Home from the Hills

We made it home from our border run. It was a good trip and we learned many things. The young couple who are doing recon for us are doing a really good job of fact and people finding. Two of our co-workers went with us on this trip, one of them for the first time.

Now we are busy getting ready for our missions conference back in the USA. Our part of the job is to write articles and take the news of what is going on here back to the home front. Sometimes, that can be difficult because many, if not most of the time we are "flying under the radar." Our work takes us to places where neither we, nor our work, is appreciated by the various governments. Totalitarian regimes always think that we are spies working for the CIA or something really spectacular. Boy, if they only understood what nothings we are, they would stop worrying and laugh. However, they don't understand and they never laugh. We always have to be careful and that is something most Americans can't grasp, because they have never been there, done that, and they definitely do not have the T-shirt to prove it. So, our writings are sometimes difficult to decipher to those who don't know us and for those who do not know where we live and work. We are in a place that missionologists call the 10/40 window. Look it up. I don't have time to elaborate here. Those who care can find out and those who don't care can read somebody else's blog. Anyway, I have to get back to work. Just wanted to let you know that we survived another "border run."

Leaving the Border

We leave this morning from the Burmese border headed to the Hmong refugee camp. We have had a wonderful couple of days here and really do hate to have to leave. We love it here and would love to live here, but it is so remote that we couldn't get to the airport or to the hospital, and the past couple of years we have spent a lot of time at the hospital. Getting old is not for wimps. Getting old in a third world country is really not for wimps. Yesterday we drove about 40 minutes and spent half a day at a beautiful waterfall and park. It was very jungley. We expected to see Tarzan, but he never showed. Too bad. We were able to take some good video and photos and had a nice picnic with the folks who are getting the work going here. I will finish this post when we arrive in Bangkok. We won't have internet access at the Hmong camp. Next week we fly to Chiang Mai for a few days. We will meet this couple up there. They need to get away from here for a few days. It is pretty intense up here at times. Never a dull moment in this place.

We Made It

We are now at the border. The trip was good, with not much traffic and our life was not threatened by other crazy drivers on the treacherous mountain road. It was an uneventful trip, which when driving in the mountains is what we all want. It took us about 7 hours to get here and we got here before the rain hit. It is rainy season here and we usually get a downpour every day. The scenery was much more lush than last time. It is beautiful to see the tops of the mountains obscured by the mist. But now, we are very tired from the trip, and we will probably go to bed early. Who knows what tomorrow will hold. As we sit here and try to map out our itinerary, we realize that it is hopeless and that once again we will fly by the seat of our pants. I will let you know tomorrow night what tomorrow holds. In the meantime pray for health and strength for us. We are falling apart at the seams and these trips take longer and longer for us to recover. also, this is the first time I have seen our new facility since we rented it. It looks very nice with furniture and stuff. The downstairs bathroom does not have a sink. I didn't notice that before. It has two water reservoirs; one for pouring water over yourself to bathe, and the other smaller one to "flush" the toilet. Most of the time there is enough water pressure downstairs to actually shower. No hot water. The upstairs bathroom has two reservoirs and also has a sink. I wonder if they just forgot the downstairs sink or what. It's different here, so I don't know if they did it on purpose or just forgot to put one in. The upstairs has 2 nice bedrooms and there are aircons in each bedroom. There is also a nice third room for whatever you need it for. The third floor is one big open room with no ceiling, just a vaulted roof. Birds fly thru there occasionally, but they don't eat much. The windows in the kitchen consist of holes in the wall. They are just small holes, so no large animals will be able to come in. They are however large enough for large lizzards and small birds. Last week while the front doors were opened a herd of goats came to visit, but they didn't stay long. I think we scared them; all the arm waving and squeels and stuff. About 20 water buffalo mosied down the street a few days ago and 5 horses a few days before that. The buffalo had a herder, but the goats and horses were just on their own. Did I say that it's different here. I love it. Keeps you on your toes.

