I know it has been a long time since my
last blog. So here is a quick update.
We now have 113 houses on our list to
do. We have finished 30 and are on pace to finish them all up before
March 10, our new end date.
One thing I keep hearing from
homeowners is how we have brought them hope when they were hopeless.
It is hard to understand from a distance how someone could loose all
their hope. Number one is they don't know Jesus. The source of my
hope. The other big reason is everyone around here lost someone they
loved. Everyone. Some people were fortunate enough to not loose a
family member, but at least a few friends or acquaintances were swept
away. It is hard to fathom.
If were purely looking at the material
losses. Their house, the pride and joy of Japanese families for
generations, is damaged to the point that they live in temporary
shelters. Their car is likely gone. And a good number of them had
their place of work or their family owned business lost on that same
day.
When I was raising money for the World
Race I sold shirts that said sending hope around the world. They
were great shirts (thanks Wesley), but I never felt like I was in a
place that didn't already have hope. That is not the case here. I
get the honor and privilege of actually sending people hope.
Time after time people here tell us
about how they had lost hope and felt depressed after the tsunami.
They mark the day they met us as a turning point. The day we meet
is always memorable, but the day we start work really begins the
change that I can see. It is one thing to meet a strange foreigner
promising to help you. Its another to actually see them doing it.
After each house is completed, we have
a ceremony and invite a local pastor to speak a message and ask for
God's blessing on the family. At the very end we give the homeowner
a chance to speak. This is a video from one. I started the camera a
little late and I missed the part where he talks about how dark and
depressed he was after the tsunami. It is perhaps appropriate as
this is where God steps further into the story.
It is really interesting that as we are
careful to try to never miss an opportunity to share God with the the
people we meet they notice it. More than once we have forgotten to
pray and the people who aren't believers have reminded us to. They
say that praying with us gives them peace. A homeowner said today
that he is sure the reason we are able to do such good work so
quickly and without injuries is because of our prayers. What an
amazing testament to God breaking down communication barriers that he
can see the Lords hand in the work and give Him the glory!
What a blessing it is to give hope to
the hopeless.
This last video is just for fun. I
spent most of yesterday taking loads of rubble to the local dump.
The guys working there noticed a couple of "gajins" (foreigners)
struggling to unload the only truck around without a dump and helped
us out. I always get a kick out of the cranes that are on every
street picking up trash look so much like dinosaurs. This one is a
pretty good example.
It has been a long time since my last
blog. It has been amazingly busy around here the last month or so.
We now have 8 houses complete and 49 more on the list! Each and
every one of those families has a unique story about March 11 and
will be telling it for generations. We get to be a small part of
what happened next.
About 2 months ago I got moved to
assistant manager to help with signing up new houses and running the
crews for mudout and construction. Now I spend a lot of my time
either getting supplies, figuring out logistics, or going to meet new
homeowners.
One day, I had a little bit of time
before my next appointment, so I did what I usually do when there is
extra time. Find a damaged house and ask if we can fix it.
I pulled up to a house with Nobuki, one
of our translators, and we asked the lady standing outside if she
needed any help. Usually this takes 10-20 minutes because in Japan
everything is relational and people really enjoy talking with each
other. Well after about 30 seconds Nobuki turned to me and said "she
dosen't need any help". No worries, this happens all the time. I
really didn't give it a second thought.
The next day as I run by our jobiste
Nobuki tells me that a homeowner called and wants to set up an
appointment for me to look at their house. Awesome! It is much
better for someone to reach out to us than knocking on random doors
hoping to meet someone in need. So we set up an appointment for
later in the day.
I didn't know where the new house was
or the name or anything, but Nobuki did so we headed out and ended up
at the same house that had turned us away the day before.
Turns out they had talked to the owner
of the house we were working on and had realized that we were legit.
After hearing more about our program and showing me the damage they
were overjoyed to learn that we could help them.
As we were leaving they asked if we
wanted any squid. My first though was NO! But we had just eaten
lunch so I said I was full. Then Nobuki turned to me and said it
was squid to be taken home and eaten later.
No way to graciously turn this down so
he took us around to the side of his house and handed me a huge
styrofoam cooler packed full of squid. Turns out he works in a squid
processing place and sells it to the markets.
