James Woodley - Philippians 3:13-14

Spiritual Snacks

Mon, 6 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The World Race has come to an end, but I'm still living life and walking with the Lord, and even though we're back home, the only things that are changing is the envirnment around me. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and I am feeling that I should be sharing with others the things he's teaching me and I'm trying to learn. So follow along at my new blog site and be blessed as I have: woojablog.wordpress.com Thanks!

It is finished!

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

"The end of *the world race* is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." (1 Peter 4:7)

This is the end of the world race. It came like a thief in the night: month 1, month 2 BAM month 11 end. It didn't really hit me until our bbq banquet last night when everyone was taking "last" pictures again. I didn't even know what to think, but I know what I began to feel. I felt sad. I like these guys. These are my friends, brothers and sisters. I have no concept of what my group of friends looks like except for these people here, with the exception of a few others back home.

I began to reflect on the past eleven month's experiences. There is so much to think about, so much to process, so many stories, but yet I have no idea what to say when some well-intentioned person asks, "How was it?" Ha. I appreciate the good will, but it's gonna take some time to unscramble this egg. So I hope no one minds me saying, "It was good," just the same as when I'm asked how breakfast was this morning; I probably had scrambled egg, too. But more specific questions will probably have more satisfactory answers.

Sorry, my thoughts are scrambled in this blog, too.

It's hard not to see this as an end. It is an end, but it's also a beginning. God takes his children from glory to glory, but in order for us to go to the next one we've got to leave the current one behind. I remember a mission trip I took with my church in 2008 that changed my life. Actually, it's what didn't happen on that trip, rather than what did happen, that changed my life. It was a week-long trip to Panama City beach in Florida, and the focus was evangelism instead of a service. I sucked that trip up. Didn't really have any good conversations with anyone, when I did have a conversation I found I had so little knowledge of God's word that I was more just giving my own opinions instead of truth. But through that experience God gave me a hunger to know his word so that I might be able to speak more and more truthfully and insightfully into people's lives if and when I needed to. I've grown a lot in knowledge of his word and still have much more growing to do, but now I sense that he is using the experiences of this trip to move my focus in another direction: discipleship. I've seen how important and fundamental it is to a person's redemption, but I have very little idea how to actually do it, to "feed the sheep" so to speak, for more than a few weeks at most. I've learned a lot (couldn't give you a list of half of it though) and one thing I've definitely learned is how little I know and how much more learning and growing I have before me.

And about that: Although I'm sure I've changed a lot (I have little idea how though) I'm coming off this experience feeling more human than ever. I hope no one will have the expectation that I'm "above" them in some way now that I've been around the world as a missionary; In fact, I'm more humbled than ever. I don't think I'll come off as "super-religious" or "super-spiritual" in any way; God I hope not, though I might be a little more wierd! So don't anyone feel like they have to put on a good facade when they're around me. I'll probably see right through it. And though I thought that coming on this race would fix all my problems somehow, I found that God's grace is soooooooo sufficient and our weaknesses are opportunities to walk in faith in the strength God provides and that they also cause us to continue to seek his provision every day whenever we feel weak. If we respond appropriately in our weakness we will seek the peace and strength of our Father and grow in relationship and understanding of Him. In fact, I'm convinced that he lets us have weaknesses for this very purposes, because if we were never weak we would never have need of knowing him, when in fact "this is eternal life: to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent." (John 17:3) So in fact we are drawn into eternal life through relying on him in our weaknesses.

That said, I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to be drawn further into eternal life in the next few months as I readjust to life in the states, move, make new friends, figure out life... but it wouldn't be the first time I've had to do this, and in all the unknowns I'm about to face, I know God is faithful. So bring it on.

Thank you to all my supporters!

The jihad in my head is over.

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Muslims: For the past ten years I've been inundated with fearful things about them from the news media, but then again the media loves to make big stories out of whatever "sells", just like any other business, and unfortunately the world's Muslims are cast in a very negative light by small yet significant number of radical groups. But as I walk across the street in the morning to Kassim Mustafa's, my favorite restaurant which serves a delicious and satisfying meal for only $2, I eagerly search out something to say in basic English which my Indian Muslim friends I have made there can understand.

Kasiim Kadil, and Abbas are three of my friends who work at the restaurant as well as an older Muslim lady who works the register. Kadil speaks the best english. His wife and 3 kids live back in India. They are 7 years, 4 years, and 50 days old. He has come to work here in that restuarant for 12 hours each day, every day, 29 days a month, with 6 months vacation every two years so he can go back and visit his family,because the 7 ringgit per day wage is good money which he sends back to his family. Seven ringgit amounts to $2.30. The other gentlemen likewise have families back in India and are in a similar situation. The whole thing breaks my heart, partly because their hearts are big as they work so consistently and diligently for so little for a family they only see every two years. Are they happy? Perhaps on some level. I wouldn't be because I know better: $2.30 per day is crap for how hard those guys work. But when I recognized earlier this month, before I knew all of this, that I would be eating there for almost every meal, three times per day, I felt the Lord in my heart saying that I should make an effort to befriend them. Being intentional is what the Lord has been teaching me this whole 11 months. In obedience I make whatever conversation I can with them as I wait for my food. My God, what a difference I've seen in them, especially Abbas, over the past few weeks, when this plucky Christian American comes up (they know who I am and whom I have believed). Abbas especially used to not smile at all when I walked up and ordered. In fact, I'm sure that's all those guys get all day long is people telling them what they want and waiting for them to make it. But you should see how those guys light up now when I walk up with a goofy smile on my face trying to make conversation with them! I love those guys! Those Muslim guys! They are just like any other hard working guy on the planet! And the older Muslim woman who works the register: I struck up a good 15 minute conversation with her one day and now she looks at me like I'm her son, with such a friendly and kind face! (Her son is a wrestler and she loves cheering him on at his events like any other mother would!) And then today as I'm walking along I pass a "giggle" of younger Muslim girls, head scarves and all, and they glance and smile bashfully at me like I'm cute or something! LOL! Ah, once again the old adage holds true: People are people, all over the world. Even Muslims. Sure, people often put up a cultural or religious front, but break past it with a smile and some friendliness and people in general really aren't that different across the world.

But that's not to say that exceptions don't exist...

We will protect this house!! with love...

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

His name is M---k. He's Polish, and he is a mentally confused sex addict. He was showing up at Kawan to help out and he had been well-behaved for quite some time. The only reason he was allowed to serve there is because he wanted help to overcome his addiction.

He came off as a very interesting and awkward individual at first. But as time went on, he became more and more forward in his advances to some of our girls. One day he made one of our girls so uncomfortable that she had to leave for the day. When this was brought to the attention of the supervisors at Kawan, they decided that M---k should not be allowed to volunteer anymore, yet he was still welcome to join for the meals and teachings. Yet he persisted in his sexual advances and again one of our girls felt so uncomfortable that she had to leave, and Marek this time was banned from returning in any manner. This was Wednesday of last week.

On Friday, Will Diefenbach and I were posted outside the main entry, just in case. As we sat out at our posts, Will are I reminisced about previous times in the race when some unfortunate things had happened, such as when a large sum of money was stolen from another team. "How I wished we would have been there to stop that!" we said. And now was our chance to be filled with holy anger and unrestrained jealousy in defending our girls. This time we could do something about it and be justified; we will not allow our girls to be harassed; he will not pass through those doors. And if he did show up, it was going to be a showdown. Oh, the whoopin' he would get!

But there was another part of me, let's call it "Jesus", that hurt deeply for this man. I wondered: In all his time volunteering here, had he ever received the gospel in full, the message of God's grace? Had he ever been prayed over to be released from his addictions? Sometimes it works! Thus I also had a burning desire within me to give this man the time of day, to hear him out like a friend, to share with him the full message of God's grace in Christ, and thus to offer him whatever help I could in talking with him. This was the alternative to confrontation. And I began wondering what I should say to convince him to sit down with me at a lounge across the street so that I could minister to him as well as keep him out of Kawan, if in fact he did dare come by. <\p>

He dared. As he walked up, I greeted him with a smile and handshake, said I had heard the unfortunate news about him being restricted from Kawan, said I'd like to hear his side of the story, and coaxed him to sit down and chat at the lounge across the street. He took the bait, and we did just that.

I would like to tell you everything he said, but his confusion was so great that as he spoke I would often have to remind myself of the truth as his words entered my ears. He is a very, very confused man, and for the sake of any of my female teammates and their parents who may read this I will not repeat the great majority of what he said. We sat and deliberated for hours, until Kawan closed. I shared the gospel with him, relating to it through nearly every point in which he was mentally confused. He said he wanted Christ to set him free, but when I said that he would have to submit his life to Christ he refused. Yet I gave him my bible as a a gift and Will and I prayed over him. That was it for Friday.

When this past Monday came around, we did it again.During these times he was very upfront in his speech, and therefore so was I. He was convinced that he was an entity higher than God, calling himself The Absolute. He called God a pervert and said that God was his tool. He said that his purpose is to rise to political power in the US first, then become president of the European Union, then the world, then he will bring about the end of the world. I am not lying, he said this. He said that his mind is infinite and can comprehend all things, but there is a void where his heart is, that he has no heart. He said that right now his speech amounts to nothing and he is powerless, but when he gets certain "love feelings" that he was hoping to find through some of the female volunteers at Kawan, he would be filled with power and his speech would be convincing and he would be able to compell his way to political power. Whenever he got like this, I reminded him of the emptiness of his heart, emptiness that he had admitted to and that only Christ could fill. He would sober up a little and agree that he needed Christ, but as soon as I mentioned to him about confessing with his mouth and believing that Jesus is Lord he would retort with, "I don't need Jesus, in fact, Jesus needs me!" This reminded me all the more that that is the defining line between who will be saved and who won't be: You can say all the good things about Jesus that you want, do all the good things you can do, agree that you need him so much, agree with his word up and down the wazoo, and never cross the line into salvation which is making him the Savior and Lord or your life. "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3. Gotta know him and He's gotta know you (Matthew 7:23). Because we would be leaving the following week, I decided to report to the Kawan administrators everything he said, that they may decide what to do after we leave and I'm not longer there to occupy his time.

