I'd like to teach the world…

There are different kinds of people in the world.

There are Coke people. These are cool people, up on all the latest fashion, beloved by friends and enemies alike, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. These are people you want to marry your daughter, be your boss, and watch on "Jeopardy." These are happy people.

There are Pepsi people. These are insecure people, people who prefer imitation leather instead of the real thing, and are constantly challenging Coke people to a taste test. These are people you want to cut off on the freeway, live next door to your evil boss, and see tackled on "COPS". These are unhappy people.

Then there are Dr. Pepper people. These are weird people, people who talk to themselves in the grocery store, believe Kennedy was killed by aliens from Area 54, and talk about Dublin, Texas as if it were the birthplace of the leprechauns. These are people you want to sit next to your boss on a long flight, see pulled over on the freeway, and watch on "Survivor." These are crazy people.

The thing about Dr. Pepper is that you can only get it in about .00031% of the developed world. In other words, most of the time, the Dr. is not in the house.

Which brings us to Cambodia. (Doesn't everything these days?) The Dr. isn't in the house here, either. Imagine you made a list of the healthcare available to you? What would you include on it, right off the top of your head?

Would you include the ability to brush and clean your teeth? In our trips to the brick factories this week, we're taking each family a bag of rice (from 121), and a hygiene and medical bag (from our fellow servants Bridgeway). Before we hand out anything, we demonstrate how to use everything in the medical/hygiene bags.

We first demonstrate brushing your teeth, using some kids in the audience as guinea pigs, challenging them to see who can brush the longest. Yesterday, two girls lasted about five seconds before they had to spit out the toothpaste, not because it wasn't Crest, but because they had never tasted it before. They were 15 (ish, it's hard to tell here).

Would you include having soap and water? Our second demonstration is how and when to wash your hands and why. For this we pull in some of the men in the crowd. On Tuesday, the men dipped their finger tips in the bowl; immersing their hands and using soap was a foreign concept to them.

Would you include (isopropyl) alcohol and band-aids? Again, we demonstrate how and when to use these, and again, it is a foreign concept. (So much so that our partners repeat the demonstration every time they take in the kits.)

This is not ignorance. It is abject poverty. It is poverty as foreign to us in the U.S. as the toothbrush is to them. It is poverty generated by spending half of their meager income on their lean-to houses owned by the brick factory owner, and not earning anything when no bricks are made during the entire rainy season. It is poverty that makes even the barest of essentials (to us) completely unknown to them.

What can you do with this information? Pray. Ask the Lord how you personally can be a part of fighting all kinds of injustice, including abject poverty. Ask Him how you can be generous. He told us that of whom much is given, much is expected. Compared to these, we have been given the moon, so expectations from the Lord are sky high. Are we, are you, living up to those expectations?

And when you have the answer (and you will have the answer, He's just waiting on you to ask the question), be doers of the word, not hearers only.

Oh, and have a Coke. It will make you happy. And maybe sing in perfect harmony.

What an awful church!

I went to an awful church today.

They didn't have Starbucks coffee. They didn't have any coffee. Good grief, they didn't have any snacks at all. It's like they didn't even care to satisfy our morning cravings.
They didn't have a sign on their building; it didn't seem to be important that people know where they are. Come to think of it, they really didn't even have a building, just a room in what looked like a strip center. No decorations, no cross, no baptistry, nothing.

And no chairs, so we had to sit on the floor. On the floor! Are you kidding me? Did they think we were fourth-graders? Not only were we on the floor, but we were actually touching each other, we were so close. Have these people never heard of personal space?

They didn't have a band. They didn't have drums. They didn't have bass. They didn't have any brass instruments. They had a single guitar (played by a women, mind you, don't get me started). I've heard better music around a campfire on the beach. And get this — they didn't have any screens! They had an overhead  (hey, the 70's called and they want their projector back!) pointing to a sheet. A sheet! Like from a bed!

And children? Not only did they not have a children's program — no kids church, no dramas, no bible stories — one of the member's child was distracting during the entire service, making noises, walking around amongst the people (on the floor; did I mention we were on the floor?). It was absolutely unacceptable.