In addition to being an awesome
translator, Nobuki is studying to be a chef and is a pretty good
cook. He was stoked to have so much squid to work with. He claims
to have never seen iron chef, but he did a real good impersonation of
it. That night we had squid salad, squid stirfry, squid pankakes,
and something else that illudes me at the moment.
It is always nice when a homeowner
shows appreciation for what we are doing here and it was actually
much better than I expected, but after so much squid in one night I
really have no desire to have it again anytime soon.
rry for so long between updates.
We've been super busy working on our houses. We now have 1 done 2
started and 7 on the wait list.
Since the earthquake our homeowner,
Mrs. Endo, has warmed even more to us, which is hard to imagine. We
really prayed hard for one house to work on so we could gain the
trust of the community and God delivered big time.
She stops us daily at 10 and 3 and
forces us to sit down and eat pastries and drink all kinds of
refreshing drinks. In and effort not to be rude we're forced to
partake. The afternoon usually includes ice-cream. It is really
amazing at how receptive she is to us and how grateful she is for our
presence. She thanks each of us at least a dozen times a day.
For the last two weeks she has been
bringing in friends, neighbors, and family members daily to show off
our work. She is defiantly our best saleswoman as I think 7 of the
10 houses on our list have been direct referrals from her.
Last week while I was tearing down old,
moldy wallboard I made an amazing discovery. At the top of the
panel, inches above the waterline I found a small envelope with a few
old Japanese characters and the word "Photograph" in English.
I stopped working and immediately went
to find our new friend.
As a whole, the Japanese are very
reserved with their emotions. And since the last big quake the same
has been true of Mrs. Endo. When I handed her the envelope she
slowly opened it and as she took the photos out a tear appeared in
her eye.
She quickly wiped it away, but I knew I
had found something special. It turns out the pictures were of her
father-in-law, who is Grandma's late husband. He passed away in 1985
so finding them was a huge blessing for the both of them.
She was so excited she told us her
whole family history and told us about the amazing charcoal paintings
of her ancestors that are hanging in her house.
She later shared more of her story from
March 11. Immediately after the 3 minute long quake ended, the
tsunami warning came loud and clear. They knew what was coming.
Grandma urged her to go ahead to high ground and leave her behind.
However, Mrs. Endo would have none of that.She ran outside and found
a young man heading up the hill to come and convince her to evacuate.
The tsunami waves flooded the entire
region for hours and communication was down so she had no idea if her
husband was ok. It turns out he was working on the hill that we live
on, and was worried about his wife and mother.
He waded though the muck and climbed
through forests for hours to reach the hill where he knew they would
go if they had made it. I can only imagine the scene as they were
all reunited. After many hours the water had still not receded so a
helicopter came to take them to a shelter. It was a very small
chopper so they had to leave their blankets behind even though it was
near freezing.
Grandma needed some kind of heart
medicine so as soon as they arrived at the shelter she was separated
and taken off by the Japanese Self Defense Force. The shelter was
overrun with people to the point that everyone had to sleep on their
side because there was simply not enough room for anyone to sleep on
their back. Mrs. Endo described having a mans head right next to her
face and someone's feet squashing the top of her head. They got one
cup of rice for breakfast and dinner and a powerbar for lunch. They
stayed there for almost a week.
After days of searching, they finally
found the hospital where Grandma had been taken to and were reunited
once more.
Life is not all work and sad stories
though. Last Sunday afternoon the sun was out and the waves were
perfect so we grabbed a few boogie boards from under the house and
headed to the beach. I really love the ocean so it was a treat to
catch some waves. Even in such a joyful moment, it is still
impossible to escape the reality of what happened here almost 6
months ago. We had to constantly move down the beach to avoid the
tide carrying us into the shredded cargo containers that littered
much of the beach. Happily most of them were removed this week.
Around 8 (which is a real late start
for us) I started putting my shoes on while still kind of
dreary-eyed. After I got the first one on I went to put my second
boot on, I saw this guy just in time to avoid squashing him with my
foot.
It started off simple enough. We
finally got a house to work on that is less than two hours away from
where we live. It is literally 5 minutes from us. Its an old
traditional style Japanese home. The homeowners have lived in it for
generations and have farmed rice on the land across the street.
