Asian Mission Report

I know all of you are probably in the midst of celebrating with your families now. Happy Thanksgiving to you. My sister’s family and I celebrated last night together with the family that has “adopted” me here, and we had a very nice time together.

The campaign has really taken off, and all is going well. We’ve had lots of good activities, with good participation. One of our young boys, who is my nephew’s age, has been going around with us everywhere. It is a big step for him, as he has not been very involved in the past. It is good to see him growing up, coming out of his shell, and finding his way into the life of the body here. I am really enjoying watching him. There has been a clear change over the past few months. This campaign has worked out just right, having the 2 parts like we did. The foundation was well-laid in June and is now being built upon. In this particular boy’s development, the benefits of a two part campaign are especially obvious.

One of the other young guys took us on a long cycling trip on Wednesday. When we got as far from home as we were planning to go, the monsoon rains settled in, right on top of our heads. We put my sister and her kids in a cab with their bikes while, the two guys and I cycled home. It was quite an adventure for us, and all agreed upon reaching home that it was a wonderful day of fellowship together.

The nightly Bible study groups have been going very well. The ladies really enjoyed having my sister and niece with us on Wednesday, and the boys were thrilled to have my nephew and brother-in-law. In fact, they kept my nephew with them over night, and pretty much tried to do the same with my brother-in-law! Our Friday study last week was very good, with a long discussion — the very night our poor jetlagged travelers arrived! It was a long, long day for them.

On Sunday, our day together was a good one. My brother-in-law’s lesson during worship was very targeted, and very good. He is such a gifted speaker, and the lesson could not have been better. He exhorted us from 2 Corinthians 3, talking about Moses’ veil, and how we today have no need of a veil because the gospel to which we are called is a glorious one, with an unfading glory. I understand from those in the Chinese Bible class later that morning that the teacher really built on that lesson, and that it was a wonderful morning for all of them. My sister and I taught the kids’ class, and my brother-in-law taught the youth. All of them went well. We spent most of the afternoon with the congregation, and really enjoyed renewing the bonds of fellowship that have been built over the years.

This morning we will go for our church-wide retreat. We have 15 adults and 11 kids signed up to stay overnight, and some more who will join us during the day for activities, but can’t stay due to work commitments. We are looking forward to the time together. I think it is going to be a very good retreat.

Next week will be a busy one for us. We will have VBS every morning, followed by a special session for the older kids in the afternoon. Each evening we will have our regular small group studies. Do keep us in your prayers, and pray that the time spent together will be effective for all.

My sister and her family will be arriving in just a short while now, and our year-end campaign will be underway. The facilities are all booked for our events, sign up lists are getting more and more names on them, and we are anticipating a time of fellowship, learning, and enjoyment for all.

Please pray for the family as they travel, that they will have a safe journey.

Please pray for our events, that they will run smoothly.

Pray for our guests who join us, that they will like what they find here.

Pray for our members, that they will be encouraged and renewed in their zeal.

We are really looking forward to the time we will spend together. We hope to see some real growth with our young people (children and youth). And we hope that the members of all ages can be encouraged by the time together. We have events and activities lined up for everyone, and I am hopeful it will be a time of refreshing for us all.

Your prayers are much appreciated! I will update you as it moves along.

I’ve had a busy time since I’ve been back in Singapore. For one thing, I finished up the year’s lectures at school, which comes as a relief. An even bigger deal for me is that my family managed to make some real headway last week toward settling the issues that have been stirred up for us over this past month. There might still be a tough road ahead of us, but the hardest part is settled for now, thanks to the marvelous way our God can accomplish his work. What seemed impossible has happened, and we are grateful. I do request your continued prayers in this particular situation. Though I don’t feel this is a very good medium to go into any specific details, I am sure God will know which situation you mean when you bring it up in your prayers.

