Crisis in Egypt

This past weekend, we were at Fritzlar Bible College speaking at a weekend retreat.  More about that later.

But our thoughts, prayers, and attention has been focused on the people uprising in Egypt.  We won't be making any political comments or analysis here at Three-Worlds about the country or the issues.  We have lots of friends and partners on the ground in Egypt.  Our first concern is for their safety.

On this coming Friday, Jamie and the female part of our Berlin-based Three Worlds crew (Rhonda and Nicole) were scheduled to travel to Egypt to do some important work there.  As events unfolded, we started to think that perhaps just Jamie would go alone.  But after Friday's key turning point, we decided that we will postpone the trip altogether.

Egypt obviously means a lot to Jamie's family since it is where she grew up and where here Parents and Grandparents served.  It's been an important country for our movement and we all have a lot of brothers and sisters there.  For those of you that have never been, Egyptians are a wonderful, friendly, peace-loving people.  You cannot say you know much about the Middle East if you have not had the experience of Egyptian hospitality and warmth.  So many of the images we see of the Middle East are negative.  But there is a whole other side that rarely gets seen in America and in the news in general.

We continue to pray for brothers and sisters there.  In a little while, we'll be making our own key announcement about Egypt so stay tuned...

Twenty Years Ago Today...

It's been 20 years ago today that I lost my Mom, Jene, to cancer.  The 24th of January is always a day that I remember, mourn, celebrate, and reflect on her life and her impact on mine. In most ways, it seems like it happened only yesterday.  In our 20 years together she so permeated every part of me that there is little of me that doesn't have a whole lot of her in it.  She was my friend, my hero, my mentor, and everything I aspired to be.  Sometimes people are idealized in death, but she really was a one-in-a-million person.  All who knew her felt that way.

She was born in Parksville, Kentucky in 1937 and grew up on a farm.  At a young age, her mother walked out on the family and as the oldest daughter, she became the elder of the family.  A mother to her sisters, a companion to her heart-broken father, and the one responsible to make sure things got done.  She had to mature early.

They moved to Cincinnati and it must have been in that multi-cultural environment that she became the urbane woman she was.  She was great at crossing cultures, she was well-educated, and she became a very intellectually curious person.  I remember being four or five and looking through her books on Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, and other Communist figures.  She hated communism, but wasn't a reactionary spewing talking points and sound-bites.  She did her homework.  She read thousand page books.  She debated real Marxists.  Most of all, she was not intimidated by foreign ideas or different ways of doing things. I still have her big books on my bookshelf:  "Marx", "the Haj," Shogun" and many more.  "You're a big reader" she always said to me...long before I was.  I became what she said I was.

She married my Dad in 1959 and they moved to Africa.  There was a lot of suffering and sickness that she endured in those years.  Bouts of malaria, painful accidents, miscarriages, and many other trials.  But through it all she remained strong and was widely known for her very funny and irreverent sense of humor.  In Africa, she delivered over 200 babies.

They had a daughter that they took to Africa, Marcel, and later, while serving as missionaries in Costa Rica, they picked me up---a malnourished, abandoned infant dying in an orphanage.  Jene, who had once been abandoned herself, now raised another abandoned one.  And our life in Costa Rica was a happy life.

Both Mom and I were news junkies.  Each morning would start out with the news instead of devotions.  And we both loved Time magazine.  When Ronald Reagan was elected, she let me stay home from school to watch the inauguration.  It wasn't a Reagan thing---she thought these things were important.  I took it very seriously and parked myself in front of the television for the all-morning and afternoon coverage of the event.   And that was the day that my love of politics began.

We used to fight sometimes.  We were both highly opinionated about trivial things.  One of our most famous knock-down, drag-down debates was regarding whether the TV Show MASH was funnier in the McLean Stevenson years or in the "Colonel Potter" years.  There was a clear break we both recognized.  I argued that MASH's early years were far more funny because the show had a slapstick vibe.  She argued that the more serious, politically-pointed MASH years were just as funny if not better.  We never resolved that one.

She also hated the Bee Gees "and their fake teeth and falsettos."  She couldn't stand Rod Stewart's "Do you think I'm sexy?", but she had an inexplicable soft-spot for that slime ball Tom Jones.  We both loved media.  We both loved Terence Trent D'arby.

