Forgiveness, pardon and reconciliation

This week has brought many deep reflections for me. Like many I was stunned four years ago when I watched what might have been the peaceful transfer of power erupt into violence that threatened the United States’ governance. I have lived much of my life in parts of the world where brawls and physical fights in the national assembly were common. Political rivals would simply “disappear”, the local euphemism for a discreet murder. Then in 1997 when I was working on my PhD dissertation in South Africa I witnessed one of the most amazing sights of my life.

I sat in a hall with several hundred South Africans—white, black and colored—and watched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission carefully question and listen to Winnie Mandela’s testimony as well as counter testimonies of the “accidental” death of a Stompie Seipei. According to the South African press, Winnie was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping Stompie but was acquitted of the murder and her sentence was commuted so that she was never jailed.

At noon that day the proceedings (not a trial) broke for lunch and I returned to the hall early for a better seat. I sat nearly alone in the hall and recognized a familiar profile standing only about 15 feet away from me. As the television cameras trained into the hall, the figure turned and I realized that indeed it was Nelson Mandela himself who had come to the hearing that dealt with the actions of his first, and at that time former wife. His commitment to non-violence and had given him 20 years in prison isolation as result of his political stands, even as violence increased in the country. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created under his administration as president with the belief that when a person told the truth about what they had done, no matter how horrible, then they could be given amnesty for that act if it had been done for a political end.

Many Christians found the TRC principles to be unacceptable. It did not require a person to have any remorse for what they had done. Acts could have been done without any seeking of repentance. So how could there be reconciliation? Many white South Africans felt coerced into the findings of the TRC. Many black South Africans felt grave injustices had been overlooked.

But that day I watched Nelson Mandela look at a process of national and political forgiveness of which he was a part. He honored the process of a TRC that was composed of those who had been his bitter enemies as well as friends. The country began a route to healing. Nelson was not protected by a squadron of military, or sycophants. He led a deeply divided country in grace, in gentleness, and in grace. Meanwhile his former wife responded to the pleading of Archbishop Tutu that she identify her role the day Stompei had died. “Things just went wrong,” was her simple denial that she was a part of the wrong other than to be a bystander.

We have in this past week been in a virtual hall watching the forces of government grant pardons, commute sentences, and mandate a justice department to bring to investigate and charge any official failing to pursue an agenda of a new president. So we do well to ask what place pardons and commutations have in politics of a divided country. Do they bring reconciliation?

If, on the one hand a president makes a “preemptive pardon” has he in fact passed a personal judgement that the actions taken were indeed wrong and therefore needed pardon? If he pardons because he believed that a political process drove an investigation is it different than what happened with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? If a president pardons and/or commutes the sentences of those who have had the privilege of a court trial (which was lacking in South Africa) has he undermined justice or has he shown mercy?

I will not attempt to answer the questions, rather I want to draw some principles from political pardon and forgiveness as I witnessed it in South Africa:

1. A political pardon is valid based on the office or position of the one declaring it.

2. A political pardon has value based the declaration being made by a neutral party who has no benefit from the pardon.

3. A political pardon cannot bring reconciliation unless there is recognition by the wrong doer that a wrong was done.

4. A political pardon may invoke revenge and retribution when it mainly validates the pardoner.

5. A political pardon may help in reconciliation of diverse parties to the extent it is seen as position-neutral.

6. A political pardon must be based upon established truth-telling.

7. Truth-telling is established in the hearing of multiple perspectives.

8. Reconciliation is helped by truth-telling, but cannot be guaranteed.

9. Reconciliation requires some compensation for the party wronged.

10. There are different kinds of forgiveness, but the forgiveness that brings reconciliation is one that removes penalty and restores community.

Africa has much to teach America. I encourage you to reflect on the TRC and the USA. Anything less than the spirit of the TRC cannot lead to greatness, but even the spirit of the TRC could not remove flaws that brought later failures in South Africa. Christian forgiveness and reconciliation must be more than the political forgiveness of the TRC, but it cannot be less.

Luke 1:76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Several things came to mind as I looked at Mom’s still face. She had experienced more sunrises than most people. At 102 she had seen the impact of over 37,000 sunrises whether or not she watched them.

That was the import of Zechariah’s prophecy. Many people sit in darkness and the shadow of death who have some recognition that the sun rises. Prison cells for centuries have been marked up to show the passing of days, months and years. Some have perished in that darkness and death. Some lived to see the light of a free day.

In these past days the awful rule of President Assad of Syria has ended. Day by day new discoveries are made that reveal his cruelty and the suffering of his people. By contrast, Zechariah’s prophecy was that the mercy of God would guide His people into a way of peace. God’s promise was not just for a single befuddled people in Israel. It was for all the people of the middle east and the world.

So perhaps we can use Zechariah’s words as both gage and gauge for what is happening in the middle east and the world. They are a gauge because only the knowledge and repentance of the sins of greed, power and corruption will show when forgiveness rather than revenge is present. That is true in Assad’s power-vacuum as well as in the Washington DC scramble.

But it is also a gage, or God’s guarantee given towards His promise. To Zechariah and his wife were given a son John, who proclaimed the Peace-Bringer Jesus. So John as the last of the Old Testament prophets was a peace builder who prepared the way for the Peace Maker. When the Peace Maker blessed His disciples he promised them a Peace Keeper, the Holy Spirit.

The world will now scramble to fit back the pieces in the middle east. The destruction of the Israeli Defense Force bombing has indeed broken down a lot of physical walls even as it has created stronger emotional and social barrier walls. The political forces that rush into the vacuum behind Assad’s departure likewise will stumble over the same basic “peace paradigm” that the UN has been using. For many years the UN has defined peace as a process of peace building, peace making and peace keeping, the very process that God called out so long ago. But the UN has missed a key part.

Zechariah spoke about that key part: day by day people walking in the light of repentance and forgiveness. So, in the midst of pain and destruction, don’t fail to show God’s good news.

This is our “Twisted together with the World” blog site. If you want to share it, please do. You can also choose to follow either this posting or our family posting (Karl and Debbie Twisted together), or both. The content is different.

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A tree grows up into the Light.  It provides a habitat for creatures including people, and it is part of the natural renewing of the earth.  As our regular ministry with MTW comes to a conclusion by December, we are transitioning to a ministry focused on writing and consulting.  Our somewhat regular ministry newsletter of the last 50 years transitions now into a regular family post.  But this global post in intended to let you think through global issues with us. We invite you to invite others to sign up for either of them

as well.  Let us walk together, grow together, remind together of God’s hope for broken people in a broken world.  We need to see the light, share the light, and grow toward the light.  

The goal of our global posts is to help you think about and respond to issues critical to our contemporary world that God loves, grieves for, has redeemed, and has said that He will dwell with, together.  Like the trees of our logo, “together” is not “sameness”.  It is not “easiness”.  Instead, see it as being connected and reaching to the Light”.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Home

We live in an age of massive people movement—refugees, internally displaced peoples, and migrations.  All of these people are actually in transition from one home to another.  One of my PhD students in Australia is doing her research on how the church creates a welcome of shalom for refugees.  Her first attempt to get refugees to fill in a questionnaire on their experience found no one willing to answer.  Why?  It turned out that they did not consider themselves refugees, they had already landed and were being incorporated into a new home.  Once they had left a home, then became homeless, and finally found a new home.  So in their eyes they were not refugees, not migrants, not displaced.  They had become “re-rooted”, and distanced themselves from the moniker “refugee”.

History has always seen people and peoples move around.  The Bible is actually in many ways, a text book on migration and movement.  Adam and Eve…Abraham…Moses…the many captivities…Jesus’ flight to Egypt as a baby, and relocation to a new town…the Jewish diaspora after the Roman/Jewish wars and destruction of the second Temple. It doesn’t just describe the change of location, but more pointedly what God was doing in the midst of the movement.  Always the story is about understanding God’s redemption.

One current people movement in the US is the wave of international students. At the International House, Baltimore, we provide a “home” for the time that international scholars are at their post mostly at Johns Hopkins University, although now we have one scholar from Kenya who is in a program at St Mary’s Seminary.  We now have scholars from China, Palestine, Turkey, Kenya, Brazil, and next month possibly Afghanistan.  We gather with them for a “family meal” every month and now have to travel across the city from our “home for life” as our senior living facility is called.  Our home too has moved.  So what is home?

