The Anthis Family Adventures
Volume 3, Issue #7 joel.anthis@sim.org
www.anthisfamily.com 2nd edition October, 2004
Anthis Update
Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings from Jos, Nigeria. We are writing to let you know about our last couple of weeks. And we are writing to let you know that our God is an awesome God who answers prayer, protects, provides, and sustains. As Christ said to Paul, “…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2Cor 12:9a. We are certainly weak, which magnifies His strength all the more.
We wrote our last newsletter three weeks ago before we left for a one week family mission trip to Galmi hospital in Niger. Our first prayer request was for safety on the trip. Our last request was for continued growth in Christ-likeness for each member of our family. Working to declare Christ and extend His healing ministry in new territory is serious business. We are so thankful that the Lord has blessed us with friends and family who take the ministry of prayer on our behalf seriously as well. The Lord has certainly been answering your prayers in a timely and dramatic fashion.
We left Jos in our van for Niger on Saturday at 6am three weeks ago. In addition to our family, we were accompanied by three Nigerian friends: Stephen who was driving us, Pastor Enoch the chaplain at Evangel missionary hospital, and “Big” Abigail who helps us in our home on a regular basis and loves to go on evangelistic outreaches. We were only an hour out of Jos when we came over a hill to what first appeared to be one more police checkpoint. But Stephen quickly realized that this was no routine check point.
Three cars had already been pulled over to the side of the road, and masked men with machine guns pulled us over as well. Remember, we had sent out our prayer letter less than twelve hours earlier. You may have even prayed for our safety and growth during the time of our robbery. The men initially pulled Stephen out of the van and started to hit him. It is hard not to get a little nervous just writing about it three weeks later, and yet the Lord provided the most amazing amount of serenity and composure during the entire event on each and every person in our van. His peace truly surpasses understanding. Cindy, who was sitting in the front passenger seat because she gets car sick, had the courage and ability to yell at the robbers in Hausa to stop beating Stephen, that he had no money, and that she had the money. The robbers understood her Hausa, and stopped hitting Stephen. We then all got out of the van. For the next 30 minutes they searched us all for money, and then opened every last piece of luggage or container and dumped it out on the road searching for money. All the food and gifts we were taking to Niger, all our medical and surgical equipment, all our Hausa language tracts, our cameras and computer… all on the road. And the Lord protected us throughout. The kids were amazing and quietly obeyed the robbers without crying or aggravating them. And if you know our kids, you know that was a miracle. Halfway through it all, another car came over the hill, and decided to make a quick u-turn, and the robbers fired on the car. But again the Lord gave each of us a calmness of spirit that was supernatural. Eventually, the robbers finished their search for more hidden money, and walked up the road. When it became evident that they had left, we gathered all our stuff and threw it back into the van and drove on to the next village. We stopped there to thank the Lord for His protection – none of us were hurt, and we still had our van and enough gas to return to Jos.
We returned to Jos but were not able to make our family mission trip up to the country of Niger. We had been very excited about our trip, so this was a big disappointment. Although, this was not what we had planned, the Lord was answering your prayers for protection and growth in Christ-likeness.
On the way home, Austin asked “Why did God send those robbers when we were going to tell people about Jesus?” A question many of us might ask. He also rightly stated, “They could take away our money and our lives, but they couldn’t take away our Christianity.” We focused on that eternal perspective and our assurance of eternal life in Heaven with Christ, and as we drove home to Jos, we prayed for the eternal salvation of the men who had just attacked us, because they needed Christ just as much as the people of Niger. We talked about how when something comes up and hinders the plans we have (like going to Niger), that our response to the obstacle (being robbed on the way) may be a greater witness for the Lord than whatever we had planned initially.
Over the next several days we talked about how the apostle Paul’s plans were sometimes changed on his missionary journeys, and how he had suffered and faced bandits on the roads. We also read Psalms 23 together and modified it to fit our experience: … even though we drive though the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil men with guns, for You are with us, your rod and your staff, they comfort us…. We talked about how Job had questioned God when he suffered, and about God’s response to Job. God’s ways are simply higher than ours and we aren’t expected to understand all His ways. And yet lessons aren’t always learned easily. Why had God allowed this to happen? And how were we going to respond?
As I studied the book of Acts in a bible study, the Lord led me to the 27th and 28th chapters at the end of the book. I read how Paul was being taken as a captive to Rome and survived a shipwreck only to have a deadly viper fasten itself to Paul’s hand once on shore. Why would God let that snake attack Paul after he had already been through so much? What was the point? The locals knew Paul was a dead man and expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead. Paul was already facing the possibility of death as a Roman prisoner, and eventually would die as a witness for Christ. So why the snake? Then a new understanding came. “Death” had affixed itself to Paul, yet Christ’s protection was greater than death because He has defeated death. Suddenly, I could relate to the message Christ had for Paul regarding the viper attack and apply it to myself and our family: “I am all powerful and I love you, and nothing is going to happen to you that is outside of My will and My timing.” Paul’s snake bite and our roadside robbery could create fear within us. And yet the same event has the potential to do just the opposite and to increase our faith! As Paul headed to an “uncertain” and scary future in Rome, how encouraging it must have been for him to remember how Christ had rescued him from the certain death of the viper bite. Praise the Lord for He really is good.
However, these lessons aren’t learned once; they must be learned daily. We aren’t super-spiritual. We’re just like you. We are just a regular family from suburban Houston. The Lord just called us to Nigeria a year ago, and here we are. We are weak. And we are finding out just how weak we really are. But praise the Lord because He uses the weak things of this world to demonstrate His strength.
Please continue to pray for us as we each recover from this incident. We thank the Lord so much for your love and support and prayers. You are a blessing.
Prayer and Praise
Praises:
1. For safety and protection for everyone as we tried to go to Niger on a mission trip
2. For growth in Christ-likeness for each member of our family
3. That our van, computer, cameras, and most of our surgical equipment was left intact
Prayer Requests:
1. For continued recovery for each of us (our family as well as Stephen, Pastor Enoch, and “big” Abigail). That includes better sleep and rest for Cindy and more energy for Joel and Cindy. And that will include extra peace and understanding for the kids, especially the next time we are on the road traveling through numerous check points.
2. That we would neither grow weary nor fearful in doing good
3. For continued growth in Christ-likeness for each member of our family
Serving Christ on your behalf here in Nigeria,
Joel and Cindy
Austin, Allison, and Abigail