Meet Set Paing

Set Paing is an 18 year old entrepreneur.  It was my pleasure to teach him for the past 5 weeks.  I have to brag on him a little and let you know he's a very quick learner.  

Here are some things he said about himself when we were going over our strengths and weaknesses; maybe some of you entrepreneurs can relate.  He's good at observing and arranging/managing things as a result of those observations.  He's good at listening to others, a skill you definitely need as a businessman.  As a direct result of listening to others, he's good at motivating others.  He also said he handles criticism well, something not many 18 year olds can probably say.

He has a weakness for remembering names, ah, who doesn't, right?  He can also be impatient he told me, and math is not his strong suit so his first employee will be someone to run the numbers.

He's got a great business idea!  He's going to host people around town for food tours.  I obviously told him to get linked up to a tour company.  As you can probably imagine, his target audience will be foreigners mostly.  As such, he's going to use our existing technology to make a website where people can make reservations for his food tours.  This is just another example of how our students use our technology.

Hey, that reminds me!  You can support our school and company by helping us with our technology needs.  There's a link on the facebook group page or at the top of this blog.  Just write technology needs in the notes section when you get to the donate page.  

Thanks all,

Justin

The Safest Place in America

Back in February or March, I hosted a couchsurfer from Switzerland.  Her name was Sara, and we became fast friends.  She loves traveling and exploring new ideas, and I love hosting my home city.  Couchsurfing is where there's this website that you go on and book a room so to speak at someone's house who is living in another city that you happen to be traveling to.  It's a fantastic way to meet locals who can then tell you the hot spots of where to go and share meals with you too if you're lucky enough to do so.  This may surprise or even shock you but I usually cook for my guests.  My two main, well only really, dishes are a spicy Moroccan fish with oous cous and a chicken fajita.  Admittedly, I need to expand my horizons; but for as often as people come that seems to be enough because they usually stay for just a couple nights or so.

Back to the original story; Sara loved America for the most part.  We laughed at how she loved driving here because she rented an SUV and it made her feel taller.  She said everything in America was bigger than what she's used to in Europe.  I replied that bigger is not always better.  It is nice though to grow up with your own space if you're blessed enough to have a yard.  Indeed, everything usually is bigger in America; I'm about to be reminded of that fact when I return home here shortly.

The first night she arrived, we went to a friends' house for a traditional American BBQ.  I mean, talk about introducing a new Swiss friend to some real Americana, right?  We actually came a little late to share the actual grilling out, but thankfully they shared their leftovers with us and we left some chicken for them.  Sara brought dark chocolate from Switzerland; so I had a blast sharing that with my friends' kids and seeing their eyes light up as they were introduced to some real chocolate for the first time.

After we finished eating, my friends thought it would be a good idea to check on the fire they had made.  They had made a traditional bonfire in addition to grilling meat.  Like I said, this was a real piece of Americana.  To top it all off, as we were walking out to the fire, I mentioned to Sara that I bet they were carrying their guns.  She didn't believe me so I asked them and they gladly showed off their guns.  My new friend Sara was a bit startled to say the least.  One of my friends assured her she was in the safest place in America.

Now that's what's known as a different perspective, isn't it?  She was practically terrified and he was thinking it was the safest place she could possibly be.  Americans are known for out defense of guns over just about everything else.  We won't give you healthcare but if it's a weapon you want than we'll defend your right to the death by God.  It's our second amendment after all.  

Whether you think guns make you safe or not, personally I don't, I want to try and persuade my fellow Americans who happen to own guns to do us a favor and lock up your guns when you're not using them.  One survey conducted showed that as many as  70% of the guns used by violent felons are stolen.  Of course gun laws aren't going to make criminals stop buying guns; but can you at least do your part so they don't end up with them please?  I think you owe it to the rest of society to be a responsible gun owner, don't you?

There's an underlying debate as to whether weapons make one safer or not.  I happen to think that they don't.  The classic argument is that what if someone broke into your house and wanted to steal something and they had a gun.  First off, I don't really own too much that would be worth stealing in the first  place.  Secondly, it's just stuff, you get that, right?  It can all be replaced very easily.  Very rarely do people come out of a situation and think to themselves, "Whew, I'm glad someone had a gun in that situation."  What's smarter, to let someone steal your stuff or go down in a gun battle.

Another argument if for single women to have a gun to protect themselves.  Let me ask you something really quick.  If a 200+ pound man came charging at a 100 pound girl, do you really think she'd have the wherewithal to grab her gun in a moment's notice?

While I don't think guns make you safer, I will give you that you have the right to own one.  Can we please pass some commonsense background check laws though?  Would it make it that much of a nuisance?  And for Pete's sake, can you please lock up your weapon when you're not carrying it?

Adventuring in KL

Well, it's now

3:40 am

and I have yet to sleep for any significant length of time yet.  This happens sometimes before I'm about to take a big flight it seems like.  Not sure if I'm anxious or what.  Part of it is probably due to the fact that I was pretty hyped up earlier.  There were 2 New Zealanders staying at Mahesh's place last night; well, they actually stayed last night too but I had already fallen asleep by the time they got here.  Anywho, I've always had a real affinity for Kiwis for some reason, and these two girls proved to be no different, thankfully.  2 Kiwi women and 1 Indian man makes for one thrilled American, I can assure you of that.  We had such a lovely evening talking.  

Mahesh and I went out to dinner because the two girls had already eaten by the time they got back.  I had a great meal of pizza; yes, I know   you're supposed to eat local but I already had on Sunday night so I fulfilled my cross cultural duty.  Plus the first place he picked didn't serve anything vegetarian so we had to go to the next place.  It was a  great little personal pan pizza basically  and I also had some Naan bread togo with it.  It actually had a curry sauce with it but I just liked it plain because it had a lot of butter and garlic on it so I felt the curry kind of took away from it really.  

While we were eating, we heard some karoake in the distance so afterwards we went to inspect.  We asked how late they'd be open and they said 1am so we said we'd ask the girls if they wanted to go.  As we were leaving one of the waitresses grabbed my arm and said we just needed to ask if she was going to be there.  I smiled politely back and then quickly checked for my wallet afterwards as I'm prone to do if any local is overtly friendly right away.  Call it a habit to be sure but I think it's a pretty good one to have; or maybe I've just seen too many Hollywood films.

Yesterday, I had a fantastic tiime exporing the streets of KL.  I took a hop on hop off bus which is honestly sometimes one  of the best ways to see a city.  Especially if you're just going to be there for a day.  I did quite a bit of shopping so that was fun.  I won't be so thrilled when I check my bank account tomorrow I'm sure but hey; what's vacation without a little shopping, right?  

One thing I had seriously had my eye on for 6 months and when I saw a good price I jumped at it.  My little price currency conversion app has proved to be one of my better apps I must say.  It let's me know instantly what the amount of US dollars  something is from a different currency.  If you connect to the internet once in a 24 hour period it'll give you that current rate even when you're not connected which is a huge help.

And of course, KL had a tower with a rotating restaurant.  Now, I happen to be a huge fan/sucker for those things so I of course had to go check it out.  It rotated once every hour and had a great view of the city from 316 meters high.  I simply love those things and almost insist on going anytime there is one in town.  I hope I never lose the ability to be wowed like being in one of those restaurants always has the ability to provide that within me.

