Empty

A couple weeks ago I had a real "LOL" (trying to relate to the hip younger crowd) moment. What made it even better was that I LOL'd at myself. Truly out loud. Why? I will recap the incident for you.
I have a dirt bike that I use as my main mode of transportation. I love it. It is fun, fast and I wouldn't choose any other way to get around town. However, it is also finicky...and can be high maintenance. In fact, Carolyn once said, "Your bike is more high maintenance than I am." (I will go on record that I never said that Carolyn is high maintenance...which she isn't :-). So a couple weeks ago I had an awesome team here from Hong Kong. They were a group of 27 from an international school and contributed greatly to our work in Cambodia. Since they were such a large group I had them split up into 3 separate service teams. It worked out great, but it meant that I was driving all around Phnom Penh visiting their ministry sites to check up on them. It was toward the end of one of these particularly long days that I noticed my bike "acting up". It is hard to explain what it was doing but suffice to say  that I just knew that something wasn't right.
On may way to one site, my bike just stopped. I was in a time crunch and didn't have time to figure out what was wrong. I rationalized that it probably needed to just "rest" since I had been driving it so much. I decided to hail a tuk tuk. I explained that I needed him to drive to our guest house. As I held on with one hand and had him pull me along, I felt as if my arm would be pulled out of socket but luckily it didn't. I successfully lasted the mile to my desired location and left my bike. I continued on with my day not thinking much of it. Later that night, one of our volunteers had an incident where her purse was stolen. I had to quickly go and meet her down at the police station, which I did not know exactly where it was. However, I got some partial directions and jumped on my bike to head that way. It started up just as I thought . It just needed rest. However, 2 minutes into my ride, my bike began to make the weird sounds again and then just quit. Late at night, I had no where to park my bike. So I hailed another tuk tuk and tried to give him the directions to the police station that I didn't know directions to. Sound complicated? Yep, it was. Well, I grabbed on again and through rain and several phone calls and conversations, we made it to the police station.
Things at the station were sorted out as best as possible and I decided to find somewhere secure near the station to leave my bike. I successfully found a place that was also near my bike shop/mechanic, parked my bike and headed home. The next morning, I checked on the teams and went to retrieve my sickly property. I I got to the place where I had left it and it started right up again. I drove it directly to the shop. I explained to them the problem (luckily it was making the crazy noise as I drove up) and they got it right in. I decided to wait around for a bit to hear the bad news. With my description of the problem, they accurately decided to begin their diagnostics at the fuel pump. They checked the valve and quickly isolated the problem. They looked up at me and told me I WAS OUT OF GAS. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard at myself. I was embarrassed but also relieved that it wasn't more serious.
As I drove off, I reflected on the whole process. My gas tank was running on empty but I was still trying to do life as normal. I would get part of the way to my destination and then just quit. It reminded me of times that I would try and do life successfully without being filled up with God's Word. It just doesn't work. I try to live my life successfully but I am not running on the fuel that God created me to run on. God has designed our lives to work successfully ONLY when running on the strength of Him and His word.
But then I thought, how lucky I am that I HAVE HIS WORD. How selfish of me to think that God was trying only to remind me to fill up on His Truth's each day. This is important but it was not the only thing that God was trying to tell me. This thought came to mind when I saw our neighbor bowing continually in front of his altar of incense to the spirits of his ancestors. His hope is in dead relatives and their spirits. He doesn't have the Word of God. He can't fill up on the only thing that will satisfy him because he doesn't know about it. Neither do 90%+ of all of Cambodia. That is roughly 13,000,000 Cambodians. That is why we are here. To bring His word to those who have never heard. To fill up their tanks that are empty...when they don't even know what is supposed to fill them. To love on the sweet people here and help them to understand that they are filling their tanks with things that will not only not help them but will keep them empty and eventually lead to death.
Thanks God for the great reminder!