On Wednesday, two days ago, he showed up again. This time there was no mercy. He told that if he did not leave immediately the police would be called. "I am The Absolute! You don't know what you are doing! Here I stand as Jesus outside your doors and I see you are ready to crucify me!" Before he walked away he returned my bible, which I later found to be defiled with perverted things written in some of the pages. "You are very patient with him, James." said Hannah, one of the volunteers at Kawan. "Why are you so patient with him?" "It's only because of Jesus who lives in here." I said, pointing to my heart. "Why did you give him your bible?" "Because I had hoped." And I still hope that he will recognize his need to humble himself before the Lord Jesus and be saved. Because even though his sin is so grievous to us, the fact is that we are all fallen sinners in God's sight, no worse nor any better than him. But God's love and mercy is so great that during this time of his favor he even tolerates those who speak abusively against him, that we may have the time we need to come to him to be saved.2 Peter 3:8-9 "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Yes, the Lord's patience is great, and only by his spirit was I able to be patient with this man. Yet we have one more day left to work at Kawan, and I will once again be there to meet him and share the love of God with him if he dares to come, but so help me God, he still will not enter through those doors.

The whole experience has been very draining on me, sitting there with him for hours, assaulted by the same confusion that assaults him every day. Yet God's grace has been with me because as he spews confusion I can almost feel the words passing through a barrier around me which reveals the lies so that I myself am not caught up by them. Some of the lies are blatant, many are extremely subtle. It's the most divinely protected I've felt the whole race, as if the shield of faith is extinguishing the arrows right in front of me. I have also learned a lot through this experience. Since he speaks lies so bluntly and boldly, I have felt permissed to speak the truth of God to him bluntly and boldly and call out his lies in similar fashion. It's been a great experience of "shooting straight" and not being afraid to say things that may offend. And God has shown me elsewhere that having a gift of teaching means that sometimes I'm going to have to offend people with the truth, so I might as well get used to it. After all, Jesus was the greatest teacher, but he was also the most offensive! with the truth! So we'll just add one point to the boldness scale for James through this experience. Yay Jesus!

I like Malaysia!

Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We've been in Malaysia for two and a half weeks now, working in Georgetown on the island of Penang. I have enjoyed this month very much so far: it has been a great combination of work and rest, fun and duty, pushing through the mundane and enduring... the interesting.

We are working with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to serve several local ministries.

Kawan is a Malay word that means "Friends," and is the name of a ministry founded by an American man named Jody. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10am to 3pm the poor and homeless can enjoy free breakfast, lunch, showers, a cool place to nap for the afternoon, and personal ministry attention and fellowship from the volunteers at Kawan. We are also helping to renovate the upper floors of that building, as well as preparing another building to be a training center for those people coming off the street who wish to devote their lives to being ministers of Christ. I have made a good Malaysian friend at Kawan whose name is Noah. He is a 68 year old man who has been on the streets most his life, and since accepting Jesus' free gift of salvation over 10 years ago and being freed from multiple addictions, he has spent the rest of his life still on the streets but as a joyful and faithful witness and servant of Christ. Every Wednesday night Kawan does evangelistic outreach and holds a church service for all who are interested.

There is another ministry that we are privileged to participate in at a Seventh Day Adventist hospital in the area (though I myself have not participated as we were asked to be consistent with our ministry choices). At the hospital a group of us are helping to raise funds for kids who needs heart surgery, which costs about 30,000 Malaysian ringgit, or around $10,000 USD. The group has been wildly successful, praise God, in raising almost 20,000 ringgit thus far, and they're shooting for having raised enough for one child to receive heart surgery. The original expectations were as follows: if they raise 1000 ringgit in any one day, that is a very successful day and they are treated to a free pizza party. Well, last week they consistently raised over 1500 ringgit each day! Just this weekend, the Lord's blessing was on them to raise over 3000 ringgit in one day!!! So we praise God for that. :-)

At least here in the city of Georgetown the people are so nice. Malaysia is an extremely culturally and religiously diverse country, with Chinese, Malaysians, Indians, and Arabs, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists... living together not just peacefully but almost amicably! This isn't a melting pot though, it's a mixing pot. Sure there is a mutual cultural understanding and blend to some point, but each people group is visibly distinct, and so is each one's religion. In fact, most of the signs here are in four or five languages: English, Malay, Chinese, some Indian language and/or some Arab language. English is widely spoken by almost all, to some degree. I'd love to tell you more about some of the people I've met, so read on in my next blog coming later today...

Leaving Thailand

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

As our time in Thailand comes to close I begin to reflect upon the month. Oh wait, no I don't have much time for that because we've been planting cassava fields 12 hours a day with lunch being brought out to us in the fields so we can get more work done. It's hard work, kind of. I mean how many thousands of cassava sticks can you stick in the ground in scorching sun or pouring rain? It's the heat and long hours that get to us.

I look out on the next field we have to plant... good freaking night that's a big field, maybe the size of two football fields. "You mean he wants us to plant this field too?" The task seems impossible, but we've planted large fields before and I'm slowly beginning to learn that though the task seems daunting there will come a point when we will look back on it in triumph. With this in mind, I stab the first stick into the field and, already being worn out from the previous field that day, I repeat in my mind as I work my way up the field,"Just keep stabbing... Just keep stabbing..." to the tune of Dora's song, "Just keep swimming..." from Finding Nemo. Indeed, that's all I have to do is remain focused on the task immediately at hand -- stabbing only the next stick into the ground -- and the daunting task slowly crumbles under the inexorable force of persistence. The ten of us who are working the field finish the job later that day.

As a good Christian (lol) I translate the lesson of this mundane task into a lesson for life. You see, Jesus pretty much tells us to worry only about one day at a time: the day called Today. He knew that when we consider the big picture and try to fathom all the variables of our entire life we often succumb to a daunting feeling about all the things we'll need to handle later on. But if we can keep focused on worrying only about today, we can probably be much more relaxed!

Not only this, but I was also applying the lesson to doing kingdom work (or any work for that matter) once I return from the race. I really enjoyed my time in China, I think because that's the first month where discipling others was the main focus. "Just keep going to english corners, just keep inviting people over, just keep initiating those deeper conversations, just keep asking people if they want to study the bible with you..." and we saw results! So keeping that same mindset of "if you want something that seems big just keep focused on persisting in little steps and eventually you'll get it" is going to be a focus of mine after the race.

This month we also herded goats, and as I watched some of the workers herding them I noticed that the way to keep goats behaving is to whack 'em with sticks, box them in until their only way out is the way you want them to go, stay outside of their group and clap and shout and pelt them with stuff to get them to move, sometimes wrestle them by their horns... goats are stubborn, or ignorant, creatures. And all we want to do is keep them from getting lost and take them out to pasture and back into their goat-house! Well, doing the "good Christian" thing, I abstracted this lesson into a life lesson and took into account bible verses concerning goats and sheep. Sheep follow the shepherd and only need to listen to his voice to follow. Then I thought about how God might relate to a person who would behave like a goat behaves to us. I'm sure that to the goats, we are a terror, but to a sheep we are the guide to safety and good pasture. The difference in the relationships between goat and master and sheep and master only arises because of the way the animal behaves. God, help me to be a sheep!

Anyways, in recent news we've made it safely into Malaysia for our final month of the world race! Also, the remaining balance left on my world race account is $4,077 which I'll have to pay on May 15th unless I get some help from you guys! Any amount you can give always helps! Thanks and God bless!

Ministry in Thailand

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

From Beijing, China, we flew into Bangkok, Thailand, where we were briefed for a day before we began gender-based ministry this month. THe colloquial name for this month is "Manistry" for the men, and the girls have their own names for their month. Personally, I've been looking forward to this month for the whole race. In fact, before I found the World Race I was actually looking for a men's mission trip similar to this month's experience.

Anyways, all the men packed into a bus and 6 hours later we arrive in some village near Burma called Kanchanaburi, working with a contact named Arun, whose wife is Peng. They moved here 8 years ago to spread the gospel to this community and work to establish a missionary base to feed missionaries into Burma. When they arrived however, the locals thought that they were drug dealers because they had an income (in the form of missionary support) yet they didn't work as the locals did. So to ease the conscience of the locals they decided to farm cassava (from which tapioca is derived) and goats. Therefore, in the past two weeks I've become a Thai farmer!

We usually work for about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours after lunch, or until we finish whatever the job of the day was. Sometimes it's planting cuttings of cassava, sometimes harvesting, sometimes fertilizing the field with goat poo. But we have to get the goat poo from somewhere! So we go to the goat farm and shovel it off the ground into plastic convas bags. (The goats stay in an elevated room with a slatted bamboo floor through which the goat poo falls. Then we go into the lower room and collect the poo!) Sometimes we herd goats, too. This has by far been the dirtiest month with the hardest physical work, but it's been good.

I've really enjoyed being with just the guys this month. There is almost always some deep conversation going on somewhere. There are numerous bibles studies at random times and just all around getting junk done. We are all getting to know other guys that we haven't had the privilege of knowing until now and coming to understand each other more and unify more. It's great. I don't know if it's cause we're all guys and there we all communicate similarly or what, but there doesn't seem to be any barriers between people or within groups or anything. I'm so glad to have this time to spend with these men of God everywhere around me and take part first hand in what a community of God-fearing men looks like, which is something I haven't really experienced at this level yet. As the month goes on I"m looking forward to how much more we will all sharpen each other and mature in Christ.

This month also marks what I think is the Thai New Year, characterized by a nation-wide water fight! So today, the first day of the five-day long celebration, we were slammed by bucket-loads of water as we cruised down the road in the back of a truck, and later on we loaded up a 50 gallon drum with water and drove down the road returning the favor. What a blast!

Please pray for me as I've developed a pain in my right shoulder that just won't quit at night (but during the day it's ok). I think it's a pinched nerve somewhere. Also pray about support as I'm still $4,077 behind being fully funded; support has come to a stand-still. Finally, thank you for keeping up with these blogs, it means much more than you know! God bless!

