Henna Bible Stories-The Wages of Sin

There's definitely a lot of room for me to improve my henna technique! I always got a "C" on my art projects in school.  However, I'm happy to share my journey of becoming a better henna artist for a significant purpose! 

Here's a sample of using Romans 6:23 from the design by Henna Stories to share the Good News from more of a shame and honor perspective. 

Feel free to download these docs if you find them helpful to you. 

Henna Design of Romans 6:23

Clean Copy of Notes for Romans 6:34

Anna's Notes for Romans 6:34 

 Video Links:

Youtube Video link

 

Henna Art - Intro and Getting Started

Henna Every Woman's Story

Henna Mary's Story

The Meaning of How We Meet Death

When one is called to risk for Christ's sake, how we meet death is a sign of how we have met life.

There are those who seem to think it is enough to simply exist and persevere in a high risk situation, that in persevering we have become spiritually noble or spiritual heroes.

The non-suffering Church naively heralds such people. 

There are those who seem to think that risking anything for Christ means we have become someone we are not.

There are those who "market" for the sake of money or influence the death of people who have died in risk, who indeed were foolish and did not live day-to-day in their relationships in a way that glorifies God.

It takes real discernment to understand the meaning of our life--and potential death--when in a high-risk situation.

"There is meaning beyond absurdity [or chaos]. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art."(1)

So what is the meaning?

We cannot choose the biggest death, the one that most glorifies God, if we are not choosing on a day-to-day basis in our most ignoble or non-seen moments that which glorifies God and demonstrates His kindness to those around us.

From the team members who cannot get along, the one who "never forgave and never respected" the leader, from the husband who abuses his wife, to those who criticize, slander and withhold approval - these are not qualities that lead to a Christ-exalting life nor a Christ-exalting death.

• We meet death well when we live sacrificially, when we don't live in a place of mourning or silence but of praise and indebtedness to a God who bled for us and who died to break the power of death over us. 
• We meet death well when we continue serving Him, loving Him, even when we want to walk away, when the pain or the potential pain in risk (or in life) seems too great. 
• We meet death well when we give all of our heart to love others well, even when misunderstood, slandered, and judged, just as He was. 

 When we meet death with a sense of wonder, praise, indebtedness on our lips, our death--and our life--has the highest meaning possible. When we meet death knowing that our life is part of God's life on this earth, that we have brought His presence to others, when we live in a constant state of awareness of the holy dimension of living, then our our death glorifies God the greatest. 




(1) Abraham Heschel, "I Asked For Wonder" and in interview with NBC.

Faith Under Fire

One Sunday in 2017, Neal and I each gave the same sermon title, "Faith Under Fire."  The sermon was based on Exodus 17: 7-16.

We spoke at different venues on the same morning, and if you'd like to hear the differences between our teaching style, listen to both sermons here! :)

• Anna's Teaching "Faith Under Fire"

• Neal's Teaching "Faith Under Fire"

• Faith Under Fire Power Point

White Male Effect (WME) and Cross-Cultural Risk Perception

Introduction
There are numerous secular studies on gender and socio-economic differences of risk perception.  A cursory examination will help us in the spiritual endeavor of cross-cultural risk understand how to apply some of this awareness in a wise way as we assess risk as a team in a dangerous, front-line environment.

The goal of this article is to elevate unity and more effective communication between genders and international teams as we work for a common eternal purpose.  Any time we can increase personal awareness of the individual, it will help us understand others better. This reflects the Trinity, as we seek to understand and know ourselves and each other more deeply. We love more deeply that and whom we know.

It is important to only cautiously make generalizations of risk perception between gender and culture groups.  More research and clear methodology of research needs to be done (by those in the clinical mental-health fields).  When using secular research on risk, only some of the research is really helpful to our purpose.  We need to carefully weigh the strengths and weaknesses of that data. Sometimes I re-word the research quotes in order to make it more understandable for the rest of us!