She loved nature, and would force me to go out with her at times to visit animals on a farm or take a long drive.  I usually had something else I wanted to do, but when the goat nipped at my leg, or we petted a cow--I would finally get why she made us do those trips.  There was a beautiful world out there--one we can easily isolate ourselves from.

Practical Jokes were big with her.  Throwing water on people from our balcony, making fun of my acne in front of my friends (don't worry, I'd get her back), and putting a Playboy magazine in the luggage of an Evangelist (which he opened on the plane with his wife)! She loved life.  Unlike a lot of Christians, she didn't take herself that seriously.  Uber-piety didn't impress her.  That rubbed off.

But she was a serious woman.  Constantly doing charity work out of people's eyesight.  Always looking for someone's life to invest in, and always championing some cause whether it was protecting the forests long before that was fashionable, or fighting for someone's right to have health insurance in a church.  She started a seniors home in Oakland, California that was named after her, and she was a nurse in the violent ward of the state institution.  Sometimes I would pick her up late from work....after her late night shift.  Totally oblivious to how tired a person might be at the end of a shift like that.  Not knowing or getting the toll it took on her.

Regrets...I have many.  None more than the fact that I was a college drop-out when she died--convinced by a Pentecostal sect that college would only damage the mind.  Idiotic, but I fell for it.  "One day, you'll grow out of it," she said.  And she was right.  I did eventually go back to college and flourished, but she never got to see that.  Some say she knew that I would end up okay.  But I was not okay when she died and that has always stuck with me.  She valued education more than anything and I broke her heart when I walked away from it.

I told her I loved her often. I told her she was my hero.  I told her she was my trusted friend.  Thankfully, I told her a lot.  But there is much I never got to say:  that I saw the sacrifice, that I saw how she had overcome her circumstances, that I saw how she engaged the world, and I knew I had to follow.

Over the years, the pain of missing the daily engagement with her decreased as it does with time.  But new pains arose.  That she never got to know Jamie.  She would have absolutely adored my wife.  They would have been best friends.  Or that she never got to see my son---a far healthier, more obedient version of me and her.  These are pains that don't diminish over time.  There is a vacuum and a hole that does not get filled in this life.

Her final years of suffering were mercifully short.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 1988 and she passed away in January of 1991.  We thought we had it beat for a while, but I think I always knew how it would end.

Others have lost in this world.  Death is a part of life, as the cliche says.  But I hold to the belief that death is not natural.  That we long to live.  We long for that kiss to last forever, that our child will stay in our arms forever, and that we will be with the people we love forever.  Eternity is written into our hearts.  Death is inevitable, but it is a violation of something divine within us.  Something that was made for eternal communion.

I don't think the mourning will stop in this life.  Each day there is loss.  But each day there is also gratefulness.  Grateful that what was once given to me, I can now give back to my son.  Grateful that we can marinate in people until the beauty of their souls impacts ours and changes us for the better.  Grateful that much about this person, can never be taken away from me.  We mourn, because this fallen world tries to convince us that love is not eternal.  But it is.  It really is.

A Slow Spiritual and Physical Death?

A new study is out today about the effects of spending a lot of time surging the web and just hanging out in front of screens.  It's pretty alarming:

The latest findings, published this week in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicate that the amount of leisure time spent sitting in front of a screen can have such an overwhelming, seemingly irreparable impact on one’s health that physical activity doesn’t produce much benefit.

The study followed 4,512 middle-aged Scottish men for a little more than four years on average. It found that those who said they spent two or more leisure hours a day sitting in front of a screen were at double the risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event compared with those who watched less. Those who spent four or more hours of recreational time in front of a screen were 50 percent more likely to die of any cause. It didn’t matter whether the men were physically active for several hours a week — exercise didn’t mitigate the risk associated with the high amount of sedentary screen time.

I've wondered about this.  When we lived in Hong Kong we felt overly stimulated constantly. The noise, the crowds, the constant rush.  It felt unusually stressful, which was strange for us, because we both have always loved big cities.  Then there was a study that came out (which I wrote about at here) that showed that the human brain in urban environments gets overloaded by negative stimuli.  That the brain is constantly hearing the sound of cars honking, people rushing to trains, jack-hammers, and other sounds that tell the brain--"you can't relax.  You are in a place of work and urgency."  The study then showed that people living in country environments where you could actually hear birds chirping, or the sound of running water, or the sounds of winds hitting the trees were constantly having their brains inundated with soothing, relaxing stimuli.

