’s Ranch for homeless and troubled boys in the early 1960s and for many years served as house parents, first on the Boys Ranch, then in a Jesus People house in Richland, WA in the 1970s. What a life! My mom, loved little children and her home was always filled with children from the neighborhood right up until the illness that hospitalized her and led to her death in the fall of 1992 (just four years after my Dad’s death in 1988).

In addition to all this, my mom developed a reputation in our family for finding lost things. When something was lost or misplaced and every possible place had been searched with no success, we’d ask Mom to pray about where it was “hidden”! She’d pray and after awhile, she’d say, “It seems like if you look between the cushions of the sofa, it might be there. I don’t know, I can just kind of picture it there.” And we’d look, and there it would be! Amazing! This happened with keys, with papers and documents, with purses and wallets, all kinds of things. My mom definitely had a “Gift for Finding Lost Things”!
In fact the reason I’m writing this story is that in 1987 when we were living in Jamaica, we lost a very important document that we needed once a year when we went to renew our Work Permit at the Ministry of National Security.

Sidebar: One of the conditions of our residency in Jamaica was that we had to be financially supported as missionaries with funds from outside the country. We used a missions service agency in Atlanta to receive the donations and support that was given for us and deposit it in our bank so we could access it. We had to present the documents showing those financial transactions and accountability each time we renewed our Work Permit. It was time to renew! We couldn’t find the document! Help!

So after practically tearing the house apart trying to find the document, in desperation we phoned my mom at her home in Southern Oregon and told her about the lost document and our situation. While I held the phone so Jean could hear as well, Mom prayed that God would show us where the document was. Then, in a few moments she said, “I think it fell down behind something. Maybe behind a drawer?” I rushed into the room where the file cabinet was, quickly took the drawers out, and there it was, on the bottom of the file cabinet at the very back. It had fallen out of the second drawer, where we thought it should be, down onto the floor in the back! Thank you God! Thank you Mom!

In the years since she passed, we’ve hoped that her special “Gift of Finding Lost Things” would somehow transfer to another member of the family. Nothing yet! But we do pray when something important is missing and we’ve exhausted the search possibilities. Just last week, I couldn’t find a Swiss Army Knife that is special to me—a gift from a friend years ago—and after searching high and low for it, we prayed that God would show us where it had gone. Then I went out to the car and looked where I had already looked before and there it was! It’s sitting right here on my desk as I’m writing this! So maybe the “Gift of Finding Lost Things” isn’t hopelessly gone!

Do you or someone you know have the “Gift of Finding Lost Things”? Have you ever lost something and prayed about it and then sort of been led right to it? I’d love to hear about it!

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1986

For foreigners like us to stay in Jamaica longer than the 6 months we could stay with a tourist visa stamp, we needed a work permit, “sponsored” by a Jamaican church or recognized parachurch ministry and our income must be supplied in US funds from outside the country. So when we left Bread of Life in Linstead, we needed a new “sponsor” ministry. We would still be responsible as before for raising our own support from outside Jamaica. When we moved to Kingston in 1986 to work with Whole Life Ministries, the Bread Of Life leadership agreed to continue to sponsor our work permit until the two year period ended and then we would renew the work permit under Whole Life Ministries.

So we were pressing ahead with ministry, beginning to develop Children’s Ministry resources for churches, making connections in the community, ministering in churches, and sharing the vision for an interdenominational Bible Training Centre. However, it’s clear that someone notified Jamaica Immigration Authority (a branch of the Ministry of National Security) that we were no longer pastors at Bread of Life Church. No one told us that this had taken place and we were simply getting on with life and ministry, waiting until the permit was due for renewal to switch it to WLM.

Then one morning we received a phone call from an officer of Jamaica Immigration Authority ordering me to present myself at the office of the Ministry of National Security in Spanish Town that morning and to bring our passports and any further documents showing reason that we should be permitted to stay in Jamaica. We immediately phoned Al Miller’s office and found out he was very sick with some kind of flu and couldn’t get out of bed!

Jean stayed at home, Melissa was at school, and I asked Karlene Barrett, Al’s secretary, if she would come with me to the appointment in Spanish Town. With some trepidation, we drove to Spanish Town and located the Ministry of National Security complex. I parked and locked the car, wondering if I would be coming back to the car to drive back to our home in West Armour Heights that afternoon! I wondered what to do about picking Melissa up from school at 3 PM. I wondered how to let Jean know if things didn’t go well!

