The Holy Spirit and spirit worlds of Asia

I grew up in the culture of rural north-eastern Zimbabwe where the spirit world was real and everyday and affected people's lives in unpredictable ways.  Each family lived in a group of huts as a homestead, with fields surrounding them.  Homesteads of the extended family were clustered together.  Around each clan were the spirit guardians, the spirits of the dead ancestors who existed alongside the living, who needed care and appeasement but provided spiritual protection and guidance to the clan. 

The n'yanga, or traditional healer lived just across the valley from us.  Many saw the n'yanga as merely a herbalist but many n'yangas dealt with much more than physical illness.  For example, they would help those who claimed to be affected by ngozi, wandering spirits who were angry at the lack of ceremonies carried out at their death and who had been unable to join the clan spirits.  This was particularly relevant after the war of independence - many ex-combatants sought help, believing themselves haunted by the spirits of those they had killed.  There were also svikiros, or spirit mediums, those able to make contact with, become possessed by and effectively manipulate spirits - often for negative purposes.  My parents, as Pentecostals, were able to engage effectively with this world view, not to dismiss the world of the supernatural but to help transform it, not replacing it with Western rationalism but rather an authentic folk Christianity which took both the spirit world of rural Zimbabwe and the Holy Spirit seriously.


I am taking part in the OMF Mission Research Consultation here from 4th - 8th October. The theme of the consultation is "Aspects of Trinitarian Mission - the Holy Spirit and the spirit worlds of Asia".  I listen to Moe Moe Nyunt, a Burmese thinker and writer talk about the Burmese world-view.  She tells us that Burma is full of pagodas, temples and shrines, a leading country of Theravada Buddhism.  But in fact, Burmese spirituality is firmly rooted in the worship of spirits called nats.  She describes the elaborate categories that exist to help describe this spirit world and it's interaction with human beings.  Moe Moe Nyunt mentions the authentic spiritual thirst that Burmese people have - and how a Western enlightenment theology that emphasizes the rational and the scientific and downplays the supernatural may miss opportunities to introduce the Burmese to the power of the Holy Spirit to enable them to come to terms with and make sense of their world view as well as have it changed by the good news of Jesus.  Echos of my childhood come back to me as she talks.

With the People

Twenty years ago, John & Sue and his family were friends and colleagues of ours in Mozambique. They lived in a village on the edge of the Great Forest in the northern part of the country. Their house was mud block and thatch built with help from local villagers, and like their neighbours they lived without mains electricity or running water. Over years, John has worked to determine a way of writing the previously unwritten Makuwa-Meeto language. John and Sue trained a team of Makuwa translators who are now rendering the Bible into Makuwa-Meeto. In addition, literacy programmes are running and aspiring writers are encouraged to create books of folk tales, local history, health guides and children’s books.

John was attending a Wycliffe Bible Translators meeting here in Singapore and it was so good to catch up with him. He showed me his “Shoebox” software – over 3, 000 Makuwa-Meeto words recorded, with their meaning, their phonetic equivalent, their grammatical description and more. For hundreds of words, there were notes on cultural practices and world-view. The painstaking research and passionate interest in the Makuwa-Meeto language, culture and world view and the affection that John and Sue had for their many Makuwa friends and colleagues was deeply moving. It gives the lie to the often-repeated fallacy that Christian mission has undermined and destroyed culture. Rather there is a passion to see God speak in every language to every heart and see every culture redeemed.

We want to see God speak too - Lamentations 3 is not the easiest chapter in the Bible to understand or to talk about meaningfully. How can an ancient dirge, written over 2,500 years ago and 5,000 miles away in a vastly different culture and language speak to families in safe, secure Singapore? But the Griffiths family have been tasked to take on this chapter as the theme for the next Family Service at our church here in Singapore. We’ll need to understand it deeply but tell it simply, in ways that children and adults can understand. Please pray for all four of us as we put the service together in (hopefully) creative ways.

A life in the day of....

