The Road Not Taken

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it." (Jeremiah 6:16)

Life is a road that God builds infront of you one brick at a time. You take a step of faith and the road extends before you. Sometimes God will mark the road with hints of where He is going to take you but ultimately, it's His road and He will choose the destination. To walk on this road means that you allow God to be Himself. He is wild and unpredictable and to trust Him means to let Him be wild and untamed in your life.

Few take the road of total trust and abandon to God and that is where my experience with YWAM had led me. Most of us are out there building our own roads to our own destinations. The reason we do so is because there is far more risk in letting God lead us down a road where we don't know the destination, where we're not in control.

During my last week at Perth, I walked into our old familiar classroom and written on one of the whiteboards was this statement: "Don't be afraid to trust the unknown to an all knowing God." I thought that statement really summed up my experiences in trusting God with coming to Perth. Before I came I didn't have a clue about what I could do for a career. I had thoughts about doing something outside of ministry but I didn't feel God's peace about these choices.

Through my experience during DTS and Outreach I believe God is leading me into a career as a Missions Pastor. It seems really to fit me and my strenghts that I discovered on Outreach, such as the ability to teach others. During my Outreach I was able to preach six times and through affirmations of other people on my team I realized that teaching is a really important part to what I need to do. Also, I realized that God has made really flexible and he uses me as an example to others. People saw me as a leader and affirmed it a number of times during DTS and Outreach. I also realized that my heart is for mobilizing the church to do missions. It's not accident I ended up on the Missions Mobilization Team of Saddleback Church where I worked for Rick Warren for five and a half years. It's not accident that God led me to YWAM and to gain the teaching of the DTS. The more I think about it, the more it seems that God has chained these experiences in my life to shape me into a missions pastor. Sure, I could do something else. But everytime I take a job outside of ministry, I feel like a fish out of water.

One of the biggest lessons that I learned from trusting God is learning how to feed from God's hand. What I mean by this is that we position ourselves in such a way that we look to God for our needs or when there is a desire in our heart for something. You see God wants to give the desire of our hearts and take care of us. In my case it would be a house and a steady income to provide for a family. But rather than seeking to achieve these things on our own God wants us to turn to Him so that He can tie these things back into a relationship of dependency with Himself. When we seek things by our own plans and schemes we cut God out of that part of our life and once that is done it's easy to let these things like having a home and security become idols. That is why I had to surrender my finances and my comforts to Him so that I could allow Him to give me things in His own way.

I realize that my calling as a Missions Pastor is partly an act of faith. It came to me one day after one of my quiet times in Ethiopia that I could really be a missions pastor. I think God did something in me during DTS and Outreach that enabled me to go on to the next step which would be to move into this calling. It's an act of faith because in some ways I feel incalpable of doing this. I don't have 100% confidence that I could do all the things that a Missions Pastor requires. But, just like when I sensed God was leading me to do a six-month mission, I sense that God is leading me into this. I feel peace about this decision and see how it really fits me, who I am, and my past experiences. Reagardless of any doubts or even insecurities or whether I could perform this role, I must acknowledge my calling. A calling I couldn't have recognized without YWAM.

I left home, six-months ago, to go seek God and to find Him. I come home doing the same. I have come to seek Him and find Him again and again and again as long as I will live and to learn to completely trust and abandon myself to Him. That is the Road Not Taken.

Much thanks goes to all of those of you who read my story of my journey. I appreciate all your support and prayers.

Full Circle

We returned to Perth about a week ago. I only had about 4 hours of sleep on the plane before we landed. Before I came to Perth I caught a bug in Indonesia. I had a mild fever for a couple of days which turned into this cough that I've had until now. I think that coming back from such a different climate has made my throat and lungs worse and a quarter of our school seems to have caught the same thing.

All of us have come back to the Base. We've spent our last remaining days hanging out, going to places we've never been before here in Perth, and reporting back to the Base and the current schools of what God did while we were away. Everyday now friends of ours are leaving. It's sad to watch everyone slowly leave and head out on in a van for the airport and go home. I, myself, am leaving in a couple of days. It hits everyone different. I feel the lost but I'm not inclined to get really emotional. But some people, mainly the girls, cry as their friends leave them one by one. Today I had to say Goodbye to Paul, Mariana, and Laura. Yesterday Melissa left. By the time I leave in a couple of days most of my team will have left.

