India update #1

It’s been a few days now since I arrived in India and I’m finding some time now to sit and reflect on my trip thus far. My boss has been involved in some high level meetings with the leadership of the local church here (the Evangelical Church of India or ECI), and I’ve been hanging out in the hotel. I suppose I could get out but I haven’t had much desire to be honest. The rainy season has started here so the streets are full of mud and water mixed with plenty of garbage and a little raw sewage here and there. It’s not really all that tempting to think about going out and walking around in or riding in a rickshaw for that matter.

It’s also getting close to the time in India for Diwali, or the Hindu festival of lights. One of the aspects of this religious holiday here is the lighting of fireworks in order to awaken the gods. At least that is what I've been told by insiders. I haven't been able to confirm it yet. It’s curious to me because I don’t see how the gods could ever sleep in this place anyway, with the never ending noise of honking horns and un-muffled engines roaring down the roads. But for good measure, they add the fireworks this time of year. Anyway, all of it has me thinking how grateful I am that I don’t have to light fireworks in order to get God’s attention. The scriptures tell us in Psalm 145:18, “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” If the Lord is near to us, we certainly don’t need mortar shells to grab his attention.

Last night, the local church here, which OMS partners with, celebrated its 50th anniversary. Actually, it has been celebrating this anniversary all year, but last night was the concluding event. They had all kinds of cultural dances, greetings from various churches and missions organizations, and musical performances. It was quite the event.












In 50 years ECI has grown to have over 2,300 churches in India. Their vision for the future is to plant an additional 10,000 churches by the year 2020 and to see the Christian population in India reach 20%. It’s an ambitious goal but India is ripe for the harvest. By God’s grace, the goal will be reached.

In another day we will be driving about an hour south of Chennai to a camp along the beach where we will be staying for 5 days. This camp was actually flooded in the Tsunami 2 years ago but the damage was minimal. All the ECC workers from around India will be gathering for a training conference. It will be very similar to the conference we had in Africa just over a month ago with all the ECC workers there. There will be times of fellowship and bible study, reports from around India of how God has been at work this past year, and training in new strategies for evangelism during the upcoming year. In addition to this, I will be spending some time working on recording testimonies to video. This should be a lot of fun. In Africa, I recorded over two hours of various testimonies from our ECC workers there. It was incredibly inspiring to listen to first hand.

Looking Back at South Korea

One of the first days I was in Korea, I took time off to visit a friend of mine who is a fellow Oregonian and who is teaching at an international school in Seoul. I had told her I would be willing to bring her some things from home and that is what I did. When I arrived at her place I was surprised when she showed me a gift she had received from her school a few weeks earlier. It was a care package full of SPAM. That’s right, the same stuff I had run into in Japan. It seems the SPAM epidemic in Asia is worse than I thought. Anyway, despite the temptation to eat it all that night, we decided to head out into Seoul and get something a little less SPAMY.

Downtown Seoul is divided into different shopping districts. In one area, you can buy all types of fabric. Another section of town is the electronics section where you can find all the coolest in electronic gadgets. I wasn’t fortunate enough to find this section. The sections I did find, however, were the flower section, the fabric section, and the mannequin section. That’s right, I found stores full of mannequin parts for sale.


The remainder of my time in Korea was spent visiting churches and doing some photography work. Dave preached in two different churches and we visited several others for shorter periods of time. It was great to have times of fellowship with these churches and to hear the burden and passion of their pastors and members. In one church we visited, the pastor has a strong burden to get youth involved and to start sending missionaries from his church. To this I can only say AMEN!

My final thought on Korea has to do with food once again; or the way in which you eat it. Many Asian countries use chopsticks…Korea has decided that isn’t good enough so they use metal chopsticks. Skinny, thin, metal chopsticks. The kind you can’t grip if your hands are the least bit greasy or wet. I like to think of them as Korea’s joke on the rest of the world, or objects of torture. Anyway, the highlight of the trip for me was that in our final Korean meal, I was told that I use my chopsticks very well. I couldn’t think of a more flattering complement, especially after all the times I’ve been offered forks in Korean restaurants.

Looking Back at Japan

My time in Japan finished up much better than it started. One day after being stuck in the guest apartment running a fever, I was feeling much better and was able to get out and see Tokyo. (Thank you everyone who was praying!) I was able to visit a few churches, sit in on an English class for school children, and take in some of the cultural aspects of Japan and get some good orientation into its background and history.

