Personal stories from Ian’s life that are included in Gems and available to read and search as stand-alone stories here.
I Have Been Cut
Returning to my story about the strangers who would ask what family planning methods we used. I would respond “Saya dipotong”. Which can mean either I have been “cut” or “cut off”. Many would be shocked and turn to Tania and say: has it really gone? The difference between a vasectomy and castration. To which she would reply, “No. he is just playing with you.” They would then move on to talk further on the matter but I won't tell you anymore. These Gems are meant to be PG appropriate. But I will say the ensuing conversation would often conclude with lots of laughter.
Thus Sayeth The Lord
I was involved in an interesting discussion while at Bible College related to the saying “thus sayeth the Lord”. We had been at a baptismal service where a young woman was being baptised. After she came up from the water there was time given if people had any words for her from the Lord. One man made the following statement “Thus sayeth the Lord, I forgetest thy name but . . . [then he went on to give a word of encouragement to her]. Interesting the Lord who has the hairs on her head number forgot her name. There were other Bible College students at the service and the next day it became the subject of discussion in class.
I made a summary statement at the end saying the fact that he used those words was unfortunate. I think what was clear was the speaker had forgotten her name and unfortunately couched the act of forgetting as though it was the Lord forgetting. It would have been far better for him to have said something like “I forget your name but I feel the Lord has a word of encouragement for you” – an example of this I say not the Lord. Maybe we should all begin “prophetic statements” with the proviso “I sense a word from the Lord for you but I strongly suggest that you check it out to determine if it is from Him or from just my thoughts.” A more balanced approach.
But It Must Be Right - Derek Prince Said It
At the risk of being pedantic let me share another anecdotal story with you from my own experience. When we were back in our home town after a stint in Indonesia I was asked by a home group leader about the symbolism of a certain term in the Old Testament. I told the man I didn’t know but if I had time I would check it out, but I didn’t think the symbolism extended that far. On checking there was no way that symbolism could have been included in the intent of the passages in which he had found it. There were only four references in the Old Testament. No, not possible. I read him all the references and asked him if he thought this could be construed to mean that. He agree and said “well it must in the meaning of the word itself then. I told him No it was not in the etymology or in the lexicon anywhere. That symbolism could not be applied to this word. Then he said an interesting thing. “Well it must be!” I responded by asking “Why must it be?” He said because Derek Prince said it. I said oh, that is where you are coming from. Well I don’t care who said it, I stand by what I said about that symbolism not being in the word or the context. He then made an even more startling statement. “Oh no, that means I have to throw out all of Derek Prince’s tapes.”
Hang on a minute: what is going on here? We have now committed two serious errors. One we accept everything someone says as the oracle of God. Then when one aspect of teaching has been proved to be wrong we throw out everything. We have moved from one extreme position to another, one extremity of the swing of the pendulum to the other. Think through what it is that you believe. Take at face value what someone says and check Scripture to see if it is true. Have the wisdom of the Bereans (Acts 17) who examined all that Paul said against the Scriptures to see if it were true. They investigate, they examined, they searched the Scriptures, they checked it out. If they did that with Paul, how much more should we do it? Check it out.
Ian, I Can't Marry You Unless You Become a Christian
Before Tania and I first met Tania used to pray that God would show her that He was real and that He would show her who to marry. For some reason she always put those two prayers together and prayed them for a number of years. After our first date she told her sister when she got home that “he is the guy I am going to marry”. And she also had the sense that God was real. The uncanny thing about all that was that I was an atheist. There had been no talk that night of spiritual things or God. In fact if there had been I would have run a mile. But still Tania had a conviction on both of the things she had been praying about. Amazing. We went out for two and half years before getting engaged. Soon after buying the ring I noticed that Tania was not wearing it. When I asked her about it she told me “I read a Bible verse the other night that tells me I can’t marry you unless you are a Christian.” The verse of course was 2 Cor 6:14. I know it well. It messed up my life. Well in truth it turned my life the right way up. My response to Tania’s ultimatum? “Ok, then give me the ring. I am leaving. There is no way I am becoming a Christian.” I won’t share our full story on this until we get to the Gem for 2 Cor 6:14. Sorry continuing story in a number of weeks.
Don't Rob Me of the Blessing of Giving to God's Work.