It seems odd that only in a few day I'll be coming back home. It only seems like yesterday that I was sitting next to my friend Jay, drinking Frappachinos, the day I left on my trip. Yet, when I think about my classes here in Perth only three months ago, it seems like it happened an eternity ago.

I know is that I'm ready to go back home. Six-months has been a long time being away. I've missed most of the major holidays and many birthdays being gone and as I sat in our last class on Thursday, I wrote down the things I'll be looking forward to when I come back: good food, my own bed, being close to my family, working out, line dancing, and just having more time to myself. I don't know what it'll be like waking up and not living with fifteen or for that matter fifty people anymore. I suppose it will be easier but at the same time, I won't hear those same familiar voices anymore. I won't go shopping in the city anymore with Stefan. I won't be playing board games with Paul. And I won't be having long chats with Campy anymore.

For those of who have been keeping up with my blogs, I have one more to write to sum up what this experience has been for me.

Leaving Indonesia and Saying Goodbye

This is our last week in City-J. We had to say goodbye to all the prison inmates who are part of our English classes today. It was actually a bit sad for us. Normally during our lesson we break into smaller groups of 4-6 men to practice what we learned. In that time you stay with the same group of guys and get to know them. I was actually able to speak through a translator with some of the guys that I help with and ask them questions like, what are your plans when you get out and do you have any families or children? They asked me similar questions like what I'll be doing when I get home.

I've been thinking of that question more and more. I know I'll probably take a temp-job soon after I get back to California. There's also a girl that I was getting to know before I came to Perth Australia and we've talked about seeing each other more when I come back. I'll be reconnecting with friends and family. In terms of a career there has been something on my mind lately. I want to think and pray about it more before I announce it to anybody but I feel excited about it.

This Saturday we'll be having a party for all of those people who worked with us during our stay here. It is a very diverse group of people that include pastors, church staff workers, translators, and non-Christian contacts like our friend from the prison that we work with. We'll be using this Sunday to pack and tonight we're all actually going to a burger joint to celebrate another team mate's birthday. The best thing about this restaraunt is kareoke! Some of us took the night of our freeday to go to this place and sang an hour and a half worth of songs.

This will be my last entry from Indonesia. Next stop Australia!

Catching Up

Hello everyone! Well after a month or so of silence I've finally been able to come back and update my blog. Below are three entries that I've written in the last few days, two of them about my trip to Ethiopia. Thanks everyone for keeping up with me and continue praying for me. Three more weeks until I come back!

Back Here in City-J

We've been back in City-J for now about two and a half weeks. Things have begun to wind down as we only have less than two weeks left here and one more week of debriefing in Perth. We're all relieved to be back, for the most part. I think that a few of my team mates are dealing with the difficulty of our setting: the culture, the environment, and the food.

I, myself, am happy to be back here. Every Monday we have our free day which normally we use to go to one of the large local malls. You can't imagine how we look forward to our free days. The guys usually get together and eat all the junk food we can get: A&W, crepe-ice cream cones, donuts, nachos and candy at the movie theaters. Our day usually looks like this: get lunch and ice cream, shop, spend an hour or so in the local arcade, see a movie (these theaters are nice and cheap. only $2 a ticket), get dinner and relax back at home for the rest of the evening.

We also have our new house to look forward to. As some of you may have read we were first living in an apartment inside a auto repair shop. Since we came back from Ethiopia, we now live in a two-story house in a gated community (and when I say gated I mean that there's just a large gate that locks in front of our neighborhood). The house is fairly nice and big compared to the tiny apartment we were first in. So, it's been a huge blessing to us. The only problem is that the taxi drivers have been having a hard time finding it and we've run into a couple of times where we've spent the better part of an hour trying to get to our new home.

We also have added one member to our team, Clara from Germany. Clara and I were good friends during our school and I speak to her in German sometimes. She'll be staying with us until we leave.

Most of our ministry has been going to churches, preaching, giving testimonies and performing our drama. We've also had the opportunity to teach English at a local prison here. I explained months ago that this opportunity was totally provided by God. We're on such good terms with our contact who works in the prison that he just invited us to his wedding this Sunday.

