During last night's dance party, I turned to Teddy Dellesky, the Central Vineyard Church team leader and asked him, "So, do you think this beats begging on the street or scavenging for recyclables in a trash heap?" He looked at me, shook his head and smiled. "Dude," he said, "Everybody needs to come see this."

This weekend has provoked many such reactions. We've spent a fair amount of time hanging around the city, and we've seen what happens to kids with no one to care for them. We've seen the grubby scavengers fighting over a piece of wire or a water bottle. In fact, Teddy and Jamie went out yesterday morning to see the work of another excellent Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) among young mothers and their babies living on the city dump.

We've taken time as individuals and together over dinner to review the bios of the kids in Asia's Hope's care: "Mother died of HIV. Father died from land mine. Mother died of Dengue Fever. Father abandoned the family. Mother received life sentence. Father laid down on the train tracks and committed suicide..." "Child lived with three siblings with an uncle who provided no care. Child survived by stealing food. Child had to work in the fields tending cattle for a few spoonfuls of rice each day..."

These types of stories, each extraordinary are heartbreakingly banal, thanks to the sheer consistency. Death, disease, poverty, abandonment, danger, exploitation -- these were the daily features served up by life for the kids at Asia's Hope back when they were still orphans.

Chien, Billy and Soran escape the heatSarabeth splashes around with Mathay and Mey Nearng.Kids from Prek Eng 4 sing a song together in church

So, during our exhausting, yet exhilarating, weekend of fun activities with the kids and staff, I caught myself slipping down between two unfathomably high cliffs, falling momentarily into the chasm between heaven and hell, thrilled and at times nauseated to see the two kingdoms pulse and undulate, and times even intersect.

On Saturday, I whooshed and climbed both physically and emotionally as the realizations sunk in as to just what has happened here. God has allowed us to participate in a dramatic rescue mission, propelling us into action, empowering us to reach out and grab these children as they were tottering on the edge of the abyss, and blessing us to join in their restoration.

The kids from Prek Eng 3 enjoy a special treat before the dance party

As my pastor, Jeff Cannell, has said, "The kingdom of heaven can be seen nowhere more clearly than among orphans enjoying a day at a waterpark."

And at last night's dance party, one of our team members said, "Now I've been to heaven." And I think she's right, in a very real and liminally tangible way. The angel told Mary and Jospeh, "Call him Emmanuel, God with us." And Jesus said, "What you've done for the least of these, you've done for me." Calling out -- in Khmer, I think -- we all heard Jesus whisper to us among the squeals of the kids and the "boom-ch-boom-ch-booom" of Cambodian dance music, "Thank you so much for throwing this party. My kids and I are having a great time."

 

Okay. I know I just got a little mystical, and may have lost some of my more cerebral readers, but, man, as Teddy said, "Everbody needs to come see this." So, will you all please continue to pray that God will give us more wisdom, more money, more workers and more opportunities to expand this party, to invite more of Jesus' favorite people until this rowdy racket of the redeemed reaches all across Asia? I don't want to expand just because it seems like the thing to do. I want to blow the doors off this Jubilee and welcome all who are thirsty to come drink, all who are hungry to eat, and all who are funky to dance!

Yesterday morning, it was clear that everyone could use a change of pace. My kids had been out and about, being hustled back and forth between the hotel, the school and the children's homes since our arrival in Phnom Penh, and attitudes were starting to fray. The team from Central Vineyard was also feeling a bit harried, so we decided to take a day off, do some shopping and sightseeing and stay in the city. 

Clearing our schedule ended up being a good thing. My family decided to show the Central Vineyard team to some shopping and sightseeing opportunities around town. On my way out of the hotel, I checked my email one last time, and realized that our director Savorn Ou's email had been hacked, and that someone using his account was impersonating him and sending requests worldwide for money to get him out of a tight spot in, of all places, Spain.

I sent my family along and spent the next hours doing damage control, contacting people from Savorn's email list, establishing new email accounts and setting them up on Savorn's phone and computer.

By the time my family returned, they were almost ready for lunch. Me? I was ready for a nap. But I went to lunch anyway. Probably a bad move. The family and team finished lunch with enough energy to hit the streets again. Me, not so much. In fact, I felt like I was going to yak. I took a moto back to the hotel, sent the rest on the way and got a couple hour's worth of sleep.

I felt well enough to go to dinner with everyone, but not enough to hang out afterwards. I hit the sack relatively early. That's probably why I'm now awake at 3:49 a.m. Ugh.