Our day starts before dawn with a pint of tea…each! Steve is currently reading through Ezekiel (with the help of Chris Wright) and Anna through Mark (with the help of Tom Wright. A sleepy Aimée wanders through for a hug. Josh needs to be woken up by a parental incursion into the sacrosanctity of his bedroom. Josh and Steve take Millie the dog and go running in the Botanic Gardens. We eat breakfast together, while discussing the plans for the day, mainly related to the children’s plans for socializing. We read and pray as a family. Anna and Steve cross the OMF compound to the office while Aim and Josh head for the bus stop – already dripping with sweat at 7:30 in the morning. Steve reviews the International Personnel System (IPS) helpdesk inbox, (the system that helps our team leaders look after their people) and begins to triage problems for the Personnel team to focus on during the day. Anna begins to respond to the 30 or so emails that have come in overnight.

The working day officially starts at 08:30. We join around 50 colleagues from the OMF Singapore office along with new OMFers on the Orientation Course for morning prayers. Hanneke from Holland shares the story of her coming to faith. Robert, a Canadian, with a dry sense of humour has us laughing as he outlines prayer needs for Canada and updates us on a recent conference for Asian mission organisations working in dangerous and marginal situations. After thirty minutes prayer together, we spread out through the complex to our work.

The Personnel team has its daily lively five minute meeting to report progress on issues, and assign tasks for the day. Sin Ee, working in Taiwan with the urban poor, back on leave in Singapore, pokes her head round the door to say hello. Steve spends several hours working through detailed plans for a missional business in Cambodia. Anna slips out for a medical follow-up with her neurologist. Emergency calls come in asking for input and advice from China and Cambodia. Anna meets with a colleague to discuss candidates wanting to join OMF from Chile, Finland and Mexico. We host a case conference involving medical, home school support and educationalist colleagues to discuss support plans for a child with learning difficulties whose family is heading for rural Laos – and then spend time praying for the family. Wei, a key member of the IPS technical team arrives in our office. She wants permission to release requested fixes and enhancements into the IPS system. We review them together, and plan and prepare communications about the changes to those that will be using the system. We authorise the release and she runs upstairs to get the technical team to start making the changes. They will work into the night. Around 120 emails came into our inbox during the working day.

Josh and Aimée crash through the door after nearly 12 hours at school. They are both filthy after games of rugby on a muddy pitch. We eat hotdogs for supper while uproariously practising some games that we want to play as ice-breakers on the Orientation Course fun night. Steve leads the jollities as we play silly games with the new group on Orientation Course from Holland, Philippines, the US, Korea, Myanmar/Spain and the UK. Hot but happy, we all eat icecream with the OCers to cool down! Before we go to bed we check that the changes to IPS have gone through and the system is working as it should. We debrief as a family and pray together. By 11:30, all is quiet and still in the Griffiths household….but not for long.

"Outrageous Hope" Down Under...

Sydney Harbour Bridge flag

Over the last few years, OMF Australia has grown under the energetic and capable leadership of an Aussie couple originally from Hong Kong & Singapore who worked cross-culturally in Korea. It was a privilege to spend a week with the Australian team in (a freezing-cold!) Sydney. We joined the Homeside staff conference as they prayed, reviewed the past few months and planned for the next 18 months. Dozens of committed, qualified new candidates have come through the hands of the Australian team. Overall the number of missionaries sent out has doubled to nearly 120. Despite the economic downturn, income for OMF Australia remains rock-solid and over 100% of what is needed. It was wonderful to see how the team has been built and the energy and enthusiasm they displayed was infectious! We enjoyed a morning off which gave us an opportunity to take a ferry down the Parramatta river, see the Sydney Opera House and walk across the Sydney Harbour bridge.

Kookaburra at Naamaroo Camp

We joined the OMF Australia National Conference over three days at Naamaroo Camp along Little Blue Gum Creek in a wooded area of Sydney – possums and kookaburras aplenty! The theme was “Outrageous Hope” with Steve giving the Bible readings from Habakkuk. Anna was encouraged and moved to meet many faithful OMF supporters who shared their memories of her grandfather Walter and great-uncle and great-aunt Alf and Allison Pike who served in China with CIM/OMF. Twenty-five candidates preparing to serve in east Asia told their stories. A number of Aussie OMFers currently on Home Assignment shared courageously and honestly of their struggles and joys.

