Don't Plan With a Concern for Evil in Mind

Dearest Precious Handfuls:

Thanks for the prayers. I can’t imagine not having prayers while going through these past few weeks. I asked you to pray for me because I know you believe in the power of lifting up your heart and lifting up of others to God. I know each of you would not be at where you are now, without God, and He is walking with you every step of your way. You understand what it’s like to wait upon the Lord, and your relationship with God is not separated from your lifestyle. :)

Going through the life of Joseph with my group of women, I am reminded not to take evil into account when making my plans. I’m prone to lose my focus on God when God’s master plan is too big for me to comprehend. It’s easy to make plans trying to sidestep possible evil in the world. Like Abraham who rationalized lying about his wife is his sister in case bad people want to murder him to make her their wife, I know my own worries for how to deal with my own situations prevent me from objectively seek “what I ought to be doing that will please God in the present situation”. We know that though it’s true she is his sister.. but it’s his motive for discerning what he chose to intentionally reveal and hold back that’s a warning for us all.

It’s tempting when handling my condo insurance and repairs situation to make assumptions like “lawyers will only consider my case if it involves big enough incentive in order to bring me justice”. It’s easy to be skeptical and bitter to make claims like “the society doesn’t care about the little people”, or “there is no fairness in the world.” There’s a difference between keeping my accounting balance detailed and clear for responsibly handling my own part vs keeping documentation and records in case I need to sue someone. There’s also a difference between choosing to do something weighing on my priorities vs for fear of other parties falling short on their promises. By default, let’s seek to love God and love others, whether it’s lovingly speak the truth or lovingly forgive others as God forgive us. Be patient with everyone.

Team change: Joe and Connie is no longer coming. Will retake our team picture soon.

I’m a little apprehensive.. and possibly overwhelmed, by the amount of planning and work it takes to minister to 60 students (mixture of new believer and nonbeliever) between now 5 of us, while also remembering we are really there to support Pastor Rathana, his wife, and 3 local staff. The pastor knows each of the students in the dorm and their spiritual needs, but he’s hoping the same God’s Words presented by foreign “experts” will be easier to take root in their hearts.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love, not even language.

I’ve narrowed down to focusing on a couple topics to prepare workshops for. When I think about the apostle Paul’s heart to the Thessalonians, “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7), regardless of culture, there are things I want to share to encourage the young believers as they live out their witness among their nonbeliever peers as if they are my own children. I also pondered how to teach spiritual topics to an audience including both believers and nonbelievers, but Tim Keller’s article Preaching in A Secular Culture helped addressed a lot of my concerns.

• Church Planting/World Missions - It’s that hunger wanting to see God be glorified by all nations, tribes, and tongues, at all costs, to die to self and make Christ known. Oswald Chambers said, “Your priorities must be God first, God second, God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever.” In case nobody ever told a God-fearer about that hunger wanting to see God be glorified by all nations, tribes, and tongues, at all costs, to die to self and make Christ known.. We have an obligation to pass on the Great Commission. Our faith cannot just stop at being content about obtaining our own salvation, or salvation of our own family, community, and nation. Not just from one Scripture, the entire Bible is filled with believers scattering/being sent to other lands to proclaim hope through judgment, to invite a new city or ethnic group to enter into relationship with God, to receive God’s blessing. You may be surprised, God may call someone from a culture without a lot of Christians or Christian resources out to bring the good news to another country.
  This article is for every believer who’s wondering if God called them to “stay” or “go”. Apostolic Passion by Floyd McClung

• Cyber Security/Human Trafficking Awareness - With some kind of technology and internet being prevalent and penetrating into mountain villages and remote tribes, safe use of information and caution for discerning what gets input into the brain can never be too much, especially for university students and young adult workers in society. I recently learned from Asia Society Texas Center that more than 80% of Vietnam has internet access. As Christians, we have a duty to protect and educate about human dignity as we are made in God’s own image and likeness. With increased websites tracking and random QR codes inviting anyone to scan into phishing sites, ransomware that can shut down large corporation operations, scams aiming to sell people into slavery, we must watch out for one another.

• What it means Not to Serve Money - There’s a reason Scripture points out “No man can serve two masters.. You cannot serve God and mammon (money)”. Recently I listened to an episode of Ask Pastor John (from July 8, 2023) where John Piper explained it perfectly: “How do you serve money.. Serving money doesn’t mean doing things to meet money’s need. You serve money by calculating all your plans, your efforts, to benefit from what money promises you. You calculate your whole life.. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself in the position of the greatest benefit from money.” Even with my years of walking with God, I catch myself worrying about financial security, especially during disasters and accidents out of my control. Money is the common language across all cultures I think all of us, especially the current and future labor force, can find relevant as we live out our faith.