After making our way through a security checkpoint and giving my name at a barred window near the door we entered, Karlene and I sat and waited in a large area with rows of chairs and several doors opening onto the room. Only a few people were in the room and periodically someone would emerge from one of the doors and call a name and show the person into an adjoining room. Finally, my name was called and the “fetcher” would not allow Karlene to accompany me into the room.

I found myself standing before a very gruff immigration officer who began to paint the picture for me: I was in the country illegally. I had stayed on after my work at Bread Of Life was finished and I now had no valid work permit and no basis for being permitted to stay in Jamaica. I explained that we were in a transition process and that Whole Life Ministries was going to sponsor our work permit when it was due for renewal. The officer said we were currently in the country illegally and we must leave voluntarily or be deported. Once we were out of the country, WLM could apply for a work permit on our behalf, but it didn’t look good for us as we had overstayed our visa and that certainly wouldn’t be in our favor.

I said, “There must be something we can do! We’ve been in Jamaica for nearly two years and our home and everything we have is here in Kingston. When we left Linstead and moved to Kingston we were told that we could simply continue working under our work permit with BOL and then when it was time to renew, we could submit the renewal application through WLM. We’re not trying to do anything wrong here!”

After some additional unpleasant questioning and more waiting, I ended up standing before the desk of the assistant to the permanent secretary of National Security, Mrs Thompson. This was a nicer office and a bigger desk. Mrs Thompson looked up from her work and saw me standing there and said, “Pastor Jim! What are you doing here?”

She recognized me because I had spoken at her Baptist Church in Kingston a few weeks before. In that service I had told about the Bible Training Centre we were starting in Kingston. Her son, who was also present in that service, was interested in becoming a student. And she was very familiar with Al Miller’s work and WLM and her son was part of one of the sports leagues sponsored and coordinated by Al Miller’s team!

The officer who had been “interviewing” me told her the facts of the situation: I had been in Jamaica on a work permit with BOL in Linstead and was no longer with them but was working with WLM but no work permit application had been filed. I explained that we had agreed with BOL to simply continue the work permit until it was time to renew it and then transfer our sponsorship to WLM.

Mrs Thompson said, “We’ll sort that out right now!” She had Karlene hand write a letter of invitation and sponsorship by WLM for us on a piece of typing paper from her desk and sign it with Al’s signature. She sent our passports and work permits back into the recesses of the building and they came back in a few minutes stamped for another two year term! Whew! What a relief!

Then Mrs Thompson asked me if I knew anything about an organization called Youth With A Mission or YWAM. This was only a few weeks since I had taught at YWAM’s Discipleship Training School. So I told her about YWAM in general and about YWAM’s base and Discipleship Training School in Mandeville and our week of ministry there.

She said, “I have a young Nigerian man named Daniel in custody and I’m trying to decide what to do with him. He says he is part of the YWAM team but he has overstayed his visa and he is scheduled for deportation.” I knew Daniel from a week with him and his DTS and I vouched for him. She allowed him to stay for one month while he and YWAM did the process of getting him legal status to remain. He eventually married a Jamaican fellow YWAMer and lived happily ever after (last we heard!).

I may have aged a few years in a few hours since the phone call early that morning! It’s such a helpless feeling when your whole present and future life is out of your hands and in the hands of a faceless and feeling-less bureaucracy! It’s such a hopeful feeling when someone who has the authority to determine your present and future life has a heart of care and concern and is determined to use their authority to find a way to sort things out!

Thank God for Mrs Thompson! Thank God for Karlene! Thank God that I had been with YWAM just a few weeks earlier and met Daniel! Thank God that I received grace and then was able to be an instrument of grace to Daniel! A day that started out as a bad day for me turned into a good day for both me and Daniel. My heart overflows with gratitude when I think back over the events of that day! Thank God!

When I see masked and faceless ICE agents grabbing people from their workplaces, or snatching them while they’re taking their kids to school, or breaking into their homes and grabbing them, or taking them from their churches, my heart aches! Their families aren’t informed where they’re being taken, children are left to be cared for by neighbors, the fabric of their lives is shredded.

That day in Spanish Town, I was an “illegal”! I was spoken to a little rudely a couple of times, but it turns out I had a “friend in court”! I only had a few hours of anxiety and uncertainty and then it was resolved. For so many people, now, here, that’s not the case. I don’t know what to do about it, but I do understand at least a tiny fraction of the anguish thousands of people and their families are experiencing. My heart aches! I pray for them. Will you pray with me?

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1986

Our time as missionary pastors at Bread of Life church in Linstead had come to a close. There were Jamaican leaders in place who could teach, lead worship, and administrate the affairs of the church. It was time for us to “gracefully” transition out! Interestingly, when we first began to discuss the move to Jamaica to lead Bread of Life more than two years earlier, we had thought of it as an eighteen-month assignment. Yet we had made a decisive move away from all we were doing in the US and didn’t feel as if God was moving us away from Jamaica. So what to do next?