The architecture is amazing and there
is a cave cut out of the rock behind the house. It is quite possibly
the coolest house I've ever been in. And I have been given the task
of repairing it from the tsunami damage! To top it all off there is
no ceiling work and very little wallboard to replace. It looks like
a simple enough case of cleaning it up and putting down some
insulation and new floors.
The homeowner is a delightful lady who
shares it with her husband and mother. This afternoon, as our
manager and interpreter were off buying supplies and looking at new
houses to work on she came in with another lady and two children.
Since were all still pretty new at Japanese and they knew no English,
it took us about 20 minutes, two English-Japanese dictionaries and a
lot of roaring laughter to finally figure out what we had all
suspected. It was her mother, her daughter and two of her
grandchildren. Four generations had come to see what we were doing!
Suddenly our laughter and lighthearted
moods were interrupted by a pretty large earthquake. It turns out it
was a 6.5M quake and it was within 50 miles of us. I guess at this
point earthquakes don't really bother me. It was at least the third
quake in the sixes I can remember and I've slept through several more
in that range. What was frighteningly different was this was the
first one I have been around Japanese people for.
Once it really started shaking I looked
at the homeowner. Her face which just seconds ago was filled with
laughter to the point of crying now held a look that will forever be
burned into my mind. It was a look of pure terror. Words cannot
describe it. Then the screaming started.
As it turns out Brian had been
videotaping the whole thing due to the hilarity of our communication
difficulties. I started watching it tonight, but I had to shut it
off because of the bone chilling screams. Its all just a bit too
real, so I won't be sharing it with the world. I'm not even sure if I
will finish watching it.
After the house finally stopped moving,
the daughter and grand kids quickly ran off with terrified looks on
their faces. The lady just stood outside for a second and then
started saying something to us in Japanese. After few stressful
moments of back and forth trying to figure out if we should head to
high ground, she finally just ran inside and flipped on the TV.
Of course it was all still in Japanese,
but I saw a map of Japan with the coast surrounding us highlighted in
yellow and .5M written next to it. Tsunami warning. A few seconds
later the PA system fired up and more talking in Japanese. I picked
up my cell phone and attempted to get a hold of our interpreter, but
time after time all I got was more messages in Japanese. I finally
got a hold of him as his van was pulling up to the house.
Finally the message was communicated
that we needed to get grandma out of the house and all get to high
ground. So the homeowner went looking for grandma. She found her
mom but she was in the bathroom and when she opened the door to tell
her we were leaving grandma just laughed. Seems like everyone has
different reactions to stress. As we helped her out of the house and
into the van she just kept laughing and was in good spirits the whole
time.
It was really nice to have some
laughter among all the chaos.
We drove to the top of a nearby hill
and parked next to a cemetery. It was there that she told us that
helicopters picked them up from this very spot on March 11 because
the were surrounded by water. Awesome. Just then several
helicopters began to circle the area overhead.
It was a surreal moment for me just
like some scene from any action movie ever made. There I was
standing next to a graveyard in the midst of terrified people,
helicopters overhead and no real idea what was coming or when as we
could not see the ocean from where we were standing. We were told
tsunamis take between 5 and 20 minutes after the quake to hit land.
I did the only useful thing I could
think of, pray. Eventually I got the rest of the SP people rounded up
and our client, who judging by the alters and idols in her house is
clearly not a Christian decided to join our circle and pray with us.
After I finished she looked me in the eye and said thank you. It
looked like the fear had gone away, or at least she could hide it
better.
Eventually, the lady came back on the
PA and announced it was safe, so we returned to work. After having
internal debates as to whether we should continue working after the
terrible emotional distress the clients had gone though, we decided
to keep working.
A few seconds later here comes our lady
with some kind of treat for us. The best description I can give with
words was a fish-cookie. Only it was much better than what a cookie
that smells and tastes vaguely of fish sounds like on a blog. So we
busted our dictionaries back out and Sherry found the phrase "that
was a feast" in her dictionary. Well that got her laughing again.
I added "tasty dish" and she started howling. We laughed for
probably 5 minutes straight.
An hour or so later we headed out and
had a few more laughs as I tried to say see ya tomorrow and she tried
to make sure we had all our tools. In the end we just called an
interpreter and got that message the easy way.
I guess this was just a tiny glimpse into March 11, but I am continuously amazed at the
Japanese people and their mix of determination, patience, hard work,
and sense of humor it really is a remarkable place.
