Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.

Recently i have had the privilege of watching over a 6 year old daughter of my friend.  Now i love kids very much, and since leaving Japan 2 1/2 years ago, have not had so much opportunity to be closely involved with them until coming to be a teacher in a school last August.  But a school setting and a home setting are quite different, bringing out different attributes of character etc.

Somehow i never really grew out of a childlike mentality in some areas.  That being good or bad, others may judge, but i have never really joined in the standard adult games of lying, looking down on or up to others, trying to win others to your point of view and so on.  Just tell the truth, believe others, do your best, expect the same from others, love God first, hope others do too (especially SDAs), and love your neighbor as yourself – not causing anyone trouble, and expecting no one to intentionally cause you trouble either.

“Uncle Daniel, why do they want to eat yucky pig?” is asked of me while we walk past dead, pink carcasses hanging in a row in the market.  “Because many people think it tastes yummy.”  “But why?”  “Either they don’t know God, or don’t want to do what he says.”  “Why don’t they know God?”  “Maybe no one has told them, or maybe they know but are too busy getting money.”  “But why do they want money?”  “Do you like to eat?”  “Yes.”  “Your daddy and mommy work to feed your belly.  They work so they get money to get you food and other things you need.”  “But why?”  “God said it is good for us to work”.  Now coming to this point, i get taught a good lesson.  I’ve told my close Brothers and Sisters that God has the biggest bank account in the world.  He owns everything.  But….do i live my life like that, with the simple faith that he will provide if we do everything according to his will?

Walking with her thru the metropolis of Bangkok helps me see things that i’ve come to take for granted, from a fresh eye.  It also has helped me see that nearly everything us adults do is bad – from our food to our music to our pollution to our clothes to our language to many of our businesses – the list goes on and on.  It is sickening to look at how nearly everything man touches goes bad. 

The “But why?” questions never get tiresome.  In fact, it is a pleasure to hear them, as it makes the mind think in new and creative ways.  “But why?” (after explaining that some people worship that big tree with the red ribbons hanging from it).  “But why?” (after being told that trash is everywhere because many people don’t care about this world)  “But why?” (after being told that the drawing of Jesus’ nail prints is incorrect – that they really should be shown in the palms of his hands).

Even this simple question tho is often looked down on by adults who are too busy with their own lives to consider things from a newly-functioning brain’s perspective.  Why not spend that extra minute letting the children know that we really are interested in them, rather than brushing them off?  Sure hope Jesus doesn’t get tired of our questions!!!

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like a little childRead More »

What should you do when your “Christian” workplace is not following Christian principles?  The teacher’s contract states that: “The above-mentioned teacher will: 3a. Faithfully serve God, as a Christian in good standing.”  This is the first item in the section about duties the teacher must perform.  Then in 5e, it says: “The teacher may not be absent from teaching for more than seven work (teaching) days during the whole school year…”.

As i write this now, March 16, i have not missed even one minute of school time in the little-over 7 months i worked there, except for one sick day last November.  Last Friday in our faculty meeting, i read 3 paragraphs from the Spirit of Prophecy about how the message of warning and reproof must live in the church, or we will get cut down by the slaughtering weapons of the 5 men in Ezekiel 9.  Then i gave that paper and a little letter i had given to some of the parents to the administrator, and read item 3a.  Then i looked up to the administrator, and said: “Our administrator —- has made it impossible to obey this item.  But i must obey.  I thank you for the opportunity to work here, i will not be returning”.  The administrator looked up with an astonished look, said “huh?”, so i repeated, standing up, then slowly walked out to sounds of laughter from the head teacher.

Of course i had thot of this a long time.  I had first mentioned grave concerns about our school honoring a false god around 4 months previous.  I had prayed and hoped and coaxed a bit to get the administrator to not only correct that problem, but other problems where Satan’s presence was being directly invited onto school grounds, as in allowing children to wear buddhist jewelry into the school etc..  But nothing was ever done physically by the administrator to remove the idols, or the stain of our honoring idols, from school property, and the name of the being in our school name – Christ.

