renown

new pics posted

2010-10-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

new pics posted

2010-09-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

new pics posted

2010-08-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

new pics posted

2010-07-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

new pics posted

2010-06-30T03:49:00.000-07:00

Again, we only took a few pictures this month. The one above is of our part Tibetan Mastiff at about eight months. Her name is Hair Bender after one of our favorite blends of Stumptown Coffee. We call her Bendie to give her name a bit of a feminine touch.

new pics posted

2010-05-31T03:33:00.000-07:00

We only have a handful of pitures for May because I spent half the month in/trying to get to and out of the mountains.

-J

new pics posted

2010-05-31T03:11:00.000-07:00

I spent a week of May in the mountains doing a medical camp with some friends. Click here to check out some photos from the trek.

-J

new pics posted

2010-04-30T02:56:00.000-07:00

We spent the month of April in the mountains so all the photos for the month are in the "10 M trek" file in our web album.

*new pics posted

2010-04-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

*new pics posted

2010-03-31T10:05:00.001-07:00

The Hobbit

2010-03-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

In the third chapter of The Hobbit, “A Short Rest”, we find the same Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings leading thirteen dwarfs on a quest to conquer the dragon, Smaug, and reclaim the treasure of their forefather, Thrain, “King under the Mountain”. As with the rest of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the journey is perilous, good souls die but in the end, good overcomes evil. And just like The Fellowship of the Rings, this fellowship of fifteen finds rest on their journey in the home of Elrond, the chief of the Elves of Rivendell. This is what Tolkien writes of their stay:

“His house was perfect, whether you like food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.”

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway. They stayed long in that good house, fourteen days at least, and they found it hard to leave. Bilbo would gladly have stopped there for ever and ever – even supposing a wish would have taken him right back to his hobbit hole without trouble. Yet there is little to tell about their stay.”

My heart resonated with Tolkien’s when I read the last line. “For ever and ever”, at least the rest of Bilbo’s waning life, would have been little to tell about if he never left the “things that are good to have and days that are good to spend”. But he left that good house and there is much to tell about the rest of his stay in Middle Earth.

-J

*new pics posted

2010-02-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

thank God for sickness and disease

2010-02-08T01:54:00.000-08:00

About a week ago Si became sick. He's had the typical gi symptoms that are so familiar to us. He hasn't been able to shake it. Sager has also had off and on diarrhea this last week. Last night, T and I came down with food poisoning. It's laid me out. I spent the morning in bed. I couldn't walk across the house without losing my breath. We're a sad bunch right now. As is usually the case, T has been the stronger of the two of us when sick and she has cared for the kids real well today. She's amazing! But while lying in bed this morning and trying to lie in bed this afternoon two things happened. My mind began to bargain with God, "God, if you'll make me well then I'll quit this sin, or take that sin more seriously when I'm better, ..." Unfortunately the times when I bargain with God are usually when I'm treating him like a vending machine. Rarely have I ever bargained with God about his glory or the lost. But thank God that he uses sickness and disease to create a sobriety and disdain in our hearts for sin. The second thing that happened as I tried to get comfortable enough to sleep, which is really difficult when you've been in bed so long, is that I thought of those who are bed-ridden and live daily with the pain in their bones and muscles that I was experiencing this afternoon. It created compassion in me for bed-ridden people and caused me to pause and petition God on their behalf which I never would have done had I not gotten sick. Thank God for the severe mercy of sickness and disease.

-J

*new pics posted

2010-01-30T23:42:00.001-08:00

*new pics posted

2009-12-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

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2009-11-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

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2009-10-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

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2009-09-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Breakfast on a recent trip a friend and I made into the mountains.
-J

*new pics posted

2009-08-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

These are our chickens. The one on the left is Pretty. The one on the right is Ugly. Together they're pretty ugly.

