the water is cold

The bathtub is HUGE! There is even a seat built-in for your sitting pleasure. And two of my co-workers here in the former Yugoslavia have these mega tubs! I always enjoy the feeeling of luxury that comes when washing with this much real estate availible :-) But I noticed that Heidi wasn't enjoying the nice bath at all. When I asked her why not, she told me that the water was cold! I said, "What are you talking about?" "There is tons of hot water!"

Then I remembered that the valve for choosing the water temprature was backwards. When it said you should have been getting hot, you were actually getting cold. So Heidi assumed that there was not hot water availible . . . that I, her tender loving dad had used it all up and left her none at all! I was injured!

But more seriously, my assumptions about people frame my attitude all the time. I percieve that they have intended me harm with their actions, when many times I later discover that not only was no harm intended, but that I had completely misunderstood what had happened around me. I am not very smart sometimes . . . but from now on I am planning to check both sides/perspectives of an event before I assume there is no hot water.

unlimited indulgences

My honor grad and I just got back from Kosovo. Heidi and I had the great job of the last three days of hanging with our Albanian language team and talking about the world we live in today and what the missional response to that world should be. These last three posts have been about themes that missional futurists see as key elements of society that all ministers/christians have to come to grips with, but these things are especially challenging for missions.

Of course when I speak about unlimited indulgences, I am not talking about the middle ages and Catholic indulgences, but rather unrestrained pampering and wish-fulfillment. It seems that most modern cultures face this challenge. Sacrifice, denial, commitment to others appear to have lost their salty significance according to the world's point of view. The world's infinitely changing contexts seem to have displaced self-discipline, hard work and surrender to a greater cause.

In a world that is all of the above, yet hungry for integrity, God is (as He always has been) calling us out to be the people of God and a royal priesthood. Now before you think I have gone self-righteous and devotional on you - I am neither - this conversation is more about erroneous Western assumptions, than classic theology. It is more about the fact that human enthusiasm for unexamined change has no moral compass.

The challenge is that I too wish for ME to be the center of everything. It is the idea of unlimited indulgence. Not only is this bad for my marriage, my parenting and my job; but at the beginning and at the end, God simply will not tolerate such behavior on my part. Col. 3:6 states that it is because of such behavior that, "God is about to explode in anger." (The Message). He is not going to put up with His children (even perhaps not anyone!) living a life that is all about me . . . or you.

My hope is this . . . that I will continue to pursue God in the face of overwhelming unlimited indulgence temptations. But many days I don't. I need to take a few days and think more about this.

economic gluttony

A appears that a hungry sense for personal significance drives Mall Shopping and QVC and the general economic gluttony of the world. I seem to live in a world obsessed with MORE. More of everything is the desire of the human heart . . . here in Macedonia . . . and elsewhere as well. It is impossible to have a conversation without the direction of the talk moving to money within the first 5 minutes of the conversation . . . well OK, 6 minutes. This phenomena generally bothers us westerners greatly because of our chronic guilt for having more possibilities than the average person.

This experience is repeated so consistently it becomes the expected norm. Another reason Brenda and I notice this so much in Macedonia (actually the entire former Yugoslavia) is that it is different than our experience in Russia . . . which incidentally is far poorer than the former Yugoslavia. The Russians would say regularly, "Under Communism, we had pockets full of money but the stores were empty . . . so you could buy nothing; under capitalism the stores are now full, but our pockets are empty, so the net result is that we can buy nothing. Essentially nothing has changed." But in the former Yugoslavia there is much more the sense of entitlement in these conversations about money. This comes from a falling standard of living in our opinion. Don't get me wrong, people are really struggling for DAILY bread. These are not the imaginary ramblings of the formerly rich who must now slide into middle-class living. No. These are the obsessions and worries of people who most often have no security today nor tomorrow.