And the pastor? Where to begin: he didn't wear shoes, much less a coat and tie; he clearly had never been to seminary, much less graduated; he didn't speak our language and made no efforts to accommodate our particular needs (sure, some of the congregation jumped in to translate, but really, would it hurt him to learn another language?). What kind of a leader can you be if you can't even be bothered to put on shoes in the morning?

And when he was finished with his sermon, he just opened up the floor to anyone and everyone to give their testimony. Honestly, as if we care about some stranger's "religious experience" — they sounded like a bunch of holy rollers, and from what I heard, the pastor's lack of religious training clearly showed in his congregation's testimonies. Talk about simple — all they had to say was how someone had shared Jesus with them and their life had been changed. Nothing about their quiet times, nothing about any insights they'd gotten from BSF, nothing about anything that would be of practical use.

One room, barely 25 people crammed together sitting on the floor, singing to words projected onto a sheet, listening to an untrained pastor preach a sermon, and unsophisticated people drone on about how Jesus had changed their lives. What an awful church!

I wonder if we can go back next week?

A Perfect Day

What is a perfect day? It is different things for different people, I suspect.

For some, it's playing a round at Augusta. With Tiger. (If I played golf, it would be Jack for me, which tells you I'm not as young as I look.)

For others, it would be watching Josh Hamilton hit a walk-off grand slam in the seventh game of the World Series at the Ballpark in Arlington. (They have to get past the Tigers, first.)

For still others, it would be… well, maybe something like yesterday.

The day began early — we were all awake by five, although some didn't actually make it out of bed for another hour-and-a-half. (No, it wasn't me, I was up at 5:15a. And, yes, I realize the irony of that being mentioned in the same sentence as "perfect day" when I am involved.) Showers, breakfasts, and a morning devotional later, we were on the way to our mission partner's restoration house for girls rescued from sex trafficking.

The party began with the girls performing a program for us. There was group singing, individual singing, a group dance by some of the younger girls, a traditional cocoanut dance (with some of the girls decked out as guys, which was great fun), and another traditional dance. They were all spectacularly good (not that we're biased). Jennifer leaned over during this time and said, "Would anyone mind if we take them home with us?"

We ate lunch and had humongous portions of a humongous cake, at which time we were warned that it was a tradition to rub icing on the visitor's faces. "Really? How exactly did that become a tradition?" "I don't really know," says the guy who started the restoration center, not sounding at all convincing. Sure enough, we were soon wearing at least as much icing as we'd eaten.

Next was crafts. Erica, Jen, and Katherine showed the girls how to make bracelets with strips of cloth, but the girls were way ahead of them, and were soon making headbands, anklets, and all in all doing a better job in ten minutes than we did in all of our of practicing leading up to the trip. But we're perfectly fine with that. Mostly.

While the girls were running artistic circles around everyone, Mike and I were blowing up water balloons. A lot of water balloons. (At one point, one of the Khmer staff that was helping us looked at the stack we already had and said, "How many do you need?" with that tone of voice that said, "Crazy Americans, you already have plenty!") When you play water balloon volleyball (four girls on a towel, throw it to another towel held by four girls), you need roughly six water balloons per towel per minute. We had eight towels. The math is left as an exercise for the reader.

The actual "volleyball" portion of water balloon volleyball only lasted, I don't know, maybe 45 seconds, and then it was just a water balloon fight. With fifty girls, another twenty or so staff, and us. It was hardly any fun at all. I hope we don't have to do that again. At least, not until today. Today would be a good day to do that again.

After that we lined the girls up into five lines and did a series of sack races. They had a blast, or at least appeared to, but as much fun as they had racing, I think they enjoyed the last race most of all — five of the staff lined up in the sacks and took off. The girls went nuts, yelling and laughing and screaming for their favorite to win. Yes, today, today would be a good day to do that again. Seriously, can we do that again today?

