My sheep hear my voice... Part II

 Part II of my testimony of how I came to Christ and how He called me to mission.

After my conversion in July of 1976 my life didn't change dramatically, though I started reading the Bible often, as I never had before and had a thirst for it. About a month later my family went to a Christian revival, camping event called Jesus '76 in the middle of August 1976. I wasn't able to go for the whole week since I had band camp. However, I got permission to skip one day to go to hear Andre Crouch, a well-known Gospel singer and musician. Since Andre Crouch was playing in the evening and I arrived in the morning with friends of our family, I went to hear a young Australian man, Winkey Pratney, who was a youth evangelist.

In the picture above: Winkey Pratney @1981 was well known as a youth evangelist and a teacher. He was associated with Keith Green's ministry, Last Days Ministry, for many years.

As he said that it seemed to me as if everyone else was frozen in suspended animation and I heard the same voice I had heard the day I gave my heart to Christ, call me to work with Russian speaking young people. That was all, then life went on. However, that brief encounter changed my entire life. I thought that I would go to the Soviet Union as a physicist, since that was the only way I knew to get into the Soviet Union. I started as a physics major at Penn State. However, I did not have the mathematical aptitude for physics.

I struggled, but decided to major in Russian Language, which I had started to learn my first year at Penn State. I also took a Certificate in Russian Area Studies: Soviet Economics, Soviet Geography, Soviet History, Eastern European History, Russian Foreign Policy, Russian Domestic policy, ... Once my mother asked, "Do you take anything that doesn't have Russian or Soviet in the title?!" Not really.

After Penn State I went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois to train to be a missionary. I studied New Testament Greek and Old Testament Hebrew. I also studied Church History, Systematic Theology, Apologetics, Philosophy of Religion and Missions. At TEDS I met the Academic Dean of the Eastern European Bible Institute, Gene Whiting, and the Lord called us to go to Yugoslavia to prepare to teach at EEBI. Russia was still not open in 1982.

While we were on furlough, the Berlin Wall fell. The Iron Curtain came down, but we were too embroiled in the Balkans to think of moving to a new field. I had also studied Macedonian and Bulgarian, and done extension teaching in both places.

Eventually the Lord led us to Belgium to Leuven, where I studied in the Institute of Philosophy, of the Catholic University of Leuven. I did an MA and PhD focusing on Russian Religious Studies. When we had wanted to return to Yugoslavia NATO forces were bombing Novi Sad and Belgrade. Our mission at the time, Greater Europe Mission, felt that we should not return.

After much deliberation we decided to go to teach as a part of Tyndale Theological Seminary in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Tyndale had been started by my seminary advisor, Dr. Arthur P. Johnston. As our children had learned Dutch in Belgium, this was a good move for them also.

At Tyndale I have had many Russian students, most from eastern Ukraine. Four years ago I was asked to coordinate a Master of Theology program for the Zaporozhye Bible College & Seminary in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. I was asked by one of my former students, who now serves as the Academic Dean, Vladimir Gorbenko.

It has been my privilege to serve them and to teach all the students I have had at Tyndale, Russian and others. We have had 70 different nations represented in the student body of Tyndale over the years: Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, Serb, Croat, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Greek, German, Finnish, Ghanaian, Cameroonian, Congolese, Rwandan, Nigerian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Dutch, American, English, New Zealanders, Brazilian, Burmese (Myanmar), Indian, and many others.

What God began so many years ago in 1976 is still bearing fruit in my life. I am thankful that he has helped me to continue these forty years following him and following his call.

We have had 2 Timothy 2:2 as our motto for all these years of our ministry: "And the things you have heard from me the same entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others also." As we look back over our thirty+ year career we can see that the Lord has done this through our meagre efforts. "He who called you is faithful and he will bring it to pass."   

My Sheep hear my voice

Forty years ago I became a Christian and about one month later Jesus called me to work with Russian speaking young people. I was 17 at the time.

Christ called me to himself from within the small "German" Evangelical Lutheran Church, St. Luke, where I grew up. I had been catechized and confirmed, but I had not then come to know Jesus as a living person.