We first sensed this on a trip to New Zealand. We didn't name it as such---but, for lack of a better way of putting it, our brains felt different.  Our bodies felt different.  Now here in Germany--especially when we walk---we feel that same relaxation.  The point of all of this, is we underestimate how much our brains need subtle, positive, and soothing stimuli.

The invention of Facebook and phones with email and internet have jarred me.  Facebook I really don't like. It feels like one step too much (sorry Facebook fans which is everyone).  And cell phones with email--while incredibly convenient--make me want to scan the news and think about work.

We (like you) have to spend a lot of time at a computer.  And then, like the article suggests, on break time or after work, I scan the news on the internet, catch up on personal emails, or stay glued to some kind of computer.

I've wondered about the effect this has on me.  Constantly scanning news stories which are negative.  My eyes sore from too much screen time.  How can this be healthy?

Recently I downloaded the ESV Bible onto my phone.  Yes, sometimes technology is Extremely convenient.  It's so convenient and comforting to jump write into Proverbs or Psalms in just two seconds.  And a soothing Christian song can be carried with you everywhere you go.  Not to mention how technology has opened up Evangelism.  But still, when I started making Sunday a no work day and on occasion Saturday too---I felt better.  I then experimented with making it a no computer day too---and that felt even better.

I wonder about the effects of wireless networks in our homes.  The cell phone studies (which are increasing dramatically) continue to show that holding up a cell phone to your head increases chances of tumors.  They have been around long enough now for people to detect these things in the studies.

I just wonder if we human beings are wired for this kind of thing--no pun intended.

I know, I know....they said the same thing about the telegraph and the telephone.  There were concerns about television too (which actually has proven to be helpful but also damaging).  But something about all of this seems extreme.  Maybe it's just that we are the first generation.  For these texting teenagers they don't know anything different.  But once again, I think of how most of human history has consisted of people moving slowly, telling stories, and living in real communities. That is not our world anymore.

Yes, technology helps us connect.  You can see a parent on your computer screen, stay in touch, or even have a website.  I get that.  But I also wonder how much we need walks.  How much we need silence.  How much we need disconnection, so that our real connections are more profound. It's fine for those who can disconnect and keep balance.  But it's getting more difficult to do that even for those that do want balance.

When we moved here almost everything had to be done online.  Not "you can go online", but you must go online to register, to make your payment, to receive your payment, to get the forms,  to sign the forms etc. etc.  It's a virtual world.

Just thinking out loud---on the internet....beamed around the world.....to who knows how many people.

Confusing times these are.

Donor Expectations

We hear a lot from our supporting churches these days.  Often they are writing to tell us that they are in the process of dropping a number of missionaries and mission-fields due to budgetary constraints.  As they make up their mind, they ask us to put together a report of all the things we are doing.  Presumably, they collect these from all of the missionaries and mission-fields they support and then decide which ministries are worth a continued investment and which are not.

For mission-fields and missionaries, these are hard times.  Even during what I call "the era of excess liquidity" (1993-2008), it was getting more and more difficult to raise funds as missionaries.  Supporting churches are often small (with the average probably being around 100), and large churches often divided their mission budgets between 40 to 75 different mission-fields and missionaries.  But there were many big donors behind the scenes--individuals who were doing well financially and could afford to give a lot to a building, or project.  So some big projects were supported and funds at times could come in fast because of these big donors.

All of this has changed. Now in the recession, a lot of small churches are struggling, large churches may be having problems paying off buildings as well as supporting so many ministries, and many individuals have seen their financial portfolios drop dramatically.  The competition between the many non-profits (which was already very competitive) has become even greater.

I strongly expect this global recession to last a very long time.  The market indicators may go up and down, but they are increasingly divorced from the actual earnings people make which have flat-lined or are in decline.  So we will probably continue to get more of these letters.

The good thing about this is that it enables us to have a closer relationship with those that do support us.  Mission-agencies and mission endeavors have to be more strategic in their investments, and accountability and standards need to go up.  Donors should be able to have confidence that mission-fields are being properly prepared and managed, that foreign churches and others receiving support are doing things that foster health, and that money is strategically used instead of a "blank check" mentality.  That is certainly what we are doing here at Three Worlds---examining everything from top to bottom to make sure that standards are high and that we are being as effective as we can be--and helping our fields to become more effective.

