Month: March 2009

Mostly tho, it was quite enjoyable, especially the times when i could study the 1858 Great Controversy with people, and also when told by someone that i had helped lift them up closer to Jesus.

Was it worth it? DEFINITELY. Seeing the low state of my Seventh-day Adventist Brothers and Sisters in most countries was painful, but the nice thing was finding out that there were nearly always between 1~3 people in every church that are really on fire, and really hungry for the truth as it is in Jesus. The only exception i can think of was at what is probably the richest SDA church in SE Asia. But that was a common thread for everywhere – where the people are rich, they don’t feel much of a need for Jesus, where the people are poor, they do.

Living for extended periods in places where you can’t speak the language or know what’s in the food or much of anything can make one feel pretty small. Seeing how God has been leading me, i realize that there must be a lot of pride in me to make God want to chisel it out this much – thank you Lord!

A list of my travels, in as good an order as i can remember:
Philippines – Malaysia – Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Cambodia – Thailand – Myanmar – Thailand – Malaysia – Singapore – Thailand – Sri Lanka – India – England – Holland – Germany – Switzerland – Italy – Greece – Turkey – Georgia – Armenia – Azerbaijan – Georgia – Armenia – Georgia – United Arab Emirates – Nepal – Thailand – Philippines – Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Cambodia – Thailand – Malaysia – Thailand – Laos – Thailand – Cambodia – Thailand – Cambodia – Thailand – Myanmar – Thailand –

As you might have surmised from the above list, i spent a lot of time in Thailand – nearly half of the total 38 months. I even “settled down” there, renting an apt for 10 months and working as a teacher of 4th grade for 7 months at a SDA-layman-run international school in Bangkok. My next longest-stay place was Malaysia, where i met the most humble, hungry-for-truth, and on-fire people in all my journeys – Sabah Malaysia on the island of Borneo.

Did i learn to speak other languages? Not hardly at all. This travel reinforced what i already knew – that God has prepared things, using even stuff that is looked on as “evil” by Christians (and rightly so), to spread the language that he gave his prophets the words in around 150 years ago. Everywhere you go, especially in the cities, there are people who can speak English. And every church seems to have some too. What if God had given his words to someone in Phnom Penh 150 years ago? Who would ever know? And who would be able to translate those words into other languages today? But thanks to even bad music and movies which God has for some reason allowed Satan to make, he is still working to get his words out to everyone – amazing!

Other amazing things are the technologies that God has given to/allowed man to make: airplanes, telephones, computers, internet etc. It struck me numerous times how God has made it all so easy to be a missionary in these days. But where are the missionaries? For some reason, as things have gotten easier and easier, us SDAs have gotten lazier and lazier. What’s with that? As i write this, i think of the pics of students graduating from Union College in the 1910s or so. Whole groups of them holding signs with names of far-away countries they were going to, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. A similarly-done pic taken today of graduates from that school (or any SDA school) would probably show them holding up signs of companies or law firms or medical centres that they had gotten hired at.

But while the number of missionaries looks to be much less today, one person can do a lot more than one person could do 100 years ago too. To print a book back then, it took a team of workers: translators, proofreaders, literary assistants, gofers, type-setters, copy-proofers, layout artists etc. etc. Now it can all be done by one or two people using a computer with decent software! And if there is a question? just type it in, and within seconds, all the power of the internet is at your fingers to produce the answer you need. Need funds? send instantly. Need to talk to someone? Very cheap to free now. Even airlines, with their discounts, have made it very cheap and easy to cover vast distances in almost no time at all. Airplanes really are the “time machines” of the 21st century.

So did i accomplish anything? I pray so. I definitely know some people who got a fire in their bones to translate and print more Ellen White books in their language. Also, many people studied this 1858gc with me, and promised to read the whole book. For the numerically inclined:
2000 English printed in Malaysia
10000 English printed in India
1000 Malay
2000 Georgian
4000 Tamil printed in India
1000 Tamil printed in Malaysia
3000 Khmer
1000 Thai
Note: Many books and languages were done/still being printed or translated in northern India and the Philippines. In both of these places i have been sponsoring people for 3 years or more to work full-time spreading this book and/or doing pastoral work.

Translated in Malaysian, Khmer, Burmese, Punjabi, Thai, and Romanian. The Tamil one was retranslated. Translation was started on Armenian but not yet completed. The Chinese and Azeri translations were started, but stopped,

Hmmm, typing this up just now, it makes it look like really i didn’t do hardly anything for 38 months…… Plus, the Malay printing and Tamil printing in Malaysia were not sponsored by myself. But that is one of the really great things – other people have caught a vision to get these book out, even if it means using their own money.

And this is where i find nearly all of us SDAs are failing — We are putting money above God. “Go, make the possessors of lands and money drunk with cares. If you can make them place their affections upon these things, we have them yet. They may profess what they please, only make them care more for money than the success of Christ’s kingdom, or the spread of the truths we hate. ….Crowd all you can around them to attract them, and they will be surely ours. ” Has Satan succeeded? “I saw that Satan carried out his plans well.” While we have the truths, especially the truth that about the state of the dead which will keep us from falling into the trap of spiritualism, we are easy prey for him when it comes to money.

Yes, i realize that in talking about this, some will think: “He’s just upset that he isn’t getting more of it”. No, that’s exactly the heart attitude that i’m warning against. Every morning i wake up and pray Matthew 6:33, and God has never failed to keep his promise. He knows just what we need. And if we don’t make a sacrifice now, we will be found outside the heavenly city one day.

