The only true Muslim?

The mullah stormed into the meeting, being held in a yurt in a small Mongolian town. Filled with jealousy, he interrupted Bill, the speaker, to declare to all present that he too knew religion and was qualified to teach people in public. Bill waited patiently until the rant was over. Then Bill asked to talk to the mullah in private after he had finished the meeting. Bill asked the mullah if he knew what the name, “muslim” meant. Like many local folk, the mullah knew little about Islam and could not answer. So Bill explained that it meant “submission to God”. As they talked together, Bill shared that he himself was not submitted to God as he wanted to be. The mullah confessed that he too often did what he wanted rather than what God required. Then Bill pointed him to the Scriptures and showed him how Jesus had been fully obedient to God, submitting to His will. “In fact,” said Bill, “Jesus is the only true Muslim that has ever lived!” The mullah was surprised and intrigued and the two men became friends as they talked together over the months that followed. Then the mullah was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Bill visited regularly with national Christians and before he died, the mullah turned to faith in Jesus.

Four weeks ago, Suzanne couldn’t rouse 17 year old Andrew. The family was working in a remote area of northern Cambodia. Suzanne called Dr Stroma, the OMF International Medical Advisor, and soon a military helicopter was on its way. Andrew was flown to intensive care in Bangkok. It turned out he had a very serious complication of previously undiagnosed diabetes. His family was moved to be with him and a call to prayer was sent out to the Fellowship. After four weeks in a coma, struggling for life, Andrew died a day ago. Please pray for Andrew’s parents, Daniel and Suzanne and his siblings Michelle, Peter, Sarah and Joshua as they adjust to their terrible loss. Pray for the Cambodia team who are shocked and grieving. Pray for us as we work with the insurance providers to have Andrew’s body repatriated. Pray that Jesus “will be exalted… whether by life or by death.”

The final approvals are in place, the budget is agreed, the decant plan is being finalized. The alternate telecoms and IT systems infrastructure is being put in place with new cableways, a new server room and a complex plan. The big move of the IHQ office into an emptied and prepared guest house will be starting in two months time. For a year, the 2 Cluny Road site will be divided in half, with a fence sealing off the building site. Trucks will rumble, jack-hammers will thunder and rattle, buildings will come down, walls will move, shafts will be sunk – all while we live and work alongside the organized chaos! Tensions are bound to rise as people strive to do their jobs in cramped, unfamiliar surroundings. Pray for the team that we will “..be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

As if one major project wasn’t enough, the roll-out of the “International Personnel System – Connecting People” continues apace. Another 300+ people have started using the system over the last four days. Our team is kept very busy, answering urgent “HELP ME!” type emails, sorting out issues and bugs and collecting suggestions for improvements. We are testing the final part of the system to be launched this year –allowing people to both register their interest in OMF’s work and to fill in application forms online. The information they provide should flow through the system so they only need to provide their details once – in contrast to the present situation! Do pray that we get this right and so show love and support to hard-pressed and over-worked OMF colleagues handling people.

With thanks for your prayerful support

Steve, Anna, Joshua & Aimée

São Paulistas - following Paul to Asia?

Spot the Plane!
I look out across the city of São Paulo from the 13th floor of our hotel. As far as the eye can see, skyscrapers sprout like thousands of blades of grass across the hills in this aggressive, hyperactive city of thirty-three million people. We swing past Maracanã Stadium, the biggest football stadium in the world, see Cidade de Deus, reputedly the most violent slum in Latin America, swim in the powerful South Atlantic rollers on Copacobana beach and look out across the beauty of Rio de Janeiro from the statute of Christ on Corcovado (Hunchback) Mountain. However Jon Fuller and I are not in Brazil to sight-see but to find out more about the Brazilian mission movement. We visited churches in favelas (slums), in working class, middle class and wealthy areas and talked to pastors, Brasilian missionaries, missionaries working in Brazil, para-church workers and Brazilian mission leaders. All those we spoke to told us of the beginnings of a powerful and exciting mission movement in Brazil in the 1980s, culminating in an all-Latin American mission conference in 1987. At that time there were already around 6000 Brazilians working cross-culturally mainly in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Only a few have come to Asia, a handful with OMF. What has happened since then?

Editora Mundo Cristão is one of the biggest Christian publishing houses in Brazil. There is a huge demand for Christian literature – in October 2007, Mundo Cristão sold more than a million reais (US$600, 000) worth of books in a single month, more than 150, 000 books. Recently the Brasilian middle class has become the biggest sector of society with increasing income for people who are no longer struggling to survive. The astonishing growth in the evangelical church with 36 million Christians provides a huge potential market. But in Mundo Cristão and at other bookshops we visited (Catholic, Protestant or secular), there was a startling absence of any titles at all regarding missions in any shape or form. The lack of books and media on mission is worrying. Only a handful of Bible schools and seminaries in this vast country provide teaching on missions. Despite the numerical growth in the church and the rise in disposable income the number of Brazilian missionaries has reportedly fallen to around 3100.

