Stateside..for meetings & study, friends & family

The Covenant Annual Meeting was held in Irvine, CA this year.  And the theme was right up our alley:  "Remaining Faithful, Serving Globally".  Our friends and colleagues, Bob & Grace Shim, set a great tone for the meetings in their two morning devotionals.  They shared how God had allowed them to connect with friends in Kyrgyzstan on levels which surprised and humbled them--in pain, in disappointment, and unfulfilled expectations.   

We spent many hours in meetings and were not able to attend most of the main sessions.  But we realized, again, how blessed we are to be part of this organization and team.   

Prior to the meeting and after we had time with our extended families in SoCal and Colorado.  Good, good times.  The night we reached Colorado Springs was the night when the Waldo Canyon fire took 346 homes.  We lived with smoke and ash for days, but it didn't ruin Colorado's natural beauty.  A few pictures...

Darcy Quinn, Ruthie, Mary Jo McCurry, Erin Dutton Quinn, Peter, Don McCurry

Heading out to the park with Dominic & Darcy

3 McCurry sisters: Mary Beth, Ruthie, Jo Ann

Taiwan again...this time Peter

It has taken us nearly two years, but we have finally visited all the countries where we have personnel and active partnerships.  Taiwan was the last--simply because it was the least urgent.  Ruthie and Nancy Jo visited Covenant expat personnel more than a month ago.  Now it was my turn--to visit Taiwan Covenant churches.  I went not so much to encourage or catalyze, but to listen and learn.   

Amazing!  Taiwanese Covenant churches are growing like crazy!  There are now four churches with close to 1,000 members.  One church--the mother church at Xindian--is just finishing a new sanctuary.  They are not into thinking small or being timid.  In order to take the church to the people, they decided to buy a building designed for a shopping mall.  The first three stories are, indeed, going to become a shopping mall.  But the fourth story...a 3,000 seat sanctuary, visible from one of Taipei's most important freeway interchanges.  

Xindian church taking shape in a shopping complex

Looking down on the shopping mall

  

Three more things really caught my attention:  the way churches are reaching into their communities, their mid-week prayer meetings attended by hundreds of people, and the bridges they are building into the mainland. 

Nearly every church I visited has afternoon tutoring programs for children from the neighborhood.  Many churches were actively involved in public schools in their neighborhoods where they have been asked to teach classes on ethics and other relevant subjects.

Teaching in a public school

A restaurant operated in a shopping center as an outreach to ex-prisoners

And those prayer meetings!  Hands stretched out.  Praying out loud, speaking in tongues--these were unlike any other Covenant church I have been in.  But why shouldn't they be?  Different is good.  The Apostle Paul said,  "Do all speak in tongues?  Do all interpret?"  I take it the answer is "No."  But then he said, "Now eagerly desire the greater gifts."  As for me, I just sat there--enjoyed the worship and the praise.  And I prayed again, "Lord, give me those gifts you want me to have."  (I Cor. 12:30-31)

 

Now about those bridges.  Nearly every pastor I met is involved in active ministry in the mainland.  When I was growing up we talked about "the iron curtain, the bamboo curtain"--those barriers separating the communist/non-communist world.  This is not news, of course, but...those things don't exist anymore.  Hundreds of bridges have been built.  It's hard to escape the conclusion--that's a good thing, an amazing work of the Spirit.     

  

A new ARC for us

Trying to visit all the personnel in Asia last year, on top of many consuming issues here in Chiang Khong, was a bit much for us.  

We asked Curt Peterson and the WM Leadership Team if we could bring a few other experienced cross-cultural workers together on a Council to help us with the work.  And so was born, early this year, the Asia Regional Council (ARC).  We asked Nancy Jo Hoover (China) to assist us with China & India and Bob Shim (Thailand) to take responsibility for Kyrgyzstan & Mongolia.  Tim Johnson (Japan) agreed to help, along with two Country Coordinators, Randy Bevis (Thailand) and Gary Carlson (Japan).

So, how does this help?  We meet together once a month by teleconference.  We talk about strategic directions and placement of personnel.  When we take trips, it isn't always just Ruthie and me.  One of us can stay home and a member of the Council travels with the other.  Already this has been a tremendous blessing to us and to those workers we are visiting (more on that in a bit).

Mongolian Mixup

Bob Shim, one of the people we have asked to serve on our Asia Regional Council, agreed to help us with Mongolia.  Together we made plans to visit Jim & Liz Sedore, our Covenant workers in Ulaan Bataar.  With Bob's five years in Kyrgyzstan, we thought, "Similar culture, similar issues.  Goats.  People.  Lots of medical work and interesting projects.  This could work!"

Of course just getting there-and getting out--presented its challenges.  From Beijing we were an hour-and-a-half in the air.  Then they said the Mongolia winds wouldn't let us land.  China Air put us up in a hotel.  Bob took Korean Air via Inchon and arrived no problem.

For the first day Bob was singing one tune:  "Wow.  This is so much like Kyrgyzstan it's incredible.  Once you've see one post-Soviet Asian republic, you've seen them all.  Same spiky lamps down the middle of the road.  Same ugly apartment blocks.  I feel right at home!"  That made me feel good.  I hadn't dragged him into the world of Genghis Khan for nothing.

So, we sat through 4 days of meetings.  Bob agreed to take my place on the board of Joint Christian Services.  And yes, we took an extra day each waiting for the winds to die down so we could fly home.  

But here's the bottom line:  So much about this place is unique and interesting!  Jim & Liz are part of a unique organization-an umbrella organization under which dedicated workers from scores of backgrounds and traditions are working together to bring positive change and assistance to the people of Mongolia.  Jim is charged with liaising with government and other international organizations.  Liz pours herself into the lives of women at a shelter for commercial sex workers.  The women there turn out some beautiful jewelry that you can find on their blog.

And this is a unique time for Mongolia!  The church there has grown rapidly over the last 20 years.  But with the world's fastest growing economy and major mining companies vying to exploit newly found mineral wealth, the challenges of this place are tremendous!  If you like that and you sense God urging you to a new frontier, think about joining Jim & Liz and the other JCS people in Mongolia.

Taiwan for two

Nancy Jo Hoover was a far better companion for Ruthie than me, I'm sure.  As our most versatile, experienced veteran, Nancy Jo has worked in more countries, adjusted to more contexts, than almost anyone I know.  And you know what she's really good at?  Being a catalyst-without "taking over".  That's a rare gift.

She went with Ruthie to visit Don & Lillian Dwight and Caryn Camp at Morrison Academy in Taejon.  Some have asked:  "Why are we supporting people to serve as teachers in a school that no longer serves our cross-cultural workers?  Shouldn't we rather place people out on the front lines?"  

Here's what Ruthie found out:  This is the front line!   

Morrison's student body is more than half Taiwanese.   Every year, scores of students find Christ.  Like Carl Groot's work at ICS school in Bangkok, this school has a tremendous impact in the community.  Don & Lillian, Caryn Camp, & Carl Groot--these folks work hard in their schools.  And in their "spare time" they're busy cultivating relationships, nurturing small groups of believers, teaching, and helping.  Ruthie said it was a real blessing to see these friends "in situ".  Now I'm jealous I didn't go.

Home, home on the mill

MVF is humming along.  We produced our one-millionth kilo of blended flour on March 20th.  Always there are glitches-like when we found clumps in our potassium chloride, one of the mineral additives we have purchased from a new supplier.  Not good!  Can't have clumps of salt in our food.  So, we closed down the whole production line and declared a sifting party-we don't have a machine for this. Hours later we had enough mineral additives for our next week's production.  When Wessel was satisfied, we were back in production!

 

Then there was the issue of cash flow.  On top of our standing orders, we received a large order from Burma.  Just a few days before I'd repaid loans, a month early.  Now we didn't have the funds to buy rice and soybean.  We were maxed out.  

But you know what? Someone was looking out for us.  We asked and a couple of our suppliers gave us a month of credit.  Now...our warehouse is bursting with flour, waiting for their vaunted logistics teams to get the shipments scheduled.  We've made our deadlines.  But our big customers are...well...cumbersome, slow to pay.  

Like Dr. Seuss's little turtle, Mac, we're at the bottom of the pile and we're squeaking.  "We're dyin' down here!"  Yurtle, the big Turtle up top, says he hears us.  But we're not so sure.  Stay tuned.  We feel a burp coming on.

 

Back in Laos--and feeling blessed!

Last time I was in Laos I left in kind of a hurry. Don't know what came over me, but something just felt so oppressive. I had to get out of here. I guess I was still carrying some baggage from our time here, maybe a bit of anger about how we had been treated, at how our lives had been disrupted after so many years of pouring our lives into the people and problems here.

This time it's different. Feeling once again that God is at work here (of course he never stopped) and that the last chapter for us, as far as Laos is concerned, is not yet written. I am here with two twenty-somethings--the children of good friends of ours. They are wondering what God wants them to do with their lives. So I have the joy of showing them parts of this little country, of introducing them to some great work going on here, of giving them a window on the issues and opportunities of this place. This is great!

One great blessing has been to see how they agricultural machinery and equipment we worked so hard to bring into Laos is once again being used to bless the people of this place. A good Lao friend of ours bought the equipment from us and has transported it to an area outside of Vientiane where it is part of an evolving plan and growing vision to set up grain harvesting centers in many of the poorest parts of Laos. So, once again the grain bins are full of corn. Once again farmers are growing for the market. Once again committed people are being placed in places where they can be salt and light.

This does my heart good. I feel good.

Kristina & Erik Amundsen with Iona Rogers

The few grain bins we had have now proliferated! There's a great story here.