The question of support for full time workers is a challenging matter on both sides of the fence. I ought to know, I have sat on both sides of the fence and have struggled with the "yes"and the "no". Tania and I have lived supported by God's people now for almost 40 years. It confounds the imagination really. It certainly baffles the secular world. There have been times when I have wanted to work to provide for my family and not accept gifted income. But have sensed God saying to not work and do it His way and see what happens. And indeed He comes through on His promise to provide my every need and that of the wife and children I bring along with me. There have been other times when I have been offered a contribution by an elderly woman whom I knew couldn’t afford it. When I have tried to refuse it and suggest she keep her money, she showed her indignation to me, telling me if she chooses to give to the Lord's work then who am I to refuse it. If I don’t receive it, how can she give to support the Lord's work. She said "Ian Vail, don't you rob me of the blessing of giving to God's work." Wow consider yourself duly rebuked Ian.
We have now been living like that for 30 years and it has been an amazing adventure. We can say like Paul that we have learned the secret to be content in plenty or in lack. It matters not really because God is in control of it all and He constantly shows His hand in some really incredible ways. I wouldn’t exchange this life for anything as it keeps me dependant on Him. There is no better place to be. Maybe Paul needed an elderly lady like our friend to tick him off and help to see his role in the process of God’s supply. If I could I would send her over but it's too late Paul is not available. Actually Paul and Clarice are now in the same place.
Why Did You Not Prepare Your Father?
I remember the most serious challenge to my cultural thinking occurred after a brutal murder in the Muslim village where we were staying. I had been faced with the challenges of cultural differences in the hours before this incident but this convinced me my cultural was not always the right one. I was doing some participant observation as they prepared the body for burial and I was asking questions along the way as they washed the bowels. One village friend asked me, “But you know about this Ambena Marissa, why do you ask so many questions?” [I wasn’t called Ian in the village, I was Marissa’s father – another little cultural difference]. “Your father has died. You would have done all this for him.” I explained that I had not seen this before. In my country we give this work to the undertaker. A look of horror came over his face as he said “You mean you gave your father into the hands of strangers for the preparation for his final journey?” The horror of it settled on me as I contemplated what he had just said. Oh my goodness, how could I do that? Why would we not keep that practice in the family? Why would give our loved one to the undertakers to do it for us? How unfeeling and unloving is that?
Being Interpreted When I Know Both Languages
Occasionally I have the privilege of speaking the message in English for a group but with an interpreter who was translating into Indonesian. In that situation I know both languages. That is rare that the person speaking also knows the language of interpretation. I was constantly monitoring the interpretation to ensure the meaning was coming across clearly. If it wasn’t, I made comment which made the audience laugh. We don’t normally have that context. The interpretation is what carries the message and if the interpreter has the wrong idea and the speaker doesn’t know both languages then the communication process fails. The interpretation is the most important part of the process. A whole message can fall apart on the misunderstanding of one word, which then places all that is said in the wrong context and ruins the message. For example, I heard of a situation where the preacher was preaching his heart out on the 23rd Psalm. But the interpreter and the speaker had not got together to discuss the message or the intent. In the verses which says “He restores my soul” the interpreter used the word for soul which meant the soul of the departed relative which is believe to inhabit the altar set up in the house for the departed relative. The word used for restore meant also “to bring back again”. The meaning that was communicated through all of that sermon no matter what else was spoken was that God restores the spirit of the dead ancestor to the family altar. That all hinged on the word that was wrongly chosen.
Love and All That
Allow me to share one little story with you and I will stop for today and close this discussion tomorrow with some concluding comments. While in a church in Auckland some years ago I have an interesting discussion with a leader in the church. We had experienced what I thought was a more typical charismatic approach to the gifts of the Spirit. We had had a time of praise and worship, followed by a time of the expression of the gifts, tongues and interpretation of tongues in that instance. It could almost be predictable because it happened after a time of “singing in the spirit”. Actually I felt like singing in the spirit after we had sung Amazing Grace earlier in the service. But it seemed like the worship leader had another plan and the time for singing in the spirit was planned later. I may well have been wrong but that is how if felt it in my spirit – that the timing of everything and “tongues” was contrived. The interpretation that followed was like this “I the Lord would say to you my people I lovest thee with a deep love. Oh how I lovest thee my people. Rest in my learn to know the dimensions of my love and soak yourself in it.” I don’t remember it now, I am making the above “quote” up. But something like that.