TraVeL sTreSs

We are getting ready to leave in the morning for the border and packing and trying not to forget stuff like our marbles that we have lost. It is very stressful the last few hours before leaving; there is always just one last thing to do and then you always remember that you didn't do something or didn't bring something or whatever. There will be four of us going up this time. We will rendezvous with 2 others at the place where yet 2 more are staying. All in all, there will be 8 of us crossing paths at some point, coming and going. What a hastle! The house only has 2 bedrooms, so 4 of us will have to stay at a hotel, but which 4, that is the question. At least we will have internet access, so we are able to keep up with our correspondence while we are there. After leaving the border, we will swing thru another refugee camp to visit some brethren there and try to encourage them in their very difficult situation. The roads are not very good, but the scenery is beautiful and there will be opportunities for videography and photography which we all love. We are supposed to see a waterfall in the jungle and hopefully swim there. You never know what is lurking in jungle swimming holes. I prefer swimming pools without wildlife. I like to see wildlife but not swim with it. We'll see what happens and I will let you know how it turns out.

The missionary up country was supposed to cook Mexican if we could find flour tortillas. I can usually find them but not enough to go around this time. Figures. Anyway, I found one 10-pack that I will leave for them to eat after we are gone. A little taste of home for them to enjoy by themselves. They are very much looking forward to us coming. I think they are lonely. I know it really does get lonely here. We are on the other side of the world from friends and family and it seems like we are on a different planet most of the time. At least it is not boring.

Gotta go. Gotta pack. Gotta find my stuff. Gotta Gotta Gotta.

Mad Monday

Monday seems to roll around at least once a week. I hate Monday's. It's the day all the financial records have to be updated and I am the one that has to do it. Living in this country is like living in a time warp to Americans. Half the stuff you buy doesn't come with a receipt, which means that you have to remember how much you spent on what items and record it when you get home. Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. So on Monday morning you have all these handwritten receipts that you actually did remember, and money missing out of the cash drawer that you can't remember where it was spent. So what do you do? You have a category in your accounting program that you have named "Miscellaneous," which translates "I can't remember what we bought with that, but God knows, and He isn't saying." At least all the large purchases come with a receipt, so if anything has to be repaired or replaced that is accounted for. Where you get into trouble is stuff like eating off the street. Giving a food vendor the equivalent of about $1 for your lunch meal, then going down to the corner store for your bottle of water, paying in cash for yourself and maybe a few others. Anyway, it adds up and by Monday morning you are in the hole for a few dollars with no receipts. Then there are the receipts that have no English words. You didn't look at it when it was handed to you, you didn't write on it what it was for, and now you sit wondering what it was for. Now is the time you call your translator. "OK, you bought a bottle of water, a rubber gasket, bananas, a phone card, and a giant fried bug to scare the girls in the office." All of this costs about $4. And it is not separated on the receipt as to how much each item was. Just a total for everything. It goes into the "Miscellaneous" folder which in this case translates into "ain't no way I can ever separate this out so it all goes into one big pile." You would think that bookkeeping around here is a little dicey and you would be right. So far, we have had 2 accountants tell us that we are doing fine with our records. Nobody, they say, can account for every penny. That is why there is a "slush fund," or that thing where all the coins go. I think that is what we are calling "petty cash." At any rate today is Monday and I had better get cracking with the bookkeeping. We leave Wednesday for the border. Another currency to deal with and the exchange rate changes each and every day. I should have paid better attention when we studied this in accounting class.

Screen saver Face

Today is Sunday. Attending a local church in a foreign country where you do not speak the lingo can be really tiring. BUT, I found a way quite a few years ago, to go on "screen saver." We were living in the Southern Philippines and were attending a large church in the city of Cagayan de Oro City. It is very hot in southeast Asia and this church did not have air conditioning. Right across the alley from the church was a high brick wall that all the taxi, jeepney and other public transportation drivers used to urinate. In the Philippines, the toilet is called the "comfort room" and public toilets were non-existent at the time, so this wall was known as the "comfort wall." When the breeze was blowing just right the smell was interesting. But I digress. Anyway, like I said, it was very hot and miserable and I was having a very hard time staying awake. So I just figured out a way to sleep with my eyes open. That way the preacher looking my way would never know that I was actually nowhere within a hundred miles. You know about screen saver. It looks like there is something actually going on, but in reality the computer is just resting with its eyes open. Hey, it worked for me at the time and I was able to fire it up again this morning just in the nick of time; after my head had bobbed forward once or twice, but before I fell out of my chair onto the floor. I use it when I am about to slip into a coma.