I'm hoping later this morning that the airport will have a patch for my backpack.  I looked all over the Chinese market for one but simply couldn't find one.  Of all the places to not have one, right?  I did finally find a patch of the Myanmar flag.  I'm excited to have my mom sew it on my backpack.  What?  Doesn't your mom sew your patches on your backpack, no?  Guess mine just loves me more than your's.

I've always enjoyed a good market.  There's nothing like a good haggle.  You do need to be careful though.  When you pick something up, you're generally supposed to buy it so be careful what you touch.   I got a few things at the market, one of which was something I felt like was a particularly good buy.

I also got some things at the mall.  I didn't buy too many things, only a few really, but they were fairly big ticket items.  Don't  worry, one of them was for my girlfriend so I'm not solely selfish, right?

When I first got here, my couchsurfer host informed me to get a taxi coupon at the counter.  So what did I do?  The typical stupid tourist thing and follow the first taxi driver to his taxi who happens to come up and get me straight away.  Needless to say he ended up ripping me off big time.  I would've fought him on it, but as I told the Kiwis last night he was as big as an All Black and I wasn't about to get into a fight over money with the guy.  My host and I laughed when I arrived that he probably took the rest of the day off and had a great time at the local bar or something.  Nothing a nap couldn't fix, that's for sure.  After I awoke from my short nap, I jokingly informed my host that it would make a good chapter in the movie that someone will make about my life someday.

All in all, KL has been a great experience.  My host preordered me a taxi for tomorrow, well later today technically at a fixed rate so that's taken care of thankfully.  Later today it's off to Constantinople, I mean Istanbul, and I get to see some friends I made last year as well as one from a long time ago whom I met on my first internship to Kenya in 2006.  He's a great guy and I look forward to reconnecting with him as it has been 7 years since we last spoke.  Time flies when you're having fun, right?

I almost forgot to tell you about the nice people who I met when I got to my first train station of the day!  And since it's currently 10 after 5 in the morning and I still can't sleep, allow me to indulge you.  Being the stupid tourist that I am, I either attract crooks like the taxi driver or nice people like I was fortunate enough to attract at the train station.  

When I first got there, the guy behind me was cussing  because he was going to miss his train.  I gladly let him in front of me because I didn't know where I was going and knew it would take a minute for me to get it sorted at the desk.  As I approached the gate, I asked an official looking person if this was the way to KL Sentral where I was supposed to be going.  A nice young lady asked me where I was going and I informed her.  She said she would take me and naturally we struck up a lovely conversation.  

Pretty soon, the guy who I had let in front of me in line came over to thank me and I said I was sorry that it hadn't resulted in him making his train.  He assured me it was quite alright and proceeded to join our conversation.  Needless to say, we three had a wonderful train ride together, much to the chagrin of the other passengers it appeared from their grimaced faces.  

I don't know why more people talk on trains; it's not like you're going anywhere soon and you have a captive audience.  I will admit I can be the guy who plugs in to his music and doesn't want to be bothered just like the next person but generally speaking I like a good conversation with a random stranger.  I think that must just be how I'm wired or something.  

When I was relaying  this story to the Kiwis earlier I casually mentioned that we were the loudest people on the train by a long shot.  One of the Kiwis shot back, "Nah, ya don't say mate!"  We all had a pretty good laugh about that.  Apparently I have a very difficult time hiding my personality, who knew?!

Understanding others

We have an art show every year in Sarasota put on by the schools entitled, “Embracing Our Differences” that I love to go to if it happens to be where I know it is like it was this past year.  There is something to be said for embracing our differences.  Sometimes though, we are not called to embrace differences but rather to speak truth where it needs to be spoken.  Think of hate-laced groups here.  Would it be wise to embrace neo-Nazi groups or rather to speak truth and love into their individuals?

Sometimes it helps to meet people on a safe playing field so to speak, doesn’t it?  Some people would never darken the doors of a church but would absolutely come over for dinner.  Who doesn’t like free food, right?  It concerns me that most of my friends are Christians now.  In college I had a ton of atheist and agnostic friends but now I hardly have any.  The few that I do have I simply adore which is why I think I need more of them.  The onus is squarely on my shoulders to make it happen though, isn’t it?

Our poor politicians, where do you even start?  Our nation is largely divided over so many issues; I don’t envy them at all.  My dad has brought up to me before that for the presidency at least there’s been a lot of talk through the years of having one six year term as opposed to two four year terms.  That might be a good idea for every politician, just one term.  I don’t know what the answer is though, I really don’t.  Perhaps if they didn’t spend the last two years of their incumbency trying to secure their next term they’d be less likely to be quite such idiots?

I’ve also mentioned before how I think the way forward for any two people of varying opinions to reach understanding is to spend time with the other person.  That’s where politicians and the rest of society should start.  Lay out some ground rules on how you’re going to fight fairly like people have to do with their spouses and then go from there.  I’ll never forget when I was in the DR with other liberal teachers and one lady in particular was shocked when I stated that 95% of my friends were conservatives.  It’s because we share a common faith, which is more important than our political stances, I explained to her.

How do we care for the poor in our churches?  The first step is to get to know some poor people.  This is very difficult to do because we’re comfortable in our own little socioeconomic circles and dare not stray away from those circles.  If we’re truly looking to help the poor though, don’t you think we should get to know them first?  Know the other and try to understand the other, whoever that ‘other’ might be.  That, my friends, is the way forward.

Understanding attacks

A while back, I did a few blogs on weapons of mass construction, and I’d like to follow along in those footsteps here if you’ll oblige me.  First off, I think I came up with a better term as tools of mass construction instead of weapons; but that’s what I had thought of at that time so I’m just going to leave it as that.  Anyhow, there are a ton more that I have listed on my notes where my blogs usually begin so I’m going to pursue some of those ideas here for a bit.

Understanding is another tool of mass construction.  I will point out that it’s rather interesting to see when a Christian is misunderstood by some attacking atheist.  I just saw a couple things in some major newspaper about how some major name in science had said she supports the idea of creationism and was lambasted by the scientific community.  Hmm, don’t they pride themselves on being so understanding?

Another thing that is simply heartbreaking to me is that many Christians are not understanding of others’ religious or otherwise held beliefs.  Sometimes this is a broad stereotype that we all get put in with, but other times it’s warranted in the case of a few believers.  They say hate-filled speeches after major catastrophes and all of us end up looking like small-minded bigots as a result.

If you’re an atheist or an agnostic, I think you owe it to your individual Christian friends to not lump us all together into the same boat.  Some Christians are more understanding than others surely, right?  One of the areas I’ve seen this played out is in regards to gay marriage.  Some Christians say it’s just the worst idea ever while many of their own flocks have a 50% divorce rate or higher.  Other Christians are fighting for gay marriage to be passed.  This is an issue that divides even my parents and I.  When my dad asked what I thought about passing gay marriage I said I supported it.  When I said if you’re going to prevent one set of sinners from getting married for one particular sin than you should exclude every person from marrying because of the sin in their life, he seemed utterly confused and said those were obviously different things.

So, how does understanding play itself out in real life?  Some would argue that understanding leads to embracing, but I don’t necessarily agree with that.  I can understand extreme Muslims without embracing them.  You may ask yourself how I can understand extreme Muslims, allow me to articulate here.  I understand the appeal of extreme Muslims to followers when they come back to a place that has been overrun with an occupying military and they promise that they will attack the occupiers.  Of course they’re going to flock to the extremists.

