Friday Photo: Broken Vision

This week I've had the wonderful problem of not being able to decide with photo should be the Friday photo "Pick of the week".  I mean, it's been a more than interesting week ... at least photographically speaking!



For starters, I upgraded all of the computers in the house to OS X Lion. That was cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



There is also a short term team here from Crown College.  It's been a fun week connecting with them and seeing how God is at work in young people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was supposed to be a picture of a camel.  I'm not even going to start...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We (the Crown Team and I)  took a prayer walk to the Gandan Monastery.  These are the resident pigeons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But my pick of the week is called "Broken Vision".  This is a smashed bottle of vodka on a cairn.  The name on the bottle "Haraa" means "vision" ... and I find that this photo is somewhat metaphorical of this culture.  Please pray.

 

Friday Photos: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

We've had a lot of rain in the city since returning to Ulaanbaatar.  This greens the mountains but floods the streets.  It's also made for some spectacular vistas of the skies.  This is the view from our window as one of these summer storms was moving in.

The heavens declare the glory of God ...

Friday Photos are Back! (And so is the Traffic...)

We're back in Ulaanbaatar, and Friday Photos are back on RememberMongolia.org!  This is a shot from the balcony of our 11th floor apartment, taken two nights ago.  It's 10:30 PM and the streets all around us are gridlocked for some reason that remains a mystery to us.  Traffic over the past year has become worse than it ever was.  I've made a personal commitment to avoid driving in the city altogether between 1 and 8 PM.  However, on this particular night it wouldn't have mattered.

We're in the throughs of unpacking and getting our apartment set up.  I am glad that we're above the fray on this particular night.  It's good to have an 11th floor view. It's even better that we now have an elevator...

pray:Mongolia

We have one week of home assignment remaining. My main observation is the fact that a year is not a very long time.

As we return, the foreboding words of Galadriel in "The Fellowship of the Ring" sound truth to me:

"Your Quest stands upon the edge of the knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true."

The procurement of a church in Mongolia that will prevail in the darkest and most difficult of times; a church that is able to support herself, theologize herself, train her own leaders, evangelize her own people and send her own missionaries.  There is no smaller goal.  It's not possible through human means alone. We need Sovereign help, grace and power.

This is why our final words from home assignment are extremely practical. Pray. Please pray.  Our family is not going to make it ... and the Quest will fail if we are not praying together.

It's from this conviction that the idea of pray:Mongolia is birthed.

The vision is simple: we are trusting God to raise up a minimum of fifty groups of two or more who will commit to praying for Mongolia for one hour per month. Every month on around the 15th (beginning in July 2011) we will send to these groups fresh media (video, audio podcast) from the field with the most current prayer needs.  In this way, we can partner together for the good of the Mongolian people and the Glory of Jesus.

Would you consider it? Will you join us in this life or death Quest? I'd love it if you would.

Contact us and let us know how many are in your group and when and where you'll pray every month.  We'll add you to the resource distribution list. It will be great to work together.

Your partnership and prayers are appreciated.  It was great to connect with so many of you over the past year.

“The power of prayer has never been tried to its full capacity in any church. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine grace and power wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let the whole Church answer God’s standing challenged; “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knows not.”

J.Hudson Taylor

 

Work. Fight. Sacrifice.

We are finished with a four-week tour of the C&MA churches in the Hawaiian Islands. It’s been a beautiful month of connecting with the great folks in the churches here, as well as getting to see some of the beauty of this place. Now we're off to hit several churches in the southeastern US. However, Hawaii will be remembered with fondness.

We didn’t get a huge opportunity to do everything there is to do there. No surf lessons. No snorkeling. I didn’t get to fly over the volcano on the “Big Island”. My wife did get to see the Robin Masters Estate (of Magnum PI fame). She was happy about that.

One of the highlights of “playing tourist” was visiting Pearl Harbor. My expectations were that of a tourist-driven war memorial and while I was sure that being on “that particular spot” would be interesting and maybe even kind of cool, I was not prepared for my real reaction.

“December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy"



As we moved through the queue for the movie and the short boat trip aboard a US Naval vessel to the resting place of the USS Arizona, there was something about being there that I found inexplicably moving. I had been looking forward to this trip. Renee’ had told be about the beauty of the blue water in the harbor - and I don’t doubt her assessment. However, the day we visited it was appropriately choppy and gunmetal gray. As we looked over the edge, oil continues to leak into the water.



