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- SHERYL & STEVE FROEHLICH - LIVING THE STORY THAT GOD'S GRACE IS ENOUGH
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Fridays with Froehlichs #8 |
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26,250 miles and 3 months later, we’re back. Steve flew to Ithaca from Albuquerque to retrieve Sheryl and Luci, and we all made the return trek to ABQ with a trailer in tow. 10 days later, we took off from ABQ for Stellenbosch, South Africa, for 3 weeks. We are now back on this side of “the Pond,” and are slowly recovering our rhythm as we resume with joy our service at Mosaic Church.
We arrived back in ABQ just in time for the annual world-famous Balloon Fiesta.
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After nearly 15 hours in the air across the Atlantic, the pilot got on the intercom to tell us that the continent of Africa was finally in view. “Those of you on the left side of the plane can see the mountains of South Africa. Those of you on the right side of the plane, unfortunately -- all you can see is the back of the heads of the people on the left side of the plane.” Soon, we were on the ground, feeling a bit drugged, stretching our legs, eager to see our host. |
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Erick is one of our NLPC/Cornell alums. He finished his graduate studies in chemistry and is now chair of the chemistry department at the University of Stellenbosch. After countless long lunch conversations at the Cornell coffee shop 20 years ago – laughing, talking, and praying about the future and what matters most – Erick left Ithaca carefree and single. Now he is married to Suzanne and the father of 3: Matteo, Luka, and Lilly. He is still carefree, even though life is much more complicated with family, church, and work. Erick’s research team has been awarded a huge grant from the Gates Foundation to continue development of a promising treatment for tuberculosis that is more economical and efficient.
Central to our vision with Grace Unscripted is continuing these many amazing relationships around the world, friendships that began in Ithaca. We marvel and are humbled at how many of our alums, like Erick, see every dimension of life as an opportunity to reveal the grace and glory of God, a love of God that animates an earnest sacrificial love for neighbors and the creation.
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(l-r) Suzanne, Lilly, Matteo, Erick, Luka |
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Without doubt the very best part of our trip was seeing Erick loving Suzanne, loving his children, loving the church, and loving his work. And then, Suzanne and the kids drew us into the deep love they share as a family -- they made us feel loved and at home. Erick and Suzanne have chosen to live in a community just outside Stellenbosch that is mixed – that is, they value having black, colored, and white* neighbors. They have made this choice post Apartheid in love and to show the love of Christ.
(*these are designations used in the South African social context) |
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As Erick drove us out of the Capetown airport, the mountains behind us, any view of the ocean was blocked by the township sprawling before us. Makeshift walls and roofs of throw-away sheets of tin and wood were cobbled together into miles of interconnected houses. Yes, miles. It would have been difficult to tell one house from another were it not for the small grey satellite dishes dotting the roof line. Randomly, a pole would appear in an open spot – dozens of individual electric lines would drape down from the top of the pole and disappear into the sea of shanties. Along the edge of the township, hundreds of children were playing on the uneven ground that eventually dropped down to the open drain along the highway. They were playing football (soccer) on any spot that was flat enough to make a pitch. Periodically traditionally constructed 2-story homes would jut above the roof line. These were houses built by the government in an attempt to stabilize and improve life in the townships.
