Media Missionary Focus

Learning to Surf

2007-09-01T11:46:00.000+07:00

We have just wrapped up our time back in the states for deputation, and are finally back in Cambodia. But as we were coming back I was thinking about what we learned in the USA this past year, and in particular how we all learned to surf.

We were fortunate that another missions agency owns a few houses near Atlantic City, NJ, about 2 blocks from the beach. For the last two deputation years we have rented one of those houses to live in. So this past summer, for his birthday, Dmetri, who is now 11, wanted to take surfing lessons. That sounded pretty good, so we also came up with money for Alex to take them as well, and the boys ended up spending an afternoon learning to surf! It was really pretty cool! Now, I freely admit, on the east coast we don’t have the big huge surfing waves that you see in all the movies and stuff. Typically, on a good surfing day, the waves are about 4 to 5 feet tall. But that’s perfect for learning on. They loved it!

Lisa and I also learned to surf, but not the same kind of surfing. I’m talking about channel surfing on the TV. Actually Lisa was already pretty good at it, but I was a reluctant participant.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Lisa is a coach potato or anything like that, it’s just that her natural tendency is that when there is a commercial in a show she is watching, she will start channel surfing. This drives me nuts! I always feel like the show will come back on while we are on a different channel and we will miss some crucial piece of information, without which the plot of the show will be incomprehensible, so I prefer to suffer through the commercials and just stay on the channel. But this year I reluctantly became a surfer as well.

The problem was what was on the commercials. We would find some good, in-offensive show to watch (which isn’t easy these days), something decent that we could watch with our kids and all, but the commercials on during the program would be completely inappropriate for kids! So off we would go channel surfing. Even channels that advertised themselves as “family” channels weren’t safe.

In the end, it is just another example of where things are going in society. This is a problem world-wide, including in Cambodia. That is a big part of why we are trying to be salt and light in the media community here in Cambodia. We want there to be a positive message of hope available to all the people of Cambodia.

The “That’s just you’re opinion” Myth: How American Idol helps me teach my kids

2007-04-25T01:36:00.000+07:00

A few weeks ago I got the shock of my life; I was able to use American Idol, or more specifically the early audition shows of American Idol, to help me teach my son about good and bad, right and wrong.

It actually started with a pinewood derby car my son was making for boy scouts (well, it didn’t actually start there, but that was were things came to a head). I told him it would be a project he would have to do, but I would help him on. So he drew the outline of the car’s shape on the piece of wood, and he had to use a hand saw to cut it out. I helped him start the cut, and did some of it when he would start drifting off the line he drew, etc, but he had to do most of the cutting. It took awhile, and he was pretty tired of working on it by the time he was done, but there was still a lot that needed to be done. He had been pretty rough with the saw, so the cut he had made was anything but smooth, so it needed a lot of sanding. Meanwhile, we were enjoying a stretch of exceptionally nice weather, and he could see friends of his playing in the yard outside, and he was starting to realize that playing with them looked a lot more fun than sanding a pinewood derby car (I can’t say I blamed him). So he was maybe 1/3 of the way finished with his sanding, and he said “Dad, I’m finished. I’m going to go play outside.” I took a look at his car and told him he wasn’t nearly finished yet, that he had to get the surface smooth. That’s when he pulled out the classic “generation me” line; “that’s just your opinion; I think it is good just the way it is. Why can’t you just accept it?”

I am currently reading a book called “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before,” by Jean Twenge. Just last night I was reading a section about the “That’s just you’re opinion” attitude and it brought the pinewood derby car episode right back to the forefront in my mind. The book brought it up in the context of a chapter called “You Don’t Need Their Approval,” that talked about how generation me young people (born between 1970 and 1999) often feel entitle to do whatever they want, whenever they want, in any way they want, and no one has the right or authority to tell them it is wrong, especially if the person trying to tell them that is an older person in some established position of authority. What am I talking about? Think American Idol auditions.

Now I have worked with media long enough to know that producers put people on the air to make a scene. I know there are thousands of average people (in terms of singing talent) who try out for American Idol, but the ones who actually get passed on by the original screeners to meet with Randy, Simon and Paula, are either really good (and deserving of moving on to the next round) or really bad (someone that will just be shocking or funny on the air). So it’s all a set up. Yet hundreds of thousands of people show up at each city to try out, all thinking that they are “IT”. And you figure the people who get passed on to meet with Randy, Simon and Paula aren’t complete idiots; they must have seen the show before and realize that the exceptionally good, and the exceptionally bad, are the only two groups who get through. But it never fails, and in fact seems to get worse every year, that some horribly and tragically bad singer/performer will get in there with the judges, do a terrible audition for them, and when the judges tell them it was bad, their response is that it’s “just their opinion!” Somehow they are still clinging to the idea that they are actually good, and the judges just don’t know what they are talking about. Forget that these three judges have been multi platinum selling recording artists, both as solo acts and as members of a band, have been multi award winning choreographers, multi platinum selling song writers, multi award winning producers, and more! To the rejected contestants mind, these judges don’t know what they are talking about, don’t have any right to tell them what is good or bad, and wouldn’t know a good thing if it fell in their lap!

My family and I, like people all across the world, sit and watch these shows and sit dumbfounded that these contestants can be so bad and have no clue about it. One night as we were watching this spectacle, I commented to my wife that I thought it was just one more example of how the culture is setting up young people for failure. “What do you mean?” she responded. Well, we don’t give grades in elementary school for performance anymore, instead we grade their effort. Forget the fact that the kids did the problem or assignment wrong, they tried hard, and that’s what counts; after all, if we told them their answer was wrong, they would be ashamed and discouraged. Parents throw a birthday party for their child and spend all kinds of money buying presents for the other kids who will attend so that they will also feel special and have something to take home. We have a track meet where EVERYONE gets a ribbon so that no one feels left out. Never mind that we stop rewarding excellence. Never mind that we stop giving kids something to shoot for and an incentive to do their best. Never mind that we fail to teach them to celebrate the accomplishment of others without expecting personal gain from the experience. We abandon teaching and training to a standard in favor of just making sure everyone “feels good about themselves”.

So why should it surprise us when someone with little or no talent gets up on American Idol, does a horrible job, is told that they aren’t good enough to move on, and then they get angry and can’t accept the judges decision? Chances are today that this might have been the first time anyone has ever told them their work wasn’t up to the standard. Chances are they have never really been held to ANY standard. Everyone has always been saying “that’s wonderful” to them so that they would have positive afermation and feel good about themselves, but in reality it was setting them up for failure in the real world where standards DO matter.

So back to the pinewood derby (I bet you thought I had forgotten about that). My son gives me the “I think it’s good enough” line, and all the American idol stuff pops into my head. So I ask him about all the people we had been seeing on American Idol, and shared with him the simpler version of what I said above, and showed him how the job he did on his derby car was going to be measured against real standards, not against what he thought was “good enough”. And then I told him what he really meant was that he wanted to go play instead of finishing the work he needed to do. Did he suddenly see the light? Did a light-bulb turn on above his head as a sign of his sudden enlightenment? Not exactly. What he did was wine and complain a bit more because I made him stay in and finish his job on his derby car before going out to play. But the enlightenment part came a week or so later when his car beat every other car in the pinewood derby by a WIDE margin, and he knew he had done it all himself through hard work.

So yes, American Idol is a pop phenomenon, and a bit of a guilty pleasure, but it also can help a 10 year old see that there are standards, and in the long run it is worth “laying everything aside and pressing onward toward the goal.”

Is The World Flat For Missions?

2006-10-21T01:37:00.000+07:00

Despite what you might have heard in school, the world, apparently, is flat. So says a book I have been reading (actually listening to on CD in my car). It is a bestseller called “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman.

The author’s premise is that globalization is creating a world that is flat, primarily economically. It addresses some of the issues facing people across the country, like outsourcing, jobs moving overseas, etc. He then goes on to talk about how some of those issues affect legislation, government, and more.

While all of that is interesting to me, for us as Christians there is much more to think about. It obviously affects us in terms of the livelihood of church members in America, but it also has implications for us in terms of missions.

In terms of outsourcing jobs, businesses here in the USA move work that had been done in America to other countries where they can do the same work for a lower cost. For example, many businesses have moved their customer service call centers to countries like India where they can substantially lower their cost of doing business. Thomas Friedman goes on to say that the jobs that will be more secure and create the new middle class are those that cannot be easily replicated and / or are tied directly to the communities where they are located. Does that apply to missions as well?

In one area we have already been doing this. We have businesses we know here in America that do web site design, yet we chose to go with a Cambodian company to do our site. Why? Well, the US based companies would have charged us somewhere around $1000, but the Cambodian company we used cost us only $300. The savings was clearly worth it (and they did a great job as well). We even did most of our printing in Cambodia prior to coming back to the USA for the same reason.

But what about with regular missions work on the field? In Cambodia we have missionaries working with us from the Assemblies of God of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, France, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. And then there are the Cambodian pastors we work with. And don’t forget missionaries from other organizations. Do we just hand things off to them because a plane ticket from Singapore to Cambodia is cheaper than a plane ticket from the USA to Cambodia? What is our place in fulfilling the Great Commission in a world that is becoming “flat”?

I actually think that the answer is the same as it is with the business world. There are certain things that missionaries from those other countries (not to mention Cambodian pastors) do better, but there are other areas where we are still needed. It’s not about needing to do everything ourselves; we have always wanted to empower the national church and “work our way out of a job”. But we are still needed. In media ministries for example, we have been on the same page as the “Flat Earth” for a number of years.

Asia Pacific Media Ministries (the Asia Pacific wide umbrella ministry that we work with) has a philosophy of empowering the national church. Other media ministries groups try to create one centralized location / ministry center that tries to meet everybody’s needs in every country across the region. Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) tries to de-centralize and empower local churches to do their own media production.

But it is still a learning / growing process. Learning to partner internationally with different groups who have different policies and priorities can be difficult.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been trying to think through lately…

Reality Is More Than What You Think! (Trying To Keep Up With God's Timing)

2006-08-22T21:29:00.000+07:00

Reality seems to consistently outpace my expectations. I just spent some time on the phone last night catching up on how things are going with media ministries back in Cambodia, and my thought was “Wow!”

We have been very fortunate to be able to work in partnership with another missionary there from the Australian Assemblies of God named Rebecca Williams. She has been a HUGE help in numerous ways. Let me tell you a bit of the story of our movie project / production company.

I was first approached in 2003 about doing an evangelistic film in Cambodia. I was on a trip to the Philippines working with Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) and I sat down for an afternoon with two of APMM’s key guys, Bill Snider and Jeff Gregory, and an independent missionary/film maker named Steve Cadd and they shared with me about a project they had first tried in Mongolia. They had partnered with the local church to help them produce an evangelistic film, and they had provided the funding and equipment and training for the project, then when it was finished they left the equipment with the people they had trained so that, theoretically, they would have the a functioning Christian production company, including state of the art equipment and trained personnel and a commercially viable movie that would help fund the next project and get the ball rolling to provide the church with a long term voice in the media industry. The jury was still out in some respects on the Mongolia project (it wasn’t yet clear if there would be an ongoing company or not), but they wanted to take the lessons they had learned there and move on to another country and try it again, and they were interested in Cambodia.

Honestly I was somewhat skeptical. Any time you start giving away thousands of dollars in equipment, etc there is a huge potential for problems. I told them of my concerns and about problems that had occurred in Cambodia in the past when something as simple as a musical instrument had been given to someone, but I said I would check with some other missionaries and church leaders to get their reactions. Most of the people I talked to shared my concerns. But when I got to Rebecca and we started talking about it, we came up with a solution that seemed to address many of our concerns; we would take a music production company that she was in the process of setting up and expand it to include a video production arm as well (check previous post for more details on some of the issues we were looking at). So, to make a long story short, I have been working with her and her team to help them facilitate their video production work, and we are in the middle of the film project (training and script writing with filming scheduled for January and February).

The “Wow” factor comes from where they are as a company. The goal was that the film would really help to put them into an industry leading position and help them to begin developing a reputation for quality work. Well, they have jumped right over the film step and are ALREADY starting to take a lead in the industry! Since I left they have started a youth oriented radio program and are in the final stages of starting up a weekly TV show as well. Both of these shows use music and musicians to address social issues and to show how we should address them according to Biblical principles (this fits in perfectly with the company’s goal of using their position in media work and pop culture to give them a platform and voice from which they can then plant an inner city church aimed at Cambodia’s inner-city youth). Now they also just were contracted to direct the TV coverage of Cambodia’s three day water festival in October! This is the biggest event in the Cambodian calendar and coverage goes out to surrounding countries as well! This is HUGE! They are already being seen as being in the top of their field! As for long term impact, this means they are already becoming a commercially viable company, so they will be able to continue to be salt and light in the community, and give a media voice to the church, without outside funding. They are already becoming an indigenous, self supporting Christian entity! In addition, they are quickly gaining a reputation for quality work so that when the movie is released, or when they do concerts or other projects, people will be ready and willing to listen and see what they are saying and doing; it gives them credibility and an existing relationship with their target audience that will allow them to effectively share the gospel!

So all this means that the company is light years ahead of where I thought they would be! Like most things that God is involved in, he operates on His own timetable. Sometimes that means we have to wait for Him and His timing to be right, and sometimes it means we are just trying to keep up with what He is already doing!

Running Without Shoes: The Church In Cambodia

2006-07-26T22:02:00.000+07:00

We just finished School of Missions and while we were there I noticed something kind of amusing.

School of Missions is an annual event held at Evangel University, in Springfield, MO by the Assemblies of God World Missions department. Typically, our missions agency works on a five year cycle; general appointed missionaries (like us) spend four years on the field (in Cambodia for us) and then one year back in the USA raising money for the next four years. So, theoretically, every missionary would be back in the states once every five years. During that year they are back in the USA they are required to attend a two week event known as School of Missions. It is a time of classes and seminars and meetings designed to help missionaries keep up on changes in the missions agency itself, new trends and changes in churches in America, and to provide fellowship and networking among like minded people around the world. This year they had about 750 missionaries attending (about 130 of those were new missionaries preparing to go to the field for the first time). Overall it is a very good time for our entire family; they have a kids program running the whole time as well that our kids love. And the thing I noticed was about Alex, our 8 year old son.

To properly set the stage let me go back about 4 years. Back then Alex had some interesting personality traits that had us a bit concerned. He couldn’t stand to have anything dirty in any way. He wouldn’t even set a toy down on a carpet inside our house because he was afraid it would get dirty! He never wanted to be dirty himself either; he would wash his hands numerous times each day. We were beginning to become concerned that he might have obsessive compulsive disorder. But, thankfully, he grew out of it. Over the last year or two it was more common to pick him up from school and rather than being spotlessly clean, he looked like he had been involved in digging a tunnel somewhere.

The other thing you need to remember is that missionary kids tend to be a bit different. They grow up living in a different culture, where different things are accepted and expected. Then mix in international school. Our kids, for example, go to an international, English speaking school that was set up primarily for missionary kids. It’s been great, but it definitely throws them for another cultural loop. The teachers at the school are primarily from Australia, New Zealand and England. The kids in their classes are from Korea, New Zealand, Australia, England, Cambodia, Singapore and a few other places. So the school has it’s own culture as well. And then our home has it’s own culture; we are American in many ways, but yet we don’t always fit in so well among the general American population. As a rule, as evangelical Christians we are more conservative than most Americans, yet as missionaries living in another culture and working with media to find new ways of connecting with people around the world we are often a good bit more open to “different” people and new ideas than a large percentage of the people in most churches. So our kids are growing up in this multi-cultural mix, and consequently they end up developing a pretty unique combination of traits from the different groups and cultures they interact with.

So, back to School of Missions. On one of the last days they have the kids programs do a special presentation for all the adults, so that parents get an idea of what their kids have been doing. The kids were supposed to dress up, so we had Dmetri and Alex get ready to go. Well, Alex didn’t have any nice shoes in our room; he hadn’t needed them before that, so they were in the trunk of the car. Because we were already running a little late, Lisa and Dmetri started heading for the meeting while Alex and I went to the car to get his shoes. He had been wearing flip-flops all week (standard tropical missionary footwear), and he left those in the car and put on his nice sandals. Yeah, I know, I said he had to get his nice shoes out of the car so that he would be dressed up and here we are getting sandals, but that’s missionary kids! So he gets his nice sandals on and we start heading for the meeting. As we came around the corner of the building I could see Lisa and Dmetri a good ways ahead, so I told Alex to run and catch up so he wouldn’t be late. He started to run, and when he was about 15 yards in front of me he stopped, took off his sandals, picked them up, and ran the rest of the way barefoot.

Yes, that’s the end of my “funny” story. So what was the point? Well, two things really struck me at the time. First, was how much Alex had changed. From being a strong candidate for OCD, to running around barefoot on a college campus. He still has his issues, but they are different now, and thankfully not quite as dramatic. Second, it seemed to be a very Cambodian thing to do. It didn’t seem to fit the stereotypical churchgoing model of a preacher’s kid in a conservative evangelical church. But all that is just fine by me. When Alex picked up those shoes and started running I had a big stupid grin plastered across my face. And that isn’t all that different from the church as a whole, and especially the church in Cambodia.

The Cambodian church isn’t too much older than our boys. It was just in the early 1990’s that it got going again. And in the not too distant past we would look at some of the problems and issues within this new church and wonder how they will ever make it. Yet many of those problems and odd behaviors are now long gone. They still have problems. But they are new problems. They are growing, and just like our kids, they have a unique culture and perspective. They grew up in Cambodia, they have been reached by, and work regularly with missionaries from 7 different countries (and that’s just counting Assemblies of God missionaries. The reality is there are missionaries from dozens of countries.). Plus, the gospel presents a whole new set of principals and priorities. We can’t expect them to look just like us. They are unique. And just like I get a big grin on my face when I see Alex doing something uniquely Alex, or Dmetri doing something uniquely Dmetri, I’m sure God has a big smile when the Cambodian church does something unique to them.

New Movie Moves (Beyond the Story of the Story)

2006-04-24T09:00:00.000+07:00

I realize it has been a long time since I last updated this blog, but let’s see where things stand on the movie project now…

Another step in the process has been moved along. We have set up an advisory board for the film project made up of 2 Cambodian pastors, 2 Cambodian business men, and 2 Cambodians from the creative arts (all Christians). They met together about 2 weeks ago and we presented the three story options. Initially they seemed to go for the story we considered a throw away idea. In fact, while the other two stories were posted on this blog (see the last two postings), I didn’t even post this one because we didn’t really consider it an option. In short, it was the story of a girl who is engaged to a nice boy, goes out with other friends and ends up sleeping with some other guy. Despite her efforts to cover it up, eventually her fiancé and his family find out about it. She expects him to dump her, but instead he forgives her and restores their relationship. The story is a metaphor for God’s grace and forgiveness. Well, the advisory board liked it because it also addressed a very real social problem as well. This was not what we expected at all. We considered this the weakest story by far, and it would present a number of problems in telling the story without becoming offensive to the Christian community we want to get behind this.

Well, the board members took copies of the three story treatments home to go over, and then they met again a week later to decide what story we would do. Now that they had had the chance to read through all of the stories in detail and think about it for awhile, they had changed there minds (thank goodness!). Instead, they now felt we should go with the story about the boy and the letter from his father (see previous posts for the whole story). This is kind of a sad / tragic story, and those types of stories really go over big here. Again, this wasn’t the one we thought they would pick, but it is the original story we came up with, and we all thought it was good. It also has a few difficult challenges as well. First, the story is VERY character driven, with a young boy playing a leading role. That requires good acting, and getting a good, believable performance is going to be hard. Second, it is set in the time just after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and the government is very picky about historical details on things like that. So we would have to match clothes, vehicles, etc. to the time very closely, or else the government would not approve it for release.

So now we need to work over the story, write the script, and work with the advisory board on making sure the church can and will use it as an evangelism tool. And that’s just for starters!

We also need to do training for all the technical staff and all the talent. The first training sessions will be in May, with two additional training sessions in August and November, so that we can hopefully do filming in January or February. There is a TON of stuff that needs to be done before then, but hopefully all will go well, and we should be edited and ready for release about the time we return from our deputation year in the States in the summer of 2007.

Evangelistic Movie Idea # 3 (and # 2 sort of...)

2006-03-01T09:51:00.000+07:00

If you read the last movie idea, you might be wondering what happened to idea number 2? Well that one is pretty simple; it is the story of a girl with a great fiancé who makes some bad choices, gets involved with another person who is takes advantage of her, the fiancé finds out, the girl repents and he forgives her and takes her back with no strings attached. It is basically a story of redemptive love. Unfortunately the story line itself raises all kinds of possible problems, so I doubt this will be the final choice.

The third idea, however, is another matter. I will copy the idea below (it is a bit long, but the story is more involved), but it stems from a very common problem, both here in Cambodia and around the world. It addresses the idea that “all roads lead to God”, or put simply, if you want to reach out to God through Christianity, that’s fine, and if I want to reach out to that same God through Buddhism, that’s fine too. So the story is designed to be an illustration of why that doesn’t work. This is a first draft of the story, and still needs a lot of work, but here it is.

