A letter from Jan Heckler in Madagascar
September 2012
Humility
I have found being a mission co-worker in Madagascar to be one of the most challenging things I have ever done. Nevertheless, one of my enduring "self-help" projects is to improve my own sense of humility.
Now, this continuing project will likely remain ongoing until the day I die as who has ever heard of anyone’s ever concluding such a program? For as E. D. Hulse has observed concerning the strange thing about humility:
"The minute you think that you've got it, you've lost it"!
So, as with many, I continue simply to strive.
I want to share some helpful experiences for hopefully improving humility, but first I would like to clarify one aspect of this never-ending quest that may be peculiar to me. And that is that I would prefer relying on experiences already in the human psyche. Better this than having new unwanted things happening to you all the time when old ones will do very nicely. As a maturing woman, there have already been more of these than I care to admit (though they have not always "taken" as one would have hoped). I draw this conclusion of course from the fact I am still on the receiving end of so many new lessons as often as I am.
So I would like to share this idea of turning otherwise everyday occurrences we experience into lessons from which we learn humility but doing so as vicariously as we can. As I would also like to help any other humility-challenged persons out there, I thought I would write about it and just demonstrate how it works.
For each of three sections below, there are provided Bible passages to guide us along with example observations taken from my experiences thus far in Madagascar. So, to begin, the first part of the concept of humility to be examined is the part about being meek, mild and gentle.
Jesus “. . . humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death . . . ” —Phil 2:8, and
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” —Matt 5:5
So, we have the greatest role model that ever was and the promise of huge blessings if only we are judged meek. An experience in Madagascar that I easily recall while reading these passages is of seeing Solo, the cleaning lady and cook employed by my landlord.
Seeing Solo—never complaining and always happy, in her eighth month of pregnancy, working full time at her physically demanding job, all while caring for her 3-year-old daughter, Antsa, and husband, Liva—is humbling in and by itself. Even more so, however, is this the fact since Solo is one of the kindest and most contented people I believe I have ever met. I quietly appreciate just how much her great love of God, church and family enables her and helps her endure.
Solo reminds me of the stories I heard as a child growing up in Pennsylvania of our frontier women who would deliver a newborn baby and then go finish plowing the family field—except Solo is very much here and now. Why, I even have her picture!
Next, while keeping the meek, mild and gentle aspects of humility in mind, we add avoiding pretension, conceit, the tendency toward self-credit and doing anything for the sake of show or appearance. Isaiah and Matthew provide ample biblical guidance:
"For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity . . . 'I dwell in the high and holy place . . . with those who are contrite and humble in spirit' " —Is 57:15, and
"All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted” —Matt 23:12
In considering these additional dimensions of humility, it strikes me that this aspect is perhaps the most written-about aspect of the concept. Perhaps this is due to our collective difficulty in living up to it relative to the other parts. I know that it is hard for me to discuss pretension or egotism without recalling Wilson Mizner’s wry advice:
"Don’t talk about yourself . . . it will be done for you after you leave."
Gandhi, on the other hand—as unpretentious and self-effacing a person as you are likely to find in modern times—tended to reflect a bit more on the practical side of the matter:
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom.
and
It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. —Mohandas GandhiJoining the example of Solo above (who is also quite meek and gentle) are two more example observations that help me find inner balance whenever I am tempted to think I am "somebody" or really anything more than just another servant of God.
• The first is my indigenous friend, language helper, and surrogate daughter Lisy, who, at age 27, not only has her master’s degree in biology, a wonderful husband, family and church life, but also is fluent in three languages. While I (at more than twice her age) struggle just to be adding my first "other" language. Lisy is also the last to be guilty of conceit or to assign herself credit.
• The second is appreciating yet another indigenous friend, Pastor Yvette Rabemila, who is the first woman to be elected to the National Executive Committee of the PC(USA)’s partner church in Madagascar, the Church of Jesus Christ (or FJKM as the Malagasy equivalent is commonly abbreviated).
Pastor Yvette is also one of the first women in Madagascar to preach from behind the pulpit and one of the first women to be a seminary educator. To this whopping set of accomplishments is added one of her past students being the current president of the 4.5 million–member FJKM, Pastor Rasendrahasina! Yvette too is quick to give others credit, minimize her own gargantuan role, and would never be guilty of doing anything just for the pretense of making herself appear anything she is not.
In the final segment, we add the ideas of simplicity, plainness, being down-to-earth and being childlike for our Maker to the first two sets of elements of our growing concept of humility. Because humility has such a slippery slope and has been so difficult a goal for me to achieve; one that is so nearly out of one’s reach, I pray for humility often.
I realize there are many other things of which I am in great need (language learning, mission fund-raising . . .). Still, today I would like to ask just for your prayers with respect to my humility (or that is, the lack of it).
One prayer I like is by the Anglican Henry Francis Lyte, who captures the mood nicely:
Teach me Lord, my true condition;
Bring me childlike to Thy knee;
Stripped of every low ambition,
Willing to be led by Thee.
—Henry Francis Lyte
The passages I have identified for this section are:
"Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you" —James 4:10 and
". . . clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" —Col. 3:12
Here are some final example observations:
Watching men all over Madagascar push and pull oxcart-like carts full of heavy loads eking out a living in a country where three-quarters of the people "live" on $2 or less per day while I can still catch myself occasionally grumbling at the end of my own "hard day’s work" about how tired I am. The men will sometimes push loads in excess of the one shown up 20-degree inclines!
Seeing Liva, Solo’s husband and my landlord’s handyman, pulling water up by hand from our 25-foot-deep well. Bucket after bucket for his, his family’s, and for others’ use bucket-bathing (it is 50o F!) and other daily tasks (laundry, dishes, etc.), filling a 20-gallon container as I watch from the comfort of my room where I stand in my L. L. Bean thermal underwear and knit sweater before I take my own indoor hot-water shower.
While out walking, seeing a man who passes out and falls to the ground striking his head not four meters from where Lisy and I are. We find that the man, suffering from malnutrition, is homeless and unemployed (like so many others here). Coexistent to this, I recall that I have not missed a meal in quite a while (and then, it was during a "prayer fast" of my own choosing). I look for that man now every time I pass by there.
Appreciating that in the simple facts of when, where and to whom I was born—I was a winner in the lottery of life!—yet did nothing to deserve these most precious things. I suddenly grasp in a profound way just how greatly blessed I am because of my modern times birth date, my country, my family, and my church.
Night after night, I watch picturesque sunsets, brilliant views of the Milky Way, strange yet beautiful flowers growing in astounding arrays—yet have done nothing in making or even preserving these things. Only can I appreciate their timeless splendor and the One who is the Maker of such exquisite things of beauty.
Rediscovering each day the vast, endless love of God who gave up His only son for every one of us, His unsearchable understanding of our needs, and His arranging to love us just in the way that He does.
Thanks for reading. And, thanks for your kind prayers and support of our ministry.
Jan Heckler
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, Madagascar, p. 110
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