Believe

I was challenged last Saturday during our weekly Neighborhood Kids Outreach (NKO). It is an event where we reach out to the kids in the community around our largest school, Logos. Each week anywhere from 120 - 320 kids from the neighborhood surrounding the school come onto our school grounds from 1 - 3:30. We divide them in 2 or 3 groups, depending on numbers, and have them rotate between Bible/English lessons, soccer and pool time. By far, the highlight for the kids is their time in the pool. These children rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to swim...especially in a real pool. Consequently, we try to avoid cancelling the swimming time at all cost. However, at times it becomes necessary, for safety purposes. to keep the kids out of the pool. 

Well, that's the decision we were facing last Saturday. We had the kids divided into 2 groups. I was in the pool playing with about 50 kids and my friend Sato, the Cambodian man who oversees the activities each week, was helping out with the Bible/English time. During the first rotation of kids in the pool, the clouds started to move in and the sky darkened. As time passed, we began to hear rumbles of thunder and I was certain that the second group of kids would have to miss their swimming time. "That is such a bummer for them", I thought. "Oh well, nothing we can do now." 

30 minutes later, the rain never started and the thunder kept quiet. The second group of kids had been in the pool for about 15 minutes already and still had about 20 left. "How cool, I can't believe the ran held out", I thought. I got out of the pool and went over to talk to Sato to ask how things were going for him and to make sure that everything was running smoothly. He said things were going great. Then, with a big smile on his face, he told me about the second group's Bible time. He said that the kids that were going to swim secod were concerned that their pool time would be cancelled. Instead of resigning himself to the fact that it would rain and we would have to cancel, Sato believed that God was in control of the weather and that He could and would hold the weather off so the kids could swim. He then lead the kids in a prayer asking God to hold off the rain and then they sang some praise songs. 

Well, the second group of kids did get to swim for their entire time. And, despite the fact that this may sound like a Hollywood ending, literally as the gate closed when the last child left the pool area, drops began to fall. I was so surprised...but then not. God is in control and it took my Cambodian friend and a group of 50+ Cambodian friends to remind me of that...to remind me to believe. That encouragement came at just the right time as God knew I needed the push to believe Him for something big this week. It is so cool when God uses unexpected sources to teach us profound lessons.

A couple kids swimming at NKO

Alex pulling a train of neighborhood kids.

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Always big smiles in the pool.

My friend Sato keeping control at the outreach

Love those faces.

Cameron and I hanging with some of the kids

Abby helping one of the girls to the side.

Floodgate

Ahhh. Mid-May....the time of year when the floodgate of visitors/volunteers/teams/interns/helpers...etc opens wide and our family gets to meet a whole new round of cool people coming all the way to Cambodia to learn and serve the Lord. It really is a pleasure to be able to be at the "front door" to welcome people to Cambodia. I love to be able to show people all of the amazing things God is doing in Cambodia in general and through Asian Hope in particular.
May always starts our busy season and it doesn't usually taper off until the end of June. This year is no different. Between now and the day I leave to fly back to the States (June 29th), we will have right around 60 different visitors/volunteers come through Asian Hope. They range from a "group" of 2 to a group of 27. We will have groups or individuals from New Zealand, Hong Kong and the US. The ages will range from mid-teens to...a lot older. The teams will pitch in and help in one of our Asian Hope schools, our village development program, one of our community outreaches or work with one of our partner ministries. There is no shortage of work to be done here.

A riverboat ride on the Tonle Sap river with a group from Louisiana

A game of cards with some Asian Hope students and a team from the US

Sharing exotic treats (bugs and snake) with visiting friends.

Part of morning school gang heading to "crazy hair" day at Logos.

A team of 51 college students from Washington listening to a presentation.

An amazing photographer and videographer who shared their talents with us.

A group of 28 from Hong Kong  enjoying Angkor Wat.

More fun in our home with a team.

One of the things I love most about this part of my job, however, is to hear all of the amazing ways that God has called each person to a period of service here in Cambodia. God has uniquely wired each person in our family to really enjoy inviting visitors into our home, welcoming them to Cambodia and getting to spend one part of their life with them. We have really met some amazing people and I am sure this year will be no different.
If you or someone you know would like to spend some time visiting and volunteering in Cambodia, let us know. We would love to host you as well.

