Generosity Planning

Have you known one of those people who say they don’t plan their vacations—they just take off and head in a direction and see what happens? Are you one of those? Well, my thinking on this is that they cannot say they don’t plan their vacations. You see, they had to do some planning: taking PTO from work, syncing the kids’ schedules, determining if they are going to drive or fly, arranging for the financial resources to take a vacation, arranging (notice I am trying not to use the word “planning” here) for someone or a kennel to take care of the dog, arranging for picking up the mail and making the house look like it is lived in while they are away. And on and on.

The issue is not about saying, “I don’t plan the vacation,” but more on how much planning you must do just to get ready to go. Face it—we are planners. We make grocery lists on our phones. We make lists of things to do today and this week either on our phones or post-it notes. Our lives revolve around “to do” lists. I am certain that there are people with better memories than mine who make their lists in their head.

We plan our finances with budgets. We plan birthday parties for the children or grandchildren. We have plans for family holiday gatherings and plans for our health including medications and supplements.

Planning gives direction and facilitates coordination of objectives.  It reduces risks and encourages ideas. If one fails to plan, one plans to fail. Planning is an integral part of our lives.

We have a plan for most things in our lives, so why don’t we have generosity plans? The sharing of our resources is done in an improvising or extemporizing manner. Giving patterns in most households are  spontaneous or because of guilt.

Your generosity plan must first include the why. Some would respond to this quickly and say, “Because the Bible tells us to be generous,” but that is not necessarily your why. This is about your motivation for being generous. What are the passions of your family? What are your values? What is the Lord saying to you?

Your plan includes the what—meaning to define the causes that you wish to support and then identify the organizations that you believe are doing the best job addressing these causes. Do not move through this too quickly as you need time to do a deep dive into organizations to make sure their mission and values align with your family’s. By the way, this is not just about your money. Generosity includes your talents, your time, and your treasure.

The plan also includes the how—matching the resources that God has given you and your family to have the greatest impact on the causes that you have identified.

We need to bring greater intentionality to our giving, and we also need to align our valuables with our values. The best way to do that is to have a generosity plan.

Hiding

How long has it been since you have played Hide and Seek? I was watching a show on TV this week where the child told his mother to count and that he was going to hide. One, two, three, four, five, six, and then the mother was distracted and completely forgot about her preschooler hiding in another room. Finally, the boy cried out to his mother, and she replied by saying, “Twenty. Ready or not, here I come!” With 16 grandchildren I have played more than my share of this 2,000-year-old children’s game.  

Beman was a young Ivoirian Muslim friend when we lived in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He was a handsome dude, and his smile, kind voice and affability easily won new friends.

We had much time together in Adjame’ on the outskirts of Abidjan where I was regularly meeting with a group of young men to study the Bible. Beman was smart, and he asked good questions.

He was my favorite participant, but one day I was totally discouraged with something that he shared with me. We were talking about the omniscience of God and how we cannot hide from God. Beman shared with the group that he could successfully hide from God. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him to elaborate.

He said that during the fast of Ramadan he would cover himself with a blanket so that God could not see, and he would eat and drink during the daytime fast.  Beman thought he was hiding from God.

It is easy for us westerners to laugh at this simple attempt to hide from God, but the fact is that most people’s understanding of omniscience is either elementary or non-existent. When I have shared this story of Beman with others, many have been amused at the simple mind of this West African, but if we are honest with ourselves, all of us at some time have been guilty of trying to hide from God.

Genesis 3:8 tells us that Adam and Eve hid from God. When we are disobedient to God, our sinful instinct is to run away and hide from Him. Rather than running away from God, we should be running to God for restoration and help.

“Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” Jeremiah 23:24.

What Do Angels Look Like?

Very few of us failed to see some kind of Christmas pageant during the past month. Our five-year old granddaughter, Amelia, was in a children’s dramatic musical presentation at our church recently. She was a star—and a comical one. When the “stars” lifted their hands in sync with the music, their costumes covered their faces. But, of course, it was a magnificent program.

During Christmas programs, my attention usually turns to the angels because they always look the same. Dressed in glittering white, they have a halo and wings, and they are usually smiling, right? At least that is what they look like in all the pageants that I have seen.

How do we know what an angel looks like? For sure it is not a western cultural thing as the Sumerian, Assyrians, Babylonians and ancient Egyptians have left us carved images of angles that look just like the ones in our Christmas pageants. So it looks like our notion of what an angel looks like has been passed down from generation to generation.

It strikes me that when an angel is introduced in The Word, the people to whom they appeared must have been afraid. Matthew 29:5 states: "But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified." So, what did the angel look like if the first thing it said to the women at Jesus' tomb was "Don't be afraid?" Probably not what our stereotyped notion of pageant angels is.

Then, there is I Chronicles 21:30 where the angel carried a sword: "but David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD." How many pageants have you seen with an angel carrying a sword?!

Many times in our lives our minds are set -- on what something is supposed to look like, on what you think something tastes like, on what someone believes, on where someone fits in the societal rankings, on how we are going to like someone -- before we ever get an opportunity to see, experience and understand for ourselves.

Perhaps you are guilty as I have been of forming an opinion of someone based on what others tell you before you ever meet the person or before you get to know her or him. I really do not want to allow someone else to choose my friends for me by accepting their opinion before I have the opportunity to make up my own mind.

"Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge." James 4:11

My Bad

How many times have you heard the expression, “my bad” recently? And, in my case, how many times have I said that expression recently? I find myself saying it regularly.

There is debate about the origin of this idiom, and stories range from Shakespeare to Louis Armstrong. However, there is no doubt that an NBA superstar in the 1980s made the phrase mainstream.

Manut Bol was an NBA star in the 80s who came from Sudan to play basketball in America. His native language was Dinka from South Sudan. When he was playing basketball, he did not have a good enough grasp of English to express himself with “my fault,” so he would just say, “my bad.” His teammates picked the saying up and the expression has become conventional idiom.

