I dug two holes. Both of them were a little over four feet deep. It wasn't easy, and I struggled digging them. You see, last week, we had water woes. These are first world problems of course, but they were problems none-the-less. First, our toilet broke - literally. The porcelain bowl showed cracks and a small piece simply broke off its base. I didn't know toilets would do this, but it was not a problem to buy a new one to replace it. I finished that task in about an hour. Next, our water heater went out. I couldn't figure out why, so I called a plumber. While he was fixing the water heater, I stepped into mud outside our door. It hasn't rained for months. The water line leading from the street in front of our house sprung a leak somewhere before it entered. I later noticed that our yard has a path of green mixed in with dry dead grass all around it because of the local drought. Following the path, I discovered much about the leak, so I ran to shut the water off at the street. I then grabbed my shovel and began digging a hole where I thought our water line exited our basement. I knew there was an outside spigot there, and several years ago, I remembered seeing where the line exited the basement, so I was just certain that was where I would find the leak. I struggled with digging the hole. One reason was it was almost 100 degrees outside, and also because it was filled with the brick mason's construction debris. There were bucket sized chunks of concrete and broken bricks in every shovel full. The sun set, and I was still digging, and it was still hot. Finally, after reaching four feet deep and not finding any pipe, I realized, I was digging in the wrong place. I stopped for the night, leaving us water free by the way. When I entered the house, tired, hungry, sore and a little bit angry at myself, I confessed my error to Debbie. She said, "You didn't do it Jimmy's way did you?" I knew exactly what she was thinking. You see I rushed into fix something that certainly needed fixing, but I didn't spend the time examining the problem. I didn't look at it from as many angles as I could. I didn't even measure where I knew the pipeline exited the basement. In my haste, I rushed out to dig a hole during the hottest part of the day in the wrong place. I worked hard fixing nothing. The one bright side was that I didn't create another problem attempting to fix the one I already had. . .
Right now, I'm discipling a few people on how to make disciples who reproduce more disciples. The process of discipleship is simple though we're going slow and thinking things through:
- Stage one: Produces a believer.
- Stage two: Matures the new believer.
- Stage three: Connects new believers together for worship, encouragement and growth.
- Stage four: Releases the believer to create exactly what he/she has become by following the same path using identical methods by which they became a spiritually maturing connected disciple maker.
We are taking our time, because my friends are carefully thinking through each stage of this process in order to decide exactly what would be effective and the easiest to reproduce where they are and with whom they are going to share. There are many people in Christendom who know what a true disciple of Christ ought to be, but there are far fewer who know how to take someone who is not a believer and get them to the point of becoming a true follower of Christ. Once you are familiar with the path, then walking it becomes much easier.
That's what IMFC is all about - leading people along the path to make disciples who make more disciples. It's a 2 Timothy 2 kind of thing, and it works. IMFC folks here in the states and in Africa know well the curriculum that teaches many of those things a disciple needs to know and obey in order to be a good and growing follower of Christ. This curriculum was produced by my missionary predecessors way back in the 1960s, and it is called Bible Way. IMFC still prints and distributes and uses this curriculum by the hundreds of thousands throughout much of Central Africa. Even with the staggering amount of material produced, the honest truth is that we don't have enough. In order to help with this God-given shortfall we are trying to prepare for 50,000 more Bible Way books by the end of the year. The production and distribution cost is approximately .50 cents per book. Consider becoming a partner with the IMFC making disciples around the world.
After digging the useless hole, the next day I dug the second after measuring and considering all that I knew. It was a much easier dig, though when I reached the leak I discovered I didn't know how to fix it, so I again called the plumber. He appreciated my hole though he dug it deeper and wider. before fixing it. He was the one who really knew what to do.
Thank you for praying for Africa. Please continue to do so, as we try to produce more and more disciples who make disciples.
To help follow this link: Bible Way 2019 Year End Campaign
Blessings,
Steve DuVall
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