The Father’s Inheritance

Scene One: visiting the old lady

The father goes to meet with the old lady. He asks his youngest son Virek to take him to the old lady’s house. The father is old and clearly unwell. He walks slowly and with difficulty.
When they arrive at the old lady’s house. Virek waits down under the house whilst his father and the old lady go into another room to talk. The father tells the old lady he is sick and knows he has very little time left. He is worried about his children. He is sad that he doesn’t have much time left with them to teach them and lead them back to a good way of life, and he is worried about the inheritance he will leave. It is significant and he knows the older two will fight over it, and in the attempt to get it could destroy them. He explains that only his youngest son is truly good, and truly understands his heart. He says that if with the remainder of his life he cannot lead them back to righteousness, then he must do it through his death. He tells the old lady of some of his oldest son’s corrupt dealings of late- things he is being accused of, and he knows his son is probably guilty of them. He talks about how his daughter is addicted to ‘gondoiy lake’ and gambling and is surely driving her husband crazy with her ramblings. He tells the old lady that he always thought he would be there to burry her and to take care of her until she died, but now it looks like he will go first. He tells her that he had this planned for many years, a piece of land, a special place where she could be buried after she died. Because he would die first, he leaves the deed and ‘plong day’ with her. He thanks the old lady for her years of wise counsel and friendship and he leaves.

Scene Two: Father dies

The father is in his bed. There is a large framed photo above his bed. It is a piece of land, which is not all that attractive. His breathing is laboured and he is dying. Virek is with him by his side along with his wife Maly. Virek asks his wife to bring him his phone, it is time to call his siblings to come and say goodbye to their father. He calls his older brother Om Rong. Om Rong picks up the phone and he says he is unable to come. He is busy at work (shot goes to him and his guards currently demanding money from a business or a family who owe them money. They are threatening or using violence against that family) He says he can’t come and hangs up the phone. Virek calls his younger sister. She picks up the phone (and the shot goes to her) and she is busy playing cards. She says her child is sick and she can’t leave him to come and hangs up the phone. Virek is disappointed and goes back to sit by his father’s side. He tells his father they are busy but will get here as soon as they can. His father knows what they are like and tells Virek- look out for your brother and sister. When I am gone, keep them together, don’t part and go your separate ways. The father passes away.

Scene Three: At the Lawyers office

Three Siblings and their partners meeting with the lawyer. Their father has just died and left a will. The children are all grown up and Married. Their partners are present with them.

The eldest son’s name is Om Rong and his wife’s name is Rany. The Daughter’s name is Om Rouey, and the youngest son’s name is Virek and his wife’s name is Maly.

The lawyer opens the will. Inside are several letters, one the main will, and a letter for each child and a single, very simple cut diamond ring. The lawyer reads out the will. Their father had $X in the bank and he instructs it all to be given to charity. There are also instructions for closing up the business and a particular person is appointed over that etc. The lawyer then gives each of the siblings a letter, each letter is identical. He tells them there is a diamond ring here and no instructions for it, he is unsure what to do with it. Immediately the older brother comments “He was worth millions and he leaves us one ring to share? I am not in need of rings, and my wife has no spare fingers to put them on.” The sister starts murmuring too “Its not even a nice ring. That is the smallest diamond I have ever seen and it is isn’t even polished. I wouldn’t be seen wearing it” The younger Son, says “I would like the ring, if that is OK. My father gave that to my mother many years ago before she died. I haven’t seen it for a long time.” he takes the ring.
They all take their letters and open them. Inside the letter are instructions on how to find the father’s hidden inheritance- the most precious of all his possessions.

They lawyer leaves them, and they sit down together and each of them opens the letter. The eldest son reads it out loud.

No eye has seen nor mind has conceived of the treasure I have laid up for you.

An end to hunger and end to pain,
A place of rest where peace will reign

Beyond every dream beyond every wish
The humble are blessed and the poor become rich

It’s far for the haughty and close to the meek
It’s available for all those who honestly seek

If you know my heart, if you love me true
The words in this letter will guide you and lead you

So find the straight path that is narrow and free
Follow it faithfully and it will lead you to me

It has no turns to trick or mislead,
But many are waiting to misguide and deceive

Heed my words and hear my voice
Let my life be your compass to guide each choice

Many people you’ll meet many needy you’ll see
You must help the old lady to give you the key

She will shorten your path if you lighten her load
For the way you travel determines the road

And the length of your journey is measure by love
For what you sow you will reap on this earth and above

Care for each other and call for the lost
For the gift of the treasure comes to you at no cost

So be guided by goodness and travel by light
For I have no business with darkness or night
He finishes reading the letter and each of them reacts to it according to their character.

The eldest son is a schemer, selfish and wants the inheritance all to himself. He is quiet, calculated and intelligent. He is ruthless about getting what he wants, even at the expense of others, family included. His wife is of similar character

The middle daughter is talkative, gossipy, believes in fortune tellers, she is not all that intelligent, not very refined or gentle. Her husband is more refined and is a kind man, but not a very strong character. He is calmer than his wife and is not a selfish man, but he frequently gives into his wife’s silly ways to avoid a fuss or a fight. He knows he has married a foolish woman, and tries to live under the radar.

The youngest Son is a gentle person. He loved his father the most of all the children and was the closest to his father. He is not as concerned with the treasure as his siblings, he misses his father dearly and his motivation in following his father’s instructions is more out of obedience and respect because to him the letter represents his father’s last wishes and last words to him and he treasures that. His wife is gentle and well mannered and kind too. He is the peacemaker of the family and the one that keeps them all together.

Each of the siblings is sitting with their partner, lost in the letter, or in the case of the youngest, more in grief. The eldest son takes his wife by the hand and pulls her aside. He whispers to her indicating that he wants to go and find the treasure before his siblings. He says “our father was a very wealthy man. What ever he has left is surely enough that we could easily live the rest of our days without a care and without having to work. My sister is too stupid to handle such wealth let alone solve this riddle of a letter, she would just waste the money anyway, any my brother- he doesn’t care about it- he’ll spend the next week crying over my father and won’t even notice that we have gotten to the treasure before him. Let’s just tell them we will all go our separate ways and who ever finds it first can call for the others.”

The sister sees her brother whispering and wants to know what he is saying. She yells out, goes over to him, asks him what he is saying, what he is planning, accusing him of scheming as per usual. She then asks him if he knows what the letter means and where the inheritance is. He shakes his head, and she suggests they go see a fortune teller. She starts carrying on about how she knows a really good fortune teller and he always gets things right etc. Somewhere in there she gets side tracked in her own rambling and is off on a tangent. (showing her character).

The eldest brother says something sarcastic to the sister indicating how stupid she is, and they start to fight. The youngest brother is the peacemaker. He stops their fighting, reminding them that their father has just passed away, and they are not honoring his memory by fighting over his will. He suggests they all go together, that their father would have wanted it that way, and that the instructions in the letter will be enough to lead them, there is no need for fortune tellers. They just need to be obedient to their father.

The older brother wants to go alone..... the elder two snap at each other again, and the younger brother and his wife suggest they go home and rest. It has been a stressful time and they all need to sleep on it and tomorrow they can talk about it.

They all go to their individual homes for the night. The eldest brother and his wife immediately begin scheming and have no intention to wait for the other two. The wife asks what was the name of the person who must collapse the company and deal with all that?” We must get into his office. Surely we will be able to find all the information we need there.
The daughter is also coming up with her plans, how she interprets the letter and what she is going to do with the inheritance once she gets it. Her husband suggests they should follow the advice of the youngest son, and all go together, after all their father had plenty of wealth, there is no need to compete. His wife starts fussing and carrying on, and as per usual he decides it is easier to shut up and give into her.

The youngest son and his wife are at home reminiscing about their father. They read the letter over and over and the keys and instructions in the letter remind them of times their father did certain things to help others, phrases he always used to use to teach them certain things, etc. Out of all the children he understands the fathers words the clearest. (“... help the old lady to give you the key) He understands that the letter is instructing them how to live, how to conduct themselves.

They call it a night and go to sleep. Before the Virek goes to bed he walks through the house, into his father’s room, missing his father. He stands at the foot of his bed and the picture of the land above the bed is caught in the shot.

In the morning the eldest Son and his wife leave to find this woman who has the keys to his father’s office. The figure someone at his office must know where this inheritance is and they will threaten and do what ever they need to do to find it. They find the woman and she refuses to give them the keys. They threaten her and she gives in. They take the keys and head to the office.

The daughter goes to her older brother’s house and starts calling out his name, knocking on the door and peering through the windows. Her husband stands still watching his wife and after a while calls out to her that their car is not there, they are not home. She starts to curse her brother and call him names, saying it is just like him to run off without her, wants it all for himself. She also turns on her husband saying that he is not smart like her brother, can’t work out a plan..... She grabs her phone to call her brother. His phone is turned off. She calls his work, he is not there. She forgets about the letter and finding the treasure- now she is concerned with finding her brother. The husband is sick of her whinging and fighting and doesn’t say anything. They leave to find the eldest brother.

The youngest brother talks with his wife saying “lets invite my brother and sister over for lunch today so we can all talk about the letter and work out what we will do” they agree and the wife goes to prepare lunch and the husband calls his siblings. The eldest brother’s phone is off. He calls his sister and she picks up the phone and starts carrying on down the phone. He tries to calm her, and tells her to come over for lunch and they can talk about it, but she refuses. She doesn’t want to wait or waste time, she says to him “he is probably half way to the treasure by now and you want to have lunch? I am going to go and find him immediately”. She hangs up the phone.

Virek goes and tells his wife they are not coming for lunch. He sits down with his wife and talk. He is disappointed in his siblings. They decide that the best thing to do is obey their father and live according to the letter and one day if there is such a place it will lead them there, and when they know where the inheritance is they will call their siblings to come and enjoy it all together.

The oldest brother gets into his fathers office. He searches through all his files and looks for clues. His wife is going through each word in the letter with a map in front of him. They start marking where all his fathers business dealings were, where he travelled, has gotten access to his invoicing and accounts to find out where he had sites, jobs, transferred money etc, to try and pinpoint where the inheritance is. He has identified key business associates of his fathers and they plan to go and meet with them to see if they know anything.

The daughter is off doing the tail of the numbers game- turning words into number to work out their significance, and consulting fortune tellers to do it for her. She thinks some of the words in the story are really numbers that will tell her which road she needs to travel down.

After a series of other events in the attempt to find the inheritance the wife of the eldest son asks him. “Maybe we are focussing too much on the road, maybe we should work out who this old lady was, where this key is. Maybe once we have the key we will know where to go. Who may he have been talking about?” The son replies “There is one old lady in a village just outside the city who he considers like a mother. He goes to her when he needs advice or when he needs someone to talk to. He has been doing that more often since my mother died. I know he went to visit her not long before he died. He must have left the key with her.”

In the morning, the eldest son and his wife get in the car to travel to the old lady’s house. They talk together in the car “do what ever we have to do to get that key, and get all of them. We are not leaving a chance that someone else will get to this inheritance before us.- I don’t care what the letter says” They go to the old lady’s house and barge inside. She is sitting under the house on a wooden platform. They march up to her demanding the keys their father left, threaten her and shouting at her when she doesn’t answer “where are the keys, give me the keys” she is confused and frightened. She doesn’t know what they are talking about. She asks them to leave, but they won’t. They walk upstairs into the house looking for keys. She follows them up. They find all the keys in her house and take them, threatening that if she is hiding any other keys they will hurt her. She tells them they have all the keys already. She is confused and crying, and mutters that they are dishonouring their father’s good name and memory, that he would never have behaved like this. As they are leaving the light catches a chain around her neck with a small gold key on it. He calls her a liar and snatches the chain from her neck, causing her to fall over hitting her head. They turn and leave.

Virek and his wife are sorting through their father’s belongings, packing his clothes and cleaning up his things. They come across a photo of the old lady. Virek calls for his wife to go and get the letter his father left. He reads it again and he becomes worried. “My father was very close to this old lady. If my older brother or sister think that he may have left a key or something to do with the inheritance with her, she could be in trouble. My brother has been threatening everyone and anyone he thinks could lead him to this treasure. He is not afraid to hurt an old woman. We must go to her.”

When they get to her house, her family tell him what happened and what his older brother did. They tell him which hospital she is in. They drive to the hospital to be with her. They talk to the doctor and he tells them she is old, and the trauma to her head is severe- they don’t think she will live. She knows she is dying and she asks to go home. She doesn’t want to die in a hospital.

Virek takes her home and he spends time with her. The old lady tells him to go and get a letter out of a certain drawer and bring it to her. She tells him “When I die bury me here. This is the ‘plong day’ of a piece of land your father prepare for my burial. You are just like your father.”

Virek tries to get in contact with his brother. He knows that his brother has gone too far and will have to pay for his actions. He calls his sister to tell her to come and be with the old lady, that she is like a grandmother to them, and she is dying. His sister is half way to Battambong by now as some how she has concluded that the inheritance is there.

Virek and his wife stay by the old woman.

In the meantime the police go after the older brother for assaulting the old lady and it ends in him either being arrested and put in jail or dying.

The old lady dies, and Virek organises to take her to the land that his father put aside for her. Inside the envelop with the ‘plong day’ is a picture of the land. He has seen that picture before, he is sure. It seems so familiar. He takes the old lady’s body out to the site. When he gets there, there is a guard at the site. The guard meets with Virek and asks him. “Do you have the ring?” Virek looks confused. “You must have the ring to enter this site.” Virek looks at his fingers, then at his wife’s hands... I only have this ring from my father.(pointing to his wife’s hand). The guard looks closer at the ring. “Yes, that is the ring. You may enter. I am sorry about your father. He was a great man. He told me one day I would meet you.”

Virek enters the gates and goes inside. He looks around- there is nothing there but a huge empty block of land. It is the same land as in the photo that was in the envelop from the old woman, and he finally realises it is the same photo that has been hanging above his father’s bed all these years.

He finds the site set aside for the old woman and he buries her. When he has dug a grave and placed her coffin inside, he picks up a handful of dirt to throw in the grave, and as it sifts through his fingers, there is a hard rock- a diamond. He sifts through more of the dirt and there are more uncut diamonds.

He realises this is the inheritance.

He goes back home after he has buried the old lady and he takes the photo of the land from above his father’s bed and takes the back of the frame off. Inside attached to the photo are instructions and the title to the whole land- a field of diamonds. He re- reads the letter and finally it all makes sense to him. The ring his father gave his mother, that his wife is currently wearing was the first diamond discovered on that land, and no other diamonds have been mined there since- he left it all for his children.

His brother is gone, but he calls his sister. She starts rambling that she went to Battambong to the place where the fortune teller told her to go and there was nothing there. He tells her to come back to the city. He needs to talk to her. She tells him she has to keep searching, can’t come back, but her husband stops her- “you’ve tried it your way and it hasn’t led you anywhere good. Why don’t you try listening to your brother for once.” She stops talking, and nods her head, and says to her brother “OK, I will come back. I will see you tomorrow”

scene with the Virek and his wife Maly......

The sister and her husband come back and meet with Virek and Maly. He explains what happened to the old lady, and that he wants to take her to see something. He takes her out to the site their father left them, and then he hands her the letter and instructions attached to the photo that was hanging in his room. She starts asking “So where was the key, what was the road the letter was talking about, I don’t understand” Virek explains to her, it wasn’t a real key- it wasn’t an actual road that our father was referring to. He was trying to tell us how to live, to care for others, and that is what would lead us to happiness and to the inheritance. I found this because I went to help the old lady, when she was dying.

Evangelistic Movie Idea 1

2006-02-08T08:53:00.000+07:00

Well, I wanted to get the actual story ideas we are playing with out there to see if anyone had any thoughts.

We have three ideas at the moment, all in various stages of development. All of them are meant to be used as illustrated stories that can represent some aspect of Christianity that can be used by people to help explain Christianity to their unsaved friends.

Here is the first. The story is intended to address the misconception that God is absent from our lives and either doesn’t care about us, and disinterested. Let me know what you think!

Story of Sopheap:

Sopheap is the only child of a poor farming couple. They live in a small farming community and are the poorest family in the village. Sopheap’s father is a kind hearted hard working man who loves his family. Sopheap’s mother is withdrawn and suffers bouts of depression, and after effect of watching her parents and all her 5 brothers and sisters killed before her eyes during the war. She never really recovered. There are rumours in the village that she must have been responsible for her family’s death, that she sold them out to the pol pot soldiers so they wouldn’t kill her. They say it is the guilt that has left her a little crazy. In some ways attribute the family’s poverty to her mental condition, and it is out of respect to Sopheap’s father that they are still accepted as part of the community at all. When Sopheap is almost five years old, his father decides to leave the village and go and work on a fishing trawler, so he can send back money for Sopheap to go to school. Sopheap is too young to really understand why his father is leaving. He loves his father and misses him badly. His mother does too, and retreats a little further into her own world. Sopheap finds himself sitting by the road watching and waiting for his father to return. On festivals and special holidays when his father is supposed to be coming home to visit, Sopheap waits and waits, but his father never comes... All that arrives is a letter a few days later explaining why. The story takes place during the late eighties when the country was still at war and travel was very difficult and dangerous. His father genuinely tried to come, but so often travel was made impossible by bandits and fighting in the provinces. He would send a letter and send when he could, send money. After several years of this, Sopheap began to doubt his father love and affection and the disappointment of the letters explaining his fathers absence became too much. He began to hate the sight of those letters that would bring such bad news. Then after several years, the letters stopped coming and so did his father. Sopheap was mad, and the rumours amongst the neighbours was that his father had finally left them. Sopheap’s mother began to panic and took sopheap on the dangerous road to the dock where his father’s boat landed each morning. There Sopheap stood watching the waves and the boats in the bay whilst his mother went and talked to Sopheap’s fathers work friend. The man handed Sopheap’s mother a briefcase and one final letter. Sopheaps’ mother broke down, crying hysterical. Sopheap unsure how to react stood silently watching. Sopheap’s father’s friend stood by his mother for a moment, and then went back to work unloading the fishing boat. It was a long time before his mother could regain her strength to even stand up. When she did, she never said a word, not that day, not from that point on. Her eyes had a glazed over look, like her soul had retreated to a far away place, and all that was left was her body dragging her from one day to the next. Sopheap asked his mother when his father would be coming home, and he got no reply. He ran to find the man who had given the briefcase to his mother and ask him too, when would his father be coming home? The man replied, “your father will not be coming home ever again son.” It took the trip home for that news to sink in. In his mind he understood that his father had left them. He saw the state his mother was in, and he began to hate his father intensely. He saw in his mother’s hand a final letter with his father’s writing on the front, and a single word- his name. He didn’t want to open it. He couldn’t stand to hear another excuse, a reason why his father wouldn’t come home, a reason why he had been abandoned, a reason why his mother had been left an empty shell. He didn’t care to know.

As the years went by his hate for his father was fed by the people in the village. When they returned that fateful day with his father’s briefcase in his mother’s arms, and her tear stained face and empty stare, all the villagers assumed that the rumours were true- he had left them. They began a source of gossip and finger pointing in the village. The other children teased him- the boy with a crazy mother and no father. The older people in the village said it was just a matter of time before he left, after all how long could he be expected to stay with a wife who was just an empty shell. Every event drove his anger and hurt deeper and deeper. He watched other families with a mother who was functional and a father who played with his sons, and he was jealous, and his heart ached, but he buried those feelings in the anger and resentment he held onto so tightly towards his father.

His mother would daily sit by the gate watching the road, as if perhaps today would be the day when this last few years would prove to be a bad dream and her husband would come home to her, walk through that gate and take her hand. Each night when that small piece of hope set with the sun, she would pick herself up and head into her room, to cry and rock herself to sleep holding that briefcase, that last unopened letter. Sometimes Sopheap would take food to his mother or clean up her room, and he would see the letter there, his name in his father’s writing, there was a sense of curiosity, but it was as if he thought opening that letter was like forgiving his father and accepting the excuse that lay within the words. He wouldn’t do it. He never picked it up. His mother could not read, perhaps she didn’t even know who’s name it was, but Sopheap did.

His mother’s health deteriorated little by little. She had lost the will to live the day they returned from the ocean, and her body was shutting down piece by piece ever since. She was bed ridden and thin, and so weak. Sopheap knew she would not live long. Deep in his heart he blamed his father, accused him of killing his mother by breaking her heart.
The final day came, when Sopheap knew his mother would leave him before the sun went to bed. He sat with her, and she picked up the letter. She motioned for him to read it to her, he refused at first, but upon her insistence as her dying request he opened the letter. He read the words.

Sopheap,

My beloved son,

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you, wonder how your day was, what you learnt at school, wonder what you think about and dream about. I miss every minute I don’t get to spend around you, I miss watching you grow, and being a part of your life everyday. I want you to know how much I love you and why I can’t be there like other boys Dad’s. I had to leave you and your Mum to find work, so that I could pave a way for you to have a good future, so you could go to school, so you could grow up and get away from a life of poverty and suffering that you were born into. I hate that I can not be by your side, but as I work I dream about the man you will become one day and every second sacrificed seems worth it. I am so proud of you, and I love you more than anything in the whole world. There are so many things I want to tell you. I’ve kept a piece of paper in my pocket everyday, and I wrote down the things I want to share with you, little things that I learn about life along the way, little things that perhaps will help guide you along too.

Work hard son. No matter what it is that you put your hand to everyday, do it to the best of your ability. Take pride in your work, in your labour. No one looks down on a hard worker, no matter how humble the task.

