Gecko Tales

Perspective is Everything

2009-03-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

“Man, he could sure use some spiritual or social sandpaper, varnish and polyurethane on his way of relating.” I’m sure this thought had crossed all your minds at one time or another as you have read my newsletters. Coupled with the fact that I do forestry and arboriculture very well on one hand, yet couldn’t build a birdhouse out of processed lumber if my life depended on it, attests to my lack of refinement in certain areas. Many of you, through my Gecko Tales and Musings have followed my journey and spiritual growth from 1992 to the present- many of you are pleased, curious, confused, disappointed and even ready to write me off. My NT Gospel’s Professor told me that the definition of snob is “someone who insists another person becomes like them, because they believe they think right and act right, over and above others.” I am not saying you are snobs but simply point out that my journey has been informed by fifteen years of serving in an impoverished country, an international community, and a fledgling Cambodian Church Community. Maybe I am a snob because I would like you become somewhat like me and have some of my perspective. After all, I am 100% American, 25% Cambodian, and 25% International. I am a 150% person. Does your perspective afford you the view of the world that I have? Jesus was a 200% person-100% Jewish and 100% God. His perspective was a Kingdom perspective, the big picture- Israel and the church for the world and the nations, not for themselves. Without a big picture perspective, we often get caught with tunnel vision. How does one gain the big picture perspective? I guess that is the point of most of my writings.

Over the years, generally seven types of people have responded to my newsletters and I wonder how some of these types of people can properly assess our ministry without having been in a war-torn, Southeast Asian developing country. Here are the types of people who typically responded:

§ The Doctrine Police

§ Homeland Security

§ The Offended

§ The Affirming

§ The Admonishing

§ The Generous Antagonists

§ The Challengers

The Doctrine Police always scan my Musings or newsletters for doctrinal deviation and can’t seem to wait to confront me and challenge me on the finer points of the law. Doctrine Police don’t offend me but sadden me. They usually rarely have anything constructive to say, and operate from a very legalistic view of the scriptures.

The Homeland Security folk operate in a similar way. They, like the Doctrine Police, miss all the great things God is doing through our family, and scan my writings for anything that may smack of unpatriotic sentiment. I have told people, I am NOT a patriot. I am a Kingdom citizen before I am an American citizen.

The Offended also scan newsletters for things to be offended about. They include the Doctrine Police the Homeland Security folk, but are also in class of their own. We have been dropped by two churches this year because people were offended over remarks that were ‘unpatriotic,’ or what they perceived as ‘liberal,’ or unhappy about my belief that social justice is an important part of God’s Kingdom agenda. Some of the ‘Offended’ are offended for justifiable reasons. I do, on occasions can be quite (unfortunately) insensitive, and often end up needing to apologize to those I offend unnecessarily. These people are gracious to forgive me and I appreciate their patience with me. It is a humble learning experience for me.

The Affirming are just that- affirming. The always look for and find the good things in my musings or our newsletters and are quite diligent and intentional to let me know. It usually takes about 10 affirming emails to counter the harm done from 1 email from the “Offended” or “Admonishers.” The affirming recipients don’t lack in confrontation skills, and have often confronted me in love, and helped me see myself when I have become proud or self-righteous. Those who are affirming know who you are and I applaud you.

The "Admonishers" are few but their comments have been so hurtful that they have often put me into a tail spin for days or even weeks. In my newsletter, I might be rejoicing how God is doing miraculous things but the "Admonishers" will search the Gecko Tales or my Musings to find something, no matter how minute, to correct. The Affirming confront with love, the Admonishers look to shoot the wounded, to be the experts, the ones who have all the answers, as if correct answers are more important than right praxis.

The Generous Antagonists are friends and colleagues who do not necessary share an evangelical Christian perspective or even a Christian perspective in general, but feel free to share their opinions with me. They don’t hold back and they are honest as to say what they think doesn’t jive with reality. They affirm what I do, but often question the motives or existence of the one I claim to have committed my life to and serve. I welcome their feedback, dialogue and even their passionate disagreements for they have known me at my worst and still accept me while many Christian Brethren only accept me if believe and act as they do.

The Challengers also include the Generous Antagonists and the Affirming. They challenge my assumptions about God, people, my methodology, my philosophy, my ideologies, theology, and character. They push me to rethink, and re-process many of the things I assume to be true, but have never stopped long enough to dig as deep as I should. They keep me sharp and help me to be more aware of my thoughts and actions.

Some of you might wonder, what is the purpose of this particular musing? Well, it might be good for people to know that God’s children in “full-time” ministry, especially ones that serve overseas, experience a myriad of stressful situations that you cannot possibly imagine (unless you been there and done that) as you try to see their situation through “contemporary American social lenses.” As someone has said, “perspective is everything.” Some of our strongest advocates, other than very close friends and family, are those who have had cross cultural experiences themselves. All in all, we want to hear from you, and although our view of this country might be difficult to hear at times, and our theology being informed by our experience may clash with yours, our perspectives, I believe are valuable for you, in order that you might expand your perspective on God’s agenda for the world. “The difference between leaders and followers is perspective. The difference between good leaders and great leaders is better perspective.” Most of you are leaders in some capacity and my hope is that your perspective becomes a glocal (global and local) perspective, a big perspective, and a Kingdom perspective.

Peace,

Brian

Warm Fuzzies on a Cold Rainy Monday

2009-02-25T06:21:00.000-08:00

Many of you know me from experiencing different angles of my life so some of you might not be all that familiar with the rugged logger-backpacker-tree climbing-tobacco chewing Brian of days gone by, but by you all know how unpolished and rough around the edges I am. In light of being the rugged individual that I am, I, on occasion, do get the “warm fuzzies.” Notice that everyone puts warm fuzzies in parenthesis when they write it?

I find myself driving around the greater Seattle area continually on just less than a quarter tank of gas in my 1991 Ford Explorer. As I monitor the gas gauge I subconsciously coach and urge the quarter tank to last as long as it can, but alas, it never listens. I get so sick up and fed looking at that quarter tank and nickel and diming it by putting ten to twenty dollars in the tank. The other day I was out of gas and money so I was forced to put $25 worth of gas on the credit card. Now I am experiencing the “warm fuzzies” as I see the needle pointing to just over half a tank. Don’t knock the “warm fuzzies.”

While living in Cambodia we had a cook-helper named Srey Neang who came from the provinces. She was about 32 and she had a short and very well natured husband named Phat. Because of the patronage mentality of the Cambodian people, Neang and Phat became like our grown children. They held us responsible for taking care of them and when we left Cambodia last year, we set them up with jobs for when we would be away but they fell through. I just heard that Srey Neang is working out well in her new job with the whole Kramm Family (missionaries with Pioneers) in PP, and Phat has two jobs now. This news made me very glad- a level which rises above that of the warm fuzzies. I don’t know if one can experience varying degrees of warm fuzzies, or if you just move right out of them into some other category of emoting.

Sunday I attended a debriefing for those members from the Seattle churches that support us who recently went on a mission trip to Cambodia. It was so rewarding to see how this group has grown and matured over the last 9 years that I felt a desire to write a case study on When Churches Get Short-Term Mission Right. I am waiting for someone to commission me to do the job. Attending that debriefing was quite a few degrees on the barometer above the warm fuzzies. I felt proud, proud to be associated with such a group of people.

Matt and I have been doing tree work on Saturdays and holidays. The differences between doing tree work in the Seattle area and Southern Connecticut is vast. Trees and shrubs do not have a dormant season. They grow year round and hence are much taller and bigger. Ok, so what else is new? The interesting thing is that in CT, people wanted perfect trees, and when an arborist or dendrician stepped on the property they had trees that had been trained properly and something to work with. In this area most people try to do it themselves first, then call the tree guy. I chuckle to myself because I now know what it is like to have been God when he created the universe “ex nihilo.” I get the “warm fuzzies” knowing that I can still climb and prune at age 51, and love every minute of it (once or twice a week is good).

Driving down 405 one can see on a nice day the snow capped mountains of the Olympic Range and the Cascade Range, and Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, etc., in a 360º ring around the Seattle area. It is difficult not to be impressed. With the weather like it is here, one may go about their business in a literal fog for days or even weeks, than all of a sudden, snow capped mountains just pop up to great heights out of nowhere. The warm fuzzies pale in the light of feeling an actual awe, as long as one doesn’t jump out of their skin and drive off the road when these monoliths simply appear out of nowhere right in front of you!!

I teach an Adult Sunday School class and I am the youngest in the class by about 10 years. I have discovered that I don’t feel the need to be an expert seminarian and deliver vast amounts of biblical content and lofty ideas to the class, but instead provide opportunities for class members to use and share their deep knowledge, their life’s experience, their talents and spiritual gifts with each other. I do guide and facilitate of course, but it is fun to discover new things together as a group. I feel I get more out it than my class members. We just have fun being the body of Christ and learning as very active participants.

Well I could ramble on but I have to head out to visit a tree nursery, then meet over lunch about bringing the Good News of the Kingdom in both word and deed to Cambodia. The tree nursery is warm fuzzies territory but discussing Kingdom business in Cambodia is more like the feeling you get when someone awards you a special privilege like giving you the key to the office that no one else has. Are you following me yet?

Live from Seattle,

The content of this “Musings” does not necessarily express the opinions and views of the whole family of Mercer Island Geckos, but solely that of the author.

Theology of the Great Santini

2009-01-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

Theology of the Great Santini

Lest you think I am plagiarizing Pat Conroy’s book, The Great Santini, I assure I am not. I am simply using the title of his novel as a metaphor for a number of different things. It might be that you boomers you never read the book but you surely saw the movie, and you pomos out there have probably read and seen neither- but I won’t hold that against you.

Who was The Great Santini? According to author Pat Conroy, The Great Santini was his Marine Fighter Pilot father who had served in Korea and now(at the 1967) was preparing to serve a tour in Vietnam, and who constantly had to move his family all over the eastern seaboard as he reported to new posts. I’m sure you can imagine how his family of seven children reacted when the Colonel came home and announced; “Pack up, were moving again. We’ll be on the road at midnight to make good time.”

The Colonel, usually in full dress, was competitive in everything, everything but academics and he wanted to make his boys in his own image and his way of doing that was to beat them, throw things at them, verbally and physically abuse them, and to tear their hearts out. When he beat his wife, Pat as a boy would jump on the Colonel’s back only to be swatted off like a persistent fly. Names like pussy, mama’s boy, weak, sad, you’re shit, you’re worth nothing, etc, were the words the of encouragement Patrick Conroy received from the Colonel when ever he tried something that required feats of strength or agility, like sports. He had to answer his father, “Yes, sir. No, Sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

For those of you who vaguely recall either the book or the movie, I need not go on describing the character of The Great Santini. I propose to you, ‘what did you feel when you read the book, saw the movie, or read my brief description above? Think about it for minute.

As it applied to me, years before I got married, I thanked God my dad was not The Great Santini even though his style might have been similar. I got my brain addled and my butt kicked a few times but I usually deserved it, and for the most part it was no where near a real Santini experience. On my part, I was every bit of the Great Santini to my younger brother who still shows the scars for it. Now married for eighteen years with children growing up in my household I ask; “Was I the great Santini? Or to what level was I the great Santini?” Unfortunately there were those times when I put on the colonel’s uniform and became The Great Santini to my children. There were times when I cuffed them, insulted them, verbally abused them, and times when I ground down their self-esteem with the heel of my jungle boot into the sand. Fortunately most of my The Great Santini days are over as I have learned to become someone else, but those days leave their scars behind with which I will have to deal with the rest of my life. A little bit of The Great Santini lives in all of us, no?

Pat Conroy was point guard on the Citadel Bulldog’s Basketball Team and averaged 25 points per game in his senior year. His coach was another The Great Santini type who destroyed his team through petty jealousies and his own insecurities, knowing that he himself would never be the famous college basket player he once was- therefore he went about ruining the potential professional careers of the Citadel’s Bulldogs Basketball Team players. Conroy majored in English and was also the President of the Honor Court, the editor of the school paper, and a major writer for the poetry club. His story of hazing during his plebe was just as full of a nightmare as living in the same house with the colonel- just a lot more of them.

We all have our Great Santinis in this life. I have had my share, thankfully most of them short-lived. It was The Great Santoni who dogged my soul and spirit, far across the oceans with betrayal, pettiness, game playing and uncalled for admonishment for close to fifteen years until I had realized I had given him the power to affect me like that. One day I just refused to give him power over me and The Great Santoni’s jabs and strikes withered up drier than a bone. He was done.

Sometime we have The Great Santinis in our lives who abuse us through mind games, through gossip, spreading of rumors, and through physical and verbal violence. Sometimes it’s hard to sort them all out. Life is full of them. Sometimes we’re akin to a pin pall rolling down through the life lines of lives bouncing off various forms of The Great Santini until we either get catapulted back up only to go through them again, or we luckily plunk into the whole on the bottom.

How does one overcome The Great Santinis of this life? How does one like Patrick Conroy overcome a life full of Great Santinis of all kinds stacked on top of each like cordwood? Conroy went on to write six excellent novels (most about his life) which were mostly best-sellers but not without a cost. He is on his third wife now, had dealt with severe lasting bouts of depression, and contemplated suicide a number of times (his brother committed suicide by jumping off a tall building and mental illness runs his generation of the family). He is a scarred man but somewhat fulfilled as well.

I recently saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire and couldn’t fathom how three children from an Indian slum in Mumbai made it through an unending maze of Great Santinis up until young adulthood. Actually, the real Great Santini would have been a blessing compared to the Karma parked on their front matts. How did they make it when no one, literally, was there to help them, only exploit them?

Another movie worth watching, Gran Torino, directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood visits the same storyline except in the form of a Hmong family in Minnesota who wants to keep their son from joining a gang. In this scenario, Clint Eastwood as The Great Santini neighbor next door, ends up comparing his cultural values with those of the Hmong family and finds his own American values out of whack. He changes over the course of a few months to take under his wing Hmong teenager who calls "gook" and "slope" who was forced to try to steal his car by the Hmong gang and Eastwood teaches the boy constructions skills, then only to lose his own life in the process of peacefully saving the young Hmong boy from a joining gang.

Our world is stacked with Great Santinis. So who are we? Are we the Great Santini to our children, our neighbors, our parents? Or are we on the receiving end? Have we gone through Santini’s like cordwood? What price are we paying to get our souls back again? It doesn't seem like the factory will not stop churning them out too soon. The onslaught may be great but some Great Santinis can change.

Pat Conroy wrote The Great Santini as an act of revenge on his father who had severely beaten all members of his family from the time Pat was a youngster to his graduation date at Citadel. The Great Santini read the book, The Great Santini, written by his son Pat and was cut to the quick. Of course some things were disputed, but by and large, he began to change, and he changed radically. Pat Conroy tremendously enjoyed the new relationship he and his father came to build between themselves over the last 15 or so years of The Great Santini’s life.

Change is possible no matter how much the odds are stacked up against us, or against someone else. It won’t be fun, it won’t be easy, you don’t have to like it, and it will be messy, but let’s get on with it as much as we can. And God uses to The Great Santinis of this life to shape us into who and what he wants to be. God’s shaping is never fun easy either, but it is the way he chooses. I don’t know any other way that Pat Conroy could have responded to God’s shaping through his father, coach and plebes in his short 21 years. Would I trade his fame and fortune for those experiences. A tough call!

Prisoners of Disobedience

2009-01-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Victor Frankel was wrong. Unless we go the through the very rigorous process of examining our cultural values and world view, and making the necessary corrections (a long process), we will never be free. God nor the Bible cannot set us free unless we agree to follow God in obedience into the deep, deep process of shaping that moves us along in our spiritual development until we reach a phase where we can hear Him granting us freedom from our cells of cultural captivity by engaging in a reworking of our enlightenment, modern and American cultural values and world view.

Brian

Listening to God?

2009-01-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

I began fasting once a week and I really don’t like it all that much but I feel the need to seek God more intently and intentionally as I tread the turbulent waters of marriage-family tensions, and financial pressures. About 11 am this morning I took a break and lay down upon my bed. I just lay there for awhile, enjoying the silence and thought about the concept of listening to God. I waited for God to speak to me in the deafening silence, but words came not, nor was there the thundering voice of God like Saul heard on the road to Damascus, or that still small voice that Elijah heard on the side of Mount Carmel, breaking into my cottage-like bedroom/office.

My mind wandered to a shabby Rhododendron I transplanted for my landlord. The plant was barely surviving as the roots had no where to grow, so they grew around the root ball making it a solid mass of circular dead-end roots. When I dug the hole for transplanting the “Rhodie” to a new location, I dug the hole rather wide, and then plopped in the root ball. I back filled my wide hole with the excavated soil so the roots would not hit a ‘brick wall’ of compacted soil when they began to grow out of the root ball. I bought some bone meal to apply as organic phosphorus which helps the roots grow out of the ball and into the surrounding soil. “Plant down your roots, you shabby shrub,” I commanded it.

My mind suddenly changed channels and I saw an image of the infamous Bonsai maple I agreed to root-prune for a friend. I pruned the roots a bit too drastically and the leaves withered, turned yellow, then brown, and the little Bonsai went into dormancy. It sits there in now in our house looking rather pathetic with its brown leaves, a few falling off here and there each day. I’m holding it for safe keeping until next spring when I bring it back to the owner.