I was forced to read The Plague by Albert Camus as a part of an English literature course. I wrestled deeply with the plot. The Black Death comes to a small town in North Africa. The antagonist, a French Roman Catholic priest says that the Muslims deserve to die, since they have rejected Christ. The protagonist is a French medical doctor, who must decide whether he will stay in this small North African town and fight the plague or whether he will leave Algeria and flee to France to save his own life.
The book is long and has many twists and turns, but the main point is in the form of the classic question of theodicy or the goodness of God in the face of evil. If God loves these people, why does he allow this plague? If God loves these people why is this priest such a miserable person?

The first question is the main point of the book. It is a classic Existentialist question: How can we assert that God exists when the world is a mess? The Existentialists, though, go further and say that, since there is no God, which is their answer to the first question, we must make meaning ourselves in a meaningless, random world. The Existentialists preach altruism.

Altruism, helping others selflessly, I could understand, but I couldn't understand why anyone would help anyone else at risk of their own life, if there was no one to reward them if they did or punish them if they did not. I couldn't make sense of their call to altruism if there was no God. I struggled to see how any small, insignificant human could make any difference in the vast universe, if the universe was a random, chance concatenation of atoms.

With the help of the listening ear of Dave Hrach, our youth sponsor at St. Luke, I finally decided God must exist and there was meaning in the universe. That night after a Bible study in our church I prayed and asked God to take my life. I knew he always existed and I believed as far as I understood that Christ had come and died for my sins.

What I didn't have was power to live life in a holy, God honoring way. I needed strength to overcome my sins and shortcomings. I said, "Lord, if you exist, and I think I have always believed that you do, take my life and make me what you want me to be. I cannot live up to what you ask. But, if you can cure the lame and the blind and raise the dead, take me and make me what you want me to be."

Immediately I experienced a deep peace such as I had never felt before. My soul had been in torment. But when I asked him to take my life, he did and I received peace. I heard God's voice say, "I have heard your prayer and I will answer it." I heard his voice as clearly as I have heard any human voice.

To be continued...

9/11

I abhor what happened on September 11, 2001. It was a heinous act of cowardice aimed at innocent people. Those who perpetrated these crimes deserved the fullest extent of punishment that the law can give them.

As we have many TV documentaries and movies, which have been made, the incidents are fresh in our minds.  It is horrifying to see people jump from one of the Twin Towers, as it crumbles unbelievably before our eyes.

I was in my office at Tyndale when the attacks took place. One of the wives of a colleague came in and told me what was happening.  It was too crazy to believe.  Yet as I drove home listening to the BBC, the unbelievable was made real.  Later when I watched the news I saw the that the unthinkable had happened.

I wondered if any of our friends from a church in Queens, which supports us, had been affected.  As it turned out amazingly none of them, whom we knew personally, had been killed, but they all knew many, including some relatives, who had.

So, started the War on Terror.  The War on Terror led to the invasion of Iraq.  It has led to a reasonable increase of surveillance and scrutiny at border crossings, e.g. airport immigration facilities.

What wasn’t quite clear to me until I started to study the issue was that the terrorists of 9/11 were not US immigrants.  Four were admitted on business visas and two on tourist visas.  The latter two did violate the terms of their visas, but no one was policing them.

So this awful, unthinkable act of terrorism was not internal. It was not caused by radicalized US citizens.  These crimes were committed by a foreign agency, which aimed at the destruction of any Western free democracy.

They were horrible, horrible crimes, carried out by foreign nationals, who belonged to Al Qaida. Not one of them was an American.

While there have been a few Americans of Muslim background, who have been radicalized, there doesn’t seem to be any coordination of the attacks they carried out. There was inspiration from foreign organizations, but no direct foreign involvement.

Recently one candidate for US president suggested that all Muslims should be expelled from the US. Or alternately he suggested that it might be necessary for all US Muslims to be interned in camps similar to those, in which Japanese Americans were interned during WWII.[1] Of course, this candidate denies that he intended such things. He only intended to stop all immigration of Muslims into the US.

Such suggestions seem bizarre!  Are we not ashamed of what we did to Japanese Americans during WWII?

