Avoiding Idolatry

Idolatry is a strange word. It's a word associated with primitive cultures, with mysterious statues and dark temples, with pre-scientific societies. But here are the words of a TCK:

"I could not hope to hold my father's attention, to be the voice he recorded, his microphone trained on the purest sounds of Chokwe and Lungwe, tapes as big as dinner plates twirling. I found my mother at the clinic dressing burns and dispensing drugs to women coughing blood. These people in their wretchedness perfectly deserved my mother's care. She bowed with them, freckled hand on spongy curls, offered up a prayer for healing. If only I could do something to earn her touch. Because I could not distract my parents from their missionary service, I shadowed them. Their work became mine; their calling so big it overshadowed any puny need of my own. I understood when my father left the dinner table to greet this teacher or that pastor that I would have to share my parents. I cringe at my continuing need to feel significant to them, my need to earn degrees, win prizes and contracts. Sometimes I feel obsessed, as though I possess a deep well that needs constant filling with attention."

This approach where work takes over and constantly demands time and attention that belongs to children, God calls idolatry even when it is found in a Christian family.

In the TCK consultation held last week we looked together at the story of Hannah. Desperate for a child Hannah wept and prayed before God, promising that any child that was given she would surrender to God to serve him all his days. Her request was granted in an amazing way, and Samuel joined their family. It would be easy for Hannah to justify keeping such a precious baby. And yet Hannah put God in first place and gave Samuel up to serve in the temple at Shiloh. As the "TCK support team" we need to help families not to meet an unbalanced approach to work with an equally unbalanced approach - that the family must always come first! For putting anything before God is to make an idol of that thing, no matter how intrinsically worthy it may be.

The consultation drew together a multicultural international team. Altogether we represented more than 20 different countries, and a multitude of educational systems, German, Korean, Japanese, Afrikaans, Tagalog and everything in between! There are more than 600 children whose parents are serving in Asia and they use a wide variety of educational options. Some families are able to use international schools and boarding schools are still used, but we need to make more support available for non-traditional schooling options. Many of our families are working in areas far from other expatriates. For some of these families, schooling their children at home is one way of meeting their needs in a tough situation. We want to find home school tutors, teachers who are willing to live at a single location, and travel from that location to advise parents who are homeschooling their children. Over the next few years, we're going to need more and more teachers willing to work in this way. Please pray with us that the right people will come forward. We recognize that happy, healthy, holy families are better enabled to realise the vision to which God has called OMF.

Two days ago, Joshua decided to head-butt the floor. He'd been sitting for a while playing on the computer, stood up suddenly, felt faint, and fell forward mashing his lip on a metal door frame. We mention this because yesterday was Joshua's 13th birthday. In his birthday photographs, he looks as if he has done three rounds with Mike Tyson! It's terrifying to be the parents of a teenager. We don't feel old enough or able enough to take on this next role! I don't know when the last time you went shopping for a teenager, but trying to choose a present for Joshua was next to impossible. So armed with money from grandparents, Dad and Joshua sallied forth to do business with Singapore's shopping district. After 4 1/2 hours shopping, Dad was relieved to discover that Joshua didn't have much idea what he wanted either. He's a pretty contented sort of guy! So the money will sit in his room until he's decided what he needs it for!

With our love,

Steve, Anna, Josh and Aimee

Pilgrims or Tourists?

"They are perpetual outsiders, born in one nation, raised in others, [shuttling] back and forth between nations, languages, cultures and loyalties. They live unrooted childhoods. Lifted from one home and set down in another, these children learn not to attach too deeply. Yet despite their resistance to rooting, these children need a sense of belonging, a way to integrate their many cultural selves and find a place in the world".

Unrooted Childhoods: Faith Eidse and Nina Sichel

Born in Zimbabwe, raised in Mozambique, schooled in Cambodia, England and Singapore, Joshua started life trying to add Portuguese and some Makua to his English. He learned to fit into an American school in Cambodia, struggled in England because he knew nothing about soccer and now has a lead role in a play speaking Mandarin. He is the only Caucasian in the youth group at church. Like Steve, Josh and Aim struggle to answer the question, "Where do you come from?" We are enriched by our experiences but find that we also wrestle with a sense of rootlessness and identity. We are Third Culture Kids, 'individuals who have spent a significant part of our developmental years in a culture other than our parents'. We have relationship to many cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Elements from each culture are mixed into the TCK's life but the sense of belonging is to others of similar experience.