Here I am one day, encouraging the roots of a Rhododendron to grow out of its bound up root ball into new soil, and another day root pruning a Bonsai Maple so the roots don’t grow out of the root ball.

I saw the Bonsai in my minds eye mocking me. I had pruned out the deadwood, crossing branches, and thinned it a bit, and even removed girdling roots, but that made no difference at all when looking at the dormant midget-maple with the crispy brown leaves hanging on for what seemed like dear life. The more I thought about it, the more I could relate to the poor little Bonsai. Over the last few years God has been doing a lot of structural pruning in my life, which, by the way is painful, but nothing like the root pruning he initiated in my life most recently.

I was thinking, “Gee, I feel rather dormant here isolated on “The Island.” Maybe I’ve gone into spiritual dormancy. Is there such a thing? And I might even look dormant to the general public. Oh, no! But, then again, dormancy doesn’t mean growing has ceased, does it?” Did God intend for me to go into dormancy in order for His severe root pruning to heal and grow below surface where no can see?

You may be wondering by now, ‘how do you know the Bonsai is dormant and isn’t dead?’ Good question. I mixed coffee grounds in the soil for organic nitrogen, and gave it the proper amount of bone meal for root growth, and water it regularly, but you’re right in thinking, “Well, you might be creating great soil conditions for a dead tree.” Well, my trick is to scrape a little bit of the bark off each week which exposes some very ‘green’ cambium. This gives me a hint tree is still alive and the roots are still functioning (what roots there are left). The more I though about it, the more my recent days seemed to reflect the plight of the Bonsai. Both of us are so severely shocked by root pruning, that we went dormant to heal and grow in deep places.

I began to wonder why God didn’t just didn’t transplant me into good, moist, properly structured soil, with all the right macro and micro nutrients where I could put down some healthy roots. Then I realized that God didn’t want me to sink my roots down to deeply. Just like the Bonsai, he wants to keep my roots pruned and from sinking them deep into any soil so that at any moment I can be plucked up and transported into the environment where he wants me. I am reminded once again that I am a stranger and alien in this land, that I am a pilgrim, a modern day global nomad, just passing through, looking for a place to pitch my tent.

When I took the Bonsai home from a friend’s house, I just lifted it up and put in the back of my truck, pot and all. There would be no transplant shock like the shabby Rhodie is experiencing now. It dawned on me that true freedom is found in being a pilgrim with the roots of one’s soul not anchored down deeply into any cultural or social soil, or not deeply entwined in any particular economic, religious or political systems and beliefs that would prevent a Jesus Follower from responding to the call of becoming a ‘glocal’ (global/local) nomad for the Kingdom of God.

I found myself thinking about spiritual transformation, and how that bible knowledge does not necessarily translate into more spiritual growth. In a similar way, it is the same with trees or shrubs-just because the soil may contain all the right nutrients, it doesn’t mean the root system can access them and cause the tree to thrive. Organic materials (grass, leaves, bark, woodchips, etc) need to be applied in order to transform the soil so that the roots are able to take up the nutrients. I began to see the difficult challenges I am experiencing these days as the organic material that God seems to be applying to the soil of my inner-life. The process of trying to respond positively to these challenges is similar to adding organic material to a plant’s soil. It appeared to me that “spiritual organic material” transformed bible head knowledge into a more experiential knowledge of God. The application of both physical and spiritual organic materials leads to transformation and growth. Both the key and the challenge to the spiritual transformation of the people of God are found in responding positively to God’s shaping activities, even if it is severe root pruning which few can observe by examining the exterior.

After all this day dreaming and musing about the Rhodie and the Bonsai, I realized that God had spoken to me.

Brian, reporting from dormancy

Plato's Cave

2008-12-31T19:06:00.000-08:00

Room with That?

Having recently been sleepless in Seattle, I am now sitting in Starbucks comparing the social structures and the way people relate to each other with the noodles shops of Phnom Penh. I miss the flies mating on the tip of my straw and the scraggily cats crawling through my legs underneath the table looking for scraps. Most of the cultural values reflected through social or non-social interactions here in Starbucks are individual freedom and the economics. Very to individual leanings and very low group as opposed to the noodle shops in Phnom Penh where anyone can pull up to a table and join in the conversation as I have done many times.

Starbuck's ever mindful of America's consuming and producing masses has created its very own cultural with its own culture values, freedom, individualism, privacy, and good quality high priced products. It even has a language of its own. "Do want room with that"? The first time I heard that I said; "No I won't be staying that long to need to rent a room." Starbucks arranges their atmosphere as a mix between of sterility and non-community, appealing to post-moderns but still acceptable enough to moderns and boomers. You will rarely find anyone from my parent's generation hanging around here.

I just happened to stop in here to use the wi-fi but it seems to be out all over the city. So I am actually missing the Cambodian noodle shops which have no wi-fi and where I can eat and have coffee for the less than the price of a latte. Plus once Cambodians find out I can speak their language, they engage in quite long conversations, unlike Starbucks where the value of person privacy is highly respected. My children hate it when I strike up conversations with perfect strangers. A friend, Dwight, noticed that whoever I talked to anywhere, I always seem to know someone they knew. That's fun of it. And that happens even in Seattle.

In Cambodian noodles shops I get to hold babies, too-the ones that aren't afraid my beard that is. Of course in Cambodian noodle shops you get the benefit of loud motorcycles and trucks going by as well as the famous Cambodian dust. The waitresses are often from provinces and see me as a novelty and we are able to banter back and forth with each other. They are sort of indentured slaves but not in a bad way. They have not yet caught onto the idea of sanitation but my bodily system is somewhat used to Cambodian germs by now.

This Starbucks is right near the U-Dub so it is filled with many Pomos who have big plans to make the world a positive place through technology, medicine, science health, etc, even in developing world situations. In Cambodian noodle shops, most Cambodians are between 30 and 60 and are wondering where and how they will find work and what the next large scale government abuse on the people will be. They shake their heads in mournful ways, lamenting the way the government has turned over fifty percent of the country to foreign investors and has wantonly used up all the nations natural resources, not to mention grabbing land from poor farmers and squatters. The leader's Swiss Bank accounts are bursting at the seams.

Seattle is a very diverse community where world events are not swept under the rug in exchange for sports scores and local human interest stories. I applaud the people of Seattle for this. I guess if I ever resettled anywhere it would be here but I still yearn for Cambodia, where life is not so sterile, and where people in spite of being traumatized by war and an authoritarian government, are still quite animated and alive. The Cambodian noodle shop is symbol of life, a life that is not squeaky clean, a life where smells, tastes, heat, and insects remind you that rubbing shoulders with others means true engagement with a culture that has no values that protect ones privacy or individual freedom. Right now I am surrounded by beautiful well meaning people but engaged by none of them. Such is life in Plato's Cave.

Reflections on a Short Term Trip

2008-12-31T19:03:00.000-08:00

Reflections on a Short Trip to Cambodia

It’s almost like I never lived in Seattle. Being in Cambodia was like existing between two differing states of reality. In some ways, it was like I had never left Cambodia and knowing that it would only be a two week stay altered my sense of the Cambodia reality even more. The life and ministry of my Cambodian and expatriate colleagues has carried on without me for the last seven months and that was ok. KEY felt more Cambodian and in a way that is both positive and negative. My expat friends looked a bit rough around the edges as the stress was piled up in heaps upon them. Some have called me to meet to let me know of their new spiritual leap into universalism and syncretism. Stress, burn-out and vicarious stress disorder meanwhile take their tolls. Other missionaries call to meet with me for advice about their future or strategies concerning ministry. It is strange being called the ‘old hand’ now.

I was invited to preach at a Cambodian church yesterday called Cornerstone. This faith collective is led by two of those I have mentored and one of my KEY staff personnel. There was no one there over thirty mainly because the church is informal, has rather contemporary music, is led by a group of 3 Christian leaders, rather than a sole authoritarian figure micromanaging the church. It has a real friendly atmosphere and is actually fun to attend-no status barriers exist as in this church as in the bulk of other Cambodia churches which are largely American imports. I was rather dismayed when I saw my staff person preaching in Sunday school when I arrived- he knows better! When I was on deck, I decided I would ask permission to organize the group in a circle, and share the word from a chair with the leaders sitting next to me. I often turned to the three leaders to interpret and reiterate what they thought I was saying, and often asked the participants (yes, they participated in the sermon) what they thought. In the end, I had each leader summarize my sermon. I did not leave room for a whole lot of passiveness. And it was fun. There 50 young people there with about 40 missing due to traveling to the provinces for the holidays.

Alana and Matt were along for the ride. I did not see much of Alana as she slept over friend’s houses quite a bit. Matt saved up quite a bit of money and eventually I did not see much of him in his prone position on a couch in front of the television which eventually became barricaded behind pizza boxes that were almost touching the ceiling. Members of the International Church who worked for the US Embassy allowed us to stay in their house which was extremely comfortable. What a stress reducer it would be to live in that house.

Since the couple using our house had to give it up due to an increase in rent, they stowed all our stuff at their house. I spent a few days sorting through it, re-packing it, and getting things Debbi wanted. Everything was in terrible shape as seven months with out use just seems to cause rapid disintegration. My motorcycle that Abe borrowed seemed to be in decent shape. Our car’s frame seemed be almost rusted through so the car and our stuff was sent off to the KEY drop in center. KEY will probably get the car as a donation as it will cost us too much to repair the damage of the last seven months.

Apart from a staff wedding, and the Diamond Program 1 and 2 Graduation, I spent the other half of my time catching up with both Cambodian and Expatriate colleagues. A lot noodle soup was consumed in the process- not to mention squeezing in treatment for a sinus infection and getting two crowns done.

It was nice to see that some of our former DP grads are picking up momentum toward putting human rights issues on the Kingdom agenda. I have to shake my head in wonder as some in the west have told me that this is a distraction in light of sharing the Good News. The Kingdom of God is found where justice and righteousness are found, and according to the Old Testaments God had a lot to say about his people who ignore the oppressed. The few Cambodian churches willing to take risks concerning human rights and which serve from margins are making Kingdom gains. When I speak in churches (usually not institutional churches) they always introduce me as the foreigner who went to jail to protest the incarceration of Sok Someoeun and Bon Samnang who were innocently jailed (4 years now) for the assassination of union leader Chea Vichea (they were finally released on Dec 31, 2008).

I left Cambodia still convinced that a focus on holistic development of emerging church leadership the way we are doing it can only lead to hope for the present and future. As I write this short brief, I am now sitting in soul-less Seoul after 13 hours waiting to board the final leg of journey back to Sea-Tac where I will be sleepless in Seattle for at least a few nights. I am looking forward to seeing Debbi and Jordan, and to give some good reports to the Seattle churches concerning their investments in God’s Kingdom initiatives in Cambodia.

Brian

Agents of Change??

2008-08-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Agents of Change?

Often, we as followers of Jesus we are encouraged to become agents of change or agents of transformation. Both terms are couched in the context of God’s Kingdom agenda which integrates word, deed, life and sign. All around the world there are pockets of faith collectives who have centered their lives on following Jesus and who are bringing integrated change to people and communities. What is it about these people that enable them to bring change?

Change is perpetual and gives rise to both problems and opportunities. Every solution we apply to a problem perpetuates further change and again creates different problems and again, more opportunities. By solving problems, we create new realities. As Heraclitus wrote, “Nothing endures but change.” Management Guru Dr. Ichak Adizes would say; “Since change is here to stay, problems are here to stay….Forever!” I agree with Dr. Adize’s belief that change is life, and as long as we are alive we will have problems. And the corollary here is that dead things are not plagued by change so the livelier one is the more problems they are likely to have.

Philip Jenkins in his book The Next Christendom, The Coming of Global Christianity, traces the decline of Christianity in the Northern Hemisphere and notes the rapid growth of the church in the Southern Hemisphere. Commissioned by Jesus as agents of transformation, how can we as a faith collective be in decline or slow death? Those who are surviving and who are alive are those who have learned to manage change well. Those who manage accelerated and complex change well in this age are the ones who make the right decisions and implement them the fastest.

The problem for collectives of Jesus followers is not change, but the acceleration of change. And with change comes problems at faster and faster rates. This and the fact that Christian leaders over the age of 45 tend to plateau and cease to interpret and analyze cultural trends and the effects they have on both society and faith collectives. Many of us Jesus followers dread change because it brings problems and problems bring stress and today we feel overwhelmed and inundated because of the accelerated rate of change. We experience and try to deal with this accelerated change in all parts of our personal lives and when it comes to church, we feel too drained to continue to manage and deal with change so church often becomes a haven of past traditions where we can lay down our weary souls.

We need to implement change at the same rate it comes down the pike to us. We cannot slow change. Right now we need to understand that the lion’s share of our expression of church is a cultural construct and much of what we do in Jesus’ name is done in the name of tradition that stems from cultural influence from the good ole’ days gone by, rather than the Bible. The very modernism J.Greshem Machen fought so hard to protect the church against at the turn of the century is the very thing that ended up molding America and the church in ways Machen could not have fathomed. How much is our expression of church is modern and how much of it is Biblical. I think we would all be quite surprised to find out the truth, and how just how much we are prisoners of culture.

Jesus understood the culture he ministered in, and if we are to be as relevant as Jesus was in his culture than we need to first realize that our culture is now going through a large paradigm shift and those who were born after 1964 have very different culture values and perspectives than the boomers (who are institutional church friendly) and those from the World War II era. The message doesn’t change but the medium needs to.

The challenge the leadership of our faith collectives faces today is not only to manage change, but to lead accelerated change in the face of accelerated change, and stay together while doing it. Leaders need to prepare Jesus followers to learn how to undergo change and re-integrate it into the system on a consistent basis. A missional compass will be of great help in making the right decisions and implementing them in beat with rapid changes that confront us each moment of each day. Leaders need to return to their jobs of cultural interpretation and lead us out of cultural prisons of disobedience to become the cultural pilgrims and sojourners Christ calls us to be. It is then that change won’t be chains.

“Reasonable men adapt to their environments, unreasonable men try to adapt their environments to themselves.” George Bernard Shaw

Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom, The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002.

Adizes, Ichak. Managing Corporate Lifecycles: how to get and stay at the top. Prentice Hall Press, Paramus, NJ. 1999

Tearing Down Sacred Place

2008-08-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Tearing Down of the Sacred Places

Two years ago my brother and I were forced to sell my parent’s house in Connecticut because they were getting to the age where doing stairs was extremely difficult. We took ten grand off the going price and it sold in a week- and that was that. But ‘that wasn’t that.’ Far from it. Every night for a full year both of us had various dreams about the house we grew up in. In my dreams I was always returning home only to find the woman who bought the house in my kitchen. I always had to profusely apologize for barging into her kitchen without knocking. Another scenario that plays out is my parents were still living there, waiting for the new owner to move in. Last month, I dreamt that I was traveling from a long distance and ended up at 10 Chestnut with all my bags and I wanted to check on my tree climbing equipment in the garage because I planned to do a few jobs to support myself when I realized the house was no longer my parent’s. There were strangers in it, and the garage didn’t have my equipment. I was thinking to myself, “I have no where to go, what will I do? I’m tired of traveling and need to rest right now.” How will I support myself without my equipment?

While mulling over these dreams, it dawned on me that I had been grieving the loss of a sacred place that was overflowing with historic memories of my life and the life of my family. I was intimately familiar with every inch of that house and yard. My parent’s house and I had an intimate and enduring relationship that abruptly ended, only to live on in my mind. It reminded me of being on the wrong end of an intense break up. I feel that I am still mourning the loss of that sacred place and I can relate to Neil Young’s “Helpless” where he sings of similar mourning;

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

My musing is not about the nostalgic mourning of ‘the good ole days, but of the passing of a sacred place that gave me a feeling of well being, comfort, and security, and which also served as a marker to my existence. But now the chains are locked and tied across the door and I mourn that.

When I was just 18, our summer cabin on Lake Zoar was torched by an arsonist. This place, in middle of the forest with no other houses within half mile was an extremely sacred place. This is where I first met God, not in a church building, not through his word, but through his world. I remember as a very small boy standing on the top of set of very steep stairs made of cinder- blocks, cement and rocks. Red Cedar pole railings hemmed in the long steep descending steps that led out onto a retaining wall that my father built from which we often fished. On early mornings I stood at the top of the steps, holding on to a pipe railing painted forest green waiting for the sun to come up over the ridge across the lake, and when it did, the lake would dance brightly with thousands of sparkling sunlit wave caps which like a moon beam on the water danced right to the bottom of the steps. Standing in my sacred spot next to our cabin which was ensconced in towering green hemlocks, drops of dew trapped in many intricate spider webs stretched out between ferns glistened as the first few rays of the sun broke over the ridge. A gentle zephyr blew in off the lake, and with it pleasant smells of fresh water, earthy smells of decaying forest floor, and strong coffee being brewed up in the kitchen. The distant sound of a fisher man’s far away outboard reverberated up and down the lake, joining the cacophony of early morning songs of sparrows, chickadees, cedar waxwings, bluejays and squawking of ravens. The exhilarating sensation of depth perception (looking down the long steps to the sparkling water through the hemlocks) completed an experience of a full sensory stimulation. I felt so fully alive and in complete awe of life itself. It was truly a spiritual experience. I was able to recapture those exceptional moments over the next few years but they began to wane in intensity as I grew older.