Paranoia and fear generate all sorts of supposed wise measures. In light of 9/11, the most deadly attack in the history of the US, we must keep clear who did what and when.  The perpetrators were not US born Muslims.  They were not even Muslim immigrants to the US.  They were foreign citizens allowed into the US on business and tourist visas.  It was not the section of the US Immigration Department, which deals with refugees, that did not do its job, it was Immigration at a US border.

Policies have changed and who would be allowed a business and a tourist visa have changed.  Due to these terrorist groups we have stringent procedures for issuing these sorts of visas.  The Immigration procedure for refugees is even more stringent with seven steps which last over at least a year.[2]

Tightening visa requirements and policing those given visas is wise.  Continuing to maintain high standards for immigration is wise.

What is unwise is to blacken all people of one religion, because some of them are or were terrorists.  Worse yet is assuming the guilt of all citizens, who are of one religion.  This is what Hitler did with the Jews.  Hitler also eliminated emigrants/ immigrants.

My father used to tell a story about how during WWII he was beaten up in the school yard playground, because he was a “Kraut”, his last name being German - Gottschalk.  At the same time, his father, who was absolved from military duty due to age (too old), was a volunteer in the CeeBees (Civilian Builders) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii as a pipe fitter rebuilding the US fleet, which had been bombed by the Japanese Imperialists.

Racism is deaf, blind and stupid.  Fear is almost as bad.  We allow our fears to get the better of us when we consider incarcerating people of one religion, because we fear some extremists from among that group.

---

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/his-words-donald-trump-muslim-ban-deportations-n599901  Accessed 10 Sept 2016

[2]  http://www.state.gov/j/prm/ra/admissions/  Accessed 17 May 2016

Partners for life

Linda and I began to raise funds for our ministry back in 1984. We had some early supporters among family members (Phil's folks, siblings and Linda's Mom and sister), among some friends (college classmates, friends from our local church, etc) and a few churches from the then Baptist General Conference (now Converge USA): Bethany Baptist in Pittsburgh (where Phil had been an intern), Northwest Baptist in Chicago (where Phil had been youth pastor and was ordained), Calvary Baptist in State College, PA (where Phil was baptized) Grace Baptist in Erie, PA and Lakewood Baptist in Lakewood, NY. Also there were a couple other churches, which joined in at that time: Grace Church in Harmony PA, St Stephen's Church in Sewickley, PA and New Life Bible Church in Walworth, NY (near Rochester, NY).

It's amazing how many of these churches and individuals have continued to support us for the entire 30 years we were with Greater Europe Mission. When we moved two years ago to Eastern Mennonite Missions, we were afraid we would lose support from some. In fact the loss was minimal. Except for churches, which have folded or faded, and friends who have gone on to glory, the majority have been partners for the entire 32 years.

Our EMM Missionary Support Team Coach, Barry Freed, once remarked in an email that it seemed like most of our supporters seemed prepared to support us for life! While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, most have in fact stuck with us.

Through our supporters we have seen the Lord meet our needs throughout the past 32 years. Some of our supporters have gone to glory, as I mentioned. Some are proud to be octogenarians! Many are pushing 80...

We trust that the Lord will continue to supply what we need through our partners. It's been a joy to share our lives together. We try to pray for our partners just as they pray for us. Though not all our prayer partners and supporters publish a newsletter, some of them send annual letters with their Christmas cards or send an email on occasion.

We are glad that our supporters aren't just financial investors, but friends!

Crash Pad

Jeanne & Dave Swaisgood

Crash pad

Wikipedia defines crash pad as “a location used by airline flight crews for temporary lodging.” I have often felt that my parents’ home and now my sister and brother-in-law’s home have been and are our crash pads.

We all know what a “Launch pad” is.  When a rocket ship is launched, it has a launch pad.

NASA always had a landing in the ocean.  The command module descended through the atmosphere and then sprouted a parachute and dropped into the ocean to be picked up by a special Navy frigate.

Soviet and current Russian rockets have a launch pad in Kazakhstan.  However, Russian command modules don’t land in the sea.  They land on land.

Throughout our missionary career, I have felt like we were repeatedly launched into space.  My parents’ house was our launch pad.