The important reason that the International House, Baltimore exists, is so that residents from around the world might come to find a home—a place of welcome.  That home needs not just to make them comfortable, but whole.  Shalom-whole.  Several weeks ago a woman came up to me smiling to thank me.  She had lived for several months in the International House.  As a Chinese scholar she studied psychology.  She helped us untangle some deeply-rooted conflicts in the household.  Her point of appreciation was that in coming to receive a PhD, she had actually found her fulfillment of life in knowing Jesus as her redeemer. So, she left a home and came to another home, in order to fully find a home.  Last week she introduced her mother to me—I was part of her new family.

We expected to have been in Beirut for a conference on reconciliation when the current war broke out.  (More on that at another time—we hope to get there still in January).  My colleague there shared that his home, and the seminary compound, has become home to many displaced Shiite Muslims from the southern part of the city.  The bombs not only dropped in the south, but blocks from his house in the “safe zone”.  Several months ago as things were already heating up, his prayer request was, “…don’t pray that we will be safe, but that we will be faithful”.  His heart is to provide a place and be a source of God’s rest.  Shalom-home.

Imagine what would happen in our world today if all God’s people, the people who belong to His family, would have that heart?  What would happen in Europe and Africa and Asia and America? There would not only be a place for scholars and refugees and migrants to find housing, but there would be hearts of reception.  Imagine if we all prayed that we would be faithful rather than worry about what might or might not be safe?  Imagine what would happen if we as God’s people took our fears and sat at the feet of Jesus?  Jesus took His disciples on an outing through Samaria where they stayed for days so that they might know what it meant to be outcasts, travelers, migrants.  There they were received, ate, and believed together with those they had despised. The redemption of their attitudes began at the Sychar well (John 4:1-43).  Jesus brings deeply divided people together.  It starts with me and you.

Perfect Love casts out fear. 

1 John 4:18.19

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Sychar Well

In our family and ministry posts we want you to have a look inside our hopes and dreams and walk with us in the aspirations for our family and labors

Home

Baseball season is just over in the US, and there was a lot of focus on the “home plate”, or the start and stop place of the sport.  We have a grandson who cannot get enough of catching at that home plate.  In these last weeks we have watched four grandchildren migrate to their various colleges from “home” and now making plans to “go home” for thanksgiving.  It is sort of their start and stop at this point of life.

When I left for college way back in 1967, I never returned to the house in Denver where I grew up.  Instead I went “home” to where my family had relocated in Atlanta.  When our children left our home in Kenya and went to college, they wondered what to write on the line that asked for a “home address”.  We didn’t know either.  So sometimes “home” shifts its location.

When we gather with our residents in the International House Baltimore for dinner we talk about home and they share stories of home. But for our Palestinian resident home seems now an impossibility. Our Brazilian resident says, “I want to stay in my new home”

  So what is home?

Some years ago we decided that “Home” was where most of our family was. But now we find that most of us have many kinds of family. There is the immediate family, and the extended family. The close family and the estranged family. The natural family and the welcomed family.

We have left our “family home” of the last 20 years. The beautiful victorian row home in Baltimore was the place to which we returned more than any other in all our years. Now we join a “town” of 2000 other senior citizens in a senior living “home for life”. It frees us from preparing all our meals and doing house repairs and paying many monthly bills (just one big one :) It frees us to focus on creating new relationships and to maintain old ones. It frees us to write and to travel for the King in new ways. Home became bigger.

We will visit immediate family and extended family. Close family and estranged family. We will welcome new faces and lives into our family and find more family around the world. Family grows bigger.

Our relationship with Mission to the World as our home base will change. As of December we will no longer receive any salary, but will still have an open account to pay for some travel costs. You will see at the bottom of this post both the MTW button as well as the Sychar Well button. Sychar Well is where we have been hanging out for a long time with our global peacemaking family. But you don’t have to go to those buttons unless you want to. You can follow us in this post and in the Global Twist posts for our reflections on God at work in the world. The posts will come to your email box until you unsubscribe.

4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you! Ps 67

Karl and Debbie Together….reflecting on God in brokenness

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Mission to the World

Sychar Well

Karl and Debbie....the beginning of the end

CS Lewis in “The Last Battle” pictures death as entering through a dark doorway into a space that becomes bigger and brighter and more wonderful with every step.  The concluding words in “The Last Battle of the Chronicles of Narnia read,  “All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Fifty years ago we stepped through a “life-warp”.  It was for us perhaps a little like entering the wardrobe to get to Narnia.  Last week was a special anniversary day for us when we reflected back many years to the day in 1974 when Debbie was released after 26 days as hostage in Eritrea.  After watching our colleague Anna fall, and then burying her, we have had many adventures and stories.  You have read about them if you have stayed with us through these years. 

Our first Christmas in Ethiopia

In the Chronicles of Narnia you follow as four children grow older, wiser, and change through the seven different books of the series.  We were only 24 when we first entered our “new world”, and we now come to what we perceive is the “last book” of our Chronicles.  Not the final chapter.  Not the last sentence.  But the last book.  

Following the first book of our mission walk that started in Eritrea we might  call “Kyuso”.  It was our life in rural Kenya, learning new languages and culture, living without water or electricity, homeschooling, and getting grocery deliveries off the top of a bus.

The next book of our mission journey was “Urban Church Planting” and detailed lessons learned and self-discovery in working with an American team, walking among the poor, joining with Kenyan colleagues, and finding joy in God’s growing church.

Following that was the book of “Changes” which involved  many chapters of shifting our center to the US to do training of missionaries for preventive health, HIV/AIDS, and then a return to Kenya to create a healing and reconciliation team in Rwanda.

It might make sense to entitle the next phase of our mission journey the book of “Precipices” because we started new programs of HIV/AIDS and family-health across Africa, and a new center for church leader learning in Nairobi.  Those escalated to a global reach with programs that impacted hundreds of thousands of youth, mobilized families through the church and started a movement of peace making in seminaries with a new PhD program in Manilla, the Philippines

Now, our final “book” starts.  Call it, “The Final Journey”.  We are not exactly sure how the story line will read, so you will have to keep reading.  Our intent is to:

1) Assist in the start up of new Graduate Peace programs where new PhD graduates are seeking guidance; 

2) Continue the formation of a global network of International Christian Peacemakers for dialog and exchange, and perhaps most importantly, 

3) Capture the stories and many of the nuggets learned from the amazing saints across the globe and write before our minds no longer recall the masterpieces.

The lines are likely to become lighter and fewer.  But we see the Church as a gathering global force.   We are watching that force in many countries and seeing some of our earlier themes being repeated.  A former intern at the Institute for the Study of Africa Realities (in Book  “Precipice”) has now become the director. Five doctoral students in Peace Studies are transitioning to become resources in or begin other programs in Peace Studies, (graduates from Sri Lanka, India, Philippines, Lebanon, and the US).  The curriculum for Families for Life at World Relief ”Precipice” Book has now multiplied to more countries and programs and is the standard for World Relief.  

Now our role is changing, and you will find it in this season of our lives.  We will no longer be a part of Mission to the World for our monthly provision, but we will seek to draw from a project fund to travel and help nurture the gathering force for peace from time to time.  We have moved from our home in Baltimore to an apartment in a senior living community in Baltimore to preserve and consolidate our strength and time.  We will continue to assist the International House in Baltimore. We are praying for God to provide a long-term investor to carry it forward.  We will continue to serve the local church, for we have always served the local church even as we have served the global church.  We hope to write more about missions at the start of a new journey…until our memories fade.

When we look back to the start of our journey fifty years ago, the path since then has been ever more wonderful and adventurous.  But not as wonderful as it eventually will be.  We look forward to the pathway that our sister Anna took 50 years ago.  One day we will enter that doorway, as will you.  We look forward to the dark becoming light, to the small becoming great.  Do you?  Fifty years ago Paul’s words to the Roman church was our light, and it still bears light today:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways, For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.  Romans 11:33-36

So as we come to a final season, not knowing the final end of our story, we are amazed at the wisdom and the gifts of God in our lives. We have seen others of our friends enter the final doorway, and we know that is our door as well one day.   Until that new day though, we rejoice in our adventure, the story, and the joy of our journey with the King.  We will continue to write of our journey and story and if you want to keep following and praying with us, you need to do nothing but read. We will continue sending you updates.  If you would like to set our chronicles aside and follow others, then feel free to click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this page and you will no longer be on our email list.

The international house now has one empty room, a Chinese couple, a Brazilian PhD student, a Palestinian PhD nursing student and a Turkish post-doc surgeon.

We are deeply humbled as we consider how you have faithfully prayed and sacrificed to support God’s work chronicled in these “books”. We trust your reward will be deeply satisfying as you center on The Author and Finisher of our Faith, the Lord Jesus Himself. 