The economic crisis of the early 1990s in Brazil played a role in this fall. But it seems the church has become inward-looking, focusing on numerical growth and physical infrastructure while weak on discipleship. There was also a pattern of poor selection and training of mission candidates, weak or absent member care and field structures, unrealistic expectations by missionaries and of missionaries by churches - leading to an astonishing three out of four Brazilians returning home before the end of their first term. This very high rate of attrition has led to a loss of confidence. However, for some key leaders, it has also led to a greater awareness of the need for carefully established long-term work with thoroughly screened and prepared candidates. Please pray that God will guide us as to if and how OMF can better engage with Brazilian missions.

With our love

Steve, Anna, Joshua and Aimee

Who is Jesus?

Srey Leak grew up in Stung Meanchey, Phnom Penh which hosts the biggest rubbish dump in the country. In the area live thousands of the poorest of the poor, scavenging to survive. Srey Leak’s parents decided to give her up for adoption. She was adopted and taken away at the age of eleven despite both her parents still being alive. Srey Leak has ended up in the same class at school as Aimee – but has struggled to adjust in the massive shock of leaving family and friends in poverty-stricken Cambodia to a whole new massively affluent way of life in a new family, country, language and culture at the age of 13. She was delighted to find out about Aimee’s connection with Cambodia and surprised to find that Anna and I speak Khmer – she phones us to speak in her mother tongue and calls us “Ming” and Pu” – younger auntie and younger uncle! Srey Leak came for a sleep-over a few weekends ago. We told her we were going to say thank you to Jesus for the food before we ate. She asked us, “Who is Jesus?” Explaining in both English and Khmer brought a look of blank incomprehension. She had not heard of him in either language! At bed-time we looked through a Khmer picture Bible – going through Jesus’ life-story together. She asked questions for 45 minutes, and then insisted on going to church with us the next day. We wouldn’t allow her until she had the permission of her adoptive parents – she called them four times! Pray that Srey Leak (pronounced “Lay-ack”) would be able to cope with the phenomenal adjustments she is facing now and find faith in Jesus.

The first Orientation Course of 2008 has come and gone. Philipp and Elisabeth Schmuki, the new OC Supervisors, did well although arrived at the end of the month exhausted! The deadline for registration for the next OC has just passed and a further 28 folk are on their way to join us in May! The building project team is coming together for the rebuild of our office space at 2 Cluny Road. We already have a deputy project manager and a potential project manager will be visiting in April – pray that the Lord will help and guide us in making good decisions.

Work on the International Personnel System has speeded up even further. We are now at the height of effort and struggling to cope – around twenty people are working at full stretch and the project area fairly hums with activity. At present we are putting together the organisational structure to upload into the system so the IPS “knows” where everyone is located – OMF is challengingly diverse in its structures and this has proved to be a major difficulty. Please pray that we get this right and quickly – so we don’t hold up the build! From 7-11th April there will be a blueprinting week held here at IHQ on a new way of handling and tracking applications to OMF on-line. Folk are flying in from around the Fellowship to take part – please pray for a profitable week together with the software team and for stamina for everyone taking part.

On April 13th the Griffiths family will be leading both Family Services at our church in Singapore, Adam Road Presbyterian Church, together with Sin Ee – an OMF worker just back from Taiwan. Pray for a joy in worship, good communication of the Word in this all-age service and that the church would understand a bit more about being a missionary sending church. On 18th April Steve leaves for Brazil, with another International Director, to look at building relationships with the strong evangelical movement there. Pray for safety in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Please pray also for time to prepare the materials for deputation/preaching on Home Assignment – which starts for Steve at the beginning of May. Pray for Anna (doing the May OC lectures alone!) and the children staying on in Singapore for 5 weeks after Steve has left.

Josh and Aimee go on separate school trips during April: Josh will be away on Pulau Ubin Island from 8th-11th and Aimee to Taman Negara in Malaysia from 20th-25th. Praise the Lord that ACS International (the school where Josh goes) has found funding to be able to offer Aimee a bursary to follow her brother to the school in January 2009! Thank you to everyone for praying! With our love,

Steve, Anna, Joshua & Aimée

Shining like stars

A few weeks ago a BBC reporter interviewed a Kikuyu refugee from the Eldoret area in Kenya. Anthony was out in the fields when he heard the roar. He rushed towards his village to see a 700 strong Kalenjin mob, many who were his own neighbours, surrounding the church and setting it on fire. In the church were his elderly father, his wife and baby son. As flames engulfed the building, his father died. His wife, seeing there was no way out for her, hurled her two-week old son through a window to save him. She suffered 75% burns but survived. Anthony found his son, buried his father hastily that night and took his wife and family and fled. The reporter asked him, "What will you do to your neighbours if you see them again?" Antony left the reporter lost for words by responding, "If I see them and they ask me to forgive them, I will forgive them because I am a Christian." His words were in stark contrast to the rest of the report, full of angry, hate filled voices calling for violent revenge. Anthony offered forgiveness to those who had so horribly wronged him. Paul writes, "that you may become children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life." As a family, we have been powerfully challenged in the past few weeks by Anthony, a child of God, who has held out the word of life.*

The first orientation course of 2008 has started and we welcomed 23 new workers on 14th Feb. Some arrived apprehensive, weary and sad after many goodbyes but also looking forward to seeing what God will do as they to go on to "hold out the word of life" to peoples across Asia. We are glad to have them.

