disconnect

I have been thinking sometimes sad thoughts about our place on the Internet.

Unfortunately, the government in M has blocked Blogger.

Unfortunately, I have little time to blog.

Unfortunately, I have little desire to blog.

These excuses are the reason the blog has been dormant, with no changes, no updates, and no responses from our side of the world in almost 3 months. We're in Thailand now, and I've been quickly realizing how removed we are from the world of the newest social networking trends; Twitter, Digg, Facebook. To be honest, I don't even know what Twitter is. What will the world be like in 2 and a half years when we get back to the US? 

Podcasting, of course, is difficult to do. It takes time, and then you need a fast Internet connection to post it to the Web. I still love doing it, but it can literally take hours to post a show.

So how do we stay in touch with you all on the other side?

I'm realizing social networking today is an up-to-the-minute update on what friends are doing, made simple by the influx of Internet connections every place we go.

So what happens when a guy who loves that interconnectivity goes to a place that hasn't moved past dial-up, and rarely finds time to do the simple things of social networking, like blogging and e-mailing. Even e-mailing takes it out of me now!

Thankfully, there is much to be gained from being cut off from those things. Our language study is the first thing. The more we are separated from the Internet, the less I read English news, type English e-mails, listen to English podcasts and watch things from back home that keep me from being completely here. And being completely here is the goal if we're to actually learn this incredibly difficult, but fun if we work hard, language. I'm thankful for that in disconnectedness.

The second thing that benefits is my daily quiet times. I can tell even from our last 4 days in Thailand, how much a distraction the Internet is to me. If I have wireless in my room, the first thing I do when I get up is check my e-mail. Then read the news. Then check all of the other things I can think about. And by then, it's time to go out for the day, and I haven't even thought about my quiet time. In M, I get up early before there is anywhere to be. I don't have the distractions that I have had everywhere else in my life. And my quiet time has flourished for it. I'm thankful for that disconnectedness.

So, when it comes to a disconnect, there are positives and negatives, as with everything else. I'm finding the negatives are affecting me more than I expected they would. This whole culture shock thing has brought those out sometimes - missing family, missing friends, missing college, missing baseball, missing news. But I'm also finding the positives are helping me grow, in ways I never could have imagined (and honestly didn't desire).

Thanks for the bitter with the sweet.

Later guys,

M

Ten weeks gone.

So, we're in Thailand. Our visa for M is only a 10 week visa, so every 2 and a half months, we fly to Thailand, go to the M Embassy and ask them if we can go back. It's actually a really nice little break from the pressure and what we feel like is a very real spiritual oppression in M.

So, we're getting a little break. All foreigners in M have to do this. We flew to Thailand on Wednesday morning. Went to our guest house, dropped off our bags, and went straight to the Embassy where we put in our new application for our new visa. 24 hours later (Thursday afternoon) we had our new visa! It was exciting, and amazing how easy it was. So, at least we know we're going back!

Our first ten weeks was intense. I wish I knew if it was intense just because we were living in a new culture for the first time, or because of all of the weight of Cyclone Nargis slamming us. When I was living in Florida, I always wanted to experience a small hurricane, just so I would know what one was like. I'm talking small, like a Category 1 or 2 hurricane, just heavy winds, and very little damage. Cyclone Nargis was a Category 4 hurricane. And it was huge.

I'm used to having a warning for a storm like that. When a hurricane is coming, we have 3 or 4 days warning. In M, we had 3 hours warning. Someone said in passing, "There's a cyclone coming, you should go home and close your windows." Of course, we know the rest of the story. There were winds from 135-150 mph, it lasted for about 15 hours throughout the night, and our windows somehow lasted through the night, though they rattled as loudly as anything I've ever heard before. It was a long, scary, loud night. At the time, we had no idea how big the thing were experiencing really was. Even for the week following, we didn't realize the extent of the damage. Our communication with the outside world was pretty well completely shut off for about a week, and we didn't realize the whole world knew what had happened.

I have plenty of thoughts about the aftermath, and how it has been handled. Most of them are angry thoughts. For the first few days, there was no authority present. Regular citizens we literally directing traffic, and doing all of the clean-up. I've struggled a lot with being angry. Psalm 10 has been kind of the theme for our thoughts for over a month now, take a look, and see how well it describes the aftermath.

And of course, you have probably heard how the relief aid project is going. Not well.

So, our first ten weeks was dominated by a massive storm, and the terrible response to it. We've seen sights we couldn't have imagined seeing. Learned things we will never forget.

Thanks so much for your prayers. We'll be in Thailand until Sunday morning, will eat McDonalds a couple more times, watch another movie or two, and enjoy the free air, before heading back. We'll do this every ten weeks or so, so if you want to talk to us, we'd love to on Skype. We come on and off every now and then.

