Life is Wonderful and Life is Difficult

Hey. I have recorded excerpts from my journal over the past month to give you a better idea of what my life is like. When you have the time, make some coffee (or tea), sit down at your computer, and step into my life. You are welcome, if you are ready.

I have two titles for the past few months: one, “When Dreams Come True” and two “A Series of Unfortunate Events;” i.e. life is wonderful and life is difficult.

A Series of Unfortunate Events
1. Fell off train (December)
2. Scooter accident (January)
3. Lost wallet (January)
4. Apartment destroyed (February)
5. Bag fell off mountain (March)
6. Robbed (March)

1. Fell of Train
For my story of falling off a train, see the last blog entry.

2. Scooter Accident
CST station Mumbai
Thursday, January 29th
4:30 pm
Where to begin? My scooter accident two days ago, my fifty rupee tetanus shot in the butt, my evening with a possibly gay Iraqi doctor, sleeping in a 5by10 “room” with three Indian men, “mind-blowing-Mumbai,” the Sahdus surrounding me, or maybe I should start with the flies swarming around my filthy infected feet? Either way it is safe to say that I have had an interesting past two days.
Russell and I have been staying in a couple’s apartment while they are away in Africa on outreach. It’s about a forty-five minute walk from the apartment to the YWAM campus; a walk I might add that can get real interesting real fast due to the heat, the backwards traffic, the endless crows, and the various wandering animals you are bound to encounter. I made two mistakes that morning. The first mistake was attempting to drive a scooter in India, and the second was running into a wall. [p.s. let me just mention that my train arrived and Indians are frantically swarming their compartments yelling and yanking on the locked doors. Let me also mention that the train doesn’t leave for one hour. Let me also mention that the doors are open now and people are literally fighting each other to get on, and yes the train still doesn’t leave for one hour.] Ok, back to the scooter incident. I had driven a scooter once before, but it was on less crowded village back roads. An Indian friend had left his scooter at the apartment and I offered to drive it back to campus for him the next morning (my first mistake). Feeling somewhat confident, but mostly sleepy I started the scooter and headed off. After the first intersection someone pulled in front of me on a bicycle and instead of slamming on my breaks I quickly that was there was occupied by gravel and a concrete wall. My scooter hit the gravel and as people were dashing out of the way my leg was pinned against the wall. Basically I have a cut up left leg and foot, had to get a tetanus shot and had an extremely friendly Iraqi doctor help clean my wounds the next dayturned to the left. The only problem was there wasn’t much room to the left and the little room in Mumbai. P.S. he actually said he liked Bush…first time I have heard that in India…it shocked me.

3. Lost wallet
Jan 31, 2009
“Luke arrives in Panvel early tomorrow morning and I haven’t realy been able to get in touch with him except for a few random Facebook messages. I am going to try and pick him up at the station. Do not ask me how I will get there at such a god-forsaken hour, but somehow in some usual Indian way I will. (For more on Luke’s and my time together in India see “When Dreams Come True”)

…later that day
Holy crap! Where to begin? Well first of all I am on a bus to Panvel (I hope it’s the right bus) after the craziest day. Kalyan and I were going to the market to buy some groceries for Luke’s arrival. On the way out we had to stop at the gate due to train traffic. I took my wallet out to count how many rupees I had to my name. 400rps…wouldn’t get me very far…need to go to an ATM. We got to an ATM and my wallet was no where to be found. Kalyan and I frantically searched my backpack to no avail. My stomach began to drop…it must have fallen out of my pocket. We drove back to the train tracks. Nothing…gone…Kaylan started speaking to an older man whose job is to open and close the gate when trains come. He said a truck driver picked it up, and he remembered the truck’s number, it was MH14 9748. He said it came back and forth often. So, what to do? Kaylan and I waited at the railroad crossing fighting the heat and fighting flies waiting for wallet snatch to roll on by. We waited and waited. A dark south Indian and a white American sitting on a scooter watching the traffic pass by. He never came and we went out looking for him Sherlock Holmes Indian style. We tracked all over Lanovala (the town I live in) trying to find this truck. And after several hours of fruitless investigation got a ticket (for not having his vehicle registered) on the way to dropping me at the bus station….Lost my wallet….didn’t have time to pack before leaving to pick Luke up…I had to borrow money from an Indian.
…later that night…I am in a hotel in Panvel and am picking Luke up tomorrow morning, do not ask how I am going to wake up with no alarm and please do not ask how we are getting back to Lonavala. I simply do not know. What in the world is ahead of us this next month?”

(Journal excerpt from 2/01/09)
I went and picked Luke up with no wallet, an Indian’s visa card, and 200rps to my name. The next day I got an email from an Iraqi guy I met in Mumbai (remember the friendly doctor) who received a phone call from an Indian man who had found my wallet (his # was in my wallet). Dr. Zee (the Iraqi) emailed Russell, who was in Singapore, who emailed me in India, who just picked up his brother from the train station...Sublime? Insane? Impossible? God? God.

4. Apartment destroyed
Luke and I spent two weeks in Goa. While we where at a missionary retreat center I got a phone call from a friend telling me that the apartment I had been staying at was being destroyed. They only ended up destroying the stairs, but considering the apartment is on the second story of a house this unfortunate event led to a lot of interesting maneuvering up and down a ladder for the next few weeks.