Love others son, just as I love you, love them with your whole heart, unselfishly. A love like that will conquer all hurts and all sins. Never let your heart grow cold and void of love. Never let hatred and unforgiveness cloud your heart and rob you of the joy of loving others. Forgive people, don’t blame and don’t keep score. Your anger hurts no one as much as it hurts you, so forgive.

Always show respect to others. Respect people because each person has value, not because of status or wealth or other things the world counts as important. Show respect to your mother- when you are older and you are someone’s husband, someone’s son, you will realise what sacrifices a mother makes. Honour your mother now, even though you are young, and you don’t yet understand- one day you will.

I will not be coming home for a while Son, but I will send this letter ahead of me, when ever you doubt that I love you, whenever you need me to advise you, read this letter. I will come home to be with you and your mother as soon as I can.

I love you Sopheap

Your father.

Sopheap stared at the letter, the second last line for the longest time until the words blurred into his tears. His mother’s hand went limp in his, bringing him out of his daze. He looked up at her face. A single tear was falling down her cheek, and there was a smile on her face, a peace he had not seen in his mother for so many years. Her eyes were closed. The envelope fell out of her other hand and landed on the floor, a single small note stuck out of the top. Sopheap picked it up.

Sopheap, your father handed this letter to me moments before he died. We worked together on the boat for four years, and in that time he never stopped talking about you. His last words were to give this to you, and to make sure you knew how much he loved you. I am sorry for your loss. I hope this letter brings you comfort. Your father was a great man. He will be missed greatly.
Bo Sophal

Sopheap was speechless. His father had died? His father loved him? Everything he understood and felt towards his father was based on a mistake, a misunderstanding, and to think the truth had been sitting there inside an old briefcase all these years.

Sopheap fell to the floor on his knees and cried. Grief for the years he had spent hating his father, who loved him and sacrificed his life for him. Grief for his father’s death. Grief for his mother, whose heart had broken that day at the dock. So much pain. He cried out for forgiveness from his father, he cried until he fell asleep, his cheeks and shirt wet with his own tears, the letter held against his chest.

After his mother’s funeral was over Sopheap went in search of the rest of the story. He had discovered so much, but so much still remained unknown. He remembered the dock from all those years ago, where his mother fell to her knees and never again uttered a word, and he had the name at the bottom of the letter Bo Sophal, he would go and find Bo Sophal and find out what happened to his father.

What Does an Effective Evangelistic Film Look Like

2006-01-19T12:16:00.000+07:00

I had a discussion this week about our upcoming movie project with our partners in the Philippines.
Over the last few months we have been planning to shoot an evangelistic movie here in Cambodia. The discussion started when an independent missionary in the Philippines and Asia Pacific Media Ministries approached us about shooting an evangelistic film here and using it as an opportunity to set up a media production company as an ongoing resource for the church in Cambodia. We talked about it for awhile, and decided to do it. There were a lot of things we looked at in considering if we would do the project, but one of the factors that pushed us toward it was that another missionary we were working with was already in the process of setting up a record label. So in talking with her we decided to set up a media production group that would incorporate the record label as well as a video production arm, a live performance arm, and a few other things.
OK. So we decided to do it. Now we have to work out the details of what the film will actually be. The discussion of what the story will be is the big question. The initial idea was that the film would be released in the theaters here, and the money made would finance future projects, and be central in setting up the company. It would still be evangelistic, but commercially viable as well. But in our case, we already have the company set up, and it is already doing good business (for example, they were just hired to do a video karaoke project, so they are getting enough work already to remain in the black). So now the question is, do you make the movie more blatantly evangelistic and release it in churches, or do you keep it more low key and release it in theaters?
If we make it overtly evangelistic it won’t get past the sensors for a theatrical release, and that would limit it to releasing and distributing it through churches. The other option is to make it a story that is morally positive, and can be used by a Christian as a bridge to explaining the gospel in a one on one setting. In this way the film could pass the sensors and be released in theaters, and by doing advance screenings with pastors and churches to explain how to use it evangelistically we would be able to put the church in a position to take advantage of it’s release to share the gospel.
One of the deciding factors in this argument for us was similar to a thought I use in making decisions about radio programs. The basic idea is, if you want to do an evangelistic radio program, do you broadcast it on a Christian station, or a secular station? If you put it on a Christian station, who is going to hear it? Probably the vast majority of listeners would be Christians already. But if you put it on a secular station, the vast majority of listeners would be the unsaved. Likewise, in the movie’s case, you could make a film with a blatantly evangelistic message clearly and compellingly set out, but if you distribute it through churches, the majority of those who will see it are people in the churches who are already Christians. If we want to use the film to reach the lost, we have to put it in a venue that non-Christians will readily access. So we decided to go with the less overtly Christian film that would then be released theatrically.
It’s always going to be a bit of a trade-off. It comes down to what you want the film to do once it’s released. For us, we have a few goals for the film. First, we want it to be an effective tool for evangelism. Second, we want it to raise the standard of what our media group is capable of (this will give them extensive experience and training in a variety of areas including scriptwriting, acting, editing and various technical skills involve in shooting a film). Third, we want to be leaders in influencing the culture in a positive direction. Doing a positive message film that raises the standard of what is being produced and released here will do that for us (most of the locally produced movies in cinemas here today are horror and ghost stories). I’m sure I’ll have more to say on all this in future posts.

Tis the Season part 2

2005-12-13T15:38:00.000+07:00

I just looked over a comment that was posted on this blog asking about what I thought about the controversy over whether churches should or should not have service on Christmas day. The person who posted the comment is a close friend, and I sent him this reply:

“I think it’s a lot of hype about a non-issue. The only reason it is getting press is because people have started making a big deal about the War on Christmas. If it was all about following rules and meeting on the right days we should all just become Seventh Day Adventists or Catholics. Or am I being too outspoken? “

I think that this fits right in with what I said about the “War on Christmas” in the original posting; are we focusing on restoring the tradition, or honoring the Savior in whose name we celebrate? If a church chooses to gather together as a congregation on Saturday, Christmas eve, for a time of worship, and so frees families to spend time together on Christmas morning by not having Sunday service, what is the problem? Is it about crossing all our “T’s” and dotting all our “I’s” by saying we met EVERY Sunday, even on Christmas, or is it about preserving the family, spending time as a family? Is there a commandment that I missed somewhere about meeting on Sundays or having service every Christmas morning? Aren’t those things just tradition? And isn’t putting tradition and the letter of the law above the heart and intent of the law what Jesus chastised the Pharisees for?

So my thought on the question of “should churches in the USA have service on Christmas Sunday morning?” is it’s up to them. The real question is are they honoring Jesus by what they do that morning, whether it’s meeting together in church or being with family at home. After all, you can be on church Christmas morning, be up-tight about the Christmas meal you have to prepare when you get home, worrying about family visits, thinking about the present you just gave or received, and be totally self absorbed, and it won’t honor Jesus one bit. And you could be home with those same attitudes and still not honor Jesus. Or, you can have the right heart, one that focuses on Jesus and His birth and what God did for us, and be full of thanksgiving and praise, and that will honor God whether you are in Church, at home, in an airport in jail, or anywhere.

So this season let someone else fight over the traditions, and instead do good to those who try to hurt you by attacking the way you choose to celebrate Christmas, because in doing that you are following Jesus’ command and example, and what could be more appropriate on Christmas?

Tis The Season

2005-12-13T11:13:00.000+07:00

Ah, Christmas time. Even here in Cambodia the retailers are beginning to catch on to this year end opportunity to increase sales. Only a few years ago the only, if you were to drive down the main streets of Phnom Penh during December, you would see basically the same thing you would see during any other part of the year. But now, you can see some stores “getting into the spirit of things” and putting up Santa Claus signs and cheap decorations. When we returned to the field a few years ago we made sure to bring along an artificial Christmas tree so that we would have one. But now, off the top of my head I can think of about 4 different places I can buy one in town. Even little Cambodian kids recognize Santa Claus now as “Grandpa Christmas.”

At the same time, the knowledge of Jesus Christ is also spreading. When we first came to Cambodia in 1994, there were only about 120 evangelical churches in the entire country. Now the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia recognizes more than 2400! Things have certainly come a long way.

Bangkok has also caught on to the retail holiday aspect of it all. I was there in early November, and all the malls already had their Christmas marketing in full swing. Then, I went from Bangkok to Manila in the Philippines for a few days, and they really go all out for Christmas. The country is predominantly Catholic, so by early November there are decorations of all kinds everywhere you look. And at least there they don’t totally ignore Jesus, but recognize that He is at the center of what Christmas is really about.

Even in the States there is a growing gulf between what Christmas is supposed to be, and what it has become. I try to follow the news via the internet, and one of the big things I have been hearing about this year is the “war on Christmas.” I think it’s great that some of the politically correct nonsense is being rolled back, but have you noticed the emphasis of the arguments? It’s all about reclaiming out traditions, not the meaning behind them.

Even in my own life I see this more and more. Even though I am not servicing as pastor of a church here, being in the ministry still makes Christmas a very busy time. At times it can be overwhelming to think of all the things I need to finish this month. Lisa has been in charge of the kids Christmas program at the international church we attend, and so, by proximity, I have also been drawn into the maelstrom of frenzied activity surrounding it all. The program actually took place this past Sunday, and it went well, but as I sat there running sound and working on some of the technical parts of the production, I found myself focusing on performance details and technical needs, and totally ignoring the more important parts of the program; what it said about Jesus, and what He means to us.

It’s easy to point the finger at the businesses who try to capitalize on Christmas for missing the point, but I find myself doing similar things every day.

This Christmas is also marking the beginning of our Dan and Louie radio broadcasts. This is a story based children’s radio program that has already received some good response. At 7:00PM, on Christmas day, we will have our first broadcast on a local FM radio station that reaches 75% of the country! Hopefully, this is one more step toward bringing the people of Cambodia closer to the savior whose birth we are celebrating.

Connecting and Disconnecting Through Media

2005-11-16T14:33:00.000+07:00

I was just walking through the Bangkok international airport terminal and thinking about the people going by around me, and the various conversations I have been having with people, and the article I was just reading on the plane.

I’m on my way back from Manila in the Philippines. I was meeting with two other missionaries who head up Asia Pacific Media Ministries. We were meeting about a couple of different projects we are working together on, but primarily about some work we are doing for the World Missions Summit. This is an event that will be held over new years, and is designed to expose college students to missions and the short term missions opportunities around the world. So my conversation with these missionaries drifted toward what we could do with a two or three month short term worker.

Working with media, there is often a significant learning curve associated with our production work, so a one or two year worker could be pretty useful, but what about a one or two MONTH person? I brought up the need to always be looking toward emerging media. There is always something new on the horizon, and it’s difficult to keep up with all the new technology. Today, the big emerging media is web related. Blogs and podcasts are the hot thing today, tomorrow who knows. But chances are that college age kids will be the ones who know about the newest thing, so why not use them in it? For instance, why not use them in developing blogs and podcasts and other web related media in order to keep in touch, and help educate our supporters about what is happening in our ministry here.

So then on the plane I picked up the latest Newsweek and read an article on the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in Asia. It definitely mentioned the growth in the major Asian economies, but it also mentioned the more rapid growth of the poor class who live on $1 to $2 per day. This is something we clearly see in Cambodia, and all the other countries around us. With that being true, we need to reach out to both ends of the economic spectrum. So while we have to look for the next emerging media opportunity that will speak to the emerging well-to-do, we still need to look at what types of media we can use to reach out to those who continue to struggle to find a way to live day to day.

So now we come to the airport. I’m walking down the terminal concourse past various shops, listening to Christmas music on my iPod, and I start noticing the people walking around me. Our new web-site tries to incorporate many of the emerging media opportunities I have mentioned, all in an effort to be more connected with people around the world. But yet, at the same time, especially when I am traveling, I tend to use these types of emerging media to keep people who are five feet away at a “safe and comfortable” distance. If I am listening to my iPod, or surfing the web, or whatever, I don’t have to talk to the person in the plane seat next to me, or the traveler who looks confused in the airport concourse, or whatever. New technology and new opportunities for using emerging media and all of that can be good, and they can be bad. Like everything else, it comes down to balance. There aren’t easy answers in any of these issues. You can’t make a blanket statement about rich vs. poor situations or high tech vs. low tech, and expect it to be true across the board. Each case has to be worked through individually. That’s where we live here on the missions field. As I think about various things I have written about on this blog over the last few months, I realize that I raise various questions, but don’t give many answers. In some ways I wish I could give simple answers. That’s what pastors and missionaries and “professional” Christians are supposed to do, right? But the reason I started this blog was to try to give an honest picture of what missionary life is like, and a missionary’s life is a lot like your life; struggling to live each day in the place you find yourself in such a way that God’s grace can be seen in you.

The Head, The Heart, and The Great Divide

2005-11-11T16:11:00.000+07:00

It seems to me that there is a stubborn disconnect between our heart and our head.

I spent this morning walking through one of the many slum areas in Bangkok, Thailand with another missionary who has been working there for many years. Bangkok is a lot like many cities throughout the world, especially in second and third world countries, in that it has an incredible disparity between the poor and the rich. People live in shacks next to what amounts to open sewers in the shadow of five star high-rise hotels and condos.

How do we deal with that? If you listen to popular news outlets, or the promotional material produced by many relief agencies, it would seem the answer is in giving money to help them out of their situation. Think of what you hear; “The government needs to reduce military spending and give more for relief work,” or “Buy a ticket to Live Aid, or whatever the latest concert is that is raising money for relief work.” And we want to help, so why not? If we happen to visit one of these countries and pass a beggar, why not give them some money to help them? Why not build them houses? Isn’t it right to have compassion and want to reach out and touch the hurting in the name of Jesus?

Compassion is, in many cases, the easy part. Finding compassionate and constructive solutions is the hard part. I believe that Jesus wants us to be about changing the lives of those around us, not just in a spiritual way, but in every way, including physical ways that affect their daily lives. But if we let our heart disconnect from our head and just starting handing out relief funds, we end up making many problems worse. In those cases, money given to one family not only builds dependency into their way of thinking, but it builds animosity with others in the community because you didn’t help them. And if the underlying problems that caused the family’s financial difficulties in the first place aren’t addressed (like alcoholism, gambling, etc.), then within a short amount of time they end up right back in the same place they were when you started to try to help them. Or many times the church just tries to remove the person from the slum and never addresses the problems that create and perpetuate the slum in the first place.

This is the part where you might expect me to lay out my three point plan to lift these people out of slum life. Unfortunately I don’t have any plan like that. The truth is these kinds of problems don’t have easy answers and are almost never solved by some cookie-cutter program. It’s not a three step process; it’s more like three hundred steps, walked together day by day over many years. It’s walking together with hurting people while working out your salvation with fear and trembling. But that rubs us the wrong way. We want an easy answer. We want to immediately scratch that compassion itch and sooth our conscience with the idea that we gave our five dollars to the beggar we passed, so we have done our part. Our heart wants to disconnect from our head and run the show.

After living long enough in the third world, I tend to have the opposite problem; my head wants to run the show with no thought to the issues of the heart. I’ve mentioned this before, but the fact is that I tend to become callous to the needs of those around me. I know that every reputable relief agency working in Cambodia agrees that giving money to beggars is a bad idea all around (I won’t go into all the details of why right now, but trust me on this), so I end up using that as a reason to ignore them. Not only do I not give them hand-outs, but I just stop thinking about them all together. And if that in itself isn’t bad enough, that indifference ends up spilling over into other things as well. My head doesn’t want anything to do with my heart. Well that’s not right either.

Even in the area of basic faith and Christian living we are plagued by this disconnect between heart and head. I may “know” a particular doctrine to be true for years, but then one day some event happens, or I find myself in some situation that leaves me crying out to God, and suddenly that thing I “knew” takes on a whole new level of meaning and my heart embraces it in a way that was missing before. And all of this has become so common place that I never even realized that something had been missing. On the other hand, sometimes it’s acting on some impulse or feeling, despite some head knowledge that tells us to do the opposite thing. This disconnect reaches into every area to trip us up.

So now is it time for my three-steps to better balance? No, I still don’t have that. But I do think I can boil it down to one idea. Living life with Jesus can’t be reduced to 7 steps for successful Christian living; living with Jesus is like any other relationship. It is always changing and growing. This year Lisa and I celebrated our 15th anniversary, and I still don’t have it all figured out. On Sunday, Alex turns 8 years old, and Dmetri is less than 6 months from his 10th birthday, and I understand even less about parenting. Does that mean I don’t have a clue how to act with my wife and kids? No, of course not, but my relationship with each one of them continues to change every day, and to make it all work I have to use both my head and my heart. So why should my relationship with God be any different? I’ve been a Christian for more years than I care to try to figure out, but I don’t have all the details of that relationship worked out any better than I do with my wife or kids. But I do know that to make it work I need to use both my head and my heart. And living in that balance isn’t easy.

Is there a point to this rambling? Well, just that these are the issues we are facing today. Do we want to change people’s lives for the better? Yes. Do we want to introduce people to the life changing power of Jesus Christ? Yes. Are we working to do that? Yes, but the way we do that is different in every situation. What worked one place will fail miserably somewhere else. That’s why we need both our heart and our head. God created us with both for a reason.

Furlough And Knowing A Missionary's Shoe Size

2005-10-10T17:05:00.000+07:00

In a few months we will be going on "furlough". This is when we visit churches in the USA to raise support for our ministry here in Cambodia. One of our church leaders back in states is working on an article about what furlough is all about, and asked for some input as to what it means to us. What follows in this post is my response to him.

It can be difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes if that person has never been honest with you about what size shoe they wear. My hope is that after reading the article you do for the advance, pastors will be better able to put themselves in the missionary’s shoes when the missionary calls or visits, so this is my attempt to be honest about my shoe size (10 ½ if you are wondering).

Like most words, furlough has some specific connotations. For most people, they think of it in terms of something like an R & R break you get during a period of military service, or like a sabbatical taken from a teaching position. For missionaries with the Assemblies of God it is nothing like that. In fact, Assemblies of God World Missions has changed their terminology in an attempt to avoid these misconceptions. The new word of choice is "deputation." While that might not carry some of the misconceptions that furlough does, it has so little meaning for most people that it is a word that leaves them totally clueless about what actually goes on during that year. Whether you call it furlough or deputation or any other word, it is one of the most difficult times for missionaries.

When first approved for service, AG missionaries spend about 18 months raising their support by visiting churches, sharing their burden and vision for the country, and getting churches and individuals to not only give cash offerings, but to commit to give regular monthly support for their ministry in the country God has called them to. Once they raise the required amount of cash and pledges they receive permission to leave for the field. During that first term they spend a year or more learning the language before they can begin active ministry. Then they spend the next two of three years starting up the ministry that God has called them to, among the people that God has called them to. Although there are many transitions and adjustments they go through during this time, it is still a joy because now your not just talking about these people and this work to church groups, your actually doing it! Like all ministries, results aren't instantaneous, but after a couple years you really start to hit your stride and things start to really happen! Then you have to leave. Your four year term is up and you have to go on "furlough/deputation".

If it is such an interruption, why is it necessary? There are a number of reasons. How about inflation? This term diesel for our car started at about $.28 per litter, but when I filled our tank this week it was $.76 per liter. And that’s just one item. The amount of money set for us to live and work on four years ago doesn't accomplish the same amount it used to. How about your ministry needs? As your ministry becomes more effective and grows, new and different needs and opportunities arise that you haven't figured into your original budget, so things are stalled, not because of a lack of opportunity, but because of a lack of funding. And how about shortfalls in your pledged support? Unfortunately, "out of sight, out of mind," applies all too often to missions support. Typically, over the course of a missionary's four year term, a number of pledges, both from churches and individuals, will just stop coming in. Just looking at this year, 2005, on average, $430.50 less comes in each month than what was actually pledged. Since January of 2003, we have had a total of more than $17,400 less come in than what was pledged. So to meet the needs of increasing costs and needs and the loss of promised funding, missionaries have to return to the USA to raise support again.

So you pack up your home, find a place to store your belongings, try to hand off as many ministry responsibilities as possible to someone else, pack up your family and move back around the world to the states. Once you arrive you have to get a car, find a place to live and furnish it knowing that in 12 months or so you have to get rid of it all again. At the same time you get to deal with culture shock. Life in America is so different from anywhere else that it takes some adjusting, and the America you return to isn’t the same one you left four years before; things have moved on and changed while you were gone.

Now that you are back in the States, you have to start fund raising all over again. First you have to schedule services at churches. If you were just going to your supporting churches, the scheduling part might not be too bad, but you can’t do that; the budget you have to raise for your next term is probably at least $2000 more per month than last time, and the churches that already support you aren’t going to increase their support enough to cover that, so you need to visit new churches to get new pledges. So you pick up the phone and a church directory and start making calls. Despite all of us being “on the same team”, scheduling isn’t so easy. Honestly, missionaries know pastors get lots of calls for services and support from all kinds of people and groups, so we understand that a fair amount of the time we will get a “no” for an answer, so that’s not the problem part of scheduling. Frankly, the problem is that all too often when a missionary calls a church, they are treated worse than if they were a telemarketer trying to sell long distance phone service. But you push through all the unreturned calls, the maze of church secretaries and voice mail systems, and you finally get your services scheduled.

