Transitions in Communication

As many of you know, Stef got here on September 3^rd and how been here for 3 weeks as of Wednesday.  It has been simply wonderful having her here at long last.  We have waited so long to see each other.  In fact most of our relationship has been spent on different continents.

We were talking last night about how we are having to learn to transition in regards to our communication styles.  Skype wasn’t always reliable on either of our ends when she lived in Liberia and I came to Myanmar.  The internet was usually good enough however to support email.  When you’re far apart like that and without access to Skype on a regular basis, you learn to get by using email mostly.

Thankfully, Steffani and I both enjoy writing and reading each others’ seemingly endless novels of emails that we’d send each other on a fairly regular basis.  The benefit of writing emails is you have time to digest, process and respond after some time to think about it.  Now we don’t have that luxury.

Now we basically have to learn how to communicate verbally as opposed to written communication for the most part over the past year and a half.  It is a bit odd if I’m completely honest.  Both of us like to take time to process things, but that is not always a ready option now.  It is of course great to be able to talk face to face, but sometimes I just need time to process things, especially things that are distressing.

We talked about that last night.  The last few years I have made it a point to at least sleep on something that is distressing before responding.  If I respond right away I’m likely to regret it in the near future.  I’ve just found it to be wiser to instead take some time to think about the situation and get outside of your initial emotional reaction.

This has proved beneficial over the past few years as I’ve employed it.  Thankfully, Stef understands this and is willing to give me time to process things.  I truly appreciate that about her.  However, that doesn’t give me license to just ignore the elephant in the room for weeks on end.  I think if I can get at least a 24 hour period or even at least a night’s sleep on an issue that should be sufficient.

So many men tend to react viscerally to distressing situations.  I’ve certainly done my fair share of that in the past, but I don’t want to do that moving forward, especially with a spouse.  One of my friends said her husband has always said this about relationships, “Always build up and never tear down.”  This applies to all relationships but especially marriage.  If I react viscerally right away, I can pretty much guarantee it will not build up the other person.  If I instead take the time to step outside myself and assess the situation as objectively as possible, then I have a better chance at building the other person up while still honestly addressing the problem.

Talking face to face also adds that dimension of body language, right?  One of the areas this applies to especially for me is when I want to mess with Steffani and get her to believe a yarn of mine.  I have a much harder time keeping a straight face and pulling off a trick when she can look into my eyes as opposed to when I tell her something over the phone.  Let me be clear here, I don’t ever deceive her, rather I found out she’s gullible so I play on that every once in a great while. 

Unexpected Inspiration

This past Friday I went to the Global Leadership Summit at a conference center here in Yangon.  I’m pretty sure the Summit is hosted by Willow Creek Church and Bill Hybels from Chicago land.  It was neat to be able to watch some of the speakers all the way over on this side of the world.  It was a 2 day event but I was unable to attend the first day and had to leave early on the second day.  The two speakers I heard were Colin Powell (yes, the general you’re thinking of) and Oscar Muriu, a senior pastor from Nairobi, Kenya.

I enjoyed both these speakers, but much preferred the pastor from Kenya.  He was such an encouraging speaker and had such passion for training leaders in his church.  He was hired as a 20 year old at a church that only had 20 members.  In one year, that grew by 400% to 80 members and a few years later it grew to 500.  He was smart enough to realize very quickly he didn’t have the leadership capacity to handle that and so decided to pour his life into other young people around him to share the load.  One of his ideas came from reading about Moses in the Old Testament and how God gave him 70 leaders to delegate some of the work to so he wouldn’t be so distressed.

That’s not what I want to focus on here though.  The real unexpected inspiration came afterward.  A coworker and I went out to visit one of our SCALE students.  He had finished Phase 1 and we were to interview him.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of taking the wrong site visit form.  We have different versions of site visits forms.  The one we needed was the pre-SCALE site visit form.  The one I used instead was the kingdom impact site visit form.

In spite of that, it turned out to be such an encouraging time for my coworker Samuel and I and I hope for the student as well.  I should clarify that our SCALE program is for Christian business owners who either already have an existing business or want to start a business and are a bit more experienced. 

This particular student had only been in operation for 3 weeks and had started a bicycle repair shop.  He had started this business to help support his orphanage.  I should also clarify that orphanages here don’t just take in orphans; they take in kids whose parents feel they would benefit more from that environment than what the parents are able to afford them.