This love of money is all thru our ranks, and i believe is the major cause of a huge problem i see everywhere: we are idolizing the world in our education. Our educational institutions are graduating people who have no inclination to spread the gospel. The main focus is on “getting a high-paying job”. But look at who the SDA schools hire – they try to get those with the highest diploma. So you have “Mission College”, the only higher-level educational institution we have in SE Asia, and how many MISSIONaries are they producing? almost zero.

So now one of my goals is to help start small, Bible-based schools all thruout SE Asia. It can, and must be done. We must get back to basics: Bible-based, agriculture, manual labor, technical training, and a humble heart that is on-fire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to a dying world.

I doubt i will go back to SE Asia soon, but am thinking about going to India. I do miss my friends in Thailand and Malaysia especially, and people in both places have asked me to come and stay as long as i like 🙂 Thank you! I want to help all that is in my power, but more than that, my dream is to get this 1858gc book into a 3D animated movie, and that looks to be driving me to go to India to fulfill that dream.

Lord, you are so lovely, the desire of all my heart. Nothing can compare to you. When my mind or eyes wander onto forbidden paths, please bring me back to the cross. Why do you love me so much? I’m nothing. Even people with some of the same blood as mine get angry at me for reproving their sins, Lord, but i love them, and want to see them in heaven. Please give me courage to call sin by its right name wherever it is – especially when it enters my heart. Please cleanse me, and make me holy.

All my friends/Brothers/Sisters i made/met on this travel, Lord, please keep them burning brightly for you. May the whole focus of their lives be sacrificing all on the altar for you. May you accept our measly sacrifice Lord, and sanctify it, change it into your likeness, so that when you come our faces will not gather blackness, but will shine with your glory, as Moses’ did when he came down from the mount after talking with you.

Lord, may your words spread thruout the whole earth. May everyone have a chance to prepare for what is going to come on the world as an overwhelming surprise. Thank you so much for choosing me to spread these words. They are life. They are joy. They are my everything – the truth. Because truth is eternal, and the truth is Jesus Christ.

Give me strength Lord to continue working for you. Show me how best to use my remaining energy and funds that you have so lovingly supplied me with. Send your angels to keep me from dashing my foot against any stones of my own making, or stones that others throw in my way.

The place i stayed is the family who printed the Japanese 1858 Great Controversy for me in 2001, and is mostly known for printing SDA literature including the “Study Bible” with the Ellen White quotes at the bottom of the pages. They are doing a great work, with a worldwide impact. Their current project is working together with the General Conference to print 2 million sets of 10 pocket-sized Spirit of Prophecy books.

Incheon airport is very nice, and in waiting for my bus, i thot back over the first time i came to Korea in 1988 – people wearing old-fashioned clothes carrying humongous bags with lots of tape and rope, and the ever-present smell of kimchi – all replaced by people wearing fashionably black clothes pulling fashionable small suitcases rolling along, and the smell replaced by cigarette smoke and Avanti perfume.

But this is still Korea, and things don’t work like in Japan – for better and for worse. The ticket for my bus says to go to 8B stop, but in going there, the driver tells me to go to 8A. My 4:20 bus i’m told will not come, so have to wait for the 4:50 bus. But everything is of much higher quality than i remember it, and soon i’m sped off to KINTEX where my friend comes to pick me up. He shows me his family’s publishing office, and i’m duly impressed. It’s one of the greatest things probably i’ve ever seen to tell the truth, except for the huge presses i’ve seen at a SDA publishing house before, and when i saw books i have ordered being printed.

I’m quite surprised at the house, as it is in the city, because the 2 times i have met them before, they lived out in the countryside. But it is very near their office, which is just next door to the printer they use, so it is very convenient in printing the books and literature. The office is large, and has around 5 or 6 computers and space for workers, with a very large area for displaying books or holding meetings etc.

Sabbath we went to the Northern Asian Pacific Division Headquarter’s English-speaking church. It was amazing to me that the president of the Division in his sermon quoted Ellen White extensively. Yes, Lord, please increase our faith. Several people were very friendly to me, and i could give a short testimony to a very small group in the Sabbath-school lesson time.

In the afternoon we walked up a hill behind the house, and were rewarded with a view extending way-out over the Han river, clear over into North Korea. It was my first time to see North Korea, and it was interesting to notice some of the contrasts with the South – no satellite dishes, no trees, no visible cars, smaller buildings etc. May God help the persecuted Christians there. It made me feel so strange to be able to worship God freely, knowing that just around 5km away, the people did not have that privilege. It was also strange to ride on the expressways seeing the high barbwire fence on the side to keep out anyone trying to infiltrate South Korea.

The family had a mini family-reunion, so there were lots of people, but my friend kindly gave me his bed and he slept on a futon on the floor. The house was very modern, and the food and everything was very good. The best thing, is that Korean houses usually have warmed floors – very nice! The Japanese could learn something there.

Sunday was mostly a computer day, but the highlight, and the highlight of the whole trip here, was in studying carefully chapter 30 of the 1858 Great Controversy with my friend. He was deeply affected, and it affected me too, giving me more energy to want to spread this wonderful book and its tremendous truths to others.

The friend and his father gave encouragement to go ahead with the 1858gc movie, giving me a heart-boost. I heard that the Korean 1858gc that was printed several years ago has gotten out to a few people, but the main translator is now in the Philippines, so i didn’t learn much about the results of spreading the book here in Korea.