As I often repeat in our RAM Training, the secular research on risk began looking at business and gambling risk, although now it is much more broad and includes many of the modern-day risks we all face as a global family.  So we have to take the data with "a grain of salt" since we are engaged in what is clearly a high-risk endeavor but we do have the power of the Holy Spirit Who helps us to respond differently then all the data can possibly predict!

Additionally, more research on analyzing the secular data and applying it is a skill of analysis and synthesis. I welcome critical feedback on where I have wrongly interpreted and applied the psychological research.

Studies on WME
In general, numerous studies suggest that white males tend to rate risk lower, and less problematic than women and all other culture groups.1  Women in general feel more vulnerable in risk,2  especially in types of risk where there are social inequalities and where the "less powerful" are more subject to risk.  This seems to fit the scenario for men and women where Christ-following foreigners are living in a hostile extremist environment!

Men who rate risk lower than others:

"tend to be better educated, had higher household incomes, and were politically more conservative. They showed greater trust in authorities and institutions, were anti-egalitarian and did not want to share [power to make decisions on risk with the general public.]"3

Being anti-egalitarian is especially problematic in the mission field and Church. More women are serving as missionaries then men (see the discussion at the bottom on this debated statistic).4  Males in leadership demonstrate wisdom to listen to their teammates with humility because human lives are at stake in the risk situation.  The Biblical principle of stewardship of Kingdom resources means that we carefully listen to both men and women who are risking their lives on the field.

Historically, white males have generally experienced less vulnerability and perceive less injustice in their experience, thus rate risks lower than all other groups. Gender and to a lesser extent race, remains a robust predictor of risk perception.5

Another thesis on differences in risk perception are related to perceived power, control, and vulnerability.

"This thesis would suggest the gender and race differences that are regularly found in risk perception originate not just because of substantive differences in power to control risk but also because people with less power over risks feel more likely to be at risk and feel risk to be inequitably distributed" (Satterfield, et al., 2004). 

There are several influencing factors to consider when evaluating a team's response to risk and their readiness to remain in or press forward in cross-cultural risk.

Factors to consider are a person's perceived vulnerability as well as exposure to a risk and their perceived lack of power or control over the risk and outcome will cause them to rate risks much higher than others (with more power and control).

Researchers are trying to look at causes other than the White Male Effect (WME). Is it possible that gender differences are less significant than social inequity? When one group of researchers looked at this in Sweden (Olofsson and Rashid, 2011), they found that

"Ethnicity serves as a marker of inequality and discrimination in Sweden. Consequently, ethnicity, in terms of foreign background, mediates inequality resulting in high risk perception."6

This only confirms what we already know and experience on a daily basis - we feel at higher risk being a foreigner in a strange land!  I am much better educated as a white woman, having 4 degrees, but as a minority foreigner living in a Muslim extremist culture, I definitely feel much more at risk in general. I appreciate this scientific research by psychologists and Dr. Breakwell who makes it understandable for me, but sometimes I just want to say, "Of course! I didn't need research to tell me that!"

A person's perceived vulnerability is evaluated both in how they are handling it mentally and materially.  Mental vulnerability can be explored in dialogue, helping someone evaluate their self awareness of their anxiety level.  It also incorporates discussion on exposure to multiple stressors over time.  A sense of vulnerability is increased when being subject to multiple stressors and hazards.

This is similar to stress resiliency training, where we teach front-line workers that "stress is accumulative." In the same way, it seems that the feeling of vulnerability is also cumulative: exposure to multiple streams of hazards (threat of kidnapping, murder, robbery, rape, sexual abuse on the street, etc) at one time wear a person down and cause them to feel more vulnerable in general.

Some Beginning Application for Cross-Cultural Risk
The issue of gender on risk perception impacts risk decision-making, communication, and risk management. Becoming aware of the background factors of how people perceive the level of risk will help us to ask better questions of one another.  Leaders who are aware of these issues will actually cause their teams to have increased trust in their leadership, simply by taking the time to listen to the fears and the perceived level of risk, and not dismissing it.

