CQ

Three weeks ago I was in Krasang, Thailand standing in front of twenty-two hundred students. Our team of Westsiders was invited to teach English at the local public high school. Each school day begins with an assembly. All of the students stand in perfectly straight lines wearing uniforms in the front yard of the school. On this day they asked me to come to the stage to introduce our team and express our purpose to the nearly all Buddhist student body. I must admit that I was afraid and it took courage for me to speak to a large Thai audience with no time for preparation.

During the assembly a twelve-year-old boy from Grace Ministries named James was standing in the front row. He is a beautiful child with ears that could make him take flight at any moment. Before coming to Grace Ministries he lived in poverty and had few opportunities. What impressed me most about James that day was his courage. Each day the school community begins with a Buddhist prayer, as would be expected of a primarily Buddhist country. Students give respect to the spirits of the school by clasping their hands together in front of their faces in a gesture they call a “wai.”

As I watched the sea of students paying respect to the spirits, I saw this twelve-year-old Christian young man with his hands clearly at his side in respectful opposition to the beliefs of the majority. I was later told that in similar assemblies the student body kneels and bows in prayer while the Grace Ministries students remain standing.

How often are we challenged in our faith and daily lives to hold to a commitment with such conviction and courage as these young people? Matthew 5:10 states, “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.”

Courage is about more than standing strong in the minority. It is also about pursuing Christ with everything in you and making the risky choices to do so. The pursuit of Christ can be painful and challenging, yet full of growth, joy and meaning.

Acts 4:13 says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

Our courage as disciples does not come from our own skill or effort but from our association with Christ. It is through our unashamed pursuit of Him that we can have the courage of a twelve-year-old boy or a group of high schoolers from Lake Oswego Oregon.

I saw glimpses of this kind of courage over the past month as I spent time living in community with twenty-one students and six adults from Westside. Our trip was incredibly stretching for all of us. For three weeks every aspect of life was different. The experience was a complete assault on the senses, requiring courage just to function. The food, language, temperature, religion, economy, skin color, transportation, toilet, bathing, architecture, and community are all very different. It was beautiful to see our students adapt and respond to these challenges.
I saw in our students the courage to seek God openly, the courage to desire a more disciplined life, the courage to suffer with those who suffer, the courage to pursue purpose each day, the courage to risk vulnerability and honesty, and the courage to translate what they believe into how they really live.

C.S Lewis describes courage as “not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Coming home from this testing and tremendous experience I am profoundly encouraged by the next generation of leaders, both American and Thai.

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Follow the links to learn more about how you can get involved in the Thailand Project. 

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Last week I was involved in nearly seventy new student interviews in three days, connecting with each new family for about seven minutes. It is a challenge to find out very much about a person in that amount of time so I did not mince words. I asked each student to tell me their greatest passion or uniqueness. This is always fascinating and revealing! My feeling after meeting these students is joy and a sense of privilege. We will be blessed to have these young people in our community. I was blown away by the depth of many of the students. One young lady shared about the adversity that had impacted her family over the past few years and how that experience has clearly shaped the direction of her life. Another student shared about his passion for Christ and a clear calling to vocational Christian ministry. These are eighth graders! Other students went into depth about their love of art, athletics, music, or science. With nearly every student I could see them come alive as they described those things that get them up in the morning. As we offer our gift in this way we bring glory to God with our life and our talents. I believe Westside is unique in its desire to help students DISCOVER their calling in the place “where (their) deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Theologian Frederick Buechner’s now famous quote.)

Just a few days ago a group of Westside students, staff, and friends encountered the devastating impact of hurricane Katrina. They also crawled into the small grass hut of a Sudanese refugee family living in the uncertainty of an ongoing war in Northern Uganda. They met a young Ugandan boy who was forced to kill his father by the “Lords Resistance Army.” They encountered families that live and work in the city dumps of Mexico City. They met children lying on urine stained linens, chained to their cribs in smelly, dirty, and dilapidated Romanian orphanages. This group of Westsiders has been exposed to the real world through an intentional experiential exhibit called “REAL LIFE” at the Northwest Medical Team headquarters. Through this exhibit these students learned experientially about geography, politics, economics, art, music, statistics, leadership, and the power of a well illustrated story. They also encountered a God who is present in the lives of each of these real people and real situations. Now these students and staff are praying that God will transform their hearts and minds and show them how they are to engage the real world.

This educational experience is an illustration of one of the pillars of the school’s vision.

Vision Pillar III - DISCOVER – Experientially presenting the reality of God’s kingdom and heart.