Arrival Story

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Arrival Story

So, our mystery country that we couldn't mention was China! So I'm really stoked to be in China for the month and so far it's only been a few days and I love it!

From Manila we flew into Hong Kong and spent a night there before crossing into China. Haha, we tried so hard to be secretive but: we didn't really need to, and: we weren't that secretive anyways. For example, exiting the plane we were told to not walk together, not wait on each other going through customs, and the once past custom the largest group we should be in is our team. We also drilled several times what to say if we were asked certain questions by customs officers.I remember our team was told that our meeting spot was at a certain glass elevator in the Hong Kong airport, and we were supposed to wait for our contact there. I thought, "Cool! Each team has a secret meeting location in the airport!"

So we get off the plane, scattered and acting as a bunch of individuals. We arrive at Immigrations where the counters are divided by Hong Kong citizens and Foreigners. So we all end up in the same four lines anyways. Then at the bag claim there are a bunch of Americans (and Canadians and an Irish) standing around pretending not to know each other. I grab my bag and walk right through customs without so much as getting a look-frisk. At the certain glass elevator I notice racers who are also waiting but aren't on my team. Eventually the whole squad is waiting within 50 feet of this glass elevator and we're still standing around pretending not to know each other. Finally our one contact for the whole squad walks up also bouncy and happy and says our bus is waiting, so finally we move as a whole squad out to the bus docks! How secretive is that!

The bus takes us through Hong Kong into some village where there is a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base which we all stay at for the night...

Oh my gosh... that night... oh goodness...

Fortunately throughout the race I have had yet to get sick, besides a skin infection. But that night for dinner I must have eaten a bad fishball or something cause I was losing it at both ends. Yet I was also the most touched I've ever been on the race so far. You see, I was getting sick in the middle of the night, and on my second trip to the restroom I was in there butt naked, one end on the toilet, the other end in a bucket, guts coming out both ends, and Tommy Sullivan walks in and puts a hand on my shoulder and starts praying for me, reading some scripture, giving me water and some meds... and I remember when I should have felt the most exposed and vulnerable, I didn't, because he was clothing me with the love of Christ in that moment. I was sick and he looked after me. So Tommy if you're reading this, thanks again for being a brother!

Anyways, I woke up the next morning weak but fine. A few teams hop back on a bus and we head to the Chinese border. Our bus parks at an unloading dock and before we get off to walk through customs we get a whole rundown about how we're not going to go all at once, we're not going to go through in groups of more than 3, we review what to reply and what not to say if we're asked certain questions... So we all get off the bus, and on our own accord walk into the border station. Once again, the counters are divided for Chinese citizens and Foreigners. Even though we do stagger our arrival a bit, the line and wait is long enough that we all eventually end up inside waiting at the same time, and the staff decides to open a line just for us! Yay! I mean how many foreigners really try to cross into China at this border every 15 minutes? 60? No, that's too many. We need our own line. So once again, we all end up going through as a group pretending not to know each other, and no one asks us any questions! No questions checking out of Hong Kong, the Chinese guards stamping passports don't ask any questions either! There's even a little box on the counter that gives the guard id number and asks "How am I doing?" So as we leave the counter we all press "Perfect!" Hahaha. Praise God that our entry was so painless.

A while longer on the bus and our A-team Remix is dropped off at the Guang Zhou train station. Our train ride is 38 hours long and with 2 beds and 5 seats we take turns sleeping on the beds. How many Chinese can you pack onto a train? A lot. The train sells "standing tickets" so the aisles were full of Chinese people. And they love to smoke. It wasn't very stressful for me, but a certain team member had a breakdown the first night and stumbled through the train half-asleep yelling "Boo pee al!" which is supposed to mean "upgrade", and banging helplessly on the window of the locked sleeper car. Poor thing. But that was the most dramatic thing that happened. Other than that it was just a bunch of sitting and sleeping.

We arrive at Harbin, China, in the far north east on a cold, cold winter morning. I mean snow and ice everywhere. We're picked up by our contact and taken to a nice little apartment to relax and recoop for the day. Safe and sound. Thank you Jesus.

Ministry in China

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Ministry in China

So this month we worked with a couple from America named Jake and Steph. They've been in Harbin for four years now, planting a church. Many missionaries who go to China live inn fear of the government; China is technically a closed country. They speak in code, often: "m" means missionaries, "c" means church, "b" means believers, "father" means God, etc. Gospel activities are incredibly subdued under such fear. For many years Jake and Steph also chose to live carefully, often evanglizing on a personal basis through relationships built at english corners, not doing many things publicly or openly. There are many missionaries living inChina. "China doesn't need more missionaries, " China needs missionaries to step into boldness and out of the fear of man.Having been convicted of this after seeing anemic church growth for four years, they've decided to not just step out of the fear of man, but to stomp all over fear and trust God with the results.

Our world race team was the first team ever to work with Jake and Steph, and it was our privilege and blessing to join them in many leaps of faith and boldness unheard of in the Chinese missionary world. We joked the whole time that it was our goal to get kicked out of China because of the gospel. So, by choice we all just refused to talk in code. We talked openly amongst ourselves about church planting, God, Jesus, the Spirit, the church, the gospel, missionaries in China.. and you know what? no one cared. We distributed printed invitations to church, complete with address and phone number, on the streets, on people's doors... and you know what? no one really cared. Of course people refused to accept an invitation, one guy took it and threw up in the air and went back to his business.. no different than an open country. We also held a kids festival and at each game we handed out carry-bags for candy, complete with invitation to kids church the next sunday. We also distributed invitation to kids church right outside of a school, giving them to parents and kids alike. Now, in the states people would care about a bunch of strangers handing out invitations to some church kids festival right outside of the school. But here... no one cared. And you know what? The kids festival was a hit, with maybe two hundred kids attending! We announced invitations to church every ten minutes, had a church banner posted nearby, and even did a skit using a bible story, all in a public neighborhood park. At one point a cop walked by to see what was going on, observed for a while, then walked off. Jake and Steph's only prayer was that just 10 kids would come to kids' service that Sunday; God brought over 20. As far as Jake can tell, the government doesn't really care what Christians do, so long as we don't upset our neighbors (loud church meetings, clogging elevators, etc..) or preach against the government, which should never be done anyways according to the bible. In fact, we should pray for the government leaders that there would be peace so that we can spread the gospel effectively.

One thing that is super awesome about our month: English corners. I mean, we went to English corners four times a week at about 2 hours each. It doesn't sound like much, but they do begin to wear on you, getting asked the same questions over and over, trying to figure out what students are trying to say through their broken English, trying to figure out how to say what you want in a way they can understand, standing around awkwardly when no one knows what to say next, or how to say it. Nevertheless, they were the most rewarding, because in that environment everyone is looking to make a friend, and since we're native English speakers, everyone wanted to be our friend! So it provided an easy way to meet many people and kind of "feel around" for those who might be "good soil" to receive the gospel. So from English corners, we invited a few people to come over to our flat for a house party later in the week, where we played games and ate food and were able to have some more in-depth discussion with people. From the house parties, we made contacts with whom we met personally over lunch or something to further develop that relationship and share the gospel. In this way, at least 6 people accepted Christ during the 3 weeks we were there. The guy whom the Lord brought to himself through me and Sarah was named Oscar. Pictures later.

Overall, I really enjoyed our few weeks in China with Jake and Steph. They are a solid couple who really invested in us and challenged us to live ever more sold out for Christ. Thanks, Jake and Steph!

February 22nd and 23rd, 2011

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 22nd, 2011

Anyways, we hang out at the beach with our new friend Jon and then head back for dinner. After dinner we head to wednesday night church where we put on our interpretive dance to some Christian hip-hop/rap song. It actually looks pretty cool as Bethsaida breaks it down to the lyrics while 3 of us guys do some backup stuff.

On the business side of things... I'm technically not fully funded, I'm remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I'll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.

February 24th, 2011

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 24th, 2011

Ministry time is winding down, and our contacts took us to a different beach to do some hanging out. They brought snorkel masks and we spent a good few hours snorkeling around coral and rocks. We saw blue starfish, pink urchins, angelfish, needle fish, shiny blue fish, brain coral... The girls pretty much laid out on the beach the whole time, but Bethsaida and Amanda did some snorkeling too, but Jon, Jake, and Jon B dug a huge hole in the sand and our Canadian friend Jon got stuck when we half-buried him (bottom half) to see if he could get out. We all laughed nervously as we dug him out of the sand. He was fine.

Tonight we went to White Beach, "we" being Bethsaida, Amanda, me, Jake, and Canadian Jon. While Bethsaida and Amanda met with a girl friend they had made, we guys sat down and had milkshakes at a bar, where a friendly young man named Elmer waited on us and we got to have some deep discussion with him. He's gay, goes to Catholic church sometimes, believes in God but pretty much only understands that he exists, not much else. He thought it was too late for him to be saved because he's sinned so much; we told him otherwise. "Christ came for sinners, not for the righteous." He seemed to gain some understanding through our conversation and then started telling us about a gay German priest who had come and told him similar things we did, and later got drunk and seduced him on the beach. He asked us why our lives should be so different when we are Christians too. I didn't really have a direct answer but we just said that that's between the priest and Jesus, and tried to turn the conversation back to the cross.The girls' friends were taking them off to Karaoke and another waiter (masculine form of the word) named Trisha came up and started being extremely flirtatious. We figured it was time to go, and we said we'd try to get back and visit Elmer before we left the island on Monday.We went to Karaoke and I sang a song by Louis Armstrong, "Wonderful World" or something. We got back late and went to sleep.

February 25th through 28th, 2011

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 25th, 2011

In the middle of last night I had a dream/vision that really disturbed me. I decided to do a heart check and spend the day in prayer and fasting.