When I shared about the WME with a group of white male missionaries in October 2016, I asked them what suggestions they have for other white men about addressing this issue.  They promptly responded with: "Include women and other nationalities in the risk assessment and mitigation."

As a woman regularly living in a risk situation with children, I would add the following: It is easy to respond to someone's feeling of vulnerability and anxiety in risk with facts, figures, and a rational danger response.  I would encourage leaders, whatever color and gender they are, to listen well and be slow to try to "fix" the other person, even when you disagree with the risk perception they are sharing. As a leader, it is important to listen for the underlying fear, but also for their intuition, and for the Holy Spirit's voice through those He has given you to shepherd and lead through risk.

1. Breakwell, Glynis. The Psychology of Risk. 72.  
2. Ibid., 74
2. Ibid., 73. 
4.  Barret and Johnson's report suggests otherwise, but see the discussion here. I would concur that Barret and Johnson's findings do not seem to be consistent with the anecdotal evidence. It would be helpful to know how they calculate there are more men then women on the mission field, as that number does not seem accurate historically or today. See their report and the discussion here: http://oscaractive.ning.com/forum/topics/shocking-mission-statsfacts 

http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/resources.php
Farther down on the Oscar page, Marti Smith pasted in a portion of an article she wrote on men and women on the mission field. Marti Smith said:

In many places and kinds of work there are many more women than men... but if you add together all kinds of missionaries everywhere the trend is not so strong, as Mike points out. Wonder how they get those figures? But here are some more anecdotal things I used in a paper on the topic.
A. The Significant Presence of Women in Missions
In spite of the challenges women in many times and places have faced by following God’s call in missions, they have followed him in numbers. By 1910 more women than men were serving in missions. (1) In the coming years the numbers of women would continue to climb until women in some areas outnumbered men by 2:1. (2) Statistical studies on the topic are few, but one in the late 1980s, a survey of 19 mission agencies representing 20,333 missionaries, showed that 56 percent of them were women, with unmarried women outnumbering unmarried men six to one. (3) A more recent report, from 2002, found that some 54 percent of Southern Baptists’ 5,241 missionaries were women, about a fourth of them single. (4)
In short-term missions as well as in situations that are considered too dangerous to send families, including many areas with a Muslim majority, the foreign mission force is composed largely of workers who are single, and a majority of these laborers are women. Representatives of Frontiers, which works solely in the Muslim world, report that they are seeing women respond to the call in great numbers. In 2002 women comprised 75 percent of their short-term team applicants. (5)
Anecdotal evidence produces similar numbers. In a 2002 personal interview, a woman working with Operation Mobilization reported that of the 100 people working with her agency in one Asian country, 60 were women and 40 were men; and in ratios that seem fairly typical, these included 35 married couples, 25 single women, and five single men. Colleagues currently studying in Yemen say the expatriate community in their city includes 26 couples, two single men, and 21 single women. We must conclude that women have a significant presence in the mission force: not that of a minority, but a majority.

(1) Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Grand Rapids: MI, 1983), p. 232.
(2) Tucker, p. 232.
(3) Howard Erickson, “Single Missionary Survey,” Fundamentalist Journal, January 1989, p. 27, cited in John Piper’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), p. 23. The foreword to this book, which addresses single men and women, includes some very helpful thinking on the topic of singleness and includes thoughts from a number of single missionaries throughout history.
(4) Mary Jane Welch, “Obedient and Faithful,” The Commission 65:5 (July-August 2002), p. 8. Also available at www.archives.tconline.org/Stories/JulyAug02/obedient.htm. The Commission is the magazine of the International Missions Board, the mission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of the articles in this issue deal with missionary women serving in challenging mission fields.
(5) Frontiers, www.frontiers.org, accessed March 15, 2004.

5. Ibid., 74. 
6. Ibid., 75

Unhelpful Things People Say in Cross-Cultural Risk #1

This series is based on real statements really heard in risk situations.

"I'm ready to be blown up."