We have a photograph of Manut Bol and one of our former colleagues who worked in the Horn of Africa. She was a nurse and hardly stood five feet tall. In the photo of her standing beside the 7’7” NBA basketball star, who at the time was the tallest NBA player ever, our former colleague barely came to his waistline.

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is willing to say “my bad.” I have found that good leaders admit their mistakes, and when they do, they show vulnerability. The best leaders own their mistakes and use them to become better leaders.

Proverbs 24:16 tells us, “For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again” (NIV). Everyone makes mistakes; the Bible is clear on that. Mistakes are useful—they teach us what doesn’t work. 

Look around you. Everyone you see has made mistakes, and they will continue to make mistakes.

However, God does not make mistakes. This is Christmas Day. We celebrate the birth of a baby born of a virgin who died a cruel death on the cross. We celebrate Christmas because of the birth of our Savior who was resurrected and now offers eternal life for all who trust in Him. Rejoice!

Lead with Questions

I have always been curious. It is said that farmers are a curious lot. I was born on the farm and grew up around the farm, so maybe that’s why I am so curious.

Cheryl and I studied French for a year at the Institut de Tourraine in Tours, France. We were in classes together through most of our studies, and Cheryl “talked” to me often about embarrassing her in the classroom. She performed better than me on our dictations, so she was better at grammar than I was. However, since I asked a lot of questions in the classroom and I was not shy about speaking in class, I became a more fluent speaker than she.

In a third-degree class, our professor asked me: “Etes-vous Chinois, Monsieur Cox?”  Before this blond-haired blue-eyed fellow could respond, Monsieur Herot said that since I asked so many questions, I must be Chinese.

One of my mentors, Avery Willis, spoke many times as he traveled with me across eastern Europe. After he chose me to lead one of the regions of the world for the IMB, he told me that he first became interested in me because I asked hard questions that made him think before responding. I don’t recall planning hard questions to ask him, so I guess it is just my nature to ask a lot of questions.

I ask a lot of questions because I do not know the answers. My grandkids—the preschoolers at least—think I know everything because for every question that they ask me, I always have a response. Cheryl bought me a T shirt a couple of years ago that says, “Papa knows everything. If he doesn’t know he makes stuff up really fast!”

There are certainly many questions that I cannot answer, but that was never true of Jesus. He knew all the answers, and yet he focused so much of his interaction with people on asking them questions. The four Gospels record over 300 (exact number depends on the translation) questions that Jesus asked.

Fifty years ago Grady Nutt wrote a little book called “Being Me.” The premise of the book is summed up in this statement: I am a person of worth created in the image of God to relate and to live. God created us as relational beings, and, as such, we grow through asking and responding to each other’s questions.

Jesus taught that we are changed as much by what we say as what we hear. Mark 7:15 (NIV) “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’”

Jesus asked listeners a question to explain the point of a parable. He answered questions with questions. He asked questions for opinions or to remind people of what they already knew. His questions warmed up a crowd or provoked an argument.

We ask questions for information, but Jesus asked questions to provoke transformation. We ask questions for answers, but Jesus asked questions for awareness.

Good leaders ask questions. A leader who leads with questions will usually be more effective than a leader who only leads by telling.

Black Hawk

Russia’s new President Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a speech in 1986—just one year after being elected—where he criticized the Soviet Union’s economic system and introduced a new era with two words: Perestroika (reconstruction) and Glasnost (opening or transparency). This was the beginning of the fall of communism and the opening of Eastern Europe to the western world.

It was a great privilege to be able to work in Eastern Europe in the 1990s during the first post-communism decade. There had been no expat missionaries working in Eastern Europe during decades of communism, so the opportunities to send missionaries into the former Soviet Bloc countries was an answer to the prayers of millions of evangelical Christians.

The Area Director of Europe asked me to come and work on a leadership team to begin work in Eastern Europe. My responsibility was all the countries from the Baltics to the Balkans. That included all the Nordic countries down through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Poland, Slovak and Czech Republics, Romania, Bulgaria, and on through Croatia, Serbia, and the rest of southern Europe. My colleague, Dan Panter, led workers in Russia and the rest of the Soviet satellite countries.

Since we were opening work in these countries, a huge challenge was getting families settled new areas. I had to do a great deal of traveling in those 16 countries to encourage new families as they began studying language, getting their children enrolled in schools, and learning how to buy groceries.

Those years were also difficult for Eastern Europeans as they were able to buy and sell commodities for the first time in generations. People all over Eastern Europe were hungry for western currencies as their currency rates were unstable. Prices for some items were relatively inexpensive, so I took the opportunity to buy some antique maps. All my life I have loved geography and especially old maps. I enjoyed browsing small old shops in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. One of the “treasures” that I found in Poland was a small map printed in German and made in Berlin. It was once part of a North American atlas. Most antique maps were part of a book at one time. If you are shopping for an antique map printed in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, look for a crease in the middle of the map to help authenticate the map. The crease was formed as the map was bound originally in a book.

A small 8” X 12” map caught my eye. It was printed in the late 1800s, and it featured the USA states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. and when I examined it closely, I was delighted to see the small town of “Black Hawk” printed on the Mississippi map. My mother and dad lived on a farm near Black Hawk when I was born. My dad graduated from Black Hawk High School in 1945. On this old map Black Hawk was registered as one of the stops on the stagecoach line from Nashville to Natchez.

Formed in 1828, Black Hawk, Mississippi is one of the oldest settlements in North Mississippi. The town was incorporated in 1836 but it had been a village long before Mississippi ever became a state. Some of the early settlers to this community were Coxes. I had a fast bond with this little antique map

Today there is no town of Black Hawk. All the little stores are gone and the road where the stagecoach once passed through Black Hawk is not even a through street. But the old Black Hawk School building is still standing, and it continues to be used for special events such as Bluegrass concerts or impromptu “picking and grinning.” Most governor candidates for the past 150 years have spoken at political rallies at the Black Hawk School.

Back to maps—today we do not value maps. We utilize GPS so much instead of maps that kids growing up now do not ever look at maps. GPS is very good at getting you to that next location, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the places that you’re passing along the way.