Sunday nights we have an English service at the church that is translated into the local language and mid week we have English services in our home, so we really are hearing the Word in our own language. I almost always stay awake for the English services. The mid-week service is followed by a "pot luck." Everybody who is in town brings a dish and we have a time of prayers, fellowship, and testimonies in addition to a message. This is a wonderful time of refreshing and letting everybody else know what we have been up to all week. There are 12 of us here at the moment, working in several different areas and we don't always know what is happening with each other until English service time. We have people coming and going much of the time and without this time, it would be hard to keep up with everybody. There are 6 churches represented by our group at the moment. A young man coming soon will make it 7. Another lady coming in October will still keep it at 7 because we already have 2 from her church here with us for another month or so. These folks are "short-term" missionaries who are able to take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months and come over and help us here. They are really making a difference and the sacrifice they are making is very much appreciated. Some take their whole vacation and use it up over here. Many of them come with no church financial support, but are here on their own, having scrimped and saved to get enough money to come over and help. They stay till the money runs and then they have to go home and go back to work. Their labor of love is not in vain. The Lord knows their heart and He is making it possible for them to come over and help us. We thank them and we pray that there would be more like them. In the eyes of the world, it is a very thankless job, but in the eyes of God and in the hearts of the people they are helping to reach with the Gospel, it is a job that will one day reap great rewards.

Ghost Town

My day started with a drive to Bangkok to visit Bumrungrad International Hospital. This is without a doubt in my mind the best hospital I have ever seen, been in as a patient or visited. It is more like a fine hotel and the care is incredibly good. The service and especially the prices are better than anywhere I have ever been. Today I had a consultation. I am going to live, Lord willing, and that's the end of the mornings activities.

For the last 4 years, I have looked across the Bangkok horizon and seen a set of sky scrapers that I have always wanted to see up close. During the Asian financial crunch back in the late 90's, many investors lost everything and many gigantic building projects were halted in mid-stride. This part of Bangkok was one of these places. This was a planned community with dozens of large office buildings and about 15 high rise condos that would have been very up scale if they had been finished and sold. Five of the high rises are just the hollow shells and the rest were at least finished and a few condos inside of them were sold, but for the most part, most of the apartments are empty. There are a few dozen occupied in each high-rise and the rest are just sitting there deteriorating. It is near a beautiful, small lake and park. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. A few people live there, but for the most part it is a ghost town within a city. Kinda creepy. That section does seem to be slowly coming back. A few of the bottom floors of the big office buildings contain small businesses and shops, and last year a new huge sports and events center opened up not too far from this place. There was even a big power plant that was built to service this place that is closed down and all the offices abandoned.

Bangkok is a huge and very modern city. It is not some Asian backwater dump. It has everything that you could find in a major city in the US. Big, upscale malls, shopping centers, museums, art galleries and everything else you can think of, including an outdoor drive-thru zoo, and an nice aquarium, many theaters, restaurants, recreation places, etc. I like to visit here.

A Typical Work Day

I woke up today just as the gray dawn was breaking. This is the time of morning when I like to pray. The house is quiet and still dark. It is a good time to spend with the Lord; before the loud voices of the day begin to lash you, and before the tyranny of the urgent tries to slaughter you. I like to wake up on my own. I don't like the jolt of an alarm clock. I like for my heart to start up slowly without adrenalin overload. I don't like to read the Bible in the early morning, though. I save that for after I am up and moving and have had coffee. I don't try to read something that I actually care about until I am fully functional and that usually hits a couple of hours after I get up; after breakfast and chores are done. And did I mention after coffee? Nothing intelligent can happen until after morning coffee. People who know me well usually don't talk to me as soon as I get up in the morning. They know it takes a little time for my sense of humor to kick in. And believe me, you need a sense of humor doing this kind of ministry. I don't see how people live who can't laugh.