But I am becoming more convinced that daily bread is only the visible concern. The real desires of the heart, as seen in conversations with our national friends, is for unrestrained economic gluttony. They were infected with this by our Western culture, although the seeds and roots were already present. Economic gluttony looks like this:

"The richest 1 percent in the world enjoy the same amount of resources consumed by the entire bottom 50 percent. Few in the world of affluence ever experience chronic starvation; many in the world of poverty know little else. Only a small minority of parents in the US ever experience the trauma of having a child die before the age of 5; nearly 10 percent of parents in the poorest countries do. In the world of affluence, parents worry increasingly about childhood obesity; in the world of poverty, nearly 163 million children are malnourished. An American child born in 2004 has a life expectancy well into her 70s, will learn to read and write, and is likely to complete an advanced degree. A child born in Angola has a life expectancy of 46 and little chance of finishing high school; less than half of all Angolans gain enough education to read a newspaper." - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1118/p09s01-coop.html

It is breathtaking to realize that the richest 1% consume the same resources as the ENTIRE bottom 50%! It is terrifying to see that most of us want to be in that 1 percent! I wonder how Christ views this rampant consumerism? The relentless pursuit of stuff . . . and more stuff? We rent storage to keep our stuff. We have garages. Those garages are so full of stuff that our cars are parked outside the garages. Why doesn't my relationship with Christ provide a sense of contentment that makes all the stuff irrelevant? Why do I resist the idea of living with less, older and smaller in order to have more to share? I do . . .and I mean I really do . . . want something on my gravestone other than . . . "Here lies a consumer." When is enough enough?

Cyberspace escapism

I have noticed in my three teenagers . . . and in myself if I am honest, that a lack of connection to the World Wide Web creates a tension, a slight sense of being discombobulated and out of focus. It is as if our connection to the world is severed. The world of the internet has changed everyday life in the same quantum manner as did the automobile 100 years ago. It has fundamentally changed the way life operates, regardless how much one does or does not use the internet. Society is changing because of the internet, and those changes affect everyone.

Cyberspace is mesmerizing for a world that is seeking to discover their own definitions of truth and for a world that is hungry for new realities that will save them from their real lives. This is one of those unrelenting and unstoppable changes in our world that every minister in the world has to come to grips with, both personally and professionally. I think most of us have the self-discipline to not live on the internet everyday and not define ourselves by what we read or see online. But, . . . I think the majority of the world is looking for personal significance and that they use the online world for that purpose . . . or at the very least, they have hope that somewhere out there in cyberspace they will find genuine relationships and desires fulfilled.

On the WWW one can re-invent themselves everyday. They can be whoever they want and they never have to be who they actually are to anyone. What does this mean for ministers? For missionaries? How do we stay connected to real reality and not fall into cyberspace escapism? Most important, how do we both live and express our connection to the Redeemer and at the same time gently and lovingly attract those caught in an endless World Wide Web?

The whole world has gone mad

It is like a disease, a bio-agent that is spread in the air. Everyone seems to have caught it and been infected by it. Yes there was a full moon last night and yes everyone was partying on our whole block, but those seem to be more symptoms than the causes. It is causing work stoppages all over town, and even the police disappear when they get the virus. Every cafe in town seems to be obsessed with it and it is the core of every conversation I have had in several countries over the last few days. Outside of North America, the entire rest of the world comes to a halt during the World Cup.

America got spanked by the Czech Republic yesterday, but that was due more to the excellent play of the Czech National team, rather than poor play by the Americans. In fact I was encouraged by the sportsmanship of the American players and we had a few chances. The Czechs deserved their win and I don't want to diminish their excellent play in any way. But watching society in the rest of the world (outside of North America) respond to the World Cup every four years is fascinating.

There is nothing, not even the Superbowl that can change the day to day functioning of a country, the way the World Cup affects the rest of the world. It disrupts the normal patterns of life. For this month of time each four years, there are three games a day on each and every TV in the great majority of the world. That is 4.5 hours of soccer every day . . . but it is actually much more all-consuming than just those four and a half hours each day.

I was talking with my landlord and an electrician this morning and both of those conversations started with the struggles of the American team, and how well the Italians and Czechs played yesterday. Enough already for most of you I am sure. But I actually do have a point here.

What kinds of lives would we need to live, what kind of people would we need to be, what kind of Faith would be necessary to capture the attention of the world, in the same way that a round ball does every four years? What does Faith look like, that is so real and genuine and captivating that people would change their very lives in order to observe it; in order to talk about it with everyone they meet? The World Cup is not important, but Faith is . . . a soccer ball is not important, but the Savior is . . . these World Cup conversations are not important, but the people having them are . . . so how do I enter into these great conversations with these important people that the Savior died for? Well I am watching alot of soccer these days to say the least, and I am looking to be a person who lives as passionately for the King and Kingdom, as Europeans are about soccer.