During the last week i thot many times of the following two texts as applying to all the Seventh-day Adventist teachers at our school, and since the responsibility lies highest with the administartor, this applies with the most force to him – “(Matthew 6:23)  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”  and  “(1 Kings 18:17-18)  And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?  And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.”  For the word “Baalim”, insert “Buddha” to bring it up to date.

Please, please administrator and teachers, if you are reading this, “(Hebrews 3:15)  While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.”

May the administrator repent, resolve to follow God fully, and remove the evil influences from the school so that item 3a in the contract CAN be fulfilled, and i will glady return to give glory to God.

May we put away the sins that so easily beset us, and run the race, the race leading to a glorious crown of eternal life that all may receive freely from the own mighty right arm of our lovely saviour – Jesus Christ.

Why do people want to worship or give honor to pieces of rock and stone? The logic escapes me, as most everything that this world likes to do does.

But what is really sad, is that many of God’s people, SDAs, condone the practice of honoring foreign gods who are not really gods. That is happening at all the SDA schools in Bangkok that i know of, and also at the school where i teach. No doubt stranger things will happen in the end times, when our own former brethern and sisters in the faith will become our bitterest enemies. By compromising in little matters, they become easy prey for Satan in the big matters. And he laughs all the way to eternal destruction. Oh, why will you fall for Satan’s traps, when God’s way is so clearly outlined?! Please repent and worship and honor the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And you will have eternal life.

The cacophony of cicadas is one of my favorite ways to know that summer has arrived. For 15 years in Japan, the jet-beating noise of thousands of wings scraping together made for a pleasant sound when far off, and headaches when riding my bicycle under them 🙂

But of course, that was always in July and August, for just around 2 weeks, except for the odd guy who woke up late. But here in Bangkok, it started in earnest in February! There aren’t many trees, so not that much noise, and they are mostly drowned out by the buses anyway (cough cough), but to hear them in the background when retiring at nite – sweet dreams 🙂

Wonder if there’ll be cicadas in heaven?

World’s biggest market is in Bangkok, operating on Saturdays and Sundays.  Yesterday was my first time to go, and it was interesting to make one’s way thru the mazes of shops to see lots of junk along with some cool stuff and mostly just walk, and walk, and walk.

Final tally?  2 T-shirts and a present for my Japanese friend’s daughter, with some food and drink.  My friend bot a pair of slipper-style sneakers for her father.

I’ve had the good fortune to spend lots of time with kids lately, and it has helped me feel more like a human – very nice.  Sometimes it is aggravating, even infuriating when they do the exact opposite of what you tell them, but most of the time it is a wonderful journey into seeing how God might look at us – his little children, and realize the great patience and long-suffering he has towards us, his sense of accomplishment when we start to grasp something he wants us to understand, and his joy and happiness at our little triumphs and amazements at the things he created with the breath of his mouth.

That was a really cute puppy yesterday who got his rear leg into automatic scratching mode when we scratched his belly in the right place – haha.

What an awesome God!!

A long time ago there was a landowner.  Having lots of land, he decided to lease it out to people.  Some lease-holders decided to dig in their land, melt what they found, and sell it.  Others decided to build something on top of the land and do some kind of business with that.  Mostly it was used to build a place to live on.  Everybody liked the idea of having land, so many times people fought about who should be the rightful lease-holder.  The landowner was gone so long, most all the lease-holders forgot that they were not really the landowner themselves, and made up all kinds of theories to try and explain why they were the real landowners.  But the real landowner sometimes shook up the land or sent lots of water to start the whole land-leasing program over again.

A little group of lease-holders decided to start a carrot patch to grow only perfectly golden-orange carrots, carrots that would be solely for the landowner, and would be grown strictly according to the manual.

It took lots of work.  Many were the obstacles they had to overcome.  Many who brought their seeds to these lease-holders angrily carried their seeds back when they found out only golden-orange carrots would be produced.  The lease-holder’s association was amused at first, and then antagonistic as they found out someone was actually going to use the landowner’s manual to grow carrots.  But the worst opposition was from those who were growing the mixed carrots.  Their double-mindedness would be made plain for all to see if they allowed someone to actually try and carry out the instructions as laid out in the landowner’s manual.  They ostracized them, they circulated falsehoods about them, and they even took this little group to court to try and make them stop attempting to produce golden-orange carrots.  But thru all these problems, the little group of lease-holders saw the answers in the manual, and kept diligently working to produce perfect carrots.