The reality is that there has been to much blind faith in non-profits, just as there has been too much blind faith in aid packages to needy nations.  The entire field of charity and aid is being re-examined and we think this is a very good thing.  The Mosaic project that I did between 2008-2010 was very eye opening in this regard as it became very clear in what areas we as a church can do better.

We understand that many of our churches are struggling financially.  And we know that many of our individual donors and tithers in these churches are struggling.  So we greatly appreciate all of your continued support.  We also continually try and think of how our work on the field, can benefit our supporting churches back home. We don't want this to only be a one-way street.

We greatly appreciate you!

Save a Prayer...

I got a couple pieces of disturbing news while in Lebanon.  My great mentor Rev. Kermit Morrison has been moved into a retirement center as his struggle with an alzheimer's-like situation is getting worse.  His wife Susi has also been moved and is battling cancer and the prognosis is not good.  I was last with them last January in New Haven, Connecticut where we had a lovely time together.  Being so far away from them right now is discouraging.  They are like grandparents to me. Also, I received word from our friends the Tongs in Hong Kong that our friend Vijai has suffered a serious hemorrhagic stroke in the brain.  This is very serious.  Vijai is not much older than me and is a dear, kind soul.  Say a little prayer for these three friends of mine.

Thank You Lebanon!

Photo: General Assembly of the Church of God in Lebanon

I am back from Lebanon.  It was a very productive trip and the country was just as beautiful as I remembered.  While in Lebanon, I got to spend time with some of the CBH Viewpoint crew that was in town to put a studio in MBC. That meant getting some time with my friends John W. and Tim B.  Also in Lebanon was President Emeritus J. Barber from Warner Pacific College.  Jay is a special friend and mentor to me.  It was twenty years ago this month that I lost my mother.  Jay presided over her memorial service and it was his wife Jan who spent the most time at my mother's bedside in her final weeks.  Their daughter Carrie is a special friend of mine and I deeply love this family.  It was an honor to have so much time with Jay.

I especially appreciate the evening we had with the General Assembly of the Church of God in Lebanon.  The fellowship was great and the meal fantastic.  Most importantly, I think we will be having a very fruitful relationship as Three Worlds continues to build new partnerships in these challenging days.  Thanks to Joy Mallouh for hosting this large group as well.

I got back yesterday and was exhausted.  Today the whole day was spent preparing for the upcoming Regional Coordinator Meetings in Oklahoma City, OK.  Jamie will be attending those and Marco and I will stay here in Berlin.

Living Large in Lebanon

Just a short note from an interesting neighborhood in Beirut.  I'm just down the street from the American University in Beirut which sits on a hill overlooking the Mediterrenean.  I'm at an internet cafe filled with Lebanese young people speaking in Arabic and swearing in English.  Nirvana Unplugged is playing. I'm supposed to be in another country right now with Kelley Philips, but our visas didn't come through in time so Kelley didn't come with me to Lebanon and the group left without me yesterday.  I've been camped out in a shoddy downtown hotel in Beirut--but having fun.  It's been fun to walk the neighborhoods and get to know the city.

Geographically, Lebanon is a gorgeous country.  Beirut is on the sea and these large 5,000 feet mountains ascend behind the city creating gorgeous vistas from most places in the city.  Today I walked to the seashore and had a nice seafood meal on the ocean as planes flew overhead on their way to land on the airport.

Lebanon's economy has recovered very well since the wars of the 70's and 80's--and the most recent bombing by Israel.  The downtown area is one of the coolest, most charming downtown areas I've seen--certainly in this region of the world.  It looks like a Disney world set---made to look old, but very new.

The Lebanese are good businessmen all over the world.  There is a great deal of wealth here.  And the Lebanese are flashy, so fancy cars, plastic surgery, and dressing nice is very important.  They like to LIVE LARGE.  Since Lebanon has had close ties to France (It was often referred to as the Paris of the Mediterranean), most of the people here speak French, Arabic, and English--at least 3 languages.  And the youth are very globalized---playing Worlds of Warcraft next to me and cussing up a storm.  It could be Atlanta or Phoenix.  The nightclub scene here is so hot that people fly in for the weekends to hit the clubs.  And everyone agrees the food is delicious.   This is the only place in the world that I like to eat vegetables.  I would be so healthy if I lived here.

I will be hearing about some exciting ministries, tackling some challenging things, and discussing our future 3W agenda in the future.   I will be back in Germany on Thursday.