Eagerly looking Ahead,

Karl and Debbie

Give thanks with us:  

-Our support account is healthy at this time.  MTW will be communicating with all our donors about our next steps and how our account will be handled.

-We have completed our move.  Our new home will keep us fit and active, and has a guest suite for you to visit.  We are minutes away from the Baltimore Airport. Our new address is: 707 Maiden Choice Lane, Apt EW207, Catonsville, MD 21228.

-We are in process of selling our house of the last 20 years and know that God has the right purchaser at the right time.

-We look forward to new opportunities locally and globally as God helps us to choose from the many options.

-We have strength and health for today, and our hope for tomorrow is always going to be brighter, greater, and further up.

Baltimore is more glorious in the fall perhaps than at any other time.  Dirty streets are paved with golden leaves.  Red maples throb like pulsing veins along the sidewalks.  The crisp air challenges the burning sun, allowing it to simply warm gently.  Pumpkins gather at many doorway stoops to silently converse.  Even the dry leaves crackle with a certain delight.
 
So, as I walk my circuit these days, I am reflecting with thanksgiving on the majesty of the One who covers pain in glory.  He fills empty longing.  I know that winter winds are coming when bitter ice will streak my cheeks and numb my fingers.  But I also know that the cherry blossoms will follow when the sun’s course stays longer in the sky.   For now, I want to just give thanks.
 
A mere month ago we felt the empty longing of wanting to finish well our time with Mission to the World, yet we watched our support account sink deeply.  It seemed like a hurricane had hit and flood waters were rising.  So, we wrote, and you…God’s people… responded.  In a month we traveled through another 12 states visiting friends and supporters.  We haven’t reached everyone yet but God moved and our account deficit turned to a positive balance giving us hope that we will make our June 2024 retirement goal with enough left in our account to help us in a few future ventures.  Those will be the “winter ventures” of our future journeys. Retirement will never mean abandonment of ministry opportunity and service as God provides and enables. 

We rejoice then in God’s provision through so many of you--like leaves that cover the cold, broken pavements around our home.
 

This past Sunday I looked back and this is what I saw...God's glory shining onto our block of Baltimore homes--our house that has often sheltered and nurtured fellow travelers;  a rental property that has provided the means for our travel and for the purchase of the International house; and the International House that has served scholars from perhaps 50 nations in either programs or in residence.  

Some of the icy winds have started.  On a recent journey in November to see friends and rejoice in the 101 years of Karl’s mother’s life, I fell ill.  We didn’t know if it was a possible stroke or repeat seizure-like activity that has haunted me on other occasions about once every ten years. An ambulance and hospital stay proved it was not a stroke. Follow up with neurology here at Johns Hopkins has not revealed more than it seems to be a repeat of a similar event about 13 years ago.  Meanwhile, I cannot drive until there has been 90 days without incident.
 
Instead, I has traveled by internet (a usual source for me!).   Last night I had 16 international peace makers from different countries and cultures on a zoom call.  We listened to a presentation from Beirut about a workshop in peacemaking with leaders from across the Middle East.  The workshop was completed just before the war in Israel broke out.  A moment of golden hope before the harsh blasts of despair. (Listen to a few minutes of an interview with Dr Melki in the link below). 
 
Then the group conversation turned to the question of how to “confront” someone with a damaging different opinion or outlook.  Different words were suggested from “engage” to “dialog” to “relate”.  It was clear that while each culture and country have a different approach, in the end it is possible to help transition away from violence and despair and at the same time walk together in a journey of grace.  There is a Glorious God who is above all the disagreement and pain who desires that all walk in worship of Him together. 

Please pray for these international peace makers. They represent not only the countries facing conflict in the Middle East, but also today, Nigerians are struggling with a violent form of Islam.  Cameroon has rising ethnic and regional conflict.  India and Cambodia are still trying to recover from long ethnic battles. 
 

My zoom network meetings almost always look alike.  This time the internet speed was terrible and most of the global participants had to turn off their cameras. I was breaking up so badly that I had someone else facilitate the discussion, but it was still amazing to hear the many engagements between people who might never even have met before.
 

Dr Bassem Melki is the most recent graduate of the PhD program.  He is the
Dean of Students of Arab Baptist Seminary and director of a new conflict resolution research organization in Beiruit.  He has lived in the shadow of the wars of Lebanon all his life. He reflects on the role and opportunity of the church in the midst of the present struggles in the Middle East.
Watch this video interview to understand how he sees the Church's role in the present Middle East conflict.

Thank you for adding to this global mosaic of God’s great work. We are truly humbled to see the Lord respond through you. We pledge to walk as faithfully with you as we can, and to continue to walk with this fledgling group of global peacemakers who are teaching, pastoring, mentoring, interceding, bringing down walls of division and building up people of praise and peace.  They represent many denominations, many nations, many cultures, and many languages.  Like the trees of God’s earth, they each are adding their rich color and shape of leaf to the ground, covering it with His glory.  
 
Thank you for giving so sacrificially and for walking with us on His pathway of praise and peace.
 
Karl and Debbie

Karl and Debbie shared MTW opportunities at Geneva College, Messiah College and Grove City College.

Give thanks with us

• Praise God for a new and healthy support account.

• Praise God for Karl's healthy body…no cardiac or blood sign of any problem from the “event”.

• Praise God for new turns in our family life…Hannah and Jesse have both announced marriage engagements that propel them to new and healthier times in their lives.

• Praise God for helping us look at our next steps.  We are looking at a phase of writing and facilitating this new network of peacemakers.

• Praise God for the results of many years of labor.  Debbie continues to receive pictures and messages of how lives and marriages have been changed through the Families for Life program with World Relief.

Here is the lead couple from remote Northern Kenya who now lead the family enrichment program that Debbie began several years ago.  It continues to be blessed by God to influence thousands of families and couples in many countries.

Debbie shares the dream of international public health ministry through MTW at a Messiah College career fair.

Karl and Debbie....in the Haystack

Dear friends,   
In 1808, five men discussing the theological nature of missions sought shelter from a thunderstorm under a haystack in Williamstown, Massachusetts. As rain pelted down, their debate extended to hours of prayer. God used the storm to unleash the modern missionary movement of America and four years later the first missionaries went to India under the United Foreign Missionary Society. Hundreds and thousands followed to Hawaii, China, and Africa and other countries all over the world.  They did Bible translation, medical and educational work, and preached about repentance and reconciliation in Christ. 
God uses “haystack prayers”—gatherings of Christ believers who exchange ideas, discuss God’s word and imagine His vision for His world together and pray. The unexpected happens for generations when God’s people gather and submit to what His Spirit is doing among them.
 

This past month twelve Peace Study scholars and working academicians zoomed together across 14 time zones spanning four continents for a two-hour networking meeting. It was our twenty-first century haystack. For some of these PhD and Dmin graduates and students it was 4 AM in the morning; for others, midnight. They shared their life experiences from Australia, Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, Lebanon, Philippines, Cambodia, India, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and the US. 

The Peace Studies graduates and scholars (both men and women) with whom we have been privileged to serve, are gathering.  Their ideas and discussions about the rain of violence and conflict around them bring them toward haystack prayers. They belong to countries rocked with deep and seemingly intractable conflict—the Muslim Christian conflict in Cameroon and Nigeria; the ethnic conflicts of Ethiopia; the seething, ancient border conflicts of Nagaland, India; the Christian and Muslim Arab conflicts of Lebanon; the past trauma and evil leadership of Cambodia; the socioeconomic and ethnic conflicts of Sri Lanka; the relentless killings, starvation, and cross border migrations in the Horn of Africa; the painful past of Rwanda; the many organizational and power conflicts in Christian organizations, denominations, seminaries, churches and marriages in the US.

There are many peace networks across the world, but one that shares the commitment to God’s working through the hearts of His people in His church is rare.  It is not bound by a national or racial, or political or educational identity.  There is not a shared political science concensus.  It is not a denominational silo.  It is simply a global mutual learning and encouragement exchange seeking God’s hand of grace in quieting the hearts of a restless and angry world.  

Will you pray for this small, determined group? They have studied and practiced peace interventions for years to develop skills to mediate, counsel and teach in the classroom, pulpit, community, and ecclesiastical structures. They need strength for the long journey ahead. Many live in war torn countries and face persecution and tremendous economic uncertainty and health concerns. We believe God is doing something powerful through them.