*pics of '09 M trek posted

2009-08-30T01:43:00.000-07:00

*new pics posted

2009-07-31T01:20:00.000-07:00

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2009-06-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

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2009-05-31T09:31:00.000-07:00

*new pics posted

2009-04-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

"Corrective Tract for the Prosperity Gospel"

2009-04-25T00:49:00.001-07:00

Mark 8:34-36

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

We found this on www.desiringgod.com. They called it a "Corrective Tract for the Prosperity Gospel"- the ugliest of American theological exports we encounter here in the church. While we hate the prosperity gospel, we realize that we too often have attitudes that are consistent with this false gospel. Anytime we get bent about our circumstances not going the way we would like them to go- beneath that is an attitude of entitlement toward God. As though because we are Christians we deserve to have lives that are affluent and healthy and that go the way they want them to. So, while we resist this false gospel in our own context, we also guard against it, in it's more subtle forms in our lives.

-J

*new pics posted

2009-03-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

sweet resolution

2009-03-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2002, while working for Peak 3 Outfitters in the mountains of Colorado, I read John Piper’s signature book called Desiring God. It has been, so far, the most formative book I’ve ever read and it set my life on a trajectory from which I doubt, by God’s grace, I will ever deviate. In this book Piper demonstrates the harmony of the two greatest realities that govern human experience- that we were created for the glory of God, and that above all, men seek there own happiness. The harmony he demonstrates is that God is most glorified in us when we are happiest in him. He then discusses the implications of this for life. If you haven’t read it I highly recommend it.

While this book opened my eyes to realities that blew my mind, it also delivered to my soul a weighty “crisis of faith” for which I found no resolution until last week. That’s six and half years of uncertainty and lack of assurance and fear. I want to try to share this with you for three reasons. First, I want to boast before you and God that He gives and He takes, blessed be his name. Second, maybe you, like I was, are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith. I want to encourage you that God knows and that He cares and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, you will respond in one of three ways. I want you to choose the right response.

The crisis of faith as simply as I can put it was this: that summer of 2002 I learned what takes place at conversion, that God opens the eyes of our hearts and we see the beauty and the worth of Christ for the first time. And seeing him, we also see and are devastated by our sinful condition and are compelled to respond in two ways. We respond in love for Christ, in that moment he becomes our treasure. And we respond in faith, which is our dependence upon Christ to reconcile us to God. Half of this was familiar to me, the other half wasn’t. I grew up hearing the same thing most of us did. You’re a sinner, repent and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. There was never anything about Christ becoming my joy. As I recall, he was usually just extended as a means of getting out of hell and being accepted into the Christian social structure. So this scared me.

I began to question my own conversion experience. Did this happen? Did Christ become my treasure? Because of this, I became quite conscious of my inner life. I became very aware that I didn’t value Christ anywhere near his worth. In addition to this, I was very aware of how difficult it was for me to love people. And I was also very aware how much and how often I delighted in sin. And this really scared me. My honest evaluation of myself was that, given how little love for God and people I found in myself, and given the degree to which I enjoyed sin, I was either emotionally dysfunctional at best or unconverted at worst. So I talked to a lot of people (pastors, professors, anyone who I thought might be able to deliver me from this crisis). I read a lot of books. I prayed earnestly that God would increase my love for him and people. I lived with varying degrees of anxiety because of this for six years.

And then last week came glorious resolution to this crisis. We had had a long day. They’ve all kind of seemed like that lately. It was late in the evening. I just wanted our kids to go to sleep so I could find some peace but they just wouldn't. And sitting in the dark, in a chair, holding my daughter, I experienced emotions toward my children that I didn’t think were possible. Didn’t do anything, just emotions, but it was as if my heart was making it’s final, fatal condemnation of me. The thoughts went through my head, you don’t even love your own children. How could you possibly love God or anyone else for that matter? The experience left me almost hopeless. It just about confirmed to me that I was in an unconverted state. How could I feel this way toward my children? I left the room, T took the kids and I sat alone completely hopeless. After T had gotten the kids to sleep she found me and we had a long talk about all of this. She encouraged me to confess any sin I was holding onto which I did. This was hard but I think in retrospect it was an essential piece of the resolution. She then said that she, by chance, or probably more accurately, by God’s design, had listened to a sermon the previous week which dealt exactly with the crisis of faith I was experiencing and encouraged me to listen to it which I did that night.

