YaY! The Students are Returning!

SIAS became a ghost town during the winter break. Foreign staff scattered to the four winds, and a skin of dirty coal dust smothered the town in a dull grey. The heavens yielded hardly a drop of rain for a couple of months, though the skies were moody and dark and stormy.

But now the students are trickling in and bringing with them their youthful energy that completely changes the dynamic of the school and city! On Saturday and Sunday about 15,000-20,000 will drag their luggage through the gates, across the tiled courts of Italian and Russian Square, along European street, and up-and-over hundreds of stairs! The place will look like someone stirred an anthill with a stick!

This afternoon I walked the entire campus. The willows that shade the river-walk have been pruned, and the hedges of shrubs have symmetry with clean lines and curves and corners. Several of the fountains are cascading water over their rocks and runways. Deciduous trees - made bare by the change of seasons - are sprouting tiny red buds that will soon cover their bony arms and legs and restore their dignity.

Those who been here - when winter turns to spring - tell me that the rain will soon begin to fall washing away the grime and clearing the smoggy pollutants from the air. Then the sun will burn through the mist, brighten the landscape, warm our bodies, and the campus will explode with color! I probably don't need to tell you that I can hardly wait to see our new world fresh and in full bloom!

This morning I started the P90X Workout. Today it was legs and back (tomorrow it's arms and shoulders). I did the whole lot of exercises - although I didn't do a whole lot - of the whole lot - of exercises! Nevertheless, when I die I want to die healthy!

I love this place!

Enjoying the Adventure,

Bill

Looking for the Unseen

I am writing to God’s people who are living as foreigners . . . in Asia

The Apostle Peter

A little bald man stood and spoke from one of the New Testament Gospels. His name was Silas and he was on furlough from living and working as a foreigner among the needy in India. Trust me, this guy didn’t drone on trying to impress you with, “Now the Greek stem of this word is . . . and the Hebrew root of that word is . . . and some scholars surmise that . . .” Nope. Silas Foxx had a white-knuckled grip on the wooden lectern shaking it from side-to-side and rocking it back-and-forth transforming the stage area and lectern into a Galilean fishing boat battered and blown about in a hellacious storm.

Believing they were in the very teeth of death and moments from being swallowed alive the terrified screams of Jesus’ disciples rose above the howling tempest and pleaded with him, as he slept in the stern of the boat, “Master, Master, if you don’t do something we’re going to drown!”

The Author of Life and Death killed the typhoon and saved the disciples.

Not all of Silas’ listeners were adults. In the audience was a young boy so caught-up in the dramatic telling that he yelled out, “Jesus, Wakeup!” This happened in the early 1960’s, and I was the little boy.

From that moment to the present there has always been a compelling to explore the physical and spiritual unseen world.

Enjoying the Adventure,

Bill

I am writing to God’s people who are living as foreigners . . . in Asia

The Apostle Peter

A little bald man stood and spoke from one of the New Testament Gospels. His name was Silas and he was on furlough from living and working as a foreigner among the needy in India. Trust me, this guy didn’t drone on trying to impress you with, “Now the Greek stem of this word is . . . and the Hebrew root of that word is . . . and some scholars surmise that . . .” Nope. Silas Foxx had a white-knuckled grip on the wooden lectern shaking it from side-to-side and rocking it back-and-forth transforming the stage area and lectern into a Galilean fishing boat battered and blown about in a hellacious storm.

Believing they were in the very teeth of death and moments from being swallowed alive the terrified screams of Jesus’ disciples rose above the howling tempest and pleaded with him, as he slept in the stern of the boat, “Master, Master, if you don’t do something we’re going to drown!”

The Author of Life and Death killed the typhoon and saved the disciples.

Not all of Silas’ listeners were adults. In the audience was a young boy so caught-up in the dramatic telling that he yelled out, “Jesus, Wakeup!” This happened in the early 1960’s, and I was the little boy.