The team plans to host a Cambodian food sale at church sometime in August. The Cambodian church expressed their greatest ministerial need is video camera and equipment for streaming, so we are currently confirming the cost and hope to raise toward this goal to bless their ministry.
We often hesitate making suggestions we ourselves can’t see how to pull it off by our own resources, but God’s love is way bigger than our own hearts. Once the idea kicks off, even though none of us know how to make this all come together, we eventually recruited a couple of friends in church who have experience and passion with cooking, and Connie’s family are supportive in providing us recipes to mass produce authentic Cambodian snacks.

I will send out my support letter next week.

Personal Prayer Requests:

Praise for my friends who made me feel very special for my birthday this month.

• Pray that I have a heart of learning from the Cambodian believers.

  • Short term missions is about bringing resources that help support local believers doing ministry. It could be providing child care so local believers and workers can attend conferences. It could be coming as foreign “experts” to help present spiritual messages the local believers think can encourage the group they are outreaching to (we all know sometimes people ignore the advice we gave them, but suddenly when somebody else told them the same exact thing, they thought it’s the most awesome advice they ever heard). We must never forget the same Holy Spirit in us is in local believers of another culture. May I keep my eyes open to how God is working in their lives. Rather than imposing on others the way we worship God, we can try to understand and appreciate how other cultures worship God. It may include not being able to sing along to those worship songs in a foreign language, but silently praising God in our hearts how He moves their hearts. It may be recognizing we ourselves might not be the best candidate for discipling young believers of a culture we haven’t understood well, but we can provide resources so the local believers can have the tools they need to minister to their new believers.

• Pray I know the gospel so well I don’t prepackage gospel presentation.

  • Even if I get the chance to share the gospel in a foreign country, I haven’t earned the chance to share if I haven’t recognize the differences in our thought patterns and world views. I don’t know their values or their pain and insecurities, yet. I need to observe their behavior and understand their beliefs before attempting to speak truth into their lives. I pray that I will participate in active loving engagement with the Cambodians, and let prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit guide me when and how to present Jesus.

A Blurb quasi about love:

Have you ever read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams? There is a technology that’s cheaper and more practical than having an invisibility field, it’s called “Somebody Else’s Problem (SEP) field”. This SEP field can be activated around something, and the unconscious minds of observers will instantly abdicate responsibility for its existence. It can run for over a hundred years on a single 9 volt battery.

I once heard that loving a people group is easier than loving an individual. Love isn’t easy at all. But to claim loving the world, we can pray for world peace. Altruism.. To love all humanity, we can donate, volunteer, and respect human rights. But to love an individual person is different. We don’t have expectations from the world or from a people group, but we’d place expectations on a person. We wish to communicate with our parents well, and we wish to teach our children well. We hope our friends can come rescue us when we stumble, and we hope to have unity and harmony with people we work together. We live with an individual’s flaws that affect our quality of life, and their mistakes hurt us. We don’t expect much from those who are far from us, while we expect more those who are closer to us. Loving a real life human being is hard, because he/she is a free-willed individual. Can you accept him/her for who they are and not wish they can change to please your expectations? If he/she continue to fail your expectations, will you still choose to love him/her.. no strings attached?

Our God is God of relationships. He knows us personally.. our heart better than we do ourselves, and He chose to save us. Our names are written on His hands. Evangelism is not about passing on of head knowledge. Relationships allow the beauty of the gospel to first be demonstrated in our own lives. If God is real and He changes lives, let curious seekers have full access to your truthful thoughts and transparent conduct. People don’t care about what you have to say until they know you care about them. Bringing the existence of God to someone’s attention is never somebody else’s problem. We don’t know their language, we don’t have compatible personalities or interests, we don’t want to intrude or offend others... Honestly standing in front of God, how many are true barriers and how many are excuses? How many is something God calls you to lovingly do something about? Christ chose to step into our world incarnate, understand our temptations and pains and pay for our sins so we may live. We adopted by God to be His people conform to the image of His Son. We can choose to love, to step into an individual’s life, whether they are a people group who don’t have podcasts talking about God in their language they could search for or a friend who nobody has bothered to share about God with. Right now.

That’s what I remind myself every time I have a teaching opportunity. God is love, unconditional, perfect love. Pray we grow to love like how our Father loves. His light deactivates the SEP fields, and open our eyes to the harvest.