February 26th, 2011

Oh man! I woke up this morning feeling like i hadn't eaten in days! I vacuumed down my breakfast and went off for the day's ministry. We drove a few minutes across "town" to a house where a widowed member of the church had just received a new roof, compliments of the church. We spent a short while cleaning and burning the old palm leaves that had previously constituted the roof and then prayed for Atay Jen and left. We made several short stops at houses across town to bless people, drop off materials, take pictures, etc. After lunch I spent most of the day at internet catching up on email and researching other important stuff which I'm forbidden to mention hehehe. Ministry is winding down for the month as tomorrow is our last full day here. We're putting on another skit, so we finish up the evening rehearsing that.

February 27th, 2011

Today is our last full day in Puerto Galera. We go to church and put on out skit. The skit is about the farmer and the four kinds of seed. The first seed, Sarah, jumps on stage into a little ball, she doesn't understand the word so Derek swoops in as a bird and carries her off. I jump into seed form and spring up quickly, but I soon begin to wilt and fall over dead because I have no root. Jake jumps in and laborious grows up, but chokes kn the worries of life and falls over dead. Amanda jumps in and grows at a healthy pace and yields a crop. It was a fun skit and the kids liked it.

After church a group of local kids took us to another waterfall that fed into a natural pool. We had a blast jumping off the waterfall and sliding down it for a few hours. It was a good way to end our time with them.

After dinner we pack up and get ready to head back to Manila in the morning for debrief.

February 28th, 2011

Today was a day full of travel back to Manila. Jeepney ride, ferry ride, charter bus ride, van ride.

No More Blogs!!!

Tue, 1 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

No More Blogs!!!

Many of your inboxes are probably trashed after this month full of my daily blogs. I know they are, because many of you have told me: "Wow James you've really been blowing up my inbox this month! I just about unsubscribed from your blog!" Thanks. Thanks a lot. Lol. If I could have not received all my alerts and blog receipts I would have unsubscribed too!

The explaination was that this month was a practice in blogging. I really haven't blogged enough over the race so far, the unofficial AIM goal is twice a week. Also, since we're going off to a country where we won't be allowed internet accesss for a month for security reasons, I also wanted to make sure you were all blogged up so that this next month would be a little break for you! I'll resume blogging in April, but not daily. However, you may see a short flood of March blogs once the month is over, just so you can be kept informed of what we and God have been doing.

Lastly, I was hoping that a little more communication to you, my supporters would have resulted in more financial support to help take a chunk out of the $4,000 I have left to raise, and whatever remaining balance of which I'll be paying out of pocket at the end of the race. Unfortunately, my final support deadlines we not met, and I was in danger of being sent home. But after chatting with AIM finance department they were gracious enough to keep me on the race with the promise that I'll pay any balance at the end. I have no idea what God's plan is in this but I'm not launching any complaint about it, either. Complaining is shallow and empty.

I understand that times are hard in the states. They're just as hard or harder everywhere else. Alex Kuhlow, whom God used to start Threads of Hope, has made a super cool offer that I'd like to share with you. You see, Threads of Hope bracelets are often sold at fundraising events, and in fact many World Racers have sold ToH bracelets to raise support. So, money may be hard to come by, but if you have a little time on your hands and would like to help support me, you can email Alex at alex@threadsofhope.com.phand let him know you'd like to help sell some bracelets as a fundraiser to help me. He will ship bracelets to you for free, you don't have to pay shipping or pre-buy them. If you want to have a booth or something he can also include banners and DVDs and signs for free. They can also pay any event booth fees. The bracelets typically sell for $1 or $2 and half the proceeds go back to ToH. The bracelets typically sell so well that some racers have even funded their entire race by bracelet sales.

So, if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, please contact Alex at alex@threadsofhope.com.ph. Not only will you be helping to support me, but also helping to keep young women out of the sex trade by supporting their bracelet business, as well as providing an open door to share Christ with anyone who inquires about them.

God bless you and keep you. Once again, I'm going dark for a month so expect to hear from me next in April. Thank you for all your prayers and support!

By the way, if I can gank some pictures from my teammates' cameras I'll post a photo blog. But besides that, you can check out their blogs with photos and video at

jonathanbunford.theworldrace.org

cinthiaramirez.theworldrace.org

derekbegin.theworldrace.org

bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org

amandaburkett.theworldrace.org

sarahgaddy.theworldrace.org

Feb. 14, 2011: Happy Valentine's Day!

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 14th, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today we celebrated Valentine's Day in a special way with our ladies. We started the day out serving them breakfast, followed by a trip to the beach where some ladies who work with Threads of Hope gave them massages... on the beach! Of course we guys paid a fair price for giving the massages and in this way we help them generate more income too.

After the time at the beach was over we came back for lunch and then the girls had the afternoon free so they could go love on some girls they had met. Dinner time came around and we were privileged to have a karaoke machine set up in the front yard! As we were eating people started playing around on it and once we men had finished washing the dishes we sang "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin for the girls, giving them each a rose. Karaoke proceeded for a good 3.5 hours and as the girls went in for the night we washed their feet just as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. It was definitely a Valentine's Day to redeem past Valentine's Days for many of the girls, and we were blessed to bless them today.

I also had a good chat with God on the subject of authority while waiting around the beach as the girls got the treatment. I'll probably blog about it later.

Oh one thing that I almost forgot: I received a very precious Valentine's Day card from one of the little local girls that I've been playing with over the past few days. It was certainly unexpected and showed me just how much the presence of a godly big brother means to these children. I'll see if I can upload a picture, but what is written is this:

On the outside she drew red flowers and hearts. At the top it says "To: James" and in the middle of a huge heart in the center it says "Happy Valentine's Day" and "From: Gail" at the bottom.

On the inside, the handwriting reads: "Thank you for being a good friend for me. Thank you because you played me football [soccer] and volleyball. I hope you will never forget me. What is your favorite sport? Me my favorite sport is volleyball. I miss you very much.

J-ust

A-lways

P-ray

A-t

N-ight

Study your lesson

Love is your inspiration

God is your protection

to finish your ambition."

Awwwwwwwwwwwww! Kind of makes me want a daughter.

Ew, did I just talk about wanting kids? God, what's happening to me. Oh yeah I'm almost 26 years old, that's what. Clock's tickin I guess..

This is more awkward for me than it is for you. I promise.

"Shut up, dogs! I'm about to go to bed!" Bark all night and sleep all day, that's about all they do. Then the roosters crow at 4am. The animals around here just don't want us to sleep, I swear. I know what those dogs are saying though:

"Hey stop barking over there!"

"No, you stop barking you idiot, I'm trying to get some sleep!"

"Sleep? That's what I'm trying to do but you don't stop yappin! Quit barking and shut up!"

"I'm trying to shut up but this other idiot won't quiet down! Hey you down there: Quit barking!"

"Hey! Both of you dogs quit barking! Shut up!"

"What? Who is this new guy? You quit barking and shut up!"

"Don't you tell me to quit barking! You shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"Hey guys I got an idea. On the count of three we all shut up."

"All right."

"Sounds good."

"I'm down."

"Ok! 1... 2... 3!"

....(silence)....

"Woof."

"Aww who's the wise guy trying to be funny!"

"Hey quit barking!"

"No you quit barking, dog breath!"

"Who you callin' dog breath! Just shut up already so we can get some sleep!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, you shut up!

"....ad infinitum

The roosters have a similar conversation in the morning.

"What the heck are you crowing this early for! Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"Hey both of you shut up!"

"Who you tellin to shut up!"

"All of you shut up, you're waking the whole neighborhood!"

"No you shut up!"

.... you know where it goes from here.

February 15th, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 15th, 2011

Nothing happened.

Ok that's not true. Today was my day to do the morning devotion. I based it on an entry from my journal back in October, 2008. It concerns the parable of the prodigal son. Many teachings have been made of this parable but I hope that you receive some new revelation from this one.

Journal Entry

October 18th, 2008

God has given me a few more tidbits of wisdom. Halleluia! They are an answer to a frequently posed question asked by critics of the christian faith.

"If God is so good, why is there evil in the world?"

Questions like these are tough questions, but they presuppose that God is to blame. One of the beliefs of my personal faith is that I will not blame God for anything. I choose to believe that God is blameless and that at the judgment when I finally see his face I will understand how pure, innocent and blameless he is of every bad thing that has happened in this world. Moreover, if he did do anything that this world considers "bad", his actions will be fully justified in righteousness and justice, and whatever his judgment is for anyone's eternal destination will be true and just. These beliefs are not unbiblical. And in taking this stance, I hope to remain open to any new revelation, not closing myself off with some convenient conclusion that I want to believe in my skepticism.

In keeping with these beliefs I'd like to answer those kinds of questions with a tidbit of wisdom that God gave me from the parable of the prodigal son.

The main characters are the father and his youngest son. The father is wealthy and owns many animals, servants, and much land. One day his youngest son demands his inheritance and, after the father gives it to him, goes off and squanders it in wild living. He becomes poor and when famine comes he sells himself to a citizen to be a servant. As he languishes in poverty and hunger he decides to go back to his father and serve him as a worker, because he knows his father's workers are well-off. Upon his return and repentance to his father, his father holds a feast and celebrates his son's safe return and welcomes him back as a son and not a servant.

So what of this story? The parallels to be drawn are these: the Father is God, the people of this world are the rebellious son, and the bad things that happen in the world are the bad things that happen to the son in the parable. Note that if the son had not been rebellious and left his Father's presence then he would not have fallen into misfortune. As it is, though, the son chooses to stray from his father. What if the father had chased after him? Do you think the son would still have run away? I think so. No matter how much love the Father shows for his son, if he wanted to run away then he was going to run away. I think he would have still run away from his father from his father because he wanted to live his own life. So he leaves his father's presence and goes out living wildly. Bad things happen. He went broke, hungry, and famine came on the land. Even after hiring himself out he still languishes.

Now, what if, in his suffering, he had cried out, "Father! Where are you? How could you let these things happen to me? Where were you when I needed you? How could you do this to me?" How absurd is that! It was by his own choice that he left his father's grace; his father didn't abandon him, he abandoned his father to live by his own rules! So why do we in life, when things go bad, call out and accuse God, when most likely it was our own fault that we end up in suffering?