At the core of this part of our vision is a movement toward intentional learning experiences and collaborative relationships that enrich and deepen student learning. Through experiences we believe we can more fully engage and impact all three educational domains (what we think, how we feel, and what we do). We see this part of our vision supplementing and supporting our daily classroom activities, allowing us to fulfill our mission (to educate and develop the whole person). We believe God uses experiences to powerfully inspire and motivate the discovery of passion and purpose.

Every few weeks I make it a practice to walk through one of our art classes to be inspired by the amazing artistic talent of our students. During one of these visits I struck up a conversation with the beloved Donna Symer. I asked her, “How can art be used as a gift to show love to others?”  She said, “Every Friday I select one student and have them sit in the middle of the class. The other students and I circle around and sketch a portrait of the student.” She paused and her eyes welled up. “Before I lift my pencil I pray that God will help me capture the most beautiful quality of the child.” At the end of the period, Donna gives the portrait to the student. What a gift! Donna is modeling to her students that a passion for art can be used to express the heart of God.
 

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Follow this link to watch a fifteen minute Frontline documentary on the power of Micro-loan’s. Over the past month Marta and I have begun loaning funds through Kiva and are believers. This documentary specifically highlights the work that Kiva is doing in Uganda. Give it a shot!

 UGANDA: A little goes a long way (VIDEO)

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I am always inspired by innovative ideas and vision especially when they address issues close to the heart of God. Micro-finance is one of those ideas. In October of this year it was announced that Muhammed Yunas (founder of Grameen Bank) was selected as the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Since then there has been considerable attention given to the concept of micro-finance, and as a result many organizations working in this area are receiving more exposure. If you are not familiar with the concept of micro-finance I have included a few links and a video (16 min. documentary) below.

My business finance background finds this whole concept very intriguing. I have come to appreciate one organization that allows participants to finance entrepreneurs directly through the technology of the web. Through this organization you can setup an account, select an entrepreneur or small business owner online, provide a micro-loan, receive updates on your loan, get repaid, and loan again.  Check out Kiva.org and you can become a micro-financier within minutes. As you can read below the power of a very small loan can make a huge impact in the life of many in the developing world.

Resources:

• Great educational video (16 min. documentary) from Grameen Foundation
• The hidden wealth of the poor - The Economist
• Small Loans, Big Goals - Christianity Today
• The Nobel Peace Prize 2006 - Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank
• Basic Facts About Micro-finance - UNCDF
• Opportunity International - Christian Organization
• Grameen Bank - Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2006
• Take Tiny Loans to the Next Level - Business Week

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 - A presentation for Advent at Newberg Friends Church -

As I look at the first candle we will be lighting for this Advent season I have mixed emotions. At first glance it is not particularly warm and inviting. There are no red or green bows or beautiful accessories attached to this candle, but instead barbed wire.

This year we will be lighting a “Peace and Justice” candle as the Advent candle for the month. Some may ask, “How exactly does this candle help us anticipate the Christmas Season?”

Well, the spirit of Advent is one of expectation, anticipation, and longing for Christ to rescue us from the shackles of sin and evil in this world. Our yearning for deliverance from the evil and injustice of this world was first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. This cry for hope and deliverance continues today. God hears the cry of the poor and the oppressed and has a plan to bring rescue and relief.

There are approximately 27 million slaves in the world today and 53% of the world population struggles to live on less than $2.00 per day.

Those are some sobering statistics. But they should also inspire us to respond. It takes very little on our part to make a significant impact.  We are part of the six percent of the population that owns 53% of the world’s wealth.

Rich Stearns, the President of World Vision wrote in a recent article that it would take between 40 and 70 billion dollars a year to end extreme poverty by the year 2025.

That seems like a huge number until you realize that Americans spend $450 billion dollars on Christmas. The average family spends between $300 and $1100 per year. Marta and I were challenged by a group of churches in Portland who have a vision to change the way they spend this money. They are challenging their congregations to give gifts this season in a way that will change lives. They have identified some local and global initiatives they would like to support, like linking with a local public school to support the poorest families in Portland with housing, food, and clothing. Globally, they will be partnering with other organization to provide clean water to communities through digging wells, and provide micro loans to support entrepreneurs in the developing world. (Listen to the sermon at Imago Dei about this challenge)

If two-thirds of the people in these five churches participate minimally, then they believe they would generate close to a million dollars to support these initiatives.

In our Church body if every family were to make that same kind of commitment we could generate $130,000.

As I reflect on Christmases of the past I don’t remember many life changing gifts that I received or gave. The most meaningful gifts have been personal and relational, and normally did not cost much money, but were given from the heart.

I challenge you to consider this incarnational approach to giving this Christmas. If you are interested in pursing this further there will be a resource page on the NFC website with links to organizations with gift ideas you can give or request from family members.