We miss you and think of you often. It's been a hard 10 weeks, and we appreciate so much your prayers.

Later guys,

Matt

Here we go!

So we're off today. In 20 hours we board a plane to leave the US. We don't plan to be back for a while. We don't really know what is about to hit us, but we're trusting that we're in the right place. It certainly has been clear to us to this point, and we look forward to how things will look on the other side.

Thanks so much for being a part of this journey up to here. We have no idea when we'll be able to blog again. Maybe not for ten weeks, when we'll be back to high-speed Internet (early June or so). We hope sooner though.

We love you all, and thank you so much for your support and prayers.

Here we go!

Later guys,

Matt

Memories Escape

Deuteronomy 4:9 (NLT) - "But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren."

My wife reminded me last night about how we've been really led through the journey we've been on for the last 2 and a half years. Sometimes it's been difficult to remember things that have happened, but I want to write a few of them down as clear reminders. Sometimes things appear to be really little, and sometimes they're huge. All of them will help remind us down the road when things are tough about how we've been led.

We sent our applications to the Embassy in Washington D.C. last week. I recognize we waited until really late to send them, but at the same time there were some major decisions that needed to be made before we could get them in the mail. So, we finally did send them last Thursday. On Tuesday, we got a call from the Embassy about our applications, saying they needed a few more documents from the business in SE Asia that is inviting us to work with them. I was excited that they were getting to our apps quickly, since we want to leave by March 26th. They called just in time for me to shoot an e-mail to our contact in Singapore. He was heading into our target country the next day, and wouldn't have been able to get our e-mail for over a week. He was able to take my request for the new documents into the country with him, where they could fax them directly to the Embassy in D.C. We got confirmation today that the documents were faxed. We could have our visas soon!

It was good timing, and I have seen it happen time and time again over the last 2 years.

Just a simple short story I needed to get into print. It's easier to blog it than journal it. So you get to catch on too!

Later guys,

Matt

Optimistic Packers

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since we updated this, and even longer since we put out a new episode of the podcast (hold tight, a new one is coming soon!).

We're now in Dallas, TX. We've been here for about 10 days. My wife, if you didn't know, has some really bad allergies. She's been seeing a doctor about them everyday, and hopefully this will be a huge help as we head on out of the US of A. We think it could work out great! We're now only a month from leaving. We've gotten some great news in the last two days about support, and we're nearly at the point we need to be to think about buying plane tickets (95% and we're at 92.5%, picking up about 6% in the last couple of days alone!). Of course, we still need our visa, and we're trying our hardest working on that too. We'll have to wait and see how things pan out.

If you could, be in prayer for us and our families. Our lives are pretty well planned out with non-stop things to do all the way up till about 2 weeks before we leave. If possible in those two weeks, we want to hang out with our families and with our friends as much as possible. Of course, we'll have to pack in that time too, and my wife thinks that will take us a whole week. (I think it will only take 2 days, but I'm forever optimistic on these things, and she's forever pessimistic on these things. Of course, it pays off to be a pessimist on packing in particular, because when it takes longer than the two days I expected, I'll get frustrated, and she'll be able to say, "I told you to be more realistic." Of course, she won't say that, she'll just look at me and wait for me to calm down. Amazing.)

Anyway, we miss you all and hope we get the chance to run into you soon. We wish we had more time, but at the same time, I think we're just about ready to get going. We love you all.

Later guys,

Matt

Grief and Joy

Hey everybody. Sorry it's been so long. We've now returned to Illinois after our time in the SPLICE program. This was a program focused on helping us to survive the stresses of working in a culture different from our home. I would tell you all about it, but to be honest a lot of it was overshadowed by the beginning of our last week there.

The beginning of our last week was supposed to be our time to look at grief and loss, two common things we will experience as we leave our families and friends for an extended amount of time. We had no idea how real our time focused on these things would be. On Sunday, about a week and a half ago, some of our friends in the SPLICE program were traveling to hear a speaker in Denver. Heather and I were to go with them but I got sick that Saturday night and couldn't go. On the drive up, the van was involved in a terrible accident. Two of our adult friends were killed instantly, Jessica (21 years old) and Karin (42 from South Africa). The other 4 in the van were taken to area hospitals. 1 of the 4 was a 17-month boy, one of the cutest little boys we have ever seen. We'd gotten to know him and his parents (also in the van) very well over the previous month. By 12:30 AM Monday, he had also died. His name was Isaac.