Mountaintop Evangelism

We were all shocked and surprised when they told us we would be staying in Ethiopia another week. The original plan had been that after spending three and a half weeks in Ethiopia our team would split. Both teams flying to the country of Djibouti and one of the teams continuing on to the country of Eritrea. I had been on the team that was to continue on to Eritrea; however, due to the continued violence occurring now in East Africa (Sudan, Chad, and Kenya) not to mention the Cold War that is now between Eritrea and Ethiopia the Base leaders made a decision that would change our plans completely. The other team would go on to Djibouti while we stayed in Ethiopia another week and a half.

My team was solemn and downcast that day. It was the night before all of were to leave for the airport and we had all packed our bags in preparation. I, myself, was indifferent to the change. I think the difference between me and the others was that I had no personal feelings or desire of wanting to go into Eritrea and there had always been uncertainty of whether or not we were even going to be allowed into the country considering the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The change in plans was worth the experience that followed. We were to leave on a Monday and on the weekend when we should have been in Eritrea, the leader of the Base in Addis Abbaba took us to a small village outside the capital.

Two crucial events happened that Saturday as we drove to this mountain village. First, after driving an hour I was gazing out the back window of our van. The seven of us were piled into a van with our bags which made the ride very uncomfortable. But as I looked out the window I saw as we passed a bulldozer topple of the semi-truck that had brought out to the road we were now on. The bulldozer had actually fallen on the man driving inside of it and as we leapt from the van doors to help we could see that the top of the dozer had tore through the man's leg and simultaneously trapping him. Men scrambled to try to life the heavy dozer to no avail until one of our team members quickly ordered the men to use a nearby tree limb to use as leverage. Ten men grabbed their hands onto the branch which was thick enough to support the weight of the top of the dozer and allowed to other men to scoop the one whose leg was caught out. They carried the man to a nearby waiting truck and rushed him to the hospital. (We would later find out that the man, though had lost much blood, did not break his legs and would only need some patching up. It's a miracle this man kept both his legs which had not been crushed by the top of the bulldozer)

Finally, we reached our destination. A mountain several hours away from the capital city. The van drove us up a quarter mile off the road to a nearby house and there we met an evangelism team from a local church. There were seven of us and about twelve of them. We started our ascent up the mountain all along talking to the evangelists who were curious about our lives back home. When we reached the top we claimed the top of the mountain in prayer. This particular mountain is a place of witchcraft that the local villagers engage in. We then broke up into smaller groups and headed into the village homes. These homes were the traditionally-made mud huts. The top of them are rounded and pointed at the top made from hay and the walls and foundation are made of earth and clay.

I myself went with my team mate Josh to the actual place of witchcraft and we accompanied by three of the evangelists including the Base leader, Adesa. We met several families and they each invited us in to their homes. We did not enter the place of idol worship but we did enter into these families homes who worshiped the sun, trees, and rivers. We spoke to them about Jesus and we all had turns to share something. I personally shared my testimony with this family, speaking to them about how I knew how God answers prayers, through the testimony of my Chinese grandmother Nana and how she had told me that she had prayed everyday that my mother and father who previously were divorced, would reconcile and take me to church. Both of these things happened and helped me to believe that God not only existed but that he interacted with us.

These people who we spoke to had heard nothing about Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. We invited them to accept Jesus but they replied that they were interested in hearing more but would have to wait. Many in the village fear that the spirits whom their ancestors worshiped will come and destroy them if they turn away from their religion. Others claimed that if they received only a bible they would not only turn to Jesus Christ but teach about Him to others. This trip had been a great encouragement to the church who had sent the evangelism team. They had been considering disbanding the evangelism ministry but we think that this experience really encouraged them and they would continue sending others into these villages.

Escorted Out of A University

I looked up and suddenly I was surrounded by a large group of Ethiopians. A conversation of four to five people had quickly turned into a crowd of twenty five to thirty. Our team had visited this University before in the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Abbaba. The past couple of times we had visited I had only had a chance to speak to no more than a handful of people together about their lives and what did they think of Jesus Christ but here I was surrounded on all sides by curious college students wanting to hear why I had visited their country.