About 55 years ago Debbie and I gathered at an Urbana Intervarsity Student Missionary conference and sensed God calling us both to respond to what he has done through the ages.  That began our part of the modern missionary movement started at the Haystack in Massachusetts.  We hope to finish our 50^th year in missions in May, 2024 by helping to nurture a new global movement that meets in the “zoom stack”.  We pray it may be a means to facilitate the continuation of growth, exchange of ideas and impact by global peace practitioners.  Most importantly, that it may be a way to sustain dialog, prayer, support, and encouragement for the intense warfare ahead, literally and spiritually.  No one country or region has clear or easy answers. Only the Peacemaker Himself. He alone transcends the chaos in countries, intercedes in wars and rumors of wars and guides us to reconcile with Himself and one another.

And pray for us.
 

The first missionaries did not leave the shores of Massachusetts without prayer support and financial support.  Neither did we. The Lord has abundantly enabled and blessed us—since 1973 when we first went to Eritrea. This past July marked 50 years since we first went to Eritrea. May marks the 50^th year of Debbie’s kidnapping and eventual release. The early modern missionary movement nearly stumbled from inadequate support.  We have enjoyed deep prayer and financial support for our many years, but now in spite of reducing our costs and salary, our MTW account is in deep growing deficit.  Pray with us that the deficit will be removed so we can retire in peace!

I can imagine that under that early haystack was the sweet smell of the fresh harvest of an abundant God.  Join us in our savor of the Saviour:

• Two more new PhD graduates in Peace Studies this past June.

• Praise for a new Peace Studies cohort of students anticipated to begin in 2024.

• Deb recently completed a newly commissioned training curriculum for all staff of World Relief based on their core principles. 

• Pray for a new Global Peace Network facilitated by the Sychar Well Group.

• Pray for time to do more thoughtful pursuit of publications.

• Pray for our personal family haystack gatherings with our children and grandchildren.

• Pray as we journey to visit our supporting churches, families and individuals. We plan two extended trip this fall and winter.

• Pray for our friendship gatherings in the International House. In recent months we have had scholars living in the five bedrooms from : China, Turkey, Palestine, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Bangladesh and one wedding! Quite a number regularly attend Bible Studies either through InterVarsity or Reformed University Fellowship International.

• Pray for some major decisions about our home and health. While we feel strong and able, we know we are not getting any younger! We yearn to steward well the time and energy the Lord gives us for His glory.

The International House Baltimore has had two weddings and a birth over the past two years, as well as multiple graduations and many publications.  Here are three countries of Asia, best known for being out of the reach of Christian missions.

This year two more Grand children graduated...new jobs, college, and opportunities.

Jesse and Debbie had the same heart procedure on the same day in the same hospital with the same doctor...an hour apart

Karl's mother turns 101 next month.  We don't manage to see her more than a few times a year but Karl's sister is with her weekly.

Grandchildren are ever on the design-and-build trail in their
creative growth.

Our support needs are critically low. We have taken voluntary salary reductions to meet MTW's minimal requirements but we must make up the deficit. Please pray with us. Our desire is to finish well.
 

Dear friends and fellow questioners,
 
Aspirations in life come in many forms and levels.  
 
One of Debbie’s roles over the past months has been to be a presence in our grandchildren’s lives as they navigate virtual school. After looking forward to “going to school”, five-year-old Damien has been disappointed sitting for hours in front of a computer. (Not long ago we would have done anything to get a child away from the screen.  Now we have to sit in the room to enforce their sitting in front of it.)  
 
One day something sparked in Damien’s mind following a science lesson, and he jumped from his seat announcing, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a Question-Asker.” 
 
“That’s cool, Damien.” 
 
“Yeah. I want to ask questions, so I can know more things…more than people older than me…more than Stephen (his cousin)…and win competitions." (typical five year old motivations)
 
“Tell me more, Damien.”
 
“Well, I could figure out questions. I would have a book. The only thing is, it says, ‘The End’. I could ask, “What does, ‘The End’ mean?”

Damien designs more questions to answer

So as we walk through our three-score and ten years, drawing closer to ‘The End’ of our earthly life, our grandson reminds us of a great aspiration:  be a question-asker.
 
Karl rejoices in the opportunity to help form good questions. One of his students is taking a break this month from his duties in Beirut as a seminary dean and pastor.  He is finishing his research that asks youth, different denominational pastors, faith leaders, and political leaders questions like “What are the effective interventions to help the Lebanese community respond redemptively to conflict?”  That question has turned diverse and heated debates into productive dialog.  A  missionary friend living in Palestine
wrote and asked, "What can we say and do to not take sides in this conflict and help promote peace?"

Another student, the human resources director of another seminary in Asia, is in the midst of researching his question: “What enables leaders to express their identity-based interests in a way that brings flourishing outcomes for all parties.”  He is helping leaders rethink their racial and ethnic values that have been getting in the way of the gospel advance.   These are questions not only for Arabs or Asians but they are the ones that have Americans bound up in stubborn adversarial positions.

A course on "political repentance" offered in Sri Lanka. Don't you wish you could have been there?

Debbie just finished a special curriculum development for World Relief that will be used to help four African nations address the question, “What can I do to help others overcome the spread of COVID-19?”  She put into question "Does God care about COVID?"  If the African church and community leaders can deal with their fear of an immunization for the sake of the healing and well-being of others, then they will be the good Samaritans rather than the priest and Levite.
 

Before Covid Deb worked with many church leaders in Rwanda.  Since Covid she has continued to prepare the church for life without Covid,  encouraging communities to care for one another and get the vaccine when available.

So what did you learn in Kindergarten?

A few prayer Questions…

1. God over the raging nations, why are your people hesitant to help their neighbors who have different opinions or worship in a different manner?

2. Reconciling Savior, how do we encourage your people who are in hard places like Beirut to use their question-asking well?

3. Spirit of life, how long before the diseases and hatreds of this world decrease?  How will you use and encourage your people to bring the Life-Bearer to their worlds?

4. Great Teacher, what should we do to engage others?

5. Lord of cultures, what should we learn from the BLM and Asian hate about our own prejudices?

6. God of all ages, how do we help our grandchildren and youth continue to grow and move on in their life journeys? 

You MUST listen to Bassem's use of peace building questions in Beirut

--We have begun a salary reduction plan that will continue to move to the level that donations support.  Give thanks in prayer with us that God does supply all our needs.
 https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/karl-and-debbie-dortzbach

Karl and Debbie....surrounded by sent and scents

The gifts given to the Savior-child are the reminders for us today that Christmas is about missions.  
 
On Saturday Dec 19 at our house, we celebrated the birthday not of Jesus but of Mary.  Miriam to be more precise.  Miriam is a Middle-east resident in the International House, Baltimore.  While the middle-eastern food platter was consumed by the few who gathered around, Debbie put frankincense into the pot.  It filled the cold December air with its flurry of smoke and fragrance.  It brought a smile of familiar and joyful past to the oft-strained face of our friend.  
 
Frankincense has been used for centuries as a treasured aroma of joy.  In much of the world where the presence of the actual tree-sap is missing, the aroma of joy simply has to be transmitted by the presence of people and their care for each other.  We all have the opportunity to be that aroma of blessing to the world around us.  When we are, we simply are wafting the joy of the presence of the Saviour.
 
We didn’t exactly have myrrh on Saturday, the aromatic  spice that was used in temple worship, in purification and in embalming in the Bible times.  But the point of myrrh was to hide the scent of death and of brokenness.   We all have journeyed in these last many months in a world broken by Covid.  The scent of sickness and death has reached most families in one way or another.  God's temple today is His presence in the midst of His people. Miriam came into that temple of God.  She was surrounded by those who have experienced the saving presence of Christ, as one needing relief from the dark and oppressive world.  She entered the space of those who could be the frankincense of joy and the myrrh that covered and absorbed the pain.
 
And who are those who have received your words of encouragement, of joy, of compassion?  You have provided of your resources, your gold, so that the world might know and smell the presence of the King.  Thank you for the Christmas offering of gold, frankincense and myrrh that you have given all year.

Miriam has been a resident in the IHB for over three years.  She is a highly skilled physician and brings her own delights and needs.

The celebration was provided by a colleague/friend who first interned with Karl in 1994 during the Rwandan crisis.

A few prayer wafts…

1. Karl has a new bionic ear--a cochlear implant and is slowly learning to hear with it. He also just had prostate surgery and is in the early stages of recovery. Deb is still struggling with her many medical complications. One drug helps something and complicates another.  Pray for daily stamina and patience with all our complications.

2. God has been faithful to us through the continued support of many of you.  We are still receiving a salary, but we hope this year to transition giving to the global impact of the peace studies program.  This needs to be a year of peace on earth!

3. Karl received a nice Christmas gift of one more completed and edited dissertation as well as the information that the doctoral program was accredited by one more agency this week!  A new organization has been started in Beirut to give one of our soon-to-be PhD graduates a platform to engage with church and government leaders.