When the son decides to head back home, the story says that "while the son was still a long way off, the Fathet saw him and started running toward him." And we see here that no matter how far we've strayed, the Father is watching out for us. And we don't have to make it ourselves back into our Father's presence. No, all we have to do is turn our hearts back to the Father, and he will come running after us no matter what distance we've gone, and he himself will escort us back into his love. Notice that when the son returns home his father welcomes him in fullness of love and celebration. His father did not change at all while bad things were happening to him; the father remained good and loving.

This is a picture illustrating spiritual truths. We know that we are also physical beings and physically we are still in a land that has strayed from God and suffering the consequences of its iniquity. Some in some sense, although we are being led by the Father back to our own land, we are still walking through a land of famine and suffering. But like the Father got up and went out to retrieve his son, so we find ourselves going out and retrieving our brothers and bringing them alongside us and showing them the way back home with the Father we're walking with.

Instead of asking, "Where is God?" We should be asking ourselves, "Man, where are we?" And we need to realize, as the son did, that we must abandon our wild ways and return to the Father with humility and repentance, because only He has what we truly need. And he will welcome us back with all love, grace, mercy and celebration, because regardless of where we are, His goodness and love are unchanging. He is waiting for us, we need only to run back to him.

Father, thank you for your wisdom that you so lavishly bestow on us. The depths of the riches of your wisdom and knowledge sure is vast, Father, and I thank you for sharing freely. Amen!

February 16th, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 16th, 2011

This morning we cleaned out the kid's playgrounds some more, raking and sweeping away stones and glass, rolling away the last palm logs. We also cleaned up the ministry center, scrubbing floors and pillars to prep them for paint. I had the privilege of starting some burn fires for trash and plant matter. I like it because it's acceptable to start a fire pretty much anywhere.

The after-lunch activities consisted of quiet time for me, and then the guys got together to talk about plans for our man-time tomorrow, as well as put together a skit for Wednesday night service.

This evening we attended the Wednesday night service and put on a skit. The skit was based on Galatians 5:9 - "A little yeast works it's way through the whole dough." As a couple small groups of people are happily chatting away, one person with a bad attitude comes in and distrupts one other person's attitude, rubbing off on them. The antagonist keeps walking past, but the bad attitude that infected the one other person trickles down through the everyone else, until the whole crowd is antagonizing each other and having bad attitudes. At this point another person walks on scene, scopes out what's going on, and gives a big hug to the first person that was initially infected with the bad attitude. That same person shows a softening in heart and turns around and gives a big hug to the person that his bad attitude rubbed off on. Soon everyone in the crowd has made amends and they come and hug the original antagonizer, whose heart also softens. At the end of the skit, I gave a short message explaining the skit and a short teaching about how each moment in the day we have the ability to influence the community around us. Derek gave me Proverbs 18:21 -"The tongue has the power of life and death; those who love it will eat its fruit." We can choose to exhibit with our words and actions a spirit or attitude that gives death to people aro und us or gives them life. Jesus came to earth to give us life, and in striving to live like him we too should be conscious of taking initiative to give life to our brothers and sisters around us.

February 17th, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 17th, 2011

This morning Jake (jakevannorman.theworldrace.org) and I went to the market with Atay Marina (the pastor's wofe) to help with groceries and also pick out some food items for our Man Night tonight. I did buy a pair of sandals while I was there, so I'm not completely shoe-less anymore.

We came back in time for lunch and as we were waiting for a few of us to arrive back from ministry at the beach, I jumped in with Bethsaida (bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org) in painting the palm logs that now form the perimeter of the kid's play area.

I, Jake, and Derek (derekbegin.theworldrace.org) had no idea when Jon (jonbunford.theworldrace.org) and Jeremy (jeremyharris.theworldrace.org) would return from beach ministry, so we stuck around the house and did pretty much nothing for a few hours as we waited their return.

They finally came and then after bathing and washing a few clothes in the river we went back to the beach for a fancy dinner, where we ordered $2 club sandwiches and cheeseburgers. After dinner I discovered the joys of night crabbing at the water's edge while the others played ping pong under a nearby gazebo. There wee crabs the size of my fist running around, but the largest I caught was about he size of a quarter, the first one big enough to pinch me!

Returning for the night, I helped make popcorn for the guys (Atay Marina taught me how to pop popcorn in a stove pot using butter) and we watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight inside a common room of the ministry center, using a projector and the church's speaker system. It was nice.

On a different subject: the skin infection I had earlier has since been cured using some TLC and antibiotics. However, tonight I notice some hard blisters forming under the skin of my hands and I have no idea what from. Ugh. Jesus take the wheel.

February 18th and 19th, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 18th, 2011

Today is our unscheduled/unagendized day; we can do what we please, a day "off". I woke up this morning with hurting bumps all over my hands and the bottom of my feet. I still have no idea what it is, but I ran it by JoJo, the pastor's daughter, who is a nurse, and she went out and did and little research and comes back and tells me its dermatitis herpetiformis or something, and that I should avoid gluten until we go back to manila where I can see a doctor about it. So I spent the rest of the day in either an hours-long nap or writing/drawing/ doing math in my journal, pondering about the consequences of my supposedly newly developed gluten-sensitive disease. Somehow I really don't think that's what's going on and that I won't have have to worry about avoiding gluten for the rest of my life. We just found out there's a clinic that only charges 250 pesos (about $5) for consult so we'll go there tomorrow morning.

February 19th, 2011

I went to the clinic with JoJo this morning to see what they said about my ailment. He said it's a strand of herpes simplex that's in the air? I've heard of that occuring on the mouth but there's nothing going on in my mouth, I only have the bumps on my hands and under my feet. Everyone is exposed but only some people contract it, depending on immunity. Anyways, I was prescribed an anti-viral and we'll see how fast the bumps go away.

We make it back in time for lunch and afterward I decide to stick around and hang out nearby with some of the neighborhood kids for a few hours; it hurts to walk so I don't want to go too far.

Nonetheless, earlier in the month I had promised to the girls that whenever they wanted to do anything at night I would be glad to escort them since a male presence would be required. So tonight the girls had made plans to have dinner and visit with Jona and Jonah, two girls who work down at the beach that they've built relationships with.

Jona is a server at a bar called BadBoys, and Jonah is the bar's 22 year-old Filipino half-owner. The other half-owner is an athiest Briton in his 50's whose name is John. Jonah and John have been dating for 3 years and the initial arrangement was that John finances the business and Jonah owns the property. (There's some benefit to the business if it's Filipino-owned.) In return Jonah would be financially well-off. After a few months, though, she started to actually love the guy somehow, but in the past year or so he's been unfaithful, abusive, controlling...

So the girls been building a relationship with her and tonight we're encouraging her once more in the Lord to seek out what God is advising her to do. Only nine days ago there was an incident where the police had to be involved. Jonah broke up with John on that day, and she will be going to her home island Mindinao to visit her family that she hasn't seen in a long time. But as this marks a significant turning point in her life, the Lord is using us to encourage her to draw near to the Lord. Having experienced the love of the Father that we have for her she is definitely touched by the time it comes to leave.

February 20th, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 20th, 2011

Today is Sunday and we were once again in charge of the youth program. The topic was about the light of Christ within us. We read a verse and then discussed questions such as: "When does your light shine? What are some things that can keep your light frlm shining? How are some ways your light can shine in school, at home, among your friends?"

Not much happened after church. Some people went to the beach to chat with their beach vendor friends and love on them a little, some people stuck around. With my feet being more sensitive than usual I made the stationary choice to hang around and play with any kids that happened by, not too much walking around.

After dinner a few of the girls wanted to chill and watch the sun go down and the stars come out at the beach. Since they needed a guy to go with them because it's after dark, and because I told them earlier in the month that I wanted to enable them to do whatever they wanted at night (although I was talkkng more about ministry-wise), and last but not least because I wanted to catch the monster crabs that come out at night, I decided to suck it up and walk with them to the beach. I had bought some sandals the other day, but it was a quick, cheap purchase and I ended up with a pair that are a size too small; I hate wearing them, and it's less painful to go barefoot than to have those things rub blisters into my feet. Anyways, I caught some crabs the size of tarantulas, so I was happy while the girls did their girl talk or whatever it is girls do.

February 21st, 2011

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 21st, 2011

This morning we cleaned up the ministy center. The interior will in the future be used to house missionaries and comes complete wtih small kitchen, shower, and bathrooms. In a separate hall are the public bathrooms for church services.

Everywhere tropical that we've been has used slatted windows (like blinds) that never close completely. So all sorts of bugs and dirt find their way in. Besides all this, the public bathroom area was a sanitation disaster. We spent the morning dusting cobwebs out of everywhere, wiping down walls, mopping, and cleaning windows.

After lunch I went to the beach with Jake and Derek and we had a good few hours of man-time, chatting about cars and engines and reminiscing on our earlier lives. Just taking time to hang out is something we don't do often enough, so such times are always refreshing

.After dinner we had a festival with the local community. Kuya Al set up some events. We split into 5 teams and I was on a team with Jake and 4 or 5 other local kids. We chose a team name "Team Tower" since Jake and I are among the tallest people around, and our team animal was the dog. In the first event we were blindfolded and separated, and we had to find our other team mates using only our animal sound. So I barked loudly while my fews dogs tried to find me amongst other animals calls such as cats, monkeys, birds, and the like. It was fun! Following that we had a game called "Guess that Gargle," where a representative from each team had to gargle a tune with water while the rest of the team tried to guess the song. Then we had tug of war, and our team won that tournament! Then the game was to make shapes on the ground using our bodies. Triangle, diamond, 10, God, and ABC were all shapes we had to make. Finally we had a small bonfire where we symbolically burned our chains, things that try to hold us back from seeking God. The whole time, whenever I wasn't doing anything, I had anwhere from 3 to 6 kids wanting me to throw them in the air. It's a good thing they feed us well cause I'm getting workouts! Anyways, it was an excellent to to continue to bond and build relationships with the community.