I realized that this was my opportunity, when one of them asked me the nature of my visit and what I thought of his country. As I began speaking about our desire to help the poor and to help people understand what a relationship with Jesus Christ looked like, another one of them began to object. "We have many religions here," he began. "Protestant, Muslim, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox...everone has their own religion here. We do not need relgious teaching. We have plenty of that. If you would like to teach on maybe Economics and give us some technology to make our country better we will be willing to listen to you."

I had never been in this situation where I was publicly preaching like this so I took my time to answer. A number of questions and objections to my coming came up but I really felt that God was leading my answers. Many in the crowd who objected most were actually Eastern Orthodox. They knew I was a Protestant trying to infiltrate their country with my Protestant teaching. In Ethiopia, especially the capital, the Eastern Orthodox church has much of the power and influence. They see Protestantism as a threat and are very stubbornly opposed to anything we say, even though we were simply teaching on the basic principles of having a relationship with God. They continued to try to change the subject of our discussion to Economics but really having money. One of them made it quite clear. "Money is everything!," he objected, after my many attempts to convince them that money and finances were the issue for Africa and Ethiopia.

I spoke pretty boldly but I was careful not to be offensive. I looked around at all the faces that were staring and me and declared, "The Western nations had given billions of dollars to Africa and Africa is worse because of it! You have many religions it's true, but there are African countries right now like in Kenya where Christians are killing one another! It is not relgion that God wants it is relationship! Finances and technology will not help change the heart of Africa! You will only cause your country to become dependent on the more advanced nations like Europe and America. Even today everytime I leave my house here, people beg from me. The only English that some children in your country know is 'give me money!' Money is not going to change poverty here in your country. Poverty is not just an economic problem, it is a spiritual problem!"


Finally one of them looked at me. He had gentle eyes and genuinely wanted to understand more but he was Eastern Orthodox and he was trying to make sense with his beliefs and what I was trying to say. "If this is true then what do the people need?" I bent down. He was sitting on the steps of the school flag pole infront of me and I looked right into his eyes. "They need the love of Jesus." "But people know about that," he was quick to point out. "People know it," I pointed to my head, "but people don't know it," I then pointed to my heart.

Soon after my last conversation I walked away from the flag pole. There were still thirty or forty people standing there but I had been speaking for forty minutes and I was tired. As I spoke to an actual Christian believer who had come up beside me to encourage me to continue preaching a security guard of the University came up to us. He spoke in Amharic, the local language, "The foreigners must leave. They can not be preaching like this." We were all escorted out of the University but we left in triumph, knowing that we had made a couple individuals really think.

Evangelizing to Muslims

Here's another update for y'all.

Well having fourteen people who are all very different live together for the past three weeks has had its challenges. Despite this though we've remained very unified together and we spent part of today resolving any issues we may have had. I'm surprised though how I have handled living so closely to my team mates. I normally need a lot of alone time to myself but I hardly have any here but I still feel totally refreshed especially after I have my quiet times and I tell God I just want live that day for Him with everything that I've got.

We've been evangelizing since we've been here and God has given us some pretty great opportunities. I'll give you a couple of examples. Every time I have prayed for opportunities to witness to people or to share my testimony God has been faithful even when it looks like it, God somehow works it out. You just have to be faithful and God will me you there.

I was sitting at a bus stop. We had just come from the mall and had finished eating. We looked around the mall and then walked across the street. Across the busy street we didn't find any obvious places where we could share with people. Finally we recognized a bus stop, about twenty people we there sitting down, waiting for a bus to arrive. I sat down and watched one of my team mates try to get into a discussion a Muslim woman. "Hi there," she began. "My name is Sarah Jane. Can I ask you some questions?" The woman shook her head. Sarah retreated to another seat and began another discussion with a different man. I however waited. I wasn't sure that this time we would get to share with anyone. I looked at the blank unfriendly faces of everyone at the bus station. I got out my camera. I thought, "This could get a conversation going..." And sure enough a man behind started looking at my pictures. I tried talking to him in English. "Tiger", I said pointing to the picture of an Indian Tiger, I took at Perth Zoo. He murmured the Indonesian word for Tiger. "Do you speak English?" I asked. "No," he laughed and shook his head. Soon he left but said good-bye to me and headed for his bus. There was a young guy with slicked back spikes for hair. He was taking a break and sat down next to me just as the other man was leaving. We started speaking in broken English. He was selling magazines and trying to get me to buy one but I began talking to him about his life, how long he's been working selling magazines, if he was Muslim. My translator was Harry. I tell you a bit about Harry later but through our conversation Val told me he had a girlfriend, that he had been working selling magazines for seven years, and yes that he was Muslim. Yet, as soon as I said I was a Christian he put his two index fingers together saying that Christians and Muslims were friends. "Yes," I said, "Yes. Muslims and Christians are good friends. Since you say that Christians and Muslims are good friends, I would like honor and respect you and pray for you and anything you need prayer for." It took awhile for Harry to translate this but Val looked incredibly grateful for this and nodded his head saying, "Yes! Yes!" I prayed for his life, his business, his desire to provide for his family, and his ability to give his sister an education. It was a tall order but he amen'd everything I prayed for and was so grateful he gave me and the two others I was with a box of donuts he had bought. We said thank you and got his number. We may hang out with him later.