I can’t think of a more powerful image of the message of Christmas than to mirror the redemptive gift that has been given to us. God the father rescued us with the gift of His Son Christ Jesus. And through our gift giving we could be used by God to rescue others this Christmas.
 
Yes, there is barbed wire in this world, just like on this candle. Injustice, violence and poverty are a reality for the majority of people in this world, but our God is the Prince of Peace.  Our God is the light, the hope, and the solution, and He is inviting us to join Him in bringing peace and justice to the world he so desperately loves.
 

IDEAS:

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Tuesday night our Thailand team invited all of our supporters in prayer, finances, and encouragement to attend a dessert in their honor. The night was inspired. It was a true community effort that communicated the spirit of the trip, and the vision of what God is doing through this journey. We had over a hundred people show up and you could tell they understood the beauty of this trip. They were moved to tears. One lady came up to me and said, “This was not a presentation, but a worship service.” Praise God!

Then on Thursday night Marta and I met with three couples from our church. We told stories and shared video and it was such a blessing to me. They wanted to hear! At the end of our evening they prayed for us. I think this was a timely prayer.  It was very encouraging to me, but also I could sense the Holy Spirit working. God is on the move. It is such a thrilling adventure to follow Christ (not always easy).

We still have stories to tell! If you have ears to hear?

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This is a short talk I gave at church this week

We serve a just God, who grieves deeply for the exploited and oppressed. Our God loves children and values them intensely.

Those priorities are vividly clear in scripture and in the example of Christ.

Matthew 18: 5-6 says…
And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Isaiah 1:15-17 says…
…Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

I would like to summarize for you our journey over the past year that has led my wife Marta and I into uncharted spiritual territory.

While we were on vacation last summer, Marta and I stumbled upon an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Ricky Martin was her guest and child trafficking was the subject. We were stunned and horrified to hear that over a million children around the world are being enslaved and forced into prostitution. UNICEF reports that worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. As these statistics sank in, our hearts began to break for these children who are being exploited for profit. That night we got on the internet and began researching to find out what Christians were doing about this. We initially found only a few organizations including one ministry called International Justice Mission. They are a human rights organization made up of Christian lawyers, law enforcement, and social workers. They work with local governments in the developing world to rescue slaves, and to protect the weak, oppressed and exploited – including children.

Soon after that trip we talked to our small group about this horrible practice. Come to find out, another couple from the group had seen the same show and had a similar reaction. They also searched the internet and discovered through a Barclay Press article an organization called Remember Nhu, founded by Carl Ralston. Josh called Carl and the next thing we know he’s flying out to meet with us and speak at our church.

At the same time, in my role as the administrator of a Christian High school, I had been working with a team of teachers and staff to find an organization that we could partner with to provide missions opportunities for our students. Partnering with Carl was beginning to seem like it could be a good fit.

A few months passed and in one of our small group meetings Josh told us that he was going to Thailand with Carl in January. I immediately felt moved that I should go as well.
Three months later Josh and I, along with a member of my staff from school (Steve), were headed for a visioning experience in Thailand. We spent time visiting and learning about various ministries that are serving children at risk of exploitation. In the Northern Thailand hill tribes area it was estimated that between twenty to forty percent of the children will be trafficked into exploitive forced labor.

One day on our trip, as we arrived at an orphanage home, the children were singing praise songs. One girl captured my attention as she sang with an incredibly worshipful spirit. Her eyes were closed, and she looked so present with God in that moment. After the singing, while the children began to play some of the games we brought for them, I walked around looking for the opportunity to meet this little girl. I found her and gave her a hug, and she asked to be picked up. Through an interpreter I asked her what her name was and she said it was “Mae”. We walked into the open air dining hall made of grass and bamboo and found some coloring books. We picked a picture and began coloring it together. This is a

I asked the orphanage director Tutu to tell me Mae’s story. She said that Mae’s father was a drug dealer and was killed by police in a raid. Her mother has a birth defect and cannot earn enough to support Mae and her brother. This puts them at risk of being tricked into exploitive labor. Thankfully for Mae, Tutu was able to take her in and will provide her with a high school education and possibly college. This is a very typical situation and reason for a child to move into one of these homes.

After meeting the children I was compelled that I must do something. I was committed, whether my school would be able to commit or not. This kind of intense passion typically finds a way of disappearing from one’s mind as time passes, but this time, that was not the case.

Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission addresses why we, as followers of Christ, many times do not act even when we have knowledge of the oppression and poverty of others? Haugen’s response is that it is because of our own poverty. It is because of our own poverty of compassion, poverty of hope, and poverty of purpose.