Was it a perfect day? Well, I've married the woman of my (and may others) dreams, I've heard a judge say, "Ashley, you are now officially a Rice," and I've been in the hospital room when they brought in the WCG (World's Cutest Grandbaby). So, no, I don't think it was a perfect day.

But it's in the Top Five.

Ten Years After

She did not discover until she was an adult that her father had won the battle over how to spell her name; she had been spelling it wrong her entire life. (Actually, he supposedly had lost the battle, but since he was the one that filled out the birth certificate…)

Her nickname, although common today, was given to her accidentally by a grandchild who couldn't pronounce "Grammy."

She only ever cared for one man, whom she met at 15, married at 18 on the day they both graduated from high school, and was hopelessly in love with until he passed away the year after their 50th anniversary. In the years following, she still got testy if it was suggested that she ought to find herself a man. (It was never seriously suggested.)

The reason they both graduated on the same day was because he intentionally failed a class his senior year so he would have to repeat. His first senior year happened to be her junior year. "Hopelessly in love" went both ways.

They used code in the notes they would pass to each other in class. Fifty years later, he still used the same code when he sent her flowers — __   __ __ __   __ __ __ (I luv you). If he was feeling especially covert, he would just sign it "7" (i.e. seven letters). Did I mention "hopelessly in love?"

She lived through the Dust Bowl years in the panhandle of Oklahoma (her oldest child was born in the middle of one of the storms). Fifty years later, when she talked about the dust seeping into every corner of the house, even past the wet towels that were put under the door and window sills, you almost believed it was a living thing.

She and her husband lived the Grapes of Wrath. They grew up in a no-stop light town in the Oklahoma Panhandle, caught trains out to California when work disappeared, lived there for a year or two, and then made their way back to Oklahoma.

Although she moved to Texas when she was in her mid-40's, she didn't get her drivers license until she was sixty. She named the little Toyota her husband bought her "Libby," for "Liberation." After she passed away, her oldest great-grandchild bought her latest car, a 16-year old Dodge. It had 18,000 miles on it.

When a grandchild persistently tried (unsuccessfully) one day to get her attention from the backseat of the car, she finally turned around and said, forcefully, "Not, now, we're driving!" She was in the passenger seat.

She once told her daughter about some "little old ladies" who had come from church to visit her. Her daughter found her description amusing. "How old were they, Mother?" "I don't know, probably in their sixties." "How old are you, Mother?" "Sixty-five, why?"

She loved soap operas for much of her life. She passed it on to her daughter and her daughter's oldest; they watched As The World Turns and Guiding Light together for years. For the time the grandchild worked a few miles from her, lunch was the last half of As The World Turns and first half of Guiding Light. A sandwich was always waiting.

When the same grandchild took another job in a distant city (Dallas!), she wrote daily summaries of Guiding Light for years, interjected with running commentary on her thoughts on the events of the episode. Her comments were always far more entertaining than the episode.

She quit smoking at 81. After 66 years of smoking.

Her default language was laughter. She never met a stranger, would talk to anyone about anything at anytime, and had five anecdotes for every occasion. Her house was a mystical, magical place, not because of TV (almost never on after she quit the soaps) or game consoles (she never had one) or toys (none of those, either), but because she was there. She was universally loved. That has been said of others, but she is the only person I've ever personally known it to be true of.

Her name was Fae Elizabeth "Mimi" Wilkinson,  and she passed away just after midnight on February 9, 2001, leaving behind a legacy of love, laughter, and legendary stories.


I was born pretty late in the Boomer cycle, so I only got the tail end of the first-run Beatles. I was too young to know I wasn't supposed to like Ringo; I was fifteen-and-a-half when Ringo's version of "Sweet Sixteen" hit Number One. But it was the song he released the year before that has always been my favorite of his, and it is those words that speak most to how I feel about my precious Mimi, raconteur nonpareil and grandmother extraordinaire.

Every time I see your face
It reminds me of the places we used to go
But all I've got is a photograph
And I realize you're not coming back anymore

I can't get used to living here
While my heart is broke, my tears I cry for you
…
I want you here to have and hold
…
Now you're expecting me to live without you
But that's not something that I'm looking forward to


Photograph

Hi, I'm Batman!

