Just before Urbana, Heather Lambert had a question about a mission agency. So she wrote to the “Ask Jack” column by Jack Voelkel at www.urbana.org. A dialog on other matters followed, and when Heather returned from Urbana, she included Jack on her e-mail list to friends. The following, used by her permission, tells some of her story:
January 15, 2004
TO: All my friends
FROM: Heather
SUBJECT: What happened at Urbana
Hi everyone! I just wanted to send you an update on what has been going on . . .
First of all, for everyone who has been praying for me this past semester, thank you! I struggled a lot with feelings of hopelessness, doubt, fear and anxiety, and your prayers have pulled me through. Here is what happened when I went to the Urbana mission conference.
The first day we were supposed to ask God for something that we wanted to see happen by the end of the trip. I asked God to redeem my image of him and of myself. Basically I was asking God for healing, both mentally and spiritually. God really amazed me by answering this prayer beyond anything I would have imagined!
For a long time I have really struggled with trying to find the balance between these two scriptures in the Bible, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) and “there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). There is such a diversity of cultures; is it really possible that all of them can worship God through Jesus Christ? The theme at Urbana, “Your kingdom come, your will be done,” really addressed these questions. We heard speakers from all over the world and from many minorities within the United States and Canada proclaiming the name of Jesus and dedicating their lives to serve him as their King! Though worshiping Christ was what unified all these cultures, he did not by any means cause them to become one culture.
The music team was incredibly multicultural, and so was the worship! We worshiped Jesus in so many different ways—through dance, rap, art, poetry, and in Spanish, Celtic and Canadian! As we sang the hymn “O the Wonderful Cross,” we were shown pictures of Jesus and the cross from all different cultural perspectives; he was black and tan and brown and white. For me, the idea of the kingdom of God being a beautiful picture of diversity in submission to Christ came about the night the Native Americans spoke and led worship.
As a child, my next door neighbors were Native American. They invited my sister and me into their culture, sharing their food, their customs, their dance and their ceremonies with us. When I became a Christian in high school I was taught that this was wrong, and I was no longer allowed to participate in activities like sweat lodges or powwows. As a freshman in college I was able to research a ministry called Broken Walls, Native-American missionaries who worship Jesus Christ through their powwows, their drums and their culture. Broken Walls was at Urbana and we were invited to worship with them. I found myself dancing and sweating up a storm in worship to Jesus!
But it was the words of Ray Aldred, a Native American, that brought peace to my mental struggle. He spoke about how any cross-cultural missionary must realize that God has already been at work in the culture they are going to. Before anyone can reach a culture, they must speak that culture’s heart language. Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. A missionary’s conversion continues as he or she is sent, not to convert others, but to proclaim the name of Jesus. It’s not about converting to a certain culture, but more about becoming who you were created to be within the culture where God has placed you. So, God healed my image of him and showed me the freedom and joy found in Christ, rather than the oppression of one culture over another.
The way that God healed me spiritually shows his sense of humor. I didn’t know he wanted to heal me physically as well, which meant, first of all, getting sick! I was in bed for a couple of days, but God used this to really get it into my head that he is the Healer. As I was sitting in a meeting, feeling pretty bad, the speaker for that session said, “Sin is a sickness, a sickness of the soul.” Thinking of sin as a sickness was radical for me. God does not hate me for my sin. He hates the sin because it is a sickness and, in his love, wants me to be healthy! Everyone hates being sick; we cannot function completely and we feel horrible. Well, sin is like that: it keeps us from functioning as God created us to function, and God will go to whatever extreme necessary to get rid of it and make us whole, if we are willing.
After this, I met with three counselors and, through praying with them, I caught a glimpse of myself, not as a despicable creature, but as a sick one in need of healing from God. They had me renounce a lot of lies I had been believing about my overwhelming feelings of worthlessness and failure. Then they anointed me with oil, telling me to open my hands and receive the following gifts that God wanted to give me: uniqueness, witnessing for Christ in a very unique way, discernment, joy, excitement, imperfection, and the Holy Spirit. This has never happened to me before, and it was a little different, but I cannot tell you the freedom and joy that I had as I worshiped Christ that night! I had lost my voice by then, but was able to continue praising God through sign language, since one of my roommates is learning sign language and we were sitting in that section. This confirms that we need diversity within the body of Christ. The kingdom of God is not complete, nor are we, without all the cultures and languages represented.
So that is my summary of Urbana. Now let me tell you what happened when I got home. Sunday night I got a call from the YWAM (Youth With a Mission) school that I had applied to, saying that some people were not able to come and that they could now accept me into the school—which started the next day! So I packed up my stuff and moved in with two new roommates. This school is everything that my heart was longing for. As the nurse at Urbana said to me, “If you are seeking God, the desires of his heart will become the desires of your heart.”
I want to tell you more about the school, but I figure you are tired of reading this long e-mail, and I am freezing (there is no heat in the computer lounge here!). Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and your friendship!
God bless you all,
Heather
—Heather Lambert lives in Colorado Springs where she is preparing for mission work. She was a delegate at Urbana 03. She is grateful to “Ask Jack” for wise advice and pastoral care. Parts taken from the “Ask Jack” column by Jack Voelkel at www.urbana.org. Used by permission.
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