Tired of Waiting

In the 60s, the British Invasion group, the Kinks sang a song “Tired of Waiting” expressing frustration with a girlfriend’s indecision and lack of commitment.  The refrain says, “I’m so tired, tired of waiting . . . tired of waiting for you.”  Pegi and I were getting tired of waiting for Amos and Rose Moyo.  They were the couple from Zimbabwe who had sparked the flame of our desire to return to Zimbabwe.  

The plan was to travel with them after he finished his courses at the Boyce Bible School of the Southern Baptist Seminary.  Of course, after he finished his program at Boyce, and as his student visa was about to expire, he entered a four year program at Berea College (two hours from Louisville).  It was clear that they had no intention of returning to Zimbabwe in the near future.  Like so many who had come before them, they were becoming permanent students.  Instead of a vision to reach his own people with the Gospel, Amos was now focused on making a place for himself in the US.

I don’t blame him for becoming enamored with the American way of life, especially as he was being supported by a professor from University of Louisville who had taken the two of them in as their own children.  They provided their living expenses and bought them a car.  This professor and his physician wife opened their hearts to the Moyos.  They just didn’t understand that their generosity would be a temptation too great to resist.  After a few years of living comfortably, why would any sane person want to return to Africa where he had lived in a one room hut as Amos had.  To make matters worse, Amos became unfaithful to Rose and they ended up divorcing.  The last I heard (1987), Rose was living with the professor and doctor and attending the University of Louisville.

Well, if you have read much of my story, you know that once I get up a head of steam about a direction, I need to get moving!  And when Amos suggested the possibility of a return to Zimbabwe, Pegi and I began making plans to leave ASAP.  We knew that it would take about a year to find a base of financial support for our return.  Obviously, the Zimbabwe Army wasn’t going to pay our airfares this time!  

But, we were going, with or without Amos.  We just needed to finish up some local commitments and raise the $25,000 that we felt we would need to travel and get settled in Zimbabwe.  We also hoped to raise about $2000/month support for our missionary efforts.  

Of course, the very idea of us “going off to Africa with Brother Amos” was the epitome of a fool’s errand to Bro. Akeroyd.  The other “brothers in responsibility” were equally appalled that we would do something so risky, although they didn’t have the courage to say anything to us.  But Bro. Akeroyd had no such reticence.  

One afternoon Bro. Akeroyd dropped by for a “chat.”  We were thrilled, as it was the first time in our two years in “The Meeting” that he had actually visited us at our home.  But, when we discovered that he was coming without Mrs. Akeroyd, we knew that this must be “Meeting" business.  

He told us that we were making a poor choice to “run off to Africa.”  He believed that the right thing to do was for us to stay in Louisville and just raise a family.  He was opposed to overt evangelism, rather preferring using one’s influence to win people to the Lord.  I understood his perspective and had many problems myself with the nature of evangelism and the activities of traditional missionaries.  Nevertheless. I felt that the reason the meeting was stuck at a total of 25 people after 25 years was that there was no outreach at all.  Sometimes you just have to climb out of your own comfortable way of life and lend a hand to someone who is struggling.  That is what I saw as our purpose in traveling to Africa--to lend a hand to those who were struggling to find their way to God.

He became very stern and uttered his judgement that if we were to continue on in this fashion that we would fail miserably resulting in unbearable strains in our marriage.  He assumed that this was only my idea, that Pegi wasn’t as convinced as I was that the Lord was the one calling us to Zimbabwe.  I was shocked at how little he knew of us after two years.  The thing that made (and still makes) Pegi and me such a good match is that we both have the same crazy ideas!  We are soul-mates in every way.  I guess he didn’t have that kind of relationship with his wife.

Anyway, we were saddened by his ultimatum that we accept the authority of the brothers in responsibility and abandon our plans.  It just meant that we would abandon the Meeting and the brothers in responsibility.  We live our own lives and make our own decisions.  No one makes our life decisions for us.  We make our own and live with the consequences.  As I sit here today writing this, it still steams me that he and the “brothers” would have such gall and that they could be so deluded to think that they had any type of authority over us.  That was just insane!

We had been frustrated with the Meeting for awhile now.  They were so inward focused.  They had gone so deep into their spiritual lives that they had withdrawn from other Christians and seemed to have withdrawn from normal life itself.  Some of them, including the Akeroyds were lovely people--that is, when they weren’t spending their time trying to adjudicate the lives of others.  Their had dug so deep “in the things of the Lord” that they had buried themselves in their own pseudo-spirituality.

Once again, we were focused on “doing” more than “being.”  It was all about what worked in real life.  We had left Thieme because his doctrines didn’t work in everyday life.  Now, we left the Meeting because their social-spiritual doctrines were too insular.  Once again, I was feeling the Jewish tug that what you do is much more important than what you believe.  How you live is the real validation of what you think.  

We planned to leave for Zimbabwe in about six months, but first we needed to find a new church home.  

Next:  Listen for the Music and Follow It