I had the little Black Hawk map framed, and I presented it to my parents. The map still hangs in a prominent place in my mother’s den today. Every time I visit my mother’s house, I study that map like it is my first time to see it. It brings back a lot of memories. Maps connect people to their memories.

Maps can tell you how people understood their world when that map was made. Maps are a time capsule.

Look at a map with someone else and it won’t take long for you both to start pointing to different spots and sharing stories of that place.

Am I advocating giving up the GPS—nope! I love using it although on occasion it has instructed Cheryl and me to “get out of the car and walk to your final destination.” Where’s my map?

Feet on the Ground

While living in the “bush” of eastern Upper Volta/Burkina Faso, we made family trips to the capital city every four to six weeks. Ouagadougou was the only place to buy most of our groceries and other supplies. It was always a treat for the kids as they would get to see the children of fellow workers. They also looked forward to staying in the mission guesthouse because it had a window unit air conditioner. It was a huge treat for us coming from the bush to get to sleep in an air-conditioned room. We did not have electricity unless the generator was running much less an air conditioner.

There was an American Club that had a pool, but it was always crowded with families of American Embassy staff. On one particular trip we decided to splurge and pay to swim in the pool at the nicest hotel in the city.

After a four-hour trip to Ouagadougou on dusty roads with all the windows rolled down on the Land Cruiser (no A/C either), we had all eaten so much dust that we could not wait to get to the pool. Upon arriving at the pool, we were excited because we were the only people at the pool.

After about 30 minutes of alone time at the pool, we saw four men headed to the pool. These were white men, so we knew they were foreigners. One of them had on a Tee shirt and swimsuit, and oddly enough, the other three had on suits—and it was over 100 degrees.

The one with the swimsuit sat down on the side of the pool with his feet in the water while the other men just stood around him. I was playing with the kids and overheard them speaking English, so I decided to wade over and talk with them.

I introduced myself, and the swimmer said, “You don’t recognize me?” I replied that I am sorry, but I did not recognize him. One of the men on the side of the pool said, “This is Rev. ____, the famous tele-evangelist.” I responded with a “Nice to meet you.”

The Reverend asked me questions about our family and what we were doing in Ouagadougou. I explained how we were working with villagers while living among them.

I asked him what they were doing in Ouaga. He said that he wanted to have feet on the ground to raise money to help hungry people. A film crew had accompanied them to Ouagadougou. They had rented a helicopter to take the Reverend to a village for filming. I did not even know there was a helicopter in the country! As he talked, I realized that the three “bodyguards” were his “yes men.” They were eager to please the Reverend.

The Reverend’s party was spending a great deal of money for him to have his feet on the ground for a couple of hours of filming time so that they could buy television time in the USA to show how benevolent he was. All that money was spent so that people would see his compassionate work in villages and be moved to give generously to his ministry.

I have no idea how much of what people gave would actually wind up feeding hungry people, but the irony of this encounter is that at the same time we were actually feeding hungry villagers with money from Baptist church members in the USA who had given generously knowing that 100% of what they gave would go to actually feed these hungry people, and none of it would be used to rent a helicopter, pay for the team members’ and filming crew’s travel expenses, pay for television broadcast,  and on and on.

Faithful people in our Southern Baptist churches give today though Send Relief International knowing that the missionaries who will utilize those funds are taken care of through the Cooperative Program, so all the money given for hungry or needy people will be used to help them.

Be careful where you invest your charitable dollars. Many Christian mission or relief organizations keep administrative and fundraising dollars in the USA and then have additional admin costs in offices overseas.

Those feet on the ground can gobble up much of what you intend to help people who are hurting.

Stinky Food

I have been spending a lot of time with my 91-year-old mother. She is persona non grata with the assisted living homes in the area since she became an escape artist at the first one in which she resided, so Cheryl and I go often to Mississippi to stay with her and try to keep her out of trouble.

Although she is legally blind, she still insists on cooking. Last week she cooked a pound cake before I arrived, and even though I am not fond of pound cakes, this one really tasted good.

However, another day she cooked some cornbread. I was on a business call, so I was unable to watch her as she mixed and cooked the cornbread in the oven. I smelled something strange when I finished my call. She had cut the cornbread and left it in the well-seasoned iron skillet. The cornbread was brown through and through instead of the normal yellow, so I leaned over to smell it. I bet you do that sometimes too. When something looks strange, we want to smell it!

Well, it did not smell like her normal good-tasting cornbread. I think I hurt her feelings when I did not eat any of it for lunch, but something just was not right about that cornbread.

Many traditional foods in other countries don’t really smell good. You don’t have to lean over the dish to detect the smell as it is sometimes very strong.

One such food in Southeast Asia is a fruit called durian. Durian’s pungent odor is so bad that in Singapore you are not allowed to have durian with you on public transportation or in hotels. I have often seen it in the markets in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Singapore, but I have never tasted it as I cannot get past the awful smell.

When we lived in Burkina Faso, every market day was marked by a West African fermented spice called Dawadawa. This fishy aromatic spice is made from the seed of the Locust Bean tree. The seeds are cooked into a gooey black paste, and after fermenting, it is one of the most used spices among all people groups of West Africa. The fermented pungent flavor of Dawadawa means that a little of it will go a long way.

Once in a village in Upper Volta (now known as Burkina Faso) our whole family was asked to sit under a shade tree away from villagers. You may be thinking about sitting at a table with chairs, but this was not the case in West African villages. I never saw villagers sit at any kind of table to eat a meal. They either squat or sit on a small hand-carved wooden stool about six inches in diameter. Cheryl and I had small stools and the kids squatted around us as they brought us a calabash bowl full of fat rice and meat. Ordinarily, we would dig into the food as we had become accustomed to the seasoning of village-cooked food.

However, in this case, something did not smell right, so I told the children not to eat anything yet. I pulled out a piece of meat. I did not know if it was goat, mutton, pork or whatever, but it was not good. It had a very strong odor of spoiled meat.