In a 12 month period most missionaries will have between 150 and 200 services. That means you are in 3 or four different churches each week. When you aren’t in the actual services, you are in the car. The last time I was on deputation I logged 36,040 miles; that’s equal to driving completely around the world more than 9 times! If you figure between highway and city driving you averaged about 50 miles per hour, that means you spent 720 hours in the car. That’s more than 30 complete days! One entire month spent driving! And often, that is time away from your family. With kids in school, it is difficult for a wife and kids to travel along to various services.

Within a month or so of starting to do services you have to start following up on the services you already had. So now you may be on the phone scheduling services at the same time you are calling other churches you already had services with trying to get them to make a monthly pledge to your ministry. Now again, you might think this shouldn’t be that hard, but it really is. During our last deputation less than 50% of our services resulted in pledges, and that percentage is pretty high compared to other missionaries.

Now you start watching to see where you are in terms of your budget, and what you need still before you can return to the field. This is where some surprises sometimes pop up. For example, some churches feel they have committed to support you, but only while you are on the field, so they stop sending in their pledge during furlough/deputation. So now you have to raise that much more cash to make up for what they are no longer sending in, and in effect they end up helping to keep you in the States longer! But as the months go by, and new pledges trickle in, it can become very discouraging, and even desperate at times. All the while you continue to leave your family home, travel to various churches, pour your heart out sharing about the people God has called you to and what He is doing there, and as you leave the pastor / church members say ”God bless you, we believe God is going to do great things”, etc, and then tell you that they can’t help you with a pledge.

Please understand, as I said before, I know the pressures that pastors are under and the number of missionaries and ministries that are looking for support, but I also want you to understand the struggles that missionaries face in their own hearts during furlough/deputation. Even spending time with pastors and church members can be draining and frustrating at times; you go out to lunch or stay overnight in someone’s house and they start to tell you about the “problems” they are having in the church. But the problems are things like the style of music used in worship, hymns vs. choruses, the big fight among the board member’s wives over the color for the new carpet in the sanctuary, the in-fighting in some ministry department over who should be in charge and why. And all the while you are thinking about the problems the church in your country of ministry are facing; persecution from the government, people who become Christians facing death threats from family members because of their decision to follow Jesus, trying to live a life of integrity in a country that is ranked as one of the most corrupt governments on the planet, etc. Not to mention the extreme difference in life in general; in the States you suddenly hear news reports of the “healthcare crisis in America”, or the soaring unemployment, or whatever the media’s crisis of the week is, while back in your country of ministry people are lucky if they get $50 per month, don’t have access to ANY qualified doctors or hospitals, and struggle to literally survive. You miss the people in the country God has called you to, and your heart aches for the opportunities you may be missing there while you are “stuck” in the States trying to get pastors to return your phone calls and maybe even give you a monthly pledge. It can be a real struggle to keep from becoming cynical. All of these pressures and feelings are going on in the midst of everything else.

To be clear, I also consider it a privilege and an honor to be invited into churches to share about the country I work in and about missions in general. I am glad that I am able to help pastors or church members in some small way just by listening to their problems and struggles. I am thankful for the opportunity to raise people’s awareness of missions. My last furlough/deputation time was the best one I have had.

What it comes down to is this; Furlough/deputation isn’t a vacation by any stretch of the imagination, but I view it as an opportunity to speak into the lives of churches across the state, and across the USA. We have seen people saved and called into missions in our services during furlough/deputation, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It is a necessary inconvenience in some respects, but it is also a wonderful opportunity that I don’t take lightly. And although I mention some of the cynical attitudes that we struggle with at times, there are also those times when you connect with a pastor or a church in a way that builds a relationship that lasts for many years.

Vampires on the Loose

2005-09-10T12:01:00.000+07:00

Fall is almost here. Back in the states we hear family talking about the temperatures cooling off, and soon it will be the leaves changing, watching football, and waking up to frost.

It’s also hard for me to think about fall without thinking about Halloween. Whether or not you approve of Halloween, the fact is that many of us grew up trick-or-treating, and it is hard for me to think of Fall without memories of that sort of thing. Here in Cambodia, this time of year has a very different feel. October is the big holiday season here. We have independence day, the former king’s birthday, as well as a few Buddhist holidays. But this year there is a touch of the Halloween feel as well. Yesterday I picked up a newspaper and found a full page article, including color pictures, about vampires (yes, I did say vampires).

Cambodia is full of superstitions. It seems every time you turn around there is a new one. And most of them are designed around appeasing some spirit or other so that they don’t hurt you or bring you bad luck. In just one restaurant that I used to frequent there were about 7 different alters to use to appease various spirits so that you would not have bad luck. people stop on the top of mountains to give offerings to spirits there along side the road so that nothing bad will happen to them as they travel. I could go on, but the point is it all revolves around fear. The latest practice, which I am a bit chagrined to admit has taken hold near where we used to live in Kompong Cham province, is no different except that it sounds a bit like a “B” vampire movie.

According to one 37 year old father, “mixing red dye with water looks like the blood of a virgin girl… [and] any household that does not hang bottles or plastic bags of red-dyed water in front of their houses risks having evil spirits come into their homes and sucking the blood of their daughters or family members.” Residents of the area say there has been a lot of deaths on the nearby roads lately and that those who have died become vampires. This new practice has just sprung up in the last few months, but already almost every home in the area has the fake blood hanging outside to ward off the vampires.

The newspaper article quoted Buddhist leaders as saying that superstitions like this are more rooted in Brahmanism and Hinduism than in Buddhism, and the author of the article also pointed to the popularity of horror films, but the ultimate source is fear.

I John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Thank God that we don’t have to be motivated by fear. But notice I said “we don’t have to be motivated by fear,” and NOT “we are not motivated by fear.” Unfortunately I think very often we are motivated by fear. All too often we see God as watching our every move, just waiting for us to mess up so He can punish us. But that’s not the God described in the Bible.

Oh, I know there are plenty of instances of God’s judgment you can point to and say, “but what about here? Isn’t this God punishing people for their sins?” Sure there are instances of God doing that. But I see much more evidence of a God looking for the opportunity to forgive and reconcile. Just look at the story of the prodigal son. And as for bad things being a punishment from God for sin, look at Job. The calamities that befell him were not punishments from God.

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina it is tempting to look at New Orleans and think, “with all the wickedness and immorality that is there (just look at Marti-Gra) surly part of this is a judgment from God. I agree that you have to consider the moral condition of the city, but I read it just the opposite; God sending a wake-up call (not just to New Orleans, but to the nation as a whole) and an opportunity to wake up and see their need and turn to God. When a doctor tells you that you have cancer is he punishing you because you’ve been bad? Of course not; he is telling something that may be painful and devastating, but he is telling you so that you can get treatment, and hopefully, recover from it and have life. God operates out of love, and not just any love, but perfect love. And perfect love casts out fear.

So how do we as Christians hang our version of bags of water and red dye? How about tithes? I know some people (including myself at times) give their tithes because they are afraid that if they don’t, some financial calamity will befall them. Is that right? I don’t think so. So does that mean we don’t need to give our tithes and offerings? No, but if you are just giving tithes out of a sense of obligation you have missed the whole point. The Bible says God loves a cheerful giver. When you stop giving out of obligation and fear and start giving out of love it changes the whole dynamic of it, and chances are you will find yourself giving more, not less. But this is a bit of a “bunny path”; the point is do we operate out of fear, like the people with the bags of red water, or do we operate out of love?

We in the church in America may not be hanging bags of vampire decoys out in front of our houses, but before you laugh at what they do here, be sure you aren’t hanging the equivalent of spiritual vampire decoys in your spiritual life.

Are Short Term Workers Worth It?

2005-08-26T15:11:00.000+07:00

Over the last few days I have found myself in some interesting conversations about the upcoming world missions summit, and about short term (one year or less) volunteers on the mission field in general. The extremely short summery is, perhaps instead of encouraging them to come, we should be discouraging them from coming.

Over the years we have never actually had a short term worker assigned directly to us; most of the time we weren’t working in a type of ministry that suited itself to short term workers, and at the times we were, we helped to oversee short term people who were actually assigned to another missionary. But we have had ring side seat for many an interesting short term experience. We have seen times when short term workers were uncooperative, judgmental, undisciplined, and divisive. We have had other missionaries on our field spend the majority of their time dealing with problems created by short term workers, and we have seen more than one short term worker sent home early (some almost immediately) because of the problems they have caused.

Now don’t misunderstand; there have also been those that have been a blessing, and I know MANY career missionaries that first went overseas as short term volunteers (including Lisa and I). But unfortunately many missionaries short term volunteers as more trouble than they are worth. And it was in this context that a recent discussion led to the comment that this upcoming world missions summit, designed to encourage college age young people to volunteer for short term missions work (up to one year), might be better off discouraging them from going on short term missions trips.

I don’t necessarily agree with this. I would say that I thing the primary beneficiary of short term volunteer missions is NOT the missions work on the field, but rather the person going on the trip themselves. Realistically, how much impact is a person going to have in a couple months when they don’t really speak the language, know the culture, or stay long enough to form any close relationships? I know it does sometimes happen, but the majority of the time it doesn’t. What happens more often is that God works on the heart of the short term volunteer themselves. Part of it is being exposed to a new culture and the world at large. Part of it is getting a more realistic view of life around the world. And part of it is being out of your comfort zone and in a place where God can deal with areas of your life that may never come to the surface in your home town.

But whether short term missions are good or bad is irrelevant; the fact is it is becoming more and more common, and it is the missions method of choice for many post-modern Christians. Young people in churches (as well as young churches) are becoming less likely to sign on to monthly long term support for career missionaries. Personally I think this is short sighted on there part, but I also think it is understandable.

Why is it short sighted? Because Jesus said “go and make disciples.” You don’t make a disciple during a six week short term missions trip. You might lead them into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, but making them a disciple? Not likely. That takes time. It takes walking with them day by day and standing, laughing, crying and praying with them as they “work out their salvation with fear and trembling.” That takes long term commitment, and so long term missionaries. That is one of the reasons that the Assemblies of God does well with Bible schools and leadership development; because we have had missionaries over the years who have been on the field for the long haul.

Why is it understandable? Because, at least in the Assemblies of God, missionaries have dug themselves into a hole by not being very good with discipling their supporters in the USA. We work on five year cycles; for every four years we spend on the field we spend a year visiting churches and raising support. Usually, we do that whole year all at once, so during that time we are speaking two or three times a week in churches and calling everyone we can think of to get our money raised to return to the field. Often missionaries feel that this year spent raising support is an intrusion on what God has called them to do, and they resent spending an entire year away from the ministry they spent the last four years developing. Then there is the added pressure that if you don’t raise the required budget you could have to stay longer in the USA visiting churches, and if the problem persists, you may even have to resign. So by the time they are done raising their budget and actually get back on the field, the last thing they want to think about is all those churches in the States; after all, they just spent the last year or more doing nothing but thinking about them and trying to communicate with them. So they tend to forget about regular contact (out of sight, out of mind), and the churches end up feeling disconnected from the missionary. Then the church gets frustrated. They didn’t spend a year with that missionary, they only saw them for a couple hours when the missionary spoke at their church. So when they don’t hear from the missionary they start to wonder what is happening to the money they are sending in to support the missionary. So they start to look for options where they can see an immediate return or get immediate feedback from their missions work. How do they do that? Short term volunteers and teams and committing to support one time projects instead of regular long term monthly general missions support.

It’s really kind of sad. It’s just poor communication. But it’s the growing reality.

Ironically, one of the solutions to this misunderstanding is short term volunteers. If they come to the field and have an accurate experience of missions life and work, they then return to their churches understanding the need for long term career missionaries as well. It’s about the long term effect that short term workers will have on the countey they are from, not the country they go to. I find this especially ironic in my current circumstances of preparing this promo video for the world missions summit because the theme for the summit is “It’s not about me.” The implication being that they want these college student to stop thinking about themselves and instead think about the need in these countries and the people there. But in reality, they probably won’t have a huge impact themselves on the field they go to (unless they transition into career missions work and end up there for the long haul), but the experience will have a huge impact on them, and through their changed lives they will impact their home churches and the church as a whole in the USA and eventually in world. So it IS all about them.

Anyway, as much of a hassle as it can be to have short term workers, I am for it; after all, I was one once too.

Inside The Global Culture, But Outside The Box

2005-08-22T13:13:00.000+07:00

The way that a “world culture” is increasingly emerging never ceases to amaze me.

I am writing from Manila in the Philippines. Having had such a close relationship with the United States, English is widely used. So despite not speaking the local dialect of Taglog, I am still able to easily get around and do pretty much anything I need to do. So yesterday and today (Saturday and Sunday), I pretty much spent my time walking around different areas of the city, going through malls and stores and things.

A few weeks ago I was doing something very similar in New York City. And aside from the make of cars and the type of plants around, things weren’t that terribly different. Many of the store chains are identical, the product brands are mostly the same, and what is popular, especially with young people is pretty much the same.

I grabbed a taxi back to the guest house I am staying at, and the taxi driver and I started talking. His daughter is in the process of moving to New Jersey to work as a nurse. People move from country to country almost as easily as they once moved from state to state.

I got back to the guest house and turned on the TV. Along with the BBC, CNN, ESPN, MTV, and HBO, they also have various Chinese, Japanese, German and Korean language channels. But I turned on a Hong Kong based channel that features programs from the major TV networks in the USA and Great Britain.

Conversely, with so much of culture spreading beyond borders to create a unified world culture of sorts, this has also led to people who would have been considered “fringe” linking together to form numerous niche’ cultures. There is the computer geek culture, the various music cultures (grunge, goth, heavy metal, alternative, country, etc.), and the various sports cultures (soccer, baseball, basketball, etc.), just to name a few. And members of each of these groups can be found in almost any country across the world.

So, how does an emerging global culture impact world missions? Really it’s more about how these world changes affect the church as a whole. It’s about change, and how we deal with it. The real key to being able to ride the waves of change, rather than being swamped and buried by them, is to be willing to think outside the box in terms of method, while holding to content that is firmly grounded in the good news of salvation and new life in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I know; it sounds like I am just regurgitating the latest spiritual catch phrases. But no matter how much lip service we give to these concepts, putting them into practice is a very difficult thing. I hear our leadership talking about having a vision for transformation, yet, by the time the various initiatives and ideas get through the various processes to implement them, they move from being outside the box to being indistinguishable from the box itself. Bureaucracy sucks the life out of these new ideas until they are still born as some new program that is sneered at from the rank and file and derided as another meaningless program or name change.

So how do we keep from being a part of the problem, and instead become a part of the solution? I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did. But what we are doing is trying to niche’ our ministry and our support base.

In terms of our ministry, we are helping to provide a very specialized skills and resources to the church and the missionary body. Specifically that means producing audio and video tools that help with evangelism, discipleship, fund raising and recruiting. In addition we work with the niche’ sub culture of creative people involved in audio and video production in Cambodia, to give leadership and personal discipleship to them.

In terms of our support base, we are trying to tie in more specifically with those who are at home with computers, iPods, and those who want a hands on, day to day connection with missionaries over seas. We are trying new things, like this blog, and will soon be adding podcasting and V-blogs to an redesigned web-page.

Ultimately we play inside the rules of Assemblies of God World Missions, but instead of sitting back and relying on those things that they have done for ministry and support over the years, we are looking for new opportunities for ministry and new ways to connect with our supporters in the States.

But we don’t have all the answers. Not even close. All these things are just IDEAS at this point. Will they work? I don’t know. Ultimately, it’s not about any of these ideas, it’s about God moving by His Spirit. We do what we can, but we trust God to supply for our needs, and to it is God who moves on peoples hearts and changes their lives, not because of what we do, but in spite of what we do.

If you have any outside the box ideas for ministry to the Cambodian people, or for connecting to our supporters, we would love to hear them!

A Speed Trap By Any Other Name

2005-08-18T20:36:00.000+07:00

Lisa had a fun driving experience the other day.

She was going down the main business street in town and came to a traffic light. Traffic lights are where all the police hang out. Typically they will wave a motorcycle over for no real reason and then demand money for payment of a fine for some infraction. Sometimes the person really did do something wrong, but sometimes they didn’t. Whatever money is given is split up between the policemen present, and doesn’t actually go to any government department.

Well, this particular day, li9sa came up to the light as it was green and traffic was going along, but just as she entered the intersection the light changed to red. Please notice carefully what I said, and what I didn’t say. I made no mention of yellow in there; it changed from green straight to red. This is the latest game the police have taken up. They set the light to change directly from green to red so people don’t have time to stop, and then they pull you over for running a red light.

So as Lisa enters the intersection the light changes to red, she doesn’t have time to stop, and a line of policeman quickly block her way and pull her over.

No question about it, this is very annoying. But sometimes you just pay up and get it over with. Now for me, I tend to talk my way out off it, but Lisa usually can’t do it, partly because her Khmer isn’t as good as mine, partly because she isn’t as assertive, but mostly because she is a woman. But on this particular day, paying up and moving on isn’t so easy.

A few days before I had noticed that our drivers licenses were about to expire, so I gave both of our licenses to our office staff to renew. Basically it involves paying $40 and bringing in new ID pictures, but it takes about a week or two. So Lisa was still without her license.

The police were pretty happy to find she didn’t have a license, and figuring they had hit the jackpot they told her she would have to pay $30 (an outrageously high amount). Although she tried to explain, Lisa’s language skills weren’t up to the task and she found herself at a bit of an impasse. So she called our office on our cell phone and had them explain it to the police.

Our office secretary’s father is a somewhat high ranking government official, so she spent a few minutes yelling at the police, after witch the police dropped their demands to just $6 to “buy Coke” for the police officers (funny how even the pretense of a legitimate fine kind of falls away when someone stands up to them). Lisa took over from there. She knew this was still too high a “fine” for what had happened, and she offered to give him about 50 cents for a Coke. The officer pointed out that there were six of them, so Lisa agreed to $3.

All in all it was another day in Cambodia and just par for the course.

On The Road Again

2005-08-14T18:57:00.000+07:00

Well, once again I find myself sitting in an airport terminal, but so far everything is running on time. I am on my way to Bangkok again, and then next week I am off again to the Philippines. Hopefully, my recent travel problems have filled my bad travel experience quota for the next few decades and everything will stay on time. Of course as I sit working on this complimentary computer in the Bangkok Airlines lounge, I can see CNN on the TV mounted on the wall carrying footage of a major plane crash near Athens, Greece. Always interesting to see the way reality coments on itself in a somewhat surealistic way.

I have been listening to teaching books by both Anthony Campolo (A Reasonable Faith) and Philip Yancey (What's So Amazing About Grace?). Surprisingly, these two books, written about 20 years apart, tend to touch on two sides of the same coin. One is all about grace (obviously) and one is (at least partly) about the dicotamy between love and power. It has really struck me how grace and love really work together in a way that is impossible to seperate.

I will eventially be writing more about that later, but this has been a big part of my thinking over the last few days, especially as I drive down the road and try to imagine what is happening in the lives of the Cambodian people I pass. I must admitt, the more I do that, the more I realize that no matter how long I have been here I am still a foriegner, and only understand a portion, a small portion, of what the thoughts and dreams of the average Cambodian are.

Well, they are boarding my flight now, so I will write more later.

Angelina Jolie; Cambodia’s Newest Citizen (or Where Does The Buck Stop?)

2005-08-13T09:01:00.000+07:00

Today I pulled up the news on the Fox News website and found a picture of Angelina Jolie on their frontpage with the headline “Angelina Jolie Awarded Cambodian Citizenship”.

Let me say that Angelina Jolie has had a bit of history here in Cambodia over the last few years. A few years ago, she filmed a part of here “Tomb Raider” movie here at Angkor Wat. While she was here, she was touched by the Cambodian people and their situation. So, she set about trying to help in some way. She gave a $1.5 million dollar donation to a local community development organization to help preserve Cambodia’s environment and also adopted a young child. So because of all this, the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, told her he would get her Cambodian citizenship, and now the king has signed a royal decree officially granting her that citizenship.

Now, despite the title of this posting, I am not really trying to say anything, or make any judgments about Angelina Jolie; I think she was acting in a way that she felt would best help the Cambodian people, and I’m glad that she has at least tried to do something (she isn’t the first major Hollywood star who has filmed in Cambodia, but most of them have portrayed in a negative way, and none of them (as far as I know) have done anything to help the country long term). I am more bothered by the system that allows these kind of things to go on.

What am I talking about? Well, for example, international adoptions to the USA are still pretty much illegal. But, like many things here, if you have enough money you can pretty much do whatever you want. International adoptions here are big money makers. Groups will pretty much buy children from their parents and essentially sell them to families overseas at a huge profit. How do they get around the legal issues? Typically, various amounts are paid to the right people, and the right papers get signed. Is this what happened with Angelina Jolie and here adopted Cambodian child? I have no idea; I am just telling you about a common problem here.

Another angle of the whole thing is something typified by this granting of citizenship. Things here just sort of work like that; if you know the right people, have enough money and have good connections, you can pretty much do anything and get anything you want. And I admit, that’s not all that different from anywhere else in the world, but it is still frustrating to see everyday people ignored and mistreated and unable to get some of their simplest rights respected while people who are “connected” operate above the law.

