Missions Sunday

Recently, a friend asked me to coordinate a missions exhibit in our church. I asked when it would be, and he said it was about six weeks away. Since missions is one of my passions in life, I said yes. Six weeks seemed manageable, after all.

The next day, he called back and said that he had misunderstood the schedule, and the missions exhibit would be next Sunday. . . meaning I had six days to work on it instead of six weeks! I seriously considered saying no; there were certainly many compelling reasons to do so! But somehow I couldn't. I have been asking God to open the eyes of our church to the needs of the unreached people groups in Asia. This seemed like a pretty obvious answer.

So I decided to utilize my IGSL students, delegated like crazy, and came up with an instant missions fair. The students did an excellent job and I trust that our church's awareness has grown a tad.
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I want to make more of this small open door, but my time is limited, and I am trying to keep some margins in my life. At the same time, I truly long to see our church mobilized for missions. For now, I'm just talking it over with my Father, and waiting to see what He will do. He is far more passionate about missions than I am, so I know He will do more than I could expect or imagine!

Below are some photos from the "Instant Missions Fair". 

Donations of Another Kind

Since the Student Services Department includes scholarships, we work closely with different kinds of donors.  Many of the people who provide our scholarships are businessmen.  So it's not unusual for me to get a call from a scholarship donor who is offering something other than money. 

I remember a few years ago when there was a shipment of okra that could not be delivered, and the owner offered it to our students.  So everyone had okra that night for supper! 

Another time, a subsidiary of the Nestle company tried out a new product -- strawberry-flavored cream.  They had had great success with the regular canned whipping cream, but it seemed nobody liked the strawberry cream.  They had shelves full of this product.  So, our students had the opportunity to think of many uses for strawberry cream over the next several weeks.

Another time, there was a Christian businessman who owned a hotel, and he was replacing the bedsheets.  He didn't want the old ones to go to waste, so we became the recipients of 1,000 white sheets!  About half were still in very good condition, and we used them in our dorms for several years.  The ones that were not so great became cleaning rags, so we also had a pretty impressive supply of rags for several years.

And the latest?  There is a Chinese restaurant owner who became a Christian.  The restaurant uses large quantities of pork every day to make their soups.  They boil the pork for hours, and they just use the broth for their delectable dishes.  At the end of the day, the meat is thrown out.  So the restaurant owner's pastor encouraged him to give it to Christian organizations instead.  We became the regular Friday recipients of about 50 kg of boiled pork.

 

Every Friday afternoon, we send someone to pick up the pork from the restaurant, and then these students are assigned to divide it into 1 kilo bags for distribution.  With the previous food gifts, like the okra and strawberry cream, they were one-time events, so there was quite a bit of excitement.  But his one is weekly, and the novelty is beginning to wear off.  It's becoming like the manna and quail in the wilderness.  So I have appointed a "Pork Coordinator" to help the students think of creative ways they can bless others with the pork!  Last week they shared it with a church that has a food-distribution program in a squatter area, and they are trying to come up with new ways to manage this unusual blessing.  What would you do if you received 50 kilos of pork every Friday afternoon?

How I Became an English Teacher

My last post was about how our English teacher has moved on to a new chapter in her life.  It happened rather suddenly, and we haven't found a replacement for her yet.  SO . . . in the meantime, I am teaching English!  I have ten students.  Since this is the end of the school year, all of them are functional in English now, but they need more help to be able to do graduate level work at the seminary.

For now I am focusing on building their vocabulary so that they can read their assignments and understand their professors.  We are doing this by listening to online sermons in English.  I've selected websites that also provide a transcript of the message, so they can read it as well as listen to it. I'm helping them "catch" the vocabulary words, as well as the idioms, and helping them find the main ideas of the message.  So far, we are having fun!

I am honored to teach this group of people.  Technically, they are not qualified to study at IGSL, because they couldn't pass the English requirement.  But the Admissions Committee felt that there were compelling reasons to accept them because of their background and potential for ministry in their home countries.  Three of them came from Muslim backgrounds, two were Hindu, three were Buddhist, and two were Communist.  I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life as an English teacher . . . but I am so happy that I can walk beside these students for this season and help them on their way.

