Meet J.C.

So...we're leaving in 3 hours.  Since we've gone before we think we can just wait until the last minute to pack... remind me not to do that next year.  Hence a short intro....

- jc

Mick 6/9

Lessons in faith even before I go…

This week at our SEA team meeting we watched a 10-minute video of a previous trip to SEA that members of our team took in 2005.

I was mesmerized.

I can't wait to see these people. Not in some pedantic "I'm American and you're not" kind of way, but truly to meet members of my family that I have never met.

There was footage of kids in the refugee camps singing songs and playing games and sharing in a joy that I take for granted here. It's easy to have joy in the states…we have little to no conflict. It's easy to go and play games or to sing songs about God, our churches aren't going anywhere any time soon.

But it's also easier to take these things for granted. If I were a Christian in Burma, for example, I may be singing praises and learning lessons one day and the next day, my church could be gone, or my pastor/leader could be arrested and taken away, or my parents could be killed in wartime violence.

How much I take for granted the life I live and the privileges I enjoy. Sure I've heard this message before and it has usually provoked guilt in me. But this time, it's real. It's no the guilt-manipulation of some far off deity telling me to clean my plate because there are children starving in China. I feel a sense of the preciousness of life in Christ: an appreciation for the mystery that God himself would make a way for me to partake in real moments with him and how tenuous that can become in a culture of affluence.

By our standards, I am not rich. I am lower middle-class at best. By SEA standards I own the cattle on a thousand hills. Yet, I am often dissatisfied. I lack. I want. I lust. I see my spiritual life like a consumer, looking for the next Costco-sized box of God that I can experience.

Oh, that God would change my heart and give me the courage to ask Him for the things I lack in my own spiritual poverty. So that I would not consume my faith or look for the next big thing in God, but that I would hunger and thirst for righteousness and therefore be satisfied.

Kahle 6/1/08

In case you’re curious…

I currently have the flu…and typhoid, Hepatitis A and B, and polio. That’s right, I’ve essentially paid the travel clinic of Santa Anna to inject me with the very diseases I was trying to avoid. Sure they‘re very weakened, something supposedly easy for my immune system to handle, BUT what if there’s a Rocky in the group. Some small but tenacious virus that is down for the count but is determined to go the distance with my immune system and makes a record come back that just wears it down and WHAM I’ve got polio. And then my very practical friends would say, “Well you asked for it.” And they would be right, I asked and paid for exactly that. 

Speaking of boxing, it feels like I got punched in the arm. Punched in the arm by a beefy guy with an equally beefy class ring. But I’m not complaining. I can take it. 

Guess what else I can take. Money. I’ve been wracking my brain lately looking for more relationships I can exploit for money for Jesus. It’s tricky. Support letters are tricky. You don’t want give too much detail because you want to respect people’s time, but you want them to know enough to be excited about it and to know what they’re getting into. You want to bring up the money part soon enough that they can glance at the email and know what you want, but you don’t want to just throw it out so soon that they think that you’re just another person asking for money. You want it to sound professional, but you don’t want to be impersonal. Hrmph. It’s just tricky.

Anyway that’s the trip related stuff I’ve been dealing with this week. So now you know and now you can feel in loop. You’re in! We’re in! We’re in this together, my pain is your pain. I hope that’s just as fulfilling for you as it is for me.

-mkm-

MEET Kahle

It is my understanding that this particular blog is to be an introduction. Be that as it may, I prefer to think of it as an outroduction. A: because I’m tempted to think that “outroduction” is a clever turn of the word, even though it’s not actually clever at all. And B: because if you put a little thought into it, it makes sense, though I’m sure you’d find if you put a lot of thought into it, it makes little or none. So for those of you less intellectually invested in this material, I propose the term “outroduction” as this time of getting to know us is in conjunction with seeing us off and sending us out.  