We moved into my folks’ house when I did an internship at Bethany Baptist Church in McCandless Township, near Pittsburgh, PA.  We lived with our new born daughter, Beth, in my parents’ home for a year and a half until we could take some salary from our account with Greater Europe Mission.  We then lived on 8^th St in Ambridge, PA near Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, where Linda was studying, before we left for Europe.

On August 14^th, 1986 we were launched off to Vienna, Austria, where the Eastern European Bible Institute was located.  EEBI was a ministry of GEM and was an undergraduate school for training pastors, evangelists and church workers for the then Yugoslavia.

We returned to the US in June of 1989 and landed at my parents’ house.  Though we didn’t stay there all year during that furlough, it was a place we could count on returning to during our career.  Many times after that I or we would return for a short fund raising trip.  Dad also kept a second car running, so that we always had wheels.

Many years later when we sent Beth and then Steve off to Pennsylvania to college, Grandma and Grandpap Gottschalk’s home was a crash pad, a place to spend vacations and the summer, and later for Steve a place to live for a couple years while he was just out of college.

We will always be grateful to my parents for being the crash pad.  We could come and go as we needed, but they didn’t just help us.  My parents were on the mission board at North Way Christian Community and several younger couples from their Bible study went out as missionaries.  Uncle Bob and Aunt Pat had a BNB before anyone knew what that was.  Dad paid a former missionary to renovate the attic room (my old room), so that it was a comfortable place for missionaries to stop by or stay as they needed.

When Mom sold the house in 2011 and moved to a retirement community in north east Ohio, Jeanne and Dave Swaisgood’s house became our crash pad.  Jeanne and Dave have many times picked me up from the Cleveland airport as I arrived or left.  They have a “room for the prophet” upstairs on their second floor.

They have always been gracious and flexible with me (us), as we have bombed in and out (launched again and returned) from many deputation trips west to Chicago, or north to New Hampshire or south to South Carolina and back, and then returned to Europe. 

Our lifestyle when on Home Ministry Assignment is hectic and erratic.  It’s hardly comfortable to try to figure out where we are and when.  However, Jeanne & Dave keep the light on and Jeanne keeps the food in stock. Our schedule which changes all the time when we are on deputation.  We often don’t know from one day to the next what our schedule is.  Still Jeanne and Dave are always ready with a warm welcome.

Aside from giving us a place to crash, Jeanne arranges many family gatherings.  We have missed many family gatherings in past years, but Jeanne does her best to get us all together, and she succeeds.

Dave is a business man and he has patiently helped me (Phil) to figure out a variety of business issues from retirement options and savings to how loans work and how to pay them down faster. I often feel like a total putz in this regard, but Dave guides me along to a clearer understanding.

So, thanks Mum (& Dad) and Jeanne & Dave for having been and being our crash pad.  Though our landing is on land, it’s still soft!

The Truck

Someone at a supporting church volunteered to let us borrow their truck for a couple weeks.  I haven’t ever driven a pickup truck, but I figured it was no problem.

I was expecting an Isuzu or a Toyota. It is a Ford F-150 with power steering, power brakes, an automatic transmission, cruise control, air conditioning and a great radio!

It rides like a dream.  It’s no effort to steer. It has a powerful motor, no trouble pulling onto a highway.  People steer clear! It’s big! But it’s easy to drive and no problems. At 70 mph the gauges don’t even waiver: oil pressure consistent, gear box temperature no movement, engine temperature no movement, the gas gauge dropped only ¼ between McCandless Township and Erie, PA.

So after 440 miles I went to fill the tank.  It was about 7/8ths empty.  I started to fill it… It kept on and on and on…

In the end it was $58 to fill the tank with 28.9 gallons at $2.02 per gallon.  If my math is right, that’s about 15 mpg.  [My first car, a Plymouth Fury with a V-8 318 cubic inch engine, got about 12 mpg… but gas was cheaper in 1980.]

I was shocked at the cost, not overwhelmed but very surprised.  I don’t know trucks.