The ground was stony, the monetary reward nil.  Droughts were scarcely over when the floods came.  A fence had to be erected to keep the young carrots from looking over at the other carrot patches, and becoming envious of the blue carrots they could see during the day, and hear during the nite.  Cold spells came that threatened to freeze everything to death.  Sunny days in the summer were enough to make not only the most perfect carrot want to wilt, but even the lease-holders too!  When the leafy tops appeared nicely, many bugs were attracted which required constant oversight.  It seemed that the carrots needed even more care as they came to perfection than they did when first planted.
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future carrot patchRead More »

 Once, there was a group of lease-holders who wished to grow more carrots.  They searched far and wide, and finally decided to lease some land in a country renowned for its hard-working elephants, loose morals, beautiful beaches, and world-class traffic jams. Ostensibly, they wished to grow perfect carrots for the land owner, but in fact, most of this group wished to make lots of money.

So they leased land in a place contrary to the landowner’s manual, and constructed an elaborate carrot patch, again, contrary to the manual.  One of them who professed great love for the manual became the chief caretaker, and a team of caretakers were assembled from all over the world.  Unfortunately, the instructions in the manual regarding hiring of caretakers was not followed, and it soon became evident that even the chief caretaker was not doing what the manual said to do to raise perfect carrots.

Into this background carrot planting began. Seeds were planted, daily they were watered, and many of them grew.  However, the seeds did not produce golden-orange carrots.  Some of them produced some lovely leaves on top, with some symmetrical properties, but when the carrots were dug up and inspected, it was seen that they were mostly blue, with just a hint of orange here and there on them.  This did not seem to concern the chief caretaker much, as he was too worried about how to get more seeds. The other caretakers weren’t too displeased either, as they had been trained in growing blue carrots, and did not bother too much with really studying the landowner’s manual to see for themselves how to grow perfect carrots.
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one carrot patchRead More »

Degrees–In view of all this, our schools should have little to say now of “degrees,” and of long courses of study. The work of preparation for the service of God is to be done speedily. Let the work be carried forward in strictly Bible lines. Let every soul remember that the judgments of God are in the land. Let “degrees” be little spoken of.–Letter 382, 1908, p. 4. (To G. A. Irwin, Dec. 23, 1908.)

While being only a letter, this statement shows what Ellen White thot about educational “degrees”.

Recently i’ve had the opportunity to view someone’s “doctrinal” thesis. It was for AIIAS, http://www.aiias.edu/ a Seventh-day Adventist institution of “higher” learning.  It was about integrating love in counseling young people around ages 6-16.

It was a handbook on how to carry out a Sabbath School program for children.  I’m not kidding.  The more i skimmed, the more i thot – “Hey, this looks familiar, VERY familiar.”  Approximately 1/4 of the thesis was literally a hymn book for young folk.  Around 1/4 was letters from people saying how much they had been blessed by this being done in their high school, and the bulk of it was how to carry on a Sabbath School service with a sample song, prayer, and a short story about Joseph, Moses, Daniel etc. and applying it to various situations kids today may face.

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degrees and “non”senseRead More »

この間バンコクのダイソーに行って、すごい懐かしかった！　１０分くらいで「日本」に浸され、何も不思議なく商品の説明とかぜんぶ読めて、本当に良かった。普通はね、看板とかぜんぶがタイ語に書いてあるから「当たり前」何が書いてあるか分からない。　それがね、ちょっとだけながら、ストレスの原因でしょう。　特に食料品の場合！　英語も少し使われているので、なんとか生活の上ではあまり問題ないけど、やっぱりぜ～んぶ理解できて、落ち着く。　この店はなんか日本から店を丸ごと飛行機に載せ、バンコクのど真ん中に落としたって感じ。　タイにぜんぜん合わないものも多くて、「大丈夫かな」とちょっと心配するくらいです。　ほんの少しでも日本に帰ったって感じを与えてくれて　－　有難うダイソーさん！

ちなみに、ダイソーはサイアム・ショッピング・センターの真向かい。　一括６０バーツ。　日本の値段の倍くらい。