I did not know how to, or even see the need to mourn the loss of that sacred place at the time, as I was a senior in high school with so many parties to go to, and track meets to run, etc. Occasionally my brother and I would hike up to the site of our former cabin where you can still make out the foundation. We don’t stay long but we paid our respects. The chains are locked and tied across the door.

In 1968, I was introduced to another sacred place. It was a Boy Scout camp called Camp Toquam in northern Connecticut. It had a steep trail down to the water front that meandered down through a Northern Hardwood forest, and just smacked of mystique. The adventures, the exploring, and the camaraderie with other scouts made it a magical and mystical place. I spent many a weekend campout there, went to summer camp for five summers, and even worked on staff during the summer of 1973. Toquam was not only a sensory experience, it was a social experiment as well as I met scouts from a neighboring city who were Jewish, African-American, Asian and Latin American (my scout troop was from an all white town). That in itself made it in an extra sacred place. In 1975, the same year my first sacred place was burned out, our council sold my beloved camp in a merger. It is now a declining and unkempt piece of property belonging to the State of Connecticut, used for occasional outdoor training for juvenile offenders. I was so angry I vowed never to have anything to do with scouting again. I was more alive in my sacred places than I ever was in church buildings, and I wondered why God was dismantling my sacred places and locking and tying chains across their doors.

I had back up sacred places though, and they were particular routes, or campsites on the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut and southern Massachusetts that I found from back 1968 when I first started backpacking. Bit by bit, the trails became over crowded, empty campsites were difficult to find, and the high density impact on the environment took its toll. The sensory experiences of being in nature, the mystique and magic of the Appalachian Trail began to all but disappear.

Thousands of miles across many oceans, I often daydream about my sacred places. In the beginning, Cambodia had a few semi-sacred places but with the forest all cut, and the rapid development of anything natural for tourism, there isn’t much hope left for finding a sacred place. And, as Neil sings;

in my mind I still need a place to go

When I ponder my dilemma of being bereft of sacred places, especially with the selling of the house I grew up in, I feel, in a sense that I am truly homeless in this world - that I am just a wanderer, a pilgrim, or alien, and I am reminded of these verses in Hebrews 11:13-16:

All these people died having faith. They didn't receive the things that God had promised them, but they saw these things coming in the distant future and rejoiced. They acknowledged that they were living as strangers with no permanent home on earth. Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for their own country. If they had been thinking about the country that they had left, they could have found a way to go back. Instead, these men were longing for a better country-a heavenly country. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has prepared a city for them.

I mourn the dismantling of my sacred places as places where I met God and experienced a taste of a heavenly country. But like Jacob who wrestled with God and tried not to let him go, it might be time to let my sacred places go, and see them not as places that are like long lost shrines, but as God given glimpses into his promises that will unfold in the distant future. The feeling of being a global nomad with no permanent place is not an easy or comfortable feeling but my God afforded glimpses through past sacred places gives me a better feeling for the coming Kingdom and helps me to see perseverance as worthwhile.

Easter Reflections on Jesus

2008-03-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

A friend recently sent me Jim Elliot’s famous quote which I read years ago, and which I often stumble across.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

It reminded me of another pithy statement I read a few weeks ago but I can’t remember where but it went like this, “

“Many Christians today invest most of their time and money into making sure they have a comfortable death and in the process, they miss most of life.”

Here in Cambodia, the hot season has arrived in full force and we are all wilting. River levels are really low and hydro-electric power is at its lowest. Because of this, the city cuts off electricity in certain districts on a rotation basis. In hindsight, it would have best to have rented a house near a high ranking general or politician-they rarely lose power. Last night we lost power for 6 hours from 6-11 p.m. and it was hot. Lying there in the heat, I had some time to think about the life of Jesus, and how he became human in an era where there was no electricity, no air-conditioners, speedy transportation, paved roads, friendly skies, fans, screen doors, indoor plumbing, heating, sanitation, modern health services, vaccinations, and skilled doctors who can heal us, etc. Lying there I could imagine Jesus and his band of rag tag followers on bitter cold nights and during the hot dusty days along the roads of Ancient Palestine-being anything but comfortable. I imagined the blistered and dirty feet of Jesus, insect bites on his arms and legs, and his sweat mixing with the windblown dust. Jesus, as a carpenter most likely worked with construction gangs on Herod’s grandiose building projects with no port-a-pots, and a bunch of surly characters coming in hung-over and boasting about their exploits with local prostitutes. Jesus was no stranger to dangerous work and the ways of hard living men. I imagined it would not be comfortable for anyone of humble means to live in such an era.

Jesus and his disciples walked over all Ancient Palestine so they must have had plenty of time to discuss and reflect deeply on Jesus’ life and teachings. They had little to distract them other than wondering where their next meal was coming from, where they could relieve themselves, or when they could rest from their daily journey and wash their dusty and calloused feet. I wonder how often they counted the cost, and wondered what they had gotten themselves into, especially during the time of Jesus’ arrest, beating, and crucifixion.

I have been teaching teen Sunday school at the International Christian Fellowship and we have been finding metaphors for the unique person God created us to be, the Church, for Christians, and Jesus. Metaphors or words to describe who the earthly Jesus was that don’t readily come to mind were; exile, refugee, expatriate, homeless, radical, revolutionary, political, servant, suffering, sacrificing, risking, existential, irresponsible (staying at the temple, turning over the tables), out of the box, nomadic, counter-cultural, outcast, ostracized, confrontational, broke/poor, rural, peasant, heretic, change agent, and a boat rocker.

It came to me that Jesus didn’t just come and take on the nature of us humans to simply experience human existence, but freely agreed to become all of the earthy Jesus metaphors above in order to fully experience the breadth of the human existence, the depths of the worst of the human experience, and the demonstration of new paradigm of living for God’s new multi-racial family.

Metaphors or words describing the earthy and earthly Jesus show me that Jesus intentionally placed himself on the margins of society in order to identify with outcasts of society, and from that status and position the bulk of his public ministry took place, even as he dialogued with Joseph, Nicodemus, Zaccheus, the Rich Young Ruler, Pilate and the Sanhedrin. One of his last conversations on this earth was with a thief.

And in his last few days on this earth, he not only expressed it verbally, but he modeled to his disciples through the washing of their feet, and the breaking bread together with them, that the way he lived, his teaching and his death were examples for us all to follow. As I considered this, I began to see how God had shaped my life from the beginning, never allowing me to become an expert in any one field. I was always being thrust into new learning experiences (student, forester, surveyor, Christian educator, student, arborist, missionary and student) where I would have to start at the bottom of the ladder as learner again. On the bottom rung of the ladder there are always outcasts, those who had born into dysfunctional families or into adverse situations, those who had no encouragement, no advantages economically, socially or educationally. They are the grunts of society, of whom I have shared a deeper sense of community because of the risks we took together in the type of work we did. As I meditate on the life of Jesus, I see how far down the ladder he climbed, and this is the example he left us. I find myself gravitating toward climbing up the ladder but as I follow him, I always end up on the bottom rungs, again and again. What does this mean?

Early this Saturday morning I was off to team-teach with Seila at our Diamond Project 2 class. We enjoyed 4 straight hours of power. When I got home at 12:30 pm, the power in our house immediately went off. More time to meditate on how uncomfortable the heat, sweat and noisy building projects (building huge house only meters away from ours) made me. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable God was in our skin. Hot, dusty, sweaty, itchy, ragged, tired, sore and irritable at times. There was no doubt Jesus was physically uncomfortable in many instances during his earthly life, but he was also uncomfortable with sin; especially the effects of sin on powerless people such as widows, orphans, aliens, slaves, and the working poor. The majority of Jews living in Jesus’ time were working poor with no clout or power to protect them from being fleeced by the powerful elite. Jesus looked on these sinners with compassion and the sinners using the religious, economic, and state apparatus to oppress others, with contempt.

It is ironic how Jesus was comfortable eating with sinners and tax collectors whose personal mores were a mess, but rather confrontational with those who maintained high outward morality while bilking the powerless through the economic, religious and state systems. It is ironic because we would rather have Jesus be uncomfortable hanging out with ‘bad people’ because too many Christians live comfortably earning livelihoods from institutions that profit off the poor and powerless (Now Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth).[1]

I have no trouble believing in the Resurrection, but the bottom line is that Jesus makes me uncomfortable. His teachings make me uncomfortable. His call on my life makes me uncomfortable and the metaphors or words that we found above that describe him make me even more uncomfortable. Why? Because they describe the type of follower or disciple he is recruiting. Jim Elliot lived out the truth of his famous quote. He gave up what he could not have kept to gain something he couldn’t lose. The issue isn’t whether we believe the resurrection is true or not, the issue is how we believe it is true. Do we believe in it in such a way that it makes us uncomfortable with the sacrifices Jesus calls us to make in our way of living and being, or have we become adept at building a theological house of cards that can temporarily support a rationale for a life void of the gritty Jesus Metaphors while claiming that the Resurrection makes a difference in our lives?

What claim does the Resurrection make on our lives

[1] Sweet Home Alabama, Lynrd Skynrd.

Reflection of an Emerging Church Leader

2008-03-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

March 8^th, 2008

By Hourn Kim Suong (male age 26)

Two years ago I heard on VOA about the forced eviction of the squatters in ‘Sambok Chap’ on the riverside area of Phnom Penh, and about then their dejection and loneliness after their resettlement in Andong, 20 kilometers from their former homes. This made me upset and but I was far away in Banteay Meanchey province. I made an effort to listen to radio reports about ‘Sambok Chap but after a while I lost interest. Later when I became a Diamond Project 2 student, we went to Andong Resettlement Village for an exposure trip to interview the villagers about their lives and hardships in their new resettlement location. God refreshed my heart and touched my spirit again, in order that I might reconsider the plight of these people. God gave me a new opportunity in seeing their squalid living conditions with my own eyes. God gave me a second chance to consider what God he had placed on my heart for these people two years ago. Upon seeing their living conditions, I felt sad and empathetic. Their houses were all made of thatch and placed so close together they looked like bananas in a bunch. It reminded me of how when it rains mushrooms appear very quickly, just overnight. Buildings in the city grow up quickly as well, but are made of solid building materials. Sambok Chap squatter’s houses are more like soft and fragile mushrooms because they are little temporary shacks like the ones that a farmer lives in to guard the rice fields during harvest time.

The smells of the muddy open sewers running down the paths between the rows of houses from this village are hard to stand for more than a short while. My female DP 2 partner ended up getting sick into the open sewer outside of the house of the family we were interviewing, because the smell of the open sewer was too much.

I asked myself, “Is this a place where people should live? How long can they put up with living in these conditions? How do they live in these conditions? What hope do they have at all? What about their health in the future? Who cares about these people?”

When we entered the village, and then the house of the family we interviewed, there was a five month old baby girl who was sleeping in a hammock. After that, a 30 year old man came in and he greeted us in the traditional Cambodian way. He asked us to sit down a bamboo bed and make ourselves comfortable. He told us his name was Bontheun and he owned the house. He told us his wife was very sick and he did not have the finances to help treat his wife’s ailment, but his brother in law helped take his wife to a far away province for treatment. He was left alone with his 5 month old baby daughter. It has been three months since she left, and since then has heard nothing from her. He waits every day for his wife and is diligent to take care of the baby, buts hopes his wife will return soon. Other people have offered to take his baby girl to raise for him as they have seen his predicament. His biggest problem is not being able to leave to go work and earn an income because he is busy watching his baby daughter. Ever since they were evicted from the riverfront, they have been miserable without have water for bathing and sanitation. Bonthuen has been able to catch some fish nearby to sell in order provide him and his daughter with some food. No one from the government has expressed even the slightest interest in them.

Then we went to visit another family’s house. We met another 30 year old man named Sophoin. Even though he greeted us with a big smile, we knew he was suffering on the inside. He told us he could not do manual labor because he recently broke some of his ribs, and he was a construction worker. When he lived in ‘Sambok Chap’ village on the Phnom Penh riverfront area, he was the one who provided for his family of nine. Now this burden has fallen onto his wife and his oldest daughter of 17, to be the bread winners. “My wife sells clams in Phnom Penh, and my daughter works in a garment factory.” Back in Sambok Chap, at least he could make a living, and in Andong during the rainy season the whole place floods and is always muddy. During the flooding his wife was having a baby and he told us that their roof leaked and they were miserably wet until some Christians came along and built them a new thatch house which has helped their health situation. “If the Christians didn’t help us, we don’t where our health and sanitation problems would have led us.” We talked with Sophoin until a 50 year old woman came in and began to talk with him. She was a widow neighbor by the name Kun Seng who sat down next to Sophoin, and she told us she her living situation was destitute when she was first evicted and plopped down in the rice paddies now called Andong. It is very difficult to sell her cakes in this area as opposed to in the city where she used to work before being evicted. She takes a motorcycle taxi back and forth to the city but the traveling expense eats up all her profits. She also said that she has received a lot of help from Christians; a new thatch hut, food, mosquito nets, and blankets, etc. If Christians did not help, she would be so much worse off. “The government threw us away like a bag of garbage into this dump and it is affecting our health and livelihood. If there were bathrooms, a good well, and opportunities to learn skills, it would really make our lives much easier.

The difficulties I have faced throughout my life in mind seemed like big ones, but compared to the people living in Andong, my problems are miniscule. When I experience problems, I am discouraged, but I can only imagine how these discouraged and depressed these people are. This experience of interviewing these two families causes me to think about them a lot because I have always had enough to eat, and a decent enough place to stay, etc. I also think about those in power, are they able to help these people and how? And why aren’t they helping? Are these people who are in power my neighbors? When I entered this village of the ‘poor in spirit’ I was sort of embarrassed and hesitant because I did not have even a little gift to give them. I felt bad when I saw their condition and how they needed help. I did not look down on them, and I also felt that they were not seeking power but to just improve their living conditions. They were out of hope, and not having much food to eat. I saw the children outside the resettlement area appealing for food from the pre-existing villagers but they did not help them, but instead looked down on them. The pre-existing villagers abutting the Andong resettlement village built high brick walls, put up concertina wire, and erected big signs that said, “Do Not Enter, Danger.” The existing village rejects them and does not want to help them at all because they bear the stigma of being poor. These people just need someone to help meet their basic needs of food and health, teach them some life skills, and help them income generation projects.

I did not think of them negatively, for what would I do if I were in their place? One question I asked myself; “Is God working here or not?” Psalms 146: 7-9 says; “God will mete out justice for those who are oppressed. God will give food to those who hunger. God will release those who are captive. God will open the eyes of the blind. God will lift up the humble, and raise them up tall. God loves the righteous. God protects and lifts up the aliens, orphans, and widows, and God will destroy the way of the wicked.”

What I have seen with my own eyes concerning the villagers according to this verse is that they are able to receive true hope that comes from God. I have learned about God’s compassion and mercy toward the poor and oppressed of Andong. Even though a number of them do not yet know who Jesus is, God is using the good deeds of his servants working in the village who help them when they have no hope. When society rejects them, the Christians serving here care. That shows that God accepts them and this gives them hope. They can see the character of our God which is displayed clearly among them through the good works of his servants here. I have heard them say, “Christians are the ones who have helped us, they have built houses for us, given us food, they have come to visit us; all this showed me that God is working among them through the various means of his servants there. Even though they lack a lot of things, they have received a special encouragement from God. One person told me with a smile that things have changed for the better since he first arrived. He now has a new thatch house, encouragement, and people to come visit him from the group of servants of God in the village.

When I left the village, I knew that Jesus’ presence was there, and that he was fulfilling his mission there. Jesus is with those ‘poor in spirit’ people. I want to take a part in helping the villagers of Andong. Although I do not live near their village, the work of what God is already going on there. My broken heart for them, my prayers, and helping those who serve God there, helps me have a part in God’s work there, even though I have no physical resources to help them. Most importantly, do I have compassion toward them? Will I pray for them? Can find some help for them from others for both their physical and spiritual needs, especially for helping them find ways for the children to study and go to school? Can I find help for the children that they can be lifted from the emotional burden of what their parent’s dysfunctional living situation has put upon them?

Therefore, from now on I will start to strengthen my personal spiritual formation through adding the element of compassion that gives my service to God more potential and more effectiveness. Feeling empathy for them makes me want to be more involved in their lives. This is one way for them to see the love of God through action and mission. Though I have no physical resources to give, I can help through the capacity that god has given me by telling others abut the needs of this poor group of villagers in Andong.

I know that God truly has a plan for the former people of ‘Sambok Chap’ who are now living in Andong. This plan starts with me, then my brothers and sisters in the faith, as we partner together to fulfill the mission has been started in Andong. We especially need to make a concentrated effort to gather together and pray regularly for Andong Village through an enduring heart of love.

Looking After Widows and Orphans

2008-03-21T02:51:00.000-07:00

I am sure you are sick of hearing about Diamond Project Level 2 but I am going to go on anyway. Just to remind you, Diamond Project Level 2 has 23 students who have about an average of 5 years ministry experience. There are both ‘full-time” emerging leaders and those emerging leaders who run a ministry in their churches in addition to their work or studies. About one third of the DP 2 students are women. We meet every Saturday morning from 8 am to 12 noon. During the week, small groups meet for prayer and discussion of last week’s class or next week’s class. I have them meeting in coffee houses or tea shops, etc; so that they are taking the church to the people on the people’s own territory. People are already starting to take interest.