Japan is where OMS got its start in 1901 with Charles Cowman joining a Japanese pastor in reaching every home in Japan. The initial success of evangelists in Japan was tremendous but during the ensuing world wars, many of the Christians in Japan were killed and those who survived the persecution were forced underground.

Now days, economic success has given the Japanese a false sense of security in their own resourcefulness much like what is present in Western Europe and the United States. Because of this, the church in Japan has been very slow to grow and is considered one of the more difficult fields that OMS currently operates in. OMS missionaries in Japan find themselves teaching at the Tokyo Bible seminary, working at the Christian Academy of Japan (an international K-12 school), planting churches, and working in sports ministries amongst other duties.

Despite the apparent well being of Japan, it doesn’t take long to see there is a real need for Christ. More than 60% of all pregnancies in Japan end in abortion, and the suicide rate has been increasing in recent years. Last year there were more than 30,000 suicides. In fact, the day after I left Japan, one of our missionary kids whom I had just been with was standing at a train platform waiting to make his way home from soccer practice when he witnessed a suicide right in front of him. All of these things are signs that people in Japan are living without much hope.

There is hope in Christ, however, and during my time in Japan I got to see first hand three new churches were people are finding that hope. One of these churches is a third generation church, having just been planted by a church that is itself very young. This new church has had two lay members of its congregation step up and take initiative in the new church and they have kept it going. It was greatly encouraging to see church members taking a proactive role in their church and not just relying on their pastor to do everything.

Pictures are Here!

The latest pictures from Japan and South Korea are now on my gallery page. I'll be posting more shortly about my experiences in Japan and Korea. I got distracted by all the matching couples this time and I'm running out of internet time before my next flight!

Seeing Double

I thought I had entered the Incheon International Airport…it might as well have been the twilight zone. As Dave and I were awaiting the check in counters to open for our flight I began to notice this young couple sitting across from us was dressed in the same shirts. How cute I thought, matching clothes. A few minutes later I noticed another couple walk in and they too were wearing matching clothes. My mind raced for a minute as I tried to calculate the odds of seeing two different couples wearing matching outfits in the same airport within minutes of each other. It had to be large but not impossible.

I new I was witnessing a strange phenomenon, however, when moments later two more couples came walking by, both wearing matching outfits. My mind thought for a moment, ‘ok, maybe it’s a tour group’…but that didn’t make sense because non of the couples actually matched the other couples. The next thought was ‘maybe I missed the memo about today being Wear the same shirt as your friend day.’ No, that couldn’t be it either. Two by two, more of them appeared. At one point I tried to count them all. I lost track when the number of couples got into the 30’s. I made a short trip to the bathroom and passed 14 in a matter of less than a minute. I decided to take some pictures but they were coming at me so fast that some of my shots got a little blurry. (see the nike people bleow) Then I started thinking a bit more about what this could be.

As we were driving into the airport, there were a lot of cars decorated as if having just come from a wedding. Could all these couples be newlyweds? Is it some sort of twisted tradition that requires them to wear the same clothes on their honeymoon? I suppose it makes sense. After all, if you are newly wed maybe you’d still have a hard time remembering who your new spouse was and if you wore matching clothes you could find each other. Ok, maybe not. It could possibly be some new game, where people are randomly given t-shirts and then ordered to find the other person who is wearing the same clothes. When you find them you get married. Or maybe it was some way of saying ‘hey, look at us…were married now.’ Whatever the reason might be, Dave and I came to the conclusion that they newlywed hypothesis must be the answer.

Looking out over the concourse now, sitting high above the walkways with a window view from the airport lounge, I watch as more and more couples pass by with matching clothes. It’s been going on for hours now and it’s making me a little dizzy. It’s a strange world out there and for some reason I’m being privileged to see a large portion of it, two couples at a time.

My First Day In Japan

For those of you who were coming to my blog to read insightful testimonies, see beautiful pictures, and be inspired I have to apologize today. You won’t find any of that for this blog entry. In fact, I won’t even be offended if you stop reading now. Why you ask? Let me explain if you really want to know.

