Thursday, May 29, 2008

Cambodia Impressions, Part 2

During our time in Cambodia, the Lord provided us with a diversity of opportunities. We spent week one ministering to MK’s from all over Cambodia while their moms and dads were gathered for an important annual spiritual retreat. This one week each year is a special time fondly anticipated by both the children and their parents. The M’s were deeply grateful for our coming, each expressing their heartfelt thanks for the loving care and Bible teaching we provided to their preschoolers through teenagers. It gave them a deep sense of security knowing we were there, with the freedom to focus fully on God’s agenda for the week. Many M’s told us they so appreciated the continuity we provided to their kids. By coming for consecutive years, we were able to build on the relationships begun last year, and the MK’s happily looked forward to seeing some familiar, loving faces again. M’s also told us that, living in isolation as so many of them do, it is such a wonderful thing to have positive adult Christian role models come from the States and teach their children Biblical truths. The MK’s hear it from mom and dad all the time, but to see and hear it from a different source is extremely invaluable to the kids in their personal spiritual growth and development.

During week two, we shifted gears, serving in remote villages by means of offering free eye clinics to the public. One day, we even had to ride a barge across a wide river to a distant island village where our eye doctor/leader had never even been before. We couldn’t believe it when our Cambodian van driver drove our rental van right onto the barge. I would never have dreamed it could have held the weight! Crossing the river was pretty exciting, especially since I got to stand next to a bicycle-riding pig farmer on the way across. Oink!

At each of the clinics, our team divided up and manned different stations, with the help of several Cambodian interpreters. After the eye doctor and his assistants performed their exams, some of our team filled prescriptions and fitted the patients with new glasses. Other team members manned blood pressure tables. Some worked with children. Some passed out Bibles and other Christian literature. Others did Gospel presentations to people in “the waiting room”. Still others took digital photo family portraits and printed them out for the people.

Every time we appeared at a village, it was truly a community event. People came from all over. One of the most amazing things to me was when an elderly Buddhist monk showed up to get his eyes tested! I smiled when he, like all other patients, was required to read portions of the Word of God (rather than an eye chart) as part of the eye test! Hallelujah! God sure gets His truth across to people in strange and unusual ways.

Speaking of God’s truth, during our Gospel presentations--led by Gary Caldwell (at left), Marie Stewart and myself--we always started at the very beginning with the Creation story and the Fall of Man. Then, continued on through to God’s solution to man’s sin problem, culminating in the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. After each of these group presentations, many individuals prayed to receive Christ. Gary, Marie and I were always careful to tell the people that Jesus was the “one true God, the God above all gods” and that becoming a Christian meant embracing Jesus and Jesus alone as “the God of your life.” (This is a vitally important truth to convey when speaking to people in a Buddhist culture, with all of their idolatry. Jesus isn’t just an add-on to your life. He is the be-all and end-all!)

Sometimes, we might be tempted to wonder about the validity or sincerity of mass conversions such as these. Especially when we don’t have the opportunity to continue to directly follow up with the people. Only God knows the heart, of course. We must simply be faithful to what He has called us to do, and then leave the ultimate results to Him. But, here’s an encouraging thought. One of our translators, a devout 22-year-old Christian woman named Rangsey (at right, in the red shirt), came to saving faith in Christ as a small child when a similar type medical clinic came to her home village several years ago. Her life today is a testimony to God’s faithfulness to His Word!

During week two, God also provided us with some unique opportunities to observe firsthand the work of M’s in different places. We saw many innovative ministries God is using to build bridges of trust with unbelievers throughout Southeast Asia. Some of these I can’t discuss online. But suffice it to say that the ingenuity and creativity of our M’s in Cambodia—many of whom are laymen rather than preachers—is truly awe-inspiring. God really excited me about the doors He is opening and the incredible things that are happening in the Kingdom of Cambodia. And it’s only just beginning.