This really was my first time losing anyone close, not from old age. I struggled with guilt from feeling like it should have been us in the van, not Jessica and Karin, and anger about how Scott and Andrea have to deal with the loss of their beautiful boy, and joy about Jessica and Karin and Isaac being taken from the pain and sin of this world. What a paradox.

In the end, SPLICE was a time for us to learn how to grieve well in community. It was incredible how this group of people came together in sadness and joy, honored our friends who were killed, and prayed for our friends who have a very hard road ahead. We still lift them up to God in prayer.

Scott has now been discharged from the hospital. He stays in Denver to care for his wife, Andrea. She is still in critical condition but is showing improvement everyday. Em, the 6th person in the van, is doing incredible. She has moved out of ICU, and is now able to walk around some, talk, and even type with one hand. It really is a miracle how they have come through this.

We praise God for the hearts He has given His people - hearts that experience joy and grief and sadness and anger and hope all at the same time. We thank Gd for our new friends who we are closer than ever to because of our shared experience. We praise God for the lives of the 2 women who are now with Him. And we praise God for Isaac who brought so much joy to everyone around him during his 17 months here on earth.

We're back in IL now, trying to finish things up, including visas and budgets and goodbyes. Crazy to think we're only about a month out. We love you all!

Later guys,
Matt

Almost finished.

I'm sitting in a room with my colleagues of the Berlin CELTA course. It's nearly over. Crazy to think it's gone so fast. I taught last evening for my last assessed teaching, and I finished up my last assignment yesterday too. Basically, we're finished at this point with just a few more administrative things to sit through. It's been such a good course. Right now, we're just sitting around waiting for an assignment to be handed back to us.

I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens' version of Holy, Holy, Holy and I just about started crying right in this room in the midst of all these people. That would have been embarrassing.

Heather and I are able to leave the school a little early tonight since we don't have to teach tonight. We're gonna look at a couple of museums tonight and go to a Christmas Market. Those things are so popular around here. They're just really cool.

So, our time is almost finished. We leave next Wednesday, less than a week. We'll try to see as much of Berlin as we can before then. It's gone so fast.

We miss you all and hope we get to see you sometime during the holidays before we head to Colorado for some training in January. We hope to see you soon!

Later guys,
Matt

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's crazy to think Thanksgiving is tomorrow. No sign of that anywhere here in Germany. But it's obvious Christmas is coming! Decorations are going up in the train stations everywhere! This city will look so cool decorated for Christmas and covered in snow (hopefully)!

Well, Heather and I are almost half-way through the course we're taking in Berlin. This has been a really intensive course. Before we came here, I kept saying it would be intensive. But I don't think I had any idea what that meant. I should have meant that I would eat, drink and sleep teaching English. It's been intense.

We got here and started classes, and they threw us in right away. We had to teach a class of English learners on the second day we were here. Total, we have to teach 8 times, 2 times a week for the 4 weeks. Tonight Heather and I completed our 4th lesson, so we are half way. There is so much planning that we are required to put in to be prepared for each lesson. Then we're observed as we teach it. And get feedback the next day on how bad or good we were. Last feedback session I had, it was bad.

Anyway, it's been a great experience so far. We may be completely wiped at the end, but it'll pay off when we're actually in Southeast Asia doing this stuff. The preparation this is giving us is priceless!

Berlin is so interesting and diverse. Our class has 13 people in it. Beyond that, they've split us into 3 groups (4, 4 and 5). It's so interesting in my group. When we are in our class teaching (the 4 of us, our tutor, and 8 students), there are 9 different nationalities represented. 9 nationalities in 13 people! Wow!

British

Irish

Iranian

Hungarian

German

Australian

Azerbaijan

Syrian

American

I think that is so cool. Anyway, Berlin is definitely an international city. Ben and Jasmin's apartment (where we are staying) is in the Turkish section of the city. There is this nice little Turkish bakery down the road that Heather and I have fallen in love with. We love to go there when we have time to get something to eat.

So tonight is the first night since we started that we haven't really had any homework to do. We had a little, but nothing compared to normal. So it was kinda nice to settle down. No one will believe this, but I made dinner. Don't laugh. Rice and green beans. I made them totally on my own. And it wasn't bad!

Well, it's sad to say, but our time in Berlin is going way too fast. This city is incredible in its history and diversity, and it kills me that we can't spend more time getting to know it. We've already been here for 2 weeks, and feel like I have only seen the train (which is awesome, by the way. I love public transportation!)

Pray for us as the course only gets harder in the last half. We know it'll be over in no time, so we don't wish for that. We want to enjoy this country while we're here!

We miss you and love you all. Happy Thanksgiving!

Later guys,

Matt

Wir sind in Berlin und Schnee fällt!