5. Bag fell off mountain

One Saturday I ventured into the neighboring town to spend some alone time at a beautiful canyon. What I wanted to be a quiet relaxing day with the Lord turned into a wild adventuring trying to climb down the canyon to rescue my bag that had fallen of a rock I had been sitting on. Everything was it that bag. My wallet (again), several books, a jacket, and my coveted journal that I had been writing in for the last two years. The loss of that red backpack would be one serious blow to swallow. I left late in the evening dehydrated, dirty, bruised, and defeated with no bag.

The next day I came back early in the morning and hired a few local villagers to help me make my way down the canyon with accidentally killing myself. After a long day of finding nothing my red bag suddenly appeared on the same trail we had been climbing up and down the whole day; crazy, but true. Maybe someone found it and put it on the trail, who knows; I’m just glad to have my wallet and journal back.

6. Robbed
March 14, 2009
Lonavala, Coffee Day
Thursday night I went to bed meditating on, “there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can not take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Tm 6:6-7). Friday morning I woke up to the news that I had been robbed while I was sleeping, my cell phone, my wallet, and all of my money was gone.

Conclusion
These series of unfortunate events have not and will not deter me from following Jesus. The hardships and opposition only push me further, increasing my desire to only live for the Lord. Take my wallet, take my phone, take my money, take my health, and even take my life, but you can never take me away from Christ and whether I have a little, or whether I have a lot, whatever I have will be spent on him.



When Dreams Come True
As you have already seen my stint in India has been filled with a lot of difficultly, but in the midst of all the frustration has been some of the most wonderful and rewarding times of my entire life. A little more than a year ago while I was living in Montana I had a dream. I dreamt that my brother Luke and I were in India together and two months ago that dream came true.

February 5th
“He doesn’t pour out grace on me, restore me to wholeness, or direct my path for my sake, but for the sake of his name among the nations. My current breath, my next step, my life’s call is not about me at all. I do not walk in his will because it is easy, I walk in his will because he’s God. Living for my sake or even living for their sake has a limit, yet God is the only endless entity and there is no bottom when living for him. Loving others simply to love others is partial. While loving others to love him is perfect. He is bottomless, his ocean never ends; kick off from the shore and you’ll never find another side. It doesn’t matter what’s around the next bend, if its SBS staff I am walking in his will for his name, if its college I am doing the same. I do not live life to get mine; I am alive to glorify the divine.”

2/24 “the obedience of faith” (thoughts on Heb 11-12)
Not the obedience of sight, but the obedience of things hoped for and things not seen. The obedience of actually believing and investing everything in this promised homeland, this mount Zion, the city and kingdom of the living God. For so long I have invested all my resources in the kingdom of this world, hoping in a degree, a job, a relationship, etc. I am opening a new door (or is it being opened for me?) in my life. A door of wise investment, investing my time, my money, and my very life, not on something that is perishable (here today and gone tomorrow), but on only that which is imperishable. For so long I have thrown my chips on ground that will be shaken, it is time to invest them in the only kingdom that cannot be shaken. It doesn’t matter if my father frowns, deacon’s laugh, or friends raise eye brows. It doesn’t matter if I am poor, hated and spit upon by this world. The only thing that matters is Jesus Christ and I will waste my life on him and him alone.”

Life is wonderful and life is difficult
I have been living and ministering in South Asia now for more than nine months. It has been a season of extremes. And when I look back on my time, God’s fateful words on the flight from Bangkok to Bombay continue to ring true, “If this year is all about you it may be the most miserable year of my life, but if this year is not about you at all it may just be the best one yet.” Generally, the times I have been the most miserable have been the times I have been the most selfish and the times I have been soaring have been the times I have been the most selfless. But with that said, we still need to remember that inherently life is beautiful, but life is difficult. For example; even when I have been living to love God and love others my time in India has been very difficult. Jesus promised his disciplines that they would suffer, but he also promised them it would be worth it. Even when you are living for others, even when you are giving it your all, sometimes you still get punched in the face. And that’s ok; Jesus was killed for doing the same thing.

My prayer continues to be “Father, forgive me of my disobedience. Forgive me of my selfish selfcenteredness. Lord, I want to walk in repentance, to return to you and live in selfless obedience.”

Practical update (the nitty-gritty goodies)
• Russell and I just spent two weeks in Cambodia visiting Mark and Ashley Smith and their 9 month old baby Trey. It was nice to go to another country simply to see and encourage a missionary couple.














• Russell and I just finished teaching the prophet seminar for the School of Biblical studies towards in Lonavala, India. We started with the book of Joel. And next week they are going through Amos.

• I teach Jeremiah/Lamentations in the same school on May 25th-29th.

• I will be going to a consultation for SBS (the Bible school) next month in Germany from the 12-18.

• I have the privilege to lead the entire YWAM staff in a Bible study through the letter of Philippians this quarter.

• As India continues to be evangelized and the church continues to grow the need for Bible teaching is sky rocketing. We continue to teach regularly on the YWAM base and around India on how to study the Bible believing that “if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.”

• I am praying about when to come home. I am shooting for this summer and am leaning towards June, but still have not bought my plane ticket yet. I miss all of you and get so excited every time I think about coming home!

• All of you who support me, and consequently the ministry of Bible teaching in India, are amazing. I’m sure you will never fully realize the significance your contribution has had on God’s kingdom being established in the nations. We are truly blessed to be the ones chosen to make his dreams come true!