Home Thoughts From Abroad

We are a long way from home and it is not very often that our Canadian friends come by this way. It was especially sweet to have Al and Shelley come and stay with us for ten days. Al has been in here before with his work but it was Shelley’s first visit to Asia. November is in the dead of the monsoon season so a bit of a risky time to come. It had been a pretty dry couple of weeks and we were beginning to wonder if they would even get to experience the amazing monsoon rains which we actually love. We needn’t have worried!

For the first few days Steve was working so we didn’t go too far afield. I took them on a city tour on Thursday and then we met up with Steve at the end of the day for dinner at KLCC and then an evening at our favourite spot for watching the Twin Towers light and the dancing fountains; the Skybar at the Traders Hotel. Friday we hung around locally, spending the morning at the pool and then touring the university before coming home for dinner and a evening just chatting with friends; a rare treat for us.

On Saturday we made the climb up to Batu Caves on our way out to take the cable car up to Genting Highlands. There is not really much to see up there but we will never tire of the 4.38 Km ride over the rainforest. It was a beautiful day, sunny and bright at the top. Spent about three hours visiting over a great multi-country buffet. Sunday we went to church and did some shopping then came home to pack for a trip to Redang Island early the next morning.

We were up and ready for an early flight to Kuala Terengganu when we saw the first warning signs of heavy rain. We took off in the rain and as we came in for landing in KT the rains were torrential. We waded into the airport only to learn that the ferry to the island had been cancelled due to weather. However very helpful hotel staff met us at the airport and took us to their lounge while they arranged for a fast boat to take us to the hotel. We agreed to it because it really had to get better, right?

Even getting to the jetty was a challenge because the roads were pretty much flooded the whole way. The “fast boat” was open but covered by a canopy and they graciously provided us with rain gear while we bounced through eight to ten foot waves in the pouring rain. We took a few hard hits when the boat crested waves and then crashed into the troughs. We were happy to see the helpful hotel staff at the jetty with warm towels and a dry van. Took some negotiations and an upgrade to get settled into our lovely hotel rooms just steps from the beach. Just waited for the sun to come out after the rains. But that never happened!

We feel very privileged that we live in a world in which it is possible to take a Master’s level course through a seminary in the States from the other side of the world. And not just any seminary either. Fuller Theological Seminary is a leader in missiology and social justice, the two areas of greatest interest and impact in our ministries. The online format requires that we engage in dialogue with others in forum discussions. Believe it or not, you can actually get a pretty good discussion going this way. But we do miss the chance to meet people face to face and work through ideas as they are developing.  Alpha Omega International College is a Bible College in KL at which we can take courses in residence which can then be accepted for credit transfer to Fuller. Last week we finished out third course at AOIC.

We like to keep an eye out for visiting professors who come with a great deal of knowledge and broad experience with their topic. Last year we were fortunate to take a course with world renowned author and Christian leader Ajith Fernando. This past two weeks we took another course with an Australian, Amanda Jackson, who is the Head of Advocacy for the Micah Challenge; a global coalition of Christians holding governments to account for their pledge to halve extreme poverty by 2015 in compliance with the Millennium Development Goals. She is not only a very experienced communicator in church life and advocacy campaigns, but is a wife, mother, grandmother, pastor and a very gracious woman. She was also a great teacher and just plain fun to be around.

The course looked at what the Bible has to say about injustice and our mission as Christians to overcome it. As the course progressed, we learned even more fully that as Christians we need to be the voice for justice both locally and globally and become catalysts for change at every level of influence. In one text, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes You Just, Timothy Keller asserts: “If a person has grasped the meaning of God’s grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn’t live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God’s grace, but in his heart he is far from Him. If he doesn’t care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn’t understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.” Food for thought for anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ.

A month or so ago I was asked to undertake a ministry among the international students that attend our little church in Subang Jaya. I listened to that ‘still small voice’ within and found myself saying I would. It is not much of a ministry, to be honest. We meet once a week for ninety minutes or so. I basically run it like I would an English 3U class with lots of time for interaction with the written material and dialogue and only occasional direction from me on particularly troublesome points of the language.

I have been getting between eight and a dozen students each week and they are a real cross-section of cultures and countries. I have quite a few from South America, several from Africa, one from Russia and real sweetie from Mongolia. Today I met another, Kutasha Kasongo from Zambia after the morning service. He arrived just a few days ago with his very nervous parents, Richard and Janet who have come to see him settle in KL so he can further his education. Richard did his M.A. in Civil Engineering in England before returning to Zambia where he is now a consultant. Janet is a high school teacher and a history major with an emphasis on African pre-colonial history.