Today was my first full day in Japan. I’ve never been here before so I was excited to get out and immerse myself in the culture. But God had a different plan. Yesterday on the flight from the United States I noticed I was getting a sore throat. Today I woke up and was feeling awful and running a slight fever. So…I have been forced to spend the entire day dwelling inside the OMS guest apartment. Not all was lost, however, as I recalled some of my missionary training that I got this past summer in Indiana. (Thank you Dean Davis!)

The training was in regards to paying attention in a new culture and making several observations about what you see around you and asking lots of questions about those observations. So as I rambled around the apartment I noticed several things that were different right away. Let me share them with you and we can learn together! (You can click on any of the pictures to make them larger.)

The first thing was this bottle of CC Lemon drink that had been purchased for me. The hope was that if I overdosed on Vitamin C, I would be feeling better in a shorter amount of time. Anyway, the label says there are 210 lemon’s worth of Vitamin C in every bottle. How do they know that? What size are the lemons? Is this stuff safe to drink? These are some of the questions that quickly came to mind.




My next observation came in the refrigerator as I was putting my lemon drink away. Here was a strange food substance with a picture of a baby on it and the claim that it is food for ages 0 to 100. What if I’m 101 years old? And what’s the deal with the baby? It has a Mohawk and what looks like little wings behind it’s back. It’s kind of creepy. And I’m still not sure what the food is, but maybe tomorrow if I’m still sick I’ll work up the courage to eat some of it.


Next I went into the bedroom to take a nap. It was warm in the room so I grabbed the remote control for the air conditioner to cool the room down a bit. First of all, remote controls for air conditioners are a great idea! I’ve seen them around the world, but not in the States. Maybe that’s because I live in Oregon though. Anyway, as I was saying the remote is awesome, but what’s not so awesome is the Japanese writing next to the buttons. Fortunately I found a translation sheet lying in the room. What if there had been no translation though? Would I have burned up in misery?





Back to the kitchen I was horrified to discover that the evils of American culture have been more destructive in Japan than anyone ever thought possible. Buried deep in the cabinet was this can of SPAM. As if that isn’t disturbing enough, take a good look at the label. At the bottom is a warning not to use the knowledge of SPAM for evil purposes. Who would put such a warning on their product? What type of evil purposes are they referring to? Isn’t taking SPAM around the world an evil thing? And look at the label again. There is actually a proper method for slicing SPAM. And the slice guide lets you know how thick to slice it if you are an infant or a linebacker. More questions I have are: Who would feed this to an infant? Would a linebacker know how to read instructions on the back of a can?




Sensing the urge to use the bathroom I began to wonder just what effect those 210 lemons were having on me. As I stepped in the bathroom I couldn’t help but notice these next jewels of cultural genius. Heading over to the sink there are what appear to be cleaning instructions attached to the fixture. Apparently magic scrubbing stars are the way to clean the sink instead of other chemical cleaners such as AJAX, bleach, toothpaste, nail polish, and the mystery bottle which every bathroom has. But where can you buy magic scrubbing stars? Are they anything like the scrubbing bubbles we have in the States?

Finally I noticed what has to be the miracle product for all the women in the world. For all you ladies, it seems as if the Japanese have finally discovered the way to keep us guys in check with instructions about where the toilet lids should go. Take a close look at the green sticker on the underside of the lid. I don’t think any translation or further observation is needed.

Now that you’ve read this far even though I suggested you didn’t have too, do you feel any closer to the Japanese culture today? I know that I certainly do. It’s amazing what you can learn if you just take the time to look around and pay attention. May this be a lesson we all take with us today. Oh, and by the way, please pray that I’ll be feeling better soon. I really don’t want to be forced to eat the mystery food for ages 0 to 100 that is lurking in the fridge.

Fun in the Arizona Sun

While I was in South Africa I had a great time going to the Rugby game. There was plenty of hitting, running, and big guys putting a beating on each other. It was the kind of sport I could really become a fan of. But my appetite had only been wet by the experience, so 4 days after I got home from Africa, I took the opportunity to check out the Ducks play on the road versus Arizona State. (Something could be said here about my new found ADHD personality when it comes to staying put in any one location for more than 5 days but I'll refrain.)

Anyway, I caught a cheap flight down to Arizona and stayed with some friends of mine who used to live in Oregon not too long ago. I spent some time with them before and after the game and just had a nice relaxing time in the Arizona sunshine! (Thank you Jason and Sarah!) The game was a rout for the Ducks but that's always fun anyway as long as you are on the winning side.