Trevor Noah, in Born a Crime, shares many of his stories from childhood, his growing up in the Capetown Township. |
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a view from TableTop Mountain: Capetown, Robben Island |
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The Capetown Township is home to over a million people. The townships in Capetown, Stellenbosch, and in any South African city of any size, are home to a range of people. It would be an oversimplification to say that townships are simply where poor people live. Yes, there are many families who live there as the only way they know how to survive. But there are also multitudes of displaced people who have come to the larger cities having been forced from their homes for economic, political, or social reasons. Consequently, there is tremendous ethnic diversity. Then, there are people who live in the townships by choice – they have jobs and could live elsewhere, but the money they save by living in the township is sent back to support their families who live either in other parts of SA or in neighboring countries. |
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Before arriving in SA, we did not know that 2024 was the 30th anniversary of the end of Apartheid, and that the middle of our visit was Heritage Week, an annual celebration of SA’s cultural diversity marking the end of Apartheid. Did you know that SA has 11 official languages? All citizens of SA may now vote and have a voice in their government. But the cultural and ethnic fragmentation remains visible. As has been true in the US after outlawing slavery over 150 years ago, change comes slowly as justice, opportunity, and equity get worked out at a snail’s pace, sometimes with angry and frustrated conflict. It often takes a long time for people with cultural and economic power to let go of the racism and prejudice that sustains their status. |
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Proteas: the National Flower of South Africa
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2024 is also the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda -- the slaughtering… in many cases butchering of nearly 800,000 mostly Tutsis by friends, family, and neighbors. Clementine, a Rwandan, was in our NLPC fellowship while a grad student at Cornell. Her husband (who succumbed to cancer last year) was South African and a dear friend of Erick's. In 1994 her father, a pastor, had been summoned by government officials to a meeting of church leaders. But on his way to the meeting, his car broke down, an inconvenience their family regards with providential gratitude. The meeting was a trap, and all the ministers in attendance were murdered. Clementine’s father was spared. As we sat at table in our home, Clementine telling her story with a mixture of anguish and thanksgiving, we listened quietly, our fingers tracing the edges of our plates as we tried to comprehend the horror. |
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SA artist: Lloyd Charakupa |
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Steve has been preaching a sermon series on The Lord’s Prayer in an effort to keep the Mosaic congregation in transition focused on our mission as God’s people in the world. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” Many of the people of Rwanda are making the petition a reality. About 40,000 murderers (there is no way the justice system could handle all those cases in a lifetime) have been released from prison with the charge that they go to the surviving families whose family members they had killed and ask for forgiveness. It is a remarkable experiment that in many cases results not only in the giving and receiving of forgiveness but also reconciliation. So, last week, we hosted a movie night discussion, to sit at table and talk about what forgiveness and reconciliation look like in our lives. We watched the short documentary of the Rwandan forgiveness project, As We Forgive |
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In South Africa, Christian churches face the enormous challenge of focusing on the true mission and character of God while living in the shadow of Apartheid which had been fueled largely by the political influence of the Dutch Reformed Church. Much like the steeples of the white clapboard churches marking the center of the town greens in New England communities, the physical and architectural presence of the old Dutch Reformed churches looms in the background of most SA communities. The church buildings are an unavoidable reminder of the evil that has yet to be fully unraveled and made right. So, Christian churches that are genuinely committed to righteousness, justice, and peace have to find ways of repudiating the past while affirming that Jesus is the best hope for the future. |
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SA artist: Matteo Strauss |
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Erick and Suzanne attend Christ Church in Stellenbosch, and Grant, the lead pastor, warmly and graciously received us. He and his pastoral team are faithfully leading the growing congregation in both repentance for the past and hope for the future as they seek to love all of their neighbors. The church invited us to speak 6 times. Steve preached one Sunday and gave a “hot topics” seminar on sexual desire and temptation. We were stunned that nearly 300 students attended the seminar. We did a seminar together on the church, faith, and mental health. Steve did 2 seminars on faith/work/vocation/calling. And we closed with a prayer meeting session from Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” It was an extraordinarily wonderful time following up the sessions with long conversations with students and church members.
Many of you prayed and some of you contributed financially to make the trip possible. Thank you. And we give thanks to the Lord for a solid indication of his blessing. |
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The church graciously scheduled our speaking on the front and back ends of our visit. In that way we were able to have time in the middle to enjoy the beauty of SA – wineries that are over 300 yrs old, wildflowers along the rocky ocean coast, whale watching in Hermanus, penguins, baboons, Table Mountain with breathtaking views of the ocean on one side and Capetown, Robben Island (where Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment), and the bay far below. |
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Hermanus. There are whales out there. |
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But we loved the time we had at table with Erick, Suzanne, and the kids. Our AirBnB was next door to their house, and we shared many meals over our visit. Through the time at table exchanging stories and ideas, hopes and heartaches, joy and gratitude, we began to see their family, their community, their church, and their homeland with greater clarity and understanding. This is the power of hospitality, being welcomed to share the life of others, and with humility to listen, learn, laugh, and lament. As we anticipate the Great Feast at the end of history, we wonder -- how much of the change in our lives today, change which comes from longing for the shalom of that day, will come from being present at table with one another?
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God, we are so tired.
We want to do justice, but the work feels endless and the results look so small in our exhausted hands.
We want to love mercy but our enemies are relentless and it feels like foolishness to prioritize gentleness in this unbelievably cruel world.
We want to walk humbly but self-promotion is seductive and we are afraid that if we don't look after ourselves no one else will.
We want to be kind but our anger feels insatiable.
Jesus, in this never-ending wilderness come to us and grant us grace.
Grant us the courage to keep showing up to impossible battles, trusting that it is our commitment to faithfulness and not our obsession with results that will bring in your shalom.
Grant us the vulnerability to risk loving our difficult and complicated neighbor, rejecting the lie that some people are made more in the image of God than others.
