Reflections from SE Asia

I returned late last Thursday night from an 11 day excursion to SE Asia. I think I have most of the jetlag and cobwebs shaken out by now and I wanted to record some of the things we experienced as well as things I learned while there. Since this is kind of a brain dump, I'll just put everything in bullet form. Here goes:

- It's a long way from home. If you look at a globe, we were exactly on the other side of the planet. We left home on Monday morning, May 10 and arrived in Singapore on Wednesday, May 12. A 3 hour drive from here to Charlotte. Three hour flight from Charlotte to Minneapolis. Twelve hours from Minneapolis to Tokyo. We literally ran through the Tokyo airport to catch our next flight to Singapore which was an 8 hour flight. If you're keeping score, that's 23 hours in the airplane. The next day was the final leg of our journey which was another one hour flight. So, 24 hours in the air - one way. (For security reasons, our final destination has to be confidential.)

- The good news about 24 hours in an airplane: I read 4 books. Also watched a few movies, journaled, and catnapped.

- Singapore is one of the most impressive cities/countries that I've ever experienced. Clean and green. Everything looked new from buses to cars to buildings, even the roads. They take a lot of pride in their country. It is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Singapore is a melting pot of Asia. You'll find Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Koreans, Malaysians, Australians, and more represented on this small island.

- You'll have trouble enjoying meals in SE Asia if you don't like rice. Rice was included in every meal. (The photo above is my first of dozens of meals there.) Rice and spice - two essential elements to a SE Asian dish. In addition to rice, we had some fruits and vegetables that I have never heard of along with standard things like chicken, beef, and seafood (lots of seafood). We saw lots of prawn, shrimp, squid, and fishheads.

- We visited a young female believer with tuberculosis. Pray for her as medical help is not good nor is her outlook. She could probably be treated to recovery but she would have to leave the country to seek better care. This isn't likely, unfortunately. We were heartbroken at her story.

- Radical Islam is alive and well. As if you didn't already know this from reading the papers every day, we actually heard more stories of things that Islamic fundamentalists had recently done where we were. Anything from planning to bomb a Singapore train station (that we frequented a few times) to protesting and rioting because evil American sex symbol/singer Kelly Clarkson was coming for a concert. The concert was cancelled. Not sure if it was rescheduled or not. Only a few years ago in the city that we worked in, three girls who attended a Christian school were captured as they walked to school and decapitated. I tell you this not to hinder you from joining the work over there, but to say that it's serious business. There is a deep spiritual darkness on that side of the earth.


- With that being said, one of the most encouraging things for me was the incredible work that was being done there for Jesus' sake. We visited a megachurch that is reaching thousands of people for Christ. In Singapore, we visited a missionary training school that is training and sending workers out by the thousands each year to nations all over Asia, Africa, and Europe. If I had to put my finger on the highlight of the trip, it was probably sitting down with the Founder of this school and the current president for over 3 hours just to talk about what God is doing in Asia. Their faith and trust in God challenged me deeply.

- We attended a circumcision party. Ow!

- The "DONS," our code name for an unreached people group that TrueNorth Church has adopted, desperately need your prayers. Mostly relying on the fishing industry to get by, these folks as well as millions of others there survive on one dollar a day. That's one order of french fries for us. One billion people in the world earn $1 each day. Two billion people earn about $2. Drop to your knees right now and thank God for your house, your job, and all of your stuff. And while you're down there pray that the "DONS" will hear about the amazing grace we have in Jesus. Of an estimated 4 million, only a handful of DONS are believers. Pray for the workers there.

- The great need in that part of the world burdens me but even greater than that burden is the complacency of the American Church. We are so inward-focused, so selfish, and so caught up in our petty cares of this world that we virtually ignore the Great Commission that Jesus gave us. We will answer to this one day. Most of our money stays here as do most of our people. We are comfortable, fat, and lazy. While believers there literally risk their lives for the sake of Jesus each day, most believers here struggle to get out of bed on Sunday mornings to sit in padded pews, listen to good music, and take in another sermon without doing anything about it. It makes me mad and angry. I will struggle with this burden for a long time barring a great revival in our churches. I pray that God will wake us from our slumber. The American Church has the resources to reach billions of people for Christ if we put our minds and hearts to it. Instead, the Church here is a sleeping giant.