It’s no different from anyplace else, or any other time. Jesus dealt with the same thing when he was on Earth. And He addressed it directly in telling us that the Kingdom of Heaven wasn’t like that and that we should be no “respecter of persons”. Instead, we should be elevating those who are the least of society and reaching out to them with the love, compassion and respect that Jesus showed them.

Yet I find myself constantly struggling with this same issue. I tend to give preference to those who are “somebody”, and ignore those who are “nobody”. And maybe that’s what really bothers me about the whole Angelina Jolie situation here; it reminds me that not only does this system of special treatment exist, but I benefit regularly from it, and in some ways even help perpetuate it. I guess it hits a bit close to home.

So have I been granted citizenship and various special privileges for giving $1.5 million to some local development group. My knee jerk answer is “of course not.” But I do get special treatment because I work for a recognized “relief” agency that over the last 13 years has probably given close to that amount. It’s not something I actively pursue, But I still know it’s true. Just the simple fact of my skin color opens doors that elevate my treatment above everyday people in an unfair way. Let me give you a simple example. Three days ago I went to pay our electric bill. You can’t mail it in here, so everyone takes cash to the company office to pay. So at the office there is a large room with a long counter where you pay, and it is always jammed with a big crowd of pushing and shoving people trying to force their way to the front (people don’t get in orderly lines here to wait for their turn, it’s just a free for all mob kind of thing). But when I walk in, one of the employees will quickly see me and wave me to the front and skip everyone else, just because my skin color says “I’m a foreigner who has money or connections or both.” Do I say “no, I’ll wait my turn”? No, I go right up and pay. So yes, in some ways I am part of the problem.

I don’t know that some of those things will ever change, but our challenge is to live as a part of the solution; the Kingdom of God on Earth. So I guess the buck stops here, with me.

Doing the Dub

2005-08-11T18:06:00.000+07:00

Today I am looking at two different projects that both involve bringing media programs from outside Cambodia into the country and re-doing them for use here.

The first is one that I am actively involved in; Dan and Louie. Dan and Louie is an audio program for kids featuring Dan Betzer telling Bible stories to his ventriloquist dummy, Louie. We have taken the stories, kept the basic themes and content, changed Louie from a dummy to a little boy, changed the context of the stories to and jokes to fit in Cambodia, and are now recording them with Cambodian voice talent for radio broadcast. I think this is going to work very well; Cambodia’s illiteracy rate and traditions use story telling to communicate, and this is basically an older man using stories to teach a young boy about how to know God and live for Him.

The other project is something I just heard about. A man who works with Billy Graham Films is coming to Cambodia next week to look at possibly dubbing some of their films into Khmer for use here. Now, we have done film dubs in the past, but that was awhile ago when there weren’t many alternatives. In addition, we were very particular about what films we would dub. We only looked at doing those that spoke to a particular need here in Cambodia. Doing anything in media simply because you can is the wrong approach.

Now I’m not saying that dubbing these films is the wrong thing to do, but I’m a bit skeptical about it. Like I said, we have done it in the past, and the result at that time was mixed at best. I’d be happy to listen to the man when he comes, but as it turns out I won’t be in country while he is here. So I’ll point him in the direction of some other groups and let them work it out. I already know that given my current level of commitment on various other projects there is no way I would be able to do this kind of film dubbing project even if I wanted to.

On the other hand, I just had a few people listen to the first rough edit of the Dan and Louie program and got some mixed response (we are planning to do some more field testing of the stories to see what works best before we start any broadcasts).

Bringing any media product from outside the country is less than ideal. And anything that you do bring in, the more you can re-work it to fit into the culture, the better off you are. Our goal is to develop a group of people here who are able to produce original media programs for Cambodia.

Technical Speed-bumps On The Information Ox-Cart Path

2005-08-03T11:01:00.000+07:00

Yes, it’s been a while since my last post. It seems to be going in spurts lately, not due to a lack of intent on my part, but rather because of the oddities of technology.

As I traveled around the USA for the various meetings and conferences I was attending last month I found tech-friendliness of the various areas to be all over the board. At Lisa’s parents in North Dakota I could barely get on line if I tried, yet in Springfield Missouri entire sections of town are blanketed with free Wi-Fi. Then areas where you expect some level of understanding have absolutely none; at the Chicago airport I asked some of the employees if there was Wi-Fi access in the terminal and they looked at me as if I had a third leg growing out of my forehead and asked me what Wi-Fi was.

Now I am finally home in Cambodia. It is wonderful to be home! But having been gone for 6 weeks has left a number of loose threads that need to be fixed up for life to get back to normal. For example, our phone line was disconnected. So after three trips to the phone company, bringing various receipts and things to them, we finally got the line re-connected. And that’s just one technical area.

We are also trying to get back up to speed on various ongoing projects. That seems like a major battle at the moment (just because I find myself staring at an ever increasing “to-do” list). In addition, I am trying to get started on working myself along the learning curve for the new media tools I picked up during our trip. Again, this takes a bit of time.

Yes, technology has made many things easier, but only after it first makes them really difficult. But at least now we have our phone line and internet connection working again, so hopefully our communication with everyone will pick back up.

Once More Delayed, But In A Better State

2005-07-27T10:50:00.000+07:00

Here I sit again, another post, another airport. I am now delayed in Chicago. So far we have been delayed about 2 hours or so, but it keeps getting pushed back. Unfortunately we have already passed our real problem point; we will arrive at our next destination after our connecting flight has already left.

Yeah, you got it, that means we will be delayed again. We will now arrive in Los Angeles at 1:40 AM (assuming all else goes as it is supposed to), and the next available flight to Taiwan doesn’t leave until 1:20 AM the following day! So we will be stuck in LA for about 23 hours!

So now I need to get all the flights changed, and get hotel reservations in Bangkok changed and get word to the people house sitting and picking us up in Phnom Penh. But those are all things I can do.

Surprisingly, I’m not as upset about it as I would have thought (given my recent reaction to delays and lost luggage). It’s more of a fatalistic resignation now. But at least I am on my way home with my family. All in all I’m in a fairly good mood (although it could just be the buzz from my third large Starbucks coffee in the last few hours).

It’s Déjá Vu All Over Again

2005-07-26T04:29:00.000+07:00

Once again I’m sitting in the airport waiting for a flight.

Last time the worst happened; they lost my luggage! So I was arguing with baggage handlers at a little airport in North Dakota past midnight. Big fun! But I did eventually meet up with my luggage the next day.

So now we are waiting for the first leg of our return flight to Cambodia. But there could be more delays; there is bad weather around Chicago where we are making our first connection.

Now it’s not just me in this, Lisa and the boys are here too. Hopefully it will be a simple flight with no surprises (I think I’ve paid my air-travel dues lately with the last two trips I took!).

We will see if I end up posting from any other airports along the way.

Sometimes You Don’t Want to Learn Anything

2005-07-24T04:51:00.000+07:00

OK, there is a point where you just want to tell someone off, even though you know a problem is not their fault and they can’t do anything about it. That point has come and gone.

If you read the last post, which I made earlier today, you will see that I wrote it from an airport where I was waiting for a delayed flight. Big surprise, I am now waiting in another airport. I finally got my flight out of Newark to Minneapolis, but I missed my connection to Minot, North Dakota, and the next flight isn’t till 10:09 PM. That means I once again have 7 hours to kill in an airport terminal. I’m not real happy about this.

On the flight I had been asking the stewardess about the connecting flight. My hope was that the weather that had delayed my flight might have delayed the connecting flight as well. So I asked if she could have them check for me. She said that many passengers had been asking about connecting flights, so she would see. A bit later the pilot comes on saying that there will be airline agents waiting at the gate to help everyone with their connections. Great. But when the plane finally lands (after having been delayed for takeoff, rerouted in the air adding about 30 minutes to the flight, and having to wait after landing on the tarmac because there is no available gate) there is no agent waiting to help anyone. Instead, the area is crowded with many passengers and few airline employees. After not being able to even find a flight to Minot listed on the departure board, I was finally reduced to flagging down the stewardess from flight I had been on (who was now walking down the concourse) and getting here to help me get some guy behind a counter to help me. The guy behind the counter, who repeatedly said in an annoyed voice that he was not yet officially on duty, was able to tell me that I had missed my flight and gave me a boarding pass for the next flight to Minot at 10:09 PM.

In the past I have worked in customer service, and I know that if you have a customer who has gotten the short end of the stick, you do what you can to make their life easier. But this guy at the counter wasn’t willing to do a thing. I suggested that since I was now stuck for so long in the airport, perhaps they could give me a pass into the airlines first-class lounge. I figured this was something that basically would cost the airline nothing, make a bad situation a bit more bearable, and gain the airline a repeat customer. No dice. Boy did I want to give him an earful. I thanked him (somewhat cynically) and walked off with the stewardess, who I vented to (calmly) about the situation. Of course she couldn’t do anything about it, and I knew that and wasn’t expecting her to do anything. But boy did I feel like going and telling off a number of the airline’s employees.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that God is trying to teach me something, and I’m really not in the mood (which is probably the point). Like many other people, patience isn’t my strong point. And I have a tendency to get mad at everyone else when I am inconvenienced. But I’m sure that with all the delays from the weather and all, everyone else was having a pretty miserable time as well. But I wasn’t worried about them, just me. And worse, I allowed the situation to affect my attitude and ruin the next few hours.

So now I’m calmed down a bit, but still stuck in an airport. I suppose that’s the way things go.

Delays Prove No One is in Island

2005-07-23T22:57:00.000+07:00

Here I sit, once again, be-deviled by thunderstorms and delays.

I am writing this posting from the Newark International airport. I’m trying to get back to meet up with my wife Lisa and our two boys (who are waiting for me in North Dakota), but it looks like it might take a bit longer than I expected.

A little over a week ago I flew out to New Jersey to attend a conference in New York City, and spent seven hours in the Detroit airport when my connecting flight was canceled because of thunderstorms. Now, I am waiting for another delayed flight. Assuming my flight actually leaves at it’s new departure time I will have ten minutes to make my connection in Minneapolis. If I don’t make it I will have to spend about 8 hours in the airport waiting for the next flight.

Now, I’m sitting next to a window, and it’s beautiful outside; blue skies, just a couple clouds, not too windy… But apparently, somewhere between here and Minnesota, thunderstorms are spread across the land. It is amazing how something so far away can still affect my travel plans.

That’s just what life is like. And that’s especially what missions is like. I was just talking to a friend about our financial support system. Currently, churches and individuals send in monthly amounts that they have pledged to maintain over the next few years. We have about 120 individuals and churches who do this. Within Assemblies of God World Missions, the average monthly pledge is about $55. So to meet our budget we have to have a lot of those pledges and visit a lot of churches. My friend said he thought it would be better if missionaries had a closer relationship with just a couple of churches who would then support that missionary at a couple hundred dollars a month. That way the missionary wouldn’t have to visit so many churches and there would be more of a feeling of partnership between missionaries and their supporters. Well, in many ways that would be nice, but the problem is the same as the thunderstorms that are plaguing my trip today. If you have five churches that support you heavily, and while you are on the field there is some type of split or problem or something at one of those five churches and they stop supporting you, you could have real problems. In the past missionaries have had to leave the field because of these kind of problems with their support.

Neither system is perfect, but I believe that we can do a combination of the two and get the best of both worlds. We want to maintain closer ties to our supporters, and we hope to have some churches partner more closely with us for high pledge amounts so that we don’t have to spend so much time itinerating, but we also want to keep the broad-based support we have now so that we maintain a variety of options.

Now if I can just get the airlines to work something out with Amtrak or something…

New Days in New York

2005-07-21T06:24:00.000+07:00

I love New York City! I grew up near Chicago, but after Bible College Lisa and I moved to New Jersey to work at a church just across the river from the city. Now I love New Jersey, too, but New York is just “it”. And this week I am in New York! Well, actually I am staying in New Jersey, but every morning I am taking the train over to the city to attend the DV Expo East. So, I am actually in Manhattan for the majority of each day.

One of the best things about New York City is the variety of people who are there. I love being in a place that can feel like so many other places from around the world! But that’s beside the point. The point is more about another of the things I enjoy about NYC; the access to cutting edge technology and trends. The DV Expo is one of those “covet” events. A “covet” event is one of those shows where you see all these new gadgets and gizmos and stuff that makes you go “Oooohhh… I need one of those!” Why exactly you need it, and what you are going to do with it isn’t important, what’s important is it’s really cool!

Now, I have been spending money while I am here on cool new stuff. However, I DO have a use and plan in mind (at least for most of it). The one piece of software that I plan on buying tomorrow that I don’t have an EXACT plan for is called “Animation Master”. It is a roto-scoping 3D modeling and animation software. What does all that mean? It means really cool computer toy for Troy! No, seriously, it creates 3D animated stuff. This is the kind of software that guys who work at Pixar play around with in their free time. And it is on special at the Expo for a song (relatively speaking)! So although I don’t yet have a plan for it, I know this is cutting edge stuff that we could use easily down the road. So, like most of this cool stuff, there is a HUGE learning curve, so I am getting it to start working with it.

Saturday I will finally be meeting up with Lisa and the kids in North Dakota, and on Monday it is back to Cambodia. Until then, you can find me drinking Starbucks and eating a shish kabob from a street vender on a park bench in New York, thank you very much! Is there some spiritual lesson here? No, it’s just good to be in New York.

Could You Super-Size My Bathroom With That?

2005-07-14T22:32:00.000+07:00

Whenever I’m in the States these days I tend to find surprising things bothering me. It’s always something different. There are lots of things you expect to be bothered by, and because you expect them they don’t bother you as much. In this category you will find things like church / Christian attitudes, news / society bias, etc.

But there have been plenty of annoying things this time that I didn’t expect. Previously I mentioned the time the sun set in North Dakota in the summer (10:30 PM! In Cambodia the sun goes down between 6:00 and 6:30 PM all year long). But today I have a new one.

It hit me yesterday when I was in the shower (I know some of you are already thinking “that’s too much information!” Sorry). First, I freeze here, especially at night. Day time isn’t bad as long as it’s a nice day, but at night it gets colder than it ever gets in Cambodia, so I’m huddled down under the covers, and in the morning I can’t wait to get into a nice hot shower (something I almost never have in Cambodia (I’m referring here to the “hot” part; I do take regular showers). So Yesterday I’m in the shower, and I guess up until then I had just been so happy to be warm that I hadn’t noticed the other problem; the shower was really small. Or at least it deemed to be. I have been in plenty of smaller ones, but they were all in the States. Either it’s a bathtub with a curtain that drifts in to stick up against your side when you have shampoo in your eyes, or it’s a stand up shower stall that is small enough that if you bend over too quickly you will hit your head on the wall in front of you and your rear end on the wall behind you. In the past this never seemed to bother me, but this time I suddenly find myself annoyed by it. Why? Because in Cambodia the shower is basically the entire bathroom! They tile the whole thing, stick a drain in the floor and a shower head on the wall, and there you have your shower. Lots of room and no mysteriously drifting plastic shower curtains!

Isn’t America the land of Super-Sizing? I’m sitting in a HUGE church, drinking a VENTI coffee from Starbucks, and typing this posting on a notebook computer with a 17 inch screen! So why can’t we get a decent size shower? And don’t even get me started on the subject of fixed American shower heads verses Cambodian shower heads attached to hoses you can move around and direct, or low American ceilings versus high and spacious Cambodian ceilings!

Some of you are probably thinking “Maybe Troy has had a bit too much of the Starbucks coffee he has talking about.” OK, maybe… But I’m just trying to point out that the things that are sneaking up to annoy missionaries who are home in the States aren’t always the things you might expect. Sometimes they are; missionaries do struggle with attitudes and issues that are serious and important, but usually they expect that. It’s the little things that you don’t expect.

So perhaps if McDonalds went into the home construction business we could solve this pesky little shower problem; “With that bathroom do you want a regular size shower, or do you want to Super-Size?” I’ll take Super-Size, thank you.

The Story Part 2 (the problem of "zero sum" missions)

2005-07-12T22:59:00.000+07:00

Picking up the thought that I touched on last time, there are other problems with the story that the people in the churches hear from missionaries. It has to do with the “thrill factor”.

Very often, churches seem to think and act on the premise that missions giving is a “zero sum game”. In other words, they have “X” number of dollars for missions, and once it is gone, that’s it. So when missionaries contact churches, the first thing that goes through the church leaders mind is, “do we have any available missions funds?” If they let the missionary come to the church, after the missionary speaks it becomes a question of deciding between supporting missionary A or missionary B. So then it becomes, who has the more exciting stories; who has the higher “thrill factor”. This spills over into the missionary’s communication from the field, as well. At times it can be difficult for a missionary to write a newsletter when they don’t feel like they have anything exciting to report.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of being in a church where a long time missionary friend of mine was speaking. This friend is an MK (missionary kid) who grew up in Kenya, and now is a missionary in the Sudan. He had ten minutes or so, and did a great job of presenting the need in the Sudan. By the time he finished, I felt like I should go to the Sudan (that always seems to happen when you get a missionary who is good at communicating their heart). Then I started thinking through what all he said, and how the people responded.

Now please understand, I am not intending to criticize what he said, or how he said it, or anything; I am just trying to paint a picture for you of what fundraising is like for missionaries.

There tends to be the idea that one ministry is more valid than another because of it’s location, or the “results” that a missionary has. People sometimes say, “missionary so and so has planted all these churches, and that other missionary hasn’t planted even one.” My friend even brought up some of these problems. He was talking about how some of the least reached areas of the world don’t tend to have many missionaries because it takes time and relationships to have someone become a Christian, so there’s not a lot of exciting stories for newsletters and things. But then it’s even harder for the missionaries themselves. They tend to look at what the other missionaries do and feel like they are failures because they aren’t seeing people saved every day. People in churches often reinforce this because they question who they should support, and sometimes will even drop missionaries who don’t seem to “produce” at a level they equate with a successful ministry, and pick up support for someone else (remember the zero sum game?).

The answer, as I said in my last posting, is in relationships. Only when people in the churches develop a relationship with a missionary, and understand what they do and why they do it, will they be moving beyond the “thrill factor”. In saying that I will also add that often it is the missionary’s fault. I’m not sying that they didn’t do what they should have on the field, but rather they failed in maintaining a good relationship with their supporters in order to educate and disciple them in how missions works in their area. I know of other situations where a church has dropped their support of a missionary because the missionary fails to communicate regularly with the church. Personally, as much as I hate to see any missionary loose support during their term, I think churches in this situation are often justified in their actions. But I am drifting a bit from my point about the “thrill factor” of one ministry verses another.

The Bible says that some plant, some water and some harvest, but all share the reward. All of them play vital roles. And it’s amusing that usually the “great” things we do aren’t the things that really make a difference anyway. Very often, the things that have real lasting impact for the kingdom of God are the little things that happen when we are least expecting it. And we don’t even find out about it until years later. But maybe that’s a story for next time…

I realize this posting may raise a few other questions, but let me finish by saying I don't believe that missions is a "zero sum game". I believe that God's plan, in God's timing will not lack God's resources. As we stretch ourselves to bless others, God will in turn bless us as well. Once we eliminate the "zero sum" missions philosophy, many of the other "thrill factor" problems go away as well.

Now, I don't think we should give regular support to every missionary that walks through a church's doors, but I do think we should pray and ask God what He wants us to do in every situation; I think it is wrong to just dismiss the possability of support just because we think we have hit our limit. We should pray about each opportunity and seek God's will and direction. Once that relationship has been made, it must be maintained by both sides to remain healthy and strong.

The Story That’s The Story (Kidnappings, Hurricanes and Missions)

2005-07-11T08:40:00.000+07:00

Being in America for the last few weeks has given me more access to news than I know what to do with.

Over the last few years, things in Cambodia have changed radically, and we actually have a couple cable news channels, like CNN, at our home, and I regularly check a couple of news web-sites. But here, there’s not only numerous TV news channels, there’s newspapers of every kind in every gas station and restaurant, high speed wireless access to the internet in every coffee shop, as well as talk radio of every stripe.

But the most striking thing is that with all those news outlets, they all seem to be covering the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t all saying the same thing exactly, but they all do seem to cover the same stories.

A week ago, it was the girl missing in Aruba. Then there was the London bombings. Now it’s the hurricane. There always seems to be a “piling on” in the media. This tends to bother me a bit at times. How many times can you hear the same thing over and over again? They tend to not only repeat themselves from network to network, but even on the same channel they cycle through the news every 30 minutes or so and keep repeating the same information again.

This is exactly the same problem I was talking to a pastor about last week. People in churches, especially those who have been recently saved and haven’t grown up in churches, aren’t used to making long term regular financial commitments to missions. A big part of that is because they are used to this instant news. They are used to seeing the latest instant news updates everywhere they turn. Traditional missions in the Assemblies of God is a bit different. Missionaries visit a church once every four years or so, there might be a newsletter stuck on the bulletin board a couple times a year, but it’s all old news. And it’s very “filtered”. They spin and condense three or four months into a one page newsletter, or four years into a 45 minute sermon, so the view the average person gets isn’t exactly “eye-witness”.

So the current trend in churches and in missions is to get that hands-on, eye-witness feel by concentrating the missions efforts of the church more and more in short term teams sent out by the church for a few weeks, or in one time projects that the church raises money for and then moves on to the next thing. These things aren’t bad, but if churches shift their support away from monthly support of long term, full time, field based missionaries to increase the short term projects and teams, it could become a bad thing.