We were in a predicament. We did not want to embarrass our hosts by not eating the meal, so I had to get rid of at least some of the food to make it look like we had eaten.

The villagers were being served their portions nearby and they were watching us. We needed a diversion so I could dispose of the rotten food. Being the only white people within an hour’s drive in any direction had its advantages. I asked the kids to walk toward the villagers and shake hands with everyone to create a diversion so I could dump our food somewhere.

I had a couple of plastic bags in our vehicle, so I poured some of the food into the first bag. The food was so hot that it melted the plastic bag and fell on the ground. With my foot I quickly tried to cover the food with some dust, and then one of the elders of the village walked up and smiled. He said in their More’ language: “You white people don’t like our food, do you?”

Of course, Cheryl and I were immediately embarrassed, but the elder laughed and announced to the whole village: “Larry and his family don’t like our food.” The whole village laughed, and in the end, we still had a good relationship with the people in that village.

Isn’t it great how much those villagers accepted us strange foreigners and loved us despite our inabilities in adapting to their culture, language, food and customs? I only wish that Americans would be so understanding with those foreigners who come to live among us.

An Elephant in the Room

Having traveled for most of my life, I have numerous stories about motels and hotels. I have been awakened a half dozen times by the hotel fire alarm, but only once was there a real fire. Fortunately, it was in the parking garage and did not destroy my room—but I spent the night sitting on a curb outside in the cold. Several times I have been given keys to rooms that were already occupied by one or more persons, and yes, I walked in on these people! I have slept on every kind of bed including hammocks, extremely hard Asian beds, and even a piece of yellowed foam with no covering.

There are stories of obnoxious, noisy, partying, and just crazy people staying beside me or above me, but I will only share my most recent sleep deprived night. During a visit to southern California recently, I was staying in a Double Tree Hotel in Pomona. After a busy day of meetings, I needed to unwind, so I prepared for bed and started reading a book, “Washington’s Spies.” Just on the brink of falling asleep, I sat up quickly in the bed as it sounded like someone running across my room.

Actually, the noise was coming from the room above me. It sounded like an elephant tromping across the room. I was on the first floor, and I knew my room carpet was laid upon concrete, but the second floor had to be wooden because I could hear every step of someone walking heavily back-and-forth the length of the room. Suddenly, he or she or it started pouncing across the bed as it walked around the room.

I sat down hard on my bed and jumped up and down trying to duplicate the noise from the creaky bed I heard above me--but to no avail. I don’t know how any creature could make that much noise walking. I wondered why it was pacing so much. The pace was not a regular one. It was as if it deliberately chose a different path around the room every 30 seconds. I could not go to sleep.

I turned on the television thinking that would drown out the noise and make me sleepy. Didn’t work. I tried reading. Didn’t work. I tried holding a pillow over my head but that’s not a good situation in which to go to sleep. I had to wake up at 6 AM, and it was already past midnight.

My human nature wanted me to bang on the ceiling, but I was afraid that some psycho would come down and pound on my door. I thought about going to the front desk and complaining, but I remembered that there was a young lady at the desk, and I did not want her to confront the psycho.

 Somehow, I drifted to sleep. During the very short night, I had to go to the bathroom and guess what? The elephant was still in the room, and it was still pacing the floor and the creaky bed.

When I awoke in the morning, IT was still pacing the floor, and I wondered to myself, “Doesn’t this thing above me ever sleep?” My first inclination was to pick up my shoe and stand in the desk chair and bang on the ceiling.

That’s the modus operandi for us as human beings, isn’t it? When someone does something bad to us, we want to do something bad to them. Like someone cutting you off in traffic makes you want to catch up with them and cut them off. Or you learn that someone in your extended family made a snide comment about one of your immediate family, and your reaction is to make a smart remark about someone in their immediate family.

While grabbing my shoe, the Lord brought this to my mind from I Peter: “Put aside all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander.” I didn’t bang on the ceiling – although I wanted to really bad!

Street Called Straight

Our knowledge of world and national events is controlled by the media. As the media move from one tragedy to the next, we move with them. Media tire of one tragedy and seem to welcome a new one because ratings determine the cost of advertising. Media need sponsors to pay their bills, and old news does not attract viewers/listeners/readers. It is all about money

One such tragedy that has not been in our attention for months is the Syrian crisis. What began as part of the Arab Spring uprising in March 2011 escalated into civil war resulting in over a half million people being killed—160,000 of those civilians.

There are, of course, the tragedies of Yemen and Haiti that have also taken the back seat of media coverage since the Afghanistan crisis, but my attention and prayers today are focused on a whole generation of Syrian children who have not been in school during this 10-year war in Syria.

Cheryl and I were in Damascus visiting with some of our personnel before the outbreak of the war. As we traveled around the city, we were amazed at the number of young people in the country of 22 million people. Everywhere we went children were about. Today those children are afraid to come out of their homes—if they even have a house to call home!

We walked the “Street Called Straight.” Today it is called “Souq Midhat Pasha.” We had to buy something from one of the small shops scattered along this historic street just because the Apostle Paul had walked along that road. This two-thousand-year-old road was a Greek and later a Roman road that runs east to west through Damascus for over one mile.

People from all over the world have walked down the “Street Called Straight” for centuries with no fear from warring factions, but today that is not true. Half the population of Syria has been internally displaced. Another 6-7 million Syrians have fled the country. Syrians who remain in the country are pessimistic about the future of their country.

Would you join me in praying for cessation of the war in Syria?

Goose Liver

Living in six other countries and traveling in more than 130 countries over the past 45 years, I have eaten some weird things.

But I started eating different foods at an early age. When I was 3 years old I would sit on the meat chopping block behind the meat and cheese cooler in the general store owned by Leon Tate in Black Hawk, Mississippi. Mr. Leon would cut me a small slab of “goose liver,” and I would gobble it down. The patrons laughed at me because they were not accustomed to any child eating “goose liver.” 