(This post was written in Cambodia, but for a variety of reasons it's taken a while to get it posted.)

A couple of friends of mine have had a mostly civil back-and-forth for several years about which is the greater superhero, Batman or Superman. (I have geek friends, this surprises you?) I am firmly in the Batman camp, having grown up during the 60’s TV show (speaking of camp). I also find it more impressive that a normal human can turn himself into a superhero rather than being born with superpowers – I mean, really, how hard is it to be a superhero when you’re born being able to stop bullets?

I met a real live superhero today, of the made, not born, variety. We'll call him… Cambodia Man.

Cambodia Man was a young man when the Khmer Rouge took over. Soon, his entire family was rounded up and taken away to the killing fields. They left him alive because he could catch fish and thus feed them. He did this for a while, but eventually made his escape.

He headed for Thailand, and along the way joined with others until there were approximately thirty people in the group. When they got to the border, in order to make it across, they had to go through a minefield. By the time they got across, only seven of them were left alive, including Cambodia Man.

Once across, they were immediately arrested by the Thai military, and thrown into jail because they didn't have documentation. For Cambodia Man, it was a relief to be in jail, because he at least had food and shelter and he was reasonably sure they wouldn't kill him.

While in jail, someone shared Jesus with him, and gave him a Bible. He had completely abandoned God in any form by this time, but, after reading a bit in the Bible, told God that if he really existed, to get him out of jail.

A few weeks later, the Red Cross visited the jail, heard their story, and began the proceedings to get them out of jail. Ultimately, because of God answering his prayer, Cambodia Man gave his life to Jesus.

They were given the opportunity for education. Cambodia Man chose to be trained as a dentist. After his training (which took 2-3 years), he was told he could go anywhere he wanted to practice, even the United States. He said, "I want to go back to Cambodia and help my people." They told him he was crazy (the Khmer Rouge had fallen by this time, but the civil war with Vietnam had just begun). He insisted. And so he found himself back in Cambodia, helping his countrymen (and women) with their teeth.

Many years passed, and one day in church, a man came to talk about needing help fighting sex trafficking. Cambodia Man knew that this scourge was almost as bad as the Khmer Rouge, and so volunteered. Today, he's working with an organization dedicated to eliminating sex trafficking in Cambodia.

I know there are other superheroes out there. But I met this one, and now I have this song running through my head.

P.S. — I ran across this tuk-tuk later in the day. Apropos, no?

Day 9 in Three Acts

If you're also a reader of the 121CC Mission blog, you might feel like you have déjà vu… 

Act 1 — Angkor
The day begins as three tuk-tuks roll down the road in the dead of night. Well, 4:30am, which is pretty much the same thing. Several of us were headed to Angkor Wat for sunrise pictures. Angkor is the largest of the temples in a huge complex built in the twelfth century. It was originally a Hindu temple, but is now Buddhist, and is considered the largest single religious monument in the world. It is also the main tourist draw of Cambodia, if not Southeast Asia (over one million visitors a year come to see it).

Once there, we watched the sun come up over the main temple with 2000 or more of our closest friends. Mostly. The sky was full of clouds, so it got lighter and lighter, but the sun never made an appearance. Many pictures were taken, a few monuments were climbed, much sweat was, well, sweated.

Act 2 — Church

After getting back to the hotel, taking a quick shower, and picking up the rest of the team, we all headed out to church. We went to the church of one of Agape International Mission's church planters. We met Pastor Sakona and his worship pastor during last year's Cambodia trip, so we were very excited at the opportunity to attend his church. He came to the hotel on his moto so we could follow him to the church. It's a good thing he did — we drove for a long time, off onto one dirt road, and then onto a smaller dirt road, and then onto an even rougher dirt road. We passed a sign on the way — "Middle of Nowhere" — with a big X and "You are here" next to it.