Pastor Danny

Monday, May 26, 2008

Cambodia Impressions, Part 1

It was my first trip to Asia. And even before it began, I was already thinking it would in all likelihood be my last. After all, following my third trip to Africa in 2002, I had basically “sworn off” trips of that length, preferring to do mission work somewhat “closer” to home (like Latin America or Europe.) But now, here I was leading a team of 12 Mount Hermon members halfway around the world, to a place much farther than Africa, crossing 11 time zones as well as the international dateline in the process. I honestly had been dreading the trip. The grueling travel. All of those hours in the air. The jet lag. All in all, including short layovers, it was more than 24 hours of continuous travel, the longest leg being an exhausting 15-hour flight from Atlanta to Seoul, South Korea. Ugh! Being up in the air that long makes me feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone…a place wherein time and space are suspended. (By the way, on the return trip, when it seemed as if we lived through two successive Fridays, someone on the team said it reminded them of the movie “Groundhog’s Day”.)

Finally, we completed our long trek westward to the Far East (?) and we began to do our assigned tasks. As the days passed, however, God began to make clearer some of our reasons for being there. After our first week—in which I saw various ministry partners weep in gratitude for our coming to support them—I knew that this year’s trip must not be the ultimate culmination of our efforts to Cambodia. What we had begun, we must continue. I recognized that we simply had to send another mission team from Mount Hermon back again next year.

After that first week, I asked my wife Sandy, “Would you be willing to come back next year without me?” She had been part of the original team of six that we had first sent to Cambodia last year (without me). Yes, she replied, she would be willing to come back to Cambodia for a third time, whether I came or not. So, that’s what I thought would happen. We would send more people to Cambodia in 2009, but I personally would be “off the hook”, encouraging others to go but not directly participating in any future efforts myself. But then, as we moved into week two of our trip, and as I saw God moving and opening doors for us, and exposing us to so many potential opportunities, and as I saw lives being touched, I began to feel the compulsion that I too must return to Cambodia…even if I have to swim the distance rather than fly it!

In spite of my love for and interest in international missions, I honestly had never before had much of an interest in Asia. Particularly Southeast Asia. To me it had always seemed to be such a strange and mysterious place, so different and so far removed from us. But, in the final analysis, people are people, no matter where they live, how they look, or what language they speak. And all people everywhere need the Lord. Exposure is key. When God moves us out of our comfort zones, and we allow ourselves to be exposed to people of different cultures, God then uses those points of contact to truly open our hearts to other people.

In recent days, God began to put on my heart a love for the Cambodian people. A people who live in great poverty. A people who have known great misery (i.e., the evil Pol Pot regime and the “killing fields” of the 1970s.) A people who are in spiritual darkness due to the cultural saturation of Buddhism with its inherent idolatry. But a sweet people. A beautiful people. An open people. A spiritually hungry people. A people that need the Lord. During our time there, we were able to minister to many Cambodians and lead a number of them to saving faith in the one true God and the one true Savior of all mankind, Jesus Christ. And this, I believe, is only the beginning.

I wish there was some way to adequately describe to you all that our team felt, experienced and did during our two weeks in Cambodia. It was truly awesome. Some things I can’t post on my blog because of security issues. Suffice it to say that God exposed us to some remarkable things that He is doing in Cambodia. And I believe all of that unique exposure and insight was given to us for a reason. Not just to increase our knowledge, but as a basis for action. For I am thinking that God wants Mount Hermon Baptist Church—His global missions outreach center based in Pittsylvania County, Virginia—to put a major emphasis on Cambodia in the immediate future. What does that mean? I do not know at this time. But I want to encourage you to pray with me about that as we explore those possibilities in the months to come.

Pastor Danny

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Fiesta Grande in Florida

This past weekend, I made a quick trip down to Florida to speak at an important event for the Hispanic congregation that meets at First Baptist Clermont, my former pastorate.

Nine years ago—on the first Saturday of May 1999—First Baptist Clermont officially launched its Hispanic Ministry. For nine years it operated under the umbrella of the main church, with our Hispanic Pastor serving as a member of the overall church staff. During those years, the Spanish-speaking group had the goal of growing toward self-sufficiency, ultimately becoming a church in its own right. Just recently, they were able to incorporate as a separate, independent entity. No longer the Hispanic Ministries of the First Baptist Church of Clermont, they are now La Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana de Clermont (or the First Hispanic Baptist Church of Clermont, if you prefer). So, this year’s 9th anniversary observance was cause for an even greater celebration.