So, I have seen no snowfall since about February 2005. That's about 32 months without snow, and hard to take for an Illinois guy that loves seasons and loves winter. All that has changed today.

It's about 2:45 in the afternoon (14:45 for Berliners) in Germany, and I heard the rain coming down hard. Suddenly I heard the rain stop, and I looked outside, and saw it. Finally, I saw snowfall. Oh the sweet relief on this Saturday afternoon in November!

                                                                                         

So, I'm enjoying today. Even as it starts to get dark so early (It's completely dark by about 4:45), I'm in a good mood this afternoon. I made my first trip (alone) to the grocery store, will soon take the train with Heather to our friend's church, and we get to walk in the snow. It couldn't get better!

Pray for Heather as she is trying to adjust to the time difference. We start class Monday, and we need to be prepared!

Here are just a couple other pictures. One of a massive Lutheran church downtown, and the other of the Bible Study group that met in Ben and Jasmin's apartment Thursday night. It was a blast!

                                                                                          

We miss you all, and love you!

Later guys,

Matt

*Correction: It's been since December of 2005 without snow, not February of 2005. That means it's been 23 months. Not quite the 32 I thought, but it sure feels like it!

From Connecticut

First, I think it's interesting that we're in Connecticut for a connecting flight. Connecticut. What a great name for a state. I think I like it. I wonder where it came from (wikipedia...).

Heather and I are on our way to Berlin, Germany right now. We're in the midst of a 7 hour layover in Hartford, Connecticut and will be getting on a flight to Amsterdam and then to Berlin pretty soon. Crazy to think that we're going to Europe right now. Doesn't feel too different than normal, actually.

I hope we actually will get to see Berlin while we're there for this upcoming month. This course we're taking is going to be pretty intense (9-hrs-of-class-a-day-,-3-hrs-of-homework-a-night-intense). I look forward to the course, and I look forward to hanging out with our friends Ben and Jasmin in Berlin. They have a really sweet coffeehouse job that I'm excited about seeing.

Well, hopefully I'll have time to post some things while we're in Germany for this month. Until then...

Later guys,

Matt

Generation Q

I love that the New York Times is finally offering their Op-Ed columns for free online. I get to read some Thomas Friedman again without paying for a newspaper that I can mostly read for free online!

Anyway, his most recent piece on our generation was great today. Check it out.

Generation Q

"By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 10, 2007
I just spent the past week visiting several colleges — Auburn, the University of Mississippi, Lake Forest and Williams — and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed.

I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.

One of the things I feared most after 9/11 — that my daughters would not be able to travel the world with the same carefree attitude my wife and I did at their age — has not come to pass.

Whether it was at Ole Miss or Williams or my alma mater, Brandeis, college students today are not only going abroad to study in record numbers, but they are also going abroad to build homes for the poor in El Salvador in record numbers or volunteering at AIDS clinics in record numbers. Not only has terrorism not deterred them from traveling, they are rolling up their sleeves and diving in deeper than ever.

The Iraq war may be a mess, but I noticed at Auburn and Ole Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms. Many of those not going abroad have channeled their national service impulses into increasingly popular programs at home like “Teach for America,” which has become to this generation what the Peace Corps was to mine.

It’s for all these reasons that I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad.

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.

There is a good chance that members of Generation Q will spend their entire adult lives digging out from the deficits that we — the “Greediest Generation,” epitomized by George W. Bush — are leaving them.

When I was visiting my daughter at her college, she asked me about a terrifying story that ran in this newspaper on Oct. 2, reporting that the Arctic ice cap was melting “to an extent unparalleled in a century or more” — and that the entire Arctic system appears to be “heading toward a new, more watery state” likely triggered by “human-caused global warming.”

“What happened to that Arctic story, Dad?” my daughter asked me. How could the news media just report one day that the Arctic ice was melting far faster than any models predicted “and then the story just disappeared?” Why weren’t any of the candidates talking about it? Didn’t they understand: this has become the big issue on campuses?

No, they don’t seem to understand. They seem to be too busy raising money or buying votes with subsidies for ethanol farmers in Iowa. The candidates could actually use a good kick in the pants on this point. But where is it going to come from?

Generation Q would be doing itself a favor, and America a favor, if it demanded from every candidate who comes on campus answers to three questions: What is your plan for mitigating climate change? What is your plan for reforming Social Security? What is your plan for dealing with the deficit — so we all won’t be working for China in 20 years?

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual.

Maybe that’s why what impressed me most on my brief college swing was actually a statue — the life-size statue of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. Meredith was the first African-American to be admitted to Ole Miss in 1962. The Meredith bronze is posed as if he is striding toward a tall limestone archway, re-enacting his fateful step onto the then-segregated campus — defying a violent, angry mob and protected by the National Guard.

