RPG Pastor

A few weeks ago, some coworkers and I visited a pastor who wanted to join our SCALE program.  Our SCALE program is for Christian business owners who want to expand their existing businesses.  We also open it to adults who are past the 25 year old cut off limit for our STARTUP program.  We decided to do some pre-field visits to see what these potential SCALE students already had in operation.

One of these students was a man who I like to refer to as RPG pastor.  We had tea with him in his church building to discuss his business and his plans to expand.  In his church, the front was what you might call typical, a cross and a pulpit.  In the back corner where we met there were some pictures of this pastor in different parts of his history.

The picture that stood out most to me was one of him holding an RPG.  RPG is actually a Russian acronym and stands for: Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomyot; Americans have reengineered the word to mean Rocket Propelled Grenade.  Needless to say, it wasn’t something I expected to see displayed in a church.  If I was a member of his church, I think it’s safe to say I would be more apt to pay attention with a picture of that in the back of the church.  There was also a picture of him with some fellow soldiers in front of a military helicopter.  Alongside these pictures was one of him receiving his Masters of Divinity from a Bible college.

Talk about a life!  This guy had some incredible stories.  The most fascinating one was when his company had been slaughtered from 500 men or so down to 100.  The general told the remaining 100 they were to fight against 3,000 soldiers on the rebel side.  If they didn’t they were to commit suicide, they weren’t allowed to retreat.  His commanding officer told RPG pastor if his God would deliver the 100 soldiers from the enemy’s hand he would believe in Him.  So, naturally the RPG pastor spent that entire night praying to God for deliverance.  The next day when it was time for battle, they found the rebels had retreated to the border of Thailand. 

It reminded me instantly of Gideon and his 300 men in the Old Testament.  His commanding officer became a believer and asked the RPG pastor what he wanted.  He replied he didn’t want any money, just the opportunity to share Christ with the rest of the army.  He spent the next 5 years going around the country and preaching the gospel to his fellow soldiers.  Wow!!!

He later retired from the army and got his Masters of Divinity from a local Bible college.  After some time preaching at a church, he decided a particular neighborhood that was mostly unreached needed a church, so he planted one there.  He also started a moto-bike business. 

He bought a few moto-bikes and rents them out to people in the neighborhood who use them as taxis to get people around since no taxis go out that far typically.  He is able to use this business as a ministry as it provides job for non-believers in the neighborhood.  This provides a platform for the RPG pastor to share the gospel with his moto-bike drivers.

He also has a healing ministry in his church where people come to get healed.  He lays hands on locals and heals them.  He also prophesied for a coworker during the SCALE program when they were going over his business plans to expand.  The coworker said he knew exactly what this coworker was going through at the time.  Talk about a special connection to God!

This guy was so inspiring and by far my favorite pre-field site visit.  I will never forget his stories and his strong desire to share the gospel in whatever means possible.  Whether that means preaching the gospel to fellow soldiers around the country for 5 years, planting a church, or renting out motorbikes and using that opportunity to witness to nonbelieving motorbike taxi riders, this guy is clearly on fire for God.  This has been one of the best tastes of the kingdom being expanded I’ve experienced here.  Thanks be to God for allowing me to meet the RPG pastor and be inspired by him.

Suicide From a Bipolar Perspective

A couple days ago, it was released that Robin Williams had passed away due to a suicide.  I looked up Wikipedia’s article on him to learn more about him.  They quoted a psychologist as saying it was well known that he struggled with bipolar disorder and depression.  Another way to say it is that he struggled with manic depression, and depression, but perhaps that just shows the redundancy of it?

Mental illness is a struggle for many within the Church and outside the Church.  Unfortunately, “48% of evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christians agree prayer can overcome mental illness.  Fifty percent of those 18-29 years old say prayer and Bible study could overcome mental illness.  35% of all ages agree with the statement, “With just Bible study and prayer, ALONE, people with serious mental illness like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia could overcome mental illness.”  (for more details go to http://blog.lifeway.com/newsroom/2013/09/17/half-of-evangelicals-believe-prayer-can-heal-mental-illness/ )

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 17 after a 2 week stint in the mental hospital with a severe case of mania that ultimately resulted in a temporary state of psychosis.  When I finally got better, I learned all I could about the disorder, much like anyone does when they’re diagnosed with something fairly significant.  My mom and I both came to the conclusion that Robin Williams had to be bipolar.  My psychologist disagreed but I always held to that.  His quick wit and comedy were like one constant episode of mania or what it at least felt like when I experienced mania.