4. The international house has one empty room that we would love to see filled with God's opportunity.

5. We still hope to travel this year to see many of you.  We purchased and are converting a van so we will have our own accommodations.  We miss family and friends as you do!

6. Our children and grandchildren like yours are struggling with school, jobs and just the difficulty of the odd season.  We pray for each other to be a fresh breeze of His grace.

--We have a salary reduction plan that will continue to move to the level that donations support.  Give thanks in prayer with us that God does supply all our needs.
 https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/karl-and-debbie-dortzbach

Take a short peek at a summary of our last year.

Dear friends,  Zooming with us.

“It has become an existential war and it is difficult to see how this is going to end soon,” the reporter gave his alarming description this morning on “Morning Edition” of National Public Radio.  It detailed the world’s latest deep conflict on the Horn of Africa. Already 35,000 refugees were spilling into Sudan from Tigray in northern Ethiopia as the political, geographic, and ethnic struggle continue to dominate the region in protracted decades-long conflicts.  A full scale international war involving Eritrea, Ethiopia, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is now real again.  Ethiopia is second in Africa’s population to Nigeria.

As I listened, my mind flashed back nearly five decades ago when we lived and worked in the region. We easily picture Tigray women with their red, tattered veils swirling in the wind as they lead their children alone on their journey to escape.  All the men are out fighting. These were Debbie’s neighbors during the 26 days of captivity in 1974 by another liberation front—the Eritrean Liberation Front.    

Karl’s mind meanwhile mixed the past with the present. In July and August, two of his PhD students from Ethiopia eagerly attended the doctoral zoom classes on in Peace Studies.  Some days they cruised the city of Addis Ababa in search of an internet signal.  They attended class in their car, changing locations to access the six hours of daily online learning that lasted for 6 weeks. Aware of their region’s turmoil, they determined to discover critical knowledge and skills to enable them to lead their congregations and denominations and school in addressing conflict, whether in the home, church, community, or nation from a biblical framework. 

Our two Ethiopian students last year  in Manila

From the back seat of a car, they joined 10 other classmates from Cameroon, Nigeria, Australia, Philippines, UK, and Cambodia, unlocking biblical truth through lectures, role play, and small group discussion about negotiation, conflict coaching and mediation.  The final course required them to integrate everything and reformulate it for their context. Only God knew in July how their persistence to learn would be put to practice within months in an escalating war.  And only the Prince of Peace will be able to keep these two participants able to move forward in their studies as the internet again blinks off in the conflict of war.

 

From the back seat of a car, they joined 10 other classmates from Cameroon, Nigeria, Australia, Philippines, UK, and Cambodia, unlocking biblical truth through lectures, role play, and small group discussion about negotiation, conflict coaching and mediation.

The final course required them to integrate everything and reformulate it for their context. Only God knew in July how their persistence to learn would be put to practice within months in an escalating war.  And only the Prince of Peace will be able to keep these two participants able to move forward in their studies as the internet again blinks off in the conflict of war.

The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in Eritrea in 1974 and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) Ethiopia in 2020 are the bookends of our life ministry.  In our flesh, we groan as the writer of Lamentations, “Our pursuers [sin and conflict within and without] are swifter than the eagles in the heavens,” Lamentations 4:19.  “For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim.” Lamentations 5:17. 

But our hope presses us to strive with “dim eyes” every breath the Lord gives because, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.”

Gathered a year ago with the entire fourth cohort. Following our courses in August one has had to drop out from the pressure of daily ministry needs.

Please zoom in with us on our prayer needs: 

1. Peace in Ethiopia and for the church (including our own) to be agents of peace and reconciliation across all barriers.

2. Praise God, the Peace Studies PhD and DMin programs now have seven graduates active in their countries of  Zimbabwe (one scholar was originally from Rwanda), Sri Lanka, India,  and the USA. 

3. Currently, there is a cohort of 12 scholars in the Peace Studies doctoral program.  Another 18 are interested in joining a new cohort.  Clearly, God is at work. Please pray for the program’s future leadership, sponsoring institutions, and financial needs. Karl stepped down as director a year ago but continues to consult, teach and guide six dissertations. He identified a fantastic possible new director, but at this point the long term future of the program is undecided.

4. The global COVID 19 pandemic lockdowns provided opportunity to co-teach with a longtime colleague. The four practical and vital courses Negotiation, Coaching, Mediation, and Comparative Systems) are now being developed into an online curriculum through a web-based platform known as Sychar Well Group. https://sycharwell.org/

5. Karl’s consultancy work in aiding the new development of possibly two new master’s level programs in Peace Studies in seminaries in two countries. 

6. The International House (next to our house in Baltimore) has been home to scholars from 10 different countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Egypt, and Singapore.  For a thanksgiving meal (distanced, with masks and spread over three wonderful row-house porches) we had 8 countries represented with 12 people in attendance.  Continue to pray for the board of governance which will create a sustainable ministry with a 501c3 status. Pray for each resident (there are 5 rooms) and those who do not yet know the Savior. 

7. Praise the Lord—Debbie completed 23 years with World Relief in a packed final nine months of curriculum writing and training to allow the “Families for Life” program to continue.  She is now enjoying helping grandchildren with virtual school and serving our church.  She has plans to do more writing and speaking.

8. We have arrived at the point in life where Debbie maintains a full calendar to keep up with her myriad of doctors successfully treating her autoimmune diseases. Karl has prostate surgery December, and is now sporting a new ear!  His cochlear implant enables him to finally hear the “sweet nothings” from Deb. (“Say that again!”)

9. Our support account is waning and our needs are increasingly met by Social Security, but the reduced salary does not provide for work expenses.  COVID has eliminated the travel costs! We are thankful for the churches and individuals who have stayed the course with us (from 1980) and those who share our vision for the Shalom of Christ to be felt and seen in homes, communities, and churches across the world.

Debbie on one of her last trips to establish the Families for Life Curriculum in Rwanda identified an Eritrean refugee walking on the road and the team stopped to talk and help. Debbie gave her Ethiopian dress that she had packed for the trip :)

--We have begun a salary reduction plan that will continue to move to the level that donations support.  Give thanks in prayer with us that God does supply all our needs.
 https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/karl-and-debbie-dortzbach

Karl and Debbie....NO and YES

Dear praying friends,
 
When is a “No” a “Yes”?
 
That isn’t double speak, which is sometimes common in our political world.  Nor is it a cultural deference of some kind, which in fact does happen at times.  What I am asking is a more practical and every day matter in many of our lives.  Our lives for example,  have been touched by several “no” answers that led to “yes”.
 
Just yesterday Debbie received the news that after close and prolonged exposure to the Covid 19 virus, her test was “no, not positive”!  That was a big “YES” encouragement for us given that she is highly immune-compromised, has reached some magical age not to be mentioned, and has more difficult medical histories than I can keep track of (even she struggles with keeping up).  Of course, we are now going to struggle with keeping her negative as the virus spreads around us like a lava flow in Congo.  
 
Another huge “no” had come in December when the board of the International Graduate School of Leadership decided that they did not want to back the Peace Studies program.  It put me into a rapid movement between frustration at having spent so many years helping them to establish the program, and disappointment that it was just bouncing off a wall of “no”.  Then I received a prayer letter from a friend in Uganda who is working with a school I visited many years ago and that has grown and expanded greatly.  I began to wonder if an entirely new design for the Peace Studies program was possible.  This week I received another inquiry from a consortium of schools in India seeking help to do the same thing.  I am slowly realizing once more that when God gives us a “no” answer, it may lead to a much more important “yes”. 
 
I can think back to many times in our lives and ministry when the “no” has led to His “yes”.  I am sure if you think about your life that you will find those times as well.  It doesn’t take away the pain of the “no”, or the waiting if you were fearful of the worst before you received the “NO, not the worst” answer.  Just remembering God’s faithful hand of guidance that carried us beyond the “no” to the “yes” is a good exercise in putting our story into God’s perspective.
 
This week has been crazy for the world.  Airports trickling, cities locking down, economies plunging, and schools closing while looking to find some creative way to keep going.  In the midst of the crazy “no routine” I had several “yes” moments.  As usual I opened my computer this week to lead not one but two dissertation defenses.  Both were the near-end points of the long journey of two participants who have been beset by deep health issues, family tragedy and regional conflict.  Both produced stunning dissertations formed from amazing social research.  Many times I have thought, “no, they won’t make it”.  This week the examining committee welcomed a new “Dr Handy, PhD” in Sri Lanka (at 1:00 AM my time), and drew one step closer to doing the same in N.E. India.