Above the archway, carved into the stone, is the word “Courage.” That is what real activism looks like. There is no substitute."

Later guys,
Matt

My perspective

Well, where do I begin?

Heather and I are on the road. We have been for about 3 days short of a month, not that things were too calm before we got on the road. I don't think things have been calm for us since about February. Actually, the last time we were in one place for a week was April 15th. The last time we were in one place for a month really was February.

I love to put things in perspective like that.

Well, it's obvious that almost everyone has heard of our target country by now. I wish I knew how to talk about the place now that people have so many ideas about it due to the press and blogs and e-mails and Facebook action groups. It's kind of difficult to know how to feel right now.

I've thought and prayed and talked about this country and these people so much at this point. It's really not easy to hear all that people are saying is happening.

We've gotten so many questions and comments about the place and what is going on. "Is it scary there? Will you be safe? Will you be able to go? Do you still want to go? Should you go? You shouldn't go. You can't go. You're crazy. You're brave. You're stupid."

It's sometimes a little frustrating.

Realize that anything you hear from the press in this country is inflated 100 times. It's terribly one-sided. Realize also that you can't trust anything the military says about the situation, because it's deflated 100 times. Basically take the average, and you may be close. We just can't know what has happened. We probably never will. Yes, something terrible has happened. Yes, the people will recover. No, not much will change, most likely.

There are a lot of positive things we can take from this recent round of demonstrations and the government's response. Realize I am not defending the leaders in any way. They have done a terrible job. But actually there has been a positive side. Maybe not positive, maybe non-negative.

The government was not quick to crush the demonstration. They let it grow quite large before the expected actions were taken. Also, the protests were not completely peaceful demonstrations. Nor did they start out to be protests for democracy, as many in the press want us to think. The monks were also somewhat violent. Remember hearing that a number of monks took soldiers hostage and torched their trucks? Honestly, these things are nearly never one-sided. We often only hear the side we want to hear. Our number one desire as Americans is to see democracy and freedom move throughout the world into the less free areas, so that's what the press tells us. It's dramatic. It's heroic. They sell newspapers and people watch more TV.

Maybe it sounds like I am down on the job our press does on reporting news. That's probably because I am.

Yes, we're still going to SE Asia. We don't leave till February, so by then it should have calmed down. No foreigners or Christians have been the target of the military, unless they were acting political and involved in the demonstrations. And honestly, if a foreigner was involved in the demonstration, they might deserve to be kicked out. It really isn't our job to be inside the country stirring up trouble. It's one thing to protest from the outside in support of those inside. It's another to get involved inside and aide in the destabilizing of the situation.

If it is absolutely too dangerous, we won't go in right then. We'll be smart about it.

I've gone back and forth on wondering if it is our job as Christians to push for the destabilization of a country, or to even make it our concern. You know, I remember a while back Pat Robertson called for a dictator to be assassinated, as if the church had a stance on the leaders of a country having a right to be there or not be there.

Maybe I've come to the point with this country that I'd rather not have a thought about this government. Maybe that is the frame of mind I have to have when I'm there, so it's started to become my frame of mind here. I just don't think it's up to us (Heather and I) to have an opinion about it. The fact is, God has placed those leaders in power, whether I understand it or not (Romans 13). That's a whole different post in itself. (And to be honest, this government has not crushed the church or forced it underground. In fact, the church is growing quickly and has the right to in this country!)

Well, maybe this post was more for me than anything. I'm not sure I should have even wrote what I wrote. I'm unsure about how to be political about talking about this type of thing, especially when it's so close to me. I'll save it, and reread it later before posting.

I know one thing. I'm very excited about this country. I've seen God's hand working in it already, and I can't help but be excited about the future of this country. We'll keep reading the news and tempering it as we go along. And we'll see where it takes us. Be praying for this country. But pray for more than what you've been reading about. There's so much more to this place than we're seeing in the press.

Later guys,
Matt

White people in Asia

Wow, only about 5 days left in Asia, then we start our long trip back to the States.

We've had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things this summer, and we've had the opportunity to see how the Body is growing in other parts of the world. It really gets me excited to get to see first-hand how the Good News is affecting change in other parts of our very diverse world.

Thailand has been a bit of a culture shock for us, I think. I know when we got on the plane from Yangon and landed in Thailand, it felt like a different planet in many ways. So much more advertising, more pavement, nicer cars, newer clothes. It felt like we stepped back into the West.