I'm going to try to go back to sleep. I'll need my energy -- we're taking the kids from Prek Eng 2 out to the water park today. 5 hours of roughhousing with a couple dozen energetic kids in the blazing Cambodian sun can take the spit out of the healthiest man. After an hour or so, I think I'll need to scout out a hammock. Or a gurney. 

After the water park, we're headed to Savorn and Sony's new house for dinner. I'm looking forward to seeing their new place which many of you helped us purchase. Unlike their old house, this one doesn't fill with 3 feet of poo every time it rains. This is a very good thing.

Tomorrow, we're going to church with the kids, and then we're hosting a dance party for all five Prek Eng homes. By the time Monday rolls around, we may need another break. But until then, we're going to give it all we got and try our best to show the kids and staff just how much we love them.

I'll start by trying -- and failing -- to get another hour or so of sleep. If it doesn't work, I'll take an early morning photo Safari.

Day two in Cambodia starts, well, now. It’s 6:09 a.m. and I have finally given up the struggle to stay in bed. Jet lag is a bit harsh, no matter how many times I travel. I suppose that there’s some consolation to be had in the knowledge that it’s much harder on the return trip.

But, hey. I’m not complaining. The trip thus far has been a-okay! My kids are getting along well, the team from my church is having a blast, and the food has been just outstanding. Most important, however, we’re back “home” in Cambodia, visiting with some of our favorite people in the world.

Yesterday afternoon Kori, the kids and I made a brief appearance at our school – just long enough to confuse the students and staff about why we didn’t arrive earlier than 10 minutes prior to dismissal. We got a few hugs, shook a few hands and handed over Chien, Pak and Xiu Dan to the kids from the Prek Eng 2 children’s home. Hand-in-hand, they walked the 700 or so meters home, carefully avoiding traffic on the improved, but still treacherous road from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City.

Kori and I, finding ourselves momentarily de-kidded, hung around for a few minutes longer and then hopped into our car and promptly got lost. So much has changed in and around Phnom Penh in the last year – new roads, new buildings, new signs – it’s quite easy to take a wrong turn, even if the destination is less than a mile away. We quickly corrected course and arrived at Prek Eng 2 to find Jamie, Teddy, Ben and Sarabeth fed, watered and chatting with Narun and Sophal, the home’s parents.

After the kids arrived home from school, they changed out of their uniforms – the white shirts and blue pants or skirts that every student in Cambodia wears – and we began to play. Teddy, Chien, Pak and some of the older boys got into a spirited soccer match (so spirited that Teddy tore a piece of his foot off on the pavement), Xiu Dan played on the swingset with some of the girls, Jamie, Ben and Sarabeth did ‘Simon Says’ and ‘Duck Duck Goose’ and Kori and I hung out on the front porch and chatted with the kids who tired from the various activities.

The pictures can tell the story better than words: this is a place of joy. It’s a place of hope. Real kids, real parents, real struggles and real needs. A real family that, blessed by some miracle of multiplication — akin, perhaps to Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand — has accumulated so much love that they can afford to give it away freely to me, my family and my friends.

This morning’s activities — a visit to the tailor shop, an massage appointment for Jamie’s aching back, another fantastic meal — all of these are interesting in their own right, but compared the opportunity to share another wonderful afternoon with the kids, they seem pretty routine despite the unusual locale.

Apparently this is a public album, one that you can see without logging on to Facebook. But hey, why not become a friend of Asia's Hope on Facebook? 

Prayers before dinner

Pay reads from the Bible

Sarabeth and her admirers.Some of my favorite girls.Is Pay really that small? Is Ben really that big? Jamie, completely in her element.Home sweet home

Banana chipsHandmade noodles in Phnom Penh

Delicious phở in a streetside cafeXiu Dan and Chien in the Columbus airport

No pictures yet, but we’re here in Phnom Penh. We got to our hotel after midnight, and we’re doing our best to get the kids ready to meet the Delleskys and Collinses for a 9am breakfast. 

I saw Jamie in the hallway and she told me tha they’ve all been up since 4am. Jetlag, especially for the uninitiated, is rough.

I’d be happy to take it easy and slow, but the team from Central Vineyard will only be here for a couple of weeks, so I want to maximize their time with the kids. 

On the agenda today? Well, this morning, we need to hit up the Lucky Market to replace some things that we decided not to pack for space reasons – shampoo, conditioner, and a few other toiletries. Also, we need to hit the phone shop to get some local SIM cards.

After that, we’ll head out to Prek Eng to see the kids at the school and at some of the homes. I haven’t really had time to chat with the team, so I’ll also want to hear what their plans are. We’re sort of “in the team but not of it,” so we’ll have separate agendas at times.