The current OMF Australia Director and his wife are taking up a leadership position in a team in north-eastern Asia. Johan and Debbie Linder, a couple with many years of experience in Thailand and with the Thai diaspora in Australia are taking over. At the end of the Conference, we travelled across Sydney to the Sydney Missionary and Bible College where we participated in the induction service for Johan and Debbie. It was a demanding but rewarding time down under. Back in Singapore, Josh and Aimee thrived without us and Anna was glad to have survived the cold temperatures of the Aussie winter!

How do you want your life.... easy or worthwhile?

Dan Terry - courtesy of Reuters

I'm reflecting on the lives of Dan Terry and Tom Little who were shot dead last week in Afghanistan. Theirs were lives well-lived, with over six decades of service to the Afghan people between them.  The BBC correspondent described Dan Terry as a man who "fixed lives - reconciling, peacemaking - and always, always laughing."  Dan had moved to Afghanistan from India with his parents when a teenager and loved the country and it's peoples.  He spoke multiple local dialects.  Both men lived lives in risky service of others.

Josh read the story, turned to me and said, "that's the kind of story I want people to tell about me when I'm dead."

But what motivated both Dan and Tom?  At Dan's memorial service, a friend read from the book of I John, "greater love has no one than to lay down his life for a friend," recalling that Dan Terry was both a friend of Jesus and a constant friend of the Afghan people.  Both men were "....inspired by their Christian faith" to live lives in risky service of others. We are grateful for their example, mourn their passing, look forward to the reunion to come and pray for forgiveness for their killers.

God's Property

A snapshot from the past.  As a medical student I was standing in a clinic when an old man was pushed in, sitting in a wheelchair. His ragged, dirty clothes were shoved haphazardly and incompletely on his body. He was slumped, grey-stubbled, unkempt, muttering under his breath, vacant. Together with him came a rich, strong stink making me gasp and breath through an open mouth. I turned to one of my medical colleagues and said, somewhat rudely “This is created in the image of God.” I wrote later in my diary, ‘sometimes that is a really hard concept to get my head around’.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea   and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them….. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

There is much talk and concern about the rights of human beings – and rightly so. Humans are not just a unit of production. They’re not a unit of consumption. They are not pawns to be moved about on a political chessboard. But it is important to remember that the basis for human rights and human dignity is not human ability or human reason. It is a little-known fact that the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written by a Christian seminary professor, Frederick Nolde back in 1948. He recognised that it was God’s creative action not human agency that gives us inherent dignity as human beings. In his book "Subverting Global Myths", Sri Lankan thinker Vinoth Ramachandra notes that our inherent value is not given by the state nor can it be taken away by other human beings – it can only be recognised.

Aimée with friends

A human is made in the image of God. What does this mean? We are rational and self-conscious. We are moral, having a conscience. We are creative, able to appreciate what is beautiful to ear and eye. We are social, able to establish authentic relationships of love – a capacity to love God and love others. We are spiritual, with a hunger after God. We can think, can choose, can create, can love and can worship. Of course, in the fall, every aspect of the image of God was defaced – our humanness is tainted with self-centeredness. Our human disobedience has upset our human relationships, including the relationship with God. However, God’s image has not been destroyed. The good news of God is that the image of God can be renewed.

But it is not simply that God has made us in His image. Later on, God makes the most astonishing statement through Ezekiel. He says, ‘for every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son – both alike belong to me.” God says He is both the God of all peoples and he is the God of each person. He is the personal owner of every human being who has ever lived, lives or who will live. The lives of all those we work with and serve and reach out to, are both made in the image of God and ultimately belong to God. ‘Our job is to help them to find, to return to, to relate to their rightful owner’ – Chris Wright. In working with and caring for people, as well as in caring for the earth itself, we are looking after God’s property. Let us be careful with God’s property today.