Second example happened today. We were wondering by a nearby mall. Marianna and I were walking with our translator Harry as we browsed a video game arcade. As we passed by one of the games Harry began speaking to one of the guys who was playing. Marianna and I walked towards Harry. Yadi, was a man in his mid thirties. We found out through our conversation that this man was pretty smart. He owned ten stores that sold cell phones here in Jakarta. He majored in Engineering which he did for a job but he got so bored sometimes he would come to the Arcade just to relax. The game he was playing was one of those ticket-winning games you play by dropping a coin down a slot trying to make it into little buckets which spun around from the center with "10" "25" and "Jackpot" written on them. The buckets had a hole at the top which the coin was supposed to drop into. Each time in dropped into the bucket you would receive as many tickets as the bucket had written on. You could get 100 tickets by dropping the coin into the jackpot barrel. Yadi was dropping his coins into the Jackpot barrel 1 out of 2 times, which was amazing. This guy was racking up tickets like nobody's business. He had a system. He had figured out the timing and was winning big. Anyway this guy was pretty friendly as we spent an hour talking to him in the arcade. At the same time Marianna was talking to a couple of adorable Muslim girls who were looking at us from there hoods and smiling. I had the chance to pray for Yadi and Marianna prayed for the Muslim girls. Well after our conversation, Yadi invited both Marianna and I to dinner at KFC which was right across the arcade. Even when the two others who were with us, Josh and Paul, came Yadi invited them as well to dinner. So we all sat together and I spoke to Yadi even further. As I was about to eat my dinner, a bashful little Muslim girl came up to me. She asked me through Harry if I would pray for her too and I of course agreed but then when I asked her what she would like me to pray for she ran embarrassed back to her friend. They whispered and spoke to one another and finally she had the courage to come back to me and asked me to pray for her family and school. It was a great day. It's always difficult to see how God is going to work opportunities but you just go out and pray for them and they just come.

Now a word about Muslims. Most Muslims are wonderful. They are people who are very dedicated to their families. The things is that most Muslims see their religion as better than Christianity, so when you ask a Muslim to convert to Christianity you can see why they're totally offended.

I believe if Jesus was here he would want to love Muslims by showing them honor and respect and that is what I have found effective in building friendships with them. I ask if I can pray for them and their families and all of a sudden I've done something that probably no Christian has never done for them before. First of all, Muslims think that Christians are gossiping and talking bad about them when they go to their daily prayers. Muslims as you may know pray five times a day. Not all Muslims do this but many do. For some reason they have developed this stereotype of Christians that we don't like them and they we are plotting against them even as they pray. Sound familiar doesn't?

But the Muslims that I have spoken to want to love peacefully with Christians, just like the boy in the bus station did when he said Christians and Muslims are friends. Anyway, the US is seen as a Christian nation. Just as you see Indonesia or Iran or Malaysia as Muslim nations so is the US seen as a Christian nation. But you see the problem is when they watch American movies with sex-scenes and sexual content they associate that with Christianity. They think Christians are like this even though its just in the movies and the people who makes the movies are not even Christian. And they believe that Westerners are very loose and that they think of sex all the time because that is what is in the movies. Well praying for them and blessing them and not getting in their face and trying to convict them to betray everything they know about themselves is a much better way to witness the Gospel to them. They're very receptive if you're truly genuine. But here we are, breaking the stereotypes and sowing seeds that hopefully will bear fruit.

