Moving Back

Moving Back

Does moving back to one's hometown constitute moving home? Because it looks like that may be what I'm doing. There seems to be a job in the works with housing, my cats welcome, and a place to park my car. The job itself involves decorating, setting up displays, and working the till. And as a side job, they might want me to start an eBay selling site, which I used to do in college. So we'll see what happens with this one, but it seems like the best plan.

How Can a Cow be holy Except in India?

How Can a Cow be Holy Except in India?

Important thing learned this week: NEVER say 'holy cow' to someone from India.

What to do, what to do.

I'm in Solvang for now, but will be in Santa Maria for the next two days before coming back.

The end of tour is approaching. Everyone is trying to figure out on the fly what to do next. I have four or five possibilities, and am waiting to see which one pans out. Right now, working in Yakima for a while looks probable, but there's still half a chance of Tucson, Solvang, or Seattle. And Portland would be lovely sometime. Eergh. Hopefully this sill all sort itself out in due time. Until them, I'm still living out of a suitcase and dreaming of my featherbed. And loveseat.

St. Augustine is kicking my butt

St. Augustine is kicking my butt

And, for the record, is it supposed to be 'ah-gus-teen' or 'uh-gus-tin.'

I read one page a day if I'm lucky, mouthing along the words, repeating everything at least twice, and running my finger along every line.

Quite a change from my four-books-in-a-day summers. It's driving me up the wall. My favorite sentences aren't those that are the most profound, just those I understand on first reading.

Eating like Kings

Eating Like Kings

Yesterday I ate lunch at Pasguccis Italian on State Street. For dinner I had Galanga Thai. And this morning for breakfast our homestay took us to the Brown Pelican on the coast. It was perfectly sunny, with waves lapping on the beach, and a little breeze.

A few days off and fresh orange juice

My homestay was so awesome. A former Wycliffe missionary. She served with her husband. And she has an orange tree in her front yard. So this morning she let us pick oranges and take fresh juice with us to the show. So Vicky and I squeezed a half-gallon ourselves. It was so good. I hate pulp. But in fresh juice it isn't a problem. It was yummy.

I can tell I'm tired. I'm typing about juice.

If you've seen the need

"If you've seen the need, you've heard the call."

A friend told me that once, and I wrote it in my quotebook. My general wonderment for the day is: Is that always true. Is seeing a need enough divine mandate to start working on a project?

Chino

I'm in Chino today

Tonight we're speaking for a youth group. This time, we aren't all involved, just supporting the two guys on the team who are giving their testimonies.

And I'm trying to get a handle on our food order. It turns out that our regular supplier can't handle us this far south, so I'm trying to set up an account with the L.A. office, by way of the Wycliffe office, by way of the person in charge who is in the hospital, so that I can get in an order today for a pickup tomorrow or Thursday. Yesterday the food company was supposed to call me to get the number to fax the credit form to the Wycliffe office. And I was on the road all afternoon and couldn't hound them. To top it off, I left the folder with all my order information in the truck. I'm waiting for the people who have the truck to drop it by...

And it's Jessica's Birthday! Happy Birthday Jess!

Revolution in World Missions

Revolution in World Missions: K.P. Yohannan

At Acquire the Fire I picked up a free copy of a book at the booth next to me. Dr. Yohannan is founder and international director of Gospel for Asia. He was born in India, and later moved to the States with his wife, Gisela.

I was challenged by what he had to say. Most of it was not entirely new information, but it solidified a lot of conclusions I'd drawn that had been floating around in my head.

This book says that the time for Western missionaries going into Asia to preach the gospel is over. There are many reasons for this:
1. Most countries in the 10/40 window are closed. Western missionaries cannot go into the country and preach the gospel freely. Some go in under the banner of charitable aid, but hundreds of years of colonization in Asia and India show that there is little long term yield.