There are more than six hundred children whose parents serve with OMF. Over the next ten days we will be leading the Third Culture Kid Advisors' consultation - for those from both homes and fields who are responsible for advising on the education and care of our children. We will work together to plan for the next three years or so, as well as doing some training. As we have particular responsibilities for member care (including kids!), we would ask your prayer for us during this time.

We had a day off on Monday and took the children to see Dr Yee - our dentist. Are we all having fun yet?! But that didn't last long and we headed for Sentosa, a smaller island off the coast of Singapore Island but connected by a long causeway. On Sentosa are some of the famed coastal defences - the gun batteries that were facing the wrong way when the Japanese invaded. From Fort Siloso there are some magnificent views out across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. But we headed for Mount Imbiah where a luge run has been set up. For a small fee you can hire a low-slung "sled" on wheels and race down a winding track - Josh and Aimee loved it, and Mum and Dad didn't mind it either. At the bottom there is a chair lift which very conveniently took us back to our starting point again. The thick haze from massive forest fires just across the straits in Sumatra, cut visibility right down but fortunately didn't cause any breathing problems! Josh has chosen to go back to the luge for his birthday celebration with his three closest friends. But we've had to postpone it for two weeks until the end of Ramadan, as two of his friends are Muslim and so would be fasting during the day - not much fun to go to a birthday party under those conditions

Love from us all

Steve, Anna, Josh and Aimee

Grace Like Rain

24^th September, 2006

John Wilson* was bishop of the Anglican cathedral when Singapore fell to the advance of the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. During the fighting the Cathedral's nave was converted into a casualty station to care for the wounded, where Bishop Wilson helped to care for the wounded and dying - the fighting coming so close that in the cathedral yard was burnt out military vehicles. In March 1943 Bishop Wilson was arrested and made a prisoner-of-war. Along with around 3000 others he was imprisoned at the notorious Changi jail and brutally tortured during repeated interrogations. However he continued to love and pray for his captors and to serve his fellow prisoners - even taking beatings meant for inmates he considered too sick or weak to cope. At the end of the war he returned to lead the team at the cathedral. One day while conducting baptisms, Bishop Wilson recognised a Japanese officer among the candidates - one of the very men who had viciously flogged Wilson. The Japanese soldier told Wilson he had come to believe in Jesus through Wilson's witness. He asked for Bishop Wilson's forgiveness and then requested that the Bishop baptise him into the faith.

Today Chris Chia, our pastor, shared this story to remind us of the staggering power of the saving grace of Jesus as he led a service of baptism. The service was translated into Mandarin for the benefit of dozens of older relatives and friends specially attending. Today no less than eighty people declared their faith through baptism before around a thousand folk packing the school hall. Chris prayed powerfully and originally for each person. We sat and watched with tears in our eyes - the fruit of the unseen and forgotten workers who had given their lives in the past to make the Good News known to the Chinese was there before us. A grandmother was baptised together with her grandchildren. Parents and children baptised as a family. A knot of elderly Cantonese-speaking women, some too frail to stand on their own. Indonesian believers and a Japanese woman. What a privilege to witness the result of the faithfulness of those gone before us.

In March 1929, after conducting a careful survey and following a meeting of the C.I.M. Central Council, the then General Director issued a call for "some two hundred workers over two years" to meet the needs of the neglected in-land areas of China. It was an inauspicious time to do so - with the Great Depression taking hold worldwide and a massive upsurge of lawlessness in China itself. In September of the same year, C.I.M. missionary Douglas Pike was taken prisoner by bandits and executed, one of several to die that year. Two of his grown children, Walter and Allison offered and were accepted as members of the "two hundred" (eventually 207). Walter was Anna's grandfather.