In this transitional season, when the present God-assignment was completed and the next steps weren’t clear, we met Al Miller, Founder of Whole Life Ministries, a man with a vision for the nation! Al invited us to begin meeting with him and his team once a week at the WLM office in Kingston. We soon realized that we cared for and were called to very similar and compatible assignments. And we realized that we cared for each other and were called to partner together in ministry for the current season.

Al Miller had connections across denominations and in all the fourteen parishes of Jamaica. We had the desire to help churches with discipleship teaching and training and with children’s and youth ministry. We were soon busy developing and conducting seminars in local churches and for groups of churches in denominations. It became clear that we needed to make a move from Linstead to Kingston to be closer to the action.

At Al’s introduction, Jean and I joined the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, a fellowship with member churches of 33 different denominations. We began regularly attending their monthly meetings and Jean was asked to serve as Secretary for the Association. I became a regular contributor to discussions and was soon invited to speak at member churches. A new and completely unforeseen thing was blossoming!

Sidebar: A condition of our residence in Jamaica was that our work permit be “sponsored” by a Jamaican church or recognized parachurch ministry and that our income be supplied in US funds from outside the country. So if we left Bread of Life in Linstead, we needed a new “sponsor” ministry. We would still be responsible as before for raising our own support from outside Jamaica. The relationship with Al Miller and Whole Life Ministries was solid and as we discussed the way forward, Al offered for WLM to sponsor our work permit. Remember this detail! It will be important in the story coming up next week!

Also, in this transitional season we met the team from Youth With A Mission, who had established a base for ministry and Discipleship Training Schools in Jamaica. They were in the process of moving their base from the North Coast to a village in the mountains outside Mandeville, in Manchester Parish. The YWAM Director asked us to come and do a week of teaching at the first DTS (Discipleship Training School) in their new location. We made the two-and-a-half hour drive from Kingston and got settled into our room for the week.

The local YWAM base had a good team made up of young people from around the US, a director from Canada, a couple from a country in Europe I can’t remember, and even a young man named Daniel, from Nigeria. Remember this detail! It will be important in the story coming up next week! Several Jamaicans were on the course, a Discipleship Training School, and would become part of the YWAM team on completion of the DTS course. We taught the day classes and then on the final night we spoke at a meeting to which people from the community were also invited.

When we finished speaking in the evening session of our final day at the YWAM base and returned to our room, we found a note on our bed that a phone call had come for us that Jean’s Dad was in the hospital and we needed to get in touch.

I’ve got to explain the phone situation! This was before mobile phones! Remember when phones had wires connecting them to other wires connecting them to the known universe? I know, right? How primitive! And in Jamaica in the 80’s there was a three or four-year waiting list to get a phone line to your house. So if you wanted a phone, you had to rent or buy a house that already had a phone! In this case, the YWAM team had worked out an arrangement with their closest neighbor, who had a phone, to build a small hut next to their house, put an extension phone in the hut, and then allow the YWAM team to use the “hut phone” and pay for the calls. It was a great system!

We have never figured out how Jean’s family in Washington State found that number, called it, and left a message for us. And they can’t remember either. But there it was! And it was the rainy season. And it was night. And the hundred-yard path through the jungle was muddy! We walked through the jungle with our little flashlight to the phone hut. We called Jean’s sister’s home and the only one there was nine-year-old Brian. Brian took our “collect call” (remember those?) but couldn’t tell us much. So we told Brian that we were traveling home to Kingston the next morning and would call when we got there.

We learned that Jean’s Dad had been diagnosed with cancer and had surgery to implant a steel rod in his upper spine to stabilize his vertebra and would begin radiation treatment soon. He didn’t live long after this but Jean was able to go to Washington State to see the family and spend time with her Dad before he passed away.

One of the sacrifices of “missionary ministry” is that because you can’t be in two places at once, you miss a lot of extended family stuff. Jean got to see her Dad for a few days when he was ill, but didn’t get to attend his funeral because we couldn’t get her a flight from Jamaica at the time he passed away. I didn’t get to see my Dad before he died, but because I already had a ticket to Jacksonville, FL when he passed, I was able to get home to Oregon for his funeral. My Mom and my brother Skip both passed away while we were overseas. You miss a lot! But it’s a legitimate sacrifice and the rewards are great as well! We’ve had a wonderful life and now we’re in a season where we get to be with our kids and grandkids a lot and we’ve reconnected with our surviving siblings and cousins. And I get to walk in the desert with my dog Jake! It’s a great life!