A Happy/Sad Day at SSD

All of us who work in the Student Services Department have been wanting to visit Subic, a resort about an hour from Manila.  We decided to combine this fun activity with a sad activity that we were NOT looking forward to--saying goodbye to one of our colleagues. (We were thinking that combining the happy and sad parts would make it more bearable, because we were really sad to say goodbye!)
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So, off we went to Subic, and we did enjoy it a lot.  We took lots of photos, looked at exotic birds, watched tribal dancers, ate delicious food, and even took turns feeding an ostrich.
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Then we said goodbye to our dear Belle.  And yes, there were tears.  But she is leaving us because she believes God is calling her to serve Him in an unreached country, and we are SUPER proud of her.  It's just that we get the sniffles whenever we imagine her not being there in our office!  A happy/sad day indeed.
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The day Belle gave me her resignation letter, she said, "It's because of you, you know!"  She didn't mean that I'm such a difficult boss to work for.  She meant that in our office, we try to create an environment of excitement about missions, and bringing the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  How could I complain if she decided to do exactly that?  Well played, Belle, well played!

Happy News

One thing that has brought great joy to our hearts recently is the decision of Jim and Michelle, (our daughter and son-in-law) to join the ministry of Wycliffe Bible Translators. We are passionate about Bible translation! It’s our dream to see our world filled with disciples of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and that can’t happen until people have God’s Word in a language they can understand. So we are thrilled that they are on their way! They are in the process of developing a team of ministry partners now, and they hope to move to their assignment in Papua New Guinea by August. Yeah! We are passionate about Bible translation, but we are also very passionate about Jim and Michelle and Baby Danny! We can really connect with the apostle John, who said "I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth!" (III John 4)

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Meanwhile, Matthew is in his first year of law school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. So far he really loves it. He does community service in a legal aid clinic in his spare time, helping people with immigration problems who cannot afford a lawyer. From the time he was a little boy we always said he would be a great lawyer because he loves to talk, and he loves to convince you to do things you thought you did not want to do! It seems he is on the way to finding his niche.

Trip to Thailand

Last month I went to Bangkok to visit some dear friends who were former students of ours.  I only stayed for two days, but as always, it was refreshing and encouraging. We had many things to talk about, and we could have just sat in their home and talked.  I would have been satisfied with that.  But they brought me to the King's Park, where I got to soak up some of the beauty and uniqueness of Thailand.

The people of Thailand dearly love their king.  And they love the beauty of nature.  The king is an avid photographer.  So in this park, you can see all these loves combined -- the people enjoying the beauty of nature in their king's park, and also enjoying the king's hobby. 

There is a museum in the middle of the park that is a tribute to the king, but unfortunately my battery died shortly after we arrived there. I learned a lot and even had the novelty of being interviewed by a group of Thai school children in the museum.

I think everyone in Thailand is a photographer!  So I had a lot of fun taking pictures of people taking pictures. But I also got a few shots of the beautiful flowers too.

My short time in Thailand was fun, educational, and inspiring. Proverbs 25:25 says "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land."  Amen to that!  Especially when you have the fun of going to the distant land yourself to get the cold water!

After a Long Silence

One of my highlights as a teacher, always, is watching my students do what I taught them to do. This is one of the reasons I love to visit our alumni on the field. But occasionaly I get to see it while they are still in IGSL. In September-October I taught a 5-week class in our Partners in Ministry Program called "Choosing Life -- Trainers' Training". I had nine students from seven countries: Philippines, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Thailand. I created a 45-minute presentation called "Life Before Birth" that explains how a baby develops from conception to birth, and why abortion is wrong.
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I wanted to equip them to do the presentation in their own language, and to have enough background knowledge and confidence to be able to teach others. In order to get credit for the class, they had to do the presentation in their own language, for their own people, with me watching.
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It was really exciting to study about how life begins and how God develops a baby up till the moment of birth. We looked at the Biblical view of life from many different angles. All of us felt a sense of awe at how God created us and how precious we are to him.
. We looked at the statistics and laws about abortion around Asia. We also discovered that abortion is often done for the purpose of gender selection, resulting in millions of missing girls in India, China and other parts of Asia.
. And my students became passionate!! That was the amazing part. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing your students "get it," and I saw it happen. As they prepared their presentations in their own languages, they went far beyond what I expected. They all did an outstanding job.
. They weren't my students any more, they were teachers with a passion to equip others. It has been so awesome to see THEIR students become passionate about getting this message out.
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