  If the virus lets up, then I will have the honor in May to attend the graduation of two PhD graduates from our program.    They have and will make a difference in their areas, churches, and schools.  Next year by God’s grace we should have three more step onto the stage for that final “yes” moment. 
 

But while the world is scrambling, and while we have been dealing with the “no you cannot go out” of viral seclusion, Debbie has been writing away on manuals and guidelines in an environment that reminds us of the HIV/AIDS crisis on steroids, and I have been working away both to bring five candidates to the day of completion and to create a deeper and wider program that will move more forward as God’s agents of intervention in the pain of conflicted families and nations.  In God’s odd way, the “no” to our living globally is now a “yes” to continuing to reach the world.

We have two new residents in the International House.  Presently we serve residents from Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, and Singapore.  Two of the five individuals are Muslim with their eyes peering into the Light.  And no, we didn’t have to travel through closed airports to reach them or to leave them.  I just go next door…but maintain my social distance.

Karl and Debbie....changing together

Dear friends who have traveled far,
 
Did you notice the leaves fell off the trees?  The weather is cooler?  Seasons change around us.  The last you heard from us, summer was still on the way.  Now Christmas is on the way.
 
It happened to us as well.  In September we both turned 70.  Social security began.  So you might think that all the rest of our lives have moved down the familiar path that happens to most people in our season.  We have been blessed with many who have remained faithful in supporting us for years in prayer and finances.  Over the past few years some of our supporters, both individuals and churches, have become too old to continue the journey with us.  We are thankful for the years we were able to walk together, and thankful for the days that yet lie ahead even though we cannot number our days.
 
The short version, if you want it, is that we are trying to slow down but not stopping.  Mission to the World has a one-sentence retirement policy that isn’t much help at our point of life, so we have negotiated with them the idea of a “slow down”.  For us that puts us at about a 30+ hour week.  We have had a salary reduction in place for the last five years since our support account has teetered on the red-line edge.  So financially we hope to continue with some income from MTW that might help recover what we haven’t had for the past years and make it through to the end.
 
Now the long version. 

 Karl’s job description is looking like this from Sept 2019
 
Goal:
 A network of international theological schools that collaborate on research and educational programs in peace studies on a theological base that creates a growing resource of church leaders who provide the understanding and skills helpful for churches to positively contribute toward bringing God’s shalom in a troubled world. 
 
Objectives:

1. Identify theological training institutions who might desire to work toward at least an MA level of a peace studies program.

2. Encourage the development of those programs, starting with the provision of core courses offered either virtually or through a recommended teacher.

3. Guide by consultation with appropriate school leadership in the formation of curriculum and policies helpful for the establishment of a program.

4. Oversee research and dissertation writing of a few doctoral candidates.

5. Teach one course a year at the doctoral level.

6. Assist in the monitoring of practicum of doctoral students to establish high-quality practitioners of conflict mitigation.

 
Activities:

1. 5 hrs/week in correspondence (by email and phone) with theological institutions and educational leaders.

2. 10 hrs/week monitoring dissertations, research and practicium

3. 2 hrs/week in reporting and planning with Sychar Well Group (a 501c3 established for creating a platform of sharing and connection for peace studies curriculum and activities.

4. Two annual visits for teaching, networking, and consultation. (Three weeks/yr total)

5. 5 hrs/week writing projects.

6. 5 hrs/week coaching and assisting a new director of the peace studies program at the International Graduate School of Leadership.

Here with Karl is the newly approved director and Dr Lua who has been the long standing enabler of the program as original dean.  Also pictured is our newest cohort.  

Debbie’s Job description is looking like this:
 
Goal: to create and maintain a movement of country networks focused on enabling families to function in a healthy and God-honoring manner utilizing the “Families for Life” curriculum.
 
Objectives:

1. Create the necessary financial grants through World Relief to make the programs viable.

2. Identify the needed manual components through writing workshops

3. Develop the manuals.

4. Complete the training of core trainers in each country where the program is established

 
Activities:

1. Grant writing

2. Writing workshops

3. Manual writing

4. Training and follow up

5. Report and synthesis

Karl and Debbie’s “extra curricular” ministry job description looks like this:
 
Goal: to nurture and maintain a Christian community in the International House Baltimore so that as international scholars come to stay they are nurtured and built up in Christ and ready to return to the country of God’s calling to be a winsome and effective part of the Church in that place, utilizing their skills and training to glorify God.
 
Objectives:

1. Identify and engage residents as well as Reformed University Fellowship-International (also resident in the basement).

2. Assist in any community needs, personal needs and extended needs as they arise.

3. Engage in personal discipleship and life coaching.

4. Ensure that the building is comfortable and operates flawlessly for ministry.

Our house is next to the International House and we rejoice that the world now comes to our table.

We have been making progress toward a changing season. The days are shorter now.  Karl has stepped back but IGSL has not fully drawn into his place a new Peace Studies director.  However, they have approved a new director who will have to raise her (!) support—a monumental task since she is an evangelical Arab Israeli.  Any way you put those descriptors in a sentence changes the focus of her identity, but they all indicate she is a minority of minorities.  She lives in Nazareth, so as you read the Biblical texts this Christmas, do pray for this process that peace on earth may be promoted from Nazareth! We have a new cohort of nine that began in July and 14 more in application process.  The program is not diminishing!  We should have at least 5 more graduates in the next two years.
 
Debbie is well on the way with a Families for Life in five countries.  She is in the manual writing stage in some places and in the follow up in others.  This week she is in Burundi for a significant Pastor’s summit and more training.  She hopes to have most of her work done by mid-year, 2020.  Health issues are making it harder for her to stay as active.  She regularly has about 20 specialists that oversee her and now once a month she has an IV treatment for five days (at home).  But so far she has been able to keep going.
 
The International House Baltimore is now in its fourth year of operation.  We have a great committee of governance that is moving toward formation as a board with a 501c3 to expand the ministry foundation.  Thus far it has been tethered to our pockets.

In June we had the joy to return to Kenya and revisit our early days with five of our grandchildren.  Son Joshua sat again in the same primary school seat where he was once rapped on the hands for missing his math facts.  It must have been what made him an engineer :)
 

Joshua's four sons roamed the streets and engaged with the children of a church
 

So if you are not too old to still journey with us, we invite you to continue to receive the blessings of God as you see His hand at work bringing life and peace in places of darkness and unbelief.  If you think you are ready to retire from the journey with us, we understand, and simply want to say a huge thank you for your accompaniment.  If you want to journey on the pathway but go beyond where we can go, then we would love to connect you to those who will carry our vision and labors. Our letters have already come less frequently.  If the leaves from our book have become crinkled and brown, feel free to take your name from our list and gather the leaves into a bag.  They might mulch something new!

We hope to have some months perhaps in the spring or summer of 2020 to travel the US and revisit many of you who have walked with us.  For some of you it has been long since you saw our grey hair.
 
May the God of every season bless you and keep you.  

--We have a salary reduction plan that will continue to move to the level that donations support.  Give thanks in prayer with us that God does supply all our needs.
 https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/karl-and-debbie-dortzbach

Going....Going....

Dear fellow Doubter,

May, 2019
 
The resurrection celebration is over.  The disciples of old went about their usual business…eating, going home, fishing, and so forth.  We all know that real celebration comes in what you find and see, not in what you don’t find or don’t see.  So someone ran to a cave and didn’t find anything.  For a while it was a big deal, and then everyone went on with life.
 
We celebrated too, and then I hopped on a plane and went to Manila for courses.  Debbie spoke at a women’s retreat.  The International House Baltimore basement renovation project had another team arrive to help.  And life went on.  
 
But when the women arrived at the tomb on that first resurrection morning, they were met with the message, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly”.  They came, they saw, they went, they told.  It was not emptiness but fullness and hope.
 
On Resurrection morning this year we had the joy of sitting with four Chinese scholars who had never been to church, had never seen or heard the message of hope and joy proclaimed in community.  They came wanting to “be appropriately dressed” and so had bunny-ear head ties.  But they left with songs of joy in their ears.

 
When I arrived in Manilla for classes I found out that Debbie had gone to the hospital rather than getting on a plane herself and going to Malawi, which was the plan.  Meeting the resurrection angel does not always allow us to go away quickly.  Sometimes it means sitting quietly and waiting to know what the risen Master is saying and where He is directing.  
 
About two months ago Debbie was diagnosed with yet another auto-immune disease, Myasthenia Gravis. It has some strange interactions with her Ankylosing spondylitis. Yes, sounds like Greek to me as well.  You can look them up.  She remains now more than a week later in the hospital while specialists attempt to figure it all out.  
 