Today's job was capturing video shot during one of our "border trips." I did that most all day long. It's amazing what you see that you don't remember seeing when you filmed it. We are all preparing for another border run this weekend. We have several folks (refugees) that we need to see in 3 different locations and the trip will be pretty hard on us. Beds here are stuffed with coconut husks. No, I'm not kidding. They are so hard that they are like sleeping on the ground. After each trip a therapist gets a tidy chunk of change to wrack us back straight again. And then there is always drugs, my favorite being Tylenol with codeine. That and about 12 hours of sleep in a soft bed usually does the trick.

Wedding Dress

Why do Christian ladies wear modest clothing every day of their lives and then on their wedding day put on a strapless gown? The wedding on Saturday brought this question up in my mind once again. Many of the Christian ladies at the wedding had on short and or low-cut dresses that they wouldn't have worn to a church service. What is with this? On the day that a Bride is representing the Bride of Christ, and should look chaste and modest, she is wearing something revealing and to me this is weird. The next day was Sunday, and the same ladies that were dressed in immodest clothes were back in their church clothes, looking decent once again. Does a wedding automatically shift us into another dimension where it is OK to look worldly? I am not the only one who is wondering about this, by the way. A co-worker thought the same thing. Glad I am not caught in the dimensional shift all by myself.

Wedding

Today we go to a wedding. I really don't want to go, but it is obligatory. It is a young couple who are members of the church we attend most of the time. Not only are we expected to go, we are expected to give the couple a considerable sum of money. In this country the groom has to give the parents of the bride a "Bride Price." It has to be the equivalent of $3,000 US dollars minimum and more depending on the negotiations the groom makes with the brides parents. This is one of the reasons that many couples do not marry until they are 30 years old or older and it is also why there are so many young women here with illegitimate children and no man in sight. At least the young man in question here has a very good job.

We have been to a couple of weddings in this country and they are fairly typical of Christian weddings in the US. The bride wears a white dress and the groom usually wears black. The vows are similar to the way we do them. I have never been to a Buddhist wedding, so I don't know how they work. I have been to a couple of Hmong Christian weddings and they are very nice. So today may be interesting. Or not. Just have to wait and see. More after the wedding.

One of "those" Days

Well, 9-11 came and went and America is still on the map. I am very thankful to the Lord for that. However, today was one of those days when the fact that you actually did wake up was the best thing that happened. It's been downhill from there. A loud jangling phone call jolting me awake before the morning alarm clock goes off. I hate it when that happens. Don't people remember that when it is day at their place it is night over here? Guess not, since it happens so often that we have started turning off our vonage internet phone at night. I figure if anybody dies in the night while I am sleeping, they will still be dead in the morning. If somebody is sick, or really in trouble they can use my cell phone and pay money to do so. The way I see it, if something so urgent happens that serious prayer is needed, people won't mind paying to use the cell phone. If, however, it is lame enough to only need free phone prayer it can wait till morning.

The next thing that happened as I slid deeper into frustration, was the computer. The person who invented the computer, either is now or will be soon, burning in hell. I've heard the question asked, "Is Bill Gates the antichrist?" I wonder... . I needed to work on some old files and Microsoft Word gave me some garbage about not being able to open my old stuff because of something. Time to call for backup. The geek arrived and did stuff. He didn't tell me what because he said he didn't want me to know, because it was too dangerous to try to fix on my own. Whatever. The old files now open and nobody died. Yet. But the day isn't over and if there is one thing I have learned, it's not to count your chickens till the fat lady sings. Or something like that.