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1986

This event took place 39 years ago, when I was 43 years old. The memory is still vivid as I tell the story…

We had handed over leadership of Bread of Life Ministries Church in Linstead to the Jamaican pastors Emile and Sophie Azan and we were already spending quite a bit of time in Kingston getting to know Al Miller and his team at Whole Life Ministries. Jean and I were still living in Linstead, St Catherine as we planned the move and looked for a place to live in Kingston to work with WLM and develop an interdenominational lay leadership training centre. I was beginning to travel around Jamaica teaching and looking and learning and Al Miller and I had just completed a two day school of evangelism (Al’s focus) and discipleship (My focus) in Port Maria, St Mary Parish, on the north coast. We were finishing up with an evening evangelistic and healing service at the Port Maria Baptist Church which had hosted the training.

I was recovering from a month-long bout of hepatitis, still not very strong, and Jean was at home in Linstead, in St Catherine parish, halfway across the island from Port Maria. Jean was sick with hepatitis, her illness following mine by almost exactly a month. I had an hour and a half drive through the mountains to home each evening after the sessions were over, because Melissa had school each day in Kingston and had to leave on the bus about seven each morning.

After worship and a stirring message from Al, we gave an altar call for people to come for prayer for salvation, re-commitment to Christ, and healing. The people who had attended the training seminar were our up-front prayer and ministry team. Dozens of people came forward at the invitation and I had intended to coordinate the prayer time, but so many came forward, I had to jump right in and begin praying for people. The prayers I prayed in this kind of situation were prophetic prayers, usually sensing something about the person and their situation then waiting for a moment and simply beginning to pray for them and say the words that came to me in the moment. I’d had a significant amount of experience with that kind of praying and often it would provoke an emotional response from the “prayee” as I spoke of specific things about them and their situation that could only have been revealed to me – through me – by the Holy Spirit.

I finished praying with one man and as he stepped away, the woman who had been standing right behind him came forward. I was weak and tired. The physical condition that the hepatitis had left me in was taking its toll. I felt like I needed to go sit down, even better, find a place to lie down!

As the woman stepped up for prayer, I didn’t even need to ask what she wanted prayer for. She was probably in her late-thirties, and just shorter than me. She had a very large growth on the right side of her jaw and face and neck. It distorted her appearance so much that it almost made me want to look away so as not to stare at the growth. I’ve since learned that the growth was probably what’s called a “goiter” and is typically caused by an inflammation, infection, or disease of the thyroid gland. And it’s usually pretty serious, especially one this large!

I took a deep breath, put my hands on either side of her face and started to pray that God would heal her. Before I even completed the prayer, the growth just disappeared! It didn’t begin to gradually shrink, it just disappeared! It happened so suddenly that my hands just kind of came together on either side of her face and jaw!

The growth was gone! There was no sign it had even been there. The skin of her face, jaw, and neck was normal and smooth. It’s not like if a balloon deflated suddenly and was all flabby and wrinkled, it was just normal, like the other side of her face and jaw and neck! It happened so suddenly that she gasped and jumped back, I stepped back too – we were both kind of stunned at the instant and amazing healing God did for her!

I had prayed for sick people many times before that time. I’ve prayed for sick people many times since that time. At our house and in our family we still pray for healing when one of us seems to be coming down with a cold, we pray about my cancer, my hearing loss, about Jean’s Afib condition, about our old-age arthritis, we just pray for health and healing. We pray for our kids and grandkids. We pray for relatives and friends. The other day I prayed for a friend while we were standing on the sidewalk outside a restaurant with people walking around us on both sides as I prayed. And God helps us. Sometimes it seems pretty much like “We prayed and God healed!”

But that evening almost forty years ago at the Baptist Church in Port Maria, St Mary, Jamaica, remains very, very clear in my mind and memory. It was not due to my own energy and strength. It was not due to “super-faith” on my part. That was an immediate intervention of the hand of God!

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a question or a comment simply reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

…For the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Long before Jake the Desert Bone Dog came to be part of our family in 2015, there was another dog who spent his life from about one year of age until he crossed the rainbow bridge in 2014 bringing a wonderful quality of the very best kind of “dogginess” to our extended family. Buddy was a rescue dog, a Cocker Spaniel mix. He never told us what the other elements of his “mix” consisted of, but Buddy was a great dog! And after his passing, I didn’t think there could ever be another dog as great as Buddy, but that was before I met Jake! If you read my stuff for any significant period or follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll read plenty about Jake! But this story is about Buddy the Dog.