Chuckle

As I found myself chuckling out loud several times on Monday, I thought I should share a few of those things that made me laugh and that remind me that we live in Cambodia.

• The appointment: Carolyn and I had scheduled a meeting with our landlords for Monday morning. We were going to sign a new 2 year lease on our house. We were ready at 8:30 to sign and move on with our day. Well our landlords showed up a few minutes late. They were customarily well dressed and overly enthusiastic with their traditional greetings. We returned their greeting and proceeded with the pre-arranged appointment. There was a moment of awkward silence as we waited for the lease documents to be presented...it was then that our landlords asked us when we would like to meet to sign our lease...What?  Inside Carolyn and I were both laughing, outside just smiling. Isn't that what we had arranged this appointment for? We meet again on Friday. Hopefully that works out.
• Power: After the nearly futile appointment, I had to go home for a Skype appointment. I got home in time, got some coffee and had the computer all set. Literally within seconds of receiving the text that we were ready to begin, the power went off at home. Not to be discouraged, I packed up my computer and took off to a coffee shop to Skype and work. I was able to Skype but the power went out at the coffee shop soon after so I needed to find another place to continue working. Then I packed up again and headed to Logos, Asian Hope's largest school. I sat down, opened my computer and guess what happened...yep, the power went out. Really. It did return 20 minutes later but I did have to laugh, or else I would have probably said things that I wouldn't want to put in this post.
• Meddling Kids: During my Skype time at the coffee shop I saw a group of 7 Cambodian teenagers walk in. I was thinking they were probably going to be loud and unruly. When I looked up at them 5 minutes later, they were all engaged in a game of UNO. UNO? I just had to laugh out loud. Certainly not what I expected from a group of older teens out for a good time together.
• Diligent: Later that day, we had an absolute downpour. I was completely drenched when I made it home on the dirt bike. When I turned down our flooded street, I saw on old Cambodian man in front of his house just across the street from us. It wasn't until I stopped that I realized what he was doing. During super soaker downpour, he was using a small container to diligently scoop water out of the gutter and pour it on his plants. Maybe he didn't think they were getting enough water with the rain.  
• Frisbee: I was playing Frisbee in the rain with Alex and some of the guys from House of Hope (Asian Hope's Boy's home). At one point I had to go out of our neighborhood to grab an errant disc. When I walked out, I noticed an unnerving site. During the heavy rain, I saw an aluminum ladder leaning up against some electrical wires where workers had just been working. Nearby there was a large electrical box on a pole with the door open letting the rain run in.  Maybe that has something to do with our power outages.

Although there are many things that we still look at daily that remind us of how different our lives are in our new culture, we do enjoy life in Cambodia. Laughter just makes the day go by easier sometimes.

I'll leave you with a hilarious sign we saw in Thailand a while ago.  We see many like this in Cambodia as well.  Makes you laugh.

Thanks for translating into English...but what does it say?

Perspective

Perspective: "The state of one's ideas; the facts known to one." Everyone has one. Most of us usually think ours is right...until it is challenged. Until someone else comes forward and says "why don't you look at it from a different perspective?" I don't usually like that because more often than not when this happens I am already heading down the path of realizing that my perspective is either highly skewed or sometimes totally incorrect. That's what happened this morning.
I went for a run at my usual time, which is around 7:30 am. It was also the usual temp, which is around 84 degrees (heat index nearing 100). Dumb, I know. Anyways, from my perspective, I had a lot to lament during the run. I was listing them off as the kilometers ticked off:

• "It is sooo hot" (I have a/c and a fan to go home to)
• "These shoes are hurting my feet" (I have shoes)
• "The stopwatch on my ipod didn't work correctly" (I have an ipod - actually it's Carolyn's but she is letting me say it's mine for this post).
• "My eyes get stuff in them as I get blasted by dust, smoke and/or exhaust constantly" (My eyes work)
• "I'm so thirsty" (I have a tall glass of ice-cold water waiting for me at home).

