February 5th, 2011
I woke up this morning to karaoke worship. You see, I sleep in the living room, which is where the TV is, so this is a morning occurence. My vocal cords connect real well, so my voice ends up being an octave deeper than normal; it’s a great morning voice.
After that we had breakfast, followed by some more clearing of land for s few hours with bolos (asian-style machetes). Cinthia Bunford (cinthiabunford.theworldrace.org) likens it to deforestation, which it is, and then poluting the atmosphere when we burn the brush, which it is. It’s funny because I’ve thought the same thing as I’m falling small trees with my bolo. But we’re using the land to save souls so it’s OK, right? lol
I and few guys hop in the stream to clean off and go have lunch. Afterward Jake (jakevannorman.theworldrace.org) and I decide to go upstream and chat up whoever the Lord leads us to as we come across little villages. But we have our separate quiet times first and when I’m done with mine I end up falling “anap” waiting on Jake. We eventually get going and meet a guy named Alan somewhere along the path. We chat him up for a bit and invite him up to play basketball with us later that evening, where Jake and some other racers including Derek Begin (derekbegin.theworldrace.org) and Micah Higgins (micahhiggins.theworldrace.org) build relationships with the local youth through basketball. We move on upstream and don’t see another English speaker as we go up. I had brought some tracts to pass out, just in case.
Eventually we make it a place called “The Waterfalls” which is a popular tourist spot. The entrance fee is 20 pesos but we came in “the back way” through the river so we didn’t pay, but left as soon as we found out that we should have paid. It’ll be a nice place for people to go on a day off, so everyone was glad we found it.
I concluded that my ministry for the day was having some man-time with Jake as we hiked upstream. We’re kind of in similar places spiritually and having a friend to unload on and also encourage was good for us both. You know, most people think that because we’re the missionaries we must have already had all our junk worked out and we’re just ready to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to go at a moment’s notice. It’s fun to see people’s faces, especially if they’re a new AIM contact, when they realize, “Oh, you guys have problems too?” and suddenly we become human to them. The fact is we don’t have our junk worked out, we’re still going through our mess just like you. As Peter the apostle said when he went to Cornelius the gentile’s house, “Don’t bow before me, I’m a man just like yourself.” Or how James describes Elijah: “Elijah was a man just like us.” Elijah had his junk. It’s in the bible for endless generations to read. He wussed out and said, “God, I can’t do this anymore.” Peter had his junk: He denied Christ and was rebuked by Paul for showing bias away from the gentiles when Jews were present. People got junk, and God knows it, yet he chooses to use us and live in us because that’s the kind of loving God he is. If you think you gotta clean up your junk before the Lord can use you that’s a lie straight from hell. He chose you while you were still a sinner so why think you gotta be perfect before he can use you? I’m talking to myself here.
The plan for the tomorrow is to run youth church and then the guys are going to step up and go down to the beach to witness to some men. The sex trade is two-fold: men in some sort of desperation, and women stuck in poverty with seemingly no other choice. Believe it or not, we (girls included) have reasoned that the men are just as much victims as the women, victims of loneliness or lust or despair… what we’re saying is that the sex-trade is just the fruit of a tree that has deep social and psychological roots in the lives of the men, too. Maybe his wife, the love of his life, just cheated on him and got the house and kids in the divorce? I mean who knows? I don’t think the average man just buys a ticket around the world to go have cheap sex cause it’s fun. There’s some brokenness there, and if we can help mend that with some Jesus then that much demand is removed from the sex industry. If and when there’s not enough demand to make it profitable, it’ll stop. Maybe we can’t stop it globally for all time, but we can stop it for one man, for one woman, for their whole life. Maybe for this beach, for this community, who knows?
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