My brother-in-law said, “I wondered what you’d think after you filled the tank.”…

So, I thought about it… My Fiat Punto in NL get about 36 mpg (5-6 liters / 100 km).  When I fill the 30 liter (about 8 gallon) tank, it costs about 60 Euros ($67).  Gas in NL costs about 1.53 Euros PER LITER (that is converted $6.09 per gallon).  So, $2.02 per gallon sounds pretty good.

I still need to drive 880 miles with the truck, which will cost about $120.

If I rented a small car, the cost would be about $1100 (If I can get the waiver for insurance using my VISA card, I’d still pay $600 + gas at 36 mpg [24 gallons at $2.02 mpg = about $50]). So, I’d pay $650 at least or at most $1150.

Unless my math is off, the truck will save us over the next two weeks about $1000 of rental costs or at least $530.

So, thanks, good friends!  It’s a great ride at a great price!

Now where am I going to park a truck near the Pittsburgh Athletic Association for Steve & Renee’s wedding? 

"Prayer in C" or Theodicy 101

All Christian apologists, philosophers of religion, clergy, and even the average believer face the question of how to reconcile the supposed goodness and all-powerfulness of God with the facts of evil, injustice, sickness and death.  The subject is called Theodicy (theos – God and dikao – justify); justifying the goodness of God

If God exists and he wants our best, and if he can do anything He wants to, why does He not heal me of my illness? 

Why doesn’t God prevent accidents which kill innocent people?  Why doesn’t he stop wars?  Why does He allow earthquakes and tsunamis?

It ends up being what philosophers call a classic trilemma: 1. either God is not good, though He is all-powerful, and He likes to watch us suffer, or 2. God is good, but unable to help us, i.e. he is weak, or 3. God is neither good or all-powerful; perhaps He doesn’t exist at all.

This sort of thinking, though, excludes some other factors. The most obvious one being that the Bible tells us how evil entered the world. Sin entered the world through the sin of the first man and the first woman.  Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French mathematician and philosopher, said that without understanding the Fall of mankind into sin, we could not understand the glory of man (our ability to create beautiful things) and our ignominy (our sinfulness and wickedness, our evil bent).

Many popular songs and much literature has focused on this problem.  I wouldn’t bother to add any more to what has already been written on the topic, except that I heard a popular song on the radio while driving home from a Bible study and it provoked me.  The song is called “Prayer in C”.  I don’t repeat all of the lyrics since they repeat, but I have put in enough to give the idea.

A Response by Phil Gottschalk to "Prayer in C”

(Robin Schulz Remix)

(Phil’s comments are in italic)

It’s an "Deep House" song:
{Thank you, Deep Ember, for the correction}

 It shows how the singer feels,

but is not based on a knowledge of biblical facts

(The song is in plain Arial script)

Yeah, you never said a word
You didn't send me no letter
Don't think I could forgive you

God sent the prophets. He gave His Word.  He sent His Son.

We rejected them all.  The fault is ours.

See our world is slowly dying
I'm not wasting no more time
Don't think I could believe you

The state of the world, dying, is due to mankind’s sin.

God sent His Son to die for us, though we didn’t deserve it.

One day He will renew the heaven and the earth.

Yet we refuse to believe and accept Him.
…

Yeah, our hands will get more wrinkled
And our hair will be grey
Don't think I could forgive you

Aging is due to sin, as is death.

He died that we might have eternal life.

And see the children are starving
And their houses were destroyed
Don't think they could forgive you

Why are children starving?

Due to our greed and wastefulness, we don’t share.

Why are their houses destroyed?

Perhaps due to natural disaster,

but most often due to war,

which is a symptom of our greed and wickedness.

When man is at fault, we should blame man,

not God.

Hey, when seas will cover lands
And when men will be no more
Don't think you can forgive you

The seas will dry up. Revelation 21

There will be a new wonderful city to live in.

There will be space enough in the heavenly city for all. 

Life is eternal. There will always be people and God. 

Yeah when there'll just be silence
And when life will be over
Don't think you will forgive you

Life is eternal. Some will dwell with God in that new city forever.

Some will choose to dwell in the darkness, as far from Him as they can get.

Short of making you a robot God has done all He can.

You choose to reject Him.

For more apologetical help on this problem see my articles on this blog: Letter to Bonni Lu and The Problem of Evil