Compassion:

On this journey I have learned that compassion is about humbly and honestly suffering with others. On the train ride back from Northern Thailand toward Bangkok I felt a tremendous burden for the people I met. People like little Mae and Tutu, the home director. They would be staying while I would be leaving and eventually make my way back to a very comfortable life. But the burden has not left me and I pray that it will not. It is from that burden that I am compelled to act.

Purpose:

God has a plan to demonstrate his goodness to the world. He could send a spiritual vibe from the sky, but his solution is you and me. He is not asking much, but just that we take that first step. One step at a time in obedience and faithfulness toward the things and people God cares about.

Hope:

Our hope is not in what solutions we think we can offer. He is the director of this orchestra and we have a small part to play. Scripture is clear that he cares for children and the oppressed greatly. If we are faithful to our little part he will multiply our efforts as he did when the little boy gave his lunch to feed the 5000. If it were my daughter, I would want someone to do something for her. There is hope in saving just one child from this sort of life.

After much prayer and discernment, my school has committed to partner with Remember Nhu. Our desire is to have an ongoing relationship with the children and staff of a new orphanage home and to take ownership of the responsibility and blessing that comes from funding and support its work. We plan to take a group of students, staff and parents there at least annually. Our first trip back is this summer. Our team is going to develop relationships, capture vision, and begin making plans to implement the orphanage home. We expect to be stretched, challenged, and changed by God during this trip, and we are committed to pass on the vision to our community when we come back.

I have recently been challenged to closely examine the things that Christ cares about. I have asked myself if I care about the same things. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that Christ is aware of all the suffering in the world. He knows of every child in forced prostitution, every lonely widow, and every hopeless soul. In fact, he not only knows about them, but also is suffering along with them. He is seeking redemption for every last one of them. If only my heart were able to feel that kind of compassion for just a few.

Gary Haugen writes, “Perhaps a next step in our development as children of God is a capacity for compassion permanence- a courage and generous capacity to remember the needs of an unjust world even when they are out of our immediate sight.”
This is the kind of compassion and courage I humbly pray for.

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This past week we had a few students over to our house who will be traveling to Thailand on a vision trip. The adults who came filmed the students’ reactions to the following questions. It will be fascinating to see how the answers to these questions may change after the trip. I decided to give the questions a shot. This is a long post so you may want to bite it off in chunks.  How would you answer the questions?

1. There is an obvious need for us, who have so much, to help the lost, hungry and oppressed. What makes it so easy for me to let these needs pass by without responding?

2. Put yourself in the place of a parent of children born in the hill tribes of Northern Thailand. Your family has experienced severe illness and without money your entire family will be at risk of hunger, disease, and exploitation. You are approached by a “business man” from Chiang Mai (the big city) who offers to take one of your young girls to work in his “laundry mat.” He is prepared to give you a year’s wages upfront. How will you respond?

3. Imagine your own elementary school experience growing up. What different types of safety surrounded you on a daily basis?

4. What do I have that is of importance to the people in the hill tribes who experience oppression, injustice, poverty and sometimes a lack of hope?

5. What could the people in the hill tribes have that could be of importance to you?

6. What could be considered blessings or accomplishments in our society?

7. What do you think could be considered blessings or accomplishments for those in the hill tribes? 

8. Knowing that today hill tribe children and their parents are facing danger and impossible moral dilemmas, what could be your immediate responsibility? 

9. How does God feel about the oppressed, the hungry and lost? What is his plan to demonstrate his goodness to the world?

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A few weeks back I was in invited to a two-day training in Seattle sponsored by International Justice Mission. It was a test of my courage to respond to this opportunity because I knew I was going to be out of my league. As a result of the training I have committed to becoming a “Justice Advocate” representing IJM in our community.  (If you would like to learn more I would love to talk to you about IJM - They are freeing slaves around the world!)

At the training I was given all kinds of materials including the book Good News About Injustice. In the opening page of this book Gary Haugen states that if he were only able to give his children one gift it would be that they become men and women of courage.

He then goes on to quote C.S. Lewis saying:

Courage seems like an attribute we must have in order to effectively move out and express our faith in action. If I were to add courage to compassion the result would be an active expression of Christ’s love.

Like Gary, I have prayed for my children since they were born that they would have a heart of compassion. I am not so concerned about intelligence, athletic ability or good looks. Instead I have prayed that they would have a tenderness for other people. I think I will add to that prayer, courage. 

Undeveloped Thoughts: 

Compassion + Courage = Active expressions of Christ’s love

Westside Outside - I am wondering if this label could describe a movement within our school to respond outside of the world we are comfortable in. I am also challenged to move outside of a purely self-focused expression of faith. This is not a judgment of our current state as much as a challenge to examine where we are and where we feel called to be. I want to continue to explore this.

Gary Haugen is speaking at Sunset Presbyterian this Sunday at 9am, 11am and 5pm.

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