The sermon was preached by John Piper. I’ll do my best to distill it down for you to the main pieces that resolved my crisis of faith. Piper posed the question, the day is going to come in your life when you will fail to love someone the way you should. What are you going to do when, according to 1 John and other places, love for people is the evidence of your conversion? How are you going to reassure your heart when it condemns you, which it will? 1 John says it will.

His answer was that, though faith and love happen in a moment at conversion, it is of upmost importance that we keep them distinct from one another. This is what he meant.

1 John 2 is familiar to us. If we sin (by sin, John is referring to not loving people the way we ought) we have an Advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. John assumes that Christians sin, that we will fail to love each other the way we should. In fact, he calls us a liar if we say we don’t (1 John 1:8). And when we sin, John says we can be sure of one thing, we have an Advocate before God- Jesus Christ the righteous. And everything hangs on why we think he’s our Advocate. And this is where I went wrong. Is it because we’ve been loving people pretty good? Is that the bottom of our hope? Been loving God as much as He is worth. Is that the grounds of my union with the Advocate? I, without realizing it, was believing it was. I thought he wasn’t my Advocate because I found so little love in me. That’s where I went, confusing love and faith, and I was undone, sitting in the dark holding Iri, hopeless of my conversion, about to throw it all in, pack our bags and head home. The answer, the resolution, is that we have an Advocate because we trust him. Faith is the way we are united with Christ. He’s never failed in loving people the way we should have. We fail every day perhaps. He doesn’t. We have an Advocate He is the righteous, the perfect One, the loving One. The reason this works for us, this Advocacy, is that the meaning, the definition of faith, is that in conversion we receive Christ. Love isn’t that. The meaning of faith is that eyes go open, Christ becomes beautiful as our righteousness, our punishment, our treasure, our love and our immediate, no lapse of time response is receive! I take you! Your mine! You offer yourself. I take you! That is the act by which we are united to the Advocate. Love is the going out to God and people. Faith is a receiving. I got these things confused and got six and-a-half years. Faith is the welcoming of all God is for us in Christ. Love is the overflow of this fullness, this standing. It is by faith alone that we are united to Christ. As Piper put it, faith is the fountain, everything else the stream.

So the resolution to my crisis was this: My ability to love God and to love people imperfectly is rooted in and based on my assurance that in Christ I love them perfectly already.

In other words, even as I fail to love as I ought, Christ’s perfection stands before God for me as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on my behalf in light of his never having failed where I did.

As I wrote earlier, I wanted to share this with you for three reasons. First, this realization brought great peace to my heart and filled me with a renewed love for Christ the righteous and people, and renewed the joy of my salvation. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be his name!

Second, if you are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith I want to encourage you that God knows, and that he cares, and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. In the midst of this I thought to myself and even told T, if I were a single person, I’d quit life and pursue this crisis with all my strength. But I had responsibilities and couldn’t do this and was left to either resign myself to taking this crisis to the grave, which seemed surely to put me in the grave early, or to trust God to meet me in the midst of my responsibilities. I hoped in God, it was as feeble a hope as I can imagine, but by God’s grace I chose hope and He met me and He will do the same for you in your circumstances.

Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, when you fail to love someone the way you ought and your heart condemns you, there will be three options and I want you to choose the right one. You can respond in hard working legalism, just gonna work hard on my own strength to love better next time. Or you may become bitter and hopeless and just give it all up to immorality. The final way is to reassure your heart that you have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous who stands before God for you as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on your behalf in light of his never having failed where you did.

-J

*new pics posted

2009-02-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

*new pics posted

2009-01-31T21:12:00.000-08:00

Below is a picture of battery powered tempos, or tuk-tuks as we call them. They are one of the main modes of transportation we use to get around the city. As you see in this picture, a couple days this month they obstructed traffic by parking for the day on one of the major thoroughfares of the city. They did this to protest the shortage of electricity (it's available only eight hours a day) which has hurt their business (they aren't able to fully charge their batteries so they aren't able to operate as many tuk-tuks as normal) and crippled life in the valley.