Background:

A young father shares his concerns about the current threat level against the international church. The leader responds with, "I'm ready to be blown up."  This leader fits Risk Myths #7, 8, 13, and 14. This leader did not "feel" the threats, and felt he was ready, as a man who had raised his children, that he was ready to be blown up should the building be attacked one Sunday. The leader truly may be ready, but the young father did not feel cared for, and went to another person to share his fears.

How would you have responded to this father's fears?

If it would have been with a Bible verse, that's called a "conceptual response."  The young, concerned father already knows those verses. If it would have been a statement like the one above, implying that the elder had counted the cost but the young father had not, again, it does not address the situational issue of counting the cost of attending church with little ones who have no choice in the matter.

As a leader or member care personnel, we need to be more discerning of what people are trying to communicate by "reading between the lines." Meaning: the underlying issues of the surface statements.

A situational response is what was called for here. There was a direct threat against the church, thus, a very specific risk situation.  The outcome could have been different if the leader had drawn the young father out, asked him to share more about his fears, addressed what mitigation had been done and was planned for by the church, and what more felt needs the young father was aware he had, then the conversation would not have been passed on.

The father could have felt cared for by the leaders of the church, which would have lowered his anxiety and fear level, thus increasing his resiliency in an increasing risk situation, so that the strategic work could continue to be effective as the father was encouraged and could demonstrate joy in a dangerous situation for his family and those he was leading.


Risk Myth 13 and Risk Myth 14 are available here.
Go to Unhelpful Things People say in Risk #2

My Spouse is Thriving in the Risk Situation, but I Am Not!

This statement is not an uncommon experience typically of women in ongoing risk situations. While both men and women have a much higher susceptibility of burnout in risk, it's more often found that a husband thrives in his responsibilities, even as the physical risks increase. The excitement, adrenaline...these all make his work feel all the more significant and important.

However, often in risk, women and children have a harder time.  There are usually more restrictions on movement, less freedom in decision-making (the security situation does not allow you to go there), and the pressure of threat against them and the possibility of the children being negatively impacted weighs heavily all day long on the wife as she cares for the children. Because she has more restrictions, she may feel less significant than her husband, also decreasing her normal resiliency.  

For those who haven't lived long-term in risk, it may be easy to become judgmental of her lack of thriving.  However, living long term in a place being impacted by terrorism, persecution, government intrusion can be life-draining for many.  Even if someone is thriving in this type of circumstance, it is still exhausting.  It is not uncommon for workers to take a short weekend break from this type of situation (a break in a neighboring country, for example), to sleep the first 15 hours away.  

If she is unequipped to process her emotions, (confusion often surrounds the risk situation), if she lacks clarity on their combined calling, if there is a faith crisis, or simply, she has become exhausted from the ongoing struggle to do well in risk, (risk is exhausting) she often has an increasingly difficult time thriving in the risk situation.  Once mom isn't doing well, children begin having a harder time, and then the work of the husband is detrimentally influenced by the negative spiral in the family home.

Learning to "strengthen oneself in the Lord" as David did is a skill we don't often teach or model well.  Also increasing the skill of discerning spiritual reality - what she does and how she does it in the risk situation has an incredibly deep and long-lasting impact on all the locals and expatriates watching.  While she may "feel" less significant, that is definitely not the reality.  How can a wife learn to these skills of strengthening oneself, discerning spiritual reality, and seeing her impact while thriving joyfully in risk until she is called out?  How to we come along side someone struggling in risk, without sounding judgmental or superficially spiritual?

Often times, it is best simply to listen and empathize, and wait to be asked for input, especially if we are providing pastoral care to someone in this situation but we ourselves haven't lived it.  Affirmation is a significant tool to use, and when the time comes, practical advice on how to have bigger margins of time, energy, cultural capacity, and mental/emotional reserve for risk and crisis.


What I mean by this is we often take either the SYIS (Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills Workshop) or Henry Cloud's material on Boundaries and simply discuss margin in the areas of time, energy, and money. But the risk situation requires even wider boundaries than normal, because the risk and accompanying crisis require their own reserve.  In such places, the culture is not the easiest because of the terrorism abounding. This means workers need to increase their margin for cultural interaction, so that they can be gracious, loving, and wise in time allocation.