I have that song . . . but it's in another language?

Well . . . 24 hours of driving later, we finally arrived in Skopje from Germany. Eight countries, detours on top of detours in Austria, an expensive overnight in Trieste, Italy near the Slovenian border, but good solid get-reacquainted-time with my three teenagers, one which is now a graduate. Yesterday while we were somewhere in Croatia, Helen was riding in the front seat with me and she was flipping though the iPod looking for songs to listen to, and she said, "Oh I have that song on a CD, but it's in a different language!"

I thought to myself, what a life these kids live . . . I would have NEVER been able to say when I was 13 years old, "Oh I have that song, but it's in a different language!" Simply NEVER would that have been possible. Now on a trip like this one, with five different languages and six different currencies is just a normal everyday part of life, both for me and for the kids. Living in Germany, 2000 kilometers from mom and dad is "normal" and living in a dorm with 30 other MK's is "normal" and traveling half way across the European continent to get "home" is "normal" and truthfully saying, "I have that song on a CD, but it's in another language" is "normal".

I gonna be honest with you . . . this is what our life is like . . . but I am not sure it ever feels "normal". What is normal? Is normal the way we always have done it? Or is normal the way the majority of the people in the world do it? Is normal the way it ought to be done? If any of those qualify for "normal" then I still don't think we are there yet. Is it possible to be at home in a sense everywhere in the world, and at the same time not feel at home anywhere? Is this what Paul was talking about in the NT when he was struggling with living or dying and which one might be more advantageous? Did Paul finally make up his mind? I am not sure, but I do know that this is not my "home" and "normal" is anyone's guess.

detours and $86 tanks of diesel and missed turns

Well we missed the turn off for Innsbruck. The signage here in Europe always reeks . . . I miss more turns and passes in Germany, Italy and Switzerland than I do in Eastern Europe, but as you can see from the pictures, it was worth it. This was one of the most spectacular scenic trips we have ever taken. Even though it took all day to go half the distance we went yesterday, it was worth it.


We were literally on top of the world with the trip over the pass and through the San Bernadino tunnel in eastern Switzerland. The views were breath-stealing and the car was filled with “look here” and “look there!” And the bridges a roads were literally just hanging onto the Alps . . . it was amazing.

BTW, I paid $86.09 for my last tank of diesel today . . . which comes to about $5.73 for a gallon of diesel which is still way cheaper than a gallon of gasoline!

Tomorrow we grab Brenda’s parents from the airport and go to BFA and see the kids!!!! Hooray! Now where is my map?

5 countries, 15 hours

As I said in my last post, I am not a very good traveler. I seem to have terminal destination disease. Being there always seems to be my goal, getting there feels like a nusiance. This morning I woke up to Italian sunshine, bright blue skies, and an aching body. The sitting in a car hour after eternal hour is less and less fun as I get older. This morning, I really feel the results of sitting and traveling for 15 hours yesterday. That is the negative stuff.

On a more positive note, I had a significant amount of time to think. I have been attempting to do more of that lately . . . to be a bit more thoughtful oriented and less action oriented. I also had time to finish listening to a ghoulish audiobook that I had been listening to while biking recently. But most importantly, Brenda and I had a long talk. Not just one long one . . . but a long one interspered throughout the day. It was very rich and thought provoking.

When we finally got off the Italian interstate and grabbed a hotel room, we got the great news that Brenda's parents received their passports, and that is very good news, since they are flying out tonight (Wednesday evening) and we are picking them up at the airport in Zurich tomorrow morning. That of course is assuming that we actually get to Zurich, as we are still undecided about which way to go in order to get around the Gotthard tunnel closing (see previous post).

It is a bit wild to cross five different countries in one day. The variety of landscape, police, roads, cars, police, weather, fuel prices, police, and border experiences are infinitely entertaining. Hopefully today we will keep it down to two to three countries. Are we there yet?

The tunnel is closed!

The 17 kilometer (11 miles) Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland is closed. Some may say that only a fool would travel that far underground anyhoo . . . so what is the big deal? Well the big deal is that this incredible engineering feat allows us to take a huge shortcut through the Swiss Alps and get to the kid's boarding school with far less stress and time. Now it looks like we will re-route through Innsbruck Austria, adding yet an eight country to this trip! This photo was taken right before you get to the tunnel entrance.


We are leaving early in the morning heading to Black Forest Academy to retrieve our three teens . . . and to see our oldest graduate! It will be a long long trip . . . 2000 kilometers there and 2000 back. I will see/write you in a week . . . most of which will be passed by sitting in a car. Not my idea of fun, but even in the days of modern travel, there are still cost restrictions and difficulties in getting from point A to point B, along with luggage and bikes and children all in one piece.

It seems that life is much more about the trip than the destination. I know that sounds trite . . . especially to my cynical ears, but I can truthfully say that most missionaries in the modern era plan in "trip" cycles. I honestly go for YEARS at a time without emptying my toiletry bag, because it is pointless, another "trip" is right around the corner -- always.

There are many who believe this to be too much and an ineffective life. On the other hand we have planted several churches WHILE doing all this traveling. Many never plant a church although they rarely seem to leave whatever place they are living in. Now do not think me arrogant, because I am not, at least not about this subject. I am making an honest observation. And I am also not being arrogant because I believe the "trip" is the whole point. While I would love to stay right on this subject because I am like totally weary of the constant swirl of statements and insinuation that effectiveness is related to one's total years/months/days/hours/minutes in a single location, which is like saying that one's gender is dependent on what kind of clothes they wear -- effectiveness is not time-in-location-specific, it's doing-the-right-things-specific; the point of this post is the "trip."

So if the trip is the entire point of life, why do we focus so much on the destination? I mean I clearly have destination disease! I generally hate the trip. I wanna BE there! Get there! Yesterday was too late! I can see that I have infected a couple of my children with this as well. So I end this post with no great revelations of wisdom (because I have none) nor do I end this post with some profound insight into the mind of God. No, I want to end this post by confessing that I am trying to focus more everyday on the "trip", the journey, and less on the destination. On those days that I am successful I find life more stress-free, my clarity more evident and that there are gems to be discovered along the way . . . now . . . if they just had not closed that tunnel!

Here . . . you have to throw your own party

This week we had a house full of people. They all came because Brenda and I spent the whole day preparing this elaborate meal for them all. It was an amazing amount of work. We made trip after trip to the store (on foot). We carried bag after bag of food back from the market. I spent an hour at the butcher getting my pork chops cut just so, and tenderized. I had been collecting the ingredients for my marinade for days. I laid out all the chops and salted them and placed them in the marinade. Here is the photo!

Brenda made homemade rolls (thank you God for Breadmakers!). We had so much food it was even spread out over the living room. Here is that photo!


She made desert. We chopped strawberries and vegetables. We had to keep washing cutting boards. I bought every drink known to man (other than rajkija - see previous post). I made a different marinade for the chicken. I washed dishes, Brenda washed dishes, I cleaned the grill, cleaned out the old ashes, got it all ready to cook 36 pieces of meat on a small grill. We baked potatoes, and then we baked them again (twice baked), we baked cakes, we baked rolls. We fired up the grill and we grilled and grilled and grilled.

And the people came (late of course) and the house filled up and people filled their plates and ate and ate and ate. We hung out and talked for hours and hours. We then let them all leave and we started the massive clean up. In fact we ran out of steam completely and finished the clean up this morning with a couple of more hours of work.

This is how you celebrate any important event here in this part of the world. People don't do this for you. They don't throw YOU a party, you throw THEM a party. These were our friends. And this was long expected on their part. They came to celebrate my graduation from Gordon-Conwell. It sure is hard work to have so many friends :-).

Snow . . . in June?

It is simply an amazing sight . . . and the little photo just does not do it justice. I reckon those of you living in Colorado find it ho-hum, but for those of us who grew up in less majestic climates, seeing snow on the mountain tops in June just does something to you. I guess it is all about contrasts. It's burning up here in the city, summer like weather already forcing us to close the doors and try to keep in the cool air, but then the peaks are all shining white with snow. When the air is clear, a good air day, I live in a really beautiful spot in the world.


The former Yugoslavia is in every other way though, a hairy-armpit. The contrasts of everyday life are not nearly as pretty as the snow-covered peaks in Tetevo. The contrasts that aren't so good are the used syringes and used condoms that litter the ground on Mt. Vodno - the drug trade and sex trade are in high gear here. The contrasts of BMW's and people lifting food out of the garbage bins - the poor just keep getting poorer. The contrasts of beliefs; the handful of Evangelical Christians versus the masses who are ethnically christian or muslim, but in everyday practice pursue black magic, and are often demon possessed (see previous post). The contrasts of possibilities, those from the West/EU can go anywhere and do anything - Macedonians can't get out of their own country. The contrast of hope, people outside of the former Yugoslavia can have hope in a better tomorrow - here, people's lives just get more and more difficult. There are probably a hundred more contrast, but since I am one of the rare people here who has a job, I gotta get to work, but the snow is still beautiful.

The vilest drink known to mankind . . .

There are many ways to begin social discourse around the world; sweet tea in the South would be an excellent positive example. But here it begins with the vilest drink known to humans. By here I mean the former Yugoslavia. I have seen them make the stuff in Macedonia and in Bosnia, in copper stills that spit out the horror one drip at a time.

How bad is it? Well, when I was a kid cutting lawns to make a buck, I would often be forced to get a section of garden hose, feed that hose down into the gas tank of my mother's old buick, and then suck leaded gasoline out of her tank. The trick was to get the gas moving through the hose at a fast clip and right before you sucked a big mouthful of gasoline into your mouth, and I mean right before, you ripped the hose away from your mouth, and stuffed it into the gas can at your feet. If you were successful, gas poured from the hose into the gas can. If you weren't successful, either you quit sucking too soon and the gas all ran back down into the tank, or you sucked a moment too long and got a mouthful of Chevron's best (or a lungful if you were especially inexperienced). I remember those days fondly, the time of life was wonderful, the taste of leaded gasoline was awful.

I have now revised my opinion about gasoline being the vilest liquid know to man . . . rajkija has taken over the number one spot. While I have not syphioned gasoline out of a car in decades, unfortunately rajkija is a normal part of my everyday routine. It is the way "real men" start their social discourse here.

My visit yesterday with my 83 year old neighbor is a classic example. Uncle Lubay as I respectfully call him, walks by our house constantly. He can't see me as he is about 3/4's blind, but he knows my voice perfectly and can instantly recognize me when I speak. I usually am outside working my my roses or portucalas when he comes by shuffling along, trying to work the kinks out of his hurting joints and such. He keeps careful track of when I have been gone on one of my frequent trips somewhere in the former Yugoslavia, and when I greet him as he passes by, his face lights up and he always invites me to come to his house for a coffee.

Now I have been dodging this coffee at his house event for as long as I can for a long list of reasons, but he finally cornered me a few days ago and I pinned me down in such a way that I had no wiggle room -- you don't live 83 years and not learn how to get your way. So I grabbed my tire pump and headed over to his house which is behind ours and repaired the tires on his wheelbarrel that were flat. I suspect he intentionally let the air of those tires.

"Oh David, now we can have our coffee!" he exclaimed. Now that I was at his home, there was no escape. So Uncle calls to his daughter who lives with him and said, fix us a coffee girl! Of course before we can drink the sludge they call coffee here, we have to drink a shot glass of his gasoline, ur . . ., I mean rajkija.

I hemmed and hawed, I made excuse after excuse . . . but there was no use. I was never going to get back home until I drank coffee; I was never going to get coffee until we drank a shot glass of this vile stuff. So we drank and cemented our friendship . . . I have to admit, it's nice having friends who call me a young whippersnapper.

They only wanted a small miracle - an immediate exorcism

Yesterday, into the main office of our national church partner came a most interesting ensemble of unlikely and unusual visitors. Three very small, very short, almost pygmy-like Albanian Muslims came into the office. No they did not want humanitarian aid, and no they did not want money. What they wanted was a miracle.

These two men and one girl, were in their mid-20's and they told a long and incredible story. It turns out that the young lady had a demon which caused her to fall, in fact threw the young girl down violently and frequently any time they were more than 200 meters from their home. It seems that the demon regularly talked to the young men and told them that they must not take the girl more than 200 meters from the house.

Of course the men had gone far and wide in their search for help for the girl. They had visited the magicians, the fortune-tellers, the shamans in the Romy villages, they had gone to see the Muslim imams, the orthodox priests, and every other holy man they could find. They had traveled as far as Zagreb (10 hours away by car) searching for release of the demonization of this girl. No success at all. So in complete desperation they were now sitting in the office of the Evangelical church telling this long and depressing tale to our co-workers.

All throughout the telling of their story the girl was sitting there, but she wasn't there . . . her eyes were rolled back into her head and she didn't move at all. Not at all. Finally our co-worker said to the girl, "In the name of Jesus . . . " and that was as far as he got. The girl was instantly and violently put into a coma-like sleep. As the co-worker described it, it was as close to falling down as was possible while sitting in a chair held up by two men. But the reaction to the Name of Jesus was instantaneous.

Our co-worker continued unfazed, talking to the demon within the young lady. "In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God you no long have any stronghold on this woman. You must release her and set her free. In the name of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God you will leave now!" At these words the woman bolted upright in her chair, and it was as if her whole body was clenched in a body-wide cramp . . . it was agony for her . . . and then our co-worker demanded, "Be gone in the Name of Jesus Christ!" and she was transformed and relaxed in her seat.

She focused her eyes on her two friends and her surroundings and her two new friends (our co-workers) and smiled and talked in her normal voice for the first time in a very long time. Christ continues to rule over the forces of darkness with the exact same authority as He always has. Amen.

Ignorance on steroids

I know we have a world reputation for being ethnocentristic and geographically challenged as a Nation, but I had no early idea that things had gotten to this point. We can't even answer basic questions about the world at large! I caught a news clip from the UK interviewing US citizens on the streets of New York. Now I live on the other side of the earth from most of the people reading this, but even to me, these seemed like the basic of all basic questions! It was more than a little appalling to hear some of their answers. No one could answer the following questions correctly:

What State is KFC from? They guy even knew it stood for Kentucky Fried Chicken!
Where is the West Bank? Answers given: New York, on the east coast!
What is the religion of Israel? Answer given: Muslim!
How many World Wars have there been? Answer given: 3
Who is Tony Blair? Answers given: A skateboarder, Linda Blair's brother, an actor
What is a Mosque? Answer given: An animal.
How many Eiffel Towers in France? Answer given: at least 10
How many kidneys does a person have? Answer given: 1!
Star Wars is based on a true story. Answer given: yes.
What have Nagasaki and Hiroshima have in common? Answer given: Some form of Sumo wrestling.
Where was the Berlin Wall? Answer given: respondents could not venture an answer.
The language they speak in Latin America is Latin. True or False? Respondents could not venture an answer.

As Jeff told me when I showed him the clip, they probably took the worst of ignorance shown that day and put it together in a segment to show the world . . . but this was bad.

It reminds me that one can never stop learning and can never stop being teachable. No one can know everything, there is simply too much knowledge in the world and information is expanding ever so rapidly. What this means for us in the church I think, is that we have to be grace on steroids and learners on steroids, to counter-balance the ignorance on steroids.

Blackmarket Medicine

Living in the hairy armpit often means that one makes . . . ur . . . adjustsments to one's expectations. For instance, we have an almost impossible time getting Brenda's epilepsy medicine. It is a prescription only medicine, and of course the doctor is 4 hours away in Greece . . . and finding a Greek pharmacy open is more difficult than shipping snowballs to hell. Of course the prescription is written in Greek and neither we nor the Macedonians can read it. Not only that, the Macedonian pharmacies don't even carry the medicine once we get the silly piece of paper translated!

So what does one do? Well the black market of course! One first of all discreetly asks one's friends, "Are there pharmacies who can get medicines from outside the country?" And then when one finds out the information, you then go to that pharmacy and ask for the medicine you are searching for . . . and of course they can't get it, plus you don't have a prescription they can read. Thus one stands there with a slightly urgent look upon one's face, and the person behind the counters says eventually, "We might could order it from our Greek source." "Oh could you try?" we ask. And so then one leaves a deposit and phone numbers to ensure that one will return for the medicine.

A week or two passes, and then a call comes. "Your order has arrived." and then you go and pay the remaining money and you have your medicine without a prescription, without a receipt, without any paper trail whatsoever . . . and you thank God for black market ingenuity! it's all about who you know. It's call connections. In fact you can't get anything accomplished in this part of the world without connections. It drives Westerners mad!

But I hate to say, yet it's true, that is precisely how God works. We are reconciled, justified, righteous and His children all because of connections. It is only when we are connected to the Vine that we are the children of God. Without a connection to God we would be in big trouble, just like trying to get decent medicine in the Eastern Europe without a connection is all but impossible.

The sun . . . at 5:11 AM?

You know what that means don't you? Right, we are geographically located in the wrong time zone. In fact the sky was brightening up at 4:23 this morning! And how do I know this? Well because we had a short term team here and their flight left this morning at 5:40 . . . so we had to leave the house at 4:20 or so to get there and hurriedly get them checked in to catch their flight.

So yeah, that was what I doing up at 4 this morning . . . but that still does not answer the questions about why Macedonia and frankly, the entire former Yugoslavia are on Central European time, rather than Eastern European time? As you can see here on this map Central European Time Zone is much much larger than Eastern European Time Zone? Why?


Well the most logical, yet most illogical, reason would be politics . . . that most of Eastern Europe wants to be identified with Western Europe period. This means the sun comes up at ungodly early in the day. It sorta like living in Alaska. A Warsaw Pact Alaska.

The simple truth is that I am a lazy bum and I think it should be dark when one drives out of the airport parking lot at 5:11 am and starts the drive back home. There is something wildly wrong about the sun peaking over the eastern mountains at 5 in the morning. I think I will go back to bed until the world rights itself.

Oh I forgot, it's already the middle of the day. No wonder I am so tired.

Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Whateverman

Hollywood seems to have impacted missions in some significant ways. Western culture (and progressively the entire world) is contaminated by “one-man army” ideas. According to my students at Evangelical Theological Seminary this can be seen in Hollywood (Spiderman, Batman, Whatever-man). One gal asked, "how responsible is Protestantism with its overemphasis on the Cross (forgetting the carpenter and the empty tomb) in creating these “Lone Ranger” ideas that we now struggle with?"

Then the real fun begins. From there the students allowed me to see that from where they are sitting, mission leaders sometimes act like managers of companies. Vision-casting is nothing more than pet project promotion, forcing our Western ideas on the nationals. Having lived in the Slavic world for most of the last 12 years, I have to uncomfortably admit that there is much truth to this. Of course the CMA is never guilty of this, we are talking about other missions, . . . ah hum.

When one begins to look at missions and missional activity from the perspective of the local . . . it doesn't seem quite so clean and altruistic and holy. There is only one way to redeem such situations and assure that they no longer happen. My students and I agree; we have to work, engage, and live in relationships of mutuality and equality. All superiority and arrogance needs to stay home in the West!

When I tell my students about our relationships with our Macedonian leaders and what we are invited to do and invited to join in with and invited to share, they are not quite sure they believe me. I tell them, "there are no supermen or whatevermen in our partnership in Macedonia, only the dream team." No superstars needed or wanted.

"worm" blood

I know, it sounds gross and if all were as it seems then it might be indeed. This highly descriptive phrase appeared in a paper that I read yesterday. The exact quote was, "Often we say that Macedonians and Serbs are people with “worm” blood, because of their temperament." Balkan people are pretty unique, so I did not readily dismiss the idea that she meant exactly what she said, but after some dialogue with other students, I gathered the real intent was "warm" blooded, not worm blood. The student continued, "Slovenians are cold, Bosnians careless and Croatians prudent."

This all came about as I am getting hammered by my students. Each day they have a reading assignment and a response paper is due. Yesterday and today they are reading various chapters of my doctoral thesis as two of those six chapters directly relate to our Biblical Theology of Missions class.

They hate my thesis. They simply hate it. They hate the way that I drew conclusions, made sweeping remarks, and steadily lumped them together into a geographical melting pot that had consistent themes running, regardless of ethnicity, sub-country, culture or language. Today when we were talking about it class, I saw why they have had war after war after war here for a thousand years. When I tried to give them a bit of contrast with the rest of the world to show them how small a section of the world we are actually referring to here (New York city was my example, with 140 plus ethnic groups and over 110 languages spoken there daily, it is a really diverse place), they were unable to see that the entire world has almost infinite layers of sub-cultures and groups within groups, in levels of complexity that make the Balkans look absolutely simple in comparison. No they were insistent, the Balkans are the most ethnically diverse place on earth and no outsider could ever possibly understand it. Well, no arguing with that last point.

Fortunately I have thick skin and appreciated the fact that I had pricked their ire . . . because it empowered them to respond in kind. And they fired off paragraph after paragraph of their true feelings about westerners, Americans in particular. Now that was incredibly painful and hysterically funny, and occasionally powerfully insightful. Americans are truly ugly when let out of their pen . . . and the students weren't shy in letting me hear about some of their capers.

We are insensitive, offer advice constantly but never take any, use money like a weapon, are superior in our attitudes to a fault, arrogance unchecked, Westerners are platonic dualists to the end, imperialists, "prove me wrong" wrong attitudes, can't learn foreign languages, most westerners have low self-esteem, . . . and on and on I could quoting their observations about us westerners. But many of you would be quick to point out that not all westerners are like this. And we agree. The Balkan students quickly did the dirty deed they are accusing me of . . . lumping them all together. Perhaps Macedonians and Serbs have worm blood after all.

deep enough for mystery?

It was facinating today to read some the papers that my students were turning in. Maja said it so well, "We’re looking for a faith that is colorful enough for our culturally savvy friends, deep enough for mystery, big enough for our own doubts." There is the postmodern christian perspective in a nutshell. Are our churches up to this definition?

I am more and more convinced that the christian life among the young is something quite other than my generation. It has more integrity and authenticity. This is why I enjoy engaging these post-moderns in the classroom. We had a full-blown debate/argument in class today that was wonderful. I am learning more than I am teaching. The students are speechless when I stop class discussion in order to write down something someone said. It makes them a little giddy that I am learning from them . . . but I am convinced that this is the gas on the fire in class.

But back to the questions Maja's comments demand; are we living and communicating a faith that is big enough to handle the questions and doubts of the post-moderns, or dare I say it, our own? I really have my doubts about this one, no pun intended. Church can seem so programed and shallow . . . just look at our inability to response in a significant manner when bad things happen to Christians. I know several young ladies who have been attacked and handled in very abusive ways by theives and men just intent on evil this past year . . . and the almost complete paralysis of the church in ministering to them in meanful ways is heartbreaking . . . significant doubts have arisen in both of these young ladies about the validity of faith . . . if faith and the christian community cannot address real problems in a real world, where is the meaning?

And is our understanding and expression of the Gospel of Christ presented in such a way that it is "deep enough for mystery"? I bite my toungue in class often to stop myself from giving out the same old answers to what I percieve are the same old questions. It requires real effort to frame the message in a culturally significant manner, regardless if you are in New York, New Deli or Croatia.

Finally I grow weary of the bashing of the cultural expressions of the young, by the old . . . er. Oh yes, their expression of the Gospel is much louder and bolder and brighter than perhaps our generation, and yes they have their challenges, but I find that they challenge me too . . . and I find that yearn for many of the same things in my God as they wish for in theirs. Lead children lead!

When do you let the consequences kick in?

Last night I had the most unpleasant experience . . . I had to tell one of my brightest, high-potential students that they could not sit for the final exam. Bethany is involved in EVERYTHING! She is a student here working with InterVarisity, but she is also a fulltime student here in the seminary . . . yet she is never in class. She has attended only 46% of class so far. You can't learn if you are not in class. But it pains me terribly to write her and tell her that she cannot sit for the final exam, which essentially means that she is finished for this course.

So I wrote her and told her that she cannot sit for the exam. Well today the Dean's office overruled me :-) Personally I am glad, but this seminary is in deep trouble, because of this very type of stuff . . . they can't keep their own rules!

I wonder if we in the church have decided that this is what Grace means in all situations. I agree that Grace essentially means that I DON'T receive what I deserve in terms of eternal punishment. But does it also mean that with all aspects of everyday life? So whenever the rules are broken, it's OK, we will be gracious and let it pass? Again, I am personally thrilled that Bethany will now be able to finish the class I am teaching . . . she is one of the best students! On the other hand, when do you let the consequences kick in? I would love to know what you think.