Si & T in the Christmas tent

2008-12-25T05:43:00.000-08:00

T and our Thanksgiving quarter-a-goat

2008-11-30T05:25:00.000-08:00

*new pics posted

2008-10-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

death is so near in this place

2008-10-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

A month earlier I had seen my first freshly dead body just outside my home back in the city. Not that I’d never seen a dead body or even a young one. I’d been to funerals and served as honor guard over the bodies of fellow soldiers during my time in the Army. I had just never seen one so freshly dead- within minutes of death and without the makeup and props of a western funeral. Now I found myself in the foothills of the Himalaya staring down at the body of man who, three minutes earlier, was driving the bus ahead of mine. Only his head, shoulders and right arm emerged from beneath the bus. His face was a deep purple and blood was still flowing from his ear down the line of his jaw. His sister wailed nearby. His father, sitting on the side of the road with his face in his hands, moaned, “My son, my son.” He was the only fatality when his bus rolled after he took a turn too wide and caught the front right tire in a drainage ditch. He had either tried to jump at the last moment, or was thrown in the roll, and was crushed. This time was more difficult for me than the last. I believe both because of the nature of the death and my difficulty believing that I was experiencing death again so soon. It was the second time in as many months and two more than I experienced in my first twenty-eight years of life. The rest of the day the words, “death is so near in this place”, echoed in my head. It was a sobering reality that reminded me of the weightiness of life.

*new pics posted!

2008-09-28T08:06:00.002-07:00

We just returned from our first trek as a family. T's friend from college joined us. It was a great time- really couldn't have gone much better. We've posted pictures from the week on our web album. Enjoy!

08 M exploratory trek

2008-09-28T08:06:00.001-07:00

I just wanted you to know that I intend to blog real soon about my latest exploratory trek up into the mountains. Check back in a couple weeks. In the meantime you can check out pictures from the trek on our web album!

-J

the sort of place we live in

2008-07-15T01:07:00.000-07:00

I loaded up Iri this afternoon for a walk so T could get some sleep. We headed down the stairs, out the heavy iron gate and onto the trail that leads away from our flat. There I found an “ambulance” at the gate of the flat opposite ours. I might have been alarmed but I sensed no urgency among those gathered; only a lightheartedness about the tragedy that was. Curious, I asked a middle-aged woman what was going on. She said a person died. I asked how old, assuming it was probably an elderly person. She said twenty-two. Before I could ask more I saw two men carrying a body in a white sheet out of the flat toward me. Women threw rice on the body. One man following behind carried a smoldering bowl of incense; another, a long branch of evergreen topped with a white prayer flag. As they loaded the body onto the ambulance it rolled and almost fell onto the floor. The men laughed. As the ambulance drove away I found my friend among those gathered and asked him who the person was and what the cause of death was. My friend told me, with the same lightheartedness I had sensed among the others, that it was his friend’s sister…she was diagnosed with TB three months earlier…the doctor gave her medicine but it didn’t work…so she died. In the emotional sense it is unbelievable to me; that a twenty-two year old woman spent the last three months dying an unnecessary death from a treatable disease right across the trail from me. But I understand it too. She died of TB, but she also died because of the fatalism and apathy toward life and even death that have so permeated the lives of the people in this place. This place desperately needs the hope of Christ. Please pray.

-J

*new pics posted!

2008-07-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

*new pics posted!

2008-06-02T00:17:00.001-07:00

*new pics posted!

2008-05-21T00:08:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long absence from our blog. We have posted new pics to our album from both April and May. Most of them I took for my photography course but their are some of the kids as well. More pics are on their way!

-J

*new pics posted!

2008-03-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

*new pics posted!

2008-02-24T22:02:00.000-08:00

made in portland

2008-02-24T05:28:00.000-08:00

local square at sunset

2008-02-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

Iri at seven weeks

2008-01-21T23:55:00.000-08:00

*new pics posted

2008-01-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

adventure

2008-01-05T01:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a line from a book we read this summer- our first by David James Duncan. The book is The Brothers K which we highly recommend, especially if you are from the Pacific Northwest, like baseball, or lived during Vietnam.