Yes, this will mean less "work" will be done, but in reality, workers are often more effective tools in the Father's hands, because they become more focused on what he really wants them to do, and they have less energy for all the extraneous activities. The "excellent" replaces the "good."

A lot of times we tend to be too spiritual and even concerned about theological correctness when caring for someone in risk, when instead, what is needed is a party and a way to relax. In a relaxed atmosphere, when a sense of normalcy is felt, people often naturally refocus and better hear the Holy Spirit speaking inside them or through another in the community.

Having regular periods of relaxation increase resiliency, even though there is more to be done with less people.  We actually increased the number of parties we held as the risks increased, because we needed to spend time with our "sheep" to see how they were doing and help them relax. 

We did something crazy - we chose to pay for an above-ground swimming pool during one difficult time in Afghanistan.  It probably cost us $1000 over a 10-week period for all the chemicals and materials needed to maintain the pool for the children during a long season of restrictions.  However, we reasoned that $1000 was a lot cheaper than years of paying for clinical counseling for our children.  To this day, my children view Afghanistan as FUN and HOME.

I enjoyed sitting by the pool watching the kids - it gave me time to relax and easy entertainment watching their antics.  I invited other moms and children every afternoon from 1-4pm to come and hang out at the pool, so that we could together decrease the sense of isolation we all felt. It helped us to refocus ourselves, be in community, and simply relax and enjoy what was an extremely stress-filled situation. We talked, shared, laughed, and encouraged each other - there wasn't heavy counseling or theological discussion, but a shared sense of significance that we were making it through for His Name Sake.  We were all pretty aware we were not leaving without paying a huge price - many in the community were running a low-grade situational depression, but it didn't mean an absence of joy, it was just HARD.  But it was joyful - and we saw people coming to Christ in numbers never-before seen.

The risk moment is an honor to steward, and it is that - something to steward carefully. Because it is a significant way He pushes His kingdom forward, we need to become men and women more aware of His leading in the risk moment so we can thrive joyfully as circumstances become more challenging. 

Risk and Decision Making, Part 2 "Emotional and Psychological Analysis"

In Risk and Decision Making, Part 1, I mentioned the four major areas influencing Decision Making for the Global worker in a high-risk situation: 

1. Spiritual Analysis
2. Emotional/Psychological Analysis
3. Stewardship and Information Analysis
4. Perceived Benefits and Losses

For each area, questions may be formulated to help in the progress of decision making about a risk. In the last post, I mentioned three main questions asked for the Emotional and Psychological Analysis:

1. What are my strong emotions in this risk situation and what about the risk is impacting me the most? 
2. How am I behaving in comparison to predicted behavior in risk? 
3.  Which of the 5+ biases are influencing my decision making?

For the first question, we must primarily evaluate the level of fear and the level of anger being experienced. It is important (and surprising!) to be aware that:

Fear – appears to dampen efforts at risk mitigation. We feel paralyzed and overwhelmed. The Biblical admonition in English to “not fear” means in Hebrew to not turn into wax, to not be paralyzed, to not remain passively in fear.

Fearful people make pessimistic judgments about a hazard.

Anger – angry people make more optimistic judgments and more commonly think that the risks are much lower, that it won’t happen to us and that if it does, we can do something about it.

Lest we think that emotional analysis is overly psychological or spiritual, a good place to start with someone is to use H.A.L.T. – are they Hungry, angry, lonely, tired?  Sometimes, the world looks better after a good night of sleep or a nap. Sometimes in risk, we are not eating enough calories to fuel our body because we are so stressed. EAT! Eat something healthy as a spiritual discipline and endurance strategy, and you'll be able to handle your emotions better!

The second question, "How does my behavior compare to the predicted behavior in risk?" The problem with answering this question is that the secular psychological research indicates that we act out of our biases, and our biases are culturally dependent (varying between cultures) and also gender different. 