One crisp, sunny winter afternoon I walked along an old track in the Juniper forest east of my Central Oregon home and watched my dog Buddy run. Buddy’s no greyhound, but he really loves to run! He runs with such abandon, long ears flapping, dodging sagebrush, leaping over weather-bleached juniper logs, chasing imaginary rabbits and deer!

Sometimes, watching Buddy run, I just had to laugh out loud! I could see the joy in him, joy that comes from doing what God created him to do. Because I loved that old dog, I felt joy when I watched him doing what he loved to do.

Buddy loved to run because that’s what God created him to do. I believe that because God is so good, and loves us so much, he made us to have the same joy in doing what he created us to do that my dog Buddy had in running through the forest and the fields.

Here are a few things we know about ourselves:

• We do best what we care most deeply about.
• We do best what comes from deep inside us.
• We do best what we do with greatest passion.
• We do best what gives us joy.

Eric Liddell, the Scottish distance runner featured in the 1981 movie “Chariots of Fire,” is quoted: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

Why does it often seem so hard to know what God created us to do and to experience the simple, profound joy in doing it? Do we get stuck in the routines of merely “getting the job done”? Have we become trapped by the expectations of others? Are we too busy to take a deep breath and ask a couple of honest questions?

If these questions resonate with you, here are some ideas you could try:

• Take time to take stock. What gives you pure, simple joy? Have an honest think about when you’re most joyful, most fulfilled.
• Talk to those who know you best and care about you most. Ask honest questions: “When do you see me most joyful, most energized?”
• Talk to your Creator about what you were made for.

I’m certainly not minimizing the importance of discipline, of doing what must be done, of fulfilling our commitments. This isn’t about only doing things that make you feel good. This isn’t about shirking responsibilities or duties. This is about being honest, being brave, and being willing to step out of your “must do” zone into your joyful “get to” zone!

And one thing more. You’re an influencer of others. You are, at some level, in some relationships, a leader and influencer. So think about—be aware of—what gives joy to those you influence most.

What if we parents and teachers and managers and bosses and other influencers looked carefully and caringly at those we influence and helped each of them discover just what God created them to do? What if we made it our pleasure to create opportunities for each person we love and influence to do the things that they were created for—the things that give them joy? What if we did that?

Just as I often took Buddy to the Juniper forest or the desert to create an opportunity for him to run, I believe God loves to create opportunities for people like you and me to “run!” And I believe that when we are simply doing what God created us to do, he rejoices – he feels the pleasure and joy of it with us!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy. (Proverbs 13:12 NLT)

 What do you think?

 As always, I’d love to hear from you and I welcome your comments and questions. If you’re reading on the blog, leave a comment below. If you’re reading from the email, click “Reply” and tell me what you’re thinking.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1987

Good News Bulletin!: Lily The Lost Dog, whose story I told in last week’s blog post, was found safe north of Brasada Ranch, over fifteen miles from where Dave lost her. She’s a little thin, but the vet says she’s okay, uninjured, and she’ll be fine! She’s very happy to be home!

The Sligoville Road

In early 1986 we moved from Linstead, St. Catherine, where we had been pastoring Bread of Life Church and developing a leadership team, to Kingston where we were taking the next steps into what would become a growing and mutually beneficial relationship with Al Miller, a Baptist minister who had begun developing an organization and ministry called Whole Life Ministries. As the organization name implies, the ministry was focused not only on the spiritual, “going to church” aspect of life, but on all of life and on all of life in the context of the whole community.

WLM had already been doing youth events, sports events, and was assisting churches across St Andrew (the greater Kingston area), and the larger vision included developing and providing churches with training and discipleship resources. That vision dove-tailed perfectly with our passion for discipling and equipping “ordinary Christians” with a solid faith foundation and helping them identify and develop their God-given gifts for use in the context of the local church and in their community life.

We immediately began working with Karlene Barrett, a member of WLM staff, to develop Children’s Ministry Training to assist the local churches. We would eventually begin to host national Children’s Ministries Workshops and publish a quarterly Children’s Ministries Newsletter which we sent by mail to churches and workers all across Jamaica. This was, of course, pre-internet and email, so there was a lot of hard and often tedious work involved in writing and printing material, developing the training, collecting addresses, printing and mailing newsletters, and printing and distributing training material. All of us, including Stephanie and Melissa, became very familiar with mailing lists on 3X5 cards and hand-writing addresses on envelopes.