Similarly, I can also understand why a lot of people in the Middle East see our country as one of extreme Christians.  Does anybody need to be reminded of the ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign in Iraq?  Of course they see us, or at least our military, as extremists.  There’s something that I struggle with understanding I suppose, is why we see it as such a shock when ordinary Muslims view our military as extremists but we see our military as the good guys in spite of certain things that have gone down in the wars lately.

Food as a curing agent

As soon as I get home, I’m going out to dinner with some friends in honor of one of our friend’s 30 birthday party.  I simply can’t wait!  I have a feeling I’m not going to look forward to the bill probably, but it’ll be worth it I’m sure.  I’ve just met this friend and her husband this past year or so I think if I recall correctly and we have become fast friends.  They love Jesus and have a special affinity for craft beer, I mean, what’s not to love?  Haha  I don’t care for beer all that much but I do like my wine and can’t wait to get some Barefoot Moscato upon my return!

When you’re feeling down and out, invite yourself over to a friend’s house or invite them out to dinner.  I do this even in the midst of deep depressions and it helps tremendously.  The only problem is the meal typically only lasts an hour; except with my friends Ken and Dianne, for some reason we usually go for a couple hours.  For at least that hour and sometime afterwards though, I’m given hope that even though I may be depressed for a season I’ll come out of it.  And chances are; that same friend will want to have dinner than too to celebrate recovery.

May you share meals with your friends and families; both communion at church and longer meals that resemble something closer to the original communion.  May we become a culture again that prioritizes dinner at home with the entire family unit.  I sincerely believe if we were to stress this in our families that it would do nothing but strengthen our families’ lives once again.  May we learn to slow down the crazy busyness that we largely let our culture dictate to us and instead take time to savor our food and enjoy meals with one another. 

The sacredness of food

There’s almost something sacred about food, isn’t there?  It draws people together that may never have otherwise had anything in common.  There were a couple interns here this summer that saw differently on just about everything under the sun.  However, in spite of this they were able to enjoy meals together at the house every day.  This led to a greater understanding and respect on both their parts I believe.

I do have to say I prefer meals in a house as opposed to a restaurant.  It’s an even more intimate setting and if you get to make food together than all the better.  I don’t typically make too much food to eat, except when I have couchsurfers over.  Than I love to cook; I have about three main dishes I choose from.  There is the spicy Moroccan fish dish that I love, the chicken fajitas that I make, well, maybe there are just two dishes.  It works out though because most people just stay for one or two nights.

My friends and their wives are all wonderful cooks, even when they don’t think so or one is slightly critical of the other, usually in jest or at least hopefully.  I used to live with a lady named Debbie who loved to cook for her son and me when she had the chance to.  Let me tell you, we loved it when she had the chance too!  We would devour this type of fish called suchi I think, not sushi but it was some type of white fish that she’d make in Italian bread crumbs.  We followed that up by her scrumptious brownies and usually added ice cream just for good effect and full satisfaction.

Some people really show their love by providing others with food.  They love to host others in their home and are wonderful at doing so.  Food is almost always associated with hosting.  Even when I go over to my friends Josh and Missy’s house to hang out and catch a movie we usually will have food of some sort even if it’s just a little snack to chew on during the movie.

Meals after summer

One of the things I’m looking forward to the most when I arrive home is sharing meals with friends.  Every time I come home from my adventures, I share meals provided by my friends or we meet at local restaurants and chow down.  I’m pretty sure it’s a foretaste of what heaven might be like. 

It will have been 3 months since I’ve seen most of my church friends and I can’t wait to see them again.  We share so much joy over what has happened in the past three months.  Most of them don’t travel as extensively as I do but most of them are blessed enough to get away for at least a weekend or at least send their child to a camp of some sort.  Summers sure are great, aren’t they?

One of the best ways to get to know someone is to share a meal with them.  The classic date in American culture has been ‘dinner and a movie’ for how many decades now?  Lately, it seems the movie part of that equation is becoming less and less prominent but dinner remains.  Before I started dating Steffani, I had dated a couple girls last fall.  I quickly realized I was going to need a new approach rather than dinner so I quickly changed to wanting to get coffee or dessert.  This was obviously due to my cheapness which I would be wrong if I were to try and deny that.  Come on though, what girl doesn’t like dessert, right?

When a new person comes to church, we’re encouraged to take them to lunch; it’s kind of a running joke at the Creek.  If someone brought you to our church, that person owes you lunch.  The idea is to encourage dialogue about what the preacher taught on that morning. 

Whenever I have dinner with any friend, I always cherish that time together.  Very rarely do I leave feeling unsatisfied, either physically, emotionally or spiritually.  Every part of me is nourished, and it is beautiful.

Perhaps that’s why one of the last scenes we’re shown in the Biblical account of Jesus on the earth is that of the Last Supper.  It is an intimate setting with his disciples.  He offers the bread and juice and tells His disciples that they are His body and blood and to take this meal in remembrance of Him.  It’s one thing to do it on Sunday morning in a church; but it is also emulated in other meals I have with fellow believers.  We may not assess our hearts, but we do generally pray and give thanks for the food that God has so graciously provided.  We then proceed to enjoy one another’s company.  It’s a beautiful thing, really, to see what God has done in each of our lives over the past 2 or 3 months depending on how long I have been gone.

Thoughts on universalism and hell

Again, this an unfinished blog entry.  Maybe these are better as they're so much shorter?!

I just listened to a podcast about universalism.  This has been rather popular in the Christian subculture especially.  Rob Bell wrote a book called Love Wins a few years ago that got a bunch of people riled up to say the least.  In response, Francis Chan wrote a book entitled Erasing Hell and I’m sure many other less famous authors wrote books in response too.  I read Bell’s book and got about a quarter of the way through Chan’s book.

Hell is most certainly an uncomfortable subject, isn’t it?  We like to pretend we’re assured of where we’re going when we die.  Honestly at this point, I’m not so sure we’re ‘going’ anywhere so much as God is coming back to this earth to renew it and purify it by fire; but that’s for another blog altogether.  We also like to pretend we’re assured of where others are going when they die.  If you do believe in hell and that everyone is going there who doesn’t accept Jesus, then why don’t you tell absolutely everyone you meet about Jesus?  This is a question I often ask myself.  I happen to believe in hell as a real place, as ignorant as that may make me sound. 

The problem is that while there are countless verses about eternal punishment, there are also verses strewn throughout the New Testament about how as one man died and so all people died, so one man died and rose again and as a result all are justified.  Now, that begs the question as to whether they’re referring to all as the original same word or were they different original words.  Or what about the verse that states neither death nor life can separate us from Christ?  Or the verse that talks about Christ going into hell Himself?  Why would He go down there except to win people to Himself?

Maybe it’s not as clear as we’d like to think it is.  Or maybe we quickly skim over those verses that say the Pharisees, who I and many of my fellow believers remind me of in modern day living, are the ones who end up in hell.  What about the verses that state prostitutes and tax collectors enter the Kingdom ahead of you?  Could we imply gay prostitutes as well or would that simply be too heretical?  