Knowing that the rusting hull beneath us serves as a tomb for 1,177 soldiers made me feel small, weak and cowardly. Some tourists (many of whom, interestingly, were Japanese) gazed thoughtfully over the now peaceful waters. Some took pictures with thousand dollar cameras and tripods. I felt it to be a place of mourning and deep sorrow and, even though I too took pictures, I wondered if cameras should be banned or banished to the sea with the dead.



Questions came with the unexpected emotion of the day. Questions like, could America ever win a war again? Could the civilian population (and the news media) lay aside comfort for something that will be for the proverbial “greater good”? There was something about the WW2 generation, for good or for ill, in that they were willing to lay down their comforts and their rights for something bigger than themselves. In my generation the cynicism is too great. We don’t trust the government. We don’t trust the military. We don’t trust anyone who might tell us what to do. We don't trust ourselves.



The more profound questions are in the placards on the shore which surround the memorial. Why does God’s grace allow for some to live and some to die? Perhaps better asked, why are we all not dead?



This bit of American war-time propaganda caught my attention.



Work. Fight. Sacrifice.

I was immediately drawn to this. Those three little words. I find them inspiring, noble words. Words I would like to be characterized by. Words that I know very little about.

They are Gospel words, really. At least if taken in the proper perspective.

Jesus worked on our behalf. That work was completed. “It is finished.” He obeyed the Law, thus completing the Law. He did it all. (Romans 10:4, Matthew 5:17)

Jesus fought for us ... and won. He made a public spectacle of his defeated foes. Principalities and powers are no longer principle and no longer powerful. They’re disarmed and shamed. (Colossians 2:15)

He sacrificed everything, because we had nothing to sacrifice but life itself. The cross means a sacrifice I could never make. Jesus made it. For me. Forever. (Philippians 2:8, Hebrews 10:4-14)

Work, fight, sacrifice are Gospel words because Jesus did all of this for those who believe on his name. And we’re changed. And thus we do the things he did, for the benefit of others (Ephesians 2:10). We, too, work, fight and sacrifice.

This is where the bite and the challenge lies for me. I completely rest in the work Christ did for me. I'm shielded by his victory. I'm secure in his sacrifice. There’s nothing I can add. Yet, where does my very real working, fighting and sacrificing come to play?

I don’t believe the Bible teaches a pacifist spirituality, where all is rest and peace on every side and the Christian just floats to heaven “happy all the day.”

There’s more to it than this. I am pretty convinced that at least one job I have in the working out of God’s epic and historical masterpiece is that of prayer. Doing the work of prayer. Fighting the fight of prayer. Making the sacrifice of prayer.

Here’s the beef. Ministry, whether in Mongolia or in America, is about seeing the spiritually dead come alive (Ephesians 2:1) and hoping that the spiritually blind will actually begin to see (2 Corinthians 4:4). No mortal can make that happen. We say in the Alliance “prayer is the primary work of the people of God.” Theologically speaking, this is why I believe it’s true: prayer’s work in mission is essential, because God’s work in mission is indisputable.

I’m thankful for Pearl Harbor memorial. I’m thankful for those who gave their lives and I mourn their loss. I’m thankful those lives were not wasted and that the United States is still free. I’m thankful for that memorial, and for my visit there. It helped me to see something essential. Something I can’t loose sight of, lest I sink and drown. My first job is to work, fight and sacrifice in the arena of prayer, even though when it comes down to it, I’m pretty much a wimp when it comes to the fight of prayer. I’m a disciple who sleeps while the son of God sweats blood.

But Paul told the Colossians to “continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2). Pay careful attention to it. Be courageously perseverant in it. That’s the kind of working, fighting, sacrificing and praying that needs to happen for the nations, for communities, for my family.

“Remember Pearl Harbor” was the rallying cry in the days following December 7, 1941. I don’t know if it’s quite “a rallying cry” for me. But my day in those warm, gray choppy waters changed me. In the end, i hope it will remind me to work, fight and sacrifice in order to pray for and with my wife and my children, friends, family, neighbors. I hope it helps some to “Remember Mongolia,” as well.

“Prayer is the mighty engine that is to move the missionary work” A.B. Simpson.