So the plane seat was empty and the hospital bed full.  The hope of the resurrection is not a cold cave holding back disappointments, but looking to see what is next in the Master’s appointments.
It is the certainty that He has not left us.  He leads us every step of the journey.
 
He is risen indeed!
 
Karl and Debbie

The International House Baltimore glows in the spring

Read closely and you will find what our Chinese Scholar considered important and helpful in this explanation of Easter

• Pray with us as we seek to know what this step of change in health means.

• Pray with us as we seek to successfully transfer some of our responsibilities to others (Karl has identified at least one possible replacement director and the process is starting while the fourth cohort of students begins in July)

• Give thanks with us for many new opportunities of service and light-bearing (Debbie has new program opportunities in at least three offices)

• Give thanks that financial support is still keeping on (and it allows our health insurance to keep on with existing providers)

The world through a microscope
 

International House Christmas dinner packs in 40 people from all over the world.  

Some learned about the words and meaning of the Christmas story and carols for the first time

New Year, 2019
 
Dear Friends,
The star guided wise men to the Christ child who was to transform a broken world.  The child began his life in a stable, but later moved to what was probably a simple home.
 
Two years ago—about the time it took for the wise men to make their journey—we received in our home a scholar from Japan who needed a place to sleep for a few nights.  He was finishing his dissertation defense at Johns Hopkins and then proceeded on to teach science in Ethiopia.  Tradition has it that one of the wise men who brought gifts to the new king was possibly of Ethiopian or African heritage who was an an astronomer and watched the configuration of stars.   
 
In a twist to the Christmas story, our Japanese scholar was making microscopes out of broken Coke bottles and used this to help Ethiopian primary and secondary School students “see and understand” a deeper world.  He was however troubled by the order of the universe and his identity in that universe.  Last week, a few days before our celebration of Christmas, I received news that he has come to embrace the Christ who came to redeem the world, and who brings light to broken hearts.  
 
If you are like me, you feel the pain of our broken world.  We are broken people and have broken relationships. We live among people who make broken promises and break their commitments and pour out that brokenness to others.  We often take relationships that are at least partly whole, and break them into pieces.  Our Japanese friend took broken pieces of “the real thing” and helped students look deeper at what was really there.  But those pieces only helped him understand the deeper disconnects in his own life. The pieces brought him to search for the Prince of Peace. 
 
Can broken pieces of our lives help us see more clearly our world through the light of the King?  Will the light of His star shine so that our world might somehow make sense again?  If our Japanese friend can see that refined image and hope with a broken bottle, then perhaps we too can find a new hope!
 
I passed through this Christmas season with an array of emotions. I feel with deep gratitude the outpouring of love and support that we received from so many.  God does more than I ask.  A neighbor wanted to help toward our support account, and again others have made significant contributions to help float us back to “full time support”. I was contacted about a possible replacement for my role as director of the Peace Studies program—it was someone I already knew but didn’t think there would be any possible interest.  These are amazing answers to prayer.
 
And yet I find myself like Jesus weeping over people who are not moving toward the Christ child.  Broken lives seem precariously perched on thin ribbons of dark self-will.  We journey with broken lives and often feel the persistence of forces that numb and tear at the center and soul of relationships and being. 
 
The Christmas announcement to the shepherds led to the Child’s presentation in the temple eight days later, or about the length of time from our Christmas to New Year.  Simeon gave thanks for the light of revelation to the nations, and Anna gave thanks for the redemption of God’s people.   God was bringing the broken pieces together again in a new way.  
 
Rejoice with us in new life born again in our friend Yoshi, born in Ethiopia, reflecting light from Baltimore.
 
With anticipation for light and redemption in the year to come,

Karl and Debbie

Kdortzbach@mac.com
443 570 3668

December, 2018
 
Dear Friends,
Did you roast a turkey in the last week or so?  I roasted three. They were all eaten and the soup from the bones as well.  The fridge was emptied out.  All that finally remained were wonderful reflections.  The last few weeks have been so full of God’s presence and fingers tracing through our lives that we want to share some of those moments.
 
We started with a Thanksgiving meal for our community group. It is a diverse group from our church that meets every week in our home. If you don’t have such a regular engagement with a community that is on a journey of faith, then you are missing one of the joys of life.  We carried a portion of the meal to a new mother and family who usually come to our group but were still too recently post-delivery to make the meal.

For most of our international guests, this was an American tradition first!

RUF-I minister Jacob Jasin on the right has brought new life to the outreach of the international house.

Then we had another Thanksgiving meal at the International House. Reformed University Fellowship International (RUFI) minister, Jacob Jasin, mobilized about 35 International students, scholars and helpers, and we packed the International House for a traditional American Thanksgiving meal.  It was a wonderful time to engage people from China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Korea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the US and simply share the love of Christ. Years ago before we purchased the International House and began work on it, we dreamed of being able to host these kinds of events.  We will have a similar time for a Christmas meal this week in December.
 

Thirty five people filled the first floor of the International House

And our family gathered from Chicago and Baltimore so that we packed all ten grandchildren and parents around our table.  God has been faithful in His provision for us all through the years and generations.  In the pains of our journey He has drawn us close. In sickness He has been our strength. In death He has been our comfort.  We celebrated our traditional family reunion with Deb’s family on the Friday after Thanksgiving and for the first time brother Tim was not with us, and we really miss him.  He is feasting with the Lamb. We also thought of Karl’s mother who now is 96 and was with us two years ago in Baltimore. This year she still managed to make Thanksgiving with his sisters in Florida.

Candle-making is a traditional Thanksgiving project 

game time is just joyous chaos

  Through these final months of 2018 Karl is processing a dozen new applications for the fourth cohort of the Peace Studies Program. Applications are from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zambia, Canada, Australia, and Sri Lanka.  One of our early graduates is starting up a new program in Zambia, and several of our present students are making progress on their dissertations in spite of hospitalizations, ill  ness, and super-human workloads.  
 
Debbie graded more papers from her Covenant College courses and is still working with World Relief.  She frequently treks to Washington DC exploring grants for the Families for Life programs which nurture the seeds of life and mutual support that God intends in marriages. The programs are rapidly growing and adding new countries. She is editing a final version of the manual developed in Congo this year and expects to travel in the new year to Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Haiti, and South Sudan.
 
In the last six weeks we have heard from a number of individuals and a church committing to financially boost our depleted support account--a reminder that God will provide as He has provided--one day at a time. We are so grateful to each of you for standing with us through many years and bringing tremendous encouragement.
 

PhD candidate from Uganda at a conference in Philippines in September 

Part of Debbie's class on Women and Children in Global Health at Covenant College

• Pray for the International House Christmas mealDecember 7, the work of the International House Committee recently re-formed, and the remodeling of the basement for use by Reformed University Fellowship-International as a meeting point.

• Pray for the wise processing of our new fourth cohort applicants to the Peace Studies Program, and the provision of a new director needed before we start the new cohort in July.

• Pray for God’s strength for Debbie in her diverse work from teaching to program planning to DC shuffling.  Her arthritis medication is no longer very effective so she will probably be shifting to a new one, but meanwhile she feels a high level of pain.

• Give thanks for the increase of funding into our support account, and the hope of being able to finish well.  Like most marathoners, as we draw near to the end of our resources, we yearn to sprint well to the finish. 

The main story

At Last

Dear praying friends
Almost 50 years ago Debbie began to see me in a new light.  She had many boy-friends before me, so I could never claim to be the first. But I could be the last. Sometimes last is most important. It goes against all that we believe we have experienced.  What could be more important, or better, than being first?  I was the last man in line for the best woman.  She married me.
 
For the past couple of weeks I have been in Manilla where we offered the last research course to our present cohort of Peace Studies students.  At the end of the course, each of them had  gained a sense of what their dissertation research was going to be and how it would proceed.  It was a turning point. The last was the beginning of the final stage.
 
While there, our son Jesse was visited by a long-time friend and colleague from Kenya.  Makuku was the pastor/mentor for Jesse’s transformative engagement in the slums of Nairobi.  It was his last deep connection with his years in Africa.  And the last came to meet him at a point of need.
 
I just returned from Manila where I was also deep into planning for my last year as director of the Peace Studies program.  Someone asked what I was going to do after…visit grand children?  Why yes of course!  But I dream of seeing another program or two started in Peace Studies. Perhaps in Lebanon, or in NE India where we have people who are on their last lap of their PhD program. The last of one may give way to the first of another.
 