"Was it Chesterton or Kipling who said that an adventure is just a misfortune correctly understood?"

-J

*new pics posted

2007-12-30T01:30:00.000-08:00

We've added some pics to the 12.07 album. Enjoy!

hyperbole

2007-12-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, T and I read together in the evenings and have been doing so more often than not since we were married three years ago. Occasionally we come across lines that we really enjoy and believe are worth sharing. Here is one of them from David James Duncan's novel, The River Why, which we are currently reading.

The lovers of God delight in hyperbole, because we need hyperbole to talk about God. Poets can't describe Him; scientists can't quantify Him; the sages state flat out that from the disadvantaged points of language and logic, God is a Whopper-yet from the point of love they say this Whopper can be known.

-J

*new pics posted

2007-12-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

Introducing Iri Sage

2007-12-02T00:32:00.001-08:00

Click on the picture to meet and download pictures of Iri.

Si and our Thanksgiving duck

2007-11-27T04:27:00.000-08:00

Si at the butchers with our Thanksgiving dinner shortly before it was cleaned. Check out more shots of Si and the duck on our web album!

-J

40 weeks

2007-11-27T03:49:00.000-08:00

37 weeks

2007-11-27T03:08:00.001-08:00

*new pics posted

2007-11-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

I've just posted the pictures taken by my buddy D on our trek. They are of course taken of many of the same things I shot but I still thought some of you might enjoy them. Many of them are excellent!

*new pics posted

2007-11-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

sentences

2007-10-13T01:55:00.001-07:00

For the last year Si has been surprising us with new vocabulary almost daily. With the one exception of a handful of words he picked up from his mischievous uncles, it has been very enjoyable to watch him develop in this way- especially the second language he seems to be picking up now. Two days ago he started forming sentences. After our language tutoring and his nap we took him out for ice cream. On the walk home he turned in my arms to face Sita (mommy) and said, “ice cweam tin tu Sita (translated- ice cream thank you Sita)”. We were shocked. It was so sweet because we hadn’t encouraged him in the moment to say this. It was totally on his own. And then…this morning, he and I were up early eating coffee cake and watching Baby Einstein on the computer when, as I was cutting him a bite of the cake, the fork slipped and sprayed bits of almond, coconut and brown sugar all over both of us, the desk and floor. His response looking up from the mess at me in a deeply concerned way, “Oh cwap daddy! (translated- Oh crap daddy!)”. I don’t know where he picked that one up. I think I’ll blame it on the uncles.

-J

urinalysis

2007-10-13T01:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, at Si’s two-year doctor’s appointment the doctor ordered a urinalysis. She explained that we would be given a receptacle to take home and instructed us to make sure and catch the urine in mid-stream being careful not to handle ourselves, or touch Si with, the rim of what turned out to be a small, recycled, glass, medicine bottle. Internally, T and I were about to explode with laughter, both imagining us trying to accomplish this feat with a two-year-old still in diapers, but externally we were giving the no problem doc head nod at the appropriate moments. A couple days later, having put this chore off as long a possible, we tried letting Si run around the house without a diaper, me following closely behind with the brown 2oz. bottle (the rim of which was about 1/3rd of an inch across)- hoping that I would be quick enough to swoop in and catch a clean sample of Si’s amber ale. About a half-hour into the attempt Si had one of his OCD fits about being naked and insisted we diaper him- so we did. Later that morning I ran into our physician friend. I explained our situation and once again he came through. A couple hours later, I found myself using medical tape to affix a zip-lock sandwich bag to Si. This troubled me. It troubled him more. Our first sampling failed as Si decided to deposit something else in the bag too- perhaps his way of letting us know how he felt about our experiment. But we are pleased to report that the second sampling later that night was a success and recommend our technique to any of our friends who might find themselves in the same predicament.

-J

33 weeks

2007-10-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some growing lately...

-T

*new pics posted

2007-10-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

New pics have been added to the "10.07" album. We've regrouped the pictures into months rather than days so when new pics are posted look in the album of the present month.