For the month of February, Rob, a former missionary to Japan, came and walked them through ‘Focusing Leaders’ which helped the DP students to examine their life histories to see how God had been shaping their leadership development in order help them gain a focused perspective of where and how God will lead them in the future (more about Rob in another letter). This first Saturday of March we began block 2, “Leaders and Personal Spiritual Formation.” Two vans picked up the DP students at our Teen Drop-In-Center for an exposure trip to Andong village which is about 14k west of the airport. I rode my dirt bike out there eating dust and dodging cows the whole way. It took me about 35 minutes from our house in Phnom Penh. Before I left, I had this conversation with Jordan:

Dad: “Jordan, wanna come to a village with me?”

Jordan: “How many days does it take to get there?”

Dad: “No days, just about 45 minutes by motorcycle.”

Jordan: “I’m already going to a village with my school.”

Dad: “What village.”

Jordan: “We are going to Kirirom and camping out with my class.”

Dad: “That’s a national park and resort, not a village.”

Jordan: “No, it’s a village.”

Dad: “Jo, it is place where people go to swim and hike in the forest.”

Jordan: “Oh, well….um, what village are you talking about?”

Dad: “This is a re-settlement village where there are lots poor people.”

Jordan: “Thanks dad, but I already made plans for today.”

I arrived about 45 minutes before the vans, and chatted with Pastor Abraham. The DP students arrived shortly and we had a short time of worship, and then Pastor Abraham gave his story of how God called him to minister to the poorest of the poor. He told us how that when he was a younger Christian, he was a part of Campus Crusade’s New Life church where he was in charge of a ministry to Executives and Professionals until he read James 1:27

"What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world."

This verse changed his whole philosophy of ministry, and shortly after when he heard about the plight of these squatters who were forcibly evicted from valuable riverfront property in Phnom Penh in 2006, and plopped down in a rice paddy 20ks from Phnom Penh with no water, sanitation, etc., far from their source of work, he made his decision. Eight hundred families were now living in shacks made of tarps and rice sacks. Abraham’s wife began to work for a Christian Dental clinic to support him as he went to minister among the evicted squatters.

After Abe’s talk on his calling and a history of Andong Village, I gave the DP students their instructions:

Go two by two, each person interviewing an Andong villager.
Do not preach, do not evangelize, just LISTEN and write.
Come back to Abraham’s Church for re-hydration and debrief:

Assignment: Reflection Paper

What was their story?
What part touched your heart?
What has changed in your life as a result of this experience?

Small group meetings this week

Discuss: “What does this interview exercise have to do with Personal Spiritual Formation?”

You may be asking what kind of missionary would tell his disciples not to evangelize. We should fire this guy!

It was a hot hour in the village and when we were done, I walked back a young man from Young Life who told me, “In 2006, when I heard on VOA what happened, I cried for these people and I prayed that someday I could visit and be able to help them. Today God answered that prayer.”

We met back at Abraham’s for a short debriefing where the students themselves suggested taking an offering for the children of village, which we did. I asked two people to share briefly about their experiences. Another young man gave exactly the same story about listening to VOA but he heard on the broadcast that there was a Christian presence in Andong so he rejoiced in that.

One young lady shared:

“I interviewed an elderly lady whose story was filled with struggle, sadness, and grief. She lived a life of hopelessness. When I was concluding the interview, she brightened up a bit and said; “But Jesus did build this here roof over my head for me.”

This exercise of finding the heart of God through listening to the voices of the poorest of the poor is more than an academic lesson in following all the right procedures for personal spiritual formation. It is a conversion. The DP students were converted by not-yet-believers! They were converted in a similar way in which Pastor Abraham was converted. God spoke to Pastor Abraham about his heart for the poor through scripture, and God spoke to the DP students about his heart for the poor through the voices of the poor themselves. Catching a glimpse the heart of God is powerful spiritual transformation. A.W. Tozer once said, “God speaks to the person who is listening”

Brian reporting live from Cambodia

Who’s Afraid of Post-Modernism?

2007-10-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

The challenge western churches are facing today concerning the emergence of Post-Modernism is much deeper than weighing the two world views and selecting the best of both. It is being able to grasp the big picture that is still unfolding before our eyes which is one of the greatest opportunities in the last two thousand years. The waning of modernism as the most influential world view of the western world and church, and the advent of Post-modernism is signaling not only the death of Christendom, but the dawning of new opportunities, something that should be celebrated. Post-Modernism is not a monster and it is not a savior, but rather new opportunity from God to re-shape the church by making it relevant to not-yet-believers. Those being awakened to this unique window of opportunity in the history of Christianity and the challenges it brings are similar to the characters in the film Matrix who wake up and escape from a programmed false reality only to find that their minds have been completely controlled, similar to one living in the pseudo reality of Plato’s Cave who finds a way to venture out in the real world, only to be blinded terribly until his/her eyes adjust to see the real world around them. Am I saying that Post-Modernism is a way of seeing reality that is clearer than modernism? No. I am saying that it has provided us with a reason for re-thinking our prevalent modern world view, its influence on the church, and the way we have been doing church since the time of Constantine. Post-Modernism in many ways is an intensification of modernism in areas of autonomy and freedom and dovetails with modernism in valuing self-sufficiency, and a commitment to naturalism, but there are many overlaps with the Christian faith which cannot and should not be ignored (and should be encouraged) especially in the area of epistemology.

The often irrelevant western institutional expression of church today is the result of a double whammy; a church informed by modernism, built on the premise that church and state should be yoked together as the two pillars of society. Now marginalized by society, the church is working hard to reverse this gift from God. Modernism has negatively influenced the church in two specific areas; the ways in which we (know things-Epistemology) interpret the Bible and (Ecclesiology) the way we see ourselves as the people of God- a collection of individuals as opposed to a body. Ironically, Modernism’s initial roots grew out of scientific discoveries of scientists who were Christian (i.e., Galileo, etc) in world view. Scientific method soon became subject to rationalism and naturalism that was promoted by the Enlightenment thinkers. In other words, the only way to know things was through objective knowledge and reason. An attitude prevailed that scientific knowledge and reason could tame and harness the world and eventually usher in a new age of Utopia. Effects of modernism on Christianity caused Bible scholars to treat the text like an object outside of its unique context. Reason ripped the text out of its narrative and cultural/historical context. Many Bible scholars began to dissect the text (using principles of scientific method) and re-interpret it as a sum of its parts rather than a whole in the context of a meta-narrative. Enlightenment notions of objective knowledge, reason and an individual’s autonomy (freedom) permeated western Christian thought, scholarship, and material produced by them. The gospel became a deal for the individual, and Jesus became your personal savior. Our western gospel sometimes seems more informed by Immanuel Kant (stoicism) than the parables of Jesus, and the church more by corporate America with its cut-throat hierarchies organized around notions of greed and consumerism, than the New Testament.

After two world wars people began to lose their trust in science as the savior and scientific knowledge as the way to know things. People began to validate different ways of knowing like revelation, narrative, myth, intuition, feelings, etc, and began to distrust the institutions (formed of modernism) of society that promote and use these institutions as mechanisms of power to control people and create them in their own image. A new generation of people is growing up today who are wearing different lenses in which to interpret the world. Their lenses differ from ours in ways largely concerned with ways of knowing, and experience is a key factor. If we (‘Boomer’ or older generation) western Christians think our lenses are clearer or that our presuppositions are not contaminated by Enlightenment thinking, I would suggest we think again.

My point is that God has given us a special gift through the advent of Post-modernism that hopefully encourages us to re-examine just how biblical our presuppositions really are. Secondly, we might realize that attempts to reach post-moderns on their terms might allow us to deconstruct a church built on modern ideas and help her become a more aligned with a truly biblical expression. Post-modernism affords us the opportunity to return to many biblical themes, including a radical orthodoxy, such as the gospels truly present. Post-modernism in and of itself, of course, is not monster nor savior, but with its arrival comes host of great opportunities for the church that we should take advantage of.

Brian

Pastor Abraham

2007-08-12T02:34:00.000-07:00

Up in Phnom Penh Keeping Jive Alive

It has been over a year since we left Pasadena for greener grass, or should I say dustier and muddy roads? We are happy to report no more monkeys or snakes in the house, just a tree frog that lives under the refrigerator and occasional rats (younger ones) that slip under the door. They are eradicated quickly. The frog stays. He does not hop, he walks.

We have a visitor, Mr. Cameron Edele whose dad pastor’s Union Memorial Church in Stamford, CT. He normally teaches music in the Rochester school systems (or near there). He will be with us for a little over three weeks. I sent him down country to my friend Wayne’s orphanage for children born with HIV/AIDS. He is teaching them music and having a bit too much fun. Last I heard from him he wanted to extend his time there. Maybe he didn’t like our cooking??? Or frogs? Our boss, Mike Crow from CRM will be here on the 19^th to check up on us. Lots going on this month.

Abraham was one of our former Diamond Program students and when I met him at Andong Resettlement village last year, I knew I knew him, but was not sure from where. He had a pot belly which threw me a bit, and a sharp looking mustache and chin beard. He is quite a handsome man and big for Khmer standards. He was a former logger, a sawmill operator and owner, and trucker of lumber produced at his family’s mill. He was so excited when he became a Christian that he left it all behind to become a full time Christian worker. He attended two or three churches, gained some experience, and he heard about ‘Sambok Chap’ (The Sparrow’s Nest) being bulldozed out by the government on the riverside in PP for beautification purposes, and then having the 800 families re-settled in forlorn rice paddies out near the airport with no social services available at all. A round trip to town for work costs these squatters $2 which is just about what they would make a day. LICADHO[1] comes in regularly and treats new born babies with fevers and malnutrition, and supplies them with milk when they can. UNICEF brought in plastic water tanks but did not continue to provide clean water so a local merchant filled the tanks and began to overcharge the people for clean water. So they drank pond water and got sick. Now there is a well that is a safe source of water but mother’s still can’t produce milk, and babies still need milk.

Abraham arrived in the beginning when they were throwing together their thatch and plastic tarp make-shift shelters. Because he is big and handsome, the squatters thought he was a rich entrepreneur from Phnom Penh trying to find ways to cheat the squatters out of their “prime” land. Day after day he made his rounds, visiting with the villagers, making friends and sharing the good news of Jesus. Soon he had 80 people from a number of families meeting under a large thatch roofed edifice. Abraham tried to scrounge up donations from people to help meet the needs of the children. Cambodian churches weren’t that interested as squatters aren’t a good tithing source. Dr. Frank Cho, a dentist from InnerChange who came up on weekends to treat people needing dental care, helped Abraham with some funding on a weekly basis.

Last January, Her Excellency, Mrs. Kek Galabru, head of LICADHO, brought us up to Andong Village (the new name for Sambok Chap) to see the squalid conditions under which these squatters were living, and there was Abraham with that big wide grin, recognizing me, Kek, and our van driver, Mr. Phanna (they were old friends). To make a long story short, my short-term vision trip folk from Seattle ended up pledging quite a bit of money to build about 260 new huts. Abraham oversaw this work. It was not rare to find him in his shorts on top of a shaking roof, hammering nails, or digging sewer drainage ditches. Abraham arranged it so that those receiving new huts supplied the labor for helping each other erect their new homes. Through his witness and bringing the community together to build these houses, drug addicts, thieves, wife beaters, mean drinkers, (such as many of us were or are), have turned over their lives to Jesus and have changed dramatically.

I have been along for this ride and although often it has been fraught with headaches at times, trying to be intermediate between three different entities, the result has been worth it all. I enjoy working with Abraham because he has sacrificed much to serve the poor while his contemporaries are climbing up the professional church ladders, driving cars, and getting salaried clergy positions. He is adamant about transforming this squatter village and it looks like he just might do it. I hope he hurries up so he can get back to climbing that church ladder.[2]

In the beginning LICADHO didn’t trust Pastor Abraham as far as they could throw him (which wouldn’t be far unless they used all 150 staff and consultants) but they struggled through a difficult partnership and came out with a lot of mutual respect and are anticipating working together in the future (Cambodia doesn’t need anymore Lone Rangers-who does but Tonto?).

I meet with Abraham once or twice a week for noodles and coffee and try my best to encourage him and to keep him from getting a big head. He keeps my faith restored in Cambodian pastors, many of whom have the Ambulance Blues.[3] Ten Abrahams could change this country in a year. He calls me his mentor but I know there are many others out there who have contributed to his spiritual growth and vision for the poor and oppressed. Pray for him, that he won’t lose his rough edges, his willingness to risk status, position, and guaranteed salary. The worst thing that could happen is that he becomes a domesticated pastor, prim and proper and stops slogging through sewer drainage ditches, putting roofs on houses, and burning village garbage in a ditch. Tomorrow I will see him off at the airport for his first trip to the USA. He will be speaking at a second generation Asian Youth Conference in New York. He might be on the same flight as Joyce Meyers, whose large Crusade was cancelled by the government after one day. Dengue fever is hitting Cambodia hard and Abe’s next project will be finding funds for buying mosquito nets as babies are coming down with dengue.

Debbi and Jordan will be visiting California in October for some medical treatment for Jordan, as his fall two years ago that knocked him unconscious for a half hour seems to have caused him some trauma.

And because of this necessary trip, we are flat broke. Now you can have all sorts of theories about how we choose to use our money ($50,000/year) but those who have been here and have seen our ministry and the way we live, usually don’t debate our fiscal practices, or question deeply our requests for additional funding, they just help us. So, I am putting it out there. We need some bucks to get us through the next few months. Think about it, pray about it, and even ask us about it if you like.

And so we don’t get it wrong, we appreciate all of you who keep us here. It is a great privilege to be here in Cambodia walking alongside Cambodians, serving and growing together with them. Thanks for that.

brian@maherfamily.info

debbi@maherfamily.info

Church Resource Ministries – 1240 N Lakeview Ave Suite 120. Anaheim, CA. 92807 -1831 Donor Services: donorservices@crmleaders.org.

1-800-777-6658

[1] An International Human Rights Organization

[2] Admittedly Cynicism

[3] Chasing Donors, Funding, and Positions

Phnom Penh 8 Detained by Cambodian Police

2007-06-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

2007-06-27T03:42:00.000-07:00

A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Wat Phnom

Justice Issues Continued…

Three years ago, influential Union Leader, Chea Vichea was assassinated across the street from one of our old residences. He was very vocal concerning the working conditions and the low pay of garment workers, and often publicly criticized the Roy al Cambodian Government urging them to ameliorate the working conditions of many of the young women in the garment factories. Young female garment workers worked long hours, had no day off, been stripped searched in and out of the rest rooms, and before they left for home. Two innocent young men were immediately snapped up and accused of the assassination. They have been in jail for three years and lost their appeal trial a few months ago. Their sentences of 20 years a piece were upheld. The UN and Amnesty International investigations showed that the two were beaten and coerced into signing bogus confessions.

The trial and appeal were both mockeries of justice as the judge and court had no interest in listening to the case. Many friends from my Int’l church attended the trial and were disgusted at the behavior of the court officials. The court’s decision was already determined from top level government leaders. The key material witness fled the country and local vendors who saw the killing, have all changed their statements.

Living with injustice in your for face for almost 14 years makes it impossible to live a daily life without justice passages leaping up from the Bible (Isaiah, Revelation, Beatitudes, Amos, etc), and a God concerned with justice won’t leave one sitting in the office wringing one’s hands about the problem (unless we insist). This is a problem in and of itself.

The plan was that a small group of expatriates concerned with unjust jailing of the two innocent Cambodia men as government scapegoats, would be to simply drive two large trucks with banners hung over the sides asking for justice for the two young men in front of the Consultative Group (International Donor Countries) Meeting on June 19th. The purpose was to get the attention of international donors in that they might intercede with the Cambodian government.

So, I arrived at the meeting location at 6:45 am and looked over the truck I would be driving. Should be no problem, I thought. We had a brief meeting, and all planned to be back in the same place by 9 a.m. to debrief. Maybe 15 expatriates showed up and climbed onto the bed of the trucks and we made our way up to Wat Phnom where Consultative meeting would soon be taking place. Wat Phnom is a small man made hill in Phnom Penh ringed by a traffic circle. My friend Steve (former WV colleague from Stockton, CA.) and I were to drive our trucks around the circle, stop in front of the CG meeting, and then drive around again and again until enough international donors saw the message.

Although we were expecting we’d be back by 9 a.m., I had mentally counted the cost for the worst to happen. What if I were jailed? What if I was beaten? What if I were deported? I decided that I was willing to take those risks. How could I preach and teach about justice if I wasn’t willing to take risks for victims of injustice? But on the way to CG[1] meeting, there were no any raw emotions churning in my gut, it was more a sense of getting on with the practical parts of the plan. I was worried more about side-swiping a motorcycle with the big truck on the narrow streets of Phnom Penh . Young Elijah Penner (from Fresno ), a Mennonite and Youth Commission advisor was riding shot-gun, taking calls on my cell phone from observers and the other truck.

Arriving at the Wat Phnom Circle , we drove around twice and the small squad of police was puzzled and didn’t know what to make of us. The third time around, I stopped on the inside of the traffic circle, and was soon asked to move by the police guarding the meeting. After stalling some, and grinding some gears, we moved on. After each circle of the Wat, I would stop in front of the meeting place and would be urged on by soldiers and police. About the sixth time around the horn the police were getting smarter and they told me it was illegal to stop on the inside of the circle so I drove around the circle again, and parked right in front of the meeting. I was urged to move on for I was blocking the entrance to the meeting. I went around again and parked in the same spot. They moved me forward again. At no time was I ever asked to stop the activity or take the signs down. Our anonymous fearless leader said, “One more time around, and then let’s go home- we already got the message across.” I drove around the circle one last time, drove past the meeting, and pulled over on the west side of the circle to take the signs down. That was when we were suddenly surrounded by a swarm of uniformed police and soldiers.

