Karl and Debbie....Generations
Sometimes the events of life are beyond understanding. They fit mysteriously together in God’s plan like some kind of hidden code that draws back the heavy bolts of locked doors. Usually those locked doors open slowly through years or generations.
Over the Thanksgiving holidays we brought my 94 yr-old mother to rejoice with her great grand children. FOUR generations in one house was a wonderful blessing. At one point I read the words of Matthew naming the fourteen generations from Abraham to David to Babylon to Christ. Messianic redemption came in fulfillment of generational waiting. Mom and Dad prayed for their children and grandchildren. Some of those are blood relatives but most are spiritual descendants.
God’s redemption plan passes through generations. In the Old Testament time, it brought many disappointments, delays, captivity, and loss. So also now does God’s redemptive application pass through generations that have disappointments and delays.
We have experienced some of those delays and setbacks while longing for His fulfillment. I spent six weeks before Thanksgiving in Manila with doctoral courses offered to a new cohort of students. It has been ten years since the program began, and although the trickle of graduates is only now starting, it IS starting. For academic program sustainability, we need the next generation of faculty. In the struggle to conclude comprehensive exams, get dissertation committees ready, and make the necessary progress on concluding dissertations, I have wondered when God would raise up a replacement for me. If all goes well, I will be 74 or 75 years old when this present load of 16 dissertations is completed.
But Redemption’s story has never been about the one waiting. It has always been about the Redeemer’s work in transforming the conflict of brokenness to something new.
In this cohort we have a wonderful variety of participants. Women and men. Asian, African and American. We even have four faculty members from various graduate seminaries, including two from the school that grants our PhD degree--. Each doctoral candidate has lived a life full of God’s grace through brokenness. Two that are excellent possible future faculty for this program have known the brokenness of national politics, church, and family. They are innovative, deep thinkers, and passionate about Christ redeeming conflict.
Debbie was recently diagnosed with an odd form of systemic arthritis—ankylosing spondylitis. We are grateful for a new medication which appears to be helping. She presses on with renewed opportunity to develop the “Families for Life” curriculum in now the fifth country edition. It is impacting multiple generations of children and grandchildren.
Mother sat with our International House residents at Thanksgiving and rejoiced in her “international children”. We took our friends to an Advent concert, and they were captured by the music and words. “What does, “Word made flesh mean?” asked one woman. “What is the meaning of ‘Hallelujah’?” asked another, “Can I find the Hallelujah Chorus on You Tube? It is a very lovely song!”
God’s redemptive story in Christ assures us there will be more generations of people to sing Hallelujah, from every tribe and nation.
Anna in the New Testament times waited as a widow until at 84 she held the child that would bring greater hope than any child she could have borne. He was the long-awaited Messiah Child brought by Mary, escorted by Joseph his guardian. With us, and Anna of old, will you give thanks to God for the redemption of brokenness?
Will you pray and participate with us in the opening doors that lie everywhere we look?
-Our peace studies participants are averaging 800 or more hours of personal interventions in conflict. Interventions of God’s grace and peace are being planned for in seminaries, among Boko Haram victims, among women who have had dignity hammered away through violence.
--Families for Life is growing into two more new countries, helping families find a new hope and direction that should have been but was not a part of their spiritual birth in Christ.
--This month our support account finally reaches the bottom as we have lost the support of yet additional long-time donors. Will you consider a special gift as God raises up the next generation to carry forward His redemption of conflict through training, interventions and family renewal?
https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/karl-and-debbie-dortzbach