It is really hard to describe in words
the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami. I put together
a quick video to show some of the damage. I had to cut it down to a
reasonable length but what I showed was only part of a 20 or so
minute drive though the area that the previous video showed getting
inundated by the tsunami. There are only a handful of buildings
left standing. In this city alone around 6,000 people lost their
lives.
A car on top of a 3 story building
This showed the tsunami evacuation route.
The beach where the wave came ashore and took 6000 lives
The best description is it looks like a nuclear bomb went off
One of many trash piles in the city
I included a quick clip of fireworks
because there is always hope in the Lord. The devastation is hard to
comprehend and the stories we hear from virtually everyone we meet
are even harder. Our interpreter, Noel, has been a missionary in
Japan for 23 years and is an all around great guy. He really
understands the people and genuinely wants to hear about their
stories.
Pretty much everyone we have meet has a
terrifying story about the tsunami. Our neighbor watched from the
cliffs we live on as the wave came in and destroyed the nearby town
that is hidden from view. She had to stop half way though as she
described the sounds of destruction. The man who sold us our
microwave lost 8 family members. The one who sold us our coffee
maker 4.
Perhaps the most chilling story belongs
to a man who I meet yesterday who we are in the process of rebuilding
his house. When the wave hit he was in the street in front of his
house with his wife and 9 month pregnant daughter. His wife managed
to hang on to a metal fence across the street and he pointed out the
dent in it caused by her holding on to it for two hours as the wave
came in and left. He managed to find a part of the roof to hold on
to. His daughter ended up drowning just out of his reach as she
cried "Daddy! Daddy!". We were talking to him in the exact spot
where this happened.
The cheap words of comfort that we
often spew out when we hear about others struggles really serve no
purpose for times like this. All we really have to give is the hope
that the Lord will use this terrible tragedy to further his purposes.
And he is starting to answer those prayers.
I'm told that in this country with less
than 6% Christians they are starting to question the idols they
worship. Most houses I've been in have small shrines for ancestors
and places for all sorts of man made gods to sit on. I've yet to see
one intact. The people are beginning to look for answers and their
hearts are open to the Lord. We met with a pastor this week and
heard the story of a lady who was baptized today after becoming a
christian at her husband's funeral, who while he was not one had
requested a christian funeral before his death.
The local pastor told us that before
the tsunami, Japanese Christians have neglected this area calling it
too difficult. He then said that God would never called any area too
hard, so they have repented of this and begun to share with the
people here the only hope that lasts. Noel has said that in the two
weeks since he began working here he has had just as many
opportunities to share the gospel an in his previous twenty. While
this may be a bit of an exaggeration one this is clear. The harvest
is plentiful and the workers are few.
I can see the hope and life that is in
the area where several houses are nearing completion and I'm told
that in the days before we started working there everyone walked
around with their heads down and looked mostly dead. I'm thrilled
about being part of the work here.
This week I spent most of my time
making bunk beds for the future volunteers and hauling the lumber and
mattresses up to the cabins. The road is really tough, but the go
kart sized K-trucks are really good vehicles. To get the truck up to
two of the cabins about 1/3 of the trip has to be done in reverse
because the road is too narrow and the cutbacks too sharp to turn
around.
Tomorrow we are going out with a pastor
to try to find houses close to here to work on. Please pray for us
that we might find people willing to let us love them.
Lastly, if you feel called to come here
please do so. I made lots of bunks that will need to be filled
during the next 6 months. Volunteer teams usually stay for 2 weeks
at a time and work on insulation, sub-floor and sheet rock. I really
have no idea of the costs, but I think that SP covers all the costs
of the volunteers, at least once they are in the country. If you
have some construction skills, you can sign up at
http://spvolunteernetwork.org/
by registering for the Japan home rebuild project.
No trick photography here there really was that many fireworks going off at once
bout a week ago I found myself on a 747 on my second transpacific flight in the last two months. As I sat cramped and sandwiched between two pretty big dudes I started to ask myself how in the world did I end up here.
A week ago I was at a wedding, the week before that UMARMY (a mission trip for youth), and in the 4 weeks before that I pretty much alternated between mission trips and weddings. The time in between was spent either trying to meet up with great friends and family I have seen far too little recently or trying to figure out what do do with all the free time an unemployed 23 year old finds himself with.