On the way home I received a note from MTW that confirmed we had received our last full salary check from a years-weakened support account.  And then the next day came a notice of three special gifts from a donors—and it reminded me that the last was but a confirmation of what I knew all along.  What I know is that God has not forgotten our needs, and now that while the “normal supply” has ended, He will begin His “special supply”.  We may not know when or how that supply comes.
 
My return was premature because Debbie’s twin brother was failing.  He had been in the hospital for a short time with pneumonia, and was released, but didn’t recover.   Family gathered around and when the last one arrived he breathed his last breath.  The last family member, it seemed gave him permission to take the last earthly step.  That was the first step into an eternity without the body-brokenness of his Cerebral Palsy, and into a God-presence with a fully renewed mind.
 
Jesus reminded us that the first will be last and the last, first.  We live in an upside-down kingdom.  Have you considered what is last for you today?
 

We need not fear the last. It may be the start of a first.

At last....

...a long awaited networking tool to help build an international peace network has been launched.  Check it out...
Sychar Well Group

Upcoming events

In October Karl will have one more participant move through comprehensive exam and dissertation proposal phase and others finishing their last papers or courses.  Pray for these significant ending-transitions

On October 27 we will have the memorial for Debbie's twin brother Tim.  Pray for God's comfort in the loss and give thanks for His ultimate healing of the brokenness of creation.

In November Karl and Debbie will be speaking at a missions conference in one of their long-time "home" congregations in Brunswick Georgia.  Pray for the effectiveness of God to motivate and reach His people.

Dear Praying friends,
 
Road trips are often as adventurous as they are relaxing.  But they may become instantly a stressor that makes us wonder why we ever were so crazy as to leave the comfort of home.  It is a little hard to run out of gas these days when your car tells you how many miles are left in the tank.  But I remember when we first crossed the US visiting churches in our 1974 Peugeot diesel.  More than once I wondered if the truck stop I passed was the last one for the next 200 miles. Or now when the traffic all of a sudden stops, I can look at my GPS and know where the stopping point is and what might be the best alternative route.  In our travels from church to church through the years, we have had the car engine seize, a transmission stop, tires  blow, and  a head-gasket fail.  That was all before I could talk to my phone and have it tell me where the nearest help point was and what my options were.
 
But life doesn’t have a GPS like the one on my phone.  Our ministry “road trip” continues to be an adventure, that is rarely relaxing. These days our stress points are not so much around a vehicle break down.  But we do wonder if we will get to the next point on the journey because of being “tired” and “running out of fuel”.  We don’t have the energy we once had to keep up the pace, and this month the needle on our support tank has officially hit “E”, which means that further reduction in salary is necessary.  

Debbie has been in Congo for another ten days of training with the “families for life” curriculum. About two months ago she was in Malawi. Her International travel is less now.

But the risks are greater now that her body is immune-compromised.  Being on the edge of an ebola area in Congo provided some additional praying and planning to move the workshop further from the affected area. One pastor who came was deeply impacted and said,   “When we see the example of the story characters in the manual, it showed us what we were not able to do in the past.  But now following God’s Word as men and women, all worthy before God, (we realize) no one should discriminate. I ask forgiveness (looks at wife and puts hand on shoulder). There are things we should do but we don’t. Now is a good opportunity to strengthen our home.”

 

The curriculum continues to be blessed of God in impacting families and communities in multiple countries where it has been introduced. Here is one of the co-creators of the curriculum, Ciru. She served as a research assistant years ago when Karl founded the Institute for the Study of African Realities.  Our road trip has included many wonderful people doing incredible things.

 
Debbie is returning now but goes immediately to Covenant college to teach for a month.  World Relief is no longer blessing this labor so she does it on her vacation time.  Meanwhile Karl heads to Manila this week for the next several courses for the third cohort in Peace Studies.  He will spend a good block of time planning with school administration about the details needed to turn over the program to a new—yet to be found—director in the next six to nine months.  By God’s grace we hope to see several more graduate from the program this year, and start a fourth cohort.  The work of gathering a guidance committee to move the program forward has finally gained momentum, and there are a growing number of faculty from different schools and countries who help make the program go.
 
Our International house ministry has had to drop back to just providing a nice room for international scholars since we have not had the energy or time to invest in lives.  But God has sent a new Reformed University Fellowship pastor with a focus in International students to come along side of us, so we are thankful for God’s accompanying mercy.  He knows our journey.  He knows the condition of our “tires” and need for ministry support fuel.  If you would simply pray and give thanks with us for the God who knows our every need and goes before and behind us in our journey, then you will see with us the joy of the journey.  At the end of a long and hot journey, the cool of the evening does come. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the day.  And now as the intensity of our labors reaches the evening of our lives, He still meets His garden walkers.
 
 
With thanks and confidence,
 
Karl and Debbie

• Give thanks for God’s continued physical strength to serve

• Give thanks for God’s blessing on the Peace Studies participants as they engage in unbelievable challenges in their countries and organizations.

• Give Thanks for God’s using the Families for Life curriculum and embedding it into so many programs across World Relief’s ministries.

• Pray for adequate physical strength and financial resources to finish out this year. We hope that both strength and resources will last until we are 70—and beyond the journey will go on but changed.

• Pray for creative engagement in the lives of our International House residents while their lives are so busy and ours are as well.

In the picture you see Ramroth from Cambodia where less than 1% of the population are Christians and Gertrude from Burundi—two countries still reeling from the trauma of genocide and conflict and the multigenerational consequences on marriages and families. Burundi is ranked the poorest country in the world, with Malawi close behind. Over dinner with them, I learned a deep lesson from the driver of the vehicle taking me up and down Malawi. He grew up on the lakeshore of Malawi and explained the distant boats in the lake that I saw many nights. The lights on the boats were easily visible late at night on the beach. I learned they are part of a three-boat platoon to catch fish. Working together, the first wooden canoe with the light takes the lead and is known as the signal boat. It goes into deep waters. The light attracts the fish at night and he slowly leads them with the light, bringing more and more fish into the swarm of fish following the light.  The other two boats watch the signal boat and at a given signal are called to join him, slowly and quietly with their nets down. The two canoes circle the signal boat and the fish swarming around the light. They swoop up nets heavy with fish, mostly tilapia.  I was attracted to the light myself, curious to know how they fish at night with a lamp, but it is a fitting metaphor for our mission.  The Lord Jesus is the light and he attracts fish to himself—leading them gently.  As Christians when we witness to the Lord’s grace and forgiveness, we don’t know who will be responsive to God’s truth.  That is God’s part—he is in the signal boat, leading them to himself. As missionaries, which we all are, we paddle our canoes behind and wait for the signal, the calling. Responding to his call, we lower our nets and follow Christ.  Many drawn to the Light are gathered together. Thank you for being in the canoe and lowering the nets with us. We could not paddle into the lake or pull up the heavy nets without your help.  We keenly feel your strength in prayer and support. We are so very grateful. Please pray that we remain faithful to the Lord, going where he leads, and being responsive to his call. Families for Life is a family strengthening ministry seeking to enrich the marriage relationship to reflect God’s design for marriage. Many marriages are struggling with cultural issues, no job and sense of hopelessness that leads to heavy drinking, beating of wife and children and abandonment. The program addresses each country in a customized way and looks heavily at culture.  Through a workshop we utilize the wisdom from church couples to develop lessons built on Scripture. A curriculum is developed to be used in small gatherings of couples. We now have curriculum for South India, North India (Hindi belt), East India (Misoram), Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua, Irian Jyra, Malawi, Haiti and Burundi.  There is deep interest to develop more. In Malawi the evaluation of our program was to better discern the effectiveness and opportunities before us. The workshops had 5 participants from 4 countries. Our learning was rich and useful. We also did focus group discussions to be better learn how people who were trained are using the program. We are thankful that the last quarterly report showed Malawi reaching nearly 800 couples and Burundi has reached 18,000.  We expect both countries to expand and to add more countries this next year. One observer from the focus group in Ntchisi District said,  “Before the program we quarreled a lot in marriage. Now we don’t”; and from a chief: “I was from a broken home and as a consequence I had no confidence in myself. I was always behind. I know how important this program is, it has helped change me.”  

With thanks,
Karl and Debbie have gone fishing

Welcome to 2018

Come and make the journey with us.  We want to change our look a bit and invite you to just watch rather than read for a change :)  Follow the link below to a short video (six minutes) that is an Mp4 format.  If you have a smart phone you can look at it on the phone just by clicking the link from the phone.  If you are on a computer, viewing it will depend upon whether or not your computer video player uses an Mp4 format.

And if all that is Swahili to you, then you need to ask your grandchild to help :)  If you don't have a grandchild, then any kid under 18 can probably help.  It is their mother tongue.

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