I believe both of these efforts have their place. The challenge is, how do we in the church keep from making the story, “the story”? How do we keep from allowing the immediate feedback of short-term work to undermine the importance of the long term work? The answer is relationships.

Churches and pastors and church boards usually pick up a missionary for support because they came to the church and established a relationship with the church. That relationship is based initially on that first service and usually on the mutual association with the Assemblies of God. But like all relationships, if this one is not worked on regularly, it is going to have problems. The sad thing is that like much of life, the negative news gets the attention, and the problem relationships between missionaries and churches are the ones that get the attention.

It is my hope that this blog is one step to maintaining good relationships with churches who support us here in the States.

Back to Where it Started

2005-07-08T03:55:00.000+07:00

Today I finally am back in a place with good internet access. In fact, I am sitting in the same place I was a few months ago when I first started this blog.

I am currently in Springfield, MO working on the same video project that brought me here back in April. This is a project to produce, among other things, a two minute promotional video to be shown at the upcoming World Missions Congress that will be held in December in Tennessee (I thin k that’s where it is anyway). The meeting is to bring together college age young people who are interested in missions and to challenge them to give a year of their lives to work overseas, with the hope that during that time God will call some of them into full time missions work. The video I am working on is to highlight the Asia-Pacific region, and the needs represented there.

So let me ask you what you think. Here is the video script. But before you read it, let me remind you of a couple things. First, this is targeted at young people, so it moves along pretty fast and doesn’t pull any punches. Second, there is a video component that I can’t share with you right now. There will be a lot of images that precede this part of the video. The scripted part is only about half of the overall video. Also, it won’t be me talking, but rather a college age young man who is working in Thailand. So have a look at what we say, and let me know what you think; post your comments and suggestions and we’ll see what we come up with. Here’s the script;

Forget the hype, forget all the flash. Asia Pacific has 33 countries and close to a billion people. But less than 5 % of them know Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. That leaves more than 950 million unreached, and about half of those have had little or no exposure to the gospel.

At the same time there are less than 300 Assembly of God missionaries in the region and less than 100 missionary associates. That’s about 2 and a half million unreached people for every missionary. So what’s the answer?

Jesus said pray that God would send more workers into the harvest field. We need workers. People like you who are willing to invest up to a year of your life in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Bottom line, I’m not talking about warm bodies to fill a slot, and if your looking for a chance to travel and see Asia, don’t waste your time with this. Working overseas with missionaries to reach these groups isn’t all fun and games; it takes real commitment to prayer, hard work and servanthood. But if you really want to follow Jesus, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and change the eternal destiny of people who have lived too long with no hope and no future, this is exactly what your looking for.

God is calling laborers into the harvest field of Asia Pacific. Can you hear His voice? Will you answer the call?

Cold and Disconnected

2005-06-26T09:18:00.000+07:00

I’m cold. It’s raining, it stays light out too late, and I’m cold. America can be like that at times.

We are back in the USA for about 6 weeks, and I am currently with Lisa and the boys at her parent’s house in North Dakota. It’s nice to see family again, but there are things about it that bother me more than I expected, and many of them have to do with summer.

Summer is supposed to be warm, but it sure doesn’t seem very warm to me. But more than that, with North Dakota being so far North, it’s the light that really bothers me. Cambodia is in the tropic zone, so the amount of daylight that you have from one season to another pretty much stays the same. I know that somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30 pm I know that the sun will go down. But here in North Dakota it’s not like that at all. In the winter the sun sets early, and in the summer, like it is now, the sun sets late. So it will be 10:30 pm and still light out! I can’t begin to explain how much that bothers me. It never used to, but for some reason, on this trip, it is driving me crazy. I suppose part of it is that I didn’t expect it.

Isn’t that the way life works? If you are tempted with big things, or facing big problems, it’s not that hard to do the right thing. But when it’s something little, annoying and unexpected, it’s harder to deal with. The Devil is in the details.

One other problem is that here in North Dakota there isn’t really much “connection”. Internet hook ups are kind of hard to find, so some of these posts over the next week and a half will be even less regular than usual.

Hostages and Revenge and Ugly Foreigners

2005-06-18T23:43:00.000+07:00

By now the hostage crises in Seam Reip in Cambodia has been on most of the news networks. The details, however, have only now been coming out.

A few days before, a Korean restaurant owner had had an argument with a former security guard who was working for him as a driver. It isn’t clear what the reason for the argument was, but what is clear is that the Korean business owner slapped the 22 year old guard twice. This is a HUGE insult in most Asian countries, including Cambodia.

The guard was so angry and insulted that he decided to act in retaliation. He traveled 4 hours to Phnom Penh to buy a gun, and then returned to Seam Reip. He enlisted two friends, also former security guards, to help him. His plan is to take out his anger on the children of the Korean restaurant owner. His job had been to drive the children to, and from school each day, so he and his two accomplices went to the school with the intent of killing the two children. Unfortunately, the class they took over did not contain the two children they were looking for, so they began to improvise. The demanded money, guns and a van from the government, and to prove they were serious they killed a 4 year old Canadian boy who happened to be crying. During their attempted escape they were overpowered by local police and the entire drama came to end with a crowd of locals beating the kidnappers to a point where they appeared to be dead (although they all lived and are now in police custody).

There are three things I would like to point out from this event to help you understand the current conditions in Cambodia.

First of all is the Cambodian concept of “kum.” The closest English translation of this word is revenge, but that just doesn’t capture it completely. It is revenge multiplied exponentially, buried beneath the surface, and released at a time when it is least expected. Chances are that when the main kidnapper was slapped by the Korean restaurant owner, he probably meekly submitted and went away quietly. That is kind of the way most things like this start out. The anger, rage and desire for revenge is there, but they don’t let you see it. Then, later, when you aren’t expecting it, they come back and exact retribution.

The second thing is the slap by the Korean restaurant owner. Cambodia has many foreigners working here in all types of trades, and many have very poor cross cultural skills. In one sense, I am shocked someone could be so completely clueless as to slap an employee like that. But on the other hand, that is pretty Korean; they tend to be very class conscious and very blunt in the way they deal with things. But it’s not just Koreans, there are many foreigners who give foreigners a bad name here (including lots of “ugly Americans”.

The third thing is the crowd’s reaction in beating the kidnappers. There is a general undercurrent of frustration here with the police and justice system (and really with the government in general), and it is very common for crowds who catch any kind of criminal to enforce a kind of mob justice.

All of these observations seem trivial, however, when compared to the loss of life that it all resulted in; a 4 year old Canadian boy who had nothing to do with any of it, but was just upset enough to cry.

Starbucks, Lighting and Relationship Avoidance

2005-06-16T14:44:00.000+07:00

As much as there are numerous things I dislike about Bangkok, Thailand, one of the things I do like is Starbucks.

Overall, I much prefer Cambodia to Thailand. Cambodia has a much more laid back feel to it than Bangkok. Bangkok clearly aspires to be a world class city, and in many ways it is, but it also has a bit of a disorganized and overcrowded overtone that leaves it feeling forced in some way. Cambodia, on the other hand, is much more laid back. And of course I speak and read Khmer, but am pretty much lost with Thai. But Bangkok does have many world-wide companies and services that are still absent in Phnom Penh. Within about a two block radius of the hotel I am writing this from I can find Burger King, McDonalds, Sizzler, Kentucky Fried Chicken, a large mall, an elevated train station, and most importantly, two Starbucks coffee shops.

We are here in Bangkok for an area wide Assemblies of God missionary retreat. So part of the plan is to relax and unwind. Lisa has here way of doing that. Usually it includes shopping (both window and real), or getting her nails done, or some such thing. I tend to have a very different system of relaxation. My idea of relaxation comes down to going to Starbucks, getting a big cup of coffee, sitting in one of their overstuffed chairs and spending a few hours reading a good technical instruction book (I’m currently reading through a really good one on professional lighting for video and film).

As I sat talking with Lisa yesterday about what we each found relaxing, I realized that as I get older I seem to be less and less of a people person. Not that I was ever a complete social life of the party type, but I seem to enjoy being alone more and more. The problem is I don’t necessarily see this as a good thing. As much as I might enjoy hiding out from everyone else and getting lost in a good cup of coffee and the details of professional lighting, I know that it is important for me to use this time to build relationships with my family and my fellow missionaries.

So what is it that I find so attractive about technical books? I think it is the concrete nature of it. It is all about A+B=C, it is hard facts, it is step one, step two, step three. Sure there is some “art” and skill involved in doing a good job at these various technical things, like lighting, but it is still pretty black and white and simple. Relationships are an entirely different animal! You have to decide what the other person is thinking and feeling. There are very few black and white things, mostly it is shades of gray. There is being polite or diplomatic. It isn’t at all easy, and it involves emotional investment and risk. There isn’t any of that in deciding where to place a key light and whether you should use a fresnel light or HMI. Hiding out in Starbucks with the lighting book, I have decided, may be more relaxing, but if that is all I do, I am taking the cowards way out and missing an opportunity to build relationships that will give me more than just lighting information.

The funny thing is, I find a similar tendency in my spiritual life with God. I’m ready to get up early, put in my Bible reading and prayer time, and move on. It’s simple. I read X number of chapters, I cover X number of topics in prayer, and I’m pretty much set. I want to reduce my relationship with God to a black and white set of formulas that leave no ambiguity or uncertainty. But the reality is my relationship with God is a RELATIONSHIP, and no real relationship is that simple. Paul said we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why? I think C.S. Lewis captured it well in The Chronicles of Narnia. In the first book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the children ask the the beaver if Aslan, the lion who represents Jesus in the story, is a safe lion. The beaver kind of laughs and says who ever heard of a safe lion. But they could be sure he was a good lion. Is God safe? Not exactly, but He is good. Any relationship we have with Him will be risky in some sense. So reducing it to X hours in prayer and Bible study is to avoid the relationship in favor of a set of rules and a dead religion.

So I don’t abandon my regular prayer and Bible study. It still has great benefits. But I have to make and effort to bring God into my daily situation and build a relationship on honesty, openness and time spent together. I can still have my Starbucks, but I need to make sure I take time to share it with both those around me physically, and the savior who is always with me spiritually as well.

Electro-Shock Therapy for Snakes (and other Animal Planet moments)

2005-06-13T19:42:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, as I drove down a back road to our studio, I saw something that I hadn’t seen in a long; a man with a car battery on his back.

As I’ve said a number of times before, Cambodia has changed drastically since we first came here in January 1994. Back then, we would see things that just made you stop and stare. Of course, some of those things are still around, but we have just gotten used to them and we don’t notice as much anymore. But many things you just don’t see anymore. For example, one of my favorite Cambodia media related moments was when I first saw a public service message on TV telling people not to fish with hand grenades! I haven’t seen that in years! Another one that I haven’t seen in a long time is the electro-snake-fishing.

In this particular Cambodian “sport” the “snake fisher” straps on a backpack that has a small shelf on it. Sitting on the shelf is a large car battery. Attached to the positive and negative battery terminals there are two wires that extend to two long metal poles (I haven’t looked at them very closely, but I believe they also have some rubber strips wrapped around the end as hand holds). The person then wades into a rice patty or drainage ditch that is likely to contain small water snakes and puts the two ends of the metal poles in the water to shock any nearby snakes and bring them to the surface. They collect the snakes and cook and sell them. I don’t believe I have ever seen this particular method of sports fishing taught in a Royal Ranger book or at Boy Scouts or anything, but once you’ve seen it you don’t easily forget it!

At the airport this morning (on our way to a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand) Lisa was reading the newspaper and came across an article that once again brought up a host of memories.

When we used to live and work at the orphanage we had a house that was next to a swampy field, so we would get all sorts of odd animal visitors. We would find four foot long snake skins in the spare bedroom, live poisonous vipers in the living room or on the car porch, black widow spiders under our dining room table top, and all sorts of assorted mystery animals throughout the house that we would just kill and get rid of without ever knowing what they were. On our first furlough, we were watching a National Geographic special one day called “Living Nightmares” that focused on various poisonous nocturnal predators. As we watched were recognized over half of the creatures featured as being among the many animals we had killed in our house!

A couple months ago, just shortly before Lisa got our cat, I had killed a “rat” in our hallway (after a bit of a chase through three different rooms with a golf club). But it wasn’t like any rat I had ever seen. It had a strange pointed and tapered face and a oddly thick tail, but, I knew it wasn’t a mouse, so it was labeled as “rat” in my mind. But as Lisa was reading the paper this morning, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Remember that weird rat you killed? Did it look kind of like this?” And she proceeded to show me a half-page drawing in the paper that looked surprisingly familiar. “Yeah, I think that’s it!” I said. It turns out the article was about some animal specialist who found a previously un-cataloged species of rodent being sold in a market in Laos, and that was what had been in our house! Animal Planet hasn’t got anything on us!

So now we are in Bangkok, Thailand for about a week for a retreat. Here you still see some odd animal things. What other major city do you know where you can walk down the street and see elephants on the side walk? Sometimes you just have to stop and remember what an amazing world we live in and what amazing opportunities God brings our way.

Confessions of a Reluctant Cat Owner (and other reluctant confessions...)

2005-06-08T22:08:00.000+07:00

I am a somewhat reluctant cat owner. I’m not really much of a pet person in general. I have had pets in the past; I had a dog growing up, and two different kittens during my 2 years at Southern Illinois University. But I can easily admit that these days I am lazy enough that taking care of myself and my family is pretty much all I want to do, and adding another animal to the mix isn’t something I went looking for. However, here in Cambodia it was pretty much a choice between the rats and mice or getting a cat, so we went with the cat. Actually “we” isn’t exactly true; it’s more that my wife Lisa and our two boys went for the cat. I had steadfastly said “no pets,” but one day I came home and there was a scrawny kitten in our house.

That was a few months ago. The cat, named Hobbes by our boys (in honor of their favorite cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes) is now well filled out and giving me a run for my money in the lazy and overweight category. And, I have to admit, it has been interesting to watch the way he has fit himself into our home. He has a pretty good idea where he fits in the “pecking order”. For example, he pretty much realizes that I’m the boss (which leads me to think he may be part corporate weasel, because he is always trying to “suck-up to the boss”). On the other hand, he doesn’t always see his role so clearly with other family members. With Lisa it’s an ongoing struggle that Hobbes hasn’t given up on completely. Then there is Alex, our youngest boy who is 7. Hobbes has pretty much decided that he ranks well above Alex on the dominate family member scale. A favorite family activity is watching Hobbes chase Alex through the house and launch himself through the air whenever he thinks Alex is cornered (it’s more fun than reality TV).

The one thing I have realized is that I definitely like cats better than dogs. Cats seem to be a lot more independent, and not nearly so needy. And in general they don’t seem to be quite as smelly. There are, of course, exceptions to that. Like the time Hobbes ate a two or three foot long string and a few days later, when the string “passed,” it got hung up in “mid pass”. The end result (no pun intended) was a cat spinning in circles chasing a string that was hanging half in and half out of his lower digestive track, and in the process slinging the fully digested remains of other things all around our kitchen and dining room! Not that given the opportunity a dog wouldn’t have done the same thing, but I haven’t actually witnessed any similar K-9 activities (please feel free to let me know if you have). But in general, I find myself to be more of a cat person.

Being any kind of “pet person” is not something I expected. I guess I see myself as more of a reluctant, and some cranky (Lisa would probably add “crotchety”) pet owner. None the less, Hobbes is here, so we need to make sure he is taken care of properly. For example, there are a lot of cats around our neighborhood. But these aren’t your run of the mill house cats. Both dogs and cats have a bit of a different pet role in most Cambodian homes. Yes, they are the family pet, but they are usually allowed to roam free, especially at night, when they more closely resemble something you might have seen Steve Irwin wrestling on Animal Planet. In the past we have literally had a pack of “neighborhood” dogs kill and eat a pig outside of our house (trust me, that’s a sound you don’t want to wake up to in the middle of the night). And these days, or more precisely, these nights, it seems the tin roof over the shed of our next door neighbor seems to be the sight of the world championship of “Ultimate Cat Fighting”. Hobbes, on the other hand, is an indoor cat (or so I keep telling everyone). I figure that if he is out roaming the neighborhood, who is keeping the rats away? Most days we do let him out some, but we try to make sure he is back inside well before dark. Then there are days like today.

Sometimes he does end up getting left outside. The first time that happened I had to chase a big cat away with a stick that had Hobbes by the throat, and typically that’s the way it goes; Hobbes gets into some fight and is generally the loser. Then we spend twenty to thirty minutes trying to get him off the roof and back in the house. Tonight I was just sitting down to write this post (although, what I was going to write about probably wasn’t as interesting as this) when Lisa came in to say Hobbes was outside and she could hear some cats going at it. So we went out to try to find Hobbes and there in our front yard he was going at it with a black cat we had seen around that was actually a bit smaller than Hobbes, so for once Hobbes was winning. My first thought was “Hey, that’s great, go get ‘em Hobbes!” But, I knew we had to get him back inside. So I succeeded in getting the black cat chased out under our gate, and then it was just Hobbes sitting there. Here is where I got really stupid. I picked him up.

At this point, some of you are probably saying “yeah, so what’s the big deal?” A few hours ago I probably would have been one of you. But now I’m in the camp of all the other people who are reading this and saying, “boy, that was really stupid.” See, Hobbes didn’t realize fighting time was over, and he proceeded to lay into my hands and arms! He went for one of those kind of death grip bites on my arm and wouldn’t let go! By the way, have I mentioned that he has never been de-clawed (how would he catch the mice and rats?)? I think, all in all, I turned out to be louder than the cats when they were fighting by themselves.

So now I’m typing this post wearing a ripped up and blood spotted t-shirt with an ice-pack on my arm, which, by the way, smells like hydrogen peroxide. Do you see why I don’t consider myself a pet person? Apparently Hobbes never heard the bit about not biting the hand that feeds you.

But seriously, I realize he was caught up in the moment, and did something that was probably against his better judgment, and attacked someone who was trying to protect and care for him. Sounds kind of like me sometimes. I can’t count the number of times I got caught up in the moment and said or did something stupid that only hurt those who were trying to help or protect me. Whether it was my parents, a brother or sister, a friend, my wife or God, it’s happened more times than I like to admit. Sometime later tonight or tomorrow I know Hobbes will come and hop up in my lap while I’m watching TV or working on the computer to just sit and be there with me (I’m the only one in the family he does this with; I guess it’s kind of our thing). And we will be fine; I don’t hold this kind of a thing against him. He’s just a cat, and cat’s make mistakes (like eating string in the first place, but I digress). Thankfully, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect either. How do I know? How else do you read the prodigal son? He is ready and waiting and longing for us to come back, even when we have lashed out at Him, hurt Him or run away from Him. So when we come back, things will be ok, too.

It’s funny the things you notice with pets…

Upgrade Faith

2005-06-04T10:10:00.000+07:00

In the wonderful world of media production, computers have taken over. We produce all of our video and audio projects digitally; our video footage is shot on a digital camera is stored digitally on computer hard drives, our audio projects are recorded straight onto a computer hard drive through a 8 channel digital audio interface, and all of our editing is done computer based non-linear editing systems. It’s really pretty incredible what you can now do.

Digital, computer based editing has been around for awhile. Our regional media office for the Assemblies of God World Missions department is located in the Philippines, and they bought their first digital editing system almost ten years ago. To do it they had to buy a specially built computer, as well as the editing software. All in all, if my memory serves me correctly, it ran them about $40,000! Just this past year, they stopped using that system. They now have gone with a new digital editing system that uses a pretty standard PC (although it is admittedly a high end system) and an editing program that runs about $600. So for a tenth of the cost, they are getting better performance and results. We use the same system here. The problem is upgrades.

I actually use a number of editing programs; for general video editing we use Vegas, for video compositing we use Ultra, for authoring DVD’s we use DVD Architect, for creating interactive DVD’s we use eDVD, for detailed audio editing we use Sound Forge, for music creation and editing we use Acid, and for shooting new video we have just started using DV Rack. And of course I also have a wish list of other software and hardware that we would like to get in the future. But that also means I get a ton of upgrade offers every month. In fact, this past week I spent $200 for an upgrade on 2 of our most used programs. Sure that’s a lot less than I would pay for a new program, but it starts to add up. It seems like every other week there is some new breakthrough or some new format that requires another upgrade. So where do you draw the line? How do you decide if the latest upgrade is really necessary?

This is actually a pretty common dilemma that it seems most Cambodians struggle with. The amount of building going on around the country is amazing. There are new houses, stores, restaurants, hotels and businesses going up on almost every major street in Phnom Penh. But at the same time, you can drive down the street and see places that were beautiful showplaces two or three years ago that I would now consider to be a real dive. The typical pattern here is that someone puts a lot of money into building this great place, and then they run it without any ongoing upkeep investment, and within a few years it is run down, worn out, and ends up closing because people don’t come back. The business that keeps re-investing and upgrading their facilities is the exception here, not the rule. Most don’t understand the long term necessity of ongoing investment, maintenance, upkeep and upgrades.

The same thing goes in the video and audio media world. When we first came to Cambodia 11 years ago you couldn’t get a DVD anywhere; everything you bought in the market (i.e. all the pirated movies) was on VHS tapes. Likewise, everything we produced was analog media on VHS or cassette tape, and editing was done with a number of physically connected SVHS tape machines. Now you would be hard pressed to even find VHS tapes in the market. Everything is DVD, I couldn’t give away our old SVHS editing system if I tried. If we had not invested and stepped up to producing digital programs, we would be out of the game. And even though the upgrades I am currently facing are incremental advances, if I were to ignore them I would be left behind in a few years. Does all this affect our day to day ministry? Yeah, it actually does.