February 8th and 9th, 2011

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 8th, 2011

Today was pretty simple. We went to go visit the person who, as far as I could understand, was a governator of some sort. He wasn't there, so our contact showed us a private nearby beach that we go could go to and not be heckled by vendors. we didn't bring anything to do, so we walked back, grabbed our stuff, then I walked back to the beach with Bethsaida (bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org) and Leah (leahmohrig.theworldrace.org) to see if there was any kingdom work to do there. They caught up with a few friends they had made and met some German woman on vacation. We're bringing one girl to church with us tomorrow.

Dinner time came around and we go back to eat and sleep early for our 4:30am hike up a mountain to view the sunrise tomorrow.

February 9th, 2011

I'm writing this blog the day after, so I've already forgotten stuff. Not much special happened anyways. Jeremy Harris and I went up to a golf course because he wanted to check prices for a certain secret event that he wanted to plan for certain unspecified people, and also to possibly meet the owner, who we heard was a believer.

The plan was to take a trike (motorcycle+sidecar) from our house to the place, which is up a huge mountain. That was an interesting adventure. About five times it happened that the little 125cc motorbike was unable to haul us up steeper portions of the incline. We had to get out, chase the motorbike up the hill to a flatter spot and then get back in and continue until the next impassable incline. That bike was hot and we hada nice plume of blue smoke trailing us all e way up the mountain. The dude put 3 liters in the tank before we started up and we probably burned all three of them trying to go up this mountain. (Dad, I remember you telling me a story about hauling a trailer up a mountain in first gear trying to burn out the engine of a dodge... I imagine our trip went just about like that.)

Finally we made it to the course. As we get off the bike we joke that at least the trip back down will be easier. "Yes, if brakes are good," replies Muchacho with a half-serious grin.

It's a nifty 9 hole course for about $18. I'm not familiar with golfing prices but it was on the edge of some sort of budget, so we ordered a chocolate milk and gatorade and enjoyed the view for a few minutes deciding whether or not the secret event would happen or not.

We get back to the bike and before we start down the mountain Muchacho grabs a few 1 liter bottles and fills them up with water. He pours another liter of water on the brakes as Jeremy and I eyeball eachother suspiciously about what he's doing.

We start our trip down the hill and about each fourth of the way down we stop to pour water on the brakes, which steam and pop ominously. Yet we make it down without incident. We have Muchacho drop us off at the beach to meet up with our friends. We meet up, play some volleyball together, play another two games with some friendly Danes (from Denmark) named Jasper and Matt. We're hoping to meet up with them again today as by the time we got done playing it was time to leave for dinner. So hopefully they'll come out and play some more volleyball and we can get to know them a little better and share some Jesus with them too.

February 10th and 11th, 2011

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 10th, 2011

I'm writing this blog the day after, too, again. Sorry!

Yesterday (the date of this blog) we helped clear some land for a kids playground. This isn't the land we had earlier been clearing. There were two fallen palm trees on this land and a huge chainsaw had been brought out to cut them into two-foot sections. Once a section had been cut, we rolled it to the perimeter and stood it on end. Doing this, we made a perimeter for the playground and they doubled as big round chairs too. They were probably a couple hundred pounds each, so that was the workout for the day.

Not too much happened the rest of the day. In fact, due to a festering skin infection that's been developing over the past week, I decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and nurse my wounds. This is the same skin infection that I first got in Haiti. I got a milder case the first month in Africa, and this is now the mildest case yet, as far as spreading is concerned. But as far as degree is concered, this is the worst it's been. In Haiti I had it a lot of places but not bad. Now I have it in just a few places, but where it is it's worse. In Haiti a good course of Cipro took care of it. In Africa it went away on it's own, and had expected this to go away on it's own again this time, which why it probably is the way it is.

Ok ok, since you're dying to know what it looks like I'll tell you. It looks like a bad case of poison ivy (but it's not). It starts with little yellow pustules, like zits, forming on the skin. Then they pop and pus comes out. Then when there's a lot in one area the whole thing just oozes yellow pus. It frequently drips down my leg (the bad part is just under my knee). It sounds nasty and it is, but it doesn't really itch unless it gets dry. (Dad, remember that time I had poison ivy real bad just before starting college? It's a lot like that, only not on half my body.)

Anyways, I've got two kinds of antibotic cream to put on it, and if it's not better by Monday then my team has coerced me to go to the clinic. Until then I'm somewhat house-bound, just so I can keep it clean.

February 11th, 2011

Woke up, had a great pancake breakfast, then went off to Tamaraw beach for internet. While there I enjoyed a brief conversation with a Frenchman named Francis. He'll be here for 6 weeks so I hope to run into him again. (What the heck do people do here for six weeks anyways?)

Went back for lunch and just vegged out for most of the day (Fridays are our "days off"). Oh yeah, I had to nurse my infection all day again. Not getting any better, or worse? Atay Marina and Judith, two women of the family we're staying with, offered to clean my wounds with and herbal remedy tonight. They boil guava leaves then scour the wound with them and pour the guava-tinged water over it (but not when it's still boiling, of course). It felt amazing! But then I dried it off and put on anti-biotic cream.

Oh, I did do pushups today, finally. Four hundred pushups I did! We'll see if I can move my arms when I wake up.

Goodnight, world.

February 12th, 2011

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 12th, 2011

Yesterday (the date of this blog), the morning consisted of continuing to clear out a play area for the kids and clearing some banana trees that a drunk man had chopped down at night. (Banana trees are like wet rolls of paper so they don't make much sound when being hacked down. But they are fun to whack with a bolo knife!) Also, in case you didn't know, most people around the third world sweep with brooms that are way too short, often it's practically just the broom head itself. This morning was different: I had a full-length bamboo and straw broom to work with. But alas, I must have been brooming too vigorously (see Isaiah 14:23) because the straw broom slid off the bamboo pole. I tried to reattach it to no avail, so I resigned myself to stooping and brooming this quarter-acre plot of land. (Oh yeah, people around the world sweep the dirt off the bare ground too. I thought that man was insane in Africa when he would sweep the bare ground in the front yard at 4 in the morning. But it actually keeps the place from becoming a breeding ground for insects and weeds and such because all the loose rocks and sticks and foliage are swept away every day. Even puddles of water dry up faster when they're swept through the yard! lol) Anyways it was a good thing to do that too because later in the day I played with some kids were playing some kickball/cricket game with bare feet.

And that's mostly what the day's activity was: playing with kids. Pastor Al wants us to play with kids often, too, especially us guys. He says that few kids have fathers who set a good example, and the more that the kids can see and interact with godly men the better.

I experienced a lesson in this yesterday when I was playing with some kids. A little girl of maybe 7 years old ( I have the hardest time telling Filipino ages.) had come to me and used me as a merry-go-round and launch pad. I would spin her around by her arms one moment and then she wanted me to throw her in the air the next moment. I would hold her hands and she would jump and at the same time I would lift her up; she got some good altitude too.

Her older sister (by maybe 3 years, I couldn't tell) had come up ( as far as I could understand their names are Mary Joy and Mariam? , the older) and Mary Joy was telling her sister to "try this! he can spin you around and throw you in the air and catch you!" They spoke in Tagalog but I understood what was going on. At first, Mariam seemed to eye me distrustfully and although I held out my hands in offer to play with her she wouldn't take them until she watched me play with her little sister and some toddler for a few minutes. She was still hovering nearby though and I could tell she wanted to play so I took a step over toward her and held out my hands again. She reluctantly took them and participated with being swung around and tossed up. After about 15 minutes of playing a felt like she was fully at ease around me; when I offered my hands she happily accepted the game. We were all having a good old time and I was getting a huge arm workout. But this morning I was surprised when after church she came running up to me and without hesitation took my hands, squated down as if to jump, and said some word in Tagalog which I can only guess means "Jump!" So I threw her in the air again. Anyways, I don't know if she had mistrusted me because I'm a guy or a foreigner or because she didn't think I could throw her or what. But whatever the reason, the ultimate outcome of the day's experiences was that she learned she could trust at least one guy and had good interaction and fun with a fellow brother in Christ.

Atay Judith and Atay Marina cleaned my wounds again and they are doing much better. I may not have to go to the clinic tomorrow anyways! I was kind of looking forward to it haha, just being in a clean environment once again. But thank God the infection is clearing up.

February 13th, 2011

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 13th, 2011

I need to correct what I've written in previous posts about when I wake up. I actually first wake up to roosters crowing in the morning, at about 4am. With each passing morning I become more convinced that roosters are tools of the devil because when they wake me up at 4am the first thing I usually think about is how much I want to kill them. Such thoughts are definitely not from Jesus! Fortunately the snooze button on a rooster is easy to find: right on top of their head. Now I just gotta catch one! Grr!

Yesterday (the date of this blog) was Sunday, and we had responsibility for the youth service again. Last Sunday I didn't fare too well in keeping their attention, but this Sunday was much better. After some Q&A, Jesus gave me the idea of a fun game to play with them (cause I have a hard time thinking up random games). It was a simple "follow the leader" style game where one kids stomps or claps or jumps or makes some sort of percussive sound with his body, and the other kids mimic. The leader starts off with just one action then adds another and another, kind of also like a memory game that adds an additional step each time. It was simple and they liked it.

After church we had lunch, I had my quiet time, and then went out to play with kids again for most of the day. We've come up with a few more "suggestions" about daily ministry activities, one of them being not reading, studying, or journaling inside the house (because we don't want to give the appearance of being bums), and the other is to stay closer to our church/house location to be with the local community more, i.e. not doing beach ministry most days. I mean, beach ministry was going well and many people were being touched by it, but our reason and focus for being here is the Threads of Hope ministry, so we want to give them the lion's share of our energy.