"History already has taught us that this gospel-without the blood of Christ, conversion and the cross-is a total failure. In China and India we have had seven generations of this teaching, brought to us by the British missionaries in a slightly different form in the middle of the 19th-century. My people have watched the English hospitals and schools come and go without any noticeable effect on either our churches or society...The trouble with the social gospel, even when it is clothes in religious garb and operating within Christian institutions, is that is seeks to fight what is basically a spiritual warfare with weapons of the flesh."

2. Indigenous peoples are the best to reach their own countrymen. They know the language and the culture. They do not try to 'westernize' their converts. And it takes only around $1,000 a year to support an Indigenous missionary, where a Western Missionary takes anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000.

The biggest criticism in his book is on the American Church. He states that God has blessed our nation with more abundance and freedom of influence than any country in the history of the world. Instead of using our blessings in turn to bless others, we hoard our treasures, pouring our monies into building projects, social reform, classes, groups, and programs.

"A friend in Dallas recently pointed out a new church building that cost $74 million. While this thought was still exploding in my mind, he pointed out another $7 million church building going up less than a minute away. These extravagant buildings are insanity from a Two-Thirds World perspective. The $74 million spent on one new building in the United States could build more than $7,000 average-sized churches in India. The same $74 million would be enough to guarantee the evangelization of a whole state-or even some of the smaller countries of Asia..."

"Religion, I discovered, is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States. Entering churches, I was astonished at the carpeting, furnishings, air conditioning and ornamentation. Many churches have gymnasiums and fellowships that cater to a busy schedule of activities having little or nothing to do with Christ. The orchestras, choirs, "special" music-and sometimes even the preaching-seems to me more like entertainment that worship. Many North American Christians live isolated from reality-not only from the needs of the poor overseas, but even from the poor in their own cities. Amidst all the affluence live millions of terribly poor people left behind as Christians have moved into the suburbs. I found that believers are ready to get involved in almost any activity that looks spiritual but allows them to escape their responsibility to the Gospel."

I found this book very challenging. The call to live simply and give "even beyond our means" has been on my heart for a long time. I was also thrilled to learn that in a book based on the premise that missions money would be better spent sending money to native leaders than sending ourselves, the three ministries he commended were Wycliffe Bible Translators, Youth With a Mission, and Operation Mobilization.

Acquire the Fire

Boldly Going...

Yesterday our entire team woke up at 3am and left at 4 for San Diego to volunteer at the Acquire the Fire conference. I'll admit we were in a bad mood on the way down, on account of lack of sleep. (I slept for a few minutes in the truck while they went to Starbucks, and became irrationally angry upon being woken up) But upon arriving and being given our official volunteer t-shirts, we perked up. And they gave us coffee. And donuts.

Three of us had signed up for working merchandise (which is odd, because normally I get on a bandbox about all the stuff that makes Christianity a billion dollar business - but the merchandising wasn't out of hand, and there were other booths like Gospel for Asia and ATF's academy, so I'll abstain). Aaron went to the conference's praise and worship band's booth, and Julie and I worked for Thousand Foot Krutch. The rest of the team worked as ushers and security inside the event.

It was a great day. I didn't see much of the conference, only one skit and the first song TFK sang (from their latest album Phenomenon). But I got to sit in the sun with Jules and Jared (who ran the TFK booth) and Aaron, who made his way to ours when his wasn't busy. The only bad part of the conference for us was two other volunteers asking us to "watch theirs for them." Well, they were gone for a long time, and some ATF staff told us we needed to watch the merchandise while they tracked them down. Then, the seminar let out and we were left trying to tell people that no, we couldn't take their money and please try the next booth over. And it turned out that Aaron had been diverting his customers to me. That was stressful. But ATF staff took over, and I went back to my own booth and sold temporary tattoos, CD's and t-shirts.

The conference ended at 9:30, and Jared gave the three of us our own TFK t-shirts for helping him out. And we drove home. Exhausted.

The most exciting thing to come out of the conference was Jessica getting the call to go on a mission trip this summer. She'd been struggling with where to go, and housing in Portland had kept falling through. Now she knows why.