For one of our earlier out-of-town Children’s Ministries One-Day Seminars, Jean and Karlene had scheduled to go to Bog Walk, in St. Catherine parish about twenty-five miles away to conduct a training for the Children’s Ministries workers in a church we had developed a relationship with while we were at Bread of Life. I had a meeting with a group of pastors in Spanish Town that day so I wouldn’t be going along as driver and general helper for Jean and Karlene. I rode to the Spanish Town meeting with a friend and Jean picked up Karlene and headed west out of Kingston on the Rio Cobre road.

The Rio Cobre road was the normal and best way to travel between Kingston and Bog Walk and on across the mountains to St Mary’s parish on the North Coast. (See Miracle on the Rio Cobre story.) But about five or six times a year, during the rainy season, the water level in the Rio Cobre rose precipitously and flooded Flat Bridge and the road remained closed until the water level dropped. There were a couple of alternate routes, but they involved going back to Spanish Town if you were traveling west or back to Bog Walk if you were traveling east. The alternate routes were unmarked and each involved a series of roads and junctions get through the mountains.

From this point, Jean is telling this story!

One rainy, misty Saturday we had a Children’s Ministry One-Day Seminar scheduled in Bog Walk. I had all our material prepared and loaded into our little Ford Escort Station Wagon and I drove down to Havendale to pick up my faithful co-leader, Karlene, for the twenty-five mile trip out to Bog Walk, St Catherine. When we arrived at the church where we were to do the seminar, it was closed up and no one was around. There were indications that the power was out locally. The pastor didn’t have a telephone and there were no public phones anyhow. Karlene and I sat in the car trying to decide what to do.

She said she knew where the pastor lived so we headed there. Turns out he had slept in that morning, but said he would come to the church and let us in. When we got back to the church, people were beginning to show up. Karlene and I got things set up and began the presentation. We had a good group of motivated Children’s Ministry workers and it was going well! A little bit into our second session, the pastor came in and said, “Sorry for the interruption, but I’m concerned that you won’t be able to get back home to Kingston if you don’t leave now! It’s raining harder and Flat Bridge will become impassible soon.”

We quickly packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our group of workers, and headed out for home. As we traveled toward Kingston we soon began to meet cars headed the opposite way flashing their lights and waving, telling us to turn around. Flat Bridge was already flooded and the road was closed! I told Karlene that I knew a way over the mountains to Kingston that Jim and I had taken a few times when Flat Bridge was flooded while were still living in Linstead. She wasn’t too sure about it, but we really had no other option, so we turned around and off we went back toward Bog Walk.

As we approached Bog Walk, I turned right on the Sligoville Road and headed into the mountains. Traveling up the hill, we noticed a car that seemed to be following us. After  every curve it was still there. As we made each turn at the little village junctions, the car also turned and stayed behind us. Karlene was concerned, because it wasn’t considered safe for two women to be traveling alone in a car through the mountains of Central Jamaica. I said, “Maybe they just don’t know the way and they’re hoping we know where we’re going!” (Or maybe they just couldn’t figure out what a white woman was doing driving out here on the Sligoville Road!)

As we made our way through the mountains, by God’s grace making the correct choices at all the little junctions, we finally began going generally downhill and I soon recognized the turn toward Spanish Town. We were going on to Red Hills and would drop down into Kingston a few miles later, but the car that had been following us all the way through the mountains honked and waved to say “Thank you!” and turned off for Spanish Town. We soon reached Red Hills on the west edge of Kingston and after dropping Karlene off, I went on home. A little earlier than I expected and a little disappointed we weren’t able to finish the training sessions, but safe and sound! And thankful for the detour by way of the Sligoville Road!

Things don’t always work out the way we plan. Sometimes there are situations in which we have no control and we have to make decisions we didn’t expect to have to make. We’re thankful for God’s faithfulness to guide and provide!

As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, I welcome your comments below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

 

Yesterday morning on the trail in the Juniper Forest desert east of town, Jake and I encountered a human walker we hadn’t see before. He was younger, maybe early to mid-forties, than the typical walker on the trails out there at that time of day. And he was alone! He didn’t have a dog with him. Jake reached him a lot sooner than I did and greeted him and got a couple of friendly ear scratches before I got there. After “Good Mornings” were exchanged, he said, “I lost my dog!”

He quickly went on to tell me that Lily had disappeared a week ago while they were walking the trail. Lily is fifteen years old, just over 20 pounds, a Golden/mix, and her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Dave’s voice was right on the edge of cracking as he was telling me how they were walking the trail and suddenly she was nowhere to be seen, how he had walked and looked, and called, how he had been out every day since looking everywhere he could think to look, how he had left his shirt on a rock near some junipers in case she came by that way, how he had made picture posters and put them up at the trailhead, and along the highway, and how she had been his buddy for fifteen years. And twice he said, “I have another dog.”