One way it has impacted us is that now media in general is much more accessible here, so more missionaries and pastors realize the value of Christian media in both evangelism and discipleship. So we have a lot more people regularly partnering with us. The other way it impacts us is that we are trying to not only keep up with the change, but move to the front of the wave and be a part of leading future trends and direction. So, for example, that means that at the Cambodia Cassette Bible Institute we are looking at MP3 digital format for the lessons to use in possible internet download formats. It means looking outside the box of what has already been done and finding new and innovative ways to bring the gospel to people in a way that captures their attention and their imagination.

And faith is no different. In about 8 days we leave for a missionary retreat in Thailand. What is the point of going to meetings and retreats and all that? It’s the same as the need for maintenance and upkeep in a business; without continually re-investing, things begin to break down, get run down and eventually close down. Why do you keep doing daily Bible reading if you have already read the entire Bible (probably more than once)? Well, why do you paint a room, even when in the past it has already had a number of coats of good paint? Because if you don’t it gets dull and dirty and starts to crack and flake off. So you keep reading the Bible because if you don’t you faith starts to get dull and dirty and cracked and starts to flake off. Face it, life is all about upgrades.

So every couple months I shell out a couple hundred dollars for the latest version of whatever software it is that is offering an upgrade this week, and every so often I find myself at the alter, “paying” whatever it cost for another faith upgrade (for those fluent in “Christianese” that means “seeking the Holy Spirit for a spiritual refreshing”).

The Good Old Days

2005-05-30T09:01:00.000+07:00

Two days ago one of the other missionary couples here in Cambodia left for furlough. That’s an interesting word, furlough. Outside of a missionary context, the first thing I think of is a soldier who is on furlough from their military assignment. Kind of like having a few days off or taking a vacation. And when most people hear that a missionary is on furlough they think it is a time for them to relax and take a break. Wrong answer. In fact, the Assemblies of God World Missions office has stopped using the term furlough and now uses deputation. I’m not sure that increases the number of people who understand what is going on, but I suppose deputation carries less baggage than furlough.

Basically, for an Assemblies of God missionary, we work on a five year cycle. Four years are spent on the field, and one year is spent in the States raising support for the next four years. So during that one year in the States, whether you call it furlough or deputation or whatever, you have to raise enough money to live on for five years, as well as any money you will need to do ministry during the next four years. To accomplish this you travel to different churches, preach and talk about your ministry and the country you work in, and hopefully they will then give you an offering and a pledge to support you monthly for the next four years. Out of that offering you have to take your travel expenses, and not every church will give you a pledge of monthly support. On top of that, the average pledge from a church is only about $50, so you can imagine how many pledges you need to cover your entire budget. This all works out to missionaries preaching between 150 to 250 times during the year they are home. Believe me, it is not a relaxing vacation time by any stretch of the imagination.

So these missionary friends of ours, Mark and Joan, were leaving the field to go on furlough / deputation / whatever, and a bunch of us got together for a sort of going away party. It ended up with me, Mark and a brand new missionary associate (MA) sitting around, talking about “the old days.” Lisa and I first came to Cambodia in 1994, and Mark and his family first came in 1993, so that makes us long term people here. This new MA had been here for about 2 weeks (although she had spent a month or two here last year as well) and that made here the most recent addition to our field. So we started talking about the old days.

Another missionary and my wife, Lisa, eventually joined in the discussion as well, and toward the end of it all Lisa said, “You know, someone needs to write a book someday.” Not because of the deep spiritual insights or the eye witness historical perspective, but because of the falling on the ground laughing so hard that coffee shoots out of your nose kind of stories! There is some downright funny things that happen here. Most of the things we talked about would take a long conversation just to set up, and some might not seem that funny to an outsider, but we had a great time. (Maybe I'll try to write some of them another time)

You know, the “old days” here weren’t really that long ago time wise, but the changes that have taken place in that time make it seem like a lifetime. And although you can’t sit around dwelling on the past all the time, it does occasionally help to put things in perspective. Mark and his family have been running an orphanage here since 1996 (That’s what we did for the first two years we were here as well). Running an orphanage is hard work. There are a million problems that need dealt with every day, and it’s not like a school where the kids go home to their families every night and they become their parent’s responsibility; in an orphanage they are your responsibility 24 / 7. So it’s easy to get worn out and burned out. You see all the problems that you are dealing with, and they crowd out all the other things you could be, and should be, looking at. What do I mean?

The day before this going away party I was shooting some footage for a video project I am working on to help promote a new project I am involved with. I am one of two missionaries here who are working to set up a local Christian media production company. We are combining some existing studios and media work with some new capabilities (like video and film production), under one umbrella group. The goal is to have it set up in such a way that they become self sustaining; profits from one project will fund the next project, and so on. I will function as a consultant on the video end of things, and we plan on partnering with them regularly on various projects, but I am not the key driving force in this, so I don’t know all the players all that well. But I was shooting footage of a meeting of the various department heads, and I was surprised to see a familiar face heading up the live concert and performance department! His name is Pagah. He is a young man who has been working for an NGO (Non-Government Organization) doing community development. He is very musically gifted and has been very active in his church’s music program over the years. But I know him as one of the kids from our orphanage! It was a bit surreal to have this young Cambodian man at this meeting calling me Papa! I never would have guessed back then where things would be now. God has done some amazing things with the lives of the kids from our orphanage, and as I sat and talked about “the old days” with Mark, it was amazing to realize all that God has done here in Cambodia in the last 11 years. It’s too easy to get caught up in the day to day grind and problems we face and forget to see past them to the bigger picture.

And like most things, that applies to our own lives as well. We get caught up in our own struggles and situations and start to say “God, do you even care? Can you hear a thing I’m praying?” But if we take a deep breath, step back and look at the bigger picture of our lives, of where we’ve been, and what God has already done, the questions we are asking start to seem a bit ridiculous. I always used to wonder how the Israelites in the desert could complain so bitterly about every little thing and ask God “Did you just bring us out here to kill us?” Couldn’t they remember just a few months before when God parted the Red Sea?

But I don’t wonder about that anymore because I tend to forget what God did for me yesterday! The best thing about sitting around and talking about “the good old days” is that it helps you to remember we still serve the God that made those days so good.

Homework, Bicycles and the Art of Procrastination

2005-05-25T11:58:00.000+07:00

“But Dad, I’m using a system.”

OK, although I was annoyed, I was also a bit curious. “What do you mean you ‘have a system’?”

“I’m going to do my homework every other day. It’s due on Friday, so I’ll do it on Tuesday and Thursday night.” Of course this conversation was taking place on Monday, which according to Dmetri’s new “system” made it a “free” day. But I wasn’t buying.

“Dmetri, how about if you just start your homework on Monday night, and if you get done before Friday, the days you have left will be free days?” Now Dmetri wasn’t buying either.

“But Dad, I have a system already!” At this point I invoked my executive privileges as head of the house and declared my system to be the one that Dmetri would use. But being the true procrastination artist that he is, he put off the bigger assignments to work on the simple things in a very slow, daydreaming kind of way, so as to put off the difficult as long as possible. He hasn’t, however, gotten to the point that I did when I was in school; I just simply didn’t do the homework and relied on getting A’s on the tests and quizzes in school to balance things out to a passing grade (let’s hope he doesn’t read this posting either!).

Strangely, yesterday the thought struck me that I was doing a similar thing. Not with homework, but with exercise. My current exercise poison of choice is bicycle riding to and from my office / studio. Most mornings I get up somewhat less than excited about the upcoming peddle journey through the traffic, dust and diesel fumes. Now I know that the exercise is important for controlling my blood pressure, weight and stress level, but I still at times put it off by finding something that requires my use of the car or motorcycle for the day. Some of those days I will go out and do some type of exercise later, but usually I just figure “I have a system, and this is a free day.” Sounds kind of familiar.

OK, homework and exercise is one thing, but devotional time is another. Or at least it should be. My problem is that often it’s exactly the same thing. I get up in the morning and tell myself some excuse for why I can’t pray and read my Bible right then, and justify it by telling myself I’ll do it later, but later never comes.

Somehow, procrastination seems like something we need to stop in Dmetri in regard to his homework and chores and things, but it seems a lot more minor when I’m looking at myself… or maybe I’m just not seeing it clearly because of that log in my eye.

Our two boys, Dmetri and Alex, are great! Sure there are moments when I long for some piece and quiet, but they have brought wonderful things into our lives. And of all those wonderful things, I think the one thing that has meant the most to me is the mirror factor. That’s the amazing ability they have to show you something about yourself acted out in their lives. It’s uncanny! Almost anything they do, if I sit back and take the time to think about it, tells me something about myself! Granted, I don’t always like what it says, but it does speak volumes.

So Dmetri and I need to work on our procrastination (like me having put off doing this posting for a day or two…opps).

Dust, Diesel and Road Rage

2005-05-20T05:49:00.000+07:00

Sweat, dust and diesel fumes. Those three things make up a large part of my usual morning routine.

A few months ago I had a motorcycle accident (dumped the bike over trying to avoid being hit by a car whose driver was talking on a cell phone, driving too fast and not paying attention as he made a turn onto the street I was riding down) that required a number of trips to see specialist in Bangkok as well as surgery to help deal with a partially torn ligament in my right knee (it was actually kind of amusing to see the looks on my wife’s face at the unnatural ways my knee sort of shifted after the accident). As part of the rehabilitation process the doctor said bicycle riding was one of the best things to build up the muscles surrounding the ligament that had been damaged. So I bought a bike. Now, most mornings, I ride across town, on both paved and dirt roads, to get to my studio (it takes me about 25 to 30 minutes), where I take a shower and change to do my editing and recording work. Then at the end of the day I repeat the process going home. So each morning I am dodging a combination of other bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, pedestrians, stray animals and livestock, and even the occasional ox-cart, all giving loose, VERY LOOSE, allegiance to nearly non-existent rules of the road (here in Cambodia they aren’t so much traffic laws as traffic suggestions).

This can be a bit frustrating, but it’s not as stressful or upsetting as when I am driving my motorcycle or car. Let me give you a couple real life examples. People had been ignoring basic traffic laws, like driving on the right hand side and staying on your half of the road, to such an extent that the government decided to put one foot high cement barriers down the center of the main streets so that people could no longer cross into the oncoming lane. That seems like a good idea that should work; if they won’t willingly follow the law, make it impossible for them to break it. But this has created a whole new set of behaviors. Just a couple days ago we were driving down this very busy, very crowded street and were shocked by what one of the motorcycle drivers in front of us did. Apparently he wanted to go to a store that was on the left side of the road, but there wasn’t a break in the divider nearby, so he stopped and parked his motorcycle in the middle of the road, got off, and crossed over to the shop leaving the middle lain of this very busy road partially blocked!

Example number two comes from a close friend of ours who was driving down this same road behind an SUV who seemed to be going a bit slow as though they were looking for some place they weren’t familiar with. Suddenly they acted like they were making a left hand turn, but there was no break in the divider. They stopped just short of hitting it, put the car in reverse, and proceeded to execute a three point u-turn and begin driving back the way they had come directly into oncoming traffic!

These two examples bring me to the main point; road rage. Of all the temptations that missionaries face, this may be the most common, but least addressed. I mean there aren’t any missionaries that I know of who are cussing people out or threatening them with a gun or anything, but this is still a real issue. I’ve had good friends who are caring and compassionate ministers who have spent more than 10 years on the mission field become frustrated while driving to the point that they will come up behind a motorcycle or bicycle in their SUV, get literally right on their tail, rev the engine in an almost threatening sort of way, lay on their horn, whip around the person and cut them off dangerously close, all while driving a vehicle that has “Assemblies of God” plastered across the doors. And it’s not just Assembly of God missionaries, and it’s not just other people, it’s me too.

I didn’t realize how much my driving had been affected until my recent trip to the States. I rented a car while I was there, and as I dd-place finishes in 11 previous Derbies.

Cooperation and Conflict

2005-05-17T21:52:00.000+07:00

Some times you just need to take a break. Especially when doing audio or video editing. That’s how I ended up in another missionary’s office yesterday, talking about co-operation and working with different missionaries.

I had been working on editing two different projects and needed to take a break before my brain turned to soggy corn flakes, so I walked down to the first floor of the Assemblies of God Missionary Fellowship field offices and sat down in the office of our country coordinator. That title may sound important, and it is in it’s way, but essentially this person works to facilitate the ministry of the other missionaries on the field and help us cooperate with each other, other missions agencies and the national church. This time of year there are usually a good number of people coming and going and we started talking about who was coming, who was going, and how that would change the dynamics here.

Missionary work can be very diverse, and it draws a wide range of people from around the world. That’s great, but it’s also a real problem. To become a missionary with the Assemblies of God you have to go through a very long and detailed process, and to make it to the field you have to be SURE that it is really what God wants you to do. So you get there saying “God has called me here to do church planting,” or “teach in a Bible school,” or “do community health evangelism,” or whatever. The problem is that when one missionary sees some other missionary doing something else, they sometimes get the attitude that that other missionary is wasting their time, or doesn’t know what they are doing, or is doing serious harm to God’s kingdom just because that other missionary isn’t doing things the way the first missionary would. So they dismiss or ignore each other, or even at times become confrontational. And that’s all just within our own missions agency! Now add in all the other missions agencies working here, as well as all the independent missionaries, all with different rules, operating procedures and goals, and you can imagine the potential for utter confusion!

I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum (and at different times I have BEEN both ends of that spectrum, both combative and cooperative). I’ve seen huge splits and conflicts, and I have seen great cooperation and team work. The thing I have to remember is that God has brought all of these different people here for a purpose. I might not always like the purpose, but I wasn’t the one who called them here either. I believe all these people truly want to do what’s right and to build God’s kingdom.

The role I fill here brings me in contact with many different missionaries, and puts me in a position to help facilitate their ministry through the use of media. In the last year this has become much easier as more and more missionaries see the value of the tools we produce, but it all comes down to creating a partnership with people who have different visions, plans, personalities and ministries and working side by side to reach the people of Cambodia.

Isn’t it the same where you are? The church is the family of God, right? I know in my family there are some people I get along with very well, and some that I get along with better at a great distance ( if you know what I mean ). Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, it’s just we don’t see eye to eye on much, and at times our relationship can become pretty tense. The church family is the same. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the person in your church that always rubs you the wrong way is really a demonic agent looking to infiltrate and sabotage the work of your church; it just means they are family. And who can irritate you as much as family?

The great thing about my family is that as we have all gotten older, we continue to find new ways to build bridges and get along. The same goes for the church. And the same goes here on the mission field.

Rendering and Re-Rendering...

2005-05-14T13:27:00.000+07:00

A few hours ago I went into my studio expecting to find my computer had finally completed a task it had started about 24 hours earlier. Well, that’s what I expected…

So what exactly was taking my computer 24 hours to do? About 2 and a half minutes of video. Seriously! Welcome to the world of digital effects.

Whenever you take digital video, put it in the computer, and change it in some way, it needs to be “rendered”. Let me give you example to help explain what that means. In the case of the project my computer was working on, I had been doing an interview segment for a video project I was working on. Unfortunately, when I went to film the interview at the subject’s house we ran into a problem; there was a LOUD wedding party that had started down the street a few houses, so we couldn’t film where we had planned. To solve this dilemma we went to my studio where I filmed the interview with the subject in front of a “green screen”. My plan was to go back later and digitally put in a nice background, so that instead of the subject being in a big green walled room, we would give the interview a totally new context, like a nice outdoor scene. The process is called “chroma keying” or “vector keying”, and is basically what you see on the evening news when they do the weather; the weather man is standing in front of a large blank wall that is either blue or green and the map they refer to and point at doesn’t exist except inside a computer program that combines the images into what you see each night.

So the next step was I filmed a few minutes of a nice background footage. Finally, yesterday morning I combined the two video clips in a special computer program. That program shows you roughly what the final clip will look like, but before it is ready to use in the final video it first has to be rendered. That’s the process where the computer redraws each individual frame, combining the two original source pieces into a new piece of footage. The video format I was working with has 25 frames per second, so for the entire 2 and a half minutes the computer had to draw 3,750 frames that are at DVD quality and size. The amount of time it takes to do this depends on how many effects, filters and changes you have made to the clips. In this case there were a lot of changes and things. In the end, assuming everything works the way it is supposed to, you have a completely new clip that has some things in common with the original, but has been made new and transformed into something original.

Unfortunately, the program I am using to do this vector keying is new (new to me that is), and I am still trying to find ways to get the best results. Yesterday, when I started the rendering process, I decided to try saving the final product in a new format to see if I could get a bit better quality. So when I looked at the finished product this morning, I had a bit of a surprise. The format I had chosen wasn’t compatible with my main editing program. What does that mean? It means I wasted about 24 hours of computer time and was back to square one! This digital video animal is something you keep learning day by day; there is no “I’ve got it now, I have all the answers.” So Monday I will start the process again and see what we end up with.

On the whole, digital editing and rendering is a lot like life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. God takes who we were, and puts our life into a new context to create something that still resembles the original, but at the same time is completely new and original. But just like rendering, it’s not an instant process. When I make the changes to the original video clips and save the project, the changes are done, but they still take time to render out so that the rest of the world can see them. When Jesus comes into our life, we are transformed. Immediately we become children of God. But the process of working that out in our lives so that the rest of the world can see it takes some time. And when rendering digital video, occasionally some problem comes up and something doesn’t go as planned and you have to go back to the original source video and project files and start rendering all over again. The same goes for our walk with God. We sometimes make mistakes and the product that comes out for the world to see isn’t exactly what was intended, and we have to go back and ask God to help conform us to His image.

So Monday I will once again start rendering this video interview to create a new video clip that will fit in with my overall plan for this video project, and Monday once again the Holy Spirit will start rendering my life into a new creation that will fit with God’s overall plan for my life and for Cambodia.

Beggers, Videos and Me

2005-05-11T09:46:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, while I was running some errands at one of the larger markets in town I once again found myself in an uncomfortable, but familiar situation. I had a few errands to run yesterday, one of which took me to the Russian market. It's one of the larger and better know markets in town and was actually built with money from the former Soviet Union at a time when Cambodia was one of the many small communist client states of the former super power. So it's old and a bit run down looking. The construction is also somewhat shoddy and features poor drainage, broken up and uneven cement floors, and a low tin roof that turns the market into an hot and steamy oven by the afternoon. It covers the better part of a large city block and contains everything from hardware and jewelry stalls to souvenir shops to open air vegetable and meat sellers, so it also can be a real shock to your sense of smell at times. Then you figure in a congested, crowded and almost claustrophobic feel and you have the basic layout. The people who populate this landscape are even more varied than it's shops; there are the aggressive and rough mannered stall vendors calling out to you as you walk through, most major aisle intersections have an amputee from the war or two selling books to foreigners, tourist of every type can be seen, from somewhat disheveled and grungy backpackers to well dressed business men and women, barefoot children in dusty ragged clothes follow along behind any white face they see, fanning them with pieces of stray cardboard, hoping for a tip, and beggars of every description slowly grouping around any foreigner who stops in one place for long. This is where I was when the discomfort set in. It all has to do with balance.

Cambodia is undoubtedly one of the poorest countries in Asia, and even though I am just a missionary, a job not known for it’s high salary, I am still very rich in comparison. Whenever I go to a market here I am always approached by beggars, but yesterday seemed to be one of those days when there were an unusually large number of beggars at the market, and by the time I was finished with what I was doing there I must have been approached by between 6 and 10 different ones.

Most new visitors to Cambodia feel compassion for these beggars and will almost always give them some money. However, while they may be giving with the best of intentions, it is also one of the worst things you can do. That’s not just me and my opinion talking; it’s the view of almost every missions agency and relief organization working here. Why? Well, let me give you an real life example.

A few years ago an organization came in to help amputees to make a living. They set up a trade school and promised any amputee who signed up that they would provide food, clothing and shelter for them and their family throughout the training, and at the completion of the course they would guarantee them a job starting at a salary of at least $50 per month (good money at the time). But they couldn’t get any of the amputee beggars to sign up! They said they were making more money begging! Many of them had nice homes and families, and each morning they would change into their grubby old uniform, take off their prosthetic limb, and head down to the market to beg. Now I’m not wanting to imply that there are no real needs. But I do want you to understand that 9 time out of 10 giving them a handout of money actually makes their long term problems worse.

I’ve lived here long enough (more than 11 years) to know that, so typically I just tell beggars no and move on. The problem I am having isn’t one of action, it’s one of heart. Yesterday, after turning down numerous beggars in a very short period of time, I realized I had started ignoring them not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well.

In the gospels you will see time and time again that it says Jesus was “moved with compassion” and healed, or touched, or fed or taught the people. He acted out of love and compassion for the people around him. But how about me? More often than not, when beggars approach me I am more moved by annoyance than by compassion. Again, like my last posting, it’s more a question of motives than actions.