Looking Ahead….

We have now completed five years in our role.  It has been exciting with the Call to Prayer for 900 New Workers to serve on neglected frontiers among East Asia’s peoples. Nearly 500 have joined us so far. We have sponsored the Phase Two building project as well as seeing the International Personnel System come into existence to help cope with the flow. On the other hand we have had many difficult & sometimes heart-breaking personnel issues to deal with which has drained us. We feel ready for our Home Assignment – now clearly visible on the horizon! We have had to be imaginative in the way we take a break from our role this time as the two months we took in 2008 were not sufficient. The challenge of taking a proper Home Assignment (HA) while having two children in secondary school is making sure we disengage fully from the job, still reconnect with friends & supporters in the UK while not disrupting the children’s schooling. Therefore we are taking a seven month HA (six weeks in the UK; 5½ months in Singapore) but not living & working at OMF IHQ. So we fly to the UK on 26th November 2010, return to Singapore on 12th January for the start of the 2011 school year & remain on HA here until 30th June.

“Guess what, Mum?” Joshua shouted excitedly down the phone, “I came top in the world!” It took a while to sort out the story. Cambridge Examining Board had just released news from the November 2009 exams. The Anglo-Chinese School had been informed that Joshua came Top in the World in Geography IGCSE! Joshua’s teacher was delighted & framed a photocopy of Joshua’s certificate which is hanging in his room. This came out of the blue but has been a huge encouragement to Josh!

With our love,

Steve Anna, Joshua and Aimee

Building God’s New Community

In India, a few years ago, a high-caste Brahmin came to believe in Jesus. He believed that he was created differently to those of lower castes. He had never shared any utensil with anyone from a lower caste. One day as he joined in communion, he became acutely aware of the fact that just next to him was a dalit, an ‘untouchable’. The Brahmin realised that he would have to drink from the same cup as this ‘polluting’ dalit. He broke out in sweat as an intense internal battle took place between his loyalty to the caste system and his new-found loyalty to Jesus. As the cup came to him after his dalit Christian brother had already drunk from it, he took a decision – & drank too. As he did so, the thick line of prejudice & division drawn in his heart was erased by the blood of Jesus.

One of the key words to come out of International Council during the last 8 days has been the word “disciple”. The more we progress in the Christian life, the more we realise the depths of sinfulness lodged in our hearts. We were challenged to look at “respectable sins” – discontent, pride, selfishness, impatience, irritability, sins of the tongue. We were reminded that the tired, sad rhythm of our sin has been interrupted by the rhythm of grace. It is not that we are rescued by God & then He scratches his head & wonders what to do with us! Rather we move from being objects of wrath to being objects of mercy to being objects of God’s creative workmanship – doing good deeds that God has prepared in advance for us to do. Our choice is between obedience & superficiality.

Anna & I presented various issues concerning OMFers at International Council. OMF has hundreds of men – it’s just that they are almost all married. Of the 315 single OMFers, just 22 are men. One of those listening to our presentation put this fact on his blog – within hours he had over 40 comments, speculating on why this gap between single men & women exists!

In contrast to trends towards short-term mission reported by many agencies, we have seen a dramatic increase in those joining us for long-term service. Since the 1990’s there has been a rise in the number of Asians in OMF – now around 40%. One field team is 70 strong but has 17 different mother tongues represented! We are very culturally & linguistically diverse. Now, we see more joining us from neither Asia nor the West – Maori, black South African, Peruvian, Brasilian & Argentinian, reflecting the move of world Christianity south & east. Will this current trickle become a flood?

Eat, sleep, dive!

Anna swam close inshore in choppy water. Scanning what was going on beneath the surface of the sea, she raised her head & called a word which I never expected to hear from her while in the sea - “shark!” I quickly swam towards her, & then watched in wonder as the sleek, powerful body of a black-tipped reef shark shot between us & headed into the open ocean. It was an amazing moment!