I would add to the complexity of interpretation that our approach to risk is also based on our cultural theology - the theology imported by the church we grew up in. "Cultural Theology" is a term I use to indicate some of our theology is (incorrectly) based on our home (passport) culture, the particular cultural values we impart to the text (roles of men and women, for example) based on how we choose to interpret and read the original text (not textual criticism but translation criticism!) 

Translation is always interpretation (can't remember who said that), but more and more I am dismayed when I see how the text has been translated far from the original Hebrew or Greek, due to the cultural-theological bias of the translators. While it sounds like I am transgressing from the point, I would like to point out that one of the main problems of resiliency for the cross-cultural worker in extreme high risk is a theological problem, not a white male problem (see the bias mentioned below).

I am indebted to Glynis Breakwell for all of the following discussion on risk, from his book, The Psychology of Risk. Secular psychological research is of great value to the church, and we ignore it to our peril. However, there is little research on the effect of the Holy Spirit on people's behavior in uncertainty.  There is some research on the role of belief and effect on behavior in uncertainty. Do keep in mind that the majority of the research is based not on cross-cultural uncertainty but more on business risk, comparisons of the threat of impact of natural (and terrorist or manmade) disasters, and gambling. 

So with that caveat, here are some general guidelines for leadership and member care workers that we can consider utilizing to explore the decisions that need to be made in risk: 

1. Look for extremes - either of denial of the risk, overly optimistic about the risk, or overly pessimistic of the risk. 
2. Be aware of what researchers describe as "the white male effect." The research is solidly conclusive that white males perceive the risk as much lower than all other groups (women and other culture groups).
3. Too focused on primarily one aspect of the risk - perhaps they are not taking into account a holistic risk analysis (See the RAM Action Guide for more).  

For the third question, what are the primary "biases" people can have? These include: 

1. Using Data that is appropriate, based on one's "biases" for or against the risk. This means choosing to cite data that is equivalent in nature. A common major error cross-cultural workers make is to compare two data sets that are unrelated. For example, the traffic accident rate in an international city compared to terrorist attacks against Christian expatriates. These two data sets are not comparable, and the terrorist attack is not as statistically predictable as the traffic accident rate.  It's important to ascertain if there are statistical associations between Data Set A and Data Set B.  Note that people incorrectly assume patters occur in what are truly random events. We also need to learn to handle the information - is it actually predictive in nature?
2.  Ability to remember - people assume the probability is higher that an event will happen if they can remember an instance of the event. So we can easily have predictability bias. If we are pre-occupied with a personal major fear of a certain hazard, we rate it as higher probability that it will happen. We also perceive higher probability if we can easily imagine it happening!  If the social situation (media, church back home) says it can happen, we fear it more and think it will more likely happen.  The problem with this is we become consumed with something that does not necessarily have in reality as high of probability of happening as we perceive.
3. First piece of information: we rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered, "anchoring" all of our risk perception and thought about this.  Instead we need to adjust based on additional data coming in, and not the first piece of data.
4. Egoism - we tend to view ourselves as engaging in less "risky" behavior as others, and that others are more likely to experience negative consequences. It is a form of denial, that "it won't happen to me."
5. Hindsight Bias - this is when something negative happens, and we say after the event, “I knew that all along.”Typically people given information about an event after it occurs will say and think that they could have or did predict it.We engage in what researchers call, "meta self-delusion" because we feel that we have a greater sense of control over the future when we can feel we predicted the past.

Hopefully, using the awareness of how humans have responded in risk studies, we can become more self-aware of how we are reacting, and use this awareness as a guide to asking ourselves honest questions in the risk situation.  Asking - and answering - honestly, with authenticity, and inviting the Holy Spirit to give clarity as to when we are deceiving ourselves. 

Jeremiah 17:9 states, "The heart is more deceitful than anything else and mortally sick. Who can fathom it?"

Future discussion: Prospect Theory: An Analyis of Decision Under Risk by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman