You're Going to Hell if You Get a Tattoo

You're going to hell if you get a tattoo or so says my mama, so don't anyone show her this post!

Truth is you won't go to hell for getting a tattoo, you could get AIDS or hepatitis, or they could spell it wrong, or it could go on crooked, a flower could grow into a garden as you expand in girth and age, or it could hurt like the dickens, but your eternity is NOT in jeopardy. Someone else's might be though.  

Most of us won't have any context for this because we were born into a nation of many freedoms, not the least of which is our religious freedom. We can worship idols, money, Oprah, football, ourselves, Joel Osteen, nothing at all, or the One True God, God bless America! I took my crew to several places this summer where this is not the case. In some of these nations, the practice of anything, but their national religion would simply be frowned upon, but not in the islands. 

In the islands it is against the law to practice anything except Islam. As a matter of fact, you are not allowed to even bring in items contrary to Islam like bacon or Bibles, idols or alcohol, so of course it's against the law to evangelize. We decided to spend three days in the islands as part of our Southern Asia Experience, we would abide by the rules, we would simply be tourists.  It's a beautiful nation made up of hundreds of islands so playing tourist for a few days isn't much of a challenge.  The challenge was found in enforcing the island rules with my crew of Jesus followers.

"Team, today we will fish and snorkel and pray silently as we go about our business, but you can't tell anyone about Jesus,  can't have your Bibles,  can't  pray publicly over your food, and please refrain from saying the name of Jesus out loud, and you most certainly cannot lead anyone to Christ while we're here, now let's go have some fun!"

I was hoping the sand and surf would distract them, but they were chomping at the bit so I relented and said if someone were to unprompted ask you about your personal testimony of Jesus Christ then you could share your story with them, but that's the only exception because I don't want to go to jail or get deported. Of course, what are the chances that someone is going to unprompted ask about a name they've never heard before in a country where it's against the law to be anything but Muslim? 

Five minutes after this amendment to the rules it happened, but it wouldn't have if my team member hadn't had tattoos. Two young men with NO ACCESS to the Gospel in any form heard another young man's testimony of the One True God. Access to the Truth had been opened up because this heathen pastor's kid went public with his faith through INK! 

I shake my head and laugh at how BIG and how WITTY and how CREATIVE is my Father. Coming from a land of great religious freedom we are stumped when told we can't use our normal worship and evangelism outlets, but thankfully He is not stumped, He has such a fun, creative, individualized plan for every man, woman, and child to come to know Him. We can get in on it if we can get over ourselves. 

P.S. Mom, I'm not going to get a tattoo, but by not allowing me to you're ruining my witness.  

There is most certainly Hope for the Islands! 

A Different Kind of Bible College Student

Well, actually all Bible College Students are kind of "different", but this particular school was VERY different.

I was given a simple task, teach on the Holy Spirit. Cross-cultural teaching through a translator is a task in and of itself without complicating it with the subject of the Holy Spirit, but I attempted.  At the end of the first service, the host missionary kind of shrugged and said, "Well, you should probably have started with Jesus, most of these students are still muslims and hindus." Do what?! I'm pretty good about inquiring about my audience beforehand, but I surely didn't think to ask if the students enrolled in the Bible college were Christians or not.

Turns out it was the first week of school and that each semester the Bible college has been in existence 90% of the students who enroll in the BIBLE college are not even believers! I suppose that shouldn't come as a complete surprise in a nation with less than 1% of it's population knowing Christ, but why on earth would a Hindu or a Muslim sign up to go to a Christian Bible college?  Again, the missionary just kind of shrugged and said, "I think the Holy Spirit draws them here." It's not logical, it doesn't make sense, it's not a bait and switch marketing scam, it's just how God chooses to work. 90% come in as practicing Hindus and Muslims and 100% graduate as Christ followers.

The services that followed were so fun to get to tell them about Jesus and share with them our stories of how we know Him as Savior, Healer, Provider, and Redeemer. Know your audience guys, know your audience, but even more importantly know your Jesus.

The Eurasia Experience: In Sunny San Diego

Every experience is different, so you can imagine our week in San Diego looked a little different than our week in say, Ellendale, North Dakota.

Pastor Brian may have spoiled us just a bit with the beach and the Padres game and ALL the Mexican food that being 5 minutes from the border has to offer. However, I must admit my favorite meal of the week was a Lebanonese restaurant. I know! I was surprised too, I think I might be becoming Eurasian. I got to spend a little time with some of my favorite people and see the Grand Canyon on the way home so it was definitely a personal win, but I don't suppose that's why we were there so I digress. 

Faith Chapel has a wonderfully diverse congregation so I got to use my Spanish, my few words of Tagalog, and of course my 'Merican. I threw out some of my Thai, but didn't have any takers, not sure if it was because there were no Thai folks or because my tones were so bad they maybe thought I was just doing my dying cat impression and didn't recognize I was saying words. Also,  Pastor Brian let me preach both his Sunday morning services and people laughed AND gave their hearts to Jesus so definitely a win, win morning! Oh goodness, I've gotten off track again. 

A half dozen people were called to missions this week and dozens more committed to intercessory prayer for the people and workers in Eurasia and although the results were what we do this thing for, it was again not the thing the stuck out to me the most. This time it was the volunteers. While we peddle the Eurasia Experience to attempt to give people on this side of the world a glimpse of the need and what God is up to on the other side,  He often turns the tables on us and gives us a glimpse of what He's been up to on the home front. Eurasia seems like the front line to me and it a lot of ways it really is, but He's continually showing me that anywhere there are lost souls is the front line and the work must go on simultaneously.  I've found Him to be an excellent multi-tasker, master of detail, design, precision, and surprises and I hope to be able to follow His lead. 

Faith Chapel had tons of great volunteers; one of our monologists rolled in on his skateboard ready to tell the story of a young missionary in Russia. Another monologist came in with her own entourage; four children under 7, yet she had still volunteered to serve. One by one they came in, in their work clothes, frazzled from a busy week of life, but having given up precious time in hopes to further the kingdom on both sides of the globe. Our event coordinator had lost her brother just days before and her husband had just come out of major surgery, but they pressed on. Many of our set up crew were from a local teen challenge and were all two months or less into their drug and alcohol recovery, but God. But God was at work in our coordinators broken hearts and bodies and He was doing some beautiful restoration in the lives of those young men, healing them from years of addiction and all the ugly that accompanies. Grace filled brokenness was the backbone and backdrop of our event, I hope it always is. Thanks for a great week Faith Chapel. 

Spoiler Alert: We Went Anyway & This Is What Happened

So THIS happened, but we went anyway and we're so glad we did!

 

  

We landed with a whole crew of news people from all over the world.  The situation had been resolved and the road to our lodging was now open.  It was the middle of the night, but in a city that's home to over 6 million people, the streets were eerily clear and quiet.  Luckily, that surreal peace that we had when decided to continue onward had landed with us and was traveling with us down the dark streets of Dhaka.

I won't pretend we weren't all a little jumpy and definitely a little travel weary, but at peace we were with our decision to move forward and excited at what God had in store for us in Bangladesh. As only God could orchestrate we were all staying together in one apartment with several bedrooms, so each mouse was tucked into their own little house and I began to unpack and pray for what was ahead. While it shouldn't be as funny to me as it was, what happened next is still one of my favorite memories from the trip.

Bangladesh is a very devout Muslim nation. You know what happens in very devout Muslim nations several times a day starting in the wee hours of morning (which it now was)?  A little thing called, "The Call to Prayer."  So imagine you've just landed in a foreign land under some less than stellar conditions, it's dark, you lay down in your strange bed in the strange land and you hear THIS, a completely foreign language and unknown practice to you over loud speakers coming from all different directions.  The head of young man pops out of the boy's room, I can still picture his face, eyes as wide as they could get, trying to keep his composure, he says, "Do you hear that?! What is that?!" His cultural collision was almost as good as THIS HAITIAN GOAT INCIDENT from several years ago, but not quite.

His peace followed us to the children's home, to the Bible school, to the slums, and everywhere else we went in Dhaka. The Bangladeshi's were so gracious, they constantly apologized to us for the tragedy that took place in their country, although it most certainly happened to them not to us. Police and military presence was beefed up and our time in Bangladesh was without any negative incident. In a terrible twist of irony we sat peacefully in our flat in B'desh watching the CNN coverage of the multiple mass shootings that took place on our own American soil throughout the month of July. Turns out the whole world needs that surreal peace that surpasses all understanding, but they must be shown it only comes from Him.

In the Beginning: Stay the Course or Turn Back? A Terror Attack.

A rough start I guess you could say. My very first Experience Eurasia team and I were off for a summer in Southern Asia, first stop Bangladesh.  Most of our circles only knew the name of this nation from the "Made In" tag in the back of their t-shirt, but within minutes of our first flight taking off B'desh had made national news.  

To say our phones were blowing up would be an understatement, the terror attack going on in the nation we were headed to was being covered by every media outlet.  My crew may have all been adults, but adults with mamas and daddies! A decision needed to be made about whether or not we would continue onward and it needed to be made quickly. 

Upon landing in Hong Kong, I spoke with my area director in the US, our connections on the ground in B'desh, and lots of mamas and daddies including my own. We were told the situation had not yet been resolved, but was moving in that direction and we were given the option to continue onward, return home,  or be rerouted to another country in Southern Asia.  While I'd been communicating with these young adults for months, I'd only met them face to face about 10 days ago and I wasn't sure how they were going to process or handle the situation at hand. I prayed for wisdom and sat down with my team.

Laying on the floor of of the Hong Kong airport surrounded by our luggage and our charging cell phones we weighed our options. I wasn't about to make a blanket decision to risk the lives of these young people because of my own zeal, ignorance, or even my own faith. We decided that if any ONE wanted to turn back or reroute that's what we would do as a team.  They agreed unanimously that if we were still able to get into the country that they wanted to stay the course. I tried to search their faces, their body language for any sign of silent of screams of, "I don't mean it! Let's please turn back!" but I found none. I found only resolve.  We'll all admit we felt all the natural feelings one feels when heading into an unknown, risky situation, but we can all also tell you that there was one very unnatural feeling that overshadowed all the other feelings. Peace. A very surreal peace that surpassed all our understanding. 

I called ahead to let the ground know we were headed their way. Their reply?  Don't go outside the airport when you land until we've spoken, the attack took place 500 yards from where you're staying and we don't know if the road will be opened back up yet. Gulp! We forged ahead.