Starting conversations

Last week I took one of the students I mentor to a local cafe to give him practice telling Bible Stories. I asked him how do you start a conversation with someone which will lead to a spiritual conversation. He didn't know.  Then I pointed to the picture on the wall of the cafe.  "Do you think that might be a starting point?",  I asked.  "How?".  "Well, those 3 words are actually from the Bible - 1 Corinthians 13 and that can be the starting point ...".  

The woman we spoke to didn't know where the sign came from or what it meant.  Now she knows that it is actually from the Bible.  We didn't tell her a Bible story that day but we hope to go back this week.

3 Books impacting my life right now

Did someone say that "you are what you read"? or is it "you are what you think"?.  There was a time a couple of years ago when a minister asked me what I was reading at the time and my mind went blank.  It might have been because I hadn't been reading anything significant at the time.  It probably reflected the spiritual state that I was in at the time.  I had been stagnate as a Christian for a few years, not moving forward, not growing.

Fortunately, God helped me through that time and my passion for reading, learning and growing as been rekindled.  I have 5-6 books on my desk now which reading.  

But the 3 books that have had the greatest impact over the last year are these:-

1. Telling the Gospel Through Story - Evangelism that keeps hearers wanting more (Christine Dillon)

2. Unreached - growing churches in working class and deprived areas (Tim Chester)

3. Discipleshift - Five steps that help your church to make disciples who make disciples (Jim Putman & Bobby Harrington)

"Telling the Gospel Through Story" continues the journey God has been taking me through in relation to Bible Storying.  The way I do evangelism and teach the Bible has been completely transformed by this journey which started 5-6 years ago.  God brought the author, Christine Dillon to visit us at a crucial time when I'd gone off the storying track for a while.

"Unreached" was highly recommended by Ray Galea in a talk I was listening too.  It exposed my middle class and how it had affected my efforts at ministry to the working class and deprived areas.  

"Discipleshift" I came across as I was following an email thread on Bible Storying.  Jim Putman's church was given as an example of where a discipleship approach to church was implemented successfully with great effect.  Robert Coleman who wrote, "Masterclass of Evangelism" which is a key book for our centre, contributed to this book too.  

You won't regret buying and being transformed by these books.

God goes ahead of us

Karen Church Camp

I don't think that I've ever been as scared in a car as I was on this trip (o.k. perhaps going 180km in a toyota corolla on a road in South Africa comes close - I wasn't driving!).  The roads were mountainous, steep and narrow.  A few times we slipped backwards down the hill and the student who invited us jumped out of his seat petrified.  He had in this situation before a few years back when some of the other passengers in the car had been killed.

But God went ahead of us, providing a member of the local church to be the driver for the 12 hour journey who had experience in this type of journey in his days in the army.  There is no way that I would have been able to drive like he did.

God worked in many other ways, especially in giving opportunities to train our students and the church members in Bible Storying.

It was not an easy trip with cold showers in the river and no electricity,  but there were many blessings in what God did in us and through us.

First fruits

I have lived in cities all my life before moving to the James O Fraser Centre.  I wasn't much of a gardner or farmer or handyman.  Here we raise pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, farm rice and corn.  It's been a steep learning curve but a good one.  I've learnt so much.  My latest project is a strawberry patch.  Back in Australia I couldn't even keep any of the strawberry plants I bought alive.  Here after learning about soil, watering, sun and fertiliser, strawberry runners, I've taken 1 strawberry pot and grown it to 3 patches of strawberries with about 20 strawberry plants.  The first fruits have just come out.  Who would have guessed all this from a "city boy".  There are so many new skills I've learnt since coming to Thailand.  It's wonderful the places God has taken me to.

Mormans in Lampang

We were back in Lampang last weekend and we went to the Saturday walking market for dinner.  I saw these two mormons and I tried to avoid them by going into a shop and pretending to look at the merchandise.  However, they were not to be deterred and one followed me into the shop and tried to strike up a conversation with me.  He tried to speak to me in Thai (assuming I was Thai) but I replied in English telling him that I'm not Thai.  Immediately his next question was to ask me if I wanted to come to church tomorrow.  I said, sorry, that I would be going to another church where I would be preaching.

So that was the end of the conversation.  When I peaked over my shoulder to see what they were doing next I saw them praying together right in the middle of the market.  I couldn't hear what they were praying but it looked like they were asking for God's help in finding someone responsive at the market (as they hadn't had any success while I'd be observing them).

