Thanksgiving: To End The Year

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:14:53 -1000

Christmas Break

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:24:29 -1000

Today we are officially on break for Christmas. We have spent the past three weeks in a pretty intense stint of staff training for the coming Winter DTS beginning in January. Much of the past three weeks have been focused on leadership training and focused on what it takes to spiritually lead. It’s been crazy, fun and challenging as we have completed a lot of tasks that must be finished before this school begins.

I have been blessed with 10 other leaders that will be leading the DTS students on outreach and leading during their lecture phase for three months. They have been eager to step up to this challenge in leadership and are excited for the things to come.

Thank you for your prayer. Things have been going well. I am away from the family once again for Christmas but with a small group of staff that are staying around. I miss home but am excited to be here with the amazing people I live with.

Have a very Merry Christmas. Mele Kalikimaka!

The Passenger

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:36:11 -1000

It was a light and blotchy red, maybe even more pink due to prolonged exposure to the sun during countless years of service. The folds disclosed it’s former color; a shade of red or dark salmon hardly recognizable from the exterior. The threads were course and tattered. Grease splattered in several places, warn into the fibers by diurnal abuse. Much of the detail of this cardinal shroud was left undisclosed from a dark and even more rustic overcoat that seemed to be a few sizes too small. It may have once been a suit top, yet at this day, was only to serve as the last layer of protection against the biting cold that relentlessly penetrated even the most elaborate of garments. Where much of his forearm was exposed from the shortness in length of this top coat, his pink and soiled undershirt protruded giving way to even more mud and grease stains form years of employment.

Clutched in his hands a clear, unmarked plastic bag filled with a dozen small sticks of grilled chicken. I had seen this treat and even eaten it in the local market. It was his dinner I could tell. He sat content holding it and pondering the salivating taste that awaited him. I wondered if it was food for his starving children or meal for him and his wife? Why was he waiting to eat? Why didn’t he scarf it down now? I was sitting next to him frequently making attempts to catch his eye, yet nothing to my dismay, I did not gain this satisfaction. My fellow passenger was content simply grasping the crumpled bag close to his chest, or nearer to his stomach as if to elude to his swelling appetite.

I looked at his mans face; weathered and weary. His tiny eyes gazing on in satisfaction at his prize. His lips moist from his desire to attack his small feast. Check bones that seemed to protrude from his face, not as gaunt, but to expose a life far different than my own. His skin was smooth, yet worn and aged by years in the hot sun. I looked at his eyes. Black and pleasant. I wondered what was going on in that mind of his. What kind of life had this man lived? From his appearance he had only seen hardship. How different the world is than what I once thought. I gazed on as we bounced through the bustling town. The windows of our grand diesel bus frosted by the cold on the outside and the hot breath of far too many passengers on the inside.

As I sat and looked on in wonder I was compelled to pray for this man. I have no idea what his name is or what he does for a living. I don’t know if he has family or his bag of food was even for him at all. I looked him over, his old and faded clothes, his aged and weathered countenance, his dark and pensive eyes. I wonder what God sees. I know there is only love, but what are his thoughts towards this little man? It was merely a few minutes, yet the impression by this man on the bus left me in wonder. Is everything that I hope for in life truly what I need or want. What does it take to be content in life? Is it the possession of things, or the knowledge that we are living in the plans that our loving God has made us for?

I would not give up a moment of this life I live to do anything else. I look at it as pure blessing to be a part of these things God has called me during this time of my life. I often think back to this man and wonder how many other men are bouncing around on buses clutching their prize in their hand on their way home from a long days work. So content, so happy. There is such an incredible world out there. So many people that are searching. I am so blessed to meet them.

Who Is This God?

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:19:57 -1000

I sat in on a lecture this morning the discussion was focused on our ideas about who God is and how our views change this world in which we live. It was funny to sit in on this lecture after spending the morning reading a chapter out of A.W. Tozer’s book, “The Knowledge of the Holy.” It was the opening chapter in Tozer’s book where he proposed why we need to have a correct understanding of God and his character. To paraphrase Tozer, he said that the greatest defining attribute about us, about our culture, about our lifestyle will be what we know (or believe) about who God is and who he says we are. He goes on to say that a nation will only develop to the extent that their knowledge of God will allow them. I think of nations I have been to that are steeped in a culture absent of God and how they developed. I think of nations that were founded on Biblical Christianity and can even separate the reformed church to North America and the Catholic based formation of Latin America. How very different these countries have developed. How vastly different the development of modern medicine, or scientific discovery will be contingent on having a a correct view of God.