God was preparing me for a lifetime of traveling and eating different foods. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta where cotton was king for generations. Many immigrants settled in the Delta because of  job opportunities. Growing up I had many Chinese friends whose parents usually ran a small grocery store. They lived in the rear of these grocery stores, and they would often cook Chinese food and sell it out of their home kitchens.

The specialty of my favorite Chinese grocery store kitchen was actually not a Chinese dish, but it was sliced pork with a homemade sweet Asian barbeque sauce. Barbeque may not sound very Asian to many people, but it was my introduction to a lifetime of enjoying barbeque.

Our family enjoyed eating in restaurants owned by Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, and Syrians all in our small town. As a teenager working in the men’s store, I ate a lot of lunches in these restaurants and learned to love capers and anchovies on my salads. My pizza of choice today is anchovies, jalapenos, and onion—but no one ever wants to share it with me!!

My dad ran a food vending company owned by a Lebanese family for 26 years. My first experience with Arab food was in my hometown as we often ate Mediterranean delicacies from my dad’s boss’s kitchen and the kitchen of other Arab-Americans in our hometown.

When we lived in Upper Volta, West Africa, a delicacy of villagers was the stomach of sheep. It was boiled and it was so tough it was hard to chew and get down. Villagers usually served their delicacy to important people, and unfortunately, I was always important. It was difficult to gnaw on a bite of stomach while some kids near me were eating the delicious tender parts of the sheep.

One of the most popular cooking spices in the Sahel of West Africa is the dried fruit of a locust bean tree which is called by a different name in every local language. Children eat the yellow powder around the seeds, but the seeds are soaked and allowed to ferment to get the intense aroma that it gives. Frankly, it just stinks! During the eleven years we lived there, I always dreaded shaking hands with someone who was working with this spice. The strong aroma passed from their hands to my hands and then to my nostrils. Yuck! Remarkably enough, when cooked, the stinking substance does not taste bad at all.

Traveling in Central Asia for six years during the time of the fall of Communism, I was frequently offered the traditional fermented mare’s milk called “Kumis.” It is a mildly alcoholic drink originating with the Mongolians that is enjoyed all across Central Asia. Is it tasty? What would you think? The Central Asians love it, but most of their foreign visitors think it is not so good.  The Kyrgyz and Kazakhs say that you have to develop a taste for this delicacy.

In my travels in the Horn of Africa, I discovered another slightly fermented food. Injera is a sour flatbread used in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine that is thicker than a crepe but thinner than a pancake. It is made from teff, an ancient grain, and when cooked it has a sour taste. It is usually served with toppings called “wat.” I am not fond of the “fermenty” bread, but I do like the “wat” which can be any of a variety of toppings such as lentils, eggs, chicken stew, boiled collards, and other delicacies.

By the way, I was served a meal on my first ever flight to Paris on Air France in June 1976, and the appetizer was “pate’ de foie gras.” It is a popular food in France and is served in some of the most exquisite restaurants in the world. I have enjoyed eating it on every opportunity—although it is a pricey delicacy. Guess what it is---goose liver!

S. Truett Cathy once said, “Food is essential to life, therefore make it good.”

Thank you, Lord, for giving us between 2,000 and 4,000 taste buds in our mouths so that we can enjoy good food.

Fear

Our church is one of many that sponsors a Trunk-R-Treat event in the parking lot of our church as an outreach ministry to the community. We participate gladly giving pretzels, candy or other treats to the hundreds of kids who come all dressed up. No one has measured the effectiveness of this event at our church, but I know that people have come to our church for the first time as a result of this event. So, in my mind it is worth all the efforts if just one person comes to a right relationship with the Heavenly Father.

Halloween is big business. I was appalled at reading this: “According to the National Retail Federation, spending on Halloween-related items is expected to reach $10.14 billion, up from $8.05 billion in 2020 and an all-time high. Individually, Americans are anticipated to spend an average of $102.74 on Halloween this year.”

Then there is the horror movie industry—I read some stunning figures on the amount of money made on horror movies because they are so wildly popular and compared to other movies, they are much less expensive to produce. Good news for investors in horror movies: huge ROI.

Horror movies, horror features on TV, buying costumes, decorating houses and paying for spook venues—all that money to scare people.

We are fortunate to live in a country where we don’t live in fear. So, we pay money to get frightened! So many people around the world live in fear every day. I have traveled in 130 plus countries over the years, and the most frightened people I have ever seen were in North Korea. Walking down the street people don’t even look into the face of other people. You never see smiles on their faces. Everyone is suspicious of others. The government rules by fear.

Albania was the last of the former communist European countries to renounce communism. My first trip to Albania was in 1995. As the Lufthansa aircraft landed at the Tirana airport the noise from the tires rolling over the pavement was alarming. The runway was so rough and the cracks in the pavement were so wide that the jet was required to halt at the end of the runway so a crew could come out in a truck to examine the tires of the jet. After a few minutes of inspection, the jet taxied to the point of disembarkation.

Driving from the airport to the city, I was amazed at the proliferation of concrete bunkers that looked like igloos scattered across fields. The bunkers were built all over the country because the leadership of the country instilled a fear into all Albanians that the Americans were going to invade their country. Hundreds of thousands of metal spears pointing upward were mounted on farm fence posts to kill the invading paratroopers from America.

The government of Albania strong-armed people of the country and ruled the hermit nation through fear. This is another example of how many nations have been ruled by instilling fear in the citizens of the country.

Even though we do not live in a country that intentionally instills fear into its citizens, fear is something we all face every day, and it can steal our joy and peace if we let it overwhelm us. The Bible is filled with stories of people who overcame their fears with the strength of God.

Rolfe Dorsey, one of my mentors, told me this when I was 19 years old: Preach Jesus. Hate nothing but sin. Fear nothing but God.

Godly fear isn’t the same as fear of a tyrant or a dictator. We don’t need to fear God’s anger unless we have an unrepentant heart because of sin. The act of fearing God is absolute reverence and awe for the Almighty God, the creator and sustainer of all things.

