Archive - May, 2009

A Life Story About Preparation

May 27, 2009 in Development, Missions with 4 Comments

I’m going to be transparent with you and share a few of the hard earned lessons I learned today.  I am going to make myself vulnerable for our mutual edification with a true story, so be gentle ok?  I hope you can learn something from this like I did.

It was time for dinner and I just wanted to get it and get back home quickly.  Here in Thailand, its much cheaper to eat at the market than to cook, so I usually go out for the family and grab a few things for dinner every so often.  I guess I was distracted or maybe not thinking to deeply, but Brayden and I took off on the scooter and headed down the highway without much thought or preparation on my part.

I near the entrance to the University off of the major highway I was on and realize that my engine is beginning to sputter.  I look down and suddenly realize that I’m out of gas.  The light turns green and all of the other bikes and cars have to pull around us as my engine dies!  I take a deep breath and calmly tell Brayden that we are going to have to walk across the highway to the other side.  ”Dad, what’s wrong?” he asks a little frantically.  I reply, “Dad should have got gas at that last station and he didn’t so we are going to have to walk.  Mai pen rai” which means “no problem” in Thai. Continue Reading…

Dr. Ralph D. Winter 1925-2009

May 25, 2009 in Missions with 1 Comment

A giant of Missions work and thinking, Ralph Winter, recently passed away after a battle with cancer.  He was 84. Time Magazine listed him among the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America in 2005.  He has been a huge influence on my life, ministry, and thinking.  Much of my understanding concerning world missions and unreached people groups has come from his ministry vision.  We also share the experience of both being US Navy veterans.

His story is an amazing one.  According to his autobiography, he started the US Center for World Missions without backers, no denomination, not even a single congregation, no mailing list, and only about $100 in cash.  They went from this to a $40 million dollar set of properties that are free and clear and a global impact that will never fully be understood this side of eternity. The university he founded enrolls in various programs over 6,000 new students a year, drawing upon over 900 teachers/professors all over the country, teaching in over 130 places in the U.S. alone, are active in many languages with half of the staff either at regional centers in the USA or in similar activities around the world! Continue Reading…

Wanted: One Monk To Get Us All to Heaven

May 22, 2009 in Buddhism, Thailand with 4 Comments

DSCF0235Since coming to Thailand, I have been working hard to understand in insides of the Thai culture and why things are the way they are here in the Kingdom.  I want to let you in on some of the things that I am learning in the hopes that you will better understand typical Thai life.  

One of the observations I’ve made has to do with the expectations that are put on young men when it comes to religious matters.  Here in the Northeast, just about every young man is expected to become a Buddhist monk at some time in his life.  By around age 20 or 21, in and around the time of college, they are expected to be a monk for a minimum of a few days.  

Once the boys are “ordained”, they then ride around in a procession of pickup trucks in order to let the “spirits” know that they are now monks.  Some stay longer than a few days and choose to live as a monk for many years. There head and eyebrows are shaved and they are expected to listen to a sermon and chant many ancient Pali texts.  Once ordained, the boy is now known as “naak” or “naga” in English. This is a mythical serpent from Indian legends.

The story goes that one day the serpent disguised himself as a human in order to be ordained as a monk.When the Buddha found out, he told the naga that only humans can become monks. The naga agreed to leave the monkhood but asked the Buddha for one favour. He asked that in future, all young men who were about to be ordained be called “naga”. The Buddha consented.   Continue Reading…

Missions and the Ministry of Healing

May 6, 2009 in Missions with 0 Comments

Since the “Miracles of Love” Festival there has been some interest on the subject of divine healing and how it works works in our lives and missions work in general.  So I wanted to take a moment to talk a little about it here.  Though this won’t be exhaustive, I hope it will give a little insight into divine healing, how it can work in a believer’s life, and how God uses it to bring people to Himself. Continue Reading…

Festival Ends-Follow Up Begins

May 2, 2009 in Missions with 0 Comments

img_35812The Miracles of Love Festival crew is back in Sweden and America now.  They did an outstanding job and worked hard the whole time they were in Khon Kaen.  The hit the ground running and didn’t let the jet lag, weird food, extreme heat, and long hard days stop them. Each day the teams split up into about five groups and did outreaches at least two times a day all over the city and campus.  Each evening they hosted the Festival outreach and spent time with the friends they had met earlier that day.  Many Thai people hard the Gospel for the first time and many were healed, saved, and baptized in the Holy Spirit. Johannes Amritzer and his team did a great job communicating the Gospel each night with passion, creativity, and power

Continue Reading…