We eventually pulled up to a small one-room building. As we entered, we saw two empty rows of plastic chairs at the front, reserved for us. The rest of the chairs, probably twenty people total, were at the back, filled with smiling Khmer, mostly teenagers. The worship pastor, who also served as Pastor Sakona's English translator, asked us to introduce ourselves, and then they introduced their staff to us. The worship pastor led us in several songs, including "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace" (we sang English, they sang Khmer), drumming the beat with his hands on the metal table he used as a podium.

I gave a message of introduction and encouragement, and then sat down in anticipation of the Pastor Sakona message. After a short discussion in Khmer between the worship pastor and Pastor Sakona, the worship pastor came over and said, "Pastor would like for you to preach the message, since they have the opportunity to hear him every week." Which brings us full circle.

After the (short) message, we did a little more singing and more praying. In Cambodia, everyone prays out loud at once (they're not big on singling people out), which is actually very freeing, especially for those that are self-conscious about what they're praying. And then the service was over.

It was a truly amazing and encouraging thing to be worshiping on the other side of the world with a small village church that loves the same Jesus, spreads the gospel of the same Jesus, and serves the same Jesus. The audio of us singing together, English and Khmer, some of the great songs of the faith, brings chills as we re-listen to them. We have a group shot with them, but it's stuck in Cambodia on someone else's camera.

Intermission
The afternoon was fun time/down time; a few took the opportunity to go four-wheeling in Cambodia, others shopped, the rest just relaxed at the hotel.

Act 3 — World Hope
We then had dinner with a staff member from World Hope's Siem Reap office. World Hope is the assessment center where IJM places most of the under-age girls they rescue. World Hope performs a 6-12 week assessment on each girl's mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual condition, and the girl's family (did they know the girl was trafficked, did they traffic the girl themselves, etc.), to determine the best course of action for the girl. The staff member we met with is from Sarajevo, her family went to Sweden as a refugee, and she's spent the last several years working as a social worker all over the world. It was clear from our conversation that God chose well.

One of the interesting things she shared is that, in addition to the healing of the girls' in their care, the Khmer staff, and indeed much of the nation, is also in need of healing. The horrors of the Khmer Rouge are in the distant past, but while almost every person in the country was directly affected (losing spouses, children, parents, grandparents), almost none of them have ever talked about it or dealt with the pain and the loss.

The day was another picture of the light (Angkor) and darkness (aftermath of Khmer Rouge) that live side-by-side in this amazing country.

Days 4–7 — High Contrast

In photography, "high contrast" is, loosely speaking, when there is a marked difference between darkness and light in the image. This has been a high-contrast week.

Did any of this happen to you this week?

• You walked along the neighborhood with a friend and passed three women, and when you got around the corner the person you were walking with said, "Those three women are all traffickers," i.e. they sell girls in the neighborhood to brothels for sex.
• You got to the location where you were doing a VBS, and the pastor's son came out and stuck up his hand so you'd take it and walk with him, exactly like your grandson.
• You walked in a different part of the neighborhood with that same friend and passed a little elementary-age girl, and when you get far enough away, he turns and says, "That was the girl I was telling you about yesterday, the one who was raped every day for over a year, but now the mom has now stopped selling her."
• You taught Excel to a teenager who has never seen it before, and in thirty minutes he's understanding COUNTA's and COUNTIF's.
• You looked out on a sea of children and began to notice the tell-tale signs of cronic sexual abuse in several of them where before you had not noticed anything because you were oblivious.
• You had those same children, as they came by to get a snack after VBS, smile huge smiles and tell you "Thank you!".
• You walked around the really poor part of town, where they live in quiet dignity in tin huts with maybe a chair or two, and do everything in the space of 150 square feet.
• You ate lunch with a group of teenagers who got up at 6:00 in the morning to study the bible with their pastor for over an hour.
• Those same teenagers circled around you on your last day with them, walked around you and sang blessings to you for ten minutes.

We have had all of that happen and more.

Satan is on the prowl, looking whom he might devour.
The eyes of YHWH move over the earth to strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

Never were both truths so evident in one place, at the same time.

It is definitely high contrast, and therefore a great picture of another verse: The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it.