As I went on and on with my laments, however, I conveniently never included the parenthetical comments. I was only seeing things from my perspective. All of the parentheses would be filled in later when one chance encounter instantly changed my perspective. I never spoke to this person, never met them and am pretty sure they didn't even see me. It all happened within just a few seconds. It was during my last lament (and subsequent parenthetical statement) that opened the flood gate to all of the other ones. On the last stretch of my run (and always the hardest and hottest) I was saying to myself:

• "My legs are sooo tired" ...then I passed a woman dragging her legs behind her as she scooted along the hot dusty pavement looking for someone, anyone, to give her some money or food. She also had a young girl walking alongside her. I was heartbroken. My perspective didn't only change, it was obliterated...(At least I have legs that work).

One of the streets I run along. Busy, dusty, hot...but it's home.

A boy loading bags of recyclables onto a trailer. The man sitting in the background was waiting for donations from people. 

Monks walk from house to house in the morning. They stand in front of your house. Once you put some money into their bag they will pray for you.

These kids are walking in the exact spot where I saw the woman  scooting along the ground.

Instantly I began thinking of all of the things I had to be thankful for. I am sure that woman would love to run and have her legs get tired. I didn't have anything with me but I knew I wanted to do something for her. So I ran the rest of the way home and told Carolyn about her. She had seen her as well after dropping the van load of kids off at school. She had also been profoundly affected when she saw her. We agreed to pack up some food, a water bottle and some money to bring to her. I quickly loaded it up and took off on the dirt bike to find her. Unfortunately she was no longer on the street...but the impact she made on me will be felt for a long time.

Sadly, this type of scenario is all too common here in Cambodia. In order to survive here there has to be some level of detachment or other coping mechanism in place. However, her presence came at the perfect time to snap me out of my lamenting and help me to view my life from her perspective.

Insignificant

When we moved to Cambodia almost 2 1/2 years ago, I was excited to get busy working and making a difference here. One of the things I did first when we arrived was to familiarize myself with all of the various departments of Asian Hope and our partner ministries. That meant meeting a lot of great people and witnessing first-hand all of the lives that they were impacting. It was such a huge blessing and encouragement. However, as much of life here can be, I was simultaneously hit square on the forehead with the 2x4 of paradox. It was only a few months after we arrived and I had just left a small Christian school that Asian Hope supports with teacher training, material, resources...etc. This particular school enrolls very poor orphans from local orphanages (a likely place to find them). As I was leaving the school I had a sudden overwhelming feeling of insignificance. I felt like a drop of water in an ocean. What could I do in country that had so much hurt, pain, poverty and loss of hope? How could I help these wonderful people? I was one person. Still not sure of where I was going, how to get there, how to ask questions if I got lost...etc.

Some sweet kids that received clothing after their homes were burned.

Sharing the gospel in a remote village.

Some of our "neighbors" at our Christmas outreach at Logos International School

A young girl working at a fish market early in the morning.

Some happy neighborhood kids at our Spring outreach.

That feeling remained for about an hour or so until I listened to what God was trying to tell me. His words to me went something like this: "You are so hilarious and full of pride. Do you really think it is up to you to make a difference here? Do you really think you can do ANYTHING to impact these amazing people for good? I have been in the business of changing lives for thousands of years. I will orchestrate change in Cambodia, in my way and in my time. It really has nothing to do with you. The only thing I need from you is obedience".

It may sound funny but that conversation lifted a huge burden from my shoulders, heart and mind. All I need to do is obey what God has set before me and the rest is up to Him. Huge sigh of relief. It was then that I was reminded of a conversation that I had just had with one of my kids. I had asked child A to clean the kitchen while I was gone. When I returned the kitchen was still a mess. In a frustrated father tone I said "Why didn't you clean the kitchen?"
"I was busy."
Snickering a bit I said, "Doing what?"
"Putting the laundry away."
"But I asked you to clean the kitchen."
"I know but I thought I would put the laundry away since I know that needs to be done, too."
"But I had asked Child B (Not what I really call them) to do that".
"Ohhhhh".