The design for expanded and upgraded facilities for our creaking and overburdened 2 Cluny Road site has been agreed! The architect, David Gould, has done a fine job in creating a cohesive, attractive design - light and airy spaces conducive to work, teaching and welcoming. Please pray as we put together a project team to actually carry out the renovations.

Work on the International Personnel System to help us effectively handle our people continues at breakneck pace. Permits for a New Zealand IT expert and 2 Cambodian programmers have been granted and all three have arrived! Two more workers will be joining us in early March. The IT project team hope to have completed the first draft of the blue-print for the system by 22nd February. Jon Watts, the project manager, is doing a fine job but is under a huge amount of pressure. He and Steve spend hours on the phone each week talking to personnel in several different OMF centres across the world.

In OMF we have more than 700 third culture kids (TCKs). There are issues unique to spending your formative years in a different culture. There are also challenges in schooling children – either in down-town Tokyo or the Mongolian steppes! Our International Co-ordinator for TCK Care and Education, Barry McKessar, is stepping down after more than 14 years in the role. Please pray for the search for his replacement who we hope will be based here in Singapore.

Joshua is working hard and playing hard - three days a week he puts in a 12 hour day - partly due to long rugby practices! He just played his second full match and was delighted to score a try! Aimee is hoping to follow her brother to ASC International next January - last week she enjoyed participating in the school play "The Phantom Tollbooth" which the kids put on at a community centre theatre here. She and her friends did a great job!

With our love,
Steve, Anna, Joshua & Aimée

* When we expressed our concern for Anthony in an email to the BBC, to our surprise, we were put in touch with Anthony via the reporter. Pray especially for his wife who will undergo skin grafting on her burns from 18th February.

Cut-price Christianity?

“Sending our own people as missionaries is a waste of money, resources and time,” said the Asian church leader to Steve as the visiting speaker. “Mission is so expensive and demands so much from a church. Our people are well-trained with a high living standard. They expect too much. Our policy is not to send any Singaporean in mission. But we will send money to help pay national pastors working in other countries.” But can we really outsource mission services, just like call centres and IT services? Find cheap workers that can take the Good News (and take the hardships too) while we keep our hands clean, our budget full and our life easy?

Of course there was an element of truth in what the leader said. We need to look critically at how much mission costs – although I suspect it’s far short of what many churches spend on buildings, sound equipment, choir robes and the like. We also need to be committed to working with national churches where they already exists. But “outsourcing” mission goes against the very heart of what mission is all about – God in the shape of Jesus Christ laying aside riches, privilege and power to come into a dark and broken world to seek and to save those who are lost. Mission costs a great deal. It cost Jesus his reputation, his security, his home, his servants, his friends and ultimately his life. It cost God his son. Churches that send people in mission often lose skilled, passionate, committed people. But in God’s economy the churches that send their people gain far more than they lose. As a church sends someone in mission, the very act poses a powerful challenge to those that stay behind. We have seen sending churches become:

• more engaged (it’s not just faceless anonymous people we support but it is our very own Jonny and Jane that have gone!)

• more prayerful (people I already know and love I really want to talk to God about!)

• more mission-minded at home (well if these ordinary people can go to Hanoi to tell people about Jesus, maybe I can tell people at the office)

• more generous (we’ve sent one person, why don’t we send more….)

• more aware of the needs, the riches, the history and the challenges of other cultures and peoples (hey, we’re becoming world Christians!)

Christmas is coming – and it is hugely hyped here in Singapore, despite the fact that the majority of Singaporeans are not Christian. But all join in a festival marked mainly by shopping and eating – two very popular Singaporean pastimes! One of the shopping malls near our house has a monster “Christmas” display – and twice a night blow a mass of “snow” (foam) over the whole thing, including shoppers. Aimee and Josh have been down a few times to join in the fun. ZY and YY our mainland Chinese friends are interested to find out more about what underlies all the hype. They will come round to watch “The Nativity Story” with us next week and talk it over. We long for YY to come to faith in the “God with fingerprints”.

The next ten days look challenging. Software developers will be presenting “mock-ups” of the way they will modify their software for us in response to the detailed outline that we have presented to them for the International Personnel System 9see last blog). A local Financial Director of a giant international software company who is a believer has arranged a massive 93% discount on purchase of software, potentially saving us a great deal of money. We need employment passes for the technical team leader (a former OMF TCK from New Zealand) and Cambodian programmers to be able to work here in Singapore for the first six months of 2008. In all this highly technical work, we long to glorify God and see our labour contribute to the growth of His Kingdom among East Asians.

Finally, we’re looking forward to a week’s holiday in the Malaysian Cameron Highlands straight after Christmas – time to climb mountains, enjoy log fires, sleep, eat and have fun together as a family!

With Christmas greetings and our love,

Steve, Anna, Joshua & Aimée