About 3 weeks earlier sandwiched between a wedding and a mission trip I ran out of excuses and started job hunting. Eventually I found my was to a Samaritan's purse job posting. As I read over it my heart lept. The work was for a good organization doing the Lord's work I would get to lead teams of volunteers doing disaster relief, I would get to swing a hammer again. In short it was everything I was looking for and one more thing I wasn't really looking for.....in Japan.
I was really hoping to be able to find something close to home as I have spent the better part of the last year at least 8 time zones away from my family. But as I finished reading what they were looking for I really had a sense of peace about it so I started the application and sent it in. Turns out there is a ton of work to do here in Japan and they wanted to waste no time in getting started.
God has a funny way of answering prayers. So a week and a half later I have the job and start the crazy ridiculous process of moving across the world in 12 days with only 3 of those days at home. God also has a funny way of making his plans happen and I got pretty much everything done in plenty of time.
As I sat there I just wished I had just a little more time to get one thing done before I left. Change my middle seat! But in all honesty I was amazed by God's provisions for me. A sweet new job, a new country to explore, lots of work to do in His name, and new people to meet.
After arriving in Tokyo and traveling by bullet train (180 mph!) seeing Japanese construction techniques (this will need its own blog) and moving twice I settled in a cabin that sits high on cliffs overlooking the ocean and the areas hardest by the tsuanmi. I am helping set up a new base that will house somewhere around 40 staff and volunteers at a time over the next 6 months.
We wake up before 7 every day and work till well after dark, but there is so much to do time is short and the work is made great by the 3 people I share it with. Also the Japanese are huge fans of western breakfasts so the bacon and OJ in the morning makes it better too. The view isn't bad either.
The dots on the beach are shipping containers that have been buried at least half way down in the sand.
We were able to go around to some of the hardest hit areas yesterday but that really needs a blog of its own too. The devistation is absolutely stunning.
Here is a video of the tsuanmi in one of the areas we are working in. It was surreal watching it with our interpretor sharing what the people were crying out in Japanese. I really feel fortunate to be able to be a small part of helping the people of this amazing and interesting country put their lives back together.
There is so much work that needs to be done and we all need prayers for safety doing it. Also, Japan is one of the places in the world least touched by Christianity, so we need lots of prayers to be able to share Christ's love. The other day after we inspected a house and told the owner we would fix it for free, she was confused. It seems shoe couldn't figure out why foreigners would want to come and give away work and materials. She asked our interpretor "is this ok?" The idea of love like this is so foreign here she thinks it may be illegal! Lets just hope and pray that here people keep asking those kinds of questions.
First, check out my last photo album from the Race
We finished ministry and headed to KL to spend some time with our contacts Pete and Carol. I was able to go visit the Twin Towers in KL that were the tallest building in the world until 2004. I was able to go see the new Pirates movie at midnight for Cam's birthday. I went to the largest festival in the entire year in Malaysia. (it really needs its own blog and Tommy has already written one) I was able to ride the subway everywhere I wanted to go I walked all around town by myself, woops! It was just like being at home.
Then we headed to Pangkor to spend our last days as a squad relaxing and hanging out. It was a little tropical Island in the Indian Ocean. We snorkeled and rented scooters to drive around the Island. Jon had his smoothie stolen by a monkey and we saw endangered birds and a 6 foot monitor lizard. It was a great way to say goodbye to the family I had spent the last year working, sleeping, breathing and eating with. I already miss them and I'm sure I will until we are reunited again in heaven.
We had one more night in KL and I was fortunate enough to get to eat dinner with Pastor Navid, the man I met at Tony's church who was a pastor in Pakistan. Talking with him and hearing the stories of all the situations he has been in, from having his car set on fire to hearing about good friends being martyred, he never showed any anger. He told me about his good friend Shahbaz Bhatti, formerly the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet, who was assassinated in in March for defending the rights of all minorities.
Through the tears in his eyes he told be about how Shahbaz's death had led many people to Christ and how thankful he was for God's faithfulness. He told me about his own heart to reach out and serve Muslims and how he wanted to spend his life loving them. It was then God slapped me in the face with the realization of how much he loves Muslims. He loves them enough to die for them. Romans 5:8 says " But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God loves all people with the same intensity he loves me.