Somewhere in the course of all this, I’ve managed to get back to work too. We are looking forward to a busy holiday period. The school holidays begin in mid-November. My sister and her family will arrive then to carry out several big events with us. We will have our first church-wide retreat in several years. It is an event we don’t hold very often, but when we do we always enjoy it. I am very excited about it, and it seems the whole congregation is too. We have planned to hold it at a hotel this time, rather than a campground, so that those with very small children won’t be prevented from joining us. The theme we are going to work on for the retreat is “Awesome God,” and the activities are geared at including everyone. We won’t split up into children’s and adult’s classes, but will work to incorporate the whole family into each activity. The bonding time this creates is always one of the highlights of our church retreats.

Most of the rest of the campaign will be focused on the children and youth. We will have a VBS for all primary school students and younger. We try to host a VBS during every holiday (and have done so successfully for the past 3-4 years). The kids love it, even though we only ever manage very simple programs. We usually have a good turn out, and are looking forward to having a good session together again this year.

In the afternoons on which the VBS is conducted in the morning, we will continue with a sort of in-house session for our 4th-8th graders. We will study the world religions, and draw a comparison with Christianity. Our kids here are surrounded by all sorts of religious groups, and some of the parents have brought up to me a need to educate them about what it is that they see around us, and where they are positioned in all of this mix of various religions and practices. I am excited and a little nervous about it. It is something we haven’t done before, and so it will be fun to see how it works out.

The week after VBS, we will take a short overnight trip for ages 10-20. We have quite a big group of preteens (well, big for us — we aren’t a big congregation in general), and a rather scattered mix of teens. We are hoping that this overnight trip will be the beginning of forming a real youth group for those who are now at that age, and laying a foundation for those who will be reaching that age soon.

The younger range of kids who will be joining us for the overnight trip, those preteen boys, are the ones who have so enthusiastically volunteered to serve in our worship together on Sundays. I hope you will continue to pray for them and for the adult men who can and should help to nurture them at this point in their development. This is an exciting time for us, and a time that should result in some real maturing of the group here.

Your continued prayers are very much appreciated! God bless you as you go through this week.

Most of my reading has been in literary periodicals this past month. Being that I was back in the US for most of the month, I was able to pick up issues of some magazines/journals that are otherwise hard for me to get my hands on.

Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky

I listened to this 2003 book by Chomsky while I was traveling to and communting in the US. I didn’t like the narrator — he spoke to fast, not giving me time to really think through some of what I was hearing. But I like reading Chomsky, and will probably revisit this one when I get the chance. The premise is one that I think many of us sympathize with — will we choose to go ahead with hegemony, even if it costs us survival of the race?

The Fatal Gift by Alec Waugh

I’ve started over on this book, again. I had started it some time back and got distracted with some things for work. I took it with me thinking I would have time to read it while I was away, but just didn’t. I keep losing track of what I’ve already read, so I have just started it over again. I keep promising to give it to my dad when I finish because of its setting (which is why I bought the book in the first place).

Poetry Magazine, September and October issues

I managed to get caught up on the last 2 issues of Poetry, which is usually my favorite poetry periodical. Some of the commentary offered by John Barr in the September issue, “American Poetry in the New Century,” was very engaging. I enjoyed several of the letters sent in by readers in both issues too. (Maybe I was just in a bit of a prosey mood when I read?)

Boulevard
Boulevard was probably the one I enjoyed most this month. It was generally pretty engaging. There were a few of the prose pieces that weren’t quite my thing, but reading them wasn’t a torture either. Anis Shivani’s article “The Writing Racket” rang of some of the same ideas as Barr’s comments in Poetry, though I preferred Barr’s way of speaking of it all. At any rate, Boulevard is generally a well-made magazine, and I always enjoy the standard it sets. It was good to get my hands on a copy while I was in the US.

Image magazine

I’ve not read this before, and just got started on this issue. I know its reputation to be one of high quality literature, engaging the point of intersection between faith and art. I will look through it more closely before I give my own comments.

I started reading New American Writing poetry anthology last month, and just finished it up. I said in my September review that I wasn’t enjoying that one as much as the others, but hoped it would pick up. It did. I enjoyed the poems situated later in the anthology very much. Oh, and I loved this bit, “Only over time can a story be told. Between once & ever after lies the tale” from Sandra Park’s poem “Geometry (3)” (p. 179).