Grant us the humility of a de-centered but beloved self as we continue to take the single step that is in front of us.
Jesus, keep us from becoming what we are called to transform. Protect us from using the empire’s violence in our words, in our theology, in our activism and in our politics for your kingdom of peace.
Keep our anger from becoming meanness.
Keep our sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.
Keep our heart soft enough to keep breaking.
Keep our outrage turned towards justice not cruelty.
Remind us that in all of this, every bit of it is for love.
Keep us fiercely kind.
~Laura Jean Truman |
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Greg Thompson writes at The Welcome Table on hospitality and trauma
[to keep reading]
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You probably noticed that an election happened last week in the US. For a variety of reasons it seemed consequential, but like us you may have found it difficult to sort out what happened or how we should respond. Especially if you are a Christian wanting to live with ultimate allegiance to Jesus.
We like "The Gandalf Option" recommended by Alan Jacobs.
"A Consequential Election" by Chris Hutchinson |
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“A Consequential Election” is a pastoral letter Chris sent to his congregation about navigating the recent election with courage, humility, integrity, faith, and hope. |
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Esau McCaulley, PhD, is the Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College |
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“What to Do After the Election?”
Reflections on Ecclesiastes 8 and Hebrews 13 (excerpted)
by Bonnie Kristian, the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.
“There is a time for everything,” Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, and this week is a time for Ecclesiastes, especially its 8th chapter (along with the 13th chapter of Hebrews), which is brimming with prudence and equanimity in the face of political and social turbulence.... [to keep reading]
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We are eagerly awaiting the release of David Koyzis’s, Citizenship Without Illusions. His latest book is a followup to his immensely important Political Visions and Illusions. In PVI his premise is that ideology is idolatry, a lens through which he considers liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democratism, and socialism. In CWI he asks (and answers): How can Christians live as citizens of God's kingdom while also fulfilling their responsibilities as citizens of political communities?
Koyzis is a Global Scholar with Global Scholars Canada. He has a PhD in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame. He is a Fellow in Politics at the St. George’s Centre for Biblical and Public Theology, and he taught politics for thirty years at Redeemer University College. |
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Often I just can’t stop crying in public.
Science and the Bible suggest that may be OK.
[to keep reading]
Wendy is an NLPC alum. |
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ADVENT MEETS THE MICROSCOPE
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Prepare your heart for Advent this season in a special way that blends science communication with spiritual formation! An online event: "Exploring the Microcosmos: Advent Meets the Microscope." [to keep reading and to register] |
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This past week temperatures in Albuquerque turned frosty, and I found myself sorting through the collection of fall-winter clothing I hauled out here. Sunday morning I was able to pull a blue striped knit dress over my head and cloak myself in a complementary blue wool coat unassisted. The fact that I could lift both arms up to slip into the dress and reach back to slide my arms into coat sleeves with relatively little shoulder pain was delightful, a tactile reminder of the progress I have made since last February’s surgery. I'm way past "pony tail" if you remember my last report.
The healing journey post-surgery has been fraught with setbacks and interludes of illness but in these past two months also marked by waves of joy and wonder. The travel that has been part of our lives since late August -- traversing varied terrains; leaving desert heat for the cool of early Spring in South Africa; experiencing different cultures and foods, conversing with friends both old and new -- all have seeded a beautiful “invisible crop of memories and associations.” I have been awash in a sense of abundance. As Rebecca Solnit writes in Wanderlust: History of Walking, “When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations…. Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”
Since returning to Albuquerque from South Africa I have been giving myself to this place, exploring the very different terrain homing us this season. Taking cues from Bonnie Smith Whitehouse’s Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking, I have been more purposeful about paying attention during walks around our neighborhood and along the trails that line the arroyo (a steep-sided gully formed by fast-flowing water) that runs behind our house. The scruffy brush that fills the arroyo is friendly to a variety of creatures as different as rabbits and roadrunners, lizards and rattlesnakes. One day I spotted a coyote lurking in the bottom of the gully. Most days I choose to begin my walks moving toward the Sandia Mountains in the east. The mountains are always changing color, depending on the time of day and cloud cover. Overcast days present mountains painted in dark bands of shadows. Cloudless skies paint them brighter. Evening skies sometimes color them a pinkish-red. |
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Walking east toward the Sandia Mountains at sunset. |
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We live less than a block away from New Mexico’s Petroglyph Nations Monument, a steep slope of volcanic rock that extends for 17 miles. Numerous rocks are marked by carvings left by earlier indigenous cultures. Much like a graveyard the petroglyphs remind me that others very different from myself have preceded me. What stories might they tell? What story am I telling? Sauntering around our neighborhood, I have marveled at the 101 ways many of the adobe-hued homes are set amidst sand and rocks. The variety and colors of plants able to thrive in sandy volcanic soil is impressive. Dusty gravel, pebbles, rocks, boulders all different in size and shape and hue, are creatively arranged distinguishing landscapes house to house. Cacti large and small add texture. There are more trees than I imagined there would be. My pedometer tells me my walking time has sent my feet over 200 miles since early October, observing, pondering, wondering, imagining, and praying, too. “All walking is discovery. On foot we take the time to see things whole,” quips Hal Borland. |
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Walking west toward the lava rock Petroglyphs. |
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Seeing things whole has not come handily this past year. Pain blunts attention to anything but surviving misery. The noise of American politics has too often contributed to an uneasy angst slanting my perspective. To return to prayer and to keep on praying “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” I have leaned hard into knowing this place here and now. As I walk I am on a pilgrimage in search of understanding myself and this world I inhabit. “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” ~ T. S. Eliot.
“Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God. Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” ~ John Calvin, Institutes.
“We should not ask, 'What is wrong with the world?' for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, 'What has happened to salt and light?'” ~ John Stott
This poem by Luci Shaw helps me pray. |
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"True-ing"
I have a few requests of You.
They're not questions so much as
inquiries — open longings like coffee cups
that need refilling.
One need that I mention, if I'm honest,
(like taking the cork out of a bottle):
Am I too late, or is there time for You
to make a useful thing of me, the way
a woodworker might choose an old rough board
from his pile, examine the grain for possibilities,
for interesting knots, knurls, streaks,
for cup, curl and bow, to play with?
A builder will sight along
a length of plank and ask: Is it true?
My woody self, my heartwood, needs You to
show me where I warp, need correction.
I beg You, true me. Level me,
Great Shaper, Tree from whom I am hewn.
Give me persistence to endure
being planed, sanded, stained, varnished,
re-crafted with joints that fit without a
creak or groan. Maybe a drawer that
pulls out easily and smells of the cedar tree
from which its wood was sawn,
censing the woolen garments
stored within. Even a spoon, a bowl,
turned subtly smooth, and fit for use,
polished with the oil of your sculptor hands. |
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“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” |
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Personal Updates
Mosaic: Mosaic Church appears to be close to calling a new pastor. Steve has met him and knows of him through several colleagues. He is widely respected and seems to be a good fit. If the church formally asks him to serve s pastor, and if he accepts, we will begin planning our transition. He will likely begin partime perhaps as early as February while his wife and daughter will likely move at the end of the spring semester. So, we are definitely here through January, and will probably begin the slow meandering return trek to Ithaca sometime in March. Again, this is tentative.
Medical: We have been in ABQ long enough that we're having to schedule some doctors appointments here. Sheryl is trying (so far unsuccessfully) to schedule a followup to her hospitalization at the end of August. Steve finally got his next CT scan scheduled for mid-December. And, we're making reapplication for assistance with Sheryl's migraine medication -- the manufacturer has a new application with new hoops to jump through. We're having to decide which other appointments need to happen while we're here, and which can wait until we get home. We continue to have resources to cover Steve's ongoing cancer maintenance. Thanks be to God. Sheryl's Feb surgery and recent ER hospitalization have set us back about $3,000. If you would like give toward those expenses, please follow the instructions on the Support link on our webpage.
Ithaca: Our dear college friend, Gene, housesat for us in September. Now, George and Ro are also doing a marvelous job of managing the homestead until we get back. It gives us a lot of joy to know that they are using the house like we want to -- hosting student gatherings, hospitality, fellowship groups. We're immensely grateful to them and to the Lord for them.
Family: Some of our kids/grands are scheming about coming out to visit over the December school break. It's a long haul, but we would love to see them if they can work out the details. We remain immensely grateful to the Lord and to the staff at VanCrest for the kind and competent care Sheryl's mom, Naomi, is receiving as she ages.
As for Luci...
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Benediction
Now may the God who is from everlasting to everlasting,
who has loved you with an everlasting love,
and who gives you everlasting life,
now support you with the everlasting arms
in these days and in all the days until Jesus comes.
Amen
From Grace Be With You
by Dale Ralph Davis
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Please take a few moments to browse the website
Grace Unscripted.
Please prayerfully consider supporting our work through Grace Unscripted.
Visit the Support page.
Thank you. |
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