Old and New Testament Giving

Warning:  this is unfinished as I simply didn't have it in me to finish this blog entry the other week.  I forgot to post it until now.  It would appear I'm unable to finish my writing at a later date, note to self: finish writing at the time I start  :)

What’s the key to giving then?  Well, there are some standards Biblically speaking I’d like to share with you.  Tithing is largely associated with the Old Testament although Christ does allude to it Himself in the New Testament.  The New Testament though I would argue usually says to give more than the tithe.  I simply dare you to find a passage of Scripture that says to give less than 10%.  I can show you where it says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  I can show you where Christ tells the young man to give away all his wealth.  I can show you where retirement is very frowned upon and God takes a man’s life in an illustration for hoarding wealth, aka retirement.  I have a retirement account as well to be sure, but I think it greatly depends on how you plan on using those funds later in life.  The very reason I started a retirement account was so I could continue to give if or when I ever retire.  There are also stories in the New Testament about how a tax collector came into contact with Christ and it radically altered his view of money and he gave away half his wealth to the poor.  The Macedonian church was commended for giving out of their poverty.

We have lost this ability for some reason to inspire other believers to give more.  We cower away from preaching about it on Sunday because we don’t want to be seen as being all about money.  We need to be all about God of course, but guess what’s involved with many of our daily decisions as well as is found in many different places in Scripture?  We do our people a great disservice by not talking about money and how it can affect our hearts.  I would even go so far as to say it is sinful to teach about everything but money.  What other subject affects people on so many different levels of their lives?  The number one cause of divorce is money fights.  Don’t we owe it to our people to bring it from the pulpit on how they should handle their money?

Giving Money

My pastor and best friend Ryan is doing a sermon series on generosity back home.  I listened to one of his sermons and loved it.  However, I’m not sure if it’s my iTunes software or something else but the sound only comes in one earphone which is extremely annoying when you’re out walking or listening to music or podcasts.  I tried to listen to another sermon today but was unable due to the annoyance.  I really wish I was back home so I could preach on giving during this series.

When we talk about giving, we’re usually talking about finances.  Giving obviously does mean more than finances as my pastor pointed out in his sermon, but I’d like to focus on finances here.  Finances and where they go show the state of your life and your heart.  If you give more toward yourself, than that is what’s important to you.  If you give more towards your house, than that’s important.  If you give a little money or no money to your church; then it’s obviously not important to you.  You may say it is, but in reality in your heart it isn’t important at all.  I can’t tell you the number of people I know who will spend, spend, and spend on so many things that are nice and unneeded but then turn around and complain when the church asks for money.

Why wouldn’t the church ask for money?  It is our duty to inform you of the Scriptures and what they teach; and guess what?  They talk a ton about how we use our money.  As such, we too need to talk about money and our people’s use of it.  It is appalling to me the state of giving in the modern church in America.  There’s a great book entitled Passing the Plate about the current state of giving in the churches in America and Canada.  There are some shocking statistics in there to say the least.  A friend of mine once whined that the vast majority of conservative Christians did nothing but help their local communities.  I pointed him to this book and some stats that very clearly state otherwise than that particular sentiment.

Our giving as a whole is woefully inadequate and pathetic.  The average church goer gives no more money than the average non-believer.  What a terrible state of affairs to find ourselves in!  Not only are our divorce rates the same inside and outside the church, but our rates of giving are the same!  There was a time when I was more radical with my giving which I need to get back to.  Unfortunately reality is setting in and I see my future debt that I’m about to inherit upon marriage and realize I won’t be able to give nearly as much as I like to be able to.  It’s a pretty good incentive to get out of debt quickly though, isn’t it?  Not to mention we both want to join the mission field soon.  I simply don’t feel right about asking for support if we then turn around and use that support to help pay off debt.  That may change in my heart and mind in the future, but as of now I’m pretty dead set against it.

WOOing others for Jesus

For the longest time, I just thought that was how everyone operated.  I wrongly assumed that everyone had an innate sense of woo about them and could talk people into changing their minds.  As I’ve grown older though I’ve realized it is nothing short of a gift.  It is a gift that should not be wasted on paltry things like meaningless online arguments but rather one that should be used with care and compassion. 

If you have the gift of woo, you need to exploit it.  You need to first get your heart right with Jesus so you can line up with what He’s doing.  After that though, rest assured you’ve been given the gift of winning others over so that you can help people in their walks with Jesus or in the case of the unbeliever to point them to Jesus.  Maybe you’re the only believer someone knows who seems to have their head screwed on fairly straight.  If you don’t open your mouth about why you believe what you believe, they may never hear the message of Christ.  And that, my friends, would be utterly tragic.  Everyone is out there searching for truth, you owe it to humanity to share the truth that you’ve found in your own life.

With this gift of woo, I’ve even been able to challenge my parents as I’ve gotten older.  They raised me wonderfully to be sure, but as I’ve become a man myself I’ve been able to challenge them to give away a higher percentage of their income.  That is an incredible honor to be used by God to do that type of thing.  It is one that I don’t hold very lightly either; I can assure you of that. 

Thankfully, and by God’s grace, I’ve also been able to help others start on the pathway out of debt.  I’ve encouraged them to read Dave Ramsey and in the case of a couple of friends in particular sat down and helped them develop a budget to get on track with their finances.  Another friend of mine who I played a very small role in his finances (I mainly just would ask him from time to time how it was going) recently paid off the last of his debts with his wife.  Even just learning that put me on such a high for a couple of days.  What an incredible testimony he now has to share!  He said when they started he just assumed they would always have debt.  9.5 months later and they’ve paid off more than $20,000!  Furthermore, when they sat down and ran the numbers, he said they had figured on it taking them a little over 2 years!

Since my early 20’s till present day, I’ve been able to influence others to go on mission trips.  This is a great honor.  Even my dad is going to go on one in the next year or so which I’m super excited about.  He will undoubtedly have his whole world thrown upside down but I can’t wait for that moment and to walk him through the inevitable emotions that come with your first mission trip overseas.  Again, I count this to be an incredible honor and gift; something that I truly cherish.

Educational WOO

Another area I use my woo in is with teaching.  This was especially true at the kindergarten level.  They are hugely shapeable at that age and I count it as no small thing to play a little part in their development.  You have such an opportunity as a teacher of any subject to impact students’ lives.  Lately, I’ve decided I’m more interested in teaching adults about business, but the premise is the same and perhaps even more exaggerated the younger you go in regards to the age of the students.

I can teach my students a better way than what they’re learning at home.  This is often goes in partnership with other teachers and school support personnel.  We work incredibly hard to influence our students for the betterment of themselves and our community.  When a student is only 5 years old, you can pretty well attribute their behavior to their home environment by and large.  Yes; sometimes students genuinely need medication; but often times it has more to do with a lack of structure in their home as to the reason they act the way they’re accustomed to.

I had a student this past year who really threw me for a loop.  She acted out like no other student I had ever had.  Eventually, as I said with the help of several staff members, she turned an incredible corner and became one of my best behaved students.  I would call her mom on occasion just to report how awesome this student was doing and to celebrate with her mom at how far she had come that year.  The behavior teacher told me that one day this student came up to see her as was customary and reported that she knew, “Mr. Hemming loves me.”  My coworker was taken aback a little naturally so she probed and when asked what she meant the student reported how I had told her I was sooooo proud of her that day and the difference she had made in her behavior.  Now that’s a good feeling, to know you made that kind of impact on a student.  It’s very easy to forget in the daily grind that we make much of a difference at all.  Every once in a while those moments happen though and it gives you strength to keep going for another day.

