Global Mission Mondays

This week at our church's prayer meeting we will be praying for the country of Cambodia.

Cambodia has a population of 14 million, 90% of which is of Khmer origin and speak the Khmer language. There are many small ethnic groups as well as Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese. This quote from The Joshua Projects helps to shed some light on what life is like in Cambodia:

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime nearly destroyed Cambodia. In order to depopulate cities, three million people were forced into the countryside as slave labor. Starvation led to the deaths of over one million people. Currency was abolished; religion was eradicated; education was suspended; medicine was forbidden; and people who could read were often massacred all in the name of the ideal of rural social reform.

Between 1 and 3 million people died during the Khmer Rouge regime, which when compared to the amount of deaths in WWII, or the forced collectivization in Ukraine in the 1930's doesn't seem like a large number. When when you realize that there are now only 14 million people in Cambodia, and then there were only 8 million - 3 million deaths means a fifth to a third of the population died (depending on which numbers you compare).

Today 50% of the population is younger than 22. UNICEF has designated Cambodia the third most land-mined country in the world (after Angola and Afghanistan), attributing over 60,000 civilian deaths and thousands more maimed or injured since 1970 to the unexploded land mines left behind in rural areas. The majority of the victims are children herding animals or playing in the fields. 59% of the population relying on agriculture for their livelihood.

90% of Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists, 3% are Muslim (mostly a few ethnic groups), and less than 1% are Christian.

Looking at the long-term

Last Friday Liese and picked up our friends Jeanne and Kolya Kotiash from the airport and drove them to Jeanne's family's place in Kiev. Jeanne's parents, Jim and Marianna Peipon, moved to Ukraine about the same time we did and as our circle of missionary friends expanded we all met and became friends. Jim Peipon is a doctor and started Ukrainian Medical Outreach, which does some pretty cool stuff .

On Friday Dr. Peipon was in Kirovograd to lead an International Saline Seminar sponsored by the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine. Marianna was telling us about how after living here for 9 years it has only been the last year and a half that opportunities like this have opened up.

This got me thinking about having a long-term mindset in missions. If it takes 8 years of faithfully serving in a country and building relationships with people before you are accepted as part of their community (in Dr. Peipon's case it is the medical community in Ukraine) then I need to think a little more long-term in the things I am doing.

It has taken 5 years of making bio-diesel for Wayne to be able to donate 1000 liters to the city of Kaharlyk for the annual spring clean-up. It took nearly 7 years for the county of Kaharlyk to allow our church to visit orphanages.

All of this is reminding me that God doesn't promise quick results in what we do but He does call us to sow in hope that sometime in the future we will reap a harvest. No super deep thoughts here, just remembering that some things take time.

Oh, and we had a great time hanging out with the Peipons/Kotiashes.

Latest In Lumine projects

In Lumine recently finished translating a discipleship course from Tim Keller's church called "Gospel Christianity". Last week I laid out a minimalistic cover design (yes, I even used Helvetica) for the workbooks and hopefully they will go to print this week.

We are also sending the first of Mark Driscoll's series "A book You'll Actually Read" to the printer this week. The others will follow as the layout and editing is finished.

We are trying to get one Driscoll book and this workbook from Keller done in time for the yearly Christian book fair in Kiev the 8th-11th of April.

Once the Driscoll books are done being translated our translator will be working on Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven," while we work with a fellow missionary who is in Svitlovodsk to publish "In The Name of Jesus."

On top of all that we are hiring a translator to be on staff with In Lumine for the next six months or so to translate children's ministry curriculum from Desiring God. We have had a couple people donate funds for the translation.

We are also in the middle of translating a study guide for Wayne Grudem's "Christian Beliefs," which we published last year.

This is going to be a big year for In Lumine.

Global Mission Mondays

This week at our prayer meeting we will be praying for the country of Vietnam.

Here are some facts about Vietnam that I'll be sharing at our prayer meeting tonight to give us some idea as to how to pray for the people of Vietnam.

With population of 86 million Vietnam is the 13th most populous country in the world. 85% of the population is Buddhist, 8% is Christian, and the rest are various groups of animists, Hindu, and Muslim. There are more than 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam the largest of which is the "Viet" or "Kinh" making up 86.2% of the population.

The government of Vietnam is Socialist and has restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and assembly. The government officially provides for freedom of religion, however, non-sanctioned groups, including branches of even the recognized denominations, face harassment. Of the Christians in Vietnam 6 million are Catholic and less than 1 million are Protestant.