We had the driver of the truck in the back because he insisted on coming along for the ride to see that his truck was not abused by a foreign driver (little did he know I had a CDL). The policeman in charge was fit to be tied when he spotted the Cambodian in the back of my truck. Veins were bulging on his forehead and his face was contorted with rage. I knew that if they got their hands on him, he would be beaten and then jailed for a long time. While I talked to the police, two Canadian women in the back of the truck were quickly taking down the signs. I was told to follow a police escort to the station. Elijah, who had been out of the truck hopped back in because he thought we were going home. He could have just walked away. The two Canadians in the back also thought we were going home. I followed the policeman on the motorcycle through the dense Phnom Penh Traffic and when we got caught in a traffic snarl, we lost our escort. We saw a member of our group waiting on a motorcycle to rescue the Cambodian driver. He jumped off and our man whisked him away. After making our way through the snarl we arrived at the Police station. It was then that Elijah and the Canadians knew we had a different kind of day ahead of us.

Steve, the other driver, was kicked out of his truck, and was replaced by an armed soldier, and was made to ride in the passenger seat. The stone-faced soldier wouldn’t reply to any of Steve’s questions. Both trucks were impounded, as well as the signs.

It was now 8:30 am and the Wat Phnom 8 were led (5 were Christians from the ICF) into the Police station and escorted up to the second floor for interrogation and re-education. The building was filthy- it looked like the floors had never been swept and black cobwebs hung in every corner collecting soot and dust. It reminded me of my first visit to Cambodia in 1990. We were split up for questioning which for me was rather dull. I had to sign and thumbprint my statement. Then we were asked to produce passports (I had a photocopy of my passport and driver’s license) and by that time the Australian Embassy had sent a man over to check on our Kiwi friend, and he advised that we had better produce original passports, so we called people on our cell phones to get our passports. Debbi came by and hung out with us for a while, and a female expat and a male Cambodian human rights worker came from the UN to monitor our situation.

Meanwhile, representatives from the British Embassy came to assist the one Brit among us. The two Canadian ladies were in contact with their embassy by phone. Around 11 am, Brian from the American Embassy showed up with his intern from Kent State . The intern had not heard Neil Young’s song about the Kent State massacre so I wrote down the info for them. They were good people and it was good to have them there with us. I think it made their day.

Debbi left and Dee, another human rights worker, brought us some sandwiches and some junk food. After lunch we began to negotiate with police about the content of the statement they wanted us to sign. The room was hot and crowded with all of us in it, but at least there was a ceiling fan, spinning around lazily above our heads. Sparrows had built a nest in hub where the fan was attached to the ceiling, and we were wondering if the birds knew what was about to hit the fan before we did. We were able to use our telephones so we had people bring phone cards and chargers for cell phones. We thought of ordering Pizza but the UN people had already brought us too much junk food and candy. Elijah, the youngest of the Wat Phnom 8, wrote our statements out in excellent Khmer. All five of us Christians were able to speak pretty fluent Khmer while our non-believing friends were pretty new in town. My friend Steve, ‘free-lance child rights worker’ did the negotiating with the police concerning the demands of our release.

I sat down next to a European fellow who I had first met with the 2 Canadian ladies on International Children’s Day at Prey Saw Prison when we brought food and soy milk to the children there. He said to me; “You know, I have a lot of prejudices against Christians going way back, but you guys have really changed my attitude toward Christian people.” We talked for a while, talking about what Jesus was all about verses an institutional expression of the Christian religion with all its baggage Our other yet-to-believe friends were also expressing similar sentiments about changed attitudes toward Jesus followers.

It was getting late, around 5 pm and the police were getting grumpy, hungry, and tired of negotiations (as were we). There big boss came in once and gave a speech. They lost a lot of face and I reminded our group that in this culture, this deal had to be win-win or a win-lose situation with us losing something significant because the police were losing face and they wouldn’t stop until we gave up something up. They were now mad and wanted to go after the Cambodia owner of the trucks. We were hot, tired and worn out, too, and on our 4th revision of the statement, a call came in from the Canadian Embassy saying that the ambassador had talked with the Phnom Penh’s Chief of Police and that if we didn’t sign up, we’d be transferred to jail proper and then be deported the following day. We put our heads together for the umpteenth time and decided that if they agreed to bring the owner of the truck in here to check his papers, release him, and let human rights workers escort him home, we would “sign zee papers.” Frowns immediately turned to smiles, and now the police were warm and friendly again. Of course they would release the owner and not go after the driver if we signed the papers. No problem. They could go home and have dinner. So, we agreed to sign that we would:

Obey the law of the land.
Not create a public disturbance
Secure proper permission for similar activities.

Photos of signing took place among the smiling immigration police. The heat was now off them.

We signed the documents, and left the police station ten long hours later at 6:40 pm. I got home and had the best shower I can remember, and wolfed down some chicken and rice. Debbi and I talked for a long while and then I went to bed.

The next day I was so exhausted I could do nothing but do a few emails in the morning. I slept for the whole afternoon, and attended a debriefing with Debbi until 12 midnight. I am still very tired today.

The solidarity with our not-yet-believing friends was an incredible experience. Being detained with two other Americans, two Canadians, 1 Briton, 1 Dane, and 1 Kiwi, all of diverse backgrounds, perspectives and opinions was a lot of hard work in putting together a unified response. My friend Steve was the ‘facilitator/negotiator par excellence’ and young Elijah was quite the expert in Khmer language.

What did we accomplish through risking our careers and lives? We became a voice to the Cambodian Government and International Donors that justice for Mr. Bon Samnang and Mr. Sok Sam Ouern is still on the agenda of many people, including Christian people.

It was one of the most worthwhile days I ever lived.

BMM

The World Desperately Needs a Story

2007-03-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

But are we telling it in words people can understand?

Click this link to read the article:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9807&article=980732b

Where will you go when you need to make some changes......

2007-03-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

Scenery and Rockin' in the Free World are both songs written by Neil Young. Both lament the apathy of the American culture and the church towards its willingness to help the rest of the 94% of the world who go to bed hungry every night. He asks on behalf of himself and those stuck: "Where will you go when you want to make some changes?" Not to the church, that is for sure. You have to measure up before you can get in. So where do all the seekers go? To Neo-pagan or New Age Religions. Home of the Brave is nothing but millions of media image slaves so shaped by their own culture they don't recognize the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of the Kingdom. Instead it is a gospel of nationalism, patriotism, individualism, consumerism, and rationalism- a reductionistic gospel modelling corporate success Jesus never sanctioned or would hardly even recognize. This gospel is a modern enlightenment version. What happened to the upside down Kingdom of Matthew 5-7?

Rockin' in Free World is another song written to remind Americans that they seem fine to just go about their lives with out a care (Just go about Rockin' and enjoying our freedom) while our urban areas are full homeless people, drugs, poverty, and hurting people. Neil's satire of just Rockin' in Rree World while the world goes to hell in hand basket speaks volumes. Too bad our preachers don't listen to Neil Young. He seems to understand how Christ's gospel should work out.

Brian maher

Home of the Brave, Where Greed and Lust.....

2007-03-02T05:48:00.001-08:00

Scenery

Looking at the grave

At the scenery around you
Home of the brave
Sometimes they leave you like they found you
Sometimes they worship you
Sometimes they tear your houses down
Sometimes they comfort you
Sometimes they spread your life around

Nothing you can see that they won't try to give you
Land of the free where the legend will outlive you

When you earn their trust
Then you are truly in danger
Where greed and lust have never been a stranger.

Home of the brave
That’s’ where heroes need protection
Media image slaves live by random selection
You sell your heart, but that's not the price of freedom Where things are useful only when you need them

Where will you go when you need to make some changes
Who will you love in a world of constant strangers
I'll go with you if you want to take a hero home
I'll stay behind if you want to take a hero home

Looking at the grave
At the scenery around you
Home of the brave
Sometimes they leave you like they found you
Home of the brave... (6x)

Keep On Rockin' in the Free World

2007-03-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like satan, but i am to them
So i try to forget it, any way i can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

2007-02-28T05:05:00.000-08:00

The Proud Palm Tree

On a peninsula in Southeast Asia lies a country once called “Kampuchea,” meaning “The Land of Gold.” During the colonial period the French called it “Cambodge,” a name that later evolved into “Cambodia.” There are a lot of palm trees in most farming fields in Cambodia. One day our Training of Timothys team was returning from a seminar on unity in Kompong Thom. On the way back to Phnom Penh my team asked me, “Let’s stop for a while to shoot a rabbit (i.e., find a rest room).” So I stopped the car and we went to “shoot a rabbit” or “see a man about a dog,” and I noticed a palm tree with another kind of tree growing on it. That was interesting! The tree was called Chrey in Cambodian.

As I mentioned in my last article,[1] some Cambodian farmers consider the bamboo and palm tree to be husband and wife. The palm tree is very useful. It can be used for building houses, barns, boats, and farming tools. Its leaves can be used to thatch roofs, make hats, mats, containers for rice crops, etc. Its juice can produce sugar, its fruit can be cooked as food, and when it ripens the palm can be used to make Akor and other kinds of cake.

So the palm tree is very useful from root to leaves, just as is the bamboo. Its trunk is strong and hard. It has sturdy roots. Storms only rarely can cause a palm tree to fall. Its leaves look dark green all year round, similar to a pine tree or Christmas tree. It does not change color as the seasons pass. That is why owners of some five-star hotels and other buildings in Phnom Penh plant palm trees in their yards as decorations. They not only add beauty to the hotel, but also invite people caught up in a rat-race society to think about the peaceful countryside lives of Cambodian farmers. In the 1998 election one political party chose the palm tree as its emblem. Perhaps they thought they could focus the attention of the Khmer people on the strength of the tree and the unchanging evergreen color of its leaves, and so win people’s hearts and votes.

I also agreed with that idea! Most Cambodians artist express similar feelings by including palm trees in their paintings of countryside scenery. The palm tree is a strong and useful plant in Cambodia. It can stand firm whether in flood or in storm or in dry season, and it also stands symbolically as a national tree.

But the palm tree will die if there is some dirt on it, even though it is so proud with its beauty and its strength. If the farmer does not come to cut the leaves and they stay attached, some dirt may accumulate where they attach to the trunk. Birds will drop into this dirt on the palm tree their stools carrying seeds of fruits they have eaten. When the rainy season comes, these small seeds will germinate and grow. At first they look too small to bother the tall palm tree. Maybe the palm even looks proud of having two kinds of tree growing together.

But as the years fly by the other tree grows bigger and bigger. Eventually the palm can’t get enough of the nutrients that its roots absorb from the ground because the other tree sucks them all away. The palm tree then becomes malnourished, and before long dies.

When we had World Vision staff retreat in Siem Reap two years ago we visited a ruined temple. I noticed that some of the temple walls had been destroyed by the same kind of tree I saw growing on the palm tree. Its root had split the stones from sticking close together. As long as the stones stayed close together the wall looked good, and the beauty of each relief it bore vividly reflected the civilization of the Khmer Empire. In order to save the temple from falling apart the Ministry of Tourism had workers cut the root of the tree away. Most of the ruin was destroyed by a root that grew between the stones of the temple. These trees had flourished during the long years of the civil war when no visitors came to see the temple. Cambodia was cut off from the world for nearly two decades. Neither local nor overseas visitors came to the temples during the time of the killing fields. So not only were people killed during that time, even the stones were badly damaged.

It reminded me of the relationship that God and his people once enjoyed. In the beginning man and God were close companions, but after the fall of Adam and Eve, sin entered this world and separated man from his creator. For the wages of sin is death. In order to fix the broken relationship sin must be dealt with first. It is like the stone wall at Angkor Wat. To save it from destruction they need to send some agent from the Ministry of Tourism to cut the root. When it first started growing the root looked very small, but as time went by it grew bigger and bigger. The longer it stayed the worse the damage it caused to the relief.

Sin at first starts very small, but as time passes its results grow worse and worse. Unrepented sin will ruin a relationship. As Christians please remember the lesson from the palm tree. Don’t be proud that we are strong, that we the palm tree are the symbol of the country—the chosen race or kin, and that they use us to decorate five-star hotels. Don’t be thrilled with the beauty and honor that we are given. If we forget to allow garden keeper to take away our old leaves we will become dirty, or birds will drop something on us. As an English saying reminds us, “We cannot stop birds from flying over our heads, but we can stop them from building their nests on our heads.”

We have to confess our sins to God. But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.[2] If we allow sin grow bigger and bigger we can never come the presence of the Lord and we will perish like a palm tree.

The same can happen in the relationships between friends and churches if we allow sins to grow between us. Like the stone wall at Angkor Wat, our relationship will fall apart. Beware of roots that start to grow between the stones that the builder originally placed close together. When the stones remain close together, they become the image of the four faces at Bayon or Apsara, and they look beautiful. But when tree roots grow in between, the original shape with its beauty and meaning is lost. Not only does it look ugly, but the whole temple may fall as well. Make sure you cut away the roots.

My friends, Jesus wants to fix the broken relationship with all humankind. God and man used to have a very close relationship. But sin separated us from God, and caused that relationship to break down. Because the sacred relationship between God and man broke, all other types of relationships have turned sour as well. Relationships between husband and wife, children and parents, brothers and sisters, nation and nation, race and race, etc., became spoiled and turned into in a mess. Why? It caused by SIN. But people, races, and societies can live in harmony if they allow Jesus cut off the root of sin. He is the only name that can save mankind.[3] He is the farmer who can clean the palm tree to keep it from being destroying by an invading plant. He is the agent from the Ministry of Tourism who can dig out the roots growing between stones of the ruin

Conclusion:

· Palm trees can live long and stay strong if they have no other tree growing in their stem.

· Christians can stand strong in their faith if they don’t allow sin to grow bigger and bigger in their lives.

· Stones in old ruins can still look beautiful if they stay close to the original place where they were put.

· All kinds of relationships can be in harmony if sin is dealt with first.

by Uon Seila

[1]Uon Seila, “Bamboo,” Honeycomb 2/2 (April 2002): 10–15.

[2]1 John 1:9.

[3]Acts 4:12.

A Boy in the Killing Fields, A Man in the Healing Fields

2007-02-27T03:55:00.000-08:00

My name is Seila Uon and I was born on January 1, 1960. I was raised in a Buddhist farming family in Tong Neak Village, Baphnom District and Prey Veng Province in the Kingdom of Cambodia. I am the oldest in my family and I have five siblings. My village was very primitive and there was no pre-school therefore I was enrolled to the primary school when I was 8 years old.

In March 18, 1970 Cambodia was thrown into a state of civil turmoil because our King, Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by his defense minister, Lon Nol, while he was out of the country. This coup de tat was organized and encouraged by the United States in order to ensure an official invitation for an American presence in Cambodia during the Vietnam War era. It was a short lived presence as the American Congress pulled all troops out of Cambodia by the end of 1971, with exception of a handful of military advisors. My school was closed during this time for a while because most of the teachers went to Phnom Penh for a mass demonstration in favor of the return of the King. Some teachers went into the forest to join with the movement of the Sihanoukists. Cambodia was at war and school became irregular at best. In other word it was off and on. In Cambodia during the early seventies, factions and armies fighting in Cambodia were, FANK (Lon Nol Republic), Khmer Rouge, Khmer Vietminh, US Armed Forces, North Vietnamese, Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese

In January 31, 1971 around 2:00 PM two American Aircrafts roared over my village, dropping 24 bombs. My house was blown up into the air. Hundreds of chickens, dozens of pigs and other livestock were killed. My family’s rice paddy became smoking craters and then ponds.

I wondered why the Americans did such a thing to my village? From that moment on I became a refugee, though I was only eleven years old. Moving from the province to the city was hard for refugee families like ours, especially for my father who had to support my schooling. So my father sent me to stay and learn with the Buddhist monks at the Botum Waddei pagoda. I felt hatred toward the Americans because I was separated from my parents, brothers and sisters, and especially my home village where it used to be peaceful and pleasant. As a village boy I used to tend the cattle and sit on the backs of cows and sing happily. Now I found myself as a city boy—a Khmeng Wat, (pagoda boy)—who had to wake up a 4:00 a.m. to sell bread along the streets in Phnom Penh. These streets were sometimes deserted and quiet because of sporadic Khmer Rouge shelling. I was fearful, but my business went well because people feared the shelling and so stayed home. They did not venture out to eat Koy Teo (noodle soup) in storefront restaurants, so they bought my bread instead as I walked the streets yelling, “Nompang, Nompang, Pang-Pang, Sreuy Lahawe, Kadow!”

Life grew harder and harder. I woke at 4:00 a.m. to sell bread and had to return by 7:30 a.m. to attend school. Sometimes my business did not go well. I was late for school and got punished by my teacher. The more I suffered in the city, the more I missed my country life—and the more I hated the war and the Americans. I was looking forward to Khmer Rouge coming and liberating this city that was rife with the corruption of the American-backed Lon Nol regime. My family became refugees in my own country. Even though I had a father and mother, I lived my life as an orphan refugee-street urchin.