I lost my dog Bear a long time ago and I know what it feels like to lose a dog! It was in 1990 when we were getting ready to leave Jamaica to move back to the US to explore moving to London to start a Bible Training Centre like the one we had developed in Jamaica. Bear the Dog came to us as a small puppy when we still lived in Linstead at Bread of Life Ministries and he grew to become a companion and protector while we lived there and then when we moved into Kingston, he took full responsibility for protecting our home and ourselves. Bear was a good dog! (I have some “Bear Stories” and could possibly be persuaded to write a post sometime about Bear the Dog).

One of the most emotional challenges as we prepared to leave Jamaica was rehoming seven-year-old Bear, but we had that pretty much worked out and Bear would go to live up above Kingston on Coopers Hill with our good friend Neville Wright and his wife Hyacinth and son John. The Wrights had lived in our home a couple of times to be closer to medical care and once had stayed in our home while we were away in the US for a few weeks. So Bear would be fine. But about a week before we left, perhaps the packing, the giving away of our furniture and appliances and “stuff”, had brought realization to Bear what was happening, and he simply disappeared one night. In the morning when we got up, he just wasn’t there! Our final days in Kingston, we frantically searched for him along with all the last-minute challenges of getting ready to leave Jamaica after seven years. We flew out to Atlanta on schedule, got busy with finding a place to live in transition, ministry travel in the US and to the UK, and lots of other planning and preparation for our move to England.

Then a few weeks later we made a trip to Kingston to finish up business and details for the Bible Training Centre there. We stayed in a guest house near Half-Way Tree, borrowed back our car from the friend we had given it to, and were busy with meetings and ministry and errands. Then one night late we were driving up Half-Way Tree Road to our lodgings and saw a dog that looked just like Bear trotting across the road some distance ahead. Our hearts leaped, we stopped the car and called and whistled for him. No response. It wasn’t Bear! We never learned what happened to him. I get teary just writing this and it’s been thirty-five years!

Ever since yesterday I’ve been thinking about meeting Dave on the trail and that he said, “She’s been my buddy for fifteen years!” and twice he said, “I’ve got another dog.” When your dog is lost it doesn’t matter how many dogs you’ve got (that you love as much as the lost dog), what matters is that you love the dog that’s lost! Dave is out there on the trails and driving the back roads and posting signs with a picture of Lily. Dave’s like the shepherd in the Jesus story who leaves the ninety-nine sheep and goes out in the wilderness looking for the one that’s lost. Except the shepherd Jesus told about found his lost sheep and we don’t know if Dave is going to find Lily. I never found Bear.

Before yesterday I didn’t know Lily existed. Since yesterday I’ve been praying for Lily and for Dave. I called him and told him my wife and I are praying he’ll find Lily and that I’ll check with him to see what happens.

There’s lots of dogs. And there’s lots of dogs that get lost. And there’s lots of lost dogs that I’ll never know about. But Lily is important to me now and I’m praying for her to find her way home. Do you know why Lily is important to me? Because Dave loves her. Dave’s love makes Lily precious and worth the effort Dave is making to find her. Love makes people precious too!

Thanks for reading my story. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, you can comment below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens

1984

We moved to Jamaica in October of 1984 to serve as pastors of Bread of Life Church in Linstead, St Catherine, Jamaica. We were there at the invitation of Emile and Sophie Azan, Lebanese Jamaicans who owned and operated a business in Linstead and who had been radically converted to faith in Jesus a few years earlier.

Emile and Sophie were making preparation to start a church in Linstead. They had begun to gather people, acquired a property at a major intersection just on the north edge of town with a house and an old commercial-sized chicken coop, and were constructing a building for worship. The Azans specifically needed someone to get the church organized, to teach consistently and effectively the foundations of faith, living the Christian Life, and living in community with other believers. They needed someone to establish leadership development and training for the long run. And they needed someone whose intention was to get the church established, appoint leaders, and then get out of the way! It turns out that Jim and Jean Stephens were those missionaries!

The extended Azan family was influential in the area as business leaders, farmers, and in local government. When we arrived they accepted us into the family and while we worked to grow and develop ministry and relationships in Bread of Life Church and the Linstead community, we enjoyed a wonderful sense of inclusion (which was part of God’s good plan for us), wonderful Mediterranean/Jamaican food at the frequent family gatherings, and an opportunity for our influence to extend far beyond the boundaries of Linstead. And the amazing opportunity for our daughter Melissa to apply for and be accepted at Immaculate Conception High School in Kingston!