My Team

I'm sure some of you have been wondering who are the people that I have been traveling these past two weeks. So down below I have introduced all of my team mates with a short little blurb about them so you can understand a little bit of the dynamics of our team. I would just like to say that all of us are very different. We have bonded really close in the last few weeks but our personalities are unique.

We all call Michael "Campy". His last name is Campinelly or something like that so that's how he got his nickname. But he's one of my favorite guys that I've met. He's an outgoing, funny, spunky nineteen year-old that makes me laugh all the time.

Paul and I shared the same dorm room during DTS and we were also in the same small group. Paul grew up in YWAM. His dad is the regional director of North America. Anyway Paul's a great guy who has a lot of wisdom from growing up in YWAM. He's both an introvert and an extrovert. He can get crazy at times and he and I share an addiction now to the board game Settlers- Cities and Knights.

Johnny has also got to be one of my favorite guys that I've met. He's a Kiwi, meaning he's from New Zealand. He and I are both the introverted guys on the team. He's likes to not say a whole lot but when he does say something it's usally either something really profound or something really funny.

When I first met Josh I said to myself, "that's got to be one of the loudest guys I have ever met..." And it's true. Josh is loud, boisterous, but also servant hearted. I went into my room this week and found that Josh had made my bed and folded up my blankets. Josh grew up in YWAM too and has a lot of experience growing up in ministry.

Eric was my small group leader. Now he is one of the leaders of my team. The two things that stand out about Eric is his passion for fishing and his passion for also evangelism.

Alicia is the second leader of my trip. She's really the rock of our team. She's been an excellent leader. She's the oldest of our group being 30 and having done her DTS and joined YWAM only several years ago. Anyway, Alicia handles herself well under pressure. The Airforce seems to have given her that ability as well as her leadership skills.

Melissa I've called my favorite Canadian because she and I have had a lot of fun line dancing. She's really good at everything that I teach so I think she wants to start line dancing when she gets back home to Canada. Anyway, she and I are both contemplative people that like to talk about the deep stuff of life and I joke around with her a lot. She was one of my first friends during DTS.

Laura is a Hair-Stylist from Las Vegas, Nevada. I would say one of the things I admire best about Laura is her ability to converse and talk to anybody. She has no problem making friends here with the nationals and is my favorite person to evangelize with. She and I went to a hairsalon a couple days ago just to make friends with some of the people working there and ended up getting head-massages and getting to know people.

Sarah from Germany is one of the funniest girls I know. She and I are always laughing together. I practice my German with her a little bit and we have our own private jokes in German sometimes. Anyway, I love Sarah's jolly laugh and her sweet personality.

Mariana is one of the first people from Holland that I met. When I first came to Australia I met three people from Holland and she is one of them. I think my being really friendly early on with the Dutch have made us good friends. She's very intelligent and one of the oldest people here on our team next to Alicia. She often gets looks from the local men here being a beautfiul European blonde and they like to greet her in English.

Jessica is one of the youngest coming to YWAM just after she graduated High School. I've seen Jessica really transform during DTS becoming really passionate about God. She's very energetic and kind of sassy too but she's great fun.

Sarah Jane is another Canadian. A lot of Sarah's passions revolve the arts especially drama and acting. We put her in charge of leading the drama that we're performing for some of the churches here. Sarah has a lot of appreciation for my unique personality because of her own uniqueness.

Paulina is are second Dutch girl on our team. Paulina is probably the one person I don't know too much about. She's quiet about herself but outspoken on her opinion. She spent a year or so in the US during High School so she knows more about American culture than any of the other non-Americans.

Well that's my team. If it's possible I'll try to post pictures of all them sometime.

The Slum

The cars and mopeds rush close by us as we try to manuever across the busy streets of City J. We weave back and forth, hestitantly, looking frantically left and right as we cross the street from our apartment. There are no traffic lights. Pedestrians must cross the treacherous street filled with busy cars, taxis, buses, and mopeds unprotected. The key to not being hit by a random scooter or car is by moving slowly. Slow movements give the drivers time to slow down for you and let you cross safely. But the streets are so crowded and there are no sidewalks here that even when you walk down the street, vehicles will come uncomfortably close to you. But that's all part of life here. Dodging traffic and jumping across huge puddles of water, caused by the daily rains, has become part of our everyday experience. Seldom, do we see the blue sky.