Their nervousness springs from the fact that their son is just 17, and this is the first time he has been away from home. As any good parents might be, they are anxious about their son’s welfare, and wanted to see him connected to a church that had an outreach to college students. They came to the right place, for our church has a heart for such kids and he will be well looked after. But imagine you are Richard and Janet. In faith you travel nearly half-way around the world for the good of your son so he can get a good start in life. You pray that you will find people who understand and care for your son when you can’t. And the Lord does exactly that. Wouldn’t that be a joy?

It was a joy to have all three of them in our little apartment for the evening. Pam did her usual wonderful meal. Janet was particularly delighted to find something she could actually eat, as the Chinese food hadn’t been sitting on her too well. And Richard was greatly relieved to see that his faith in the Lord’s provision and protection hadn’t been misplaced. As for us, we are happy that the Lord is able to use what we have to be an encouragement to others, no matter where in the world they call home. Scripture says, “Do not be forgetful to entertain strangers: for by this some have entertained angels unawares.” (Heb. 13:2). Or at the very least, had a very pleasant evening with lovely guests!

Hey Dave, we hope that you guys have a great weekend together at the cabin. Hope that the year ahead brings you new opportunities and adventures. We love you and are incredibly proud of you.

I am coming up for one year in my new position as Project Coordinator for Corporate Social Responsibility for the Taylor’s Education Group, a large educational provider that owns a university, two colleges and five schools in Kuala Lumpur. I have been working in one program, the Canadian Pre-University Program, at one of those colleges for six of the last seven years. A year ago I stepped into this position hoping to do some good in a larger context than just one program in just one college.

To say that this has been a stretching experience is accurate, provided you envision a medieval rack along the lines of the one used in The Princess Bride. Don’t let the fancy title fool you. I spent the first four months in this role at the end of a crowded bench normally reserved for student interns only slightly older than my grandchildren. Not to worry. Asian workers are nothing if not mobile, and of the four of us sitting on that bench, only I lasted longer than six months. There were plenty of offices available shortly as well. I simply moved into one of them, squatter-like, and dared them to evict me. The jury is still out on whether I will ever get my name on the door.

I spent those first four months largely on the move myself, leveraging my impressive title into meetings with the high and lowly, connecting social entrepreneurs with CSR-inclined businesses, finding out which staff were helping the community and which ones to avoid. After this initial phase and after a few meetings with the CEO to get his take on the whole matter, I began to formulate a website in my head. In my thoughts I saw a place where all those lowly staff, toiling away in the forgotten bowels of the enormous company could meet with each other across the internet. I would compose pages of the projects they were involved in and write up profiles of the staff and students involved. I would provide links to the community partners and post upcoming events they could participate in. It would celebrate community service and affirm those who cared about the larger community.

By now I had an office where I could meet and begin to compile and compose all of the information I needed. I called together some of the team in Marketing and gathered their advice and ensured their commitment. I pulled in the ICT department and enlisted their aid for what was going to become a detailed and complex website. I began to learn the software, a steep learning curve whose intricacies had been facilitated by our own blogsite which you are presently reading. I gathered more information more widely from other colleges and schools. As the database of all this information grew I began to transfer it to the pages I was developing, learning compositional tricks as I progressed. By the time I left for our break in May, the site had begun to take shape.

When I got back at the beginning of June I had managed to convince my CEO to hire an assistant. Amelia knew some things about graphics from previous positions and has been very helpful in the last push to get the site complete enough to publish. I worked with some graphic designers to get the whole CSR package branded, and after a dozen prototypes arrived at IMPACT!; a name that seems to have met with widespread approval. I secured permission for its inclusion on the staff and student portals and on 19 July 2014 it got a ‘soft’ launch with a letter of introduction from the CEO to all staff. You can see a screenshot of the result above, but only staff and students can login to view the site.

This journey is not over. On Friday I met with the ICT team once again, this time to find a vendor to retool the content beyond the limits of its Sharepoint template, to something more approaching the kind of look and feel that you would expect from an institution of this clout. Next week the team and I will meet with three vendors to outline the specifics of the projected revamped CSR site and allow them to work out some proposals. This process is expected to take three months, by which time Amelia and I have to finish all the content for the site so it can be migrated to the revamped format.

My days are long. I get here at 7 in the morning to get in a full day by 3 so I can get to my ‘other’ job over at Taylor’s College so I can keep my work visa which says ‘lecturer.’ On busy days at the College I get home after 6. Aside from our time in Canada, I haven’t taken a day off since I began this job a year ago, although I did take a couple of half-days when Liz and Greg and Matt and Kate were here. Outside of the people I work with on a daily basis, not ten people out there know what I am doing or why I think it is important. But some day, maybe before Christmas if all goes well, this site will go public, and then this institution will become identified by the sacrificial staff and students who are doing all they can to help those who need their help in the communities around us. And then I will have done some good.