Rich, Zoe and toddler Jude are friends working in South-east Asia who joined us for two weeks holiday on Tioman Island off Malaysia. Rich is a marine biologist & Zoe is a full-time mum in a culture not her own – which is even more demanding than the regular mum job (if possible!) We enjoyed our stay in wooden huts perched above the sea in a bay – no air conditioning, no hot water, no television, no fridge, no Internet, no computer. We fell asleep to the sound of the sea each night & spent our days in & out of the water. To have Rich’s enthusiastic expertise meant that we saw & understood much more than we would have on our own. We saw the beauty of Vermiculated Butterflyfish & Copperbanded Angelfish, gawped with amazement at the vast bulk of a Napoleon Wrasse & enjoyed the courage of False Anemonefish as these tiny, fiercely territorial creatures swam threateningly at us as we approached their host anemones. Diving at night was an eerie experience with the long plunge off the jetty into dark water especially unnerving. We explored the seabed & coral reefs, finding octopus, scorpionfish, stingrays, coral cat sharks & even a green sea turtle asleep under a reef. Darting about near the surface we saw multicoloured, brightly reflective squid – with their strange body shape & rippling mantles they looked like tiny UFOs. It was refreshment & blessing to enjoy God’s sometimes strange, incredibly varied, occasionally frightening but good creation. We were reminded that God blessed animals & fish before blessing humanity & has his own relationship with them independent of man – we remain not owners but stewards of the world.

Thank you for your prayers for the Mekong Reunion. Well over a hundred workers serving in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, north Thailand & China came together for a week. For many it was an opportunity to worship God freely & openly – something they cannot normally do in their work setting. It was challenging & encouraging to hear many share their stories of what God is doing among dozens of people groups in that part of the world. Despite Steve’s computer seizing up on the last day before he had extracted his last talk, the five Bible readings seemed to be appreciated. There were also 120+ children at the conference. Joshua helped out with the programme for 5-7 year olds, finding it both enjoyable & exhausting. Aimee was busy making new friends & was very reluctant to say goodbye. We hardly saw either of them all week!

With our love,
Steve Anna, Joshua and Aimee

“O Sovereign Lord, you alone know” - March 2010

As a community of people at 2 Cluny Road 15 months ago we were scattered to new places of work. We watched as the living building we had been working in was reduced to a bare hulk, just the dry bones remaining. We have seen the tendons and flesh of ducts, piping, cabling put into place. Beauty has returned - the skin of plaster, paint & decoration drawn over the flayed building. Finally, on 12th of March the big move back into the building took place! There has been a great deal of excitement, relief and happiness to finally settle back in the new office. But is it enough to renew a building?

In a startling vision, Ezekiel stands in a valley of very dry scattered bones. In an unusual command, God tells Ezekiel to speak to the skeletons of the dead and he obeys. The combination of God’s word spoken by a person & God’s power is astonishing. There is a terrifying rattling sound as the bones of bodies find each other. Scattering is reversed. Tendons & muscle appear & attach to bones. Structure is put in place. Skin covers the body again. Beauty is restored. Physically, everything is in place that needs to be - renovation & structure & beauty. But nothing is happening. Dead bodies still litter the floor. Ezekiel must obediently speak again before the wind of the Spirit brings new life.

There is much talk & work on re-structure & change in OMF. We want to meet the challenges of an urbanising China, of a radicalised Islam, of a resistant Buddhism among others. We want to engage with a new generation, a wired world, a media marketplace. We want to grow, draw people together for a common purpose, to structure well. We want to do this in ways that are beautiful, honouring to God. But what will the end result of re-structuring & change be? A bunch of beautiful bodies lying dead on a valley floor? Or a community of people full of God’s new life?

The Orientation Course went smoothly and most of the 45 new workers have scattered across East Asia. Last week we reviewed all that needs to be done over the next eight months, so that we can hand over a smoothly running department to our deputies before going on Home Assignment in late November. It was very sobering – we have a great deal to set up or see through to completion.

