Risk is Right

April 24, 2016

by Fenton Rees
 
Pat and I are scheduled to go to Burundi for 5½ weeks in July / early Aug; Pat to fill in for a doc on furlough, and me to help with upgrading the electrical system. The latest edition of the Economist magazine has almost 3 pages on Burundi and how it could easily tip back into genocide, as occurred 10+ years ago.  Not sure what this means for our plans, except that perhaps we should get refundable airline tickets (in case things go south just before we leave) and maybe rent a satellite phone (in case they go south while we are there).  We are going under the auspices of Samaritan’s Purse, and before such a trip they send you an info packet with all kinds of stuff in it. 
 
This time they included a small book “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper, (a Baptist pastor in Minneapolis who has written a number of books). I won’t give you a summary, and actually it is kind of a slow read, so I skimmed a lot of it.  But he has a chapter titled “Risk is Right;- Better to risk your life than to waste it”.  The gist of this chapter is two-fold: (i)  It’s a myth that staying at home is inherently safer,  and (ii) some of the heroes of the Christian faith did things with some amount of risk involved; think Abraham, deacon Steven, Paul etc; you get the idea.  None of us get off this planet alive, and do we just want to leave behind a tally of the mountains we have climbed or the rounds of golf we have played?
 
William Carey, English missionary to India in the early 1800’s, (and sometimes called the father of modern missions), is quoted as saying “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”  Enough said.
 
All for now,