This conversation illustrated to me the importance of doing what God has asked me to do and not trying to do everything. "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams" 1 Samuel 15:22. Don't sacrifice your time, money, talents on something that God isn't calling you to do. First, you will wear yourself out completely and second, you will be doing a job that He has likely asked someone else to do. If they don't do it, that is between them and God not between you and them and God.
When I think of the issue of each person in the Body of Christ doing what God is calling us to do, I often think of a huge, beautiful tapestry. The tapestry is the work of God in the world and each thread represents one of His faithful followers. If you are standing with your nose pressed against the tapestry, all you can see are a few threads intertwining. They don't make any sense and don't even approach a masterpiece. But when you back up and see the entire thing, you see a magnificent piece of art. The few threads that you saw up close are now an integral part of the whole picture. Missing any of them would be make the tapestry incomplete. In the same way, when individual believers don't do what God is calling them to do, threads are missing from the work God is doing on the Earth.
That is why God needs obedient Christians. What is He calling you to do? What part is He asking you to play in the tapestry? You are not insignificant!

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

Unanticipated

When we moved to Cambodia nearly 2 1/2 years ago, I knew that we would run into many challenges that, although anticipated, would still take some work to navigate well. We were at least ready for them, even though there were still some surprises. For one, we had already experienced the traffic when we visited. It is crazy and sometimes drives us nuts (pun intended) but we were somewhat ready for it and have mostly adapted. We also expected the hot weather. There are some times that we would still looooove a day where it got down into the low 60's even...but if that happened there would probably have to be a frostbite alert issued in Cambodia. At any rate, we have also adjusted to the heat...as much as you can. I would have to say that the food is another anticipated challenge that we encountered on our move to Southeast Asia. In America, we loved Asian food. Carolyn and I had a favorite date place. It was a great Vietnamese restaurant that we frequented. Yummy white rice and spicy Asian flavors. What more could you ask for? Well, now we ask for anything but white rice. In an effort to explain food challenges here, I often have visitors here think of the one restaurant from back home that they would say, "I could eat there all the time and would never get sick of it". Then I challenge them to really think about how that might end up for them. What if you ate there every day (sometimes twice a day) for 3 months? 6 months? 2 years? Would you still like it? That is how it was for us moving here. Nevertheless, we have still adapted to the food since sometimes each of us will actually crave white rice if we haven't had it for a while. Weird, I know. I am so thankful that God makes us so adaptable.

Our family with a couple of dear friends on vacation at Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

However, I would have to say that one of (if not the) most profound and unanticipated thing that has happened in the past 2+ years happened mostly to Carolyn. Anyone who spends any amount of time around her (basically anything over 5 minutes...sometimes less), experiences her love, care and compassion. She has a gift to be able to make you feel like you are the only one in a crowded room during a conversation. She has a heart that connects deeply and cares immediately. You would think that that would be an asset with the kind of work we are doing...and it is. But as with so many things we have experienced, that positive is inextricably bound to a negative. It creates an unavoidable paradox. What I mean is that, we all left dear friends and family back in the US but Carolyn's connections run more deeply as a result of who she is. So to leave was heart-breaking but she is strong and we were all walking in the confidence of being in God's will so there was also great joy. However, the unanticipated aspect of this journey was that she has now made deep connections with people here. With kids that she loves almost as if they were our own. On the surface that doesn't sound like a problem. It may even sound noble and exciting to have moved here and loved so deeply in only 2 years. It is an amazing thing and neither of us would change the past 2+ years at all but there is a difficult reality that is unavoidable: for the rest of her life, her heart will be split in 2, on 2 separate sides of the globe. If we stay here, there are friends and family in America and eventually at least a couple of our kids. If we moved back to the States, there are deep bonds here that will always be. That will never change, unless all of our friends and family in America move to Cambodia with us (which is also unanticipated by me).

Carolyn and Abby on a service trip last year.

Alex and Cameron with David and Jonathan at a temple near Angkor Wat.

Carolyn with Calli and Abby at Angkor Wat.

We can only rest in that, although this was unanticipated by us, it was not unanticipated by our Creator. He has gone before us and prepared us for what we are facing. I have to remind myself of that often. We serve a faithful God who wants the best for us. I anticipate being thankful for that for the rest of my life!