At last, on April 17, 1975, around 9 o' clock in the morning after intensive shelling and fighting from the two previous days, the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh. I heard the news in the radio in which Khmer Rouge broadcast saying that war is over but about the announcement did not seem quite right. They said the war was over and that they won not by negotiating but by the flowing of blood. It was both sweet and bitter. I was overjoyed that I could return to my home village and study in the school I used to attend, and I contemplated the hope of seeing all of my schoolmates there.

Before the Khmer Rouge invaded the city, they pounded it with artillery. At first, I was happy and looking forward to returning home. However, I lost my father in the artillery barrage. Hearing that he had been injured and suspecting that he had died, my mother turned back to look for him, leaving me in charge of my five siblings. At age 15, I was the oldest of six in our family, and so became I became the head of my family during the forced evacuation from Phnom Penh. I led my two sisters and three brothers on a trek from Phnom Penh to Kompong Trabek, Prey Veng Province. I heard nothing from my mother. One sibling cried for rice, another for water, and the smallest for breast milk, because when my mother left us she thought that it would only be for a short time. That is why she left my youngest brother with me. The evacuation from Phnom Penh was hard. I hated the Americans.

Finally we arrived at my childhood village. What I had looked forward to did not happen. The villagers labeled me a pro-American imperialistic betrayer of the village. Now it was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Life was excruciatingly hard under Khmer Rouge. We endured continual intimidation and verbal persecution. What I expect to be better living situation in my home village was even worse. In three years, eight months and twenty days under the Communist Khmer Rouge was brutal. The Khmer Rouge authorities that charged my family of escaping from my village to support the puppet government of American imperialists accused me. I was sent to the mobile camp where I was forced to work hard. There was no school for me to pursue my studies.

I slowly began to realize that the Americans had tried their best to save my country from the communists. I began to feel deep love for the USA. Every moment I thought about America. Deep down in my soul and my spirit, a kinship for Americans became rooted in my whole being. I longed to go there (Here our friend Seila is very deluded-Ed).

On January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese soldiers liberated Cambodia from the Communist Khmer Rouge. I hoped my country would be at peace but the war continued to rage along the border in the western part of the country. I was under yet another communist regime and I was asked to join the military, which was the last thing I wanted to do so I decided to escape to the Thai/Cambodia border camps hoping to be repatriated to the USA.

In 1981, I traveled to the Thai/Cambodian border to try to get to America. In the refugee camp people asked me if I would be willing to go to Australia, France, Canada, or some other country. I said, “No, the only one country I want to go to is America.” I ended up stuck in the camps in Thailand for 12 years, where I committed my life to following Christ as my Lord and Savior through YWAM’s (Youth With A Mission) ministry, and never got that chance to go to the United States.

In 1989 I decided to work with Campus Crusade for Christ as an evangelist team leader in Site 2, the biggest Camp in Thailand, where I was chosen to be a pastor of a church.

At last on March 10, 1993, I was repatriated to Cambodia and decided to stay in Phnom Penh ever since. I started working with YWAM again. I attended one of the churches in the city. I help the church as a translator for seminars, which are led by missionaries from Malaysia or Singapore. I served in the church as leader of the elder committee. I chose not return to my home village because I did not want to face the intimidation of 1975 all over again.

In October 1995, I was invited by Scripture Union to attend SU institutes and SU Camp. After returning from SU camp in Malaysia I start working as a council member for SU and was instrumental in calling together nationals and missionaries to organize Cambodia’s first National Youth camp under Cambodia Christian Service’s Youth Commission. I also pioneered the movement of teaching sexual awareness from a Biblical perspective to Christian Youth, encouraging them remain pure in the midst of a sexual revolution where many young people are dying of HIV/AIDS. Each year I led a workshop during youth camp about Boy and Girl Relationships. Using some of the material Scripture Union had given me, I wrote book on Sexual Awareness in the Khmer language and taught from this book in all the forums the EFC Youth Commission had such as Youth Camps, Sexual Awareness Seminars, Regional Youth Seminars and Provincial Youth Seminars.

In February 14, 1999, I was moved from YWAM to work as an Assistant to the Leadership Development Coordinator in Training of Timothies project in World Vision. I presently serve as the Director of the EFC Youth Commission of (Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia). I am also a contributing member of the Committee of Children at Risk commission of EFC.

By Mr. Uon Seila, edited by Brian Maher

Aliens Converted by a Gospel thats Engages Captives

2007-02-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

Greetings Folks,

The last time we met, I think we left off at the Andong Relocation Village with the Eastside Churches from Seattle wrestling with “in yer face” issues of poverty, disease and human suffering. Originally, the ESC (Eastside Consortium) of Seattle was a pioneering experiment conceived by Brian Sellers-Petersen (BS-P) of World Vision as he brought together churches in the same local arena into partnership with each to do Vision trips through World Vision-US and World Vision-Cambodia. “BS-P” left and my long-time friend and coach, Jim Schmick became the US facilitator and I was asked to be the Cambodian facilitator. Originally, First Presbyterian of Bellevue, Westminster Chapel, and Overlake were the heavy weights but over time, the ESC morphed into a tight tag team of First Pres and Calvin Pres. The partnership no longer includes much engagement with World Vision, as WV is just not set up for mission trips.

The New and Improved ESC group later visited Unicas Orphanage where they found another one of our Youth Commission Diamond Program grads. They did some skits and played with the children, and had too much fun for Presbyterians. Then they hit the dusty and bumpy Route 1 toward the ‘Nam border where they did skits, puppet shows, taught English, and did some sports in Seila’s home village. Both Pres churches have been developing the infrastructure of this village for a while now, and the improvements are having a positive impact and people credit this to the God called Jesus. Back to Phnom Penh, and then onto Kompong Cham to visit the Youth Commission’s Satellite office in the provincial city. They were able to take part in the launch our first Provincial Diamond Program. From Kompong Cham, they left to visit WV sponsor children in Kompong Thom, visited Angkor Wat, and returned to PP where I met up with them again. On their last day, Dr. Kek Galabru of Licadho led five of the group of 11 to Pray Sar Prison on the Kandal Province along with myself and Lok Kru Seila (my partner in crime). We were first briefed by the warden then give a tour of the prison starting with the woman’s ward, of whom many had their children up to 8 years old with them living in the prison. There was no one on the outside that was able to take care of their children. Imagine having spent your formative years growing up inside a prison. Beriberi, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS were prevalent. Not one person in the entire prison had been given a blood test for HIV/AIDS. I visited the infirmary which was full of women with HIV/AIDs symptoms and their babies. Again I couldn’t resist and I held their babies. And, by the way, most of these women contracted AIDS from their unfaithful husbands. We visited the juvenile ward where young men from 14 to 18 were housed. The van driver and I went into some cells to visit with the inmates. Many of the prisoners in the medium security areas were doing long sentences for petty crimes while most of the rich elite live off their billions (yes billions, don’t doubt it) of corruption, drug, and foreign aid money with immunity. We were shown some workshops done for prisoners in one section of the prison and lo and behold, there was one of our first year DP students teaching literacy to prisoners. We chatted with him briefly and we had known that before he became a follower of Jesus, that he, too, had been a prisoner in jail. In the next classroom over, Prison Fellowship was teaching a Bible Study from the book of John. We were not allowed in the maximum security area but that didn’t matter much, from talking to many prisoners, I understood that many of these prisoners were unjustly or wrongly convicted and even those convicted of stealing a mango because they were hungry, are serving sentences unbefitting of the crime.

Our van driver was a Jesus Follower and he quoted me this verse which to me is the most clearest articulation of the gospel in the Bible.

Luke 4:18-19: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

A Western Reductionist/Individualist Gospels says that because of Jesus we can have our individual sins forgiven and enjoy eternity in heaven with God (Its all about me). A Biblical gospel begins with the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has arrived in the person of Jesus in the flesh and has been inaugurated by Jesus among the rule of humans and this Kingdom is especially good news for the poor, oppressed and the outcasts who all other forms of human rule or government have historically oppressed through power, corruption and violence. This Kingdom is a Kingdom with totally opposite values of human institutions, and also some of own “Christian” churches as well. God’s rule is here, but not yet fully realized.

Because of our exposure and partnership with a secular human rights group called Licadho which God seems to working through, we have been exposed to the heart of God at both Andong and Prey Sar Prison. Both Seila and I are convinced that our youth work must incorporate some of these Kingdom focuses on those outcasts who have suffered gross injustices at the hand of the rich and powerful. The ESC will be exploring ways in how they can have their hearts further broken by the things that breaks the heart of God as well.

They Admitted They Were Aliens

2007-02-21T23:57:00.000-08:00

They Admitted They Were Aliens

The short-term team of nine arrived intact from Seattle, and the next day we found ourselves being led by Dr. Kek Galabru of Licadho (A Human Rights Organization) out to a relocation camp called “Andong Village” which was a few kilometers beyond the airport. A year and half before, almost 8000 homeless people from all over Cambodia were living in simple structures on a few acres along the riverside in Phnom Penh until one day the government swept them all up, bulldozed their thatch and plastic homes, and shipped them to the outskirts of Phnom Penh (beautification of the riverside for tourism purposes). Relief Organizations provided plastic tarps, wood, and basic staples. UNICEF provided some clean water. Today, the clean water is gone and the people are drinking pond water. The Relief organizations have come and gone. Finding work 15 kilometers away in the city is prohibitive. We walked circumspectly down the trail into the tree-less village, avoiding cow paddies, human waste, and half burned garbage. As the heat cranked up, so did the various smells that accompanied so many people living on about three acres of land. IDPs, they call them: Internally Displaced People. Refugees and aliens in their own country, not knowing if this make-shift camp will be their permanent home or if there will be a better place in the future. They are looking for a better place. The government keeps making promises of a better place.

Chapter eleven of Hebrews is often said to contain the “Heroes of the Faith.” If you take a close look at them, they were all quite messed up in one sense or another, and one might wonder in what way should we make them role models? Gideon’s cowardice, Abraham’s lying, Noah’s drunkenness, Samson’s appetite for forbidden women, Jephthah’s illegitimacy, Moses’ lack of God confidence, Rahab’s career, David’s lust, lies, and murder, etc— these were some raw characters. But heroes they were, in that according to Hebrews 11:13; “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. They admitted they were aliens and strangers on the earth, longing for a better country—a heavenly one.”

What was it about these swarthy characters’ faith that caused the writer of Hebrew to overlook their sin and character faults in order that they might be classified as heroes?

Might it be that they took extreme risks with their own lives for their faith? That they under went some serious suffering for their faith? Or was it that their identity wasn’t shaped by a culture gone awry. They knew who they were; resident aliens on a life-long journey with a mind-set that kept them unsettled, restless, and looking not to settle down into this life, but looking beyond it to something better. They had no idea where they were going but they were trusting God to get them there. Their journey was full of pitfalls and setbacks, and was also marked by sacrifice, risk, and looking past their intrinsic need for comfort and security.

Like foreigners looking quite out of place, male, female, old, young, short, tall, thin, stout, and some balding, we walked down the first alley of the shanty town basted in sun screen and bug repellant, wearing caps or bush hats. We were met by young mothers with babies. Some of the mothers had that thousand-yard stare look to them, and most could no longer provide breast milk for their nursing children. One young mother’s feet were crippled by polio, and another young mother had a heart defect and had trouble breathing. Their small babies were suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and diarrhea. Many were widows or women are had been divorced. The mothers begged for milk and medicine. Dr. Galabru, a Cambodian woman in her sixties was on her cell phone constantly trying to get clean water and some milk delivered. The Cambodian doctor she brought along was busy the whole time. That day I held my share of tiny babies, but I couldn’t help wondering, what will I catch, Lice, Tuberculosis? None of these babies wore diapers, either. I was taking a risk but was ashamed for thinking about myself in the midst of their suffering. What is real faith without risk? I think of again of Hebrews 11, then John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, the Disciples and the early church up until the time of Constantine.

Some may wonder why the church in the Northern Hemisphere is declining while great growth is being experienced in South America, Africa, and parts of Asia. Could one of the reasons for this decline be that risk is no longer associated with our faith, and that personal piety has replaced mission?

Still being a product of western culture my self, I find it is quite frustrating at times, to wait and contemplate the promises of God from afar because contemporary marketing promises to deliver whatever I want right now. Global capitalism promises to deliver me comfort, security, and instant respectability through their products. It’s hard to hold out for the best, especially when risk is called for.

Cambodian Pastor, Sambo, was preaching on the verse, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God…” as many Cambodia Christians are jumping ship to churches that are backed by money, or getting jobs in Christian organizations that are pretty cushy. The pastor was encouraging his flock not to become a domesticated group of Christians, but to seek God’s will first, rather than spending time and effort to make sure their lives are properly cushioned. He related a conversation with a policeman about why the police weren’t doing their jobs; “It’s like this Pastor; one time there was a King in a palace that had a big problem with mice. He was planning a big anniversary celebration and he did not want any dignitaries, diplomats, other royalty, or any guests to see that he had a problem with vermin. The King’s Palace managers went out and hired a veteran cat who served in many animal wars. It was his job to clean up the palace. Before the celebration the veteran cat went to every mouse hole and gave the leading mouse three days of food and told him to stay tucked away for a few days until after the celebration. This went on for years, and the King never saw any mice during a party, or celebration. The cat advanced in rank until he was a full colonel. He then he retired but still lived on the premises. The King hired a new cat with only a tour of duty or so under his belt. The new recruit wanted to impress the retired cat so during his first day on the job he eradicated the entire palace of mice. The lucky few mice that managed to escape were so terrified that they were wont to ever return again. After a few months the new cat was given a pink slip because he wasn’t needed anymore; the palace was clean of mice. The old Colonel cat slept soundly on his mat.” The policeman said to the pastor, “So which kind of cat do you think we should be?”

Pastor Sambo was using the illustration to ask his congregation, “What kind of Christian do you want to be, a resident alien, or settler? The Biblical Metaphor, ‘resident alien’ is first found when Sarah dies and Abraham asks the Hittites for a burial site.

No too many of us have literally been resident aliens so it might difficult to relate well to this metaphor, but it part of the Christian identity is rooted in having resident alien status.

What would it look like for the church in the Northern Hemisphere to take the mantel of being a resident alien? Being a resident alien is not all that comfortable because all of us have the need to belong or to feel at home in our culture or the culture that hosts us. We all intrinsically need to know where we belong, and how we fit in. Since the Cambodian culture is not our own culture, Debbi and I are constantly forced to engage our host culture, and this is difficult because all our normal cultural support is not there to tell us what to do, or how to be. How do I discern what it means to be me in this culture when all my cultural support which I have taken for granted is no longer available to me? Whether it is me in Cambodia or you in your country, both of us should strive to understand our culture and the cultural expectations. Being aware of how our culture shapes us as a person will teach us much about ourselves. It will challenge and stretch us. This has been our journey and we have been shaped greatly by it.

There is good news for the church in the Northern Hemisphere and that is that it is no longer counted as a pillar of society as it had been since the days of the Puritans. I guess that could mean bad news to some but it is back on the edge, back on the margins of society, back where it was in the first century, back where faith meant risk, and risk was blessed abundantly. The church in the Northern Hemisphere has been tagged irrelevant in the new millennium and has been marginalized. The good news is that the church in the Northern Hemisphere doesn’t have to cross oceans to be missional because there is a whole new generation of post-moderns under 35 who know little or nothing about Jesus or his offer of Kingdom citizenship. Granted, these young people will not accept an institutional form of church, but they might want to follow Jesus with their own cultural expression. It might be time for us to look around on the margins where we have been placed to see who our new neighbors are. Rather than try to restore the respectability we enjoyed during days gone by, we might reach out to our new unrespectable marginalized neighbors who are probably looking for a better place.

There was a bigger risk in holding those babies than lice or disease. I can’t stop thinking about them and I don’t know where that is going to lead! And I didn’t you tell that when we first entered the village that we were greeted by one of our former Diamond Project Students who had set up a church on the edge (the margin) of the settlement with the help of Dr. Frank Cho of InnerChange (a part of CRM) where they run a clinic certain hours during the week. Pastor Abraham has made many friends and inroads into the shanty-town. Something about being out on the margin, the edge, with the marginalized that seems to work.

I met my Hebrew Chapter 11 Heroes at the resettlement village of Andong last Saturday, both believing (Abraham) and yet to believe (Licadho President and staff).

Cockfight in a Common Roost: End Imperialist Christianity

2007-02-21T23:35:00.002-08:00

At dawn the eastern sky glows bright red from the sunrise. Birds sing, and trees sway in the gentle summer breeze from the south. A long, dusty trail winds through the countryside about eight kilometers off National Route One from Phnom Penh to Vietnam. It is 1967; a little peaceful village, Tong Neak, stretches along the trail.

As a farmer, I enjoyed country life very much. Every morning my favorite job was feeding the poultry. I took a bowl, scooped up grains of rice, and spread it in the yard in front of my house. Here come roosters, hens, ducks, drakes, and geese! How happily they cluck, crow, and quack as they eat their food! I liked to do this kind of job very much, and did not wait until my parents told me to do it. I especially loved the chicks.

As time passed my chicks matured into cocks or roosters. One day I wanted to see my roosters fight each other, but they would not do so because they were siblings. They knew one another very well because they had grown up as a family. Then an old man living next door gave me an idea.