The Trouble with Blogs

Just over the last few days since I began this new endeavor, I have found a singular problem with blogging. You feel obligated to write whether you have anything to say or not. I have always had a problem with people who have nothing to say, but say it anyway. Like the evangelist who has nothing to say, so he says it louder and with singing and dancing and swinging from the ceiling fan. Kind of like the circus, but without the tights and sequins. Yes, sometimes church can be quite entertaining. For entertainment I would rather watch a John Wayne movie and for laughs, an old rerun of the Beverly Hillbillies, but that is just me and I do understand that many folks enjoy "camp meetin'' antics. If everybody were like me the world would be really boring. They don't call me "the Cynic" for nothing.

God was very gracious to us yesterday. He halted a $40,000 printing project that had a major error in the text of the book. It is a project that has dragged on for many months and is finally coming to fruition. How we thank Him for His mercy and grace in allowing someone to catch this before it went to press. Some languages are easy. In some languages, Satan does not fight as hard to hinder. In this particular language, he is throwing a "ring-tailed fit." Pray for us, we need the prayers of God's people to get this language into print.

9-11 Another Day that will Live in Infamy

It is already September 11, where I am. In about 30 minutes it will be so in my country, the United States of America.

2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Dear God,
Our sins are many. Please have mercy on America today and everyday. Please deliver us from evil. Our own evil, sinful selves, as well as the evil that will come from without. Please forgive us our sins. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

The Problem is Not Money

The problem in missions is not money, unless, of course, you don't have any. You do need money, but all the money in the world won't solve the problem of not having any people to do the work. Bible colleges are full of young men and women that graduate by the hundreds every year and then you never see them again either working in Christian work or on the mission field. They surrender to "go" and then somewhere along the way they don't. How does this happen? Why do they end up in secular work or in many cases out of church altogether? In our ministry we have found 2 of the main reasons. Number one is Parents. Parents want their kids to get good high dollar jobs and have successful lives. They don't want them to struggle financially, physically, and heaven forbid, they don't want for them to be too far away from them, the parents. Parents say they want their children to serve God, but there is almost always strings attached. They want them to serve God as long as they do it close to home. They can serve God in their own home church, in their own home town, right here at home. BUT if they want to go to a land far from home, to a place that is hard, dangerous etc., immediately out come the excuses. "Bob has 6 kids that he needs to provide for, Joe has health problems that can't be handled anywhere but here in Chicago, Jane is a girl and what could she possibly do?" These excuses make me mad. The angry definition of the mad missionary.

The second problem is Pastors. The few who are serving God faithfully in their own home churches and doing a great job are often hindered by the very pastor who gets up and preaches a wonderful message about the call of God to the Mission field. Then when the youth leader surrenders to go to Timbuktu, the very same pastor has a meltdown. "You don't have enough training and the church needs you here. What will we do without you? Missions starts right here, in this church." El Gag-O.

There would be many more missionaries to do the work on the fields of the world if Parents and Pastors would kindly "GET OUT OF GOD'S WAY!!!"

Define "Mad"

The word "mad" can mean angry. It can also denote insanity. I am from time to time both, depending on who you talk to and at what time you talk to them. Most of my relatives think I am crazy. Crazy for living in a backward foreign country, away from family and friends. They don't understand that I don't want to live near them. We have a brick-wall relationship, so who is crazy here? Moving on...

I am Baptist, but don't let that scare you off. Jimmy Carter says he is a Baptist and we know what kind of a left-wing, liberal nutcase he is. I am a Republican. It is scary to be on the other side of the globe watching my country fall from within. How can Americans be so blind as to let a Muslim make it to Congress, let alone gain the nomination to the Democratic party. It is mind-boggling and can only be explained as spiritual deception as the end-times draw near.

We are living in an apathetic, cowardly time in the history of Christianity. Those of us on the mission fields are getting old and are not finding willing, young people to replace us, no matter how hard we look. Where are the men who will stand in the gap? There are more women on the mission fields than men. Why? Where are the men? We do thank God for the women, because they are doing what they can, and doing a good job of it, but WHERE ARE THE MEN?