Josh & his friend Reggie did a great job directing and producing their school drama production ‘The Flying Circus’. There were rave reviews, including a thank you note from the headmaster who attended both nights. Aimée worked in set design and in the backstage crew, eliciting cheers and applause every time she appeared to change the set – obviously she has made her mark too! However, Josh spent his half-term break in enforced rest with a chest infection – bitterly disappointed as he had been invited to Indonesia with friends. He is thinking hard about how to pace himself better this term. We'll see how that goes!

Amor e Morte? - February 2010

Years ago, wandering round woodlands in central Portugal, we came across an old building, rotting away, half-hidden under the trees. A passing graffiti artist had drawn a dramatic picture in a Gothic style of a gaunt, haunted-looking Jesus and underneath had scribbled, “Amor e Morte” – Love and Death. For some that seems to sum up the message of Christianity. There may be love but there is much about death – to the world, in self-denial and as punishment. But is death really the focus?

The words of God given to Ezekiel are challenging and refreshing. God says that he looked at the fragile kicking baby of the nascent nation of Israel and says, “I saw you…as you lay there…I said to you, “Live!”” At the core of this book all about the severe and cleansing judgment of God there is a clear message that God’s desire is to bring life to people. As people whose perception is clouded by sin, we are tempted to see judgment as God’s delight. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. God says, “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone…repent and live!” To know God is to know the source of all that is most worthwhile and pleasurable about life. We are made in His image to think rationally, choose morally, create beauty and to love God and one another.

This declaration that God’s desire for us is life has been especially poignant this past week of Chinese New Year. Singapore opened the doors of its first “integrated resort” – a euphemism for what is the most expensive casino in the world, built in the face of opposition from the people of Singapore. Seventy-five thousand people poured in on opening day, despite the minimum $100.00 charge for Singaporeans just to get through the door. Now it is possible to gamble here 24 hours a day. Adverts calling for responsible gaming and a soap opera series where actors suffer from gambling addictions seem feeble. The risks being run include rises in problem gambling, loan sharking, money laundering and organized crime. In the face of all that life has to offer, this is courting a kind of death.

In contrast, OMF colleagues in Taiwan, David and Ruth Ullstrom have been watching their 17 year old son rapidly deteriorate. Ian died this morning of a rare cancer. David wrote, “Our beloved Ian stopped breathing at about 1am Sunday morning. The whole family was together with him. Thank God for the hope of one day laughing again with him…” In the face of death, trust is affirmed in the God of life who can make dry bones live.

The Christian name for God - January 2010

What’s in a name? Does it matter what word is used to name someone? It seems that it sometimes matters a great deal. As we mentioned in our latest Newsletter, in this part of the world there has been controversy about the name of God recently. The debate has spilled over from courtroom into violence and destruction. Most animists regard any creator spirit as unknown and unknowable. For Buddhists, a creator God who is personally known is incompatible with the Buddha’s teachings. From ancient times right up to today, across the region in which we live, the Koran is daily read and studied by many – but “Father” is not one of the 99 names of God recorded there. In Old Testament times, the Jews did not dare to speak of God in intimate terms.

A friend reminded us recently that Jesus taught us to pray to our creator God as “Abba”. In most Semitic languages “Abba” is the word used for father, or rather “Papa” or “Daddy”. Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth to adopt us into the Father’s family, to make a way for us to join the household of God. J.I. Packer comments: “What is a Christian? That question can be answered in many ways but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father. Everything….that is distinctively Christian is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”

Anna had a repeat MRI last week to check for tumour recurrence in her spine. We are grateful that the results showed no evidence of any tumour. The surgeon told Anna that he will have her rescanned in a year’s time (instead of six months) so we are glad and give thanks to our loving Father.

There has been a lot of nervous anticipation as the date for release of IGSCE results draws closer. In our home both parents and child have been having vivid dreams about various outcomes, both excellent and catastrophic. Today was the day! Josh burst through the door, overjoyed! He got six A* and two A’s, coming sixth in his year of 130. We are delighted and give thanks to the Lord!