— Robert Moffat, who inspired David Livingstone

With Cara’s trip to Cameroon coming so quickly, it’s hard to post about other things here. Even the music stuff that we’re working on all has a deadline of “before” or “after” Cameroon. So if the posts are slightly skewed toward Africa and missions, that is the reason why.

Tonight we were at dinner and were talking about how Cara’s a little bit scared about the trip that’s coming up, and how people don’t like to talk about that aspect of missions trips. But the fear is very real. It’s not fear that will keep her from going, but it makes it nerve-wracking in the weeks that lead up to such a big trip. (So please pray!)

We were also talking about how each person that’s going on the trip has to prepare one day’s talk to give to the rest of the group. Instead of doing a traditional “lesson,” Cara decided to gather a bunch of quotes from missionaries. The sheet that she compiled has 24 quotes, and she is planning to ask the people on the trip to pick 1) their favorite, 2) their least favorite 3) the one that they disagree with and 4) the one that they most aspire to be like, but aren’t yet.

Here are a few of the quotes…what do you think about the four questions?

“God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.” – Hudson Taylor

“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is — where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.” – Robert C. Shannon

” Nothing so clears the vision and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord.” – John Patton

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” -Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950’s trying ro each the Auca Indians of Ecuador

“If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn’t it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death?” -Dave Davidson

Actually, that title is too dramatic. By far. But a lot of you have asked me where I got the name for Fat J Records. Some of you have even thought that it was a half-veiled drug reference (it’s not).

The name comes from my cat. My friend Denise, who I used to work with, always used to refer to Jay as “Phat J.” It was a good name for him because back in the day he was a little chubby as well as cool. The name stuck. But when I using his name for the record label, somehow using the name Phat didn’t fit (because I didn’t want anyone to think that Cara Austin sang 90’s era rap music).

— Don Richardson

Last night, Cara and I went to hear Don Richardson speak. Cara told me a little bit about his amazing background and story as a missionary before we went, but I wasn’t expecting the talk to be as unbelievable as it was.

Don Richardson is a missionary that went to the Sawi tribe - a totally unreached people back in 1955. He, his wife and his under-1-year-old son traveled by canoe for 10 hours to get to the village. The tribe hadn’t ever really been around Europeans before, but were eager for Don and his family to come and live among them because they wanted their own “tuon” – what they called a tall, pale, sickly looking person. They had heard of other tribes in the area that had tuon living among them, and wanted the medicine and other benefits that came with the tuon people.

When Don and his family arrived, the Sawi villagers were dressed in full tribal paint and had their weapons brandished. Since the Sawi people are cannibalistic headhunters, this was fairly troubling, but apparently it was a way of welcoming the visitors to their tribe.

During the 15 years that the Richardsons lived with the Sawi, they were able to learn and record their language and figured out all kinds of really cool and interesting ways to communicate with the tribe. The stories were unbelievable, seriously. The most famous story is about the Peace Child, which you can read about here, but he told tons of stories and they were all great.

The way that he described learning the language was fascinating. The first thing that he did to begin trying to learn was to hang out with a group of Sawi and start pointing at things. First he pointed at a man, and they said a word. Then he pointed at a woman and they said the same word. Then he pointed at a dog and they said the same word. Then a stream, tree, rock – all the same word. He finally figured out that the word that they were saying meant “finger.” He also found out (later) that pointing at someone with your finger is the same thing as placing a curse on that thing. When the Sawi point at something, they use their lips.

It was a very cool thing to be in the room with Mr. Richardson and to know that he had experienced all these things. Cara was a bit star struck. Afterward, she went up to him and said: “Would it be ok if I had my picture taken with you? You’re my missionary hero. You’re kind of like a rock star to me.”

After both of them got done blushing, I took their picture.

Yesterday I mentioned one of Cara’s songs – Who Else – and one of the lyrics: “I’ll shut my mouth now.” If you haven’t heard the song yet, you can listen to a clip on iTunes or CDBaby.

The reason that I like this song so much is that the lyrics for that line come from a verse in the Bible in the book of Job. The verse comes at the very end of the book, after Job has already lost everything he has, and he is bitter, angry and complaining. And then God shows up. And Job realizes that all his complaints and whining are nothing when he is confronted with God.

This is a good reminder to me – I so often want to complain or moan (even sometimes it may be for a good reason!) But it’s helpful at those times for me to remember that God is real and He is looking out for my best. And to remind myself to just shut my mouth.

— Quote by Jim Elliot