“Do you want to see your roosters fight each other?” he asked.

“I do; please help me,” I pleaded. As a boy living in the countryside with nothing to play with I wanted to play with something. So I decided to get excited by watching my roosters fighting one another. “What can I do to get my roosters to fight each other?” I keep asking him.

He inquired, “Does your mother have a frying pan in your kitchen?”

“Yes, she does. I see it hanging up on the wall.”

“Go get a knife, scratch the black stuff from the frying pan, and apply it to the cheeks of the roosters you want to fight,” he instructed me.

Because I fed them every day, my roosters were so tame that I could catch them any time I wanted. So I began to make the sound I usually did when feeding them—Kru-u-u-u-u-uh! They recognized my sound and came closer to me as their friend. I took a bowl of rice grains, put some in my hand, and started to call my roosters. They came out of the bananas trees around the house. They came with a happy sound. They believed I was going to feed them again. I am sure some of them wondered why their master was calling them again? But others might not doubt at all, because they knew I was someone who fed them.

Finally I spotted two roosters that were similar in weight and height, so I took them in my hand. I start to rub the black stuff from my mother’s frying pan onto their cheeks. I rubbed one, then the other, and finally let them go. Before long they started to fight their own sibling with whom they had grown up in the same nest. They did not realize that the other was a sibling. They could not recognize the other any more because of the black stuff I put on their faces. They fought and fought an hour or so. Each was soon severely bleeding on its face.

The other animals stood in astonishment to see roosters from the same nest fighting one another. Pigs, dogs, ducks, and cats might wonder why their master did not help separate them. They did not know that I wanted to see them fight one another.

Soon the other boys from my neighborhood came to watch and shout with joy. They praised me for being so clever and providing them some exciting entertainment. Some of the boys helped wash one rooster from its bleeding. The fight kept on and on until neither bird could stand. Finally I decided to stop my game, because I was afraid that if my father came home and saw what I had done he might not be happy.

The next morning one of them was in a serious condition. It could not eat its food because of a cut on its beak. It stood under a banana tree like a man with malaria covered with blanket. When my father found out about the incident he was angry. He scolded me—not because we lacked chickens, but because he said we were Buddhist. He told me it is a sin to harm somebody’s life, even an animal’s life. We believe there will be life after death, and if we do something wrong in this life we will suffer its consequences in the next. He said that in the next life I will be fool, fight my brother, and suffer like the two cocks of mine.

To end their suffering my father had them killed and cooked as our food. He did that both to end the roosters’ suffering and to shorten my punishment in the next life (because the longer the roosters suffered, the longer I would have to suffer). I was frightened when I heard my father speak about hell. But if I behaved well, I would receive good in my next life.

Thinking about how my roosters fought one another reminded me of Cambodia’s situation after more than two decades of war. We Cambodians have been like roosters raised in one nest, yet fighting our compatriots because we were painted either red (Khmer Rouge) or blue (Khmer Serei). The superpower from the free world painted us blue (calling us “Freedom Fighters”), while the superpower from the communist bloc painted us red (calling us “Khmer Rouge”).

Whether Khmer Rouge or Khmer Blue we are still Khmer—but we fought one another nearly two decades. In the end we all suffered and lost a great many of our own people. I remember that in my village of Tong Neak, all my relatives on my father’s side were Khmer Rouge, whereas all my relatives on my mother’s side were Khmer Blue—Lon Nol’s soldiers. They fought one another for five years. After the war both sides had perished. Not a single one of them was left.

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge exterminated the Khmer Blue by forcing them to work hard for little food. In a Khmer Rouge purge in 1978 all the eastern region (including Tong Neak) was butchered. But who gained and who lost? Cambodia lost.

Israel consisted of twelve tribes. They were brothers. But Israel was invaded by a powerful foreign country. Most of its people were taken away from their beloved homeland, while the remnants became another hatred group, the Samaritans, who were labeled as not pure Israelites.

In the Christian world we have been dyed red or blue, or smeared with soot from the frying pan, by various denominations. The black stuff from denominations and groups has blinded us so that we do not recognize our own brothers and friends. Some groups warn their people, “Do not associate with that other group because they are not as holy as we are. Do not go with them—they speak in tongues, or they are very conservative, and we are not. Don’t participate in their seminar because they might entice you to join their group. Our group is better than theirs.” The list just goes on and on.

Who gains? Only the owner who feeds the roosters. He gains the pleasure being able to sit back and watch an exciting fight. But the losers are the cocks themselves, both of which end up as food for the owner.

Cambodians have lost in the recent past because they fought their own people. They hated their compatriots who shared the same land and the same country. I don’t want to see the history repeat itself. I want to break the cycle of crisis in Cambodia.

I don’t want to bite a hand that feeds our own people. But I want to plead with some of the missions from outside. Let me repeat that I am talking about “some”—not “all”—of the missions from outside. I neither wish to equate all missions nor single out any one of them, but just express my concern to those who forget that they are only pioneers in this land, not permanent residents. One day they will leave and start another field of mission in other part of the world. So I hope that they will not get upset as they read this article.

As a Cambodian I very much appreciate all missions from other parts of the globe that have come to start some kind of work in my country. What legacy will you leave behind when you depart? The spirit of unity or of disunity? Let the Cambodians themselves discern the differences between one group and another. Do not dye them so they do not recognize their own folk, as some world superpowers did to us in the past. I want to see my country delivered from the spirit of division after you, the spiritual giants, have left us.

Please play your role as best men and bridesmaids; don’t try to be bride. The Cambodian church is a bride who will meet Jesus when he comes back, and will receive all the blessings and glory from him. The groom never comes to kiss the bridesmaid, but he will kiss the bride (the church), not missionary (bridesmaid). In the wedding the bride cannot do anything by her own; she really needs the bridesmaid to help her by holding umbrellas, or fanning her and massaging her leg while she sits in the ceremony for a long time. She really needs someone to help to ease her task. She knows her groom very well and how he feels, because they got to know one another during their dating. But the bridesmaids were simply asked to come to help in the wedding ceremony; they never knew the groom. Who knows the need and the feeling of the Cambodian Church? I would say a Cambodian knows better than anybody else.

I remember one day I met with a Cambodian pastor. I am sorry I cannot mention his name. He said to me, “Only a Cambodian can understand the needs of the Cambodian. Even though some missionary can speak our language fluently, or has lived in Asia for years and presumes he knows our culture very well, he still does not fully know what we need. A Cambodian would never voice some of his needs, but we Cambodians would know what they are without him having to say anything.” I would say he was right. In our culture people do not speak straightforward. We often do a little bit of beating around the bush. Therefore let the Cambodian reveal something to you over a period of time. Don’t quickly jump to a conclusion and say, “I know Cambodians very well.”

Again I want to apologize if I have written too strongly. My primary purpose was to try to reveal some of the feelings of our people with whom I have talked, and who have murmured their complaints.

Conclusion

It is time to break the cycle of the spirit of division.
Don’t try to do something to get excitement by blackening the face of the nationals.
We need partners, not colonizers, in the Christian community.
Israel hated one another, rooster fought one another, and Cambodians kill their countrymen, because of ideology from the outside.
We Christians do not try to follow the pattern of the fallen world.[1]
History will portray what you have done in this period of time.
The earth is not our permanent place, and we never know our time of leaving the planet earth, so we don’t invest too much in building our own kingdom instead of God’s kingdom.
God’s purpose is to take very different peoples and make them one in Christ Jesus—not have them fight one another or remain strangers.[2]

[1]Rom 12:2.

[2]Eph 2:19–21.

1971 "While You Were Sleeping"

2007-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

History of Tong Neak (2000) – Part One

My long time friend and colleague, Mr. Uon Seila had been pestering me to go with him to visit the village of his birth. I don't have a whole lot of free time so the idea of spending an entire day driving over roads full of pot holes did not appeal to me so much. But I agreed to go anyway. After all what are friends for?

So last Saturday we drove not all that far from the Vietnam border. We left Phnom Penh driving south to the city of Neak Luong which is in
Prey Veng province. At Neak Luong we drove onto the ferry with about 40 other vehicles
and crossed the Mekong River. We continued on another 20 kilometers along route one, where pot holes multiplied exponentially. At the town of Kompong Trebaek we left the paved road and followed a well maintained ox cart path deep into the country side, entering the bowels of some of Cambodia's poorest areas. After leaving the ox cart path we drove on rice paddy dikes, crossed small streams, and cut through dry rice fields (don't tell Harry I did this with his beloved truck). We kicked up some serious clouds of dust the whole way. We traveled off the improved road, perhaps 16 kilometers, finally arriving at the village of his birth, Tong Neak, which means "Flagpole of the Novite monk". There is quite a story behind the story behind this name but that will have to wait. This place was really in the middle of nowhere and it took us all of five hours to get there. It was as if nothing had changed here for over two thousand years. No relief and development agencies at all were working in the immediate area.

After introducing me to his mother and aunties, Seila walked me around me his part of the village. He explained to me how when he was about 11 years old his section of the village was hit by two different air strikes in January of 1971, and later in that year. The village was then completely destroyed. His house was burned down to the ground. That day we counted 24 bomb craters. He said he remembered that day very clearly as some VC were passing through his village when a US Army spotter plane came in and fired a smoke round to mark the position of the VC which were only meters away from his house. He said two minutes later they heard the thundering of engines as airplanes came in from the east with their pay loads. Then all hell broke loose around them as bombs blew apart trees, rice paddies, and structures, setting everything a flame. All the houses in his section of the village were burned to the ground. The bomb that fell on his house made such a deep crater that it drew water which they used for a couple of years until the water table dropped. Since there are no relief & development agencies working in the immediate area, he wanted me to see his land and the craters, hoping that somehow I could help-all the infrastructure had been destroyed. The place had never recovered from the bombing in early 1971. A second raid on VC cutting through that area later that year killed two fellow villagers and injured a woman holding her child who was decapitated in the bombing.

After the two bombings of his village, Seila and his four younger siblings and hitched a ride to Phnom Penh to seek refuge. When the Khmer Krahom (means red) took over in 1975, they were forced back to their birth place, Tong Neak. It took them what they were years to walk back, sleeping under trees on the side of road, but in reality, it was just over a month. Seila’s 2 year old brother died as soon as they arrived home. Mines were planted just a meter off the road.

Today his sixty year mother still lives there. Most of her children are grown and gone and she depends on some of the grand children and other relatives to get by. They have to walk about a kilometer to get water. They carry two buckets of water on opposite ends of a pole, balanced on their shoulders.

Seila is very much pro- American but he is kind of still waiting for some Americans to take responsibility and come to fix his village. He wants to write to the American Embassy or to Senator Dana Rohrbacher to ask for help. After all, he does have a point. What right did we have to blow up his village, burn down his house and destroy the infrastructure of his village? And the results of that bombing raid live on to this day. If you're still with me thus far, then you might consider helping this village. The village of Tong Neak needs two wells drilled. This would alleviate much of the hardship as they would have clean drinking water and water to grow vegetables during the dry season.

The wells cost about $200 apiece. Wouldn't that be a good project for a church, a Sunday school, or youth group to raise money for a couple wells? Well, you might say, 'this is not really missionary activity.' And I would say, ' it doesn't much matter what we call it, the Bible commands us to minister to the poor and oppressed, and not just as a platform for evangelism. We are to minister to the poor regardless!

I did ask Seila if there was a Christian presence anywhere nearby. Seila said no. He said he had told his mother and aunts about Jesus on a couple of his visits but they were unable to comprehend the message. He explained me that it would be difficult for some one from the outside to come in have much success, as they would tend not to trust outsiders. This is why drilling a couple of wells would be a great project. First, it would meet their physical needs. Second, it would give us Christians an opportunity to respond biblically to people in need. Third, by doing what we should be doing with the poor, those being helped will wonder who wants to help and why? Then there would be a natural context for sharing the reason for the hope that is within us - Jesus Christ. By helping dig wells in this village, the people can experience the gospel rather than just hear the words. Jesus announced that with his arrival into this world, he brought the Kingdom with Him. And people who had contact with Him experienced some of what the Kingdom of God was like. This is our mission, too. Christians are to be agents of transformation, working alongside Jesus (Col 1:19) as He reconciles all things to Himself, whether it be souls, systems or infrastructures.

And speaking of stories of redemption and reconciliation….not to far from his village was where the Northern Zone, KR from Kompong Thom and North Central areas massacred the Khmer Rouge in the Eastern Zone (Khmer Krahom Bophaeh). In 1978, the cadre of the KR the Eastern Zone, who had some association with Vietnam (including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, Heng Samrin, Pen Sovan, etc.) wanted to stop the killing of their fellow countrymen. During this time, Seila in his mid teens, was forced to crush stone in a quarry from early morning to late evening, seven days a week. One day he was searching for a tree trunk heavy laden with dew so he could soak it up with his Krama and quench his thirst. Walking back he stumbled on a semi-covered mass grave of the Eastern zone cadre who were killed by the Northern Zone KR. He fled not wanting to be discovered as one knowing about this carefully covered up massacre. He noticed trucks, each day, dumping more bodies into the graves. One of the Eastern Zone KR Commanders who himself had killed fellow countrymen was sick of it and was ready to flee to Vietnam when the purges began. Thousands of Eastern zone KR soldiers were killed.

To be continued…..

Seen Jesus Lately?

2006-09-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Seen Jesus Lately?

Ever ask yourself, where is Jesus these days? Just one look at what is happening on this globe is enough to make you wonder; foolish politicians leading their countries into war, corruption, sickness, death, poverty, child trafficking, and natural disasters, etc. Why doesn’t he just show up and clean our mess up?

On more personal level, we might ask, where is Jesus in my life? He hasn’t shown up recently. We are often so busy and so driven that we miss the opportunities where Jesus waits to speak into our lives through the small and ordinary things of life. After wrestling our way through each day, we come home through grisly traffic, and crash for a while, help take care of the kids, then get ready to face the same routine all too quickly after a few short hours of sleep. We tend to think that if we just make it through the week to church on Sunday, Jesus will show up and hopefully do something noticeably spiritual in our lives. We might miss a whole lot of Jesus during the week if that is part of our unconscious thinking.

Monday, the Youth Commission staff, advisors and volunteers left for a ‘team building’ retreat in Koh Kong. It was a ten hour drive over rough mountain passes. Our twenty seat mini-bus just barely made it through in some spots. We used a ferry to cross four rivers to get here. Trevor, a friend of mine called me on my cell, and was shocked to find out I was in Koh Kong. He was even more shocked to discover we had chosen Koh Kong for the retreat. “Why” he begged to know. “Part of developing leaders and building teams are allowing people to make decisions, make mistakes, and then let them deal with consequences of those decisions,” I told him. “Hmmmmmn” he said.

Anyway, I had been wondering recently myself where Jesus has been these days (and please don’t try to set me straight theologically with Bill Bright’s ‘Faith, Fact, and Feeling Train’) both on a global and personal level. Well, Jesus showed up during that ten hour trip, because there was no way our bus could’ve made it over those muddy, rutted, potholed mountain roads with out divine assistance.

Seila has been pretty busy, so he left it up to me to plan the retreat. I’ve been to too many retreats, or seminars where the focus is on a speaker who speaks at you, and you are but a passive participant. As a community of Jesus’ followers, we all have something of value to speak into each others lives, but it seems like we are rarely given that kind of opportunity. So, I planned in time for each staff person, advisor, and volunteer to present ‘My Story’ through drawings, photos, graphs, or Power Point presentations. Each person had 10 minutes to share, 5 minutes for the audience to ask questions or give an encouraging comment, then two people who the presenter knew best would come forward, lay hands on them, and then pray a blessing on them. Almost all of the Cambodian staff/volunteers broke down during their presentation as they recalled the hardships of growing up the early post-Pol Pot Cambodia. Most pulled out worn, torn, tattered, and grainy black and white photographs of themselves with their families when they were small, causing them to choke up as they were again reminded loved ones, a mother, a father, or a sibling who died in the harsh years of the early eighties under the Vietnamese occupation. Many of them when they were but children, but because of difficult family situations, were sent to live with the families of relatives or friends where they were treated harshly and had to work long hours as children, to make up for room and board. Some were crushed because, although they studied very hard, they weren’t able to pass the exam for earning a high school diploma because of health or financial reasons. All their stories were unique and different, yet they were the same. All had been hopeless, and had found hope as friends or relatives had shared Jesus with them. Jesus not only showed up at the right time in their lives, he showed up at our retreat and met all of us through our shared stories. It was an extremely powerful and moving experience to be present during the transparent disclosure of their lives. I felt it was a great privilege to be able to listen to their stories and learn how Jesus met them in their suffering. We all experienced each other’s lives, and met Jesus in the process.

The next morning I reluctantly got out of bed. Seila was still sleeping. The Benadryl I gave him last night for his sinus problem must have knocked him out! Still a little groggy and grumpy, I went outside. We were staying in a small hotel on the border of Thailand and Cambodia which is also on the coast. The back of our room butts up against a large saltwater bay. “Where is Jesus today, I wondered?” I felt like death warmed over as I walked over to the nearby restaurant. As I sat down to wait for a strong steaming cup of Cambodian coffee, the sun was coming up behind me, and I was facing toward Thailand . Although the new day was looking quite overcast, the first rays of the sun were breaking through, and reflecting off the clouds in front me. The water began to sparkle a bit. I began to think of what an awesome and creative God we have who has made all this, and what a powerful God we have who sustains it all. There in the restaurant, was the cutest little Cambodian girl, maybe 2 years old, playing nearby-I saw Jesus in her big brown eyes. I’ve been seeing Jesus’ finger prints quite a bit on Cambodian people lately.