Even with coworkers who I have a difficult time dealing with, I can usually win them over with my woo.  There have been times when another teacher who couldn’t stand anyone else on our team has actually given me a Christmas present.  That doesn’t sound like a very big deal, but she is Jewish!  It doesn’t happen every time of course, no one is perfect and sometimes you’re just going to have those people that can’t stand you for whatever reason.

Exploiting My WOO

A friend of mine in high school once joked that I had what he referred to as Walmart woo.  He went onto explain that everyone has access to my woo; meaning that I flirted with every girl that walked.  This was largely true at the time, thankfully I’ve calmed down since then.  What I want to focus on now though is a different kind of woo, albeit a kind that can be used in the classical sense of the word as well.

WOO stands for Winning Others Over and is one of my strengths according to some strengths test I took back in the spring.  This has been apparent for some time as I’m usually able to get people to do something I want them to.  This can be used for very good things or very detrimental things, again simply a tool that I wield.  Unfortunately, I’ve used it in my past to woo women into doing things that are, ahem, less than holy one might say.  However, I’ve also been known to use woo to point others towards Christ.

I’ve also been known to use my woo to help persuade others to do fun things or encourage and equip others.  It has a certain amount of leverage that goes along with it.  I can use it to challenge and teach others, or I can mislead others with it, like when I was highly manic in the mental hospital and ended up having a couple followers who thought I was Christ incarnate.  Don’t worry, I’ve repented of that and I’m positive God is big enough to understand an episode of psychosis such as I was experiencing at the time. 

Sometimes I’m unable to see my effect on other people until a few years later.  I have a close friend who once introduced me as a “liberal, tree-hugging friend of mine.”  I just laughed it off due to my friends and their way of loving me through all my little kicks I get on.  Little did I know a few years later that same friend would then lead the camp that he’s director of through a summer series entitled ‘Dirt.’  As you can probably guess, they dealt with creation care that summer. 

Suddenly I realized I played a little part in that decision.  Obviously, he probably wouldn’t even acknowledge that as having played any part whatsoever in his decision.  When you start out making fun of someone because they’re a tree hugger only to embrace a fair amount of tree hugging yourself a few years later though, forgive me for drawing certain conclusions. 

I purposely try to win others over at my church for sacrificial giving.  I preach about it but more importantly try to live it out on a regular basis.  Often I find myself trying to pray to God to stretch me as a generous giver and I am happy to report that is a prayer He always answers.  Quite frequently I find myself in discussions with fellow members of my church back home about ways they can increase their giving, be it financially or with their precious time.  Missions is another area I try to influence people in.  Admittedly, I failed miserably when I tried to put a trip together for my church.  However, I could say that I inspire other people from going overseas myself and reporting back on what I’ve learned in another cultural context.

Business in Haiti

This past weekend I contacted a school in Haiti that sounds like it does something similar to what I want to do, albeit on a much longer time frame of about a year.  Here we have classes for 5 weeks followed by a week of computer classes and then a 6 week internship.  During that time they draw up their business plans and we help them launch.  Starting a small business is probably similar to anything else, you learn heaps more while you’re in the trenches as they say.

With this in mind, I contacted the school in Haiti to see if I could get involved from a distance.  The head emailed me and I need to get back with her so hopefully we can arrange a mutually beneficial relationship.  I told her I was interested in investing in one of the students so hopefully we’ll head down that road.  There’s another guy in Haiti I read a BBC article about who has made cookstoves and is employing 30 of the people there.  He’s looking to expand and get a warehouse as the first one was wrecked in the earthquake a few years ago.  I follow his company on Twitter and need to see about contacting him firsthand as well as I think what he’s into is super exciting.  He said one of his employees is now about to buy a house after 3 years of working for him and he sees that as a success.  Those are humble words in my outlook; that’s a huge and remarkable success!  If he’s able to purchase a warehouse, he’s looking to employ 400 Haitians, how incredible would that be?!

There’s another company still that I’ve started following on twitter as well entitled SOIL I think.  They work with farming techniques I believe and enriching the soil of Haiti.  They might also work with planting trees but I’m not sure on that front right now; I’ll have to check when I get a chance.  Either way, it’s exciting stuff, right?  I mean, that’s where my heart and passions find themselves all of a sudden; providing jobs for Haitians.  Specifically helping Haitians launch their own businesses. 

Recently I must admit I’ve also considered Cuba as a place to potentially set up shop for a few reasons.  The main one is that Havana is very close to Tampa.  I realize that sounds silly, but when you hate driving as much as I do it starts to make sense.  Maybe as they continue to slack sanctions towards Cuba hopefully I’ll have a better chance of getting in there, who knows?  Of course if my great senator Marco Rubio, cough cough, has anything to say about it we’ll just continue to place a crazy amount of sanctions on the account of a few.  If we were serious about sanctions in order to change countrys’ behaviors, why aren’t we sanctioning China?  Yeah, there’s more at hand there, isn’t there?

Haiti will always have a special place in my heart ever since I went there in 2010 following the quake though.  I just don’t know if it’s a viable option due to all the NGO’s and such providing everything for free.  How do you sell something when that something is being given away for free by some foreign NGO?  Just this past month I saw a couple of good friends start a Facbook page where they’re going to collect 25,000 pairs of shoes to send down there.  That is simply heartbreaking in my book and will do so much to enable the Haitian people, not empower them.  As a result of this, I’ve sought out a Haitian friend on Facebook who is currently making sandals and selling them right there in Haiti.  Hopefully I can help her somehow or at the very least learn from her and her perspective.

BAM vs MBA's

The idea of entrepreneurship is an old one, probably as old as mankind itself in some regards.  My company/school that I’m working for is currently trying to push that agenda onto as many people as we can think of.  Just this summer alone we’ve held two different conferences; one for church planters and one for orphanage directors to try and encourage them to be entrepreneurs and be self-sustaining instead of relying on outside support.

In addition to those conferences we held earlier this summer, this coming week we’re holding the first ever BAM conference in Myanmar which I’m hugely excited about.  The wind was taken out of my sails a bit though when I learned I would be needed to be back at the office in the afternoons to hold down the ranch as it were.  BAM stands for Business as Mission, a growing movement among God’s people that has huge implications and goals.  I can’t wait till the conference and when it starts on Wednesday, we have a couple of speakers from the states coming that have been part of this movement for quite some time so I can’t wait to hear from them.

In my humble opinion, ah, there’s that dangerous word again, opinion, teaching entrepreneurship is much more useful than the classic MBA degree.  I wonder how many MBA’s are currently baristas because they were never taught how to launch their own business?  I also wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year on getting MBA’s when those same people probably could’ve launched their own business with much less training if it was focused instead on helping them launch a business.

Small businesses are the backbone of any country’s economy, at least the economies that work well.  It is arguable as to whether or not any country’s economy is doing really stellar these days, maybe China?  They just slowed down to a 7% growth rate.  That’s pretty mind-blowing to me, although a friend told me here that you typically want about a 15% growth rate in developing countries to help people rise to the middle class.  Can you imagine a 15% growth rate??  I know I sure can’t!  We’re lucky in the states if we break 2% each year these days.  Bill McKibben argues in Deep Economy that you eventually reach a place of after growth but that’s for another day and discussion.