*new pics posted

2007-10-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

For those of you who would like to see more pics of our home, they are coming. We are trying to finish off a role of thirty-six but the events of the last couple days have not afforded us the opportunity. Soon though...until then we hope you enjoy these!

*new pics posted

2007-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

...and we're back!

2007-09-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry we've been a.w.o.l. (from e-mail, skype and this blog) for the last couple weeks. We began moving into our new home a little over a week ago and T felt it more important to get things like a refrigerator, stove and bed for Si before the internet. Crazy, I know! Anyway, now that I'm happily settled in online I hope to post some pictures of our new place real soon as well as update you on recent events and upcoming plans. Please check back in a couple days!

-J

* new pics posted

2007-08-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

We will try to alert you with a message like the one above when we post new pictures to our web photo album. Just follow the link "more pictures" to the left to view them.

lamb

2007-08-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

Although the majority of the roads here don’t have names, there is one road known to most as Sheep Lane. There is a small flock of sheep that spends their days wandering up and down this lane in search of food. I would often cross paths with them on my way to the market. Most of the flock was full-grown but there was one tiny lamb among them. I’m not much of an animal person, yet the little lamb always managed to capture my attention. To me it served as a symbol of purity in a place that is exceptionally dark & dirty.

A week or so ago my friend and I were crossing the street when I saw that the little lamb had been killed and was lying right in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in this area. I stood there for a few moments looking down at the lamb and then up at the chaos surrounding me. Cars & motorcycles were weaving their way through traffic while blowing their horns incessantly, shoppers were bargaining, children were playing tag…Everyone seemed to be going on with their lives. It disturbed me that no one had noticed the lamb. I felt inclined to tell someone, to make it known that an injustice had taken place. Instead, since my ability to communicate in the language here is extremely limited, I turned and walked away. As I continued to reflect on the lamb, the irony of what I had witnessed became increasingly apparent to me. Just as the crowd at the intersection was unaware of the dead lamb, so are most of the people in this region unaware of the Lamb that was slain for their sins. They have never been told that Jesus died that they might be brought back to God. Please pray that we would be inclined to tell them when the time is right, as the Spirit leads. Pray also for our ability to communicate clearly in a culture and language that are not our own. It is our aim to reveal Him to the people here in ways that are most pertinent to them. Ask the Lord to show us those ways.

-T

baby update

2007-08-19T03:46:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I had my first prenatal checkup for this pregnancy. They ran blood tests, checked my vitals and performed an ultrasound (all for less than $35). Everything seems to be going very well. The baby and placenta are both in good positions and my fundus is measuring up nicely.

Yesterday I met with my midwife. She took me around the maternity ward of the hospital and explained to me the way things are done here. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears! The laboring room is about 35 feet long and 25 feet wide. It contains 10 beds (all of which were occupied) and 2 not so tidy bathrooms (with Asian toilets). In the hallway just outside the laboring room are 3 more beds lined up in a row against the wall (these also were occupied). Down the corridor about 30 feet is the delivery room. It’s about equal in size to the laboring room and has 4 delivery tables, one in each corner. My midwife said they set it up this way because there are times when there is only one doctor on duty and she would need all of her patients in the same place so as to not miss a delivery. She also told me that patients are not allowed to transfer to the delivery room until the baby’s head is crowning. At this time they are expected to walk (on their own two feet) from the laboring room to the delivery room. This is done to limit the amount of time a patient spends in the delivery room where the doctor’s presence is required.

Aside from being overcrowded, dark (the only light came from the windows) and dirty (by Western standards) there is one other thing I couldn’t help but notice about the maternity ward: there was not a man in sight! Husbands are not allowed with their wives (exceptions are often made for foreigners) and, from the sounds of it, most men prefer to not be present at the births of their children. Women will frequently have a close friend or relative accompany them during labor and delivery. In fact, it is generally required that anyone who comes to the hospital brings someone along to assist in meeting their needs (bringing them food & drink, helping them to the bathroom, purchasing medications from the pharmacy, etc.). Quite different from the service we’re accustomed to, isn’t it?