Not that the other country was what I expected either. I expected much less development than I saw. I expected less urban-looking areas in Yangon. I expected less developed housing and more grass and bamboo huts. Actually, we lived in a hotel in "undeveloped" SE Asia and in a bamboo hut in Thailand.

And it has been great to live in a bamboo hut. If it never got cold in the US, I think I would want to live in a bamboo hut there too. So cool.

But the most shocking thing about being in Thailand, when we go into Chiang Mai anyway, is all the white people. They're everywhere. Everywhere you look, you see white people. One of our team even ran into a couple of people that she goes to school with. This is just such a common tourist destination. After being in the last country, that was a surprise. There, we probably in the whole month saw 10 white people, at most. Maybe only 3 Americans. When you walk down the street or in the market or hail a taxi, you stand out much more. Everyone sees you and stares, because it's not often that they see white people. Not many tourists make their way into that country.

And I didn't really mind it either, because we white people think we own the world. We go into a place and we try to make it like home. We expect service and we expect quality and we expect to be treated better than others. Maybe I am generalizing a little too much...

I don't think I expected white people in Thailand. I wouldn't have been in much shock when we landed in LA and saw white people. I just wasn't prepared for Thailand. White people in Thailand.

But, you know white people, you can never be prepared for white people.

Freedom in Legalism

"They were telling me I was really free
They could see it by the way I used my words
But in the dark of night I could see that they weren’t right
Because speeches are to free as cages are to birds"
-Heart Attack Time Machine by Don Chaffer

I love that line of that song. Did I mention I was able to score the new record, and I love it?

OK, so what's been happening in SE Asia? We've been a little busy, you might say.

Things in our last country went by like a flash. I can't believe we've been there and left already. We loved the people. So loving and... I know it'll take me a while to find words and process all that happened there. It is such a spiritual land. You can't go anywhere without finding Buddhist monks and pagodas (places of individual worship) that are covered in gold.

Buddhism is a religion of self-reliance. I wish I understood it better, but the line of Buddhism in MM is of the Theravada line. It has stayed more true to Buddhism in its original forms than many other types in SE Asia. It has so many laws and rules that people are to follow. Many monks have dedicated themselves to trying to follow these laws so that they can achieve an existence of having no desires or pain and suffering.

It really is very similar to the law that God laid down for us in the Hebrew Scriptures. The law served to show us that we are unable to follow the law perfectly on our own, so we need help from Someone else. It points at God and reveals our need for Him.

The same is similar of Buddhism.

I think it has served as a training tool that God can use to show grace to these people. Many monks have realized that there is no way they can follow all of the rules to reach the end of suffering. When they hear of Christ and how He was able to meet the requirements of the law for us, it makes sense to them!

This is why I have such hope for MM to become a nation that follows Christ. If this nation of Buddhists in the seat of Buddhism in SE Asia were to become a Christ-following nation, what a far-reaching affect it would have across the whole of Buddhist Asia!

The Christianity in MM is very conservative and even legalistic. At first, when we hear this in the Western Church, we think bad thoughts. Legalism can be such a bad thing. But the reality is that a legalistic church in MM is a very good thing for those coming out of Buddhism, a very legalistic religion. To Buddhists in MM, Christianity looks freeing! And how freeing it must be to realize that you no longer have to be able to follow every rule to the letter! But, if Christianity in the East were like Christianity in the West, it would look like universalism or something fake, as if there were no dedication or hard work required. This would appear too scary or false for Buddhists, a people naturally bent toward hard work, to be attracted to.

Maybe I haven't stated it too clearly, but we came away from MM feeling that the church in the country is on the cusp of an explosion. Things are about to happen, and the church there is ready to grow and challenge their Buddhist brothers and sisters to join them.

Well, there're plenty more stories to tell later, but I must be going. As for now, we're in Thailand teaching a whole lot of English nearly every day. This summer has been a challenging one, and often our team has stepped up the task of staying encouraging and working hard. It's been a great summer to lead these three girls with my wife. Thank you so much for your prayers!

We'll be back soon!

Later guys,
Matt

Hey guys, this will probably be our last post before the trip to SE Asia this summer, since we're leaving early tomorrow morning for 10 days of training. I just wanted to let you know where you can read our updates and keep up with how things are going every now and then throughout the summer.

Go to this page for updates!

Sorry to those of you I wanted to contact before we left but didn't get the chance. We're thinking about you, we're just a little overwhelmed with everything going on. We love you!

Have a great summer. We'll miss you!

Later guys,
Matt

One Year Anniversary

It's crazy to think that it's been a year already, but it has. Heather and I were married one year ago today. The day is basically over now, and guess what fun things we did on our one year anniversary!