A few days earlier I read an article on CNN that talked about all the controversy that erupted over someone putting Osama Bin Laden on the church prayer list. I was honestly shocked that people objected. But people in the church were calling him a monster and pure evil. While I can't condone the way he lived his life, if we believe Jesus when he says that the only way to the father is through him, then I shudder to think of him now and know he surely needs all of our prayers.
In Matthew 5:44 Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We need desperately to pray for them. There is no better example of God using this than the stoning of Steven. When the pharisee are stoning him he echoes Jesus' prayer on the cross for his own persecutors. He says "Lord, do not hold this sin against them".
Saul was there and heard all of this. Steven's prayer was answered and his love for his persecutors in some way had to help Saul, the self proclaimed greatest sinner of all time, become Paul, the greatest missionary of all time. No one can run further than God is willing to chase them. No one can escape the love of the Father, Creator and Redeemer. Thanks to Jesus, no one is separated from God. So we need to pray for all our enemies that God might encounter them and change their lives.
At this point in my life I really don't know what God has in store for me, but I know I am called to love all his children.
Our last night in the jungle 7 of us
headed out around sunset to try to find a hot spring that we had been
told about. It was supposed to be 15 minutes away, so we figured no
big deal, we'll just head there swim a little and head back. We were extremely fortunate to have a van to use this month, but it was an old van and had a few issues as you can see from the video.
With 11 people in the house our plan to
leave in 2 minutes stretched to 30 and we ended up not leaving until
after sunset. We headed down the dark road for about 30 minutes and
just as we were about to turn around and give up we arrived at a city
park. As we went in to explore the pitch dark park we found out it
was in fact the spring we were looking for.
We examined the water and saw the algae
and fish that were in it, read the posted sign about health risks of
swimming and headed back to the van.....to grab our towels. The
water was pretty nice and all the guys had a great time swimming,
the three girls that came refused to get in the water and were
certain we would get sick from it. 1 Week out and so far we made the right choice. It was an
amazing way to spend our last night in the jungle. Swimming in a hot
spring lit by the moon and lightning at a distance.
After an hour or so we got back in the
van and push started it in the dark, just as it was starting to
sprinkle. As soon as I pulled onto the road the heavens opened up
and the rains came. The headlights proved to be woefully inadequate
and the water was rushing over the road.
I could see literally only 20 or 30
feet in front of me and there were debris and potholes that needed to
be missed. There was no defogger, so I had to constantly wipe down
the windshield with a towel. It was hard enough to miss the potholes
in the daylight, at night with the rain they were downright
impossible to see.
There were several downed tree branches
that went floating by, and as I drove through the ever winding road,
we started to hit low spots and often in the turns it was impossible
to see where the road was heading. I remember Dan in the back
laughing at the conditions we were in and asking how I was keeping
the van on the road.
It was then that I knew without a doubt
the answer to the question. Prayer I answered back immediately. I'm
not sure when I started, but at the moment I realized fully that the
whole time I had been praying for guidance and vision. The answer to
why the van was still on the road was simple, prayer. Every time I
couldn't see the turns, there was a lightning strike. Every time
oncoming traffic blinded me by failing to turn their brights off I
never lost sight of the line on the road. When the line disappeared
I could find the edge of the road, so we didn't go off.
As we neared the house, Jon, who was
next to me, began to yell frantically. I looked over only to see the
paperclip that was holding the electrical system together glowing
orange in the dark cabin. Well then I started praying for that too.
After few seconds it cooled down and we never lost power. I
remembered the line in Amazing Grace and God made it real to me.
T'was grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me
home.
That journey is a great analogy for our
lives. We're all living our lives and we can really only see a
little bit into the future. We go along with faith that when the
there are unexpected turns, God will light the way. When we pass
though the floods they will not sweep over us. When there are trees
in our way we will have enough time to see them and avoid them. The
reason we will arrive home is simple, God loves us and cares for us,
and the best way to keep our lives on the road is constant prayer.
As well as planting seeds we were also
given the opportunity to water seeds, both on the farm and in
Churches.
One day while working on the farm, the
water stopped working. Now water in this part of Malaysia is spring
water run in huge flexible pipes from a nearby stream or spring on a
mountain. It turns out the source was running dry, so we needed to
move the pipes to get water to keep the plants alive.