Seventy-seven years later, Anna found herself a member of that same Council, listening to the results of a similar survey and debating its implications for OMF. The Council heard of the continuing needs of the Buddhist world, of the challenges and advances of Muslim outreach, of going the second mile in helping the burgeoning Chinese church to reach out in mission, of the need for workers to reach the hundreds of millions in the Asian Diaspora scattered across the world. Next week together with the General Director, we will work on the wording of a final statement and call for workers. Please pray specially for us. We have no interest in building the "kingdom of OMF". The desire of our hearts is to hear the voice of God, to glorify Him and to call others to join in God's mission to the world, to see grace fall like rain in our broken and hurting world.

With our love

Steve, Anna, Joshua & Aimée Griffiths

* The story is told in the book "John Leonard Wilson: Confessor for the Faith by Roy McKay "

Passion for the Impossible

It's been a chilly 27 degrees in Singapore today. We've wrapped up warmly (!) and shivered our way through church today! The tropical rain has thundered down, lashing the massive trees in the Botanic Gardens just across the road and sending roaring torrents of water down the storm drains that run below our window. Lightning strikes have kept us jumping! In a brief, dry spell this afternoon, Anna and I lay flat on our backs on the back veranda and watched the massive clouds go scudding across the sky, driven and torn by the wind. Exhilarating!

Our church here in Singapore is slightly different to Great Missenden! Around 800 people attend the 9:00am service in a school hall (and a similar number the 11:00). Although services are mainly conducted in English, the vast majority of people are young Singaporean Chinese - a reflection of the huge growth in the number of Christians here. The music is very good and the minister, Chris Chia, is a former journalist who speaks thoughtfully and compellingly. He often holds a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other - quoting from both!

Tomorrow is the big day....once every three years, the entire OMF leadership from 30 different countries get together for a week for what we call International Council. It will be a time to renew friendships, to look back on what God has done since the last time we met and also to pray, to discuss and work on the direction that OMF should take for the next three years. Our theme is "Passion for the Impossible - Reaching the Neglected Frontiers. OMF has always wanted to work at the cutting edge of God's mission- where there are few or no followers of the Lord Jesus. We're asking if there are areas or peoples that need to hear the Good News - and then asking what (if anything) OMF should do about it. For the first time in it's 140-year history, a Chinese, Dr Patrick Fung, leads OMF. This will be his first Council in the driving seat.

Last week, the Council began arriving. Anna and I in our role of International Director of Personnel had meetings with each OMF Director - ranging from Canada to Korea. Twenty-four formal meetings in thirty-six hours was no joke!

We've been working hard on preparing for our own sessions for weeks now - still some of the finishing touches to go. We're looking at who is joining OMF - it's exciting to see the number of Asians in OMF growing to around 40%. We have Japanese Christians reaching out to Cambodians, Koreans going to Thailand, Burmese taking up the challenge of work in tough areas of South-east Asia. But we need to ask if we need to do more to help Asians to join us.

We're also asking questions about giving better care on the field . We have 1, 100 missionaries serving with OMF. Many work scattered across vast areas, or in parts of Asia where it is not easy to communicate directly with them. Amazingly, in a recent survey over 70% reported a sense of contentment. Over 90% felt at home in the country they were working in - perhaps because OMF places such a strong emphasis on language learning and understanding the culture. But many are facing fear, frustration, loneliness, misunderstanding, and poor support. We want to do all we can to make sure that our people don't just survive but thrive. But how can we set about that effectively? Pray for us as we lead the discussion.

Josh and Aimée are hard at work, back at the Canadian School. They travel (alone) on the public bus system to work every day. Singapore is a very secure place in many ways which gives our kids freedom to do things that they probably woudn't be able to do at home. We were out last night with friends from Cambodia, eating Indian and Chinese food which the children love. Josh has landed the part of Peter Pan in a school production of the play - rehearsals start tomorrow and will be very intense until just before Christmas. He's not too sure about having to kiss Wendy but is willing to endure pain and suffering for the sake of art! Aimée is going to be a mermaid - disappointed to miss out on being a Lost Boy or a pirate, "because they get to fight one another!" Still, slight and willowy as she is, we think it was a good casting choice!

We'll sign off here, (our first attempt at blogging!) and try to keep you updated from time to time!

Steve, Anna, Joshua and Aimée

Old missionaries!

Anna's great-grandparents in China in the 1920’s

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