We woke up at 5 AM, flew from St. Louis to Ft. Myers, stepped in the door and started packing, took a short nap, packed again, watched part of our wedding video, drank some tea from our wedding, and packed some more.

We're not quite finished, but we think it's time to sleep after a day like this.

It was great to see so many of you this past weekend! Congrats to John and Erin! We love you both!

Later guys,
Matt

So our friends John and Erin are getting married tomorrow! We're pretty excited for them, and we're very excited that we get to fly up to catch the wedding! God has provided us with such good friends!

We're currently in the airport waiting for our flight to St. Louis. It's been delayed by about 45 minutes so we've got about an hour to sit here and wait. Seems like flights are always being delayed nowadays. What is it about this kind of travel that makes it so difficult?

Well, I guess you do have the huge expense of planes and fuel and airports, and the limited amount of crew to man the planes and airports, and the security risks that are so easily exploited, and the major numbers of people going through airports with way too much stuff that is supposed to be handled by way too few people. It just seems like a very flawed and slow system, but what else can you do? There's not a lot of hope of it getting any easier to travel any time soon.

I have to admit though, I love to fly. I've always looked forward to getting to fly. 2 years ago I had never flown in my life. I was 20 and I hadn't ever been on a plane. A lot of people looked at me like I was crazy. But I never had a reason to fly. Everywhere I was going was in driving distance, and driving was cheap.

By the end of this summer, I will have taken off and landed in an airplane 40 different times. It doesn't look like it will be slowing down anytime soon. At least I enjoy it everytime.

Heather and I are so blessed to get to work in the job we have. We've had a wonderful time staying down here at the Center for Global Outreach of NMSI in Ft. Myers. I can't believe that time is coming to a close. We've been feverishly trying to pack all of our things and getting them into storage for the summer. We love our house down here and we love our jobs and our friends, and now we're gonna be leaving all of those things again, this time to go somewhere else where we know almost no one. Seems like we've already done this before. Seems like this is all we do so far.

So this weekend is another one of those times that we get to go back and visit the friends we've had to leave. We love these days, but we hate that they are so short.

OK, we're gonna go look for some food. Thanks for letting me think.

Later guys, Matt

Flight times.

Well, Heather and I are two weeks from meeting our team at Pre-field Orientation here in Florida. That means we're 21 days from our flight to MM. I gotta tell you, I feel like that is the longest time ever to wait. Let me tell you about our flight itinerary. It's crazy.

Our total travel time from when we leave Orlando International Airport and land in Yangon, MM is 43 hours 55 minutes. We will leave Orlando at 7:20 AM EST on Thursday and land in MM at 2:15 AM EST Saturday. And all of that doesn't include the hours of travel before leaving Orlando and after landing in Yangon. I think we might be worn out. I'm so excited!

We fly about 5 hours to LA from Orlando. Then we wait 5 hours for a 14 hour flight to Taipai, Taiwan. We wait for 2 hours for our 4 hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Finally, we wait 12 hours for our 1 hour 15 minute flight to Yangon. I think that last leg may be the toughest part of the whole trip.

In the middle of the summer we will leave Yangon and fly through Bangkok to Chaing Mai, Thailand. This travel time is 4 hours and 5 minutes.

The flight back from Chaing Mai, Thailand is a little bit better. It's only 43 hours and 2 minutes. And we add a stop in Denver between LA and Orlando.

Total travel time between all of our destinations in the summer will then be 91 hours 2 minutes. 3 days and 19 hours. Waiting in airports and flying on planes. Woo hoo! What a great time of bonding with our teammates! My iPod only holds about 2 days worth of music, so that leaves plenty of time to converse.

We're taking a few games. Settlers (anyone have an expansion pack I can borrow for the summer?), Euchre, Cribbage, Sorry, Mexican Train Dominoes. A few books and a couple magazines. An iPod full of music. A few good conversations. This should be great!

Pray for us!

Later guys,
Matt

Oh, the places we can run!

So, the month of March has come and (nearly) gone. This has been a busy one for Heather and I!

This month has been such an encouraging one for us, though. We've been nearly non-stop on the road, and we've covered more miles in March than we did in December, January and February combined. What a great time this has been.

We started the month with a great visit from our good friends Brad and Jen Ward. What a blast we had in Florida with them. We got in some ocean kayaking and surfing...and of course some interesting and perfectly timed van-trouble. Thanks for blessing us guys!

Then my parents came down to Florida to visit. This trip was well-timed with the coming of Major League Baseball Spring Training. We followed the Cardinals around Florida from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic Coast and then to the Disney Coast. What a great thing to get to do with my family! Thanks Mom and Dad and Heather Mae and Justin! We love you!