After dragging 6 150 meter long pipes
down the mountain the day before, we dragged them into the jungle.
Manik was leading the way pulling the huge, heavy pipes and it seemed
like he was taking the roughest, toughest course through through the
jungle.
He was pretty much running as we were
just trying to keep the pipe moving and not fall off the slippery
rocks and tree trunks we were climbing on. Occasionally we would
have enough footing to help him pull the pipe, but most of the time
he was too far ahead to see so we just kept following the pipie.
About 30 minutes into this, the sky
opened up and it began to pour down rain. Now it was pretty much
impossible to move, but the pipe and Manik were still moving at
breakneck speed so we kept trying to keep up.
After maybe 30 more minutes we got to
the thickest brush I've ever seen. The only way though was to
commando crawl through the tiny hole Manik had cleared. He never
slowed down and I still have no idea how he made it so quick through
the tiny hole in the thick thorn bushes, but about 20 yards after we
made it though we came out on the path and had the pipes run.
We were soaked to the bone and covered
in mud and leeches. So much so that we were still pulling them off
in the van on the way home. One managed to get loose in the van and
grabbed on to me and I found him while we were out for dinner that
night. The next day we connected all the pipes we had run and had
plenty of water to keep the green beans growing in the viscous sun.
We were also fortunate enough to be
able to water some spiritual seeds as well. We got to speak to
Tony's church in KL and share some of our testimonies. Jon and I got
to hang out on Saturday with the college guys who lead worship, and
I got to meet a pastor from Pakistan who is one of the more
remarkable and faithful men I have had the privilege to meet.
Hopefully, Ill get the chance to share a little more of his story
later.
The next weekend we got to venture out
into the jungle to speak to a church that needed some encouragement.
We hopped in our less than reliable van and headed out on what we
thought was an 2 hour journey.
After 2 and a half hours, we ran out of
gas. As the driver and 2 others went out to get gas, I stayed back
and looked after the van. After 20 minutes or so it began to
sprinkle and right then a tow truck pulled up. As God would have it
the driver was named Moses. He was a Christian (which is rare in
Malaysia) and he towed us to the gas station for free. He then gave
us directions told us that we were still 2 hours out and we went on
our way.
The church members had been waiting for
2 hours by the time we arrived, but they were eager to hear what we
came to share. They led us in worship and we got to speak and pray
for them. Then they eagerly shared dinner with us. It was just like
we were back in Africa.. The music, the preaching, the travel
issues, the welcoming people. It was really like one extra day in
Africa.
At the end of the week we had been
fortunate enough to do some serious watering.
A couple of days ago we were given the
task of planting seeds in the ground. While I was hunched over in
the scorching sun digging through the dirt with my bare hands I had a
lot of time to think about all the farming parables Jesus used.
In one parable Jesus talked about how
the same seed scattered into different soils would yield different
results. In order for the seed to grow and produce fruit the soil
had to be loose, rock free, and weed free. It was far more work to
get the soil ready for seeds than it was to plant the seeds.
We had to get rid of the trees in the
area and drag the wood off, then we had to cut down the grass that
was growing in the field, either with a machete or with the tractor.
Then we had to loosen the soil up with a hoe or with the tiller. This
was days of work, but it had to be done or the seeds would not be
able to grow.
I think this is very inductive of what
ministry here in Southeast Asia has looked like. Evangelism is very
relational and this mostly Muslim nation, Christian Missionaries are
not received with open arms. Because of the hardened hearts of the
people here most of the people we meet don't know the real reason we
are here.
While our ministry is in part to help
raise money for the churches in KL, we also get to work side by side
with Manik and Nosedrul, two Muslim farm workers from Bangladesh. We
get to show them God's love for them, pray for them and pray for the
opportunity to share the gospel and plant a seed.
In the same way that seeds planted
before the soil is ready will not bear fruit, we are cautious not to
try to cram Christianity down their throats. It takes a great deal
of faith to just live out what we believe instead of standing up and
proclaiming the Gospel like we did in Africa, but this is the same
way that we will be sharing it back home It takes a great deal of
faith to work the soil and wait for God to plant the seed, but that
is what we have been asked to do this month.
If we can show that Christian Americans
love Muslims and that we accept them where they are at, then maybe we
can change their outlook on Jesus and start to soften their "soil".
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