When we first got back to Cambodia a few months ago, I’d drive down the road to our new house and would see my Cambodian neighbor’s blank looks, their stares, and frowns. One day I decided to smile at every one of them. Guess what? They all smiled back. Maybe my face hadn’t been all that accommodating to them??? My new past-time is trying to find a bit of Jesus in everyone I meet in a day. And when I do, it reminds me that he is never as far away as I might think. So yes, I think I have seen Jesus lately.

2006-09-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

Indictment

I was hungry,

And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.

I was imprisoned,

And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.

I was naked,

And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick,

And you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless,

And you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely

And you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so holy, so close to God,

But I am still very hungry -- and lonely -- and cold

(by Oscar Camillo)

2006-08-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

GECKO TALES

AUGUST 2006 NEWSLETTER by Debbi

Greetings!

When we arrived in Cambodia last month we had definite ideas about how we would re-enter into our very familiar surroundings. First we’d reconnect with our helper/family member, Yana, look for housing options in our former neighborhood, and reconnect with friends who we’ve missed for the past year.

We quickly learned that the many changes we’re either about to take place or had radically changed already……

Yana announced upon our first meeting that she would be leaving permanently for the U.S. and her entire family would be joining her over the next few years. She had only stayed in Cambodia until we returned to tell us in person. We were saddened by this of course, but wished her well and we were all comforted by the fact that she’d be relocating near my mom in California. We interviewed a new helper named Srey Nieng who was recommended by our friend Lisa Everitt and hired her as our new helper.

We were fortunate to have great accommodations at the Everitts while we looked for housing. They only asked that we leave before Lisa’s return from the U.S. on the ninth of August. No problem. This would give us over 2 ½ weeks to find a place before she returned and 3 weeks before the kids started school. Normally this would provide plenty of time for finding housing and getting settled in before the start of school. But, things were anything but normal or typical this time around.

Of course we looked around for a real estate agency. Many such agencies abound in Cambodia. Agents will aggressively search for housing as they can receive a commission from the landlord for the full amount of one month’s rent. The service is free for the client. After securing the assistance of at least 8 official and unofficial real estate agents we were blown away by several new facts:

The average cost for our place had gone up $200 over the past year
There were no possibilities in our desired area
There were no possibilities in the areas surrounding our desired area
There were few places that even had the number of rooms we needed
There were many new places being offered for double our typical cost (with fewer rooms!)

I started to do personal research on the notion of people suffering from H.H. I. D. (House Hunting Induced Depression). After finding nothing before the Aug. 9^th deadline, we moved into Tom & Lynn Newhouses’ home while they were away for 4 days. Everyone was lobbying hard for just moving into our own house; any house.

There was one place near Brian’s office that offered enough rooms and was also near the kid’s school. It had flooding issues and it was clear across town and many of my errands, including my office was in town. Matt was lobbying for a “patayah lavang”. It was new, freshly painted and almost half the rent we were anticipating. But, it is situated on four floors. The first floor is where you park your car in front of your living room and kitchen. The 2^nd floor has two rooms. (one overlooks the living room).The 3^rd floor 2 rooms, the 4^th floor, one room with a great balcony. Problem. There are windows only at the front and back of the house. We’d need an intercom to stay in touch and I couldn’t keep track of Jordan.

Alana liked the first house we looked at. It was tastefully furnished with elegant wood furniture, beautiful garden. Truly suited for her champagne taste, but unfortunately our beer budget could not withstand the extra $200 it would cost to rent. She dramatically rolled her eyes to express that we were so cramping her style.

Matt said,” So you mean we’re going to start school next week without an address?”

Things were bleak on the house hunting front. However I was having the most hopeful and encouraging quiet times. Daily reminders “to wait patiently and with confidence for the things you hope for, knock and the door will be open, seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you; He will bring into existence that which does not exist”; He will give you the land. These verses where juxtaposed to daily outings with nothing to show for our efforts.

I didn’t have the verse which says “Let your yes be yes and your no be no”, but I did have to fall back on this one. Remember Yana our beloved helper of 8 years? Well it turns out that things weren’t as definite as she thought and the U.S. embassy denied her request to go to the states immediately. She would be staying in Cambodia for at least another year while she pursues her immigration visa. So she and her husband start to hint that maybe it God’s will for her to stay here and work for me???? As unsettling as this all was I felt strongly that I could not go back on my agreement with Srey Nieng. We compromised by offering Yana part time work until she returns to the U.S. Helpers: 2; House, 0.

Thida is the guard of Alana’s good friend Leanna. Of course he too was in on the search for the Maher’s home. When he phoned to say he had found a place I immediately remembered the home he showed me the week before- I didn’t need to go inside to know it wouldn’t work- It was just that bad. Also by now, we’d seen many places twice and I could officially become a real estate agent myself! Anyway, did we have a home yet? No. So of course I had to check it out. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It is a two story house with grass (rare in Cambodia), two fish ponds, fully furnished with tastefully simple wooden furniture, a modern kitchen area, pretty tiles in the bathrooms, small back yard with a covered area with table and chairs. It’s a new house. We are the first tenants, and we have very warm landlords. One drawback, though. It doesn’t have the office space. It’s missing one room. It’s just too perfect. We’ll just make due and create office space – some where. The next day we signed the contract and they agreed to create an additional room! We moved in two days later on Saturday, two days before the start of school. The rent is less than our budgeted amount. I know!

We’ve had some bad experiences with previous landlords. One kept one month of our 3 months deposit, one raised the rent without warning, and another shared our electricity line. Our new landlords are so generous. First furnishing the house, then continuing after the contract to bless us with additional items which we could have purchased on our own – but they just seem to want to make things nice.

So thank you for your prayers. We are really enjoying our prayers with birds singing in the background.

Love,

Debbi

P.S. Upcoming newsletter topics: The Glass Bedroom; The Monkey Invasion, Possible Video Tapes Miracle and Are we Kinda in the Provinces?

Comfortable Christians

2006-07-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

I remember when we were preparing to leave our suburban community in Southwestern Connecticut to pursue mission in Cambodia with our 2 1/2 year old son Matt, and our four month old daughter, Alana. Some friends and church members let us know that they didn't think it was very responsible to take such small children to a developing country that was at war, rife with diseases, and so far away. In my ignorance, I told them that it was safer in the center of God's will for us in Cambodia, than back in suburbia. How wrong I was. Having been around the block now, and after 12 years on the field, I would say now that the most riskiest, or dangerous place to be is in the center of God’s Will.

Just look at Hebrews Eleven’s list of Heroes of the Faith of the Old Testament. All of them were extreme risk takers. Most of them suffered, many wandered without a permanent home, and some were aliens in strange lands. Most of them died horrific deaths, and they were in the center of God’s will.

Then along came Jesus who took the risk of becoming human, and embraced the yoke of suffering and death. He said follow me, and follow my example. Twelve men did follow, and weren’t very responsible either. They risked much and lost their lives, suffered beatings, humiliation, jail, and ship-wrecks, all following the example of their leader. The Bible calls them ‘sent ones’ who were in the center of God’s will. Ouch!

Then there were the Reformers who risked their lives and reputation to bring Christians back to a more scripture-centered faith. Then the missionary movement with the likes of Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and David Brainerd, who put their lives on the line to bring the gospel to places far away from their families and homeland. They were Pilgrims and strangers in the world. Today there are missionaries abroad, and missional churches at home that continue to risk their lives and sacrifice their comfort, and financial security for the Kingdom. They are risking a lot, and they might seem quite foolish in the eyes of the world, and I would imagine that they, too, are in the center of God’s will.

As a missionary, I am beginning to see that God did not sacrifice his only son for us so that we would become respectable citizens who are to be guaranteed safety, comfort, and a happy life. We tend to count such things as a sign of being in the center of God’s will. But could we be wrong? Could it be that the Bible highlights those who have been willing to suffer and take large risks for God because they were in the center of God’s will? You decide.

A Long Day in Geckoville, 1995

2006-04-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

A Long Day in 1995

Finally, the day of the long awaited Youth Conference dawned. Only two days before, did we finally, after a few months, receive permission from the SOC Cambodia Government to run the Conference. For the Maher family, dawn had yet to come as we began to finish packing at 5 am that morning for the three hour trip to Kompong Som. I would be driving my friend's Toyota pick-up while he drove a '75 Dodge ambulance, gift of the U.S. Army to YWAM. We were both loaded with equipment for the conference; sports stuff, white-boards, easels, medical supplies, an overhead projector and our own stuff to boot. I had my family and two Cambodians squeezed semi-comfortably into the truck.

My first hint that Monday, Jan 8th, wasn't going to be a banner day came to me when I arrived at the place where we all planned to meet. There were plenty of campers, carrying their mats and traveling bags, but no buses. Wait a minute, there's a bus over there! That was the good news. The bad news was that it looked like a bus Uncle Jed and Jethro might feel proud to travel in. Only a new coat of paint seemed to hold it together. Those buses were laughing in the face of entropy, mocking the first two laws of thermo-dynamics. A sinking feeling in my stomach began to crop up. These buses definitely weren't what our man in charge of transportation promised to deliver. I found my man and asked him where our buses were. I found out that the police were closing the road because the King was arriving from the airport and we were forced to move all three buses off the road, immediately! Not wanting to get the police irritated, the bus drivers parked in the first place off the road they could find. In doing this they ended up blocking peoples driveways, and were forced to move again and again. Of all times for the King to show up. Who does he think he is??! Meanwhile, campers were milling about, trying to find the buses and in the moral malaise of the moment, forty unregistered campers got on the dilapidated buses, unnoticed. We knew something wasn't right when we had about forty registered campers who could not get on the buses. We crammed them in the ambulance, and in and on the vehicles of the missionaries that would be taking part in conference. The police were ordering us to leave the area immediately since the road was now open. We had no time check out the over population problem.

The caravan was now rolling, ever so carefully, toward the sunny beaches of Kompong Som, with those three (vintage 1960) house-paint blue, Chinese buses taking the lead. Uncle Jed and Jethro would truly be proud!

Over the next 60 miles, one bus overheated at least five times, every 10 miles or so it seemed. The crew would race to the nearest swamp to fill up their 5 gallon jugs. Meanwhile the ambulance had blown a tire. My friend Harry had checked the condition of the tires and there wasn't a bit of wear on them.

After the first blew, it became quite evident that these were the original 1975 tires. They were twenty years old and dry rotted but it was difficult telling just from looking at the outside of them. I stayed behind to follow the ambulance, just in case. And it was a good thing, too, because it soon blew out another tire. We had no more spares and both tires were beyond repair. So there sat the U.S. Army's gift to Christianity on blocks on the side of Rt. 4, halfway to the coast in the midst of an area commonly used by the Khmer Rouge. What to do?

The plan was that I would continue on and when I got to the coast, I would buy two tires and bring them back before dark (which is when the action starts). We stopped a big Red Cross truck and loaded it up with supplies and extra campers from the ambulance. Harry waited with the vehicle. As soon as we drove around the bend, we saw great black plumes of black smoke rising up into the air. As we approached the smoke, we prayed that it wasn't coming from our buses. Maybe entropy was having the last laugh. Only a mile further down the road an entire village along the highway was on fire. Tongues of fire were leaping across the highway from both sides preventing us from getting through. We were waylaid about an hour, all the time wondering about the buses that did make it through.

The faulty bus had overheated once again about 30 kilometers ahead of us and the whole caravan stopped to wait for it. With the convoy were about six vehicles driven by missionaries from various Christian Organizations. My Southern Baptist friend Steve, his wife, and four girls got out to answer the call of nature and to stretch a bit. They failed to notice a group of mine clearers sweeping the side of the road. the four girls were in the middle of answering nature’s call when the C.M.A.C. group detonated a pile of mines out in a rice field. This did not go over very well with Steve, who is perhaps a little up-tight at times. I had personally invited him to do a workshop at the conference so he felt free to let me know of his displeasure concerning the detonated mines that scared only his family.

Breakdown, fires, flats, mines. What other surprises are lying in wait for me around the next corner, or should I ask?

Well, we almost made it the rest of the way to Kompong Som with out incident. The Red Cross truck decided not to go all the way so the twenty campers in the back hired a few taxi's (not in the conventional sense of the word) to take them rest of the way. When Chhon and I got to Kompong Som, we could not find any tires there so Chhon went back to pick up Harry, leaving the Ambulance unattended, at night, in a Khmer Rouge area. The next day Harry found tires and hitched a ride back to the ambulance. He was very surprised to find the ambulance in one piece rather than a frame and chassis. He put the new tires on and drove it back to Phnom Penh, belching fire and smoke from the muffler as twenty year old gaskets failed. No one noticed. Business as usual for Cambodia.

I thought this day was an incredibly bad omen for Cambodia first Nationwide Christian Youth Conference and the months of hard work all of us put into organizing it. Things could only get better. Couldn't they??

The rest of the week turned out to be great. Cambodia’s first Interdenominational Youth Conference was an historical event actually happened. Cambodian leaders worked well together and with the expat missionaries. Seventy percent of the campers came from the Provinces, and were from many different denominations and backgrounds, so their was a good representation of the whole protestant church. Campers were housed in the old ‘haunted’ 7th Story Hotel, which had bullet marks and RPG scars left in the cement from the war days. By the time we got through with the conference, so say the villagers, there were no more ghosts left.

As I write this on April 3rd, 2006, The EFC Youth Commission is running their 11th annual Youth Leader's Conference with key speakers, pastors Heng Cheng, Barnbas Mam, and Uon Seila, who have attended all 11 conferences.

Homesick for Geckoville

2006-04-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

I complained about the lawlessness, the traffic, and the weddings and funerals at high decibils starting at 5 a.m. and ending late at night right under my apartment. I complained about being gouged or for a few bucks everytime I went to buy something or do business somewhere, just because I was a 'barang.' I complained about the crime, the dust, the rain, and the heat. Did I mention the taffic? I think I did. But I didn't complain too much about injustice, because being a foriegner, even a poor foreigner, I could still buy my way out of most situations if I had to. As much a being a 'barang' in Geckoville is to experience things being out of one's control, money is the great leveler.

I didn't really understand just how much hopelessness their is attached to being powerless. In Geckoville, the people are powerless unless they have a position in the government of Geckoville, power, or wealth. All the rest are subject to land-grabs where they can lose everything at the whim of some greedy power hungry general who has the means to fudge land titles and remove people from thier land which has been in thier family for generations. Garment factories pay forty dollars a month and attract many young women from the country-side who find out that living expenses eat most of that up by the end of the month, and they have nothing to send home to their hungry family members in the Geckoville country-side. They have to sell sex on the side. Some get AIDS, STDs, or get pregnant. Most women have husbands who are unfaithful, and they bring home HIV/AIDS to their wives. Children are born HIV positive and when their parents die from this disease, they are now AIDS orphans that no relatives want to take in. This is only the tip of the iceberg in Geckoville, and how can one empathize with being totally powerless if you haven't been there yourself?

Having spent twelve years in Geckoville, I have only experienced the feeling of being powerless here in the land of the "Home of the Brave." I'm going broke trying to pay health bills, having an insurance company policy that has a $500 dollar deductible. Prescription meds are really costing me! The family car was hit by a lady that broadsided us, and her insurance company is playing big time games with us, and after a month our totalled car is still sitting at the auto body waiting for the insurance company to claim liability. Gas prices are close to $3.00 per gallon. The Home of the Brave is a place where big Oil companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Insurance and Healthcare corporations are gouging the poor for ever increasing profits. For the helpless poor, the Home of Brave is fast becoming 'The Home of the Grave.' The poor are becoming poorer and people of middle level incomes are becoming poor. And how can the powerless gain a voice in the Home of the Brave? You can't. Even when you vote, you wonder if you can trust those who are doing the tallying.

By making abortion and same sex marriages the central issues of the culture wars, the Religious Right has thrown up a smoke screen that obliterate's the church's call to address social issues where people are oppressed and suffer from excesses of such monoplies as mentioned above. The church should be a voice to government, but a voice of reason, not a voice of self-serving agendas. Where is the Religious Right confronting this Administration's penchant for greed and the oppression of the poor? You'll notice they are only vocal concerning matters which do not affect the purse of the wealthy.

"Geckoville' and the 'Home of the Brave' have more similarities than I would have ever thought. I am understanding a little bit more now, that when the 'Home of the Brave' tries to tell Geckoville that it needs more democracy, many people, and not only residents of Geckoville, become indignant because democracy just can't happen in countries that have such a large gap between the rich and the poor, like the 'Home of the Brave.'

Although there are few things more hopeless than feeling powerless, I am glad I was afforded this opportunity to experience semi-powerlessness during my brief stay in the 'Home of the Brave.' I can now return to Geckoville somewhat more able to empathize with the Geckoville citizens, and point them to a true hope that can sustain people in the worst of situations, the hope that comes a long with being a citizen in the Kingdom of Heaven, whose King is the Lord Jesus Christ. His Kingdom is where the poor and oppressed are prefered customers. I wish that were true of the Home of the Brave.