It’s hard to imagine that three weeks have already passed since leaving Bangkok. Most of the first week was spent with a pastor travelling up to Kuala Lumpur (450km) in his car to attend his meetings at a Tamil-speaking church there. Since then i’ve been spending most of the time with the translator of the book into Chinese, helping make the book extremely faithful to the original.The pastor is one on my very short list of pastors i have personally spent some time with, that i would like to spend eternity with in heaven. Not only is he mild-tempered, but humble. This humbleness is a very very rare commodity among us Seventh-day Adventists – especially among church employees. Almost everywhere i go the attitude is: “You’re a nobody. What can you possibly know about anything?” But now i know 6 pastors who i will enjoy spending eternity with. He asked me deep questions about the prophecies in Revelation, and it was nice to hear that we have similar beliefs on the mark of the beast and the seal of God etc. I do hope tho, that there are no cars we have to drive in heaven!Malaysia is an Islamic country, so they don’t allow churches to buy land and build a new church. Fortunately, the British ruled this place for a while, and some churches were built then. The govt., probably fearing a backlash, doesn’t forcibly close down churches, so here and there you can see a cross on a building. The new style for churches is to rent or buy space in a shop-lot. These are long rows of buildings – usually 3 or 4 stories high. Even then, the native Malays get first shot at purchasing them, but of course many are still available, so that’s where new churches meet for worship.
The Tamil-speaking church i went to in KL rents the 2nd floor for around 200usd/month. There were around 100 worshipers in the 20feet by maybe 60feet long room. While the speaking was all in Tamil, most of the written material on the screen was in English. It was interesting to note that when asked what language they wanted the study material in, about half said “English”.
The drums gave me a headache, and after enduring them for the first 3 meetings, i mentioned to the head elder there that it would be better if we had Christian music. He talked about how they were contextualizing the worship for the people, and that he was working on a master’s degree and had studied the issue thoroughly, and etc. etc. I mentioned the quote by Ellen White that says drums and loud noise will come into the churches in the last days, and he pointed to the drums and said, “You know, those really aren’t drums”. I couldn’t help but smirk. We talked nicely 20 or 30 seconds longer when he gave the same remark, prompting the same reaction from me. I could think only of “The Emperor’s Clothes” story, and how my school administrator said one time of the buddhist jewelry hanging around a student’s neck: “It really isn’t jewelry you know.” Right. I would rather have them lie to me outright than to get ridiculous on me.
We drove the old road to and from to avoid the tolls which come to around 70myr, or 20usd. But in going the extra 100km did we really save that much? Probably about half that, plus we got to stop at some SDA churches along the way and even see one kindergarten in the back of the church in Muar.
I was able to fix the “Hacked by Godzilla” virus on his computer when returning which made me feel like i was doing something worthwhile. We saw a printer about printing 1,000 copies of the Tamil 1858gc, then he took me up to Skudai, which is like a satellite town of Johor Bahru, which itself is like a big satellite town of Singapore. I’m staying with a family who it was thot could only speak Chinese, but the wife and kids can communicate in English, making my welcome much nicer. For some reason, Chinese doesn’t grate on my ears or sound like mumbojumbo like so many languages do, making me think that perhaps, just perhaps, i have an ear for it already?
The translator got her PhD from UK (not the country, but the school in Kentucky), but is still one of the most humble people i’ve ever met. How she can do that, i don’t know, but am very, very thankful to God for putting us together 🙂 We spend most days together, averaging around 5 hours to do detailed proofreading on each chapter. Yes, the chapters we are proofreading have already been translated, just that we are being extremely careful to be absolutely faithful to the original. To me, this Chinese edition is second or third most important in the whole world to translate this book into, with only Spanish being a contender for the number 2 spot.
I’ve felt a little discouraged that i spent so much time learning Japanese, and that while i really enjoy Japan and living there, it hasn’t been very useful in witnessing for Jesus except to just a very few. Even just this week the one last big hope i had for spreading this 1858gc book in Japan when i go back there around the end of the year – a self-supporting pastor with a publishing work and health retreat etc., told me in a email that he didn’t believe this book was worth studying specially 🙁 But now i see how i can be of help in this Chinese book work, and i’m thankful to God in a new way for leading me to Japan so long ago. Who knows, maybe God has some future plan for me inside China itself. 🙂
That the SDA church in Peninsular Malaysia has many problems, i had already been made aware of, but now i hear many, many more. Wow. It is surprising that anybody stays affiliated with it. I’m glad tho that there are some who are sincerely trying to do the right thing, and get God’s people to repent and follow the straight and narrow path.
I helped teach English in one of the church rooms on Friday to around 6 teenagers, and then return to the church the next day to attend church. Huh? The vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor is open for business when we arrive bright and early on Sabbath morning. I ask a lady about it after church, and she says she will bring it up in the church board meeting. I find out later that everyone including this lady already knows it is a problem, but it has purposely been pushed aside and ignored. I asked when returning to the house how we can pray for God’s blessing on his holy day when we are letting people keep a store open on our property on God’s holy day? Glum faces, with a bit of nodding. The kids aren’t stupid. They see the compromise on their parent’s part, and they quickly learn that money is more important than obeying the truth.
The translator wasn’t too hep on the chapter 1 animation of the book, but when watching it on her computer, her 5 year old neice comes over and becomes captivated by the pics of angels. Thank you Lord for the little children! Now she is on-fire to get a high quality movie made, and is coming up with ideas to get people involved that i could hardly even dream about. I really, really hope this movie can be made soon. Today, while on the bus, i saw a “Bernard” short clip, and movie trailers for “Clone Wars”, and “Ice Age 3”. All of these were done in 3d animation. Yes! Now is the time to do this. In fact, it may be a bit late, as the quality and subsequent cost is going higher and higher, out of anyone but a well-heeled movie studio’s budget. But i was thinking today, that to mix the 3d with 2d animation would be cooler. Any advice on how to proceed from anyone reading this?
Please pray specifically that we can produce a faithful translation of the 1858gc into Chinese, and that we can somehow get the contacts to make the movie – including production people, distribution people, and of course financial backers. It’s great to receive encouragement rather than discouragement most people express. Now i can feel a bit more confident that this could be a means of tremendously pushing the Three Angels’ Messages forward.
I understand from this post that your base is in Malaysia now, not Thailand. I am praying that God will bless your translation work.
Yes, that’s right Brother. Today we almost got done with proofreading chapter 9. We are going very slow, but very, very carefully.
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Wherever God leads, i will follow. Your prayers are much appreciated 🙂
I imagine you are rewording the introduction to suit the Chinese audience.
Your Sister in Christ.
Sorry, didn’t realize you are my Sister 🙂
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Actually, the entire book is being translated into Chinese. I’m not sure what you mean about rewording the introduction.
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Almost half done thru the longest chapter in the book, chapter 10 now.
As you have Chinese people to help you, perhaps they have suggestions regarding how the introduction may be written in a meaningul way for a Chinese audience. Perhaps you could use some imagery they are familiar with. Just a thought. God bless as you continue to make progress.