So the day consisted of more games with kids, more throwing kids around and stuff. We guys also spent a good chunk of the day brainstorming about how to enable the Threads of Hope ministry run more smoothly. We noticed that, twice a week, when the bracelet makers come to get thread, there are so many of them coming to get so many balls of thread out of one big box of assorted colors that the whole process becomes congested and is beginning to take more than one day for everyone to come, find the colors they need, and have their thread balls counted and recorded. So we spent a good hour throwing around some ideas that started out serious, then went into the humorous (such as having monkeys working in an underground thread warehouse who feed thread up through those suction tube things you find at motorbanks, but only if you deposit a banana first) and finally worked our way back around to ideas that were actually feasible, cost-effective, scalable and flexible systems. Unfortunately, the gentleman whom we need to run these ideas through will be gone until the end of the week.

On a pitiful note, I am now legitimately without footwear. Yes, that's right. I'm goin' around on my bare dogs. (It's actually kind of fun.) Slowly, over the course of the race, the number of footwear items I've been carrying has dwindled down. I used to have boots, but those things were so clunky I conveniently forgot about them in favor of tennis shoes. I also had a pair of vibram five-fingers but they became more trouble to keep non-stinky than they were worth, so I gave them to Caleb Galloway. All of my sandals have broken. I got new shoes in Ireland from our contact but practically the whole squad voted for their destruction when I wore them for 3 days straight on our amazing 70-something hour bus ride through Africa. They were already trashed, though, and eventually they mysteriously disappeared. I was down to a pair of flip flops until earlier today when I took them off at the beach, nearly forgot about them as we were leaving, and then returned to get them only to find that they were no longer there. So now I have no footwear! If you would like to sypathize with my cause, you can help by donating a few bucks to my support account through the "Support James" link in the left column. ;-) Then I can go buy some shoes at the beach market!

February 7th, 2011

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 7th, 2011

I haven't done pushups in over a week, which means I'm pushing up to 1000 behind. Maybe I'll do them all tomorrow and get it over with. lol

This morning was usual. We didn't sing karaoke because Lia Frederick (liafrederick.theworldrace.org) busted out with the guitar. After breakfast, at about 9am, we all hopped on a jeepney we had rented for the day and drove to some nearby towns where people come to the church from. They don't get visited much, so it was nice to visit them.

Hospitality around the world has so far astounded me. We've been in poor parts of poor countries and the people give us the best of what they have, and it's good. I remember to the stark contrasts of some of the european countries we'd been to where we were served with hospitality, but the spirit (I don't mean the Holy Spirit) just wasn't behind it.

Anyways, we had some great chicken chowder soup at the first village we went to. Some neat little fried banana things at the second place, all sorts of goodies at the third, and in the fourth place people climbed coconut trees and fetched coconuts for us so we could have fresh coconut juice and pulp! And it was good!

But we got to see the far reaches of the Threads of Hope (ToH) ministry, and the many small village churches that had sprung up around those bracelet-making communities. We got to meet families and people first-hand whose lives had been changed by God through ToH. I remember one woman Atay Pastora (literally "(bigger) sister Pastora") who was a single mother of nine children. Making bracelets through ToH had helped her put her children through high school, and will still help put her youngest ones through. She had mothered well: she had a wall full of academic medals given to her children by their schools; awards for good behavior, helpfulness, grades, service, et cetera. It was a privilege to pray for her and the many other people we met today.

Oh Lord, give me the same heart you have for people.

We came back and around 2pm and ate PB&J's before everyone went their own way. I and Jake (jakevannorman.theworldrace.org) and Joshua (joshuamaisner.theworldrace.org) went upstream to a nice little watering hole we found which is fed by a chute of water curving down through a rock. We took our bars of soap and washed up there. (It's just more fun to do than a bucket shower.) We goofed around for about two hours and by the time we got back there were mashed potatoes and chicken and green beans for dinner. So we eat. I watched the movie Con Air with Jake, Bethsaida (bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org), and Leah (leahmohrig.theworldrace.org) and now am writing this blog. I'll go to bed once I'm done.

All in all, good day. We thank God for that!

February 6th, 2011

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 6th, 2011

No hacking or slashing today, and I didn't wake up to karaoke either! Today is Sunday, and we eat breakfast and head to church to lead the youth groups. It goes well enough; I believe that God continues to confirm that I am not meant for youth ministry. After church for 3 hours we go back and have lunch at the house, followed by a quick mid-afternoon nap. We start for the beach at 2pm. As I mentioned yesterday, our aim was to do some dude ministry.

We went down the the far end of the beach where there were some open lounge chairs and tables and also an open volleyball court. As we sat down and ordered milkshakes we noticed a certain man from California lounging nearby. We were still waiting for our milkshakes when he got up to play volleyball with some dudes a court over. Jake Van Norman (jakevannorman.theworldrace.org) went and hopped in too. It was a quick game, and my milkshake went fast too.

Nine of us then went to play volleyball with Mike, the californian gentleman who had been "working" with Paris, the girl that Jesus set free from the sex industry just a day or so earlier. So we played a game, and then the girls went off and did something while I, Derek Begin (derekbegin.theworldrace.org), and Jake played doubles with Mike. It was a competitive game, so once it was over we all took a dip in the ocean where a good conversation began with Jake and Mike and me.

We shot the crap for a while and small talked as we built some rapport with Mike. Here's his story as I heard it:

Mike is semi-retired; he works only a few months out of the year. The rest of the time he spends traveling the world, and for the last five years he's been enjoying foreign women around the world. He's in his sixties. Never married, he had been dating and looking for a wife for nearly 40 years. A few times he had come close, but for some reason it always fell through. Five years ago he gave up and resigned himself to living a life of cash-based love.

It's interesting here, because we've noticed that many of the men here who travel with asian companions do just that: they find them in Manila and bring them here with them. They buy them dinners, clothes, accessories; they walk on the beach and play in the water together sometimes... at least on this beach, it looks more like a relationship than just cheap sex.

And that craving for a relationship and desire to be loved is why men like Mike do what they do. Here's Mike, 40 years looking, lonely, given up, living out the end of his life. I believe that's the Mike that God sees. Does that mean he's justified? Of course not. But he's not the sicko we like to think he is. He thinks of himself as a benefactor even, helping the poor girl who offered herself to him to make ends meet, in return for her being his "wife" that he never had, for a short time. But God knows his heart's pain and his loneliness and loves him in spite of his actions, because God's love is based on his own character, not ours.

Mike was incredibly open and honest. He said he was searching for happiness. He had come to accept the way things were, but he was searching for happiness. When we asked, he even went so far as to say that being with women was fun, but there was still the emptiness inside. Jake opened up and shared some of his life experience with Mike, talking through to where God has brought him. The Lord gave me some verses to share with him. He explained that he was raised in Turkey in a Christian Orthodox church and was now an athiest (but he's really agnostic). Nonetheless the Lord touched his heart, as evidenced by his favorable comments of our group, knowing we were the same people who had talked with Paris shortly before she decided to leave. We were able to challenge his life philosophy of "if you're not hurting anyone it's ok" by asking him to ask himself "is what I'm doing bringing me lasting fulfillment?" We share of the hope we have in Christ and part ways. Hopefully the Lord wil continue to send people to search after him and he will come to realize that it's a God-shaped and God-sized hole he's trying to fill that only God himself can fill. Mike leaves early tomorrow morning, so we won't see him again.

Meanwhile, I've got in mind to get back in the game quick after the race cause I'll be danged if I'm going to wait 40 years for a wife. (God, please don't make me eat my words on this one!)

February 4th, 2011

Tue, 8 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 4th, 2011

We've technically declared Fridays to be our days off. Honestly, there have been some months, like month 3 in Ireland, when we needed a day off. But most months, like this one, I don't find a day off to really be necessary. If anything, it just means that we have a collective understanding that on that day we can freely choose out of whatever we want to. But even this being our day "off," it didn't really turn out like that.

We still ended up going down to the beach. In the morning we went for internet. It's funny how that works, because even when we go for internet, if we're posting blogs or keeping in touch with people back home, that's still ministry. It's a ministry to include our supporters in ministry because after all, it's their ministry too, almost more than it is ours. (But everything is God's ministry.) Not only that, but you'd be surprised how many people are touched by our blogs. Random people contact us telling us that they've been encouraged and sometimes find Jesus through our blogs.

For example, some random guy somewhere in the world had a friend named Daniel Durick who had died. We have a Daniel Durick, same spelling, on our squad, and when this person googled his deceased friend's name guess whose world race blog showed up! The dude read it and sent him an email saying how Daniel's blog was helping him grieve and find God again. I believe Daniel wrote a blog about it with the exact email included; look it up at danieldurick.theworldrace.org.

After internet we returned for lunch, ate, and then went back out to the beach because Bethsaida and Leah had scheduled a lunch at 2pm with Paris, the prostitute whom they talked with yesterday. So we went a little early and Joshua Maisner and Jake Van Norman and I goofed off in the waves, swam around the end of the beach into a little cove, cut my foot up on some coral, met a few people... We went back around 2pm and there was "Mr. California," as we call him, the guy that Paris was with yesterday, talking with our group, but no Paris. We had met Mr. California yesterday as well, so they had asked him about his "friend" he was with yesterday. He said that last night she told him that some missionaries had come and talked to her and she had decided that she couldn't do what she was doing anymore, she had to go take care of her family. Mr. Cali was understanding enough and said something like, "Well, we all get to choose what's right and what's wrong for us, so if that's wrong for you then that's ok." And he let her go.

Let me put it a different way: A prostitute had a Jesus encounter with two of our girls yesterday and in less than 12 hours had decided to leave the sex industry. AMEN.

I'm sure Bethsaida Portalatin and Leah Mohrig will blog about it in more detail later. Check out bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org and leahmohrig.theworldrace.org.

Anyways, praise God that we got that closure. It doesn't really happen that we get to see an end result of the people we witness to. Mr. California could have just as easily not shown up and we would have never known what happened to Paris. But God was gracious to let us see the fruit he bore in her, and then use the very man that was buying her to tell us about it!