Although I can't agree with their teaching, I wished someone of the people in our own churches had the same commitment and zeal for outreach.

Harvest

Harvest is over and the rice is in, all 205 sacks.  Each sack would weigh at least 20kg so we have at least 4 tonnes of rice!  Hopefully this should be enough to feed our 35 students and 4 staff families.  Last year the harvest wasn't so good and we ended up having to buy rice which was quite expensive.  This year we had a much better crop.  Today, the day after the milling of the rice was finished, it rained for many hours.  Praise God that we were able to harvest and mill the rice with just a day to spare.  Having never worked in a farming situation before, I'm learning so much about how dependant we can be on the weather (and ultimately God) for a successful harvest.  The same could be said about harvesting people for God's kingdom.

Mission Team

I had the opportunity to lead a group of our students on a mission trip to a Lisu village about an hour and half away from JOFC.  I wasn't sure how things would turn out as I wasn't sure exactly what we were going to be doing before we left.  The students were the ones doing most of the organising and I provided guidance as needed.  The village we went to had about 200 families of which 35 were Christians.  We worked with a local pastor in organising an outreach event as well as visiting houses in the village.

Praise God for the way this mission turned out.  I was so proud of the students and their willingness to give it their all - we were all exhausted by the end of the two days.  We saw God answer our prayers and as he worked within and through us.

Almost of our this team have gone out in mission again, some into bordering countries and others to another town further away.    We are excited about the future of these students and what God will do through them.

Homeschooling

There are great things about homeschooling and there are the not so great things about homeschooling.  Someday homeschooling brings my wife great joy, somedays it reduces her to tears. There are a library of books on the pros and cons of homeschooling so I won't go into it here.  I know that when I've had to step in for my wife, my kids can bring the worst out of me.  My patience and love can disappear in a moment.  One of the hardest things right now is a having a little toddler while trying to homeschool.  It is hard to reason with someone whose vocabulary is limited to "mama", "cracker" and imitating pig grunts.  This is a stage of our lives for how long we don't know, but it will certainly be a time we all look back too with lots of memories.

Whole of life discipleship

Student reflecting in the middle of rice transplanting

The concept “whole of life” discipleship is foundational to what we do at JOFC. We believe that students will learn as much outside of the classroom as inside. Rice planting is a good example of what we mean by “whole of life” discipleship. Each year at planting time, we stop classes and all the staff and students go to the rice fields for a week of rice planting. By the end, we are more tired and sore than we have ever been in our lives. Surely there must be a more efficient way of growing rice. A search on Google shows that, yes, machines that can speed up the process!

However, at JOFC, we wouldn’t invest in such a machine even if we had the money. Rice-planting week is integral to the “whole of life” discipleship vision of JOFC. It is as we get muddy and dirty, hot and tired, as our bodies ache and we don’t want to do it anymore, that we see true character come out—both in the staff and the students. It is much easier to hide your true self in the classroom behind correct theological answers, than working out on the rice fields.

We don’t just send the students to do the hard manual labour while we sit at our desks preparing for our next classes. As teachers, we lead the way and set the example. The long, monotonous hours of pulling and planting provide opportune times to chat and for students and staff to open up to each other.

One worship evening at the end of another tiring rice planting day, one of the teachers stood up and openly apologised, asking forgiveness from two students whom he had spoken strongly to in the rice field. He encouraged everyone to go and seek forgiveness from anyone else if they needed to. This is what “whole of life” discipleship is about—through rice planting trials, together we see our need for humility, forgiveness, and fresh starts.

Twisted roots

This is a carrot which I grew in my vegetable patch in front of our house.  When it was in the ground and I could only see the top of the carrot it looked so good.  But when I pulled it out, only then did I see the roots - all twisted and deformed.  

It is a great illustration of many aspects of the Christian life.  Things can look good from one perspective but if we scratch beneath the surface, we can how things really are.  And the real problems have roots which go deep and far back in our lives.

A couples of weeks ago, some of students did something which I found disturbing yet they themselves had no idea that they were doing anything wrong.  Indeed they thought that it was quite funny.  However, having come from outside their culture, I could see things with a different perspective. 

I was also reminded at our annual missionary conference of how missionaries can have a "superior" attitude and express "latent racism" towards the people and culture they work in.  This is so true and something which we must be very aware and careful of.  Coming as a missionary and thinking that we have the "answers" when we can easily be blinded of our own cultural faults.  This can cause missionaries to be an obstacle rather than a help to the work of God's kingdom.