He had such a wonderful heart to lead the children and provide for his family as well as the poor in his neighborhood and his church.  His one employee was his pastor of the local church to help him provide for his family.  He gave the poor in his neighborhood a discounted rate so they could afford the repairs.  He was teaching the boys in the orphanage how to repair their own bikes and now they have an employable skill for when they graduate 10 standard (the equivalent of a high school degree here basically.)

I asked him about how he balanced everything.  He’s certainly got a lot on his plate; a family, an orphanage, and a small business to help sustain it all.  He said he makes a daily schedule and adjusts it as necessary.  I told him he was such an inspiration because I could barely balance my schedule now that Steffani is here.  He was such an encouraging example of what a Christian business owner should be in light of the gospel here, or really anywhere for that matter.

Generational God

Stef and I have been reading in the Old Testament for months now and recently started reading the book of Isaiah.  It is one of the Major Prophets set of books in the Old Testament.  It is filled with messianic prophecy throughout the entirety of the book. 

The other day I stumbled across a passage that said, “In 65 years, such and such will come to pass.”  Later in the same chapter I believe there was a messianic prophecy too.  When Stef and I were talking about it on Sunday, (nothing wrong with the occasional private church service, right?) I mentioned that it reminded me of a sermon I had heard years ago.

This preacher had shared how he believed God was a generational God.  When we lose sight of that we easily grow frustrated in our daily endeavors.  Why am I not making any progress in this work?  Why is the world not changing for the better like I long for it to do?

When we look at the God of the Bible though, we see He has a very different definition of things happening in their proper time.  When the Israelites left Egypt and were going to the Promised Land; it took them an extra 40 years to finally cross into it due to their disobedience.  Back to the book of Isaiah and the chapter I was talking about, it took 65 years for the first thing mentioned to pass.  It took another 700 years, give or take a decade, for the messianic prophecy to be fulfilled.  Generations passed between when the last of the Old Testament prophecies was written and when Christ came onto the stage.  Israel didn’t become a nation again for almost 2 millennia after Christ left earth.

This preacher was talking in light of this generational view of God, he was praying for his children to be used mightily for God.  He said that his primary ministry was investing in his kids to send them off like rockets into the world when they became adults and after this pastor had passed away.  It was a very interesting perspective and one that has stuck with me since.

In American society, we are used to things happening instantly.  They don’t call us a microwave society for nothing, right?  I’m a big proponent of technology and forward progress, but one of the unintended consequences has been an expectation that everything should just happen when we want them to.  We start down the path of a dream and are derailed for any number of reasons and then get upset that our dream isn’t fulfilled right away.

We long to impact our work environments and neighborhoods for Christ and to make things better for everyone.  When we fail miserably like we always do and will, we lose hope and faith that things really can get better.  We take 1 step forward and 2 steps back in seemingly every area of our lives.  We get so frustrated at our inability to change things overnight or even within a year or two.

That’s thankfully not how God sees us and our lives.  He is the Creator of time itself and history is one long arc that He is in control of.  I once heard a preacher say we will never know the impact we had here until eternity and probably not even then.  The point isn’t the impact we make, although I personally strive and consistently pray to be a man of impact.  The point is to glorify God no matter what.  Glorify Him in the good and the bad, when you marry your best friend and when you lose your dream job.  On Friday at a conference we sang “Blessed be Your Name.”  I got teary eyed because of the lyrics in that song.  Blessed be Your Name, on the mountaintop and in the valley is the general idea.

God is surely a generational God.  May we remember that when we get discouraged about the lack of change we see in our lives and the lives around us.  May we remember that when we read the news and see the plight of billions of people in dire need around the world.  May it spur us to never give up in every good endeavor that God has called us to.

100 Days

It occurred to me as I was finishing up at the office today that there are a couple of things in my life revolving around 100 days currently.  The first one being that in 100 days I get married to my beautiful fiancé Steffani Taylor.  I like to tease her a fair amount about it naturally; but the truth is I’m more than excited to get to spend the rest of my life with this incredible and godly woman who I somehow talked into marrying me.  The second one being a 100% in 100 days fundraising campaign that Stef and I are starting hopefully on October 1^st.  We had to delay it a bit already so hopefully we can get started by October 1^st this time around.

We have decided to join NMSI full time, my sending agency from the states that helped arrange for me to work here in SE Asia.  She will be working at the Center for Global Outreach (CGO) full time and I will be starting my own business again like I have here.  We are planning on spending a year in Ft. Myers to help prepare for overseas living and pay off our debt in the meantime.