Very often people think that God calls people to be missionaries to use them to accomplish His plan and His will in a particular country. I’m not sure that’s the main point. Too often it seems that God accomplishes His plan and will in a country in spite of the missionaries there, not because of them. I believe that part of God’s call does have to do with His desire to use us in a particular place or situation, but more than that I believe God calls people to be missionaries in order to accomplish His plan and will in their own lives! It seems to me that the Bible is pretty clear; God isn’t as interested in what we do as He is in who we are.

So my discomfort yesterday with the beggars was really sparked by my realization that as I was looking at the people around me I was no longer being “moved with compassion.” I was uncomfortable with what I had allowed my heart to become.

So what is the right way to help those who are needy around us? For me, one way we are doing it has to do with why I went to the market in the first place. I was picking up blank DVD’s for a project I am working on producing a video to help raise support for an orphanage and a Christian school in the southern Cambodian city of Sihanoukeville. This orphanage is home to about 120 kids, but it is facing a potential funding crisis in the next few months. The video we produced for it’s director will help to raise the money it needs to continue ministering to, and transforming the lives of children who truly have nothing. That’s the right way to help the needy; not a one time hand out to make your conscience feel better, but long term, life changing help that transforms lives.

So today I am praying for balance. To not only have the right actions, but to have a heart that sees people through the eyes of Jesus and is moved by compassion into action.

Motive and Mission

2005-05-09T09:31:00.000+07:00

I was reading a book this morning called Confessions of a Caffeinated Christian by John Fischer.

Now, if you have ever spent any time talking to me, chances are that during the conversation I was also holding a cup of coffee, so you can understand why a book with this title would catch my attention. Additionally, I have read other books and articles by John Fischer and have always enjoyed them, so now I am reading this one and thoroughly enjoying it.

But the chapters I have been reading the last few days had to do with motives for witnessing, and he brought up some interesting points. He points out that very often we tend to witness to people, especially strangers, out of a sense of obligation (so as not to have their "blood on our hands") rather than out of love for them. Consider a street preacher in a park; is he doing what he is doing, the way he is doing it, out of love for those people or out of a sense of obligation to keep his own hands and conscience clean? Please understand that I am not trying to attack any form of evangelism or to dispute the effectiveness of any particular method, but I am wanting to look at the hart of the messenger, or more specifically, my hart as a missionary.

Why do I do what I do? Is it out of a love for the Cambodian people? Is it out of a sense of obligation? Is it that I enjoy the attention I get in churches being a missionary? Is it that I enjoy being the rich and important American in a small third world country? Is it that I am looking for the adventure and excitement of world travel and living overseas? If I'm honest with myself, I know there is a bit of all of those reasons in my motives, and more. But if we are doing the "right thing" is it that important that we are doing it for "the right reasons"? Are our motives really that important in the long run?

Very often we hear the story of the prophet Jonah preached and taught from the perspective of our need to be obedient to the call of God. But I think if we stop there we are missing a huge part of the message. Although Jonah initially ran away from what God was calling him to do (preach to the people of Ninevah), he eventually repents and does it. The results were incredible! A city/state that had been so wicked that God was about to destroy it repents and a huge spiritual awakening sweeps the city, so that God relents and spares them. I would love to see those kind of results in my ministry! So God's will for Nineveh was fulfilled. But what about Jonah?

At the end of the story we find Jonah pouting and angry because God didn't wipe out Nineveh! I believe Jonah is a perfect picture of someone who is ministering out of obligation rather than out of love. Contrast Jonah's actions with those of Moses. When God threatened to wipe out the Israelites because of their disobedience Moses pleaded with God to show mercy. Jonah became angry at God for showing compassion! Or look at Paul in the New Testament who said that if it were possible for all Israel to be saved if he were condemned he would do it. Whereas Jonah preached to the Ninevites just to save his skin.

Did it make any difference in the effectiveness of the ministry? Well, Jonah's preaching stirred a tidal wave of repentance that swept a nation into God's grace, so in one sense, that being God's will for a people being fulfilled, I guess it didn't. But if you look at the life of the messenger it made all the difference in the world. Jonah ended up bitter and disillusioned. Paul and Moses and a host of other examples ended up with peace and confidence and love. How about their eternal destiny? Was that effected as well? All I can say is what is said in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 : "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

So what does that mean? Motives matter. God will bring the results he wants to bring in the lives of those being ministered to, but our motives will make a difference in how God's plan for our lives plays out. How about me? Well, like I said at the start of all this, I know I have some mixed motives. I pray and ask God to help me each day to not only do the right things, but to have the right heart and motives. There is one thing that gives me hope that God is accomplishing this in me; I get upset about and defensive when people talk about Cambodia. Think about it. You might be having a fight with some family member that you love, but if someone else steps in and says something negative about them you tend to get angry at that person and start defending the family member they were talking about. That's the way I feel about Cambodia, and more specifically the Cambodian people. I know they have problems, but whenever someone speaks badly of them I find myself getting angry and coming to Cambodia's defense. I do love these people. This is my home. It may not be perfect (far from it), but it is a part of me. So despite my mixed up not quite clear motives, I know some of the right ones are in there and I pray God will help to grow that part and continue to transform my life even as I try to bring transformation to the Cambodians around me as well.

Take 2: Re-Shooting Life

2005-05-06T05:45:00.000+07:00

Working with media definitely has it's tedious side.

For the last few days I have been shooting some clips of a young man just talking to the camera. It is for a video we are working on that is designed to be used in recruiting college age young people to commit to spending one or two years working overseas with an unreached people group. The main video itself will be just over two minutes long, and the section where this young man is talking is only about a minute. So I scripted out what he needed to say and we set out to shoot it.

After two days of shooting and re-shooting I'm still not entirely satisfied (in fact I am about 95% sure we will NOT use any of the shots we have taken so far in the final product). Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying it's all his fault. In fact, it's more my problem than his. He did make the usual number of mistakes on lines and general bloopers, but a number of the re-shoots had do to technical problems with the footage of some kind. And now I'm not satisfied with what we have because I have changed my mind about the stylistic direction I want to go (my original idea for the shot just didn't flow well with the rest of the video). So rather than try to cram in another shoot later today, I will use the footage I have now in a rough edit of the project and then re-shoot the necessary parts in Bangkok late this summer (the project deadline is December). Re-shoots can drive you crazy!

On the other hand, re-shoots allow you to get exactly what you want. Wouldn't it be nice if life were that way? I think of time when I was younger and I would get in arguments with my older brother. It seemed like he would generally get the better of me, either because he was older and knew a bit more or because he was bigger and could pound me if I got him too angry. But usually, a few hours later, I would come up with the perfect reply or one liner or argument. Of course by then it was too late. There was no re-shoot for the argument. One take was all you got. Life is "Live!" with no rehearsals. But boy were than times when it would have been great to get a second chance on some of those arguments!

And as a follower of Jesus Christ I find that same predicament at work in my life today. Not that I get in arguments with people and I'm afraid they will pound me, but there are MANY times I wish a could get a second take on some part of my day. Maybe it is the time I could have ministered to someone's need, but I was to caught up in my own schedule and issues to notice. Maybe it was the time when my son wanted me to play legos with him but I was too tired and kept putting him off. Maybe it was the time I could have been more of a help to my wife, who is just as busy as I am, but I didn't want to put out the effort. Maybe it was the time when I should have spent more time with God, but I was too busy working for Him.

Sadly, in real life there are no re-shoots. What we do and say is what we do and say. That's why we need good direction.

If I had been better at my direction with the young man I've been shooting the last two days things probably would have gone quicker, but I just let it run.

Thankfully, in life, God has given us FANTASTIC direction! He started by giving us a great script, the Bible, then he adds to that a great director, the Holy Spirit, who prompts and leads us to get it right the first time. The trick is making sure we know the script and listen to the director.

Horns, Voices and Getting Your Message Heard

2005-05-04T07:13:00.000+07:00

It is great to be home in Cambodia, and in reference to my last posting I must be in the zone! I did get the Computer replacement delivery I had been waiting for in Springfield late Friday night. By the time I was done setting it up and registering the various applications it was early Saturday morning (of course once I was back home in Cambodia I have since found a few applications that I failed to register in the States and have to do from here). But all in all things went great.

I was driving across town last night and as I was going around a traffic circle I was surprised by a loud horn that was of a variety I would associate with an emergency vehicle of some kind that you might hear in the States. I was pretty startled because it sounded like it was about ten feet from my car and I hadn't seen a thing (not to mention there aren't many emergency vehicles here to begin with). When I looked for the source of the sound I found not an ambulance, police car or fire truck, but a small 125cc motorcycle driven by a middle aged man. There was no emergency, there was no fire or criminal activity; just this guy who was announcing to the world his opinion that he should have the right of way!

This has been a growing trend here in Cambodia. Cars, and now even motorcycles, are installing extremely loud air horns that carry a sound that a driver from the USA would immediately associate with a particular type of vehicle (emergency vehicle, 18 wheeler, etc.). Somehow it all seems a bit disingenuous to me. I find it very frustrating to have one of these horns go off almost in my ear as I am driving down the road and have my heart leap into my throat because I instinctively think I am about to be splattered all over the front of a massive truck when in reality it is some little motorcycle who is ignoring the rules of the road and demanding his own way.

Actually, as I was stewing over this situation last night, it occurred to me that in one way this isn't all that different from what we do with media ministries. They install these obnoxious horns in order to stand out in a crowd and get people's attention. There are so many cars and motorcycles who are all demanding their right of way and using their horns that it all just becomes a general background noise that we tend to tune out and ignore. These overblown horns, however, are hard to ignore because they stand out.

Here in Cambodia there are TONS of different aid agency and missions agencies, and often it all just blends together into a general noise that people instinctively tune out. It's like living next to railroad tracks; after a while they don't even notice the train going by outside their windows. Media ministries is one way that we try to stand out from the crowd. By using audio and video (and more recently computer) technology to produce messages in a new format, people are more likely to focus in and actually hear what we have to say.

The trick is to stand out in a positive way that attracts people, rather than stand out in an obnoxious way that turns people off. That's where the air horns on the motorcycles and cars fail.

And that's where things stand in our personal lives as well. As Christ's disciples we try to live our lives in a way that stands out above the general noise of life so that we can draw positive attention to Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we all know (and have probably at times been) the kind of Christians who draw more annoyed attention than positive attention.

Pray with us that what we do, in both our personal lives and in our public ministry, would be a positive message of the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

Timing is Everything

2005-04-28T19:28:00.000+07:00

Have you every been around someone who is trying to clap along with the beat of a song that is playing and they just can't get it? It can be almost painful to watch! Or maybe you've seen an all-star baseball player who is in a slump and can't hit a pitch thrown by a 70 year old grandmother. Or a basketball player who can't drain a free throw to save his life. When your timing is off, it's can really be OFF.

On the other hand, when your timing is on, and your in "the zone" good things just seem to fall into your lap and you can't loose.

Most of us live somewhere between these extremes. Today I'm wondering where I fall on that track. Let me explain.

I am currently writing from Springfield, MO. I came here primarily to work on a video project that will be used as part of an effort to target unreached peoples throughout Asia-Pacific with the gospel. Great. So while I am here I had decided to try to get some other things done. One of those things was to pick up a new computer to use with our video work in Cambodia, so I had special ordered exactly what we needed from Dell before I came to the States sop that it would be here ready to go when I arrived. Well, it was here, but as I was working with it here I found that one of the critical features wasn't working. After spending 4 hours on the phone with Dell's tech support it came down to needing to replace the computer. So they would build and ship a new one to me, I would put the old one back in the box, and then ship it back to Dell. Fine. However, this all happened 4 days before I was supposed to leave to return to Cambodia. So I changed my flight schedule so that I would be around for 4 more days, hopefully enough time to get the new computer. Well, my time has almost run out. I am scheduled to leave in 2 days and still no computer. So for me to get it in time they would have to ship it by this evening.

So is my timing off? I'm not so sure. Even if the computer doesn't come on time and I have to leave without it, I have been able to get a number of things done this week that have opened a number of other opportunities I otherwise would not have had. So does that mean I am in "the zone"? Ask me again after I find out if the computer makes it in time...

Opportunities, The Will of God, and Open & Closed Doors

2005-04-27T00:27:00.000+07:00

As I write this it is going on 1:00 in the afternoon here in Springfield, MO, and almost 1:00 in the morning back home in Cambodia. But opportunities come at strange times. About 12 hours ago, at 1:00 AM here in Springfield, I was wrapping up a meeting and some work with a local media production company owned by a good friend and discussing a new opportunity.

Cambodia has a population of about 12 to 13 million people, and about 60% of those people are under the age of 14. Obviously reaching children with the gospel is a necessity. The opportunity that is opening up for us speaks directly to that need. Let me be clear; this isn't a " done deal", so I can't go into a lot of details, but there is a very good probability that we will be working to bring a popular children's ministry series to the children of Cambodia.

So if this isn't a done deal, why even bring it up? Well, opportunities is what missions is all about. Day in and day out we have various opportunities come our way. Some of them we have pursued, some we haven't. And of those we have pursued, some have worked out well, and some haven't. In human terms it often seems to be a roll of the dice. However, I believe that God doesn't play dice. I believe that God has a purpose and a plan and we need to seek to follow his lead in all that we do. Rather than picking something because I think it is a good idea and then asking God to bless it, I would rather find those things that God is blessing and do them. At times, despite my best efforts to do this, I have made mistakes. In those cases we have worked with different groups and in the long run ended up wasting our time and efforts on projects that didn't pan out. So coming into this opportunity the question is, is this a part of God's plan for us and our ministry in Cambodia?

There isn't any short and easy answer to this question, and honestly, at this point it is too early to say. But what I want to ask you to do is to help us by praying that God would lead us and guide us and make His will clear in this matter. I'm not any kind of spiritual giant. Like you I struggle with knowing God's will and direction. So usually, when I pray for His direction in these types of areas, I pray that God would make His will clear despite my limited vision. Please pray with me that God would open the doors that He wants us to use, and close the doors that He wants us to avoid. Ultimately, missions is life as a disciple of Jesus Christ, trying to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13).

I'll update you on how things go as things become more clear. Thanks and God Bless.

While Dad is gone, the boys will be hacking (in more ways than one)

2005-04-23T19:27:00.000+07:00

The information age has presented a number of amazing opportunities. Communication has become easier and with the ease of distribution of various media the number of people who have seen our work has grown as well. That's all good, but it also creates a lot more requests from different people in various areas for us to help them put something together. This is something we hoped would develop, but it does have it's down side as well. For example, I am currently in the USA to work on a Asia Pacific region wide project, but my family is still back home in Cambodia. In the past year this kind of situation has come up a number of times, and we try to use the available technology to make the best of it. That means e-mails, and more recently using Skype to talk over the internet as well.

Our boys, Alex (age 7) and Dmetri (age 9) love getting e-mails from me and talking over the computer. Sometimes I'm not sure if they are excited about hearing from me or if it's just they are excited about using the computer! They both like using the computer for things, but Dmetri excels at it. Electronic stuff, whether it's computers or games or DVD players, are definitely his thing.

Well, this trip has lasted longer than most, so it presents a greater number of opportunities for mischief than usual. Yesterday, Lisa was in the kitchen doing some work and Alex came in from the other room with an unexpected question; "Mom, what kind of noise do panda bears make?"

OK, now I don't know about your house, but in my house, whenever one of our kids asks a question that just seems to come out of the blue like that, I get a little nervous. Lisa wasn't sure what to make of it, but just told him "Well, I'm not sure but I think they probable sort of growl."

Alex said "OK," and left. So Lisa went back to work. But a few minutes later Dmetri comes in and asks "Mom, what kind of noise does a panda bear make?"

At this point, I would have been actively investigating to see what was going on, but being home alone with the kids with a lot of things she needed to do, Lisa told him "I'm not sure but I just told Alex that I think they growl."

Thankfully, Dmetri's next question not only raise some red flags, but had him waiving that red flag, jumping up and down , and yelling a warning at the top of his voice. He said, "Oh. How do you spell that?"

Now you might be saying "I don't get it. What's the big deal?" Well, that last question made a few things fall into place. To help you get the picture, let me give you a few facts:

1) Aside from being a kind of cute fuzzy black and white bear from China, panda is also the name of a black and white Alaskan husky dog that I had when I was growing up.
2) On the log in screen for my computer, the image that appears next to my name is a picture of a black and white dog.
3) I had told the boys I would send them an e-mail.

OK, have you put it together yet? Neither had Lisa, but she did decide she had better go check it out. What she found was that the boys were in my office (where they are not supposed to be by themselves), where at my computer (which they are not supposed to use), and were trying to hack my password to see if I had sent them an e-mail! Aside from being shocked and angry about them breaking a number of house rules, I was never the less somewhat proud of the high tech nature of their escapade (of course it was easy for me to feel that way; I was on the other side of the planet and Lisa was the one who had to deal with it!). You never know what they are going to do next!

The other hacking that is referred to in the title of this posting is the kind you do when you are sick.

The other bad thing about traveling is that when someone gets sick you feel pretty helpless. This morning Lisa told me Alex is sick; throwing up, vomiting, fever, diarrhea... The whole deal. And on top of my not being there, medical service in Cambodia isn't exactly state of the art, so there is also the uncertainty of it all.

Ultimately, it comes down to faith and trust. The reason we are able to deal with those types of things is the same reason that we are in Cambodia in the first place; because of our faith and trust in God. We know God called us to be there, and we know God will provide for us and take care of us while we are there as well.

So if you think of it today, pray for Alex, that he would feel better, and for Lisa to have the strength and patience she needs while I am away.

Blogs and Coffee in the morning

2005-04-22T19:21:00.000+07:00

As the sun slips over the horizon across the world, millions of bleary eyed people shuffle through their homes toward their kitchen looking for a little morning clarity in a cup of fresh coffee. I'm no exception. But today, and for the last few days, I have been shuffling across town for my coffee.

As I write this I am sitting in a Panera Bread Company store in Springfield, Missouri logged on to their free high speed WiFi internet service waiting to talk to my wife and kids back in Cambodia over a free internet based telephone service called Skype. The world is changing! When My wife Lisa and I first went to Cambodia in January of 1994 we didn't even have a phone. We lived in the eastern province of Kompong Cham where we ran an orphanage of about 120 kids. For us to talk with someone in the USA we would first have to drive 3 hours to the capitol city of Phnom Penh, then hope that the phone at our mission's office there was working. If it was we could call the States for about $8 per minute. If someone was calling us it was between $6 and $4 per minute. Internet and e-mail where non-existent. Now, we live in Phnom Penh where we work with media ministries (helping the church to produce evangelism and discipleship materials in both audio and video formats). This week I happen to be in the States working on a video project, but Lisa and our two boys (Dmetri who is about to turn 9 and Alex who is 7) are back home in Cambodia. But thanks to the modern marvel of computers, the internet and the coffee shop I am able to talk to them every morning for free!

So why have I gone through explaining all that? Didn't I say yesterday that we were going to talk a bit more about why I am doing this blog? Well, that's what I am doing! Today a generation of people are growing up with the ability to communicate almost instantaneously around the world, and they want to see an immediate impact from what they are doing. If they give to missions they don't want to wait a couple of months for a newsletter that the church secretary will hang on some obscure bulletin board somewhere in the church. They want immediate feedback and interactivity. After all, they can now publish their own media world-wide. It could be text based like this blog, audio based, like the rapidly growing "podcast" trend, or video based webcasting. But whatever the format, it has become so simple that they can do it all while they are sitting in their local coffee shop, drinking a cappuccino, and they can do it all for free! Why should they expect any less from us? We spend time, energy and money to learn the language and culture of the people in the country we go to so that we can communicate to them in a culturally acceptable and meaningful way that they can easily understand. Shouldn't we do the same when we communicate back to our supporters in the States? So I'm taking a shot at it.

I hope this also starts to give you a picture of my family. We will definitely come back to them more later.

The Beginning Is A Good Place To Start...

2005-04-22T03:31:00.000+07:00

Everything has to start somewhere, and this is as good a time and place as any.

I have been looking at starting a blog on and off for the last year or two, but like so many things, I just kept putting it off. But over the last week or so I have been talking through some different issues with people regarding communication and I decided it was time to get this going. Eventually I will go to a different host (I think) but for now this service provides a convienient starting point.

OK, so what are those issues I was talking about? For starters there is support. As a missionary with Assemblies of God World Missions we are supported by churches and individuals who pledge to give financially to our work over a period of time (ussually 4 years at a time). So before we ever leave the USA for our field of service (Cambodia in our case) we have to raise a certian amount of pledges. Churches ussually make pledges based on commitments made by church members to give monthly to the church's missionary program. This has escentially been the way the Assemblies of God has worked their missions program since it was started. The challenge that is imerging today has to do with generational issues. The regular monthly missions supporter in the church is becoming more scarce. People who have grown up with an understanding of long term missions support are becoming older, and the younger generation, say those under 40, are much less likely to regualarly support a long term missions program. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons that people talk about, but one of the reasons is that this younger generation wants to feel connected and have an immediate method of feedback, and the the church's missions program has been slow to repond.

Now, I realize this greatly simplifies the issues involved, and I will come back to discuss these issues in detail as time goes by, but everyone needs to start somewhere. So this blog is largely an attempted to make a connection. And not just a one way connection; I want this to become more of a two way street to allow for feedback and dialogue on us, our missionary work, and missions in general.

Reading over what I have written, it occurs to me that I haven't said anything about who I am or what I do. Let's cover that later.