When the ministry was launched back in 1999, we started out with Saturday night worship in the church sanctuary. But within a few months, we felt Sunday morning would prove more effective, so we moved the Spanish language service to Sunday at 11 AM, allowing the group to meet in our Christian Life Center (gymnasium), where they’ve met ever since. Once we started our Haitian ministry a couple of years later, we had three worship services in three different languages happening concurrently on our church campus, which was really exciting. Even more special were our periodic joint worship services, with all 3 congregations meeting together. We would have Haitian, Latino, and Anglo music all as part of the service. Then, the message in English would be translated electronically through headsets (a la the United Nations) for those without a basic understanding of English. Those special events were some of my happiest times. Each time we did it, I always learned a few new phrases that I could say from the pulpit in Spanish and in French as a way of connecting more intimately with our language groups. (Spanish is fine, but French is way too hard in my book! I always had much more difficulty with it.)

I was quite honored that the Hispanic congregation invited me back as guest speaker for this important milestone in their history. I had been one of the “attending physicians” in the “labor and delivery room” at their “birth.” Now, years later, here I was the “commencement speaker” for their “graduation exercises” as they prepared to “leave the nest” and move on to “adulthood.” It was a great time of celebration, thanking God for all He had done. Special guests included representatives from the Florida Baptist Convention, the Lake County Baptist Association, and First Baptist Clermont, the mother church, as well as some other Hispanic congregations from Central Florida.

Pastor Jose Soto hosted the festivities. Pastor Jose and his family—wife Maria, daughter Mari, son Pepe—have been involved with the Hispanic work in Clermont since its inception. Jose shares my heart for missions. He and I tried to work with other Anglo Baptist churches and Baptist associations in Central Florida to encouarage the start of additional Hispanic ministries throughout the region. We weren’t always that successful, however, due to (I believe) the fact that Anglo churches have to wholeheartedly embrace such a venture (as well as wholeheartedly embrace the Hispanic people) in order for it to thrive. Some churches, honestly, are just not prepared to do that. They enter into it erroneously thinking it’s simply a matter of giving the Hispanic group a set of keys and lending them some meeting space. Pastor Jose and I understood, however, that it's really all about mutual love & respect & being relational. And that's an example we tried to set for others. Pastor Jose also shares my global vision. Over the years, he led combined Hispanic-Anglo mission groups from our Florida church to Mexico (several times) as well as other parts of Latin America. He also accompanied me twice on mission trips to Cuba.

Just before I spoke Saturday night, Pastor Jose presented me with a plaque from the Hispanic church for the role I had played in their founding and development. I’ve received a few plaques in my life, most of which are now gathering dust somewhere. But this one will find its way to a special spot in my office, right alongside one presented to me by the Haitian congregation just before I moved from Florida in 2006. For, truly, these two language works represent two of my most personally rewarding ministry achievements during my 11½ years in Clermont. In the words of the Apostle Paul, they are “my joy and my crown.”

The service on Saturday night was great, but it ran a little longer than expected. We had dinner at 5:00 PM. Worship began around 6:00 PM. But I didn’t get up to speak until 7:00 PM. After concluding my remarks, and with the service continuing, I raced out the door to an awaiting car at about 7:25 PM, making it to Orlando International Airport in near record time. Then, passing through all the obligatory security checks, I reached the gate for my 8:40 PM departing flight just as everyone was boarding. After a raucous rock-and-roll rollercoaster of a ride—there were storms all along the Eastern seaboard—complete with crying toddlers exhausted from their last long day at Disney World, we finally landed (whew!) at Raleigh-Durham at about 10:30 PM. Sandy picked me up and we were home in Danville by 12:00 midnight, and then (after doing some final sermon prep and about four hours of sleep) I was up again to preach at our 8:30 AM service that morning.

It was a long day, but one I’ll certainly always remember with joy.

Pastor Danny