I realize in all of this that America and the rest of the West is anything but following the Lord - as a whole. But when you look out the founding values you can deduce what kind of culture and society will develop. It’s been said before, and it’s something that we teach here often: “Ideas have Consequences!” It’s from this place that we find our impetus to see nations change. It’s knowledge of this holy God that motivates us to serve those in need; to feed the hungry; to father the fatherless and bring hope to the hopeless. Bringing it back to what I was hearing this morning, our speaker was talking about “justice.” “What is justice,” he asked, “without a true understanding of who God is?” Isn’t justice selfish without a motive outside of making us feel good for helping someone? Don’t get me wrong! When we help others there is a blessing that we feel joy we get by helping. But the real motive we should have for bringing justice is a response towards our loving God that we seek to help others. It is by understanding correctly the character of our loving God that we will feed the hungry and to clothe the naked.

It was out of this idea that I really sought the meaning of this all in my own life. I’ll ask you to do the same. How often do you put our own selfish agenda before your true motivation to help the world. Shouldn’t our impetus to bring justice to the world be grounded in our loving God who sought to bring us not only justice (which would in essence bring condemnation to our sinful selves) but also MERCY, which flows from the essence of who God is. When we hear that God is merciful then we know we should exhibit mercy because that is what has been extended to us.

It’s by desiring to know who God is and make our love to the world be an overflow of the response that we have when we truly receive revelation and knowledge of the Holy One.

Just some thoughts from the lecture hall. Thanks for reading!

“Who Will Cry For These Children?”

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:06:11 -1000

I had a dream earlier this week. It was quite profound and so I thought I would record it here for anyone to read.

There was a large boat out at sea. There wasn’t much detail but I could see tons of children on it, mostly younger boys around 13 or 14 years old. I could not see their faces but I had a feeling that they were asians. There were unseen tormentors also onboard and I couldn’t tell what they looked like except that they were men, or powerful demonic-like figures that were apparently throwing these children into the ocean. The children were often mutilated from what I assumed to be effects of these torturers that had done these things and then moved on to throw them overboard.

My heart went out to these boys, but I couldn’t do anything. There was a deep despair in my heart, yet before much more could happen in my dream I awoke. When I woke I didn’t immediately remember what I had seen except for one thing. My ears where ringing with this question:

“Who will cry for these children?”

I have no idea what to think of all of this. I was scared, and when I remembered all that I had seen in that dream, though it was 3:00a.m. I was sharp and fully awake. Why did I have this dream? What does it mean? Does it mean anything?

As I thought more about it the following day I realized that I knew that these children were from either Myanmar (Burma), Laos or Vietnam. I don’t even know why I knew that other than having some sort of “hunch” during my dream. As I thought more I remember a particular event that happened almost two years ago.

I was on an outreach in Thailand working with the Keren refugees in Northern Thailand in a nameless town. I had been working there for almost a month with some friends as we were on our last day before leaving for another location. If anyone reading this has seen the “new” Rambo movie you will have some insight into what life for this people group is like. Without much embellishment this movie portraits life not much unlike what it is actually like for these oppressed people.

During my time there I had seen a lot of this, but mostly on the safe “Thai” side of things. On this last day a few new people showed up at this particular camp. It was a married couple who had lost their children in all of the fighting or didn’t know if they were alive anymore. These two were in their late 50’s it seemed, yet with their malnutrition it was difficult to tell. I was so broken to see these people. They were so scared. Their eyes darting every which way unsure if they were truly safe or not. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of life they had lived. The Keren Burmese have been at war for decades upon decades, yet this persecution is still going on every day. It is so hard to really remember this reality, yet when you can witness something like this first hand it totally transforms your mind and heart.

I still remember these people, yet it is far from this moment now. I am sitting here at a desk with a fan blowing cool air on my face as I sip on clean water out of my Nalgene. It is so far removed in my mind, yet it still hurts to bring it back up. Back to my dream, it is this same reality. There is such pain in the world, yet so few that are willing to pray for them. So few are willing to try and actually make a real difference.

I write all of this with the hope that we will begin praying for these people. That we would begin crying for these children.