The socialist economic policies of collectivization had a negative impact on the economy of Vietnam. It was only when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in the 80's that Vietnam reformed their economic policies. In the 90's the economy grew quickly and is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

[information from wikipedia, the joshua project, and the cia world factbook]

Thanks, electric company

This week the electric company decided to prune trees on our block. When they got to our house they must have been tired or something because they just topped them. Not such a bad thing because we wanted to chop them down eventually so they saved us some of the work.

I asked if they would top the huge apricot tree that wasn't a threat to the power lines but really tall and they said "no. Well, maybe we'd think about about it for 400 griven [$50]. " I said thanks anyway. Then they left.
I made the most of the situation and made a bonfire.

Global Mission Mondays

This week at our prayer meeting we prayed for the Philippines.

The Philippines is an archipelago comprising 7,107 islands with a population of about 92 million people. There are 171 individual languages in the Philippines with about that many ethnic groups.

The country is predominantly Roman Catholic. More than 90% of the population are Christians; 80% belong to the Roman Catholic Church, while the remaining 10% belong to other Christian denominations. 5% to 10% of the population are Muslim, and most of the ethnic Chinese are Buddhist. Even though such a large percentage of the population is Christian there are about 19 ethnic groups in which less than 2% of the group are Christians and Philippine traditional religions are still practiced by many aboriginal and tribal groups while animism and shamanism remain present as undercurrents of mainstream religion.

Thursday bible studies at the rehab center

Today the sun was out and the sky was blue so I thought I'd take some pictures of my weekly trip to the village of Sloboda to teach a bible study at the rehab center there. We recently finished Colossians and now we are studying the epistle to the Galatians.

Driving through Sloboda

This is the rehab center's main house. They have another house about a half mile away and their small-scale pig farm is adjacent to that house.

These are the fields across the road from the rehab center. In the spring they are green, the summer they are usually planted with wheat, and this time of year the white is beautiful but almost blinding.

Around town

In between meetings and studying I ran a few errands today. I took my camera along with me to give our blog readers a small glimpse of Kaharlyk.

Apparently it snowed more last night. I think it is time to to say "Really?!?!" to the weather.

This is the local sewing machine/shoe/clothing repair shop. Liese's sewing machine wasn't holding tension so I took to this guy who was very nice and should have it working by tomorrow morning.
This is Kaharlyk's shopping center. I'm just glad we have a grocery store with shopping carts, who cares if there is never any parking?
Somehow I've managed to stay out of the local market for the last month or so. But today I had to find some brushings for my friend's drill that broke while I was using it. I found a kiosk with a guy who said he would try to order them for me.

Global Mission Mondays

This week at our prayer meeting we will be praying for Korea. Both of them.

Here are a few facts about them to help us know how to pray:

North Korea has a population of 24 million people, most are Korean and only a few are Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian. The government is Communist and styled after Stalin's soviet government. Officially there is freedom of religion but the government is accused of fostering an illusion of freedom while persecuting non-Buddhist religions. More than 60% of the population is non-religious and around 1% are Christian.

South Korea has a population of 50 million people and is one of the most densely populated countries in the world (its area is 1/6th the size of Ukraine, which has a population of 46 million). There is more ethnic diversity in South Korea, with many Chinese, Mongolian, and Europeans living there. The government is democratic. About 50% of the population is non-religious and about 22% are Buddhists. 29% are Christian making Christianity the majority religion.

That is just the surface, read about Korea on wikipedia, or the CIA World Factbook and you'll see there are many prayer needs.

Road Trip to Chernigov

Sunday afternoon as soon as the second Samaritan's Purse gift distribution Christmas event was over, Liese and I drove up to Chernigov to visit our missionary friends. Steven and Teresa Yeats were visiting from Moldova and we all got to spend Monday together hanging out. The Chernigov crew (the Knotts, McNamees, and Chris Zurbach) the Yeats, and we all came to Ukraine in 2000 and 2001 which means most of us have now been here about 10 years. So what do missionaries from California who have been here for 10 years do when they get together?


BBQ in the snow, among other things, like shovel snow for each other's cars to try to fit in driveways, drink way too much coffee, argue the finer points of short term missions for way too long, realize that the kids need naps, and laugh a lot.

We stayed with Chris and Reenie who live on the 10th floor of their building which has an amazing view of Chernigov when the sun comes out. Which it did.