Editor's Note: this was delayed for a while, but the story behind it can be found on Maggie's blog.  Apologies to all for the late posting.


One of the great joys of being a parent is seeing the gospel played out on a miniature level as your children encounter the world around them. I don’t know this on a personal level but I know enough parents and get to hear enough of their stories to know it’s true. I look forward to those moments when God reveals himself in divine clarity through my own children. The last couple of weeks at AHI have been very tough but God has used these events to reveal himself in a great many ways to a great many people with similar divine clarity. For me he has revealed the very core of the Gospel in a new way through Maggie Josiah.

In running a store I have always held a basic precept in dealing with employees. If an employee worked hard and bought in to our vision for what that store was doing, then that was an employee I would do everything in my power to help succeed. However, if I had an employee who was resistant to hard work, resistant to the shared vision of the store - who basically didn’t want to work and in some cases would even try to undermine the direction of that store - then that employee needed to go.  The basic reasoning in my mind was that for every spot filled by someone who doesn't want to be there, someone else is out on the street without a job, who if given this opportunity would seize it.

When applied this paradigm to Africa it became all the more extreme because of the massive and desperate need for opportunities. So as Maggie weighed the very tough decisions of what to do with some of the employees at AHI after they had done wrong, I found myself arguing on the side of justice rather than mercy.  There are employees at AHI who have seized the opportunity that Maggie has given them and have quite literally flown with it, but there are others who are less enthusiastic and at times seek to even undermine the unity of the organization. All I could think about was the many men and women sitting in villages around us with no hope, no future, and if given the chance to work at AHI would absolutely squeeze it for every drop of knowledge, growth and future opportunity they could get from it. In my mind those spots were being filled by others who were wasting it.

However, Maggie insisted that we keep the staff who were struggling and not happy about being at AHI, out of mercy and grace. In frustration, yesterday I spent much of my day away from AHI and just out in the villages. Not Ntuuti, which is somewhat built up, but in some of the more remote villages where the poverty and sense of hopelessness is even more acute. As walked down those trails with mud huts and peanut gardens I just mourned; I mourned over their loss, I mourned that I could not help, I mourned that their lives would be so desolate without even the education to read a Bible if they owned one. You see, AHI specifically seeks out students who have low levels of education and no future ahead of them. While Cornerstone Leadership Academy on the ranch reaches out to the 100 most promising students of Uganda (and does a great job with those students) AHI seeks out a dozen or so students who are NOT promising, who have NO hope, have NO future. So I hung out in the villages looking into the eyes of those that AHI did not choose, and could not help, and I mourned.

I spent most of the rest of the day yesterday praying, reading my Bible, and listening to sermons. What I was really doing was pleading to God and looking for answers.  In the evening Heather went to a ladies movie night so I began playing a video game, of all things (Sorry Pastor Mark). While I was zoning on my game and checking out of reality, God decided it was time to speak to me and showed me the gospel in a new way with divine horrifying clarity.

The ugly truth is many people are going to hell; God has only selected a few elect, who he out of grace and mercy, though they are underserving, even ill-deserving, chooses to save from eternal punishment for their sins.  Yet even as Christians we continue to rebel, to act thankless towards our Savior and at times, yes, even undermine the work of his church and of Christ. What’s more, for every man and woman he chooses to save there is another man or woman who if he had chosen to save them would have seized their salvation and done untold amazing things for the Glory of God.  But he doesn't, in his mercy and mystery, just save the Martin Luthers and John Pipers, he also saves normal ill-deserving thankless sinners like you and me.

Divine clarity. Suddenly it all made sense: If AHI is to be a Gospel-centered MINISTRY, not a business, then it has to take those who will seize the opportunity AND those who would seek to undermine it. Most importantly we can’t fire those staff members who betray us to hire others who might do more with it, because God didn’t remove my seal of faith all those years that I openly betrayed him and give my “spot” in heaven to another.

Now to be fair, Maggie did fire a couple of employees who had clearly broken AHI policy and in one case had even broke Ugandan laws. Maggie also did place a couple of employees on a one week paid suspension while she sorted things out. Still, the overwhelming response by Maggie has been one of grace, even pleading for mercy in court on behalf of the employee who had broken the law.

My brain began exploding as this new revelation started sinking in, because when I say I mourned for those in the villages who would never have such an opportunity, I mean my heart was absolutely broken for them, and now suddenly I found this new connection and my heart was becoming newly broken for the world as well. Sure, I have always wanted my friends and family to know Christ in his fullness and grace, but to be honest I’ve never been very good with caring much about the stranger. The stranger who I know nothing about and have no relationship with, his eternal life has never mattered much to me if I was honest, but now I saw it, I felt it, and I understood. So again I mourned.

Maggie was right, and she is turning AHI into a parable of the Gospel.

--PHD