Itsara

For those of you keeping track and praying, everything seemed to go fine at Immigration today. They’re going to send someone to Im Jai to talk to us, and a couple of our friends/co-workers, just to make sure that we’re really married and everything (standard procedure, apparently), and in a month I go back and theoretically get my real 1-year visa extension.

And, for the same praying people, I’ve got an updated request for the teenagers here. Our Bible studies with them, which are now Monday through Thursday, have been up and down (incidentally, we realized last week as we were taking them bowling that we have somehow stumbled upon our own youth group – it’s almost as if God tricked us into becoming youth pastors). When the difficulties come, they come because (a) the kids are often just not interested (apparently, teenagers are the same all around the world) and (b) it is difficult to keep them interested when they don’t want to talk and when we have to talk so slowly and poorly. We have had a translator lately, which helps, but even listening to a translation is difficult for them, especially if they don’t care in the first place.

So pray for their hearts. Pray for our language skills. And pray especially that God will guide us until we stumble upon what it is that does interest them enough to think about these things for themselves. We desperately want to talk with them, not at them. They’ve had enough of the latter already.

There’s this essay that’s got me thinking a lot (thanks for the link, Peaches). It’s pretty long, so I’ll try to summarize. He’s talking about how he’s tired of Christians that get all weird and extra-spiritual – what he (and I) mean by that is all the speaking in tongues, the healings, the falling on the floor, the wailing, the demon-vomiting, the prophesying of the end of the world, etc. that is sometimes common in Pentecostal/Charismatic/Spirit-filled/whatever-you-want-to-call-them churches. And specifically, what he’s tired of is these Christians looking down on other Christians for not doing all this stuff. He spends a lot of time qualifying what he’s saying, and I respect that. I agree with some of what he says. Other parts, I’m not sure if I disagree with him or if I am merely wary of where that line of thinking leads. Let me try to explain from my point of view, though.

I find myself in-between a lot. When I’m with the “weird Christians”, I find myself wishing that they would tone it down or explain what they’re doing, and for sure I wish they wouldn’t expect everyone to be like they are. However, when I’m with the extra-conservative Christians – the ones on the opposite side of the spectrum – I find myself wishing that they would believe in miracles, that they would ask for healing and expect it, that they would listen for God’s voice and say what they hear, and for sure I wish they wouldn’t look down on the Weird Christians for trying out the things Jesus and the early church did.

I’d like to think that I am at some healthy balance between them – that somehow I have it right where they have it wrong. But the truth is that I am doing exactly what they are doing. I am wishing that everyone could be just like me so that I can be entirely comfortable. (more…)

Anyone know what a meme is? Some of you do and some of you don’t care, but here’s a definition anyway for those in between: “In Blogspeak, a meme is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs.”

So normally I avoid these, and even now I don’t like doing it, but Itsara was called on specifically to answer this (“tagged” was the word used). I will justify this lapse of humility with the rationalization that I’m doing this for a friend (okay, so technically in order to have a lapse of humility, I’d have to have been humble in the first place – oh well). If you don’t care, don’t click here: (more…)

You wouldn’t have heard it from any major news source, but Chiang Mai has had some flooding lately. Here’s a short story I found on the flooding in August. Today we got some more, and it looks worse. So some of the kids are home tomorrow because their school is closed, but I want to ask you to pray for the folks here in Thailand who already have nothing and, strangely enough, even what they have is being taken away. If I can find any better information, I’ll let you know.

Also, Sean has his own blog and he’s written an update on what’s going on with him out here. Check it out.

America has always liked to think of itself as the great melting pot, and to some extent it has been, but I think Heaven is going to have it beat. And sometimes here on Earth, we get a taste of that.

What I’m talking about is that all over the world there are billions of Christians, and they all belong to a vast number of denominations, movements, belief systems, etc. Historically, we haven’t been very good at getting along with each other (I mean, America was born in the first place because we couldn’t get along). But I think when Everything is said and done, we’ll be in Heaven and we’ll learn that all of these different forms of worship, and the minor distinctions in belief, are not only separating us unnecessarily, but these differences are all necessary to express the infinite aspects of God and His Kingdom.

So I grew up in a Conservative Baptist church. We sang hymns written a hundred years ago, stood up and sat down when we were told, rarely laid hands on people when praying, and never, ever spoke in tongues. I came from that to the Vineyard where we sang the latest songs written by worship leaders all over the world (often including songs that our own members wrote), we stood up to honor God, knelt down to submit to him, raised our hands – all when we felt like it, always laid hands on people, and very often spoke in tongues. But how did I get from one to the other? (more…)

Up until recently, our nights here consisted of essentially wandering around and either (a) inserting ourselves into some activity that the kids were doing or (b) being dragged into said activity by said kids. That and trying to help get the kids to do things they don’t want to do but need to do (like showers, homework… the usual).