With his suicide, it brought up a lot of stuff for me like it always does when someone famous or someone I might know kills themselves.  Self-doubts emerge, usually along the lines of, “What if I'm next?”  “That could be me someday.”  And other doubts along those same lines.

Then, and I have to say this happens a lot when discussing mental illness, well-meaning Christians end up doing quite a bit of damage when they try and help fellow believers.  We don’t want or need a cliché.  We don’t want or need to be told if we just prayed harder, believed more, had more faith, chose joy instead of depression or whatever the latest form of spirituality self-help may be during that time.  We don’t want or need you to pretend to understand something if you’ve never experienced it before.

We need your help in those times.  We need a listening ear as we try and figure out what’s going on.  We need a strong community that exudes the love of Christ and reminds us of who we are in Christ.  We need you to point us back to Jesus in the midst of our darkness.  We need you to lovingly confront us and tell us we need professional help when it is warranted.  We need you to stand by us and not give up on us no matter how difficult it becomes.  We need you to realize mental illness is very real and that it is multi-faceted and needs to be treated holistically.  We need you to realize we’re scared and telling us to pray more and have more faith isn’t helping.  Chances are we’re already praying a ton and already putting all our faith and trust in God. 

Can we please agree that sometimes God heals us and sometimes He assures us His grace is sufficient?  Can we please agree that sometimes depression is caused by spiritual reasons and sometimes it’s not?  Can we please agree that mental illness is complex and tricky and that we’ll all tread lightly, lovingly and gracefully when talking about the subject?  Thank you for listening.

Lessons in Initiative

Sometimes, I have to learn the same lesson twice within the same year.  While I was still in Sarasota, I was unemployed for quite some time.  Thankfully, I had built up quite a bit of savings to live off of so I was fine during that time.  I would look on Craig’s List for tutoring jobs.  After emailing countless tutoring companies I just gave up.  Then I worked at Chili’s for a grand total of 4 days before realizing I simply wasn’t cut out for waiting tables anymore. 

During this time I had planned on going to Myanmar and starting my own tutoring company while there.  When I went home to Illinois for a few weeks it occurred to me that I should’ve just started my own tutoring company in Sarasota.  I had plenty of contacts, a current teaching certificate in Florida.  There was no reason for not starting tutoring on my own and yet I simply didn’t take the initiative.  There is always demand for tutoring, especially for people with a teaching certificate.

In April, I came to Myanmar to work with a non-profit named Opportunities Now which works primarily with young people who are interested in starting their own businesses.  We provided training, internships and start up loans.  I absolutely love what I do and am hoping to start a school of my own in the near future.

Anyway, I had planned on starting my own tutoring business on the side while I was here.  I placed a free ad in a local newspaper and got started with my first client in 2 weeks.  I make a decent amount at it, especially for it being just a side job.  As I told Stef, the wedding isn’t going to pay for itself.

In the meantime, Stef had learned Samaritan’s Purse was planning on opening up shop in Myanmar.  We both got really excited about the potential for her to come here.  As we both should’ve known, the process for an international NGO to enter a country can be particularly difficult and more time-consuming than one might hope for.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that Stef could come over here and just take over my side business and grow it.  I have gotten 11 hours a week of tutoring just from that free ad in the newspaper.  There is such a high demand I didn’t even really have to try and got quite a few hours on my own.  Since Stef will not be working for anyone else, she can really focus on finding tutoring jobs and making a full time job out of it.

So, the moral of the story is to not wait on someone else to provide a job for you.  Take the initiative and make your own job.  There is obviously nothing wrong with working for someone else and in fact is often times preferred.  However, if you have been having a hard time finding a job, perhaps it’s time to try and create one on your own.  You don’t have to be very skilled although it does certainly help if you can specialize in something that is in high demand.  However, most anyone can cut grass or clean houses and both of those jobs require little up-front investment and are fairly easy to grow if you read a book about marketing.

It has been a lesson I have learned this year and will be applying it in the future.  I am joining a non-profit but also plan on starting my own tutoring business on the side.  If I’m going to be training entrepreneurs how to launch and run their own business than I should probably know how to do it on my own, right?