We left from Orlando to start a two-week long support raising trip in the middle of March. We'll be wrapping up this trip tomorrow with two final meetings. After tomorrow's appointments, we will have met with 20 churches in 15 days. Heather and I have been so encouraged as we've visited these churches. We hope we've been encouraging to them also! We've met great churches, eaten some great food and stayed with some amazing people. We're so thankful for the friendships that God has brought together in this time! By the way, we learned a new game called Mexican Train Dominoes. Incredible. Let's play sometime soon.

Also, in the middle of this trip, we made a quick visit to Illinois for my great-grandpa's funeral. Our schedule worked out just perfect that we were able to make the drive without skipping any appointments. We got to visit with family, pay our respects to my great-grandpa, and see some great friends in Springfield. We never expected to get to see Illinois before May, or even August, of this year! But, before we knew it, we were in Illinois, and then gone again.

Of course, we've spent this two weeks living out of our car, mooching off of people, and even stealing a shower from a closed state park. You might say this is the life I've dreamed of!

One more thing, we had a much-needed break from everything on this past Monday with some friends from Florida who we met up with in Tennessee. We got the chance to do some hiking and we tried our first hand at rock climbing! I think I've found a new favorite sport. I've already begun eyeing a harness for my future endeavors. (Heather didn't do too badly either!)

So, the month is finished, we've spent a good amount of time in 5 different states. We've traveled well over 4,000 miles. We've been completely worn out. And we've been completely blessed. Thank God for the privilege of the life and friends He has given us!

Later guys,
Matt

P.S. We also tried out this great service Cracker Barrell offers. They let you rent audio books to listen to on any long drives you might have, and return them for a complete refund minus a 2 or 3 dollar weekly user fee. Heather and I have finished 3 books, one on Tony La Russa, one by President Jimmy Carter, and a particularly cheeky fiction novel about a guy that gets engaged in Australia in a crazy turn of events. Give the service a shot if you're spending any lengthy time on the road!

Reminded by Tradition

Drew recently posted an article that got me thinking about tradition again. For the most part in the past few years, I think I have fallen more and more to a distrust or discontent with traditions. I think my unrest has stemmed less from the tradition itself, and more from the people's mindset in practicing the tradition.

For years and years, I've heard of people practicing Lent. I went to school with people that practiced it every year of their lives, but often it wasn't anything more than a hassle to them, or an irritating inconvenience. More often than not, it was about something they could complain about to their friends. For instance, one of them would say, "Man, I want to go home tonight to play video games, but I can't because I gave them up for Lent!" OK, that may not be the best example, but it was more about the action they were performing than it was about the purpose of Lent itself.

Again, I go back to Isaiah 58. Check out the first half of the chapter.

Isaiah 58

True and False Worship

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.
Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.
Tell my people Israel[a] of their sins!
2 Yet they act so pious!
They come to the Temple every day
and seem delighted to learn all about me.
They act like a righteous nation
that would never abandon the laws of its God.
They ask me to take action on their behalf,
pretending they want to be near me.
3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.
‘Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves,
and you don’t even notice it!’
“I will tell you why!” I respond.
“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast,
you keep oppressing your workers.
4 What good is fasting
when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
will never get you anywhere with me.
5 You humble yourselves
by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
Do you really think this will please the Lord?

These people, God's people, were doing what He asked. They followed the tradition of offering sacrifices and fasting, and going to the Temple to pray, and bowing their heads in penance, just as God asked them to do. But they totally missed the point of those things, the point of humbling themselves before God so they might see how much they needed Him.

And so what good is tradition if people don't know why they do it, or if people don't do it for the purpose traditions like Lent should be followed?

The natural step that humans take when they want to correct a problem is to go to the complete other extreme. This is why many non-denominational churches, saying they were "returning to the Bible", did away completely with traditions such as Lent. They see the problem of traditions that no longer hold any meaning. Why even do them? Even if they have been around for hundreds of years, if they've lost all meaning what use are they? Is it better to drop something that has been around forever than to keep doing something mindlessly when you don't even know the purpose. Maybe so. They seem to be filth in God's eyes.

But we see now that some of these churches are returning to traditions, like the ones Drew referenced in Advent and Lent. Isn't this exciting?! They are returning to the traditions that they now see as valuable and full of meaning again!

To me, it's exciting to see these churches that perform these actions out of love and respect for a God Who they need and love, and desire to remind themselves about constantly. Afterall, that's why God established those traditions for His people so long ago. They were meant to remind His people of how He had rescued them from danger and destruction into a life that was full and abundant in Him.

Thanks for the thought provoking post, Drew!

Later guys,
Matt