Elias Azan was the patriarch of the Azan family in Jamaica. He had arrived in Kingston on a ship from Lebanon as a young adventurer early in the 20th century and had soon built a thriving business traveling around the island selling household goods and supplies in the towns and villages. His hard work, good business practices, and the skills and wisdom of the wife he married soon made him an established business leader. He had sons and daughters who followed in his footsteps of hard work and good business.

His son Adib became a prosperous farmer in St Catherine with orchards, cattle, dairy, and chickens. Adib also owned “Azan’s Supercenter”, a local supermarket. Another son, Labeeb, began a haberdashery business in downtown Kingston and went on to own one of Jamaica’s leading furniture manufacturing and wholesale and retail furniture businesses. Elias’ daughter Sophie and her husband Emile established Azan’s Furniture Store in Linstead, and after their deep and transforming commitment to Christ, began paving the way for Bread of Life Ministries, which Jim and Jean Stephens had a role in developing.

When Elias Azan, who was well known in St Catherine Parish as “Dada”, was in his late 80’s, long after his wife had died, he moved into the home of his daughter Sophia and her husband Emile in Rose Hall, just outside Linstead. In our first months in Jamaica, I had many opportunities to sit with Dada and listen to stories about his travel adventures, his early days in Jamaica, his family, and about his faith. Dada had never learned to read and write, but his wife, his children, and his employees took care of all the literary stuff! The first Christmas we were in Jamaica, I wrote a poem for Dada for his Christmas Eve birthday. When the family heard it, they said they wanted the poem read at Dada’s funeral when the time came.

We handed the church leadership over to the Azans and their team in 1986 and moved to Kingston to work with Al Miller and Whole Life Ministries. (More stories about that to follow). On returning from a visit to the US, we got word that Sophie Azan was trying to contact us and Jean said, “Dada has died!” He had, and the funeral was the following week, and they did want the poem read at the funeral. In addition, they wanted me to read it!

The funeral was held in the large chapel at Dovecote Cemetery in the hills above Kingston. Prime Minister Edward Seaga sat on the front row right in the middle. P.J. Patterson, chairman of the opposition party sat at the end of the front row. Along all the walls of the chapel were bodyguards wearing black suits, sunglasses, and carrying automatic weapons. It was like a scene out of a movie! At the appointed time, I went to the lectern and read my little poem in my funny American accent. The smiles told me I had actually captured something of Dada’s life and character and influence!

After the service finished and the burial was completed we all went to the home of one of the Kingston Azans and had a “celebration of life” feast, with more of that amazing Mediterranean/Jamaican food. Actually, the whole experience was amazing! I had never been in the presence of so much military-grade firepower since Vietnam and neither Jean nor I had ever been in the presence of so many dignitaries and political figures.

Here’s the poem I wrote for Dada. Thought you might like to read it!

T’ANK GOD

‘So how are you today?’, I know I’ll hear…
‘T’ank God!’ His answer fills my heart with cheer.
And then I sit and listen as he speaks
Of times long past or things from just last week.

The story sometimes is a little long
With here and there a detail slightly wrong,
But listen! For the story’s more than words
And woven through there’s wisdom to be heard.

The wisdom isn’t from the books he’s read,
For reading’s not a skill he’s got, they said.
This wisdom’s from the pages of his life,
Faith wrote it there in times of joy and strife.

He’s written much, though not with pen and ink….
It’s in his sons, their hard work, how they think.
His industry and good sense is their creed,
The heart to help another in his need.

In love he writes a gospel very clear
Of faith and trust in God, Who’s always near.
Accept it or reject it, still it’s true…
The all-wise God he serves has hope for you.

While statesmen talk and politicians scheme,
And often men of vision only dream,
This man has planted hope and sown success
In daughters, sons, and many he has blessed.

The wife he cherished ever now is gone,
Yet in his constant memory she lives on.
Her strong hands serve and still her thoughtful grace
Is living in the daughters that she raised.

And though the passing years will take their toll,
The years that age his body bless his soul.
He labors still to help the ones he loves
Through strong prayers to his Father up above.

He may not ever have the world’s acclaim,
But now this tribute offered to his name…..
Of all the things our hearts could now express,
‘T’ank God for DaDa!’ really says it best.

DaDa……we love you!

For ‘DaDa’ – Elias K. Azan – 24 December 1984 – Linstead, Jamaica

As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can reply to this email or if you’re reading on the blog, I welcome your comments below.

Grace to you today, Jim Stephens