As any small businessman will tell you in America, there are way too many regulations.  My pastor asked me why I didn’t want to start an entrepreneurship school in America and that was my reply, there are too many regulations for small businesses in America.  Why would I want that headache to begin with? There would be huge regulations on my own school to start with and on subsequent businesses that we helped launch.  Maybe someone with more patience will come along and do something like that, but I dare say that’s not where I would be best used.  I honestly don’t know about all the regulations in America since I haven’t been in business, I’m just simply spitting back what my dad and other small business people have told me over the past few years in particular.  In my opinion a good start would be with the tax structure.  As I understand it we have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.  That’s obviously not that efficient since the effective tax rate is much lower for a lion’s share of corporations.  Wouldn’t it be better to just do away with loopholes and bring down the overall rate?

Church at home and abroad

Today was Sunday, the classic day of worship for Christians worldwide; except those Seventh-Day Adventists as I understand it.  Sadly, my friends have told me that if a church springs up here the first thing they do is buy incredibly expensive sound equipment.  Kind of reminds me of some churches back home that take on a tremendous amount of debt for a building.  When we sing here, it seems like I can’t quite clap on the right beat; perhaps it’s because they clap on the different beat as what I’m used to or more likely due to the fact that I have no rhythm.

Children are featured a little more prominently here in Yangon which I absolutely love.  Almost every Sunday some age group of students are singing in front of church.  Last Sunday there were the wee ones that could barely walk up there singing and dancing and having a great time.  It was pure joy to watch them worship; we adults should take notes and learn how to truly abandon ourselves to worship in singing and dancing.  Why don’t adults dance more in worship?  It’s clearly Biblical.  I think we have so many insecurities when in front of other people that we neglect to realize that we dance and sing for an audience of One as the song says.

They also do many  more hymns whereas I’m used to more contemporary music.  The hymns are rich in their lyrics but sometimes the pace is so incredibly slow that I can’t hardly get through it.  It is nice though that they have the Burmese language right on top of the English language at least for a few of the hymns.  Back home, I’m more used to what we would call ‘good’ music, meaning that the worship team knows how to make good sounding music.  Often times this can turn into attractional forms of church if you’re not careful.  Maybe that’s not such a bad thing though, right?  My friend was attracted to a church and came in through the doors due to the good worship music being played.  Sometimes it can be more of a distraction though, as such we need to tread carefully.

My favorite part of church here and back home though isn’t the actual service.  It’s what happens afterwards.  Here they have a lunch right at the church afterwards.  Back home we usually go out to lunch since we meet in a movie theater and aren’t allowed to stay too long after we finish tearing down.  That is by far my favorite part of every Sunday.  When I don’t get to have lunch with people something is just missing in my spiritual life it seems like.  It’s simply not feasible back home to do it every Sunday as people have things going on all the time with their kids’ sport teams and all the rest, but I certainly do enjoy when we all make the effort to go to lunch and fellowship together.

Here in Yangon, I have the additional benefit of working with the people I go to church with, at least some of them.  We have devotions every morning, and that is a truly beautiful thing in my book.  Last Friday we did devotions and it was just three of us, me and two Buddhists!  I loved it, they had questions to ask and if you know me at all you know I love to tackle questions head on in regards to the Bible, even if the answer is often times that I really don’t know the answer, I do certainly like to encourage questioning of the Scriptures.

Myanmar and 'Merica

I wanted to take the time to talk about some of the differences between Myanmar and America, and more specifically between Yangon and Sarasota since those are the two cities that I’m most familiar with.  For one, the summer is the rainy season in Yangon as it is in sunny Sarasota.  The difference is around 22 inches in Yangon per month compared with about 7 or 8 inches in Sarasota.

There’s also quite a difference in regards to driving here.  For starters, seatbelts are optional.  This doesn’t keep me from wearing mine most of the time, but it certainly is different.  My friend Ryan told me today the number of wrecks has skyrocketed in the past year due to the number of cars being sold having skyrocketed thanks to the 200% tariff being lifted on import vehicles.  Yes, you read that correctly, 200% tariff!  Can you imagine?

I have yet to see one single car seat here, maybe I’m not looking hard enough.  There are several buses as well as these things called Tut Tuts in Haiti; I’m not sure what they’re called on this side of the world.  I see a bunch of them carrying loads of students or just any passenger anytime of day or night.  I have seen people carrying their babies on their laps in the front seat.  Compare that to back home, where I once heard a friend say he hates it when people carry their dogs on their laps in the front seat.  It’s a different culture to be sure.

Speaking of dogs, I currently have a very bad distaste in my mouth for them.  I’ve been a dog lover my whole life.  With that in mind, I don’t have too much patience for people who think they’re just as important as their fellow man if not more important.  Once I can get past that though, I generally love dogs.  Now, I have to put a caveat on that and say I love most dogs, in America.  Myanmar dogs are almost all wild.  They are nasty beings that howl at seemingly nothing right around the time you’re trying to go to bed and then a few more times in the middle of the night just for good measure.  I’ve never been a gun lover but there have been a few times where a bullet for a dog has certainly crossed my mind when I can’t sleep due to their incessant and seemingly involuntary howling.

Meet Bo Yee

Bo Yee is a student who is currently in our start up class at the office.  He is 16 years old, but don’t let that fool you for a second into thinking he is anything but ready to be a professional businessman.  He dreams of starting up his own restaurant someday.  As a matter of fact, this past Friday I had him write up a timeline of when he wanted to launch his business.

His strengths are that he’s ambitious, persistent, has good communication skills, he’s good at helping others and he’s wise with money.  Sounds like some of us could use some of what he’s got, doesn’t it?  He has been a great student so far and I look forward to watching him continue to grow.

His weaknesses are that he’s quick-tempered, prefers working alone, and struggles with sympathy and empathy.  I’m not going to name names here but that sure sounds like some of the small business men I know in my life as I’m sure you know in your’s, right?

If you’d like to help Bo Yee and other students like him you can help us with our technology needs at Opportunities Now!  We are currently looking to raise around $7,000 and NEED your help.  You should get involved to help students like Bo Yee.  He’s a great student and future businessman.  I’m almost positive some of you saw yourself in his description that I gave.  Why not help a fellow businessman and the school that is training him?

Christians and global crises

If and when we decide to fight global crises, we will be led into danger to be sure.  Dangers of diseases, being hated by locals in some cases, being abandoned by families in other cases which I’m incredibly thankful that I have not personally been abandoned by my family but as stated earlier always been supported hugely by them.  If we put ourselves in the crosshairs of natural disasters and crime-ridden areas, we will face danger on every side.  I will add though that we will most likely feel more alive than ever.  Every summer I go abroad this happens.  While I don’t necessarily face danger per se, I know from experience that no matter how much malaria medication you take you can still easily contract malaria when traveling overseas.  In addition to this, every summer I come alive somehow.  It’s almost as if I’m awakened from a dreary existence of a half-life to what I was meant to do.

Overseas living isn’t for everyone of course, but I would say that if you’re a believer and there isn’t some element of danger in your life than you’re definitely losing out on some very important aspects of the Christian walk.  If your desire for safety leads you to not follow God’s calling be it to take that homeless man or woman out to lunch or to take a 90 minute flight into Haiti, than something is vastly wrong with your heart and mind and you need to repent.  Again, not everyone is called to go overseas necessarily, but there should be some element of danger in your life or at the very least some element of getting out of your comfort zone.  As my friend Sara Norton once wrote, when you’re out of your comfort zone is when you grow the most.  You suddenly rely on God for everything in a brand new way.  And it is beautifully terrifying.

