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Before Christmas Pam and I arranged to go to Cambodia during the week we get for Chinese New Year and do some ministry. Pam has a number of meetings scheduled regarding her responsibilities to TWR and health initiative she is developing. I agreed to do some teaching at a training center, freeing up the regular teacher to meet with Pam, and just generally keeping out of the way.

I was asked to teach on Eastern religions, a subject I knew something about in my youth, but have largely neglected ever since (I studied Tai Chi for two years, a practice of Taoism, and consulted the I Ching on occasion, revered in Confucian tradition). The Chinese stuff I got pretty quickly. It is remarkably straightforward, if a little arcane. But the older mythologies have really got my head in a knot.

Egyptian and Babylonian deities are mental miasma, shifting from one into another with dizzying and logic defying results; yet they are fundamental to the development of later Hindu and Buddhist mythologies. But Hindism itself will turn your mind to mush; with so many different and contradictory schools promoting their own interpretation of an amazing plethora of gods and incarnations.

I copied my results over to the laptop I am taking with me, and even I was surprised at the number – 90 – of documents I have cut, pasted, edited, paraphrased and rewritten in the last month. I estimate about 50 hours of work, Pam puts it closer to 100. Whichever it is, I am looking forward to opportunity to present it finally to these young students and hope it will be a blessing to them and to others as they seek to reach the community around them with an understanding of their beliefs, and the message of Truth.

Please pray for us both as we minister this week in His holy name.