I hope to have some pictures up by this time tomorrow. So far, we haven’t seen or done much. Everyone is good spirits, though, so I’m looking forward to a great day.

Well, it’s t-minus seven days.

In exactly one week, I’ll be on a plane heading west. So far west, in fact, that it’ll be east by the time we leave. Kori, Chien, Pak, Xiu Dan and I will be in the air for about 24 hours (30+ if you include airports) and arriving bleary-eyed and hopefully-not-too grumpy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia — a city that feels to me like a home away from home.

One of my first requests as Asia’s Hope’s full time Executive Director was for the board to grant me the option of taking a travel budget designed to sustain three or four separate month-long trips to Asia and use it to take one very long trip each year for not only me, but for my whole family. I’m so thankful that I don’t have to choose between my family and my job. I’m also thankful for my pastor and my church family; the emotional, logistical and spiritual support they provide makes all of this possible.

This summer promises to be one of the busiest and most productive trips yet. Kori and the kids will be joining me for the first two months and returning home with just a few weeks to prepare for school. I’ll spend June in Cambodia, July in Thailand, most of August in Cambodia, and the first part of September in India. Along the way, I’ll be joined by board members, friends and family, and will have the chance to meet up with many of the teams visiting from U.S. and Canadian church sponsors.

Wait, India?

Yes. India.

This year we’re adding India to the itinerary. I’ll be traveling with Asia’s Hope project manager Seth Earnest (and, I pray, Executive Board Member Dr. John Campbell, who is recovering from a blood clot and a small handful of other health incidents) to West Bengal, India to meet with lawyers and potential ministry partners. We’re praying that God will provide the support necessary to rescue 125 orphaned children in the remote hill areas near Darjeeling in 2012. http://www.asiashope.org/five-for-india/

If time and technology permit, I’ll be updating this blog at least two or three times a week. Please check in frequently and travel the world vicariously through us. I promise you won’t get bored. You probably won’t get Dengue Fever, either.

All joking aside, please pray that we stay healthy. As many of you remember, I got Dengue at the end of my trip last summer, and it was miserable. I lost about 25 pounds, and aged – perhaps permanently – about five years. If I get it again, I have an increased of getting a more serious version. I’d hate to go through this again, and I don’t want to see anyone else in my family suffer this kind of malady either.

We can use all of the prayers and kind words we can get. Pass this link along http://www.asiashope.org/directors-blog -- the more the merrier.

Catch you all on the flip side.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations..." Ephesians 3:20, 21

March has been quite a month.

We had spent the previous few weeks preparing for the U.S. visit of Savorn, our Cambodian national director, and his wife Sony -- designing and printing new brochures, updating the web site, scheduling events. It's not often that we get such important visitors for a month straight, so we wanted to make sure we utilized them as fully as possible.

Savorn and Sony spent nearly four weeks in the U.S., where they met with pastors and leadership teams from 6 churches, spoke in at least 9 weekend services, 5 receptions, 1 pastor's luncheon and had more than a dozen meetings with donors, potential donors, board members and ministry partners.

We certainly kept them busy. And they us. But God has moved in powerful ways, thanks to the generosity of our churches and to Savorn's amazing testimony. 

Sony is greeted warmly by Darlene Rudrick of Crossroads Community Church before a reception in Columbus, Ohio.Savorn and Sony are pictured with John McCollum, Executive Director of Asia's Hope and Pastor Jason Haymaker and the elders of the Western Reserve Grace Church in Macedonia, Ohio.

There are many stories I could tell, but the most astounding one came from Crossroads Community Church in Mansfield, Ohio.

Crossroads sponsors our Battambang 3 children's home in Cambodia. Since the home's founding, the kids and staff there have lived in a rented property. The facility is reasonably spacious and is, overall, adequate. But the family has longed for a permanent home, one in close proximity to our other Asia's Hope homes in Battambang.

Leaders at Crossroads began quietly "testing the waters," starting the conversation among a few potential supporters at the church to determine the feasibility of raising the $50,000 needed to build a home on land we own immediately adjacent to our main campus. To their delight, one donor representing a charitable foundation told them, "We'll give you the $50,000, but we want to do it in the form of a matching gift. For every dollar your church gives, we'll contribute one dollar."

Elevation drawing of the proposed BB3 home

Now the church began to expand their sights -- they could, potentially, build two houses: one for BB3, the other for a brand new home. The leaders put the plans together, and announced that Easter Sunday would be the day for everyone in the church community to donate toward the project.