Now that that bit of silliness is out of the way. My name is Kahle (kāl). Among the passport photo’s you saw on the first page, I’m the one that looks like a fourteen-year-old that was just caught stealing a pack of gum. And I consider myself terribly blessed to be going on this trip; this adventure; this ministry; and this physical, emotional, and spiritual journey. And despite the sappiness of the sentiment I sincerely stand by it (three cheers for alliteration!). And not just for the going am I blessed but also for going with this particular team. For truly what other combination of people could more adequately present our Gospel of Freedom by such a testimony of facial hair? Mike with his traditional beard opposite Mick and his generally clean shave but for a hint of a shadow. And JC (perhaps the most liberated of us all) with his power chops and go-hawk complimented by his wife’s own very feminine lack of facial hair. And though I am currently sporting an unkempt beard, I will likely carry across the ocean only side burns of some moderate length. If that’s not an encouragement to the underground church in South East Asia, I’m not really sure what would be.

Speaking of encouragement, I can’t really explain how excited I am to meet brothers and sisters a world away. Family members who speak a different language, live a completely different live, and have extremely different trials and struggles, but share the same Faith. I should use and exclamation mark because I’m that excited… ! . I’m not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but as much as I am looking forward to helping and serving and encouraging these people in such a surrealistically dire situation, I am aware (in some crude sense) that I will likely be far more helped and served and encouraged by them. That thought is both a humbling and invigorating one, and I am eager to share with you every good thing as such thoughts turn to experience. 

Be blessed.

Love, 

-mkm-

(“mkm?” you might be thinking. “What’s that?”… Those are my initials.  My middle name is Kahle and my first name, like my last and like the names of the other non-leaders of the team, starts with M. So now you know and should no longer be surprised to see those particular letters where one would expect my name to be)

MEET Mick

I'm Flying to South East Asia, & Boy Are My Arms Tired...

I got my first set of shots on Thursday and let me tell you, there are few things that leave you as sore in the shoulders as a typhoid injection.

Sitting and bearing the agony of injections is one way of me "taking one for the team" already. What do I mean? Well to be honest, the pain is not that bad. (unless of course you go home, like I did and get repeatedly socked in the arm on the injection site by a family member --thanks Grammy!) It's a little pin-prick; not even as bad as when I give blood. But there is something psychological about it for me. I see even that tiny little needle knowing it's for a shot and I get panicky. I get dry mouth and the room starts spinning...I immediately want to run and find the nearest exit. I can't explain it. It's like I'm a kid again and I'm dreading the anticipation of something awful; something painful; something that will surely kill me.

The good news is that though I got tense with anxiety before my shots this week, I was able to take it like like a man. I got through them without much whining and even smiled at the nurse, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere else besides the Pasadena Public Health Center that day.

You know, it's the little things that add up to spiritual growth. I am a firm believer that one will play out what one rehearses. This means that if I want to be strong in an area, I have to rehearse strength in that area. So, if I can take my shots without complaint; if I can stand trough my nerves and psychological mind games, then the next time I have to face it, it won't be as bad. If I can look at that minor action as "suffering for the Gospel," then when I really have to "suffer for the Gospel" I will be that much more ready to do so.

I'm not trying to over spiritualize here, I know full well that taking a few shots in the arm to keep myself healthy is nowhere near suffering. I just mean that if I can see unpleasant circumstances or inconveniences or pain in a new light and not try to run from them, I will be better ready to stand in the midst of bigger, more real trials where the stakes are higher. And that is something worth cultivating indeed.

-Mick

SEA or BUST!

Welcome to the official blog of Ecclesia Hollywood's Southeast Asia Outreach Team... a record of five adventurous souls heading to Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.  We'd like you to get to know us pre, mid, and and post-trip.  And reading this will give YOU the chance to go -- vicariously! 

Stay tuned for introductions from each of the five members:

Autumn

J.C.

Kahle 

Mike 

Mick

And check back for new posts as we go from the concrete jungle of Hollywood to the bamboo jungle of SEA!

Gooooo, Team!

TEAM SEA