Many of my friends are getting turned on so to speak to human trafficking.  This is a beautiful development to be sure.  That is something we need to be fighting against.  My home church is supporting an organization called Rapha House who is fighting human trafficking in Cambodia.  I was hoping to be able to go over there this summer but plans fell through.  I’m sure they’re doing outstanding work in the fight against traffickers.  Those men should be sent to prison.  I would add though that they shouldn’t be killed.  I’m strongly against the death penalty in any case as I sincerely believe people should be given the chance to repent and come to Jesus.  Sometimes that takes longer than in other cases so therefore we should give them as much time as possible.  With that in mind, who is going to go to the prisons to preach the gospel to former traffickers?  That is a dangerous calling indeed.

A lot of my friends are also getting involved in orphan care.  This is another global crisis that demands our attention.  I read of a church or network of churches in Oklahoma I believe that was either successful or right on the brink of success in terms of adopting every single child out of the foster care system.  How beautiful is that?!  Someday I want to adopt kids of my own if it comes to that, I’d much rather adopt than have my own.  That’s a personal preference to be sure, and one I’ll have to work out with Steffani down the road I’m sure.

A friend told me that both having your own children and adopting children are Biblical.  To this I replied you’re right, but one is definitely more New Testament than the other.  All throughout the New Testament it talks about God adopting us as His sons and daughters.  What better way to show that love to the world than through the means of adoption?

Following Jesus into danger

The point is that Jesus sometimes, perhaps often times, calls us into danger.  At the very least He will call us out of our comfort zones and therefore out of safety.  Safety is a pretty ignorant case to make after all, isn’t it?  Safety is largely an illusion.  We think if we can just build up enough wealth that we’ll be safe.  Surely we’ve all seen enough millionaires fall from their graces to realize that isn’t the case. 

Or take America as a nation, right?  We have the most superior military that has ever existed.  Our own military generals though say our debt is the greatest threat to our security.  I don’t really see that going away anytime soon, do you?  The Bible warns us early on in the Proverbs that the borrower is slave to the lender.  That applies to individuals as well as nations.  Sometimes it takes a while of course, but it will happen eventually.

Financial security and military security therefore, are interlinked.  Both are false presuppositions, mind you, but they are interlinked all the same.  As I tried to explain to a fellow intern earlier this summer, which is more likely to win a people group over?  Coming in and bombing the hell out of a nation or helping them build schools, hospitals and economic development in general?  The problem is of course that we’re trying to help economic development in developing countries when our own economy is a mess.

Sometimes following Jesus leads us into safety, albeit a different type of safety.  People quote some stupid cliché as being in God’s will is the safest place a person can be but I find no Scripture to back this claim up.  We are safe in the sense of being in God’s hands of course, but don’t be disillusioned into thinking that necessarily connotes physical safety by any measure.  I’m sure there are some obscure passages in the Psalms or Proverbs about God keeping David or Israel safe.  In the New Testament though, there are no such passages that I’m aware of.  If we are to take Jesus at His Word, furthermore, our only conclusion should be that following Him necessitates going into some type of danger.

When we decide to follow Jesus, we are declaring a war of types on the enemy’s kingdom.  We don’t fight against people but against powers and principalities of darkness, that whole thing.  And fight we must.  We just very often think of fighting in a one dimensional sense though is the problem in my opinion.  We think of fighting other people.  We need to focus our fighting on global crises like clean water, malaria, AIDS and rampant unemployment, among countless others to be sure.  As it stands now we instead pour how many hundreds of billions of dollars a year in fighting against an enemy that will never be defeated due to their very structure of decentralization of the Taliban?

The Dangerous American Dream

Perhaps following Jesus is just as likely to lead us into danger as it is to lead us into safety.  This goes against the very American dream as we know it, doesn’t it?  Ask most people what they want the most for them and their children and you’re surely to receive an answer that contains the word safety.  Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with this sentiment particularly when it’s in reference to one’s own children.  The problem lies when we pursue safety over Jesus.

Sometimes we’re so obsessed with our own families’ safety that we neglect to look out for the safety of others.  Look at the typical American city; I’ll take Sarasota as a prime example.  Every single family I know lives in safety.  There is a part of our town called Newtown ironically that is not safe at all though.  A friend told me he used to pick up a study partner there and the girl’s dad told him not to get out of the car whenever he picked her up because he was white and it simply wasn’t safe.   Meanwhile, this friend and most of my other friends carry weapons for protection.  I’m not sure what they’re protecting themselves against exactly but the idea of safety is interlaced in their attempt to carry concealed weapons.

After the Newtown killings, the Florida state legislature discussed passing a law that would allow some teachers to carry weapons.  The idea being that if someone were to come in and start shooting than at least they wouldn’t get very far before someone came to stop them.  I can’t speak for other teachers, but arming someone like me is not a very wise idea.  In order to keep the children safe I’m assuming the teacher would need to have it on their person, right?  For a kindergarten teacher that is potentially one of the worst ideas out there as kids are constantly hugging on you as the teacher.  Personally I’d rather hug kids than protect them by carrying a weapon and therefore not allowing them to hug me.

All that to say, sometimes following Jesus leads us straight into danger.  Look at the promises of Christ Himself to His disciples before He left them on earth.  The world will hate you because it has hated me.  Some of you will in fact follow me to death itself.  Last year, I decided to take a step of faith and go to Turkey for a mission trip.  A couple of things I want to point out.  My parents have always supported me in my mission trips, but my dad in particular had a difficult time with the idea of me going to Turkey since it’s in the Middle East.

When we talked about me going over there for the summer, I asked my dad where in Scripture that Jesus commanded us to play it safe.  His quick response was that Jesus wrote the Scriptures before Islam was invented.  To this I quickly responded that first off not all Muslims are extremists and secondly I’m pretty sure the Roman Empire wasn’t exactly much better than any other violent forces that have lived since.  I also assured him that Turkey was a secular state and very stable.  It continues to be so in spite of the protests earlier this year.

Faith as a tool

Let’s explore this idea of the Bible as a means of education in a slightly different light, that being of faith.  Faith can be used to empower or equip others.  It can give a person’s life meaning and purpose.  Faith can instill love and teach us how to live.  Faith, when pursued correctly and wholeheartedly often leads to humility.  Humility is not thinking less of yourself but rather think of yourself less.

At the same time, I would be remiss to not acknowledge that faith can very often lead to war.  In one people’s faith system it urges its followers to convert others at the sword.  Extreme Muslims use the Koran to defend this type of thinking.  Try this one on for size though.  We do understand that Muslims see Americans as extreme Christians when we shock and awe their people, right?  That has to be plainly apparent to us if we’re honest with ourselves.

Faith can also instill fear.  People beat others over the head with Bibles and tell them they’re going to hell if they don’t repent.  We preach a gospel that declares no man can earn salvation, and yet they have to accept grace.  Accept is a verb after all, right?  I mean, if we’re so sure we don’t earn it by works, then maybe we should have a better explanation of how accepting grace isn’t actually a work, right?  Perhaps accepting is a form of work after all?  I know I sound completely heretical there so I’ll just stop.