So, 100 days till our wedding day starts today, September 22^nd, and our 100% in 100 days campaign starts October 1^st; again, tentatively at this point to make sure we have our ducks in a row before we start.  There is quite a bit to look forward to as I reread that sentence, things are good.  Some people might call that crazy, raising support during the first year of marriage, but we’re just going to go for it!  We have been spending a lot of time in prayer for my current supporters and our future supporters lately as we gear up for this campaign.  We have spent a lot of time in prayer period in regard to fundraising but really want to focus on our prayer and financial partners.

100 days till I get married, wow.  I never thought that would happen.  In fact, I was dead set against the very idea of marriage in my own life for about a decade.  I was perfectly happy being single.  I loved living the bachelor life; I got to do what I wanted when I wanted to do it.  There is a lot of freedom in that.

However, what I’ve realized over the past couple of years is that perhaps marriage isn’t as bad as I once thought it was.  In short, I had let pop culture and media influence my view of marriage more than I had let God show me His design for it.  I had read the Bible to be sure, but I chose to focus on the admonitions to be single and say I was meant for that.

That all started to change in January of 2012 when my mom came to visit me in Florida.  I overheard her talking to my dad on the phone and something occurred to me.  Marriage is really simply about two people caring well for each other.  It’s deeper on so many levels I’m sure, but that is what I remember sticking out to me and what starting changing my perspective on marriage in general.

Fast-forward 2 years and I’m engaged to be married to a beautiful woman whom I wouldn’t trade for the world if I were given the chance.  She means the world to me, and I couldn’t be happier or more excited to be spending the rest of my life with her.  There will be many ups and downs as there are in any marriage, but I look forward to working it out together with her.  The truth is I love her with all of me.  How could I do anything but ask her to marry me?

Preemptive Love

Steffani arrived to Yangon on September 3rd and I couldn't be happier to FINALLY be spending time together in the same place, face to face.  God was gracious enough to bless her with a job right away and a full-time decent paying job at that!  We praise Him for His provision, both during her time at home this summer and for landing a job immediately when she got here.

It has been so good to have Steffani here, I can't even describe it properly with words.  I am learning, slowly but surely, how to love this woman whom God has blessed me with.  Loving others well is so hard sometimes, isn't it?  It can be especially difficult to love the ones you're closest to, whether that is family or a significant other.  

Thankfully, I am having a very easy job of loving Steffani right now, we're engaged after all.  I am not naive enough to believe butterflies will last forever.  It is especially important now to set up some ways that we can love each other well even when the newness wears off.  Marriage is tough from what I understand.  Love is tough from personal experience.  Thank God we're both Christian and have a God who sets the example in how to love others well.

We are called to love everyone, whether family, friends, or enemies.  Jesus sets a higher standard in the New Testament with the loving your enemies bit, doesn't He?  That is so incredibly difficult when you look at the world today.  So many acts of war are done in the Name of God, it can be very discouraging.  There is still hope, and we have to hold onto that at the very least.

I heard of an organization in Iraq called 'Preemptive Love Coalition' that does something truly unique.  They have Iraqis make shoes and then sell them.  They take some of the profits and fund heart surgeries for Iraqis.  The reason I like this organization so much is it's in direct opposition to preemptive war.  Imagine a world where preemptive love is taken more seriously than preemptive war.

What would be the consequences of preemptive love?  We’ve seen the consequences of preemptive war rear their ugly head again here lately.  I sincerely believe IS is a direct result of our preemptive war actions in Iraq back in 2003.  Now we seem hell bent on repeating the same pattern.  We bomb them, it was shock and awe back in 2003 and now it’s just a smaller version of the same tactic.

Anyway, back to the original question; what would the consequences of preemptive love be?  For starters, Christians would go out to their communities and neighborhoods instead of trying to bring people into their church buildings.  This has already started happening and in fact has been a huge part of our Christian history across cultures and nations.  When we follow Christ’s example of sacrificial love, it speaks volumes of our beliefs.  The old adage actions speak louder than words is especially apt.

Let’s strike our enemies with preemptive love instead of preemptive war.  What if we went in to hotspots and lived among people groups who were under persecution?  I know of one couple who did that where I currently am residing, at least in a neighboring state.  They had to flee a mob of people who were angry international NGO’s were helping the persecuted minority group.  That is an example of the preemptive love I think we should be an example of.