During my treatments for my second bout with cancer, Joshua 1:9 was my verse: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” I am not afraid because the Lord has planned every step of my life, and I trust in Him as He directs my journey.

Valuables and Values

When you think of Patrick Henry quotes you probably think of his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech on March 23, 1775. Patrick Henry delivered this discourse at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, and I have been in this church during a reenactment of that famous speech. It was a moving experience to sit in a pew where George Washington, Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson could have been seated during the conventions leading up to the Revolutionary War.

How I wish that more people could have heard this Patrick Henry quote:

“I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.”

In my consulting work I talk with people about how to find more joy in giving. Usually our first thoughts when we hear giving mentioned in any situation are about financial resources. When giving is mentioned from the pulpit or about a charity, it is about giving money or our valuables. We think about what we want to leave our children and usually our first thought is about valuables. It is distressing that there is little thought given to what values we want to leave our children and grandchildren. One of the values that I want to leave with my family is generosity.

Recently, my wife and I have met personally with each of our four children’s families. We gave each of them an envelope with a letter and a sealed smaller envelope with some cash inside. Here is the content of the letter:

Dear ---,

We believe that all that is upon the earth belongs to the Lord and that we are only stewards of His resources for a short while. We leave this earth holding in our hands all that we had in our hands when we were born. Understanding this will determine the way you live your life and how you use the resources that the Lord entrusts to you.

Through the years we have found that giving money away frees us from the power of money. Over the past 53 years we have worked hard. Sometimes we thought that we were not paid enough for the work that we performed, but the Lord provided just enough for us, and our family never missed getting what we needed.

One of the greatest joys in our lives has been to tithe to our church. Tithing is not for God’s benefit. God does not need our money, but the practice of tithing helps believers give a portion of their income back to God.

But generosity goes beyond tithing. Generosity is the quality of being unselfish, especially as it pertains to sharing money and other valuables with others.

We want you to use the money in the envelope to help someone who has a need. No guidelines--you determine how to give this money away or invest it in others in need.

During the Thanksgiving holidays we hope to see all of you at some time or another, and we will be asking you to report on what you have done with the money. Since we all will not be together for a while, we will be taking notes on what everyone does with their money and report back to the whole family.

2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV) says, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Now you understand why we did not want you to open the envelope first—you would have thought that the money in the envelope is a gift for you. Actually, the money IS a gift—we are giving you an opportunity to practice generosity.

With love from Nana/Mom and Papa/Dad

We can’t wait to see what each member of our family will do with their money. Hopefully, sharing this effort will inspire you to do something similar with your family to help them understand that values such as generosity are far more important than valuables.

Born Leader

Recently I was reading in the Bible about Deborah, the judge and prophetess. I wondered if Deborah would have led from her God-given appointment as a judge or was she a leader who led by influence instead of position. These thoughts about positional versus influential leadership guided my thoughts to the expression “born leader.”

I was rather shy growing up. By the time I was an adolescent, I was like most kids-I had a fear of getting up in front of people. Treon Jackson broke me of that fear. I wrote about her recently as one of my heroes. Mrs. Jackson and her husband, J.L., were the leaders of my Training Union class for 10–12-year-olds at my church. She literally made me get up in front of my peers and read a “part” in Training Union one Sunday night. She told me that if I did not do it that she would tell my mama and daddy that I was not listening to her, and she was sure that I would receive a very severe punishment.

I read my part out of fear, but once it was done, I discovered that I liked it. From that point on in my life, I have not been afraid to get in front of people and talk. In high school I enjoyed parts in school plays and participated in student government.

We all have regrets from college, but one of mine is not something I did, but rather something that I did not do—major in speech or drama. I changed majors so much in college that when I was a junior I had to find a major where I could use some of the hodgepodge of courses that I had assembled in my transcript.

We often hear people talk about “born leaders.” Do you think it is true that some people are leaders because they were born that way? I don’t think leadership is a quality that you have to be born with. Leadership is not about being genetically lucky and being born into the right family. However, there are some essential characteristics that a leader must have as part of their makeup. One of those is the courage to speak out and risk rejection. Mrs. Jackson threatened me to do that part, but I had to have the courage to do it without worrying about what my peers would do or say.

Another trait that a leader must have is the ability or the desire to challenge the status quo—to stand up for what you believe or to break new ground. Leaders ask the “why” questions. Leaders look for the desired outcome and how it fits with the mission and values.

Max Dupree wrote a little book years ago that remains one of my all-time favorite books on leadership. In “The Art of Leadership” Dupree says that leadership is about people awareness and a lot of gut. For me that means that a leader steps up to the plate when there is a defining moment that begs for a leader to emerge. That leader does not wait for that moment to ask what she need to do to lead. She had been preparing for a long time for the right moment to exhibit her leadership skills. I was attending a meeting a few years ago where the legendary basketball coach John Wooden was speaking. I recall Coach Wooden saying something like this: “Once the opportunity to lead arrives it is too late to prepare.”

You don’t have to be a leader today to prepare to be a leader someday. Many people miss the opportunity to be a leader because they are waiting on someone to ask them to be a leader. It is like being “on deck” waiting for your turn to bat without ever getting up to the plate and taking a swing.

Go ahead—step into the batter’s box. Speak out and change the status quo!

Chewing Sticks

Our granddaughter, Shelby, FaceTimed me today. It is always great to hear from grandchildren. Better to see them in person, but it is a real joy when they choose to call one of their grandparents.

She is a sophomore in college studying forensic science, and she works for campus security. I have not seen her in action, but I can imagine this petite blond armed with pepper spray on her rounds writing parking tickets or doing crowd control at the university football games. Every time she calls, we talk about some of her exciting experiences in classes, security training, or work.

Another thing that we always discuss is plants. This girl is passionate about plants, and her Papa is very proud of that. She walks around the plant department at local stores collecting small pieces of plants that have broken off and fallen to the floor, and she propagates these throw-away pieces.

