MK forum

This is how I saw my childhood in NTM, this is how it felt for 20 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu0RJlsfWJo

Mother is busy, she won't even miss me
And so busy praying and wouldn't see me waiting
I hate all your reasons they just point to Jesus
You can't be awakened if you're not mistaken
And i hate your voice and that fucked up noise
And your cliches and the things that you'd say to me
Where they burned me then, it still seers today
Embedded in a memory that won't change

How can you talk to God [3x]
When you won't talk to me? [repeat]

So i begged you just for a word
That through the day you might have heard and...
She wouldn't listen to my words
Always i'll remember some good times,
Some winters in times when i wasn't too dirty for mud.

When you'd hit your boys in that fucked up voice
On your black days, oh! the things that you'd say
To me when they burned me, yeah they burned me
Oh they burned me, yeah they burned me

So how can you talk to God [3x]
When you won't talk to me?

I know every little word
Of all the things that I have heard
So how can you talk to God
When you won't talk to me?
When he won't talk to me
Someday you will be better than me [2x]
But you won't talk to me.

Yunker, I just listened to this song.

So very powerful. Tears sprang to my eyes at the agony of it. Too true. Too true.

The most moving line to me is:

"You can't be awakened if you're not mistaken"

That says it all.

NTM is so sure that they are not mistaken. So how can they be awakened?

I don't think they can. I don't think they hear us. Don't think they can hear us.

They slumber on with confidence.

Yunker - I've spent some time reading through your posts going back over a year. I want you to know that I am broken over what you went through. You have been so severely abused by a mission and its personnel.

Abuse has so many ugly sides. And the effects are not predictable. I so wish you had a support system where you are clearly heard and your personhood is treated with dignity and care. You were stripped of that as a child. Your anger is your opportunity to lash out at the injustice you habitually endured.

NTM believes that reaching tribal people with the gospel is “THE” mission. Yet, to cause one of these little ones to stumble – God states your fate NTM!

Mark 9:42
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.

Luke 17:2
It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Matt 18:6
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

I can’t help but picture the young little boy, Yunker, who was innocent and hopeful. He was systematically abused by a legalistic team of missionaries that stripped away his innocence and caused him to stumble.

Yunker, you don’t believe in God. I wouldn’t believe in that god either. You had nothing of the true God modeled for you. You owe it to yourself to find the true One who wept when you were tormented.

NTM should pay for your counseling. Diane Langberg is an expert. Perhaps her counseling offices can accommodate you or refer you to someone who can walk through your painful childhood with you.

Meanwhile, NTM, as OT so capably said on these forums, measurements of your neck are being taken for the millstones. This is your fate!

I thank you for your compassion and caring, Interested, even if you were not addressing me.
When I read what you posted, I picture another little boy.
So happy and helpful to people.
Then what happened?
No one knows yet.
Then I cry........
And for you. too, Yunker.

Will be AWOL for a few days.

I agree with all in this song except the dead part, I don't want anyone dead, but I do want justice.

Justice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5N80tNDCGg


"Justice"

I want justice I want you overthrown
I want justice
I want to stand alone

So take all you can from an open hand
The hope of the dying
To save your disease
You're an empty breed
Your love of this lifetime

So you're somebody who brags about their innocence
While playing on the ignorant storm
Now I'm just here to criticize the lies, the lies, the lies

I want justice I want you overthrown

I want courage I want to stand alone
I want your arrogance and I want your pain
I want your everything and I want your head

So cry if you feel
That the tears you shed will make you feel better
See I'm just critical of living like a criminal
While you become a royalty hiding
I wonder how you'll justify the lies, the lies, the lies

I want justice I want you overthrown
I want courage I want to stand alone
I want your arrogance and I want your pain
I want your everything and I want your head

So bury all the evidence
Disguise yourself plead innocent
One penalty, one consequence is sure
Your jury they will recognize the lies, the lies, the lies, the lies

I want justice I want you overthrown
I want courage
I want to stand alone
I want your arrogance and I want your pain
I want your everything and I want your head

I want justice I want you overthrown
I want courage I want to stand alone
I want your arrogance and I want your pain
I want your everything and I want you dead

I want justice I want justice
Give me justice and I want you dead

Thank you for the Kind words, Interested. I have payed for counselling and have come a long way my friend. I thank you for your concern and caring heart.

I think an interesting point is raised here. One thing I have observed about my own family is the motivation they have when they meet someone. One of the first things they try and establish is "what does this person do and how can I use that to benefit me or my cause".
It puts the wrong emphasis on any relationship/friendship from a start. I remember on the mission field we had catorgories of friends depending on how useful they were to us. To try and explain: The mission had an aviation wing, but at times due to mechanical requirements a plane would be down and we had to rely on other missions aircraft. When this happened, said mission was elevated to "good friend" status, but as soon as we no longer needed their services the former "good friend" was back to the theologically misguided competitor status, until the next time they were needed.
I asked my father once if he ever formed a relationship for any other reason than to get that person to see his view of the religon. He stunned me by candidly replying that there was no other reason to be involved with other people. In another instance a friend who had been a kind supporter of my parents died and I dragged my father to the funeral to pay his respects and offer his condolences to the widow and young children, his attitude seemed to be they are no longer able to support me because he is dead, so my part in this relationship is over.
Which got me thinking, is this way of looking at the world prevelant and I'm behind the times or did my family learn this somewhere (my extended family is not like this at all, neither are they religous)? I suspect it is the latter, as in my interactions with other NTM members (but not all) and some of the publications I have read seem to have this philosophy.
I still feel guilty about the "friendships" my parents formed, which were in hindsight to exploit poor elderly people of their money so we could "do Gods work for them". These elderly people were made to feel guilty that they hadn't been as righteous as we were (I use the term "we" loosely, as I was an unwilling participant from an early age) and to alleviate their guilt we litterally helped them by soliciting their hard earned cash.
Consequently my father and I have little to do with each other, for two reasons. He has given up on my ever coming round to his point of view and therefore being useful to him and I got tired of being used.
Surely if we look at other people as purely being useful for our own needs, then we are the poorer as individuals for that. To quote JFK, "think not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country".

So maybe the question could be rephrased "How can you to talk to God, when all you want to do is exploit me?" And isn't this what the abuse is all about, exploiting others for ones own purposes.

So much of my life, I have been so driven to be ‘spiritual’ as if to say to God, “This is what I am going to do for You!”

The other day, I was telling that to my husband and a friend and my husband responded, “Then God says, ‘this is what I am going to do for you.’”

It wasn’t, “This is what I am going to do through you,” or “this is how I am going to use you” (“use” has always bothered me). It was, “This what I am going to do for you.” It’s a pure gift.

It's a beautiful thing to simply be loved.

You don’t see Jesus

I look at you and see
you don’t know Jesus.
And so, in my mind,
I set you at the top
of a pile marked,
“share Jesus.”
And talk,
I mark parameters
and define love;
I speak abstractly
in Mar’s Hill discourse.
And I wonder,
why don’t you see Jesus?
And you think,
what kind of friend is He?
--His love conditioned upon
acceptance—drawn with paranoia
and numbers...
And you wonder,
if love you know is better,
and why trust what isn’t real?
And you wonder where my
heart is.
And you give me love from yourself.
And I give you words;
And I wonder why it doesn’t
change you,
And why I am changed
by you.
Because I begin to see Jesus,
And I begin to see the truth
that I have judged you
and refused to love you.
And I wonder
why you don’t see Jesus...

a.a. 2002