Recently, though, we have been drafted (by which I mean Ladda told us to do it, but we have given her permission to tell us to do things like this) into leading the teenagers. On Wednesday and Thursday night, while the little ones are doing worship and Bible study, we are doing the same thing with the teenagers. The difference being… well, whatever we want the difference to be. Generally, we want to have a discussion with these kids and get them thinking for themselves about the Bible and God and all the other things that life is about. So you guys want a prayer request? Pray for wisdom as to what and how to teach these kids. And pray for open ears and soft hearts. I don’t know where all of them are in their faith, but I’m pretty sure it runs from the kids who love God and want to learn more all the way to the kids who have had Christianity forced on them and have no interest in it anymore – with lots of stuff in between. We came here to raise world-changers, and this is one way we do that.

Last week we had them ask a bunch of questions which we wrote down, intending to answer in later meetings. Most of them were about America, but at least it was religion in America, and we answered a lot of that the second night. It was fun, but the whole meeting still feels… well, like it doesn’t have a point yet. This week my hope is to start talking about whether God is real or not, and how do we know. Maybe we’ll see where it goes. Pray for that. I really don’t know what I’m doing, but I have a heart for this and the opportunity, and in my experience God tends to step up when that happens – it’s just real scary taking that first step off the cliff…

Language-wise, the meeting has been fun. We were supposed to have one of the staff help us translate, but we didn’t. Fortunately, we seemed to be okay. Both Cindy and I can speak pretty well – or at least well enough to get our point across, and Cindy is able to listen pretty well too (better than me, anyway).

Also, on Friday nights, Cindy is with the teenage girls and I’m with the teenage boys to do more or less whatever we want – fellowship, prayer, etc. Cindy is trying to do many things with the girls (games, baking, etc.), and I think they’re really enjoying it. As for me I’d rather spend my time preparing for Wed. and Thu. and let Friday go like it has been – we (the boys) just go to the house of one of the volunteers, eat snacks, talk for a while, pray for a bit, and watch some of a movie. They like it and I don’t really have to do anything yet, so it seems to work :-)

So between this stuff and school, we’ve been busy. One more prayer request: in two weeks I go in to try and extend my visa. Based on the visa I have (a marriage visa, to Cindy the Thai citizen) I can get a 90-day stay, at the end of which I can apply to get it extended for 1 year (and at the end of that year, I can get it extended again 1 year at a time). I don’t know how hard this will be, although I do need a lot of documentation. On September 28th, we’ll go in and apply for the extension. Pray that I get it – I’m unsure what’ll happen if I don’t, but I know it will be… inconvenient.

Although we currently don’t have a camera, I had to make a picture presentation for Ladda as she visits the States next month. What that means is that I have some new pictures to show you. I didn’t take most of them, so I thought the name “Stolen Im Jai Gallery” was appropriate. I’ve captioned some of the pictures that I thought might need it.

As to the camera, there is an operation currently underway to replace our busted battery charger. So there will be more pictures of our own in the near future, I hope.

It’s been a while since we talked about life out here, hasn’t it? Well, here’s what’s going on now.

We are currently living in a guest house next door to Im Jai (actually renting two rooms out of the house of an old man who is a friend of Ladda’s). We’re at Im Jai most of our days. The kids leave around 7, which is usually before any of us can make ourselves get here. We do devotions with the staff and volunteers around 9, and we’re currently going through The Purpose-Driven Life (which is an awesome, Truth-filled book for those who haven’t read it). We go to school every weekday from 1-3.

Recently, Cindy and I have started picking up the kids from their school after ours (Sean has been doing this for longer). Then we try to get our homework done (no easy task). Evenings we spend with the kids, talking with them, playing with them, loving them, helping them with their homework, and whatever else we can manage with the skills that we have at the moment.

It looks as if we won’t be moving to the new site until March. God has graciously provided the funds Im Jai needed for a two-story, multi-purpose building (in which will be the kitchen, cafeteria, music room, computer room, and probably some other stuff), so now it has to be built. Slowly the picture of what life will be like is coming into focus (but very slowly), and Ladda said that next week she’ll tell us which kids will be in our house! We’re very excited about that.

That’s the quick-and-boring rundown of daily life here at the moment. If there’s something you’re interested in knowing, please don’t hesitate to ask questions. It’s one of the benefits of this blog that you can ask questions, we can answer them, and we don’t have to repeat the same answer in order to tell everybody else :-)