Today, Shelby asked me if I knew anything about Neem oil. She had bought a bottle because she was having a problem with mildew on her plants and on her soil.  After using it she was anxious to tell me about her success with the product.

This was good news for this old farmer because I have a problem in the winter with leaf mildew on my 40-year-old bonsai. I looked on the website and one of my local big boxes has it in stock, so I will be purchasing some soon.

My response to Shelby about asking me what I knew about Neem oil was longer than she bargained for. Nearly forty years ago I was helping local villagers in western Burkina Faso have more wood for hut construction, firewood, and other building needs. The land had been ravaged long ago of available firewood because of the desertification of the Sahel where we lived.

The three kinds of trees that we propagated for distribution to villagers were Gmelina, Eucalyptus, and Neem. Neem trees grew well in our arid climate, but the goats loved to eat them, so they had to be protected to survive.

I did not know much about neem oil until my visit with Shelby, but I knew that the Neem tree had some unusual qualities. Villagers in West Africa have traditionally chewed on twigs from the Neem tree. They use the twigs or stems like a toothbrush. Upon arriving in West Africa, I did not think too much about seeing people chewing on tree twigs because as a boy I would frequently pull a long piece of grass and chew on it. Now some of you will think I am weird, but some of you know exactly what I am talking about. I found out later in life that my favorite type of grass to chew on is called Dallas grass.

After a couple years of watching people chew on Neem twigs, I finally discovered that the Neem tree actually has prophylactic qualities for the prevention and treatment of malaria. It is also good for the treatment of other diseases.

I did not know all these good qualities of the Neem tree until I lived in West Africa, but I started out early in life as a six-year-old chewing my own kind of stick. My friend, Theron Powell, and I would cut twigs from just about any kind of tree or shrub that we could reach, and then chew on the stick until it was frayed. Then we would dip our sticks in a mixture of Hershey’s cocoa and sugar that my mother mixed up for us. That was some kind of tasty snack!

If you are wondering if I ever chewed on a Neem twig or stem—Yes! And my childhood chewing sticks were much tastier than the Neem chewing sticks.

My Heroes List

She was stooped, very short, old and spoke with a quiet voice. Mrs. Sproles was the first Sunday School teacher that I remember. I was four years old, and she taught me things from the Bible. Other than my mother reading Bible stories and praying with me before I went to sleep, Mrs. Sproles was the first person I recall pointing me to Jesus. Mrs. Sproles is one of my heroes.

While mowing the grass the other day, I started a mental list of heroes in my life. In my processing I started with my earliest memories, so Mrs. Sproles was the first person I thought of outside my parents. My parents are on my heroes list for numerous reasons, but I am most grateful that they did not drop me off at church, but they went to church with me. They modeled for me what parents need to do.

Others at Calvary Baptist Church in Greenwood, Mississippi where I grew up include Charlie Hood who was my Royal Ambassador leader. We met every Wednesday night in the RA Hut, a small wood frame building at the edge of the church parking lot. It was there that I was first introduced to missions. Treon Jackson and Dolly McBride helped me overcome my fear of getting up in front of people by making me “read a part” in Training Union before my fellow 10–11-year-olds.

When I was 19, there were two spiritual giants in my life—two men who believed in me and gave me opportunities to grow and learn. John Goldmire McCall was my mentor for 46 years. His whole demeanor during all those years said to me, “Don’t look at me. Look at Jesus.”  Rolfe Walter Dorsey was a mentor for 44 years. He allowed me to have experiences in ministry that few get to have as college students. Both men were my “go to people” when I needed counsel, prayer, or support.

In a missions conference for women at Camp Garaway in 1974, three missionaries were on program, and it seemed like all three of them were intentionally speaking only to me. Lewis Myers, Charles Tope and Dr. Ralph Bethea did not know that the Lord was speaking to me about serving as a foreign missionary, but their messages led me to share with my wife what I had been feeling in my heart for months.

Other heroes: John Floyd for believing in me and giving me a missions leadership position when he did not know me well; Fannie Peeples who gave me wise counsel when I needed it the most; and Jerome Yougabare for modeling how a first-generation illiterate believer from a West African village learns to read and write and study the Bible to become a pastor. There is also Gerald Claxon, my voice teacher in college, for being brave and straightforward and asking me, “Larry, have you considered majoring in something other than music?”

My greatest hero is my wife. I married this beautiful young lady from Memphis and took her to live in six other countries. She has walked alongside me while moving our family from one place to another 30 times and living in everything from a mobile home to a home on Easy Street to a mud hut. She adjusted to living conditions in every situation and has always made whatever dwelling we lived in our home.

Do you have a Heroes’ List? Write it down and share it with those you love. It is an important part of your legacy.

Collecting

Yesterday, I was listening to a talk radio program, and they were interviewing a star of a Netflix documentary series. I listened intently because she was talking about the importance of giving attention to the friends around you. She said that if your life is wrapped up around the number of likes and the number of social media friends then you need to shut your phone down and look around and relate to the people who are presently in your life.

When the lady who was the radio host came back on air after a commercial break, she introduced the guest, and I was surprised that I knew this young lady. She went to school with our kids, and we have been friends with her family since college days.

Over the years I have valued relationships with my friends. I am honored that I can call so many people my friend. Unfortunately, I don’t get to have face-to-face visits with many of these friends, but a great thing is that when we are able to get together, we can immediately begin our conversation like we saw each other just yesterday. We pick up where we left off even if we have not seen each other for a year.

Is it possible to have too many friends? Now I must explain what I mean by that question. There is the logical notion that trying to keep up with hundreds of friends is not possible. Of course, one could send out a cut-and-paste email, card or letter to all their friends from time to time—like many do at Christmas time. But that is not really how friends communicate; that is how acquaintances communicate.

Occasionally someone will ask me why I am not on Facebook. My response is usually something like this: “I have trouble keeping up with the friends I already have.” Moreover, I don’t want to renew friendships with old high school and college classmates because they are all old people!

