Category Archives: Witnessing

“When you die, you die like a dog, right?”

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Someone told me that when I was young and it really stuck with me. “When you die, you die like a dog.” It’s a real simple way of expressing one of the most prevalent ideologies on earth: atheism and unbelief. If you look at things that way (and I did for years), then you just have to laugh and smirk at anyone who says something about Jesus returning to this world. It’s just ludicrous.

Because, when you look at things that way, there’s just no life after you die. You usually think of yourself as not much more than a complex nexus of neurons, a composite of carbon, calcium and water, the highest form of life on this obscure little planet. And how many millions of people look at our existence that way? Many.

What can you say to them? They hold a fierce, entrenched view of the life we have. So what do I say when I meet someone who has those views and challenges my faith in God? I usually just say something simple like, “Well, there is a spiritual world.”

I’ve found that many, if not most people will sooner or later admit that “perhaps” there’s “something” more than what we can see or feel or measure with instruments. So many people have had personal experiences, or their relatives have, where someone from the past, a relative who’s passed on, has appeared to them in a dream or in their minds to speak to them, sometimes even to warn them of a danger or to speak words of comfort. This is such an often-experienced event that many people will candidly admit, if they are honest, that it’s happened to them or someone they know.

And of course, that’s the truth. There really is a spiritual world. And if there is, that means that we’re not just a collection of atoms. We’re more than that. As the famous atheist-turned-Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis said, “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.”

I can honestly say that the biggest turnaround in my life occurred when I very reluctantly had to admit that there is a world beyond my mind and politics and shopping and all the little things I was caught up in.

Naturally we find that this is what the famous characters from ancient times were saying all along. Ancient prophecy had some very major things to say about this, especially when it came to that unique king that would come one day to the world.

It’s like the verse from Micah which says,

“But you, Bethlehem, though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth He which is to rule my people Israel, whose going forth is from old, from everlasting.” 1

It not only predicted that the king to come would be from Bethlehem, but it also said this ruler to come was “…from old, from everlasting.”  In other words, he was pre-existent, even before he was born in this world.

But what about life after death? King David, the greatest of ancient Israel’s kings, prophesied of the unique king that was to come. In one of his writings, speaking to God, he said,

“…you will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.” 2

David foresaw that the king (the Holy One) that God would send to the world would not “see corruption.” In other words, the king to come would not suffer the fate of every other human being, in finally being laid to rest in a grave and their flesh decaying.

This was one of the most unique things about the life of Jesus. After his crucifixion, he was laid in a grave outside Jerusalem. But according to the Bible, on the third day after his death, he rose from the dead, just as he’d told his disciples he would.

Now you may not believe that. I certainly didn’t when I first heard it. But I didn’t know it had been prophesied centuries before that there would be a king to come who would not “see corruption.” I didn’t know there were prophecies that he would be “born in Bethlehem”, that he would be “born of a virgin”, and so many more.

Usually, at some point, it comes down to a matter of the truth, and how much you want it. Many people like facts, I always have. But when you’re faced with truth that challenges much of what you’ve believed till then, there comes what is called “the moment of truth.” It’s sort of funny it’s called that.

But if there’s a phenomenon of prophecy which has been foretelling the future for thousands of years, if there’s a spiritual world greater and more real than the physical one we live in, if there’s a life of the soul that goes beyond the physical life of our bodies, then this could lead us to a very different view of our existence.

It would mean that we don’t just die like a dog. We go on. Our soul will go on, after our body ceases to work. And in this reality, realm and existence, that unique king came and died and rose from the dead. If there’s a spiritual world, if there’s prophecy that foretells the future, then this is all utterly possible.

And that king that was to come, Jesus of Nazareth, said that he would come to this world again. In another article we can focus in on that.

Talk to you soon,
Mark McMillion

1         (from the Old Testament)  Micah chapter 5, verse 2 

2         (from the Old Testament) Psalm 16, verse 10

Hawks and doves (Part 2) Istanbul, Turkey

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I’d been living in Indonesia for 4 wonderful years, but I was certain it was time for me to move on from there.

The Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul was formerly the holiest church of the Orthodox faith, built in 537. The Hagia Sophia went from being a church to a mosque in 1453 when Constantinople was conquered and became Istanbul.

The Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul was formerly the holiest church of the Orthodox faith, built in 537. The Hagia Sophia went from being a church to a mosque in 1453 when Constantinople was conquered and became Istanbul.

I wanted to continue a life of full time service for God and my fellow man and didn’t really want to move back to the West. After much desperate prayer, the Lord had led me to contact some friends who’d been living in Turkey for many years.

In July of 2007, I was able to visit them for 2 weeks, to gauge the situation and to see if the Lord would lead further to make a move to that part of the world. You come to where you know in your heart whether a thing is the Lord’s Will or not. But you test it and go slow as making a major move like that is very serious.

A man I met that day. He was from the Middle East and sold rugs in the large central market I visited with my friends.

A man I met that day. He was from the Middle East and sold rugs in the large central market I visited with my friends.

Of course the Turkish culture is not at all like Indonesia and it’s not like the places I’d lived in eastern and central Europe in the years before. But it is a very beautiful and very historic city. Napoleon was quoted as saying something like, “If all the world was one nation, Istanbul would be its capital.”

My friends took me around to parts of the city, to get a better feeling for the place and to get to know the people, the most important thing. We went to a very famous covered market, like almost everything there, many hundreds of years old. There were spices, carpets, electronics, all kinds of foodstuffs and the whole place was just very much the essence of Istanbul.

My friends were introducing me to folks they knew and we were going from one booth to another. In one place they introduced me to a man and I asked him where he was from. He said he was from Iraq.

Suddenly something pretty strange happened and in a sense it was embarrassing. I suddenly started crying, almost uncontrollable, in public in front of a bunch of Islamic Turkish men and my friends.

I took the man’s hand, tears in my eyes, and told him, “I’m so sorry for what my country has done to your country. And I know millions of Americans feel the same way I do.” When meeting this man, the first Iraqi I’d ever met, suddenly it was like I saw behind him the hundreds of thousands of  Iraqis who had died in the war America had brought to that land. I felt so stricken at that moment, it was so sudden and so spontaneous that I was almost surprised myself at what was happening. But I felt afterwards that perhaps it was just the Holy Spirit within me, helping me to do what just one person could do and say to another person to try to atone for the horror that had happened to his people. He humbly accepted my apology and said he held no grudge against Americans, thanking me for saying what I’d said.

We walked on and finished our afternoon. As it turned out, I didn’t end up moving to Turkey but instead, back to the Russian speaking part of the world I’d lived in before. But it was something I have never forgotten as it was so surprising and unplanned.

I certainly don’t mean to write this against the individuals of the armed forces who were part of the war in Iraq. But, whoever the individuals are who are responsible for that event, it shames and saddens me deeply that my country brought such suffering on a distant nation for what turned out to be false information and purely political/economic factors.

King David said, “I am for peace. But when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalm 120:7) Jesus is famously quoted as saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers” ( Matthew 5:9) and there are innumerable verses in the New Testament that point toward the people of God as being the meek, the healers, the peacemakers, the reconcilers, not the proud, the war-wagers  and haters of others. Only in the coming Kingdom of God on earth will the Prince of Peace rule and bring peace on earth. Meanwhile, for those of His people who are alive here and now, we are still called and commanded to love our neighbor, not kill, invade and dominate them. “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” (Romans 12:18)

Fields newsletters

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In 2003 I moved abroad again after of living in Austin, Texas for 2½ years. I’d been living outside the US for most of my adult life before that and was in need of a break, as well as time with my family. But the Lord led me again to “go into all the world” for Him, this time to far off Indonesia.

I wanted to stay in contact with friends and it worked out that I was able to start a series of newsletters which I would send to friends back in the States and elsewhere. I’ll include here the first Fields newsletter I did, which was completed shortly before I left for Indonesia in early 2003.

Greetings and God bless you. My name is Mark McMillion and I’m preparing to move abroad after being in Austin for the last 2½ years. It’s certainly been a wonderful time here in many ways, with new friends and new experiences. But over recent months I have been feeling the Lord’s tug on my heart to move back to the way of life that He called me to live for around 30 years, before I came back to Texas in 2000.