According to United Nations, 54% or 3.9 billion of the world’s population, lives in urban settings and by 2050 it is estimated that that number will rise to 66%, a further 2.5 billion people. Given that the area of emphasis we have chosen for our Master’s is International Development and Urban Studies, we have taken several courses dealing with poverty, organizing in urban centers and understanding the unique needs for ministry in urban settings. These courses have also included some useful tools for assessing needs, engaging with communities, planning and implementing programs.

Steve is currently taking a course called “Encountering the City” which requires him to complete an ethnographic study of a neighbourhood. So today we set out for a four hour visit to Brickfields, Little India to do an exegesis of the area. This involves close observation and reflection, which is something we had learned how to do in a prvious course in Seattle. The word exegesis means a critical interpretation and is commonly what we do when we read the Bible, we exegete the text with a view to discerning its truth for our lives.If we are committed to serving in an area that God has called us to, then we need to be able to see what is going on in our areas, what the people view as most important, what they hope for, fear and believe. We also need to understand the narrative of their lives and their communities in order to see what God is doing so that we can seek and to partner with Him in the work.

In order to learn about the community we looked at the types of housing, the streetscapes, the transportation corridors, government services, community centers, charities, places of worship, stores, cafes, local hangouts, health care facilities, schools, graffiti and industries. Steve had prepared some survey questions which gave us opportunity to chat with the residents. Occasionally we invited respondents to join us for lunch. As we walked, sampled the street food and chatted we were able to get a sense of the places that represented life and hope and beauty for the community but also those that showed evidence of poverty, neglect and despair.

The Indians love their bright colours, music, flowers, food and family and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this community a bit better, practicing new skills and doing research for a current project. Our lives may seem a little strange to those of you who have much better things to do on a Saturday, but for us it was a fun and fascinating day filled with discovery and blessing.

Matt and Kate Thompson, friends from our church, West London Alliance in London, came to visit with us in Kuala Lumpur over the last few days. To say that we were excited to have them here doesn’t do justice to the occasion. Pam and I were like puppies who had been adopted. Really? You want to visit with us in KL? Really?

We laid out the royal carpet and got out the fine china. Well, okay, we have no fine china and carpets don’t make any sense at all in this climate. But metaphorically speaking, we did our best to make our guests feel welcome. For their part Matt and Kate were happy to be shown around town and game to jump through all the typical tourist hoops of seeing the Twin Towers and shopping in Chinatown. Rather unusually, Matt chose not to stock up on Rolex watches and Kate seemed to have no appetite for cut-rate Gucci handbags. But they did just come from Cambodia whose prices make Malaysia’s seem positively outrageous, so their reticence was perhaps understandable.

We climbed all 300 steps to the Batu Caves, and since the cable car was down for repairs, drove all the way to the top of Genting Highlands, Pam’s terror greatly modified by the fact that she couldn’t see anything of the road ahead through Matt’s head. Once at the top we had a lovely buffet meal which we didn’t rush through, and even took the time for a brief look at the Sunway Mall, all lit up in honour of Ramadan. They all got way too much sun lounging around the pool (while I ran around in panic mode at work) and slept comfortably in the guest bedroom (to which you, gentle reader, are also invited), having exhausted themselves in the service of the Lord at English camp in Cambodia.

All of this is pretty standard fare when you go to visit a foreign country which you are unlikely to see again. What was not standard fare, and very much appreciated, was the lovely long conversations about ministry and missionary service. This is all we have been doing for the last seven years, and we get very little chance to share what the Lord has been teaching us, where He has called us to minister, with the church He has called us to fellowship with. It is a strange disconnect, and one that cannot easily be overcome. They also brought with them the gift of cards and notes from the congregation; a gift of immeasurable value. We intend to open only one a day and pray for each one who was kind enough to write and encourage us.

We see in Matt and Kate a couple much like us; hearing God’s call to serve in what for many seems like an unusual way, not sure what it means for them professionally or personally, but willing to walk the road the Lord has marked out for them to journey along. We know from personal experience that this road is often lined with loneliness, loss and misunderstanding. But it is also a road of great wonder and joy as you watch God blaze a trail through an unknown difficulties with grace and kindness. Some of that grace and kindness came to us this week in the form of Matt and Kate, messengers of God’s love to us, and a reminder that His people have not forgotten us. We are humbled and blessed, and very, very grateful.