Social media has really messed up our idea of friends. We all have heard someone refer to how many friends they have on social media. Some people collect friends or “likes” as a philatelist collects stamps.

I am a collector. A couple of my kids say that I built a barn to collect junk, but I assure them that all that “junk” may someday have a purpose. As a kid I had a stamp collection as well as a coin collection. Somehow, I have managed to keep these collections while living overseas for a large part of my life. However, my baseball collection was discarded. My mother is a cleaning czar, so those shoeboxes of vintage baseball cards from the 50s would up in a dump. Yes, I had all those stars including Nellie Fox, Bobby Richardson, Mickey Mantle, Enos Slaughter, Whitey Ford, Sandy Koufax, and many more. Ironically the cash value today of my childhood stamp and coin collection would be worth the value of one of those cards.

In the end, the value of those collections is not in their cash value, but in their emotional value. My greatest emotional value is the health and welfare of our children and grandchildren.

As a senior citizen looking back on my seven decades of life, I am wishing that I had spent more time on the eternal collection—sharing the Good News with every friend.

Good Idea

Sometimes people who work alongside me will say to me, “I have a good idea.” Or, something is shared in a meeting, and one of the team members says, “That’s a good idea.”

My response has consistently been this: “I love ideas, so please share all of your ideas with me. However, an idea becomes a good idea when it works!”

Blood Brothers

I was in a meeting recently with three friends, and we were talking about legacy. It was a joy for me because all three are in their forties, and we were talking about legacy. Unfortunately, most people wait until they are about to die to talk about legacy. Equally unfortunate is the fact that these people talk mostly about leaving their valuables to their family and favorite charities. But in our conversation that day about legacy, these young men wanted to talk more about values than valuables.

As we concluded our meeting one the young men said to me, “I love you, brother,” as we were hugging each other goodbye. There is a brotherly love that exists among men who walk with Jesus that sometimes goes deeper than our own blood brothers. That might sound strange to some people.

I remember as a boy when my friend and I would make a tiny cut on our finger and mix our blood so we could be blood brothers. That sounds savage but we learned it by watching double feature westerns at the movie theater on Saturday afternoons.

During our first term of service in West Africa we lived in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). One of the things that I disliked the most about living in that city was that the police were notorious for stopping cars for no apparent reason at all. They would be standing on the side of the road and when they waved at you they expected you to stop the car immediately. One day a policeman waved me down (not the only time), and I stopped on the side of the road. There were 5 young Ivorian men in the car with me. I was mad and they were afraid—not because we had done anything wrong, but because a person could be stopped by the police for no reason and the policeman would take their government-issued identity card and put it under his hat until the person paid him a bribe.

The young men in my car were all new believers, and we were headed to a Bible study. As I stepped out of the car to confront the policeman one of them said that they would all be praying for me.

I walked back to the policeman on the side of the road behind my car, and he asked for my driver’s license. I carried an international license for occasions just like this (it was fairly easy to buy another  international license if the original was lost). After he scolded me for driving too fast (strictly a judgment call since he had no speed-checking devices), he put my license under his cap and said that I would have to pay a “fine” to get my license back. Upon my arrival in West Africa I had made up my mind that I would never pay a bribe. I guarded my tongue, took a couple deep breaths and remembered my colleagues in the car praying for this situation.

The officer had walked away as if to ignore me, but I chased after him and told him (we are speaking French), “My brothers in the car are praying for you and me right now.” He turned and looked at my car and said that those men in the car could not be my brothers because they were Ivoirians. I said, “Pardon me, but they are indeed my brothers.” He said they could not be my blood brothers because we were different ethnic groups. My reply was that we were blood brothers because of the blood of Jesus. He shocked me by responding, “That blood runs deeper than the same mother and same father,” and he returned my license and said, “You are a good man who calls an African his blood brother.”

I returned to the car and my blood brothers were not shocked at what had happened because they had been praying that the Lord would intervene in the heart of the policeman. They were faithful brothers who believed in the power of prayer and brotherhood.

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” Psalm 133:1 ESV

Singapore Philanthropy Lessons

Some dear Singaporean friends had their first ever visit to a real farm when they visited us in our home in northwest Georgia in 2018. They were so excited about seeing cows, goats, chickens, ducks, and guineas in a real farm setting. In the summer of 2019, I was in Singapore participating in a conference led by one of my business clients. I arrived several days before the conference in Singapore so that I could have some time visiting with my friends.

My Singaporean friend set up several meetings with his friends and business colleagues to allow me to share the work of our company. I had prepared several presentations related to philanthropy.

As I began to share with Singaporean business people in the first gathering, I realized that when I used the word “philanthropy”, it was either not understood or they were just not interested in listening. To their credit, they were attentive, but I knew that my words were breezing by the ears of the people gathered around the tables. I needed a pause, so I cleared my throat, took a drink of water,  and shifted my emphasis to talking about legacy, generational succession, and transformational giving. There was a remarkable difference in the receptivity of my audiences.

Lessons learned: 1. You can’t assume that because Asians have deep roots in the development of philanthropy that today’s generations enjoy talking about it. 2. You may think just because you have traveled in southeast Asia many times and you have southeast Asian friends that you understand what they are interested in—but you don’t! 3. Don’t cover up the need to change the course of your presentation. Just tell your audience, “I want my presentation to meet your needs, so I am going to change directions.”  

My friend arranged a meeting for me and him with the Executive VP of one of the largest banks in Singapore. The EVP had just been to an international conference, so he talked much about digital currencies. During our 90 minutes meeting, I mentioned DAFs in our conversation a couple of times. Finally, the EVP asked me, “What is a DAF?” Lesson learned: Common business practices in our country may not be so common in other countries.

Another lesson: I moved too quickly into talking about business with the EVP. He clearly wanted to know more about me, and most of all he wanted me to know about his two children. At the right time, he led us to our business discussion.

This experience reminded me that no matter the socio-economic status of people, they all like to talk about their children. I have found that to be true as I have traveled internationally for the past 40 years. You want to see someone smile? Ask them about their children or grandchildren.