Dancing in the Dark
In the expanding world of Living Waters, God’s mercy always took the form of my travelling partners: alongside of men like Kin Lancaster, and women like Sonja Stark (our first international coordinators), we were able to overcome cultural and spiritual hurdles to releasing water from the Rock, Christ’s beautiful, broken bride.
No solo efforts here. We became a united ‘body’ to serve the Body. All over the world.
Jet-lagged, facing crowds for whom our offering was all-new, usually offensive, and always emotionally draining, we relied upon each other. We exposed our own weaknesses to each other, so that God’s power might rest on us. He wanted our ministry of deep healing to be real, not a show; we wanted it too. The church had suffered too long from her unacknowledged sins and wounds.
Sonja came from Germany to help build the international expansion of Living Waters. One of our earliest and longest trips was a three week tour of her native land—from Munich to Hanover. Every day was a different ministry stop; we flew over the autobahn in a van then stopped to release ‘living waters’ in churches throughout the nation. Toni Dolfo-Smith and Susan Highleyman made up our foursome.
Our last stop was a castle in the middle of Germany. Weary yet invigorated by doing two-weeks of intensive ministry, we spent our last week there leading a Living Waters training.
The castle had become the center of an ‘ecumenical’ Christian community; we discovered that meant they believed in everything and nothing. Not helpful. The castle had been a Nazi hospital during WWII, and was perhaps the most spiritually oppressive site I had ever ministered in. I knew that if we did not stand firm in simple, Jesus-centered faith, we would not be able to stand at all (Is. 7:9)
The spirit of death usurped our strength and threatened to flatten our efforts. So we danced. At every worship set (led by the irrepressible Susan Highleyman), we would kick up our heels and overcome the spirit of heaviness with child-like praise and movement. We danced on the ground of oppression. In so doing, we reclaimed that ground for the Kingdom of Christ.
God gave us the grace of David in 2 Samuel 6:20-22 when he danced like a wild-man before the Lord and declared to those who accused him of vulgarity: ‘I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But I will be held in honor…’
We endured the shame for the joy set before us. Our joy? To witness the resurrection of our German friends, still living in the shadow of death. I spied one particularly morose nun looking from the sidelines then joining us in the dance. God turned her mourning into dancing.
We danced, we prayed, we taught, we fought in the Spirit. My beloved friend Toni D. roomed next to me and awoke to hear me screaming in my sleep (I recalled nothing.) Like the amazingly faithful man he was and is, Toni stayed up most of the night outside my door and simply interceded for me. That’s the kind of guy Toni is: an embodiment of God’s mercy.
That’s how we dug ditches of mercy throughout Europe. We did it together. ‘With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ (PS 12:3)
‘As You have shown us mercy, O God, in the desert places of our lives, would You show mercy to the beleaguered state of marriage in the USA? As the Perry vs. Schw. case wends its way to the National Supreme Court, prepare for Yourself a victory. We shall render to Caesar what is Caesar’s but we shall prayerfully fight for what is Yours, O God. Prepare the hearts of each justice, especially Justice Anthony Kennedy, to uphold marriage according to Your merciful design. Remember mercy, O God.’
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