On Palm Sunday Weekend, Savorn and I spoke at Crossroads, encouraging them to continue the good work they had started. Pastor Tim challenged the congregation to dig deep, to give sacrificially to fulfill God's command in James 1:27 to care for "the fatherless and the widow."

They ended the service with this video:

Power of the Cross from Crossroads Community Church on Vimeo.

On Easter, the church responded "exceedingly, abundantly, above what [we could] ask." When the final tally was recorded, the church had raised $351,000!

So now, thanks to the amazing, overwhelming generosity of Crossroads church, we will be able to not only build the two homes we had hoped for, but we will be building a third -- all three will be fully supported on an ongoing basis by Crossroads. Additionally, the money raised by the church will go to more than a dozen other exciting projects -- vehicles, buildings, land -- that will be announced once the details are finalized.

To say that we're thankful would be a massive understatement. We're amazed at how much God loves his church, and how much he loves the orphaned and the poor.

What a faith-building experience this has been for everyone involved. We pray that this will be just one of many miraculous, divine interventions this year. 

I'm always encouraged when I hear of individuals' efforts to support Asia's Hope's efforts in rescuing and redeeming orphaned kids at high risk of exploitation. I haven't done a great job of communicating about these efforts, but I'd like to do better in the upcoming months.

I wanted to take a little time this morning to tell you about an exciting new initiative being led by a friend of mine, Petr Janousek, who is hoping to turn his year of training for the Ironman competition into $25,000 for the ministry of Asia's Hope!

Petr is a photographer, and I don't think he'd mind if I told you that he does not live an extravagant lifestyle, and does not have many financial resources of his own. That isn't stopping him from stepping out boldly in faith and setting an aggressive, God-sized goal for himself.

He's set up a website, http://www.imforhope.org/, and is actively soliciting sponsors for his race. With God's help and some hard work by Petr, this effort will provide significant tangible benefit to the ministry and to the kids and staff we support.

If you're interested in sponsoring Petr, I'd encourage you to visit his site. All donations will be tax deductible in the U.S. and Canada and will go directly to Asia's Hope.

If you have an idea for fundraising you'd like to run past me, or if you're aware of an existing effort you'd like to see profiled here, please call me at 614.804.6233 or email me john@asiashope.org. 

Together, we can change the lives of orphaned kids in Asia!

Driving home from the Bengals’ game with my son this weekend I saw a billboard that has bothered me ever since. It was big, red and Christmassy. And it featured a weepy looking white guy with long hair and an old-timey robe. The caption read, “I miss hearing you say ‘Merry Christmas’ – Jesus.”

At the risk of offending those who are deeply galled at hearing “Happy Holidays” from the cashier at Tim Hortons, I’m just going to say it: the so-called “War on Christmas” is pretty low on Jesus’ list of battle priorities.

Jesus didn’t come to establish a holiday, secular or otherwise. And whether the sign over the display at Target says “Happy Holidays,” “Seasons Greetings” or “Merry Christmas,” the real war on Christ’s coming and his agenda has precious little to do with the tinsel, the toys and the trappings of the holiday we’ve created.

In his own words, Jesus came “to proclaim good news to the poor…to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He came to “destroy the works of the devil” and to “serve, not to be served.” When we turn Jesus into a poster child -- quite literally, in the case of the previously noted billboard -- for our political or social agendas, we risk doing damage to his agenda.

Have we ever considered that maybe Jesus hates Christmas – or what it has become to most of us – more than the “secularists” do? Listen to what God said to the prophet Isaiah regarding the festivals and holidays of His people, Israel:

Stop bringing meaningless offerings! 
Your incense is detestable to me. 
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. 
They have become a burden to me; 
 I am weary of bearing them. 
When you spread out your hands in prayer, 
I hide my eyes from you; 
even when you offer many prayers, 
 I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. 
Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; 
plead the case of the widow.

So what’s the point? Should we as Christians stop celebrating Christmas? No. But we should make sure that we don’t anger God and cause him to “hate with all [his] being” our holiday festivities.

Let’s stop moaning about how victimized we feel when someone doesn’t affirm our agenda, and let’s redouble our commitment to the victims at the center of Jesus’ agenda: the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, the unloved, those enslaved by their own sins or those of others. Anything less is “detestable” to God, a “worthless assembly,” a burden to God himself.

And as we sing these words, let them ring out as our manifesto, our battle cry against everything which truly wars against the agenda of Christ’s coming:

Truly he taught us to love one another, his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we. With all our hearts we praise his holy name. Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, his power and glory evermore proclaimed.

Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

And by all means, have a merry Christmas.