Another potential side effect of faith is arrogance.  I am often guilty of this myself.  I tend to look down on others outside the faith as if I have it all figured out or something?  You can believe in something wholeheartedly and still largely miss the point.  How many Christians support a just war theory even though that’s nowhere to be found in the New Testament and indeed wasn’t a part of the early church until the time of Augustine somewhere around the third century?  Go ahead, please point me to where Jesus says something other than that He’ll deal with it in the final judgment and that it’s not really our place to solve the world’s problems.

Faith can be used as a wonderful tool to help motivate and mobilize God’s people to do an extreme amount of good in the world.  There are some budding movements that give me great hope.  One of these is the Business as Mission movement and another one is the missional church movement.  These are beautiful expressions of the faith, as I’m sure there are beautiful expressions of others’ faith systems.  We must all admit though that there are those extremists who use faith for destruction though, right?

Faith has been used to defend slavery.  Slavery is in fact mentioned in the Bible but slavery was a very different thing in Biblical times than it is now or than it was in the early colonial days of our country.  Faith has been used to ‘put women in their place’ and continues to do so to this day.  Faith has been used to deny gay people basic human rights like the right to marry and spend time with them in the hospital when their partner is sick.

Faith has also been used to overthrow the system of slavery in America in the 1800’s and again where it exists in America today.  You realize that it still exists in our own borders, right?  Faith has also been used to empower women.  More recently it has also been used to advocate for gay rights as well as immigration reform.

Education as a tool

Another tool that I often think of in a mostly positive light is education.  I’m an elementary educator at heart so I’ve seen how it can transform a student’s mind and life firsthand.  Now I teach business classes to youth and see their excitement when they think about launching their own businesses.  It is extremely exciting and rewarding for me as well.  Just to light a fire in someone’s mind at what they might become; there’s truly nothing better in my mind.

There is a downside to education though as there is to any tool.  Propaganda can easily be spread.  Unless we educate our students on how to think critically about what people and the media are telling them, think of how much damage a misdirected education can do to a young person.  How many child soldiers are there in the world today?  Does anyone really think they want to kill their families out of much of a choice?  Of course not, but after they’ve been brainwashed they become much easier to deal with I’m sure.

Education can also be used to extend the status quo even when it doesn’t benefit the majority.  A current example I can think of is South Africa.  When I visited there in November of 2010, I had the privilege of staying with a wonderful family in Port Elizabeth.  The mom informed me that Jacob Zuma, the South African president, was telling South Africans that AIDS didn’t exist!  Can you imagine how much damage he has done to his own country?!  What are people supposed to believe after all though, right?  Some white person from a foreign country or a man of the same color that is currently running your own country?  Who would you most likely believe?

Education can empower, equip and help people create jobs for themselves and those around them.  It can be a very beautiful tool indeed.  We can use education to teach people about God and Jesus, but I dare say if we don’t simultaneously teach those same people how to think critically than we run the very high risk of giving them a shallow faith upon which to build.  It can help reduce inequality when done correctly.  People have used the Bible to defend slavery among other things like women being treated as cattle or gays not getting the same rights as other citizens.

Many Christians often say, “Just read the Bible for yourself.”  Can that really be done though?  Can you leave your upbringing and previous experiences with religion at the door when you go to read the Bible?  That would take a lot for someone to do that.  Not to mention I wouldn’t even necessarily recommend just reading the Bible without taking into consideration some of the historical context, right?  A lot of it simply doesn’t make sense if we take it out of its historical context.  Yes, the Bible is of course applicable today, but we do ourselves a great disservice when we neglect the larger story that Jesus found himself in during 1^st century Jerusalem.  

Smartphones as tools

Look at a smartphone.  I remember when Apple first started selling the iPhone and their ad said something about of course you could live without one, but would you want to?  That is a brilliant marketing strategy if I’ve ever heard of one!  Smart phones have become so ubiquitous that people now can’t picture living without them.  As with any other tool, they can do incredible good or harm depending on how they’re wielded.

You can watch porn on a smart phone or other inappropriate videos that your children are two clicks away from.  Or you can download Youversion and read the Bible anywhere you may find yourself.  There’s even a Jesus film app now, how cool is that?  An iPhone or other smart phone can help you find wherever it is you need to go.  It can help democratic movements get off the ground by means of Twitter and other social networks.

Technological innovations can also lead to a tremendous amount of waste, so much so that we now have a name for it; e-waste.  You get that right?  We’ve created an entire different category of waste now?  I think quite a bit of it can be recycled, but who takes the time to do that?  I still remember holding on to AA batteries in the hopes of finding a recycling center.  Little did I know when I looked into my city’s website on how to dispose of them properly they just said to throw them away like regular trash.

Tech innovations can also lead to an extreme amount of laziness, right?  How many dads lose their families due to just spending all their time on TV or video games instead of pursuing gainful employment at the least or helping around the home with child rearing duties?   How many men use the excuse that they’ve been working all day and as such deserve to have some time playing meaningless video games while their wives do all the house work?  I tease Stef about such possibilities but would never dream of actually doing it.

Techy tools

Tools that are brought about by technological advances are another example that has clearly good and harmful consequences simultaneously.  Whenever you create a new technology, you have creative destruction.  Luddites are a name given to people who are resistant to technological advances.  As I understand it there was a man named Ludd who broke sewing machines in response to being out of a job all of a sudden due to the machines.  Farming is another obvious example.  We have done amazing things with higher and higher yields, but how many perfectly happy farmers have then been relocated to factory jobs in urban areas that they now hate?

Technological advances usually make life easier, but at what cost?  I can contact literally anyone in the world from my iPhone now, but how often does that steal from the current face to face time I’m trying to share with friends in my present world.  I can tell you write now my two roomies are watching a movie while I write this blog on my laptop.  Not that a movie is likely to draw us really close to one another, but you get the idea.

Look at the advancement of transportation over the past 100 years.  We can now travel at ease to anywhere else in the world for relatively cheap compared to even 20 years ago.  If we’re not careful though, we neglect to lay roots down and become established in a local community.  It’s a tough rope to walk as someone who travels a fair amount; I can guarantee you of that.  100 years ago though, how many people ever dreamed of how the middle class of any country would be able to literally travel around the world on a whim?  People keep saying the world continues to shrink.  This is not literal but figuratively we shrink all the time.  Right now I’m in Yangon, Myanmar.  Tomorrow I will hopefully speak to my girlfriend in Liberia and my mom in the USA.  In the past week, I’ve spoken on facebook to someone in Liberia, Illinois, Florida, Turkey, New Zealand, Amsterdam and Prague.  Think about that for a moment!  I’m certainly not anyone famous, and I’ve talked to people in 6 different countries within a week’s time!

Now let’s talk about the potential downsides.  How many youth know how to carry a regular conversation in person with someone else?  My friend informed me she had read a study where video games lead to the same kind of addictive behavior that hard drugs can.  If you don’t believe me, take the iPad out of your child’s hand the next time they’re in the middle of their favorite game.  Better yet, don’t let them save their current level.  The very social networks we’ve all come to love have lent themselves to unprecedented levels of bullying that we can’t make laws fast enough to deal with.  Social networks like Facebook can easily lead to affairs as my friend often reminds me as to the reason he doesn’t have a Facebook page.