Our week has been filled with meetings with local church leaders and ministry workers. Mega-Cities has provided us with several contacts including several churches in our side of the city and a local slum ministry. We spent Friday morning at a local slum close to where we live. We were led by Max and his team. Max is a young Asian man, with a prominent acne problem. He looks almost comical, like an Asian hobbit. He stands a little more than five feet tall with a little poney-tail hodling his black hair at the very top of his head. His feet, which I noticed while we were resting at the end of the day, are thin, talon like nobs which look more like fingers than toes. Regardless of his funny appearance, Max leads well. He tells us what we are to do once we get into the slum and has confidence in what he does.

The day in the slum began with us making our way through some very narrow and dark passages in the East part of the city. The neighborhood itself is tucked in from City J's main streets. The homes here are very small and the walkways through this little residential area are cramped and filled with pieces of garbage and refuse that the neighbors leave. I have seen poorer communities like those families who live on the trash mounds of Tijuana Mexico but they are still obviously poor.

A local woman invited us into her house, the first thing we arrived. She took us into her tiny little room of a house where she tried to make all fourteen of us comfortable. We all sat closely to one another, legs folded, as we went over the agenda for the day. The people of the neighborhood, brought donuts or rather a pastry-type food that they called donuts and clean water for us to drink. Max tells us we're here to do three things. One, is to work with some of the children of the neighborhood, the second is to help with a Christian doctor who makes visits here to reguarly check up on the children in the area, and the third is to clean all the trash and refuse lying in the corridors between the houses.

I help clean the trash while simultaneously video-recording all of our progress as we follow Max's volunteers who show us where we should clean. I get in there right away, I take the trash with one barehand and throw it into my clear plastic bag, feeling the wet and sometimes slimy trash on my fingers. We did this for an hour or so, greeting the curious on-lookers and neighbors with Salamat Pagi! (Good morning!) They're very interested in us. They surround us to see who are these white people in the neighborhood. Everyone's friendly. The children play with us or shyly look at us from a distance. Everyone laughs as I come out from one of the houses and bump my head on a low ceiling, just above the door.

First Wave

We all arived in City J several days ago. Our first task is to read the complete Bible as a team out loud here in the East part of the city. Speaking out the Word of God is a declaration of God's character of Who He is and we believe is the first part to seeing many come to know Christ. We have spent over the last 48 hours reading the Scriptures. We have three hour assignments in groups of three to four and then late night assignments in groups of two during the wee hours of the night.

The East side of City J reminds me much of Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. It's the wet season now. Water pours down in turrential rain here soaking down the streets in huge puddles. Many of the homes here are flooded up to a foot of water.

Our apartment, however, is try for now. It is a three bedroom apartment oddly right next to an auto shop. It has a very small kitchen, living room, and dinning room. All fourteen of us fit snuggly in this little apartment. We're very thankful for the airconditioners in each of the bedrooms which blow cold air in the hot and humid nights.

One exciting thing that happened was that we were invited into a Mosque yesterday as we were prayer walking. I immediately noticed the spiritual oppression as soon as I walked within its gates. Anyone who has walked into a temple and has felt the darkness in those places will know what I am speaking about. But we met several of the school teachers there who seemed very friendly to us. We prayed outside the Mosque walls asking God that the veil of misunderstanding would be lifted from their eyes and the Muslims would know the true God. I'll speak a little bit more about Islam later in my blog but Muslims do not know the compassionate and loving God that we know. They live in fear not knowing where they are going at the end of their lives. They worship a distant and unemotional God. But there's hope for them. I believe that Muslims can be some of the greatest Christians because they can take their zeal and apply it to their relationship with Christ.

We here are part of the first wave of hundreds and thousands that will be going to City J, crying out that the Lord will bring salvation into this city. But here there is much hard ground that needs to be broken up. The hard ground of the soil of City J needs to be tilled and the harder we hit this ground, with our prayers and in our faith, the greater work God will be able to do in the succeeding waves.