Once the baby is born both mother and baby are transferred to either the general ward or the private ward (depending on what the patient can afford) for recovery. It costs between $9-15 to spend the night in the private ward. The general ward is about 10 times cheaper. The general ward has a similar set up to the laboring room. Imagine spending your first night as a new mom in a room with at least ten other new moms and their babies. Most of the rooms in the private ward are double occupancy with a shared kitchen and bathroom. I guess privacy is a relative term.

I’m thankful I had the opportunity to visit the maternity ward. Even though what I wrote above sounds negative and perhaps critical, my observations caused me to reflect on my values as well as the values of the people here. I have to admit I’d prefer that the hospital was less crowded, brighter and cleaner but on the other hand there was something admirable about the sense of community I experienced amongst the women in both the laboring room and general ward. In the laboring room they were sharing in each other’s pain; in the general ward, each other’s joy.

Please pray that I would be able to let go of my Western values and in turn embrace the values of the people here. More than that, pray that I would hope in God and not fear anything that is frightening. I want the people here to know he is worthy of all trust and yet I’m well aware of how weak my faith tends to be. Please ask the Lord to glorify himself throughout the remainder of my pregnancy, labor and delivery.

-T

web photo album

2007-08-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

If you will notice under "links to us" on the left there is a link titled "more pictures". Follow this link to view and download pictures we will be posting on the web regularly.

Below...

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...are some pictures we recently took on a trip to a stupa and the area surrounding it.

stupa landscape

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stupa prayer flags

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stupa eyes

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stupa offerings

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butter candle offerings at the base of the stupa-

25 weeks

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Check me out at 25 weeks!

- T

"mighty in the Spirit"

2007-07-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago we met our first TC. There’s only a few of them in this city and fewer elsewhere. We mostly listened to her talk to our friend as we sipped Coca-Cola out of recycled glass bottles. As the conversation drifted in and out of English we were able to pick up some fascinating insights into TB culture and TC ecclesiology. The most fascinating of these for me was when she spoke of her search for a new pastor to shepherd her very small fellowship. I believe her words were that she found a man that was “mighty in the Spirit”. She then clarified this saying that he had a well respected ministry in the gifts of “healing and prophecy”. She went onto say that it’s essential for someone shepherding a TC fellowship to exhibit these more miraculous gifts of the Spirit. The impression I got is that TBs just aren’t gonna follow Jesus unless he proves himself to be more powerful than the very real powers of darkness they have been enslaved to their entire lives. These gifts are at least one way in which they recognize the power of Jesus. If this is the case, it doesn’t surprise me, as it has been denominations that emphasize these miraculous gifts that have seen fruit and growth in animistic countries throughout Central and South America and Africa. We spoke with our friend about this conversation as we walked back to her flat and it wasn’t a surprise to her either. In fact she told us that about 70% of the people of this country became followers of Jesus after being personally healed or after someone they knew was healed. While I think it’s really cool that the Spirit is drawing men to God in this way, it is so outside of my own experience. I wish it wasn’t and I am very open to the Spirit working in this way through me or others. So I will pray for faith and for “miracles” if this is how God desires to draw TBs to himself.

-J

2007-07-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

We thought some of you would enjoy a recent picture of Si. Here he is at the New Jersey shore which on that June day was much like the Oregon coast. Notice the fleece and wind-blown hair.

-J

question 1

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How incarnational does God desire that our family be?

To be incarnational, as I understand it, is to be like Jesus in the way in which God sent him into the world to reconcile men to God. God sent Jesus even though he was in the form of God, and Jesus made himself nothing taking the form of a servant. He was born into the likeness of men and humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Another way of asking this question might be…what does God desire that we, as American foriegn workers, leave behind and take on, as he sends us, like he sent Christ, to reconcile men to himself? Or…to what degree do we need to become less like who we are and more like the people we are going to, as God sends us to reconcile them to himself? I’m not thinking about the food we eat or the clothes we wear, although those may be a small part of it. I am thinking more about values like: standard of living, the use of resources at our disposal as foriegn workers, and our privileges as wealthy Americans. What values do we leave in the US and what values do we adopt as we move to Central Asia?