So I wanted to put this newsletter together for some of you who have gotten to know me here, to let you know a little more about my hopes and plans. Also I’ll add a few pictures from years past when I was living outside the US and was involved in full time Christian service. My hope is that this newsletter will be the beginning of something I can continue to send to you from my new field, in order to keep in contact with those of you who I have gotten to know and grow close to while here

I thought to call this newsletter “Fields”. Jesus used this analogy several times, saying in one place, “…the field is the world…”. He sends us to sow and share freely the seed of the love and the gospel of God. I’ll add some pictures here next of some of the foreign fields He’s allowed me to go and do the work of a sower of the Word over the years.

FIELDS OF THE PAST

I don’t have many pictures of my early years. But it was often spent on the streets in personal talks with other young people in places like Hollywood Boulevard and Greenwich Village, or in similar places in London, Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

Here’s a photo from 1976 when I was talking with a young girl in a fishing village in northwest Denmark. Yes, that’s me with the Bible, she has a gospel tract in hand, and I have hair too!

In 1986 I moved from Europe to central India, along with my sons Andrew, JJ and Ariel.  During this time I home schooled the boys as well as some children of other friends we knew and worked with in the area. We spent the next year and a half there in a variety of ways. At times we went door to door to meet people and present Christian material. Or we would use the boys’ musical skills in small performances or when we went to schools like this one in Andra Pradesh in the next picture. It was all not without incident. But it might come as a surprise to some how much of a blessed time this was and how much we felt the Lord’s favor and protection.

At the end of this time, doors began to close for us there. We moved back, somewhat sadly, to Scandinavia, the area my former wife is from. Unbeknownst to us, the Lord all the while was working to have us back in Europe just as the doors to Eastern Europe would open at the fall of Communism in 1989. Central and Eastern Europe had been our vision and calling in the late 70’s and early 80’s and it was with great joy we were able to go back there again. From 1990 to 1998 almost my full time was spent there and in Russia.

In this picture I’m at the Nagyatad refugee camp in southern Hungary in 1994. With me is a Christian sister, Rebecca. She is from Sarajevo in Bosnia. The conflict in the region brought 1000’s of refugees pouring over the borders and we daily visited this abandoned Russian military camp, full of Bosnians of an Islamic background.

The couple with me in this picture were considered the elders of the camp. The woman was an Islamic religious woman and much respected. In the camp there had been a refugee who was deeply troubled emotionally and spiritually and no one could help her. Through our council and prayers the woman was delivered. So this Muslim matriarch recognized God’s power working through us and told the ones in the camp that we should be accepted there.

One day Rebecca and I talked with a dozen young Bosnia men. They’d been in the Bosnian army but they told us they’d mostly been roving bands of undisciplined irregulars, killing and being killed. I prayed desperately to know what to say to these men who’d recently been through such trauma and had witnessed the death of their wives and children. One of them is in the picture at the right.

With Rebecca translating, the Lord led me to talk to them about forgiveness. My own time of divorce and losing my family came to mind. It was not the same as they had experienced. But it was when I needed to call out to God to help me not allow bitterness and revenge to take hold of my heart. They listened and responded as we opened our lives to each other. It was a few hours of heart-to-heart talk among people who had been deeply wounded and needed to find a way out. I’ve prayed that the seed sown there and elsewhere in that region will grow to a new generation of people who will break the cycle of hatred and war.

FIELDS OF THE FUTURE

Last September I visited some Christian friends in Indonesia and they’ve encouraged me to help them in the work they do. While I was there we visited this school in Jakarta for street children that they help regularly. The students are not orphans but their parents are too poor to provide an education for them. That day we delivered crates of pasta, sacks of rice and several used computers which businesses had given us to pass on to poorer schools like these. It’s a predominately Muslim country of 240 million people but there is also a large minority of Christians. I had several meaningful evenings of Bible study with people there, similar to ones I’ve had here in Austin with some of you.

This is the country I feel the Lord is leading me to, to be a help to the ones I know there and to return, God helping me, to a life of more fulltime Christian service.

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I stayed in Indonesia for nearly 5 years and it was an incredible, blessed experience. In future posts on the blog here I will be adding more of these Fields newsletters that were written while I was there.