From that moment to the present there has always been a compelling to explore the physical and spiritual unseen world.

Enjoying the Adventure,

Bill

Foreigner - Going Off the Grid

God the father knew you and chose you long ago . . . now we live with great expectation. The Apostle Peter

For seven days I was alone in the city of Nanyang -- population 10.5 million. For seven days I never saw another light-skinned person, or any people group other than Chinese. For seven days I had access to one Chinese who could speak in my native tongue. For seven days I never saw English print.

Out of the bubble . . .

Though the first of many more to come my first exposure to total immersion into Asian culture was a quantum leap from the soft environment of living in Peter Hall! At SIAS foreign teachers are not required to learn to speak Chinese. We have our own compound. To a great extent we can maintain our Western lifestyle. Once instructing for the day is finished we can retreat to faculty housing. In PH you will see no more Chinese than you would if you were roaming the halls of an American university.

Peter reminds us . . .

When it’s time to go off the grid, God says, live with great expectation, and not just in the hope of the good ole' days or the sweet by-and-by, but in the present anonymity of the sketchy now-and-now! God will show up!

Enjoying the Adventure,

Bill

Foreigner - Chapter 2

God the father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter

God’s picks and chooses. A truth that has been cussed and discussed since God chose to accept Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. Since He chose to, “love Jacob and hate Esau.” Theological systems have been developed to explain the “why’s and wherefores” of election/selection. However, it’s a train of thought that is above our ability to comprehend. The baffling examples of Divine prerogative can’t be harmonized with human logic. God’s choices are unexplainable, but from my view of the deck His unbreakable commitment to stick with His choices may be the most profound!

Peter writes to people living far from home, and says (I paraphrase), “Your heavenly Father knew you and chose you for His own before you were a twinkle in your earthly daddy’s eye.”

During 2011 Dad’s health began to deteriorate rapidly. By March a series of medical complications piled up and like an avalanche swept him into the valley of the shadow of death. My sister Barb called to tell me that Dad's Dr. believed his passing was imminent. I got on a plane in Charlotte, NC and to his bedside as soon as I could.

With just God and me present Dad told me of some of his fears – confessions I have heard at least a hundred times by the faithful in their final moments. Dad was as “saved” as saved can be. He was redeemed. But he was about to enter eternity and in his mind there were “logical” reasons to doubt that God’s grace and love could cover all his sin. It was a surreal moment as we sat and talked and wept and found peace in the illogical love of God.

Perhaps you’ve heard the, “St. Peter met so and so at the pearly gates” jokes.

I smile -- when in my imagination – my father passes through the veil and is met by rough and tumble Peter! Redeemed, but still gloriously wild, he pokes my father in the shoulder and says . . .

“Burleigh! Your heavenly Father knew you and chose you for His own before you were a twinkle in your earthly daddy’s eye. Welcome home!”

Foreigners

This letter is from peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners pontus, Galatia, cappadocia, asia, and Bithynia.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ

Screw-ups, like myself, are grateful that God chose to preserve many of the unflattering details of his Peter’s spiritual journey, yet kept him close, transformed him, and kept him on the frontline. The bodacious fisherman was presumptuous and impetuous, and his first response to nearly everything was to meet it head-on with misguided zeal and uncensored responses. God was constantly at work in Peter’s life turning up the heat so as to burn away the dross. The endgame? Peter would reflect Christ, not Simon.

I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners. Says Peter.

As I write Sandy is my muse. How is that? God brought her to the apostle’s words in the early morning hours, and as she shared with me how He was meeting her there, my own thirst sent me to the same well.

Sandy and I have stayed on the forward edge of the Kingdom’s advance as trailblazers, but I can say that the day-to-day of living abroad has caused us to look more closely into Peter’s brief letter. This is different. At the present we belong to the unique fraternity to whom Peter’s speaks in his first letter; we are foreigners.

If Chinese internet technology will cooperate I will leave a few posts for anyone interested to read.