I had cut up the top of my foot on some coral or something so I sat with Jake and Joshua at a table at a beachside restaurant while some antiseptic was working on it until it stopped bleeding. Somehow we ended up talking about waxing chesthair. I dunno. Josh and Jake went back for dinner and Bethsaida, Sarah, Leah, and Stacey wanted to stay and see what the nightlife was like after 7pm when all their friends who work during the day get off work. They needed a guy to stay with them to make sure no one tried anything with them since it was going to be after dark craziness, and I gladly volunteered. I mean, not only do I get to be watchdog, but I also get to hang out with some of my awesome sisters! (Except I'm usually too busy being alert to hang out, and they like to have their girl time anyways.) I love helping to keep my sisters safe. "God, do you want me to go into protective services?" I don't have time to get distracted now so I decide to drop the matter.

We hung out at the beach until the party started, and suddenly there were lasers and loud sex music and belligerent men at the bars and people wearing light up devil horns and people blowing fire... so we decided to come back another night when more of us would go. Good call.

By the way, did I mention that we have a pet monkey? His name is Muy Muy, which translates into English as Monkey.

February 5th, 2011

Tue, 8 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 5th, 2011

I woke up this morning to karaoke worship. You see, I sleep in the living room, which is where the TV is, so this is a morning occurence. My vocal cords connect real well, so my voice ends up being an octave deeper than normal; it's a great morning voice.

After that we had breakfast, followed by some more clearing of land for s few hours with bolos (asian-style machetes). Cinthia Bunford (cinthiabunford.theworldrace.org) likens it to deforestation, which it is, and then poluting the atmosphere when we burn the brush, which it is. It's funny because I've thought the same thing as I'm falling small trees with my bolo. But we're using the land to save souls so it's OK, right? lol

I and few guys hop in the stream to clean off and go have lunch. Afterward Jake (jakevannorman.theworldrace.org) and I decide to go upstream and chat up whoever the Lord leads us to as we come across little villages. But we have our separate quiet times first and when I'm done with mine I end up falling "anap" waiting on Jake. We eventually get going and meet a guy named Alan somewhere along the path. We chat him up for a bit and invite him up to play basketball with us later that evening, where Jake and some other racers including Derek Begin (derekbegin.theworldrace.org) and Micah Higgins (micahhiggins.theworldrace.org) build relationships with the local youth through basketball. We move on upstream and don't see another English speaker as we go up. I had brought some tracts to pass out, just in case.

Eventually we make it a place called "The Waterfalls" which is a popular tourist spot. The entrance fee is 20 pesos but we came in "the back way" through the river so we didn't pay, but left as soon as we found out that we should have paid. It'll be a nice place for people to go on a day off, so everyone was glad we found it.

I concluded that my ministry for the day was having some man-time with Jake as we hiked upstream. We're kind of in similar places spiritually and having a friend to unload on and also encourage was good for us both. You know, most people think that because we're the missionaries we must have already had all our junk worked out and we're just ready to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to go at a moment's notice. It's fun to see people's faces, especially if they're a new AIM contact, when they realize, "Oh, you guys have problems too?" and suddenly we become human to them. The fact is we don't have our junk worked out, we're still going through our mess just like you. As Peter the apostle said when he went to Cornelius the gentile's house, "Don't bow before me, I'm a man just like yourself." Or how James describes Elijah: "Elijah was a man just like us." Elijah had his junk. It's in the bible for endless generations to read. He wussed out and said, "God, I can't do this anymore." Peter had his junk: He denied Christ and was rebuked by Paul for showing bias away from the gentiles when Jews were present. People got junk, and God knows it, yet he chooses to use us and live in us because that's the kind of loving God he is. If you think you gotta clean up your junk before the Lord can use you that's a lie straight from hell. He chose you while you were still a sinner so why think you gotta be perfect before he can use you? I'm talking to myself here.

The plan for the tomorrow is to run youth church and then the guys are going to step up and go down to the beach to witness to some men. The sex trade is two-fold: men in some sort of desperation, and women stuck in poverty with seemingly no other choice. Believe it or not, we (girls included) have reasoned that the men are just as much victims as the women, victims of loneliness or lust or despair... what we're saying is that the sex-trade is just the fruit of a tree that has deep social and psychological roots in the lives of the men, too. Maybe his wife, the love of his life, just cheated on him and got the house and kids in the divorce? I mean who knows? I don't think the average man just buys a ticket around the world to go have cheap sex cause it's fun. There's some brokenness there, and if we can help mend that with some Jesus then that much demand is removed from the sex industry. If and when there's not enough demand to make it profitable, it'll stop. Maybe we can't stop it globally for all time, but we can stop it for one man, for one woman, for their whole life. Maybe for this beach, for this community, who knows?

January 31st, 2011

Sun, 6 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

January 31st, 2011

Had some more amazing non-sleep last night. I didn't get to bed until roughly 4am local time, which is 10pm according to my brain, which is still in South African time zone. I woke up for breakfast at 7am, followed promptly by some sleep. Then I woke at 10am for a tour of this ministry, followed by some sleep. I woke up at noon for lunch, and then goofed around trying not to go back to sleep. Worked out for about an hour doing 200 pushups; I'll have another 200 to do tomorrow. I spent some time in the Word, a few people ran a 5k fun run fundraiser for the ministry, and after that was dinner. I found a neat place to hammock on the top floor of the compound library. The top floor is unfinished; it only has the first few courses of cinderblock wall and no ceiling or roof. It's a cool night, and I'm going to hit the sack early to see if I can get some sleep since we have to leave at 5am tomorrow morning. "Hit the sack..." get it? Cause it's a hammock? You know, sack-shaped? While I'm on it, don't you think a "lucky rabbit's foot" is a sick twist of irony? That one might take a minute... Here's another interesting thought building on yesterday's blog: The bible clearly states that Jesus is the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. If that the case, then the world was never without salvation; God had made provision for salvation before this whole shebang even started, don't you think?

February 1st, 2011

Sun, 6 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

February 1st, 2011

Actually got some decent sleep last night: 6 hours, from 8pm to about 2am. Then I woke up and couldn't sleep, so it made sense to have two cups of coffee at 3am and do my bible and book reading for the day. By the time I was done with that it was 5am: time to cram 15 people with their packs into two vans and start off towards Puerto Galera, our ministry destination.

God and I had a good time during our hour-long van ride. Watching out the window, I saw many people going about their lives, getting their day started befor the day started. A lone jeepney driver: how many days had he been going at it now? A vagrant rumaging through trash: another hard day: would he eat anything at all? A student walking down the sidewalk: how much longer in his tiny room, eating not much more than noodles to save money for school? Does he really believe his life will be much different than the lives of the hordes of people around him? How many of those other people had big dreams and still do, yet are stuck in the mire of a dead-end business barely making the bills? I saw a jeepney full of people, no one saying a word to each other but all having the same goal in mind: to try to make it another day, and to try to make something of themselves. Life is hard; I could see it written on their faces. A couple leaned against each other as the jeepney passed by; love was all they had.

God: All these are my treasured sheep, my precious children.

I suddenly wanted to jump up and encourage them "You're all doing so well, God loves each of you so much. He sees your hardships and your hopes. He's so proud of you. He knows that you're doing the best you can with what you've got. He knows that is seems like there's no way out. You're doing all you can yet still can barely make it, but it's not like that with God. He wants you to have a full life of abundance with him in heaven, and there's nothing you have to strive for to get it. only believe (anyone can do that) that Jesus christ will bring you to the father and it's all yours -- his free gift to you."

We arrived at a bus station, and after an hour-long bus ride we arrived at a port. After a 45 minute ferry ride we arrived at Puerta Galera. We hop on another jeepney and ten minutes later we arrive to rice and chicken with green beans and sweet tea. Over lunch we meet Pastor Al, a.k.a "Kuya Al," meaning "Big Brother Al," who gives us a rundown of the schedule for the month: Wednesday night youth bible study, and Sunday morning youth service. Morningly devotion, lead by a different person each day. An hour or so of clearing brush each day. Besides that, we have the whole month up to us. More precisely, we get to ask God and see what he would have us do.

During the bus ride I was able to chat with Alex someone-or-other (I'll get his last name later) who founded Threads For Hope. The long and short of it is that Alex was a dorm parent working for a school for missionary children here in the Philippines. He would often come to Puerta Galera on vacation and in doing so he and his wife ddveloped an amicable acquaintenceship with a girl and her friend, both of whom sold bracelets on the touristy beach. One day her friend wasn't there; she had been sold into sex slavery by her grandmother because they were too poor to survive on anything else. Broken-hearted, the Lord moved Alex to give the girl $100 USD and told her to make as many bracelets as she could with it. A month or so later she came back with 1200 bracelets. "It was good work for my family for a month, and good money to live on," she said.

Suddenly Alex had 1200 to get rid of, so he started giving them to his supporters (he was a support-raised missionary, too). Someone remarked about the quality of the bracelets and said he should sell them. He told the story behind the bracelets as he sold them, and he soon had $1000 dollars on hand from earning a dollar a bracelet.

Alex prayed to the Lord what he should do with it, and was sent back to Puerta Galera to give the girl the $1000, and put in the order of however many bracelets that would make. Twelve thousand bracelets later, Alex knew the Lord was starting something. "God, I'll keep giving the community the money and work for the bracelets, but you have to sell them." And God sold them. Soon the bracelets were being sold at events, fundraisers, and conventions nationwide. With the ammount of money moving through his bank account it became necessary to start a non-profit organization. Thus, Threads of Hope was born. They now employ more than 500 people, and the side benefits of the business have been unexpected and pleasant: The children don't have to be exposed to predation by perverted tourists when they go to sell bracelets on the beach. This gives them time to go to school, and their parents have the means to pay for the school. Older people who normally would be limited in their work opportunities can sit at home and be fully supported as they make bracelets. Those widows who would otherwise be struggling without a bread-winning husband are given enough work to support their families.A

nd that's what's happening in the Philippine jungles. The fifteen of us are staying in a house with pastor Al's family, making about 20 people in this house. There are monkeys, and we bathe and wash clothes in a nearby stream, in which my last pair of shoes broke (I officially have no more shoes!). We have electricity though, and a beach not too far away. We're excited to see what God wants to do through us in the community this month!