After the service one of the leaders came to me and said “Hi Ian, wow wasn’t that a great service. The Lord really spoke to us, didn’t He?”
I was feeling a dissonance in my spirit because I felt we had been manipulated to “sing in the spirit” at the time the worship leader had pre-planned it and we had not been sensitive to do it earlier at the end of Amazing Grace. I said to him “so you think that was a great service do you?”
He went on the defensive, and said “Yes, you know, there was a time of singing in tongues and the Lord spoke to us through the Word of interpretation.
”I said “so the Lord spoke to us, did He?”
He got even more defensive and told me “You believe in the gift of tongues Ian and interpretation, don’t you?”
I said “Yes I do. So that was a word from the Lord was it?” He said “Yes”.
I said “If that was word from the Lord what did He say?”
I waited for him to answer. His answer after a long pause “Well love and all that.”
I rest my case. My point is sometime we get so tied up in our rituals, or playing church, our waiting on the Lord for words, but if we really believed He had spoken to us we ought to be hanging on every word He said.
Isn’t that what Isaiah and Paul are doing with their very clever way of drawing the people’s attention to the problem. Are we really BELIEVING or are we just “believing”? Go ponder it.
What's the Best Way to Get the Notes?
The way Basil Brown would describe it I thought was helpful. He asked what we would do if we missed the lecture the next day. We told him we would get the notes from a friend. He asked us if there was a better way. We said of course, “Get the lecture notes directly from him (the lecturer).” He said there is a better way. What is it? The answer is to get the notes from everyone in the class. If we had everyone’s notes he told us we could reconstruct the exact words that he had spoken to the class the day before. One person would get the first sentence perfectly but not the second sentence. Another would get the first partially and the second also partially. Someone else would capture the second sentence completely. In such a process we could reconstruct the exact words that were spoken. We could even go one better again if we wanted to and that would be to get the notes from the students who did the class last year. If we did the same with their notes we could not only get the words he said to the same class last year but we could track any changes that he introduced from year to year. Even if we got the lecturers notes directly him from we would not necessarily have the exact words he said. He may well have departed from the notes, adding some more explanation, extra to what he had in the notes or skipped some and told the other students this wouldn’t be in the exam.
Kubla Khan
One of the great disasters of history took place in 1271. That year Marco Polo’s father visited the Kubla Khan, supreme ruler of China, India and the East. He was so attracted to Christianity, that he told Marco Polo’s father, “Tell your high priest to send 100 men skilled in your religion and I’ll be baptized. All my barons and great men and their subjects will be baptized too. Soon there will be more Christians here than in all the rest of the world.” But nothing was done. After thirty years, only a handful of missionaries had been sent – too little and too late! Can you imagine how different the world would be today if China (1.2 billion), India (800 million), and the rest of the Orient, had been converted to Christ?
General MacArthur
At the end of World War II, General MacArthur pleaded with the church in America, “Send 1,000 missionaries to Japan immediately,” promising that in one generation it could be won to Christ. Again the call was not heard, and today less than one percent of Japan’s population is Christian.
Two Very Different Reactions
On one flight I got talking with the man next to me whose name was Paddy. We exchanged pleasantries and soon he asked me what I did. I told him I was the Director of Wycliffe Bible Translators (NZ) – which I was at the time and am no longer. From that moment on our conversation took a different tack. He was so open and began asking all kinds of questions. I was the fragrance of life to him. He was brought up a Catholic and was like God turned the switch for him and gave him the opportunity to return to faith. The Kiss of Life.
On another flight I was seated next to a woman. We started talking and the same question came up. What do you do (for a job)? I told her the same thing. Her reaction was immediate and final. She simply turned her back to me and looked out the window for the rest of the trip, and it was a long trip. At one point I looked at her and thought she was asleep, but then noticed she was not asleep; she was pretending to be asleep. How sad! How very sad. Something had happened in that woman’s life to make her react that way. To her I was the stench of death. Nothing I had done. She had reacted to the things of God and His Christ, the remedy for her sins, in such a way that cut her off from the very help she needed. There was the smell of spiritual death all over her.