The following are some statistics that I think will help you appreciate the weightiness of this question for us. Our Central Asia country is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world with 31% of its population living below the poverty line, 42% of the population unemployed, and a per capita income of around $322 (compared with $43,500 in the US). Life expectancy from birth is 61 years compared with 78 years in the US. And the infant mortality rate is 64 deaths out of every 1000 live births compared with 6 deaths in the US. These are the people that God is sending us to and it is our desire to reconcile them to him. As I think you can now more fully appreciate, life is hard in Central Asia and it would be easy for us to use our wealth, resources and privileges to live above the hardship, but that’s not what Christ did.

The reason that we are wrestling with this now is that we know once we are on the ground in Central Asia choices will present themselves that will call into question our values. While we believe that in those moments of decision we need to exercise wisdom and faith and look for the leading of the Spirit, we also know that our human inclination is to pursue comfort, convenience and safety. Because of this we believe it would be very beneficial for us to think about what it means to be incarnational, examine our current values and make a commitment to operating out of new values if necessary. We would really appreciate your thoughts on this issue or any resources you’d recommend that would help us think through it. Please feel free to e-mail us or post directly to our blog. We will do our best to respond to it in as timely a manner as is possible in Central Asia.

-J

flight

2007-07-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

I felt myself becoming increasingly irritated by the woman sitting next to me. She hadn’t stopped talking since Si and I had boarded the plane and taken our seat next to hers. She had a loud but raspy voice and a nasty, smokers cough. I tried to tune her out but about halfway through our flight I was really annoyed with myself for having sat in the wrong seat. I hadn’t realized my mistake until another passenger, waving his boarding pass in the air as he spoke, informed me that he would go ahead and sit in my seat so I wouldn’t have to move all of my belongings. I appreciated his kindness at the time but then as I glanced in front of me at the man I was supposed to be sitting next to and saw that he had headphones on and was sleeping soundly while the woman next to me rambled off her entire life story, I became all the more agitated. Meanwhile, the flight attendants made their way down the aisle serving beverages. I requested two waters, one for Si and one for me. Once we had finished drinking our water, I decided to allow Si to play a game with the cups. We had played this game before so he knew exactly what to do when I placed a quarter in one of the cups. He began tossing the quarter from one cup to the other. He was quite pleased with himself and even looked up at me to make sure that I was watching. He then took the cup that had the quarter in it, lifted it to his lips and tossed his head back as though he was throwing down shots with one of his buddies. The coin seemed to have disappeared. He turned his head quickly toward me and when I saw the look of panic on his face I knew that the quarter had lodged in his throat. His face instantly turned a reddish-purple and his eyes filled with tears. No sound came from his mouth. “Oh God, he’s choking,” I said, my voice trembling with fear. I stood there for a second, hesitating. Should I turn him upside down or try the Heimlich? You would think with all the training I had gone through as a lifeguard and nurse’s assistant, that I would have known what to do. But since Si was at an in-between size I felt unsure. Suddenly I felt the woman next to me grab Si from my arms. She turned him upside down and began hitting him between the shoulder blades while I held him up by his ankles. A few moments later the quarter soared out of his mouth and landed on our seat. Si let out a loud cry and stretched his arms out toward me. Relief swept over me and then I began to cry. I thanked the woman sitting next to me and then I thanked God for allowing me to sit in wrong seat. It then occurred to me that God had orchestrated this whole event. He is sovereign over all things, is he not? This realization led to another. I suddenly became conscious of how selfishly I had acted toward the woman sitting next to me. I had not even attempted to show kindness to her and I had failed to remember God’s participation in all the intricate details of my life.
May the Lord increase my faith and help me to see all things as coming from his hand, for my good and for his glory.

-T

intro

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Thanks for visiting our blog. It's our desire that it will be one of several ways in which we maintain our relationship with you. We pray this will happen as we inform you of what is going on in our lives and as we invite you into conversations on issues that are relevant to our lives and work here in Central Asia.

-J