Headed to Vietnam to Join Jim

(This was an update to Enc Inc a group of friends in Fullerton CA who keep in touch and are interested in what we're doing)

Jim leaves for Vietnam on Friday. I follow him on the 5th to stay with him and help out thru the 15th. I am so thrilled for him in the groups he has. So much potential through these men he meets with...for impacting the future of the church in Vietnam. I am always touched to see who God opens doors with for this humble man. He's trying to inspire them to get writing about the things they are learning so that as they grow, there will also be books published by Vietnamese on spiritual life and maturity. 

I will get to do a drama workshop there the 10th/11th. It's funny how these opportunities pop up from time to time, even though I don't seek them out. It's so easy for me, and they LOVE IT and LEARN so much! Last trip I did just a one evening thing with a group of 12. They were amazing!

Am also praying for a meeting to move forward with a partner on a book project for Vietnamese Christians based on the Sacred Pathways concept in Gary Thomas' book and Mrya Perrine's book that followed (after her dissertation) What's Your God Language? It's a stretch, but it's an idea that won't go away. So I'm acting on it.

The REAL LIFE drama for us recently was that March 31st Jim hurt his knee that has already been desperate for replacement. For much of April we've been assessing whether he needs to return to US immediately or if, with careful rest, it will get better enough to grit it out until our planned home assignment in mid-November. I'm happy to say we are staying put and marching forward with his planned trips. He's been telling those mentoring groups that he can't be as accommodating as previous trips...on motorcycles, up stairs, mountain paths, etc… the meetings have to come to him, cancelling the Hong Kong trip because there is TONS of walking/lugging luggage on public transportation…so, I'm really glad a decision has been made. And I'm relieved that we do not have to rush in goodbyes, or end anything abruptly.

I felt like I am on hold in some ways, just because I know we are moving back in November, and reluctant to dive in too wide relationally in Malaysia. I also don't want to wear out commuting in to Singapore multiple times a week. I get into Singapore on Mondays for meetings, and usually one or two other days. A mentoring group, who also helps me plan a monthly spiritual retreat for women. Jim's knee business had me pause even more. 

In this waiting time, I have a bit of new direction for my future: doing more writing and Speaking.  It came after 

• helping with an event where we hosted a Christian speaker/writer in January (I was underwhelmed), 
• a small speaking engagement I had in Feb for The Group.
• followed by a little sold out concert i had a 30  minute set for in march. 
• Then, there were two random exhortations that I need to be writing…specifically about one particular story. 

So, while waiting for Jim's knee to tell us whether it could get better, or needed to return to US, I started writing on one of my back burner book projects… transforming into a story a journal I kept in 2010. It was the first few months that the neighbour girl (stray child) Yi Hui started hanging out at our house.

After 4 weeks is already 130pages! It's really amazing to me how much happier and energetic I am when working on a creative project.

Save the Trees

The large seeds, nearly the size of golf balls had dropped from to the ground after a heat wave. This was followed by a few good days of heavy rain. All around on the ground many of these seeds had managed to take root and new trees were growing up among dozens of other lifeless seeds. "How is it," I wondered again, "that some take root and others don’t?"

The hired gardeners for this neighborhood come every few weeks with their weed whackers. They comb the earth and hack at anything that is more than an inch from the ground.

Grass.

Weeds.

Seedling trees.

It was only a matter of time before these young plants would get destroyed.

Walking my dog Jack I decided one day this week to rescue a few of these seedlings. So I took along a plastic bag and a trowel for our walk. I looked around for the strongest most mature seedlings.

It turned out to have been a bad day to have forgotten insect repellant. Hungry mosquitoes were a nuisance, and hundreds of ants crawled up my feet and into my pant legs. They were all making me their breakfast. I gave up my rescue operation after about 15 minutes with only seven seedlings and just as many squashed and bloody mosquito bites. These plants, no taller than my hand, and their bulbs with at least a three inch  taproot, had been rescued. They had been rooted out and carried with me back to the safety of my rooftop garden.

I put each of them in some water and then later placed them in some well composted soil. I am eager to see if they survive. It’s strangely thrilling to imagine where they might eventually thrive.

This morning I was better prepared for my mission. I was covered with insect repellant and got an earlier start to avoid the heat.

A short walk from my house, where the seedlings has been most plentiful, I soon discovered the tragedy.

The gardeners had been there only a few hours before me. Perhaps it was yesterday as the cuttings were fresh. They had come sometime since yesterday morning anyway. All of those dozens of small seedling trees I had seen earlier this week were gone. Hacked down with the tall grass.

Disheartened, I decided to make a search for broken stems. I looked among the grass and cuttings for bits of the young leaves that were lying on the ground. This way I might find the bulbs with their strong taproots, and still save some.

I searched and found one bulb, then two.

The mosquitoes left me alone today, swarming still, but only hovering near my repellant sprayed skin; never alighting. Scanning. Scanning. Carefully looking for more bulbs to save.

But I was having a difficult time finding any. I sat down on the ground under a large tree, where I saw some young broken leaves. The ants also left me alone today as I ran my hand along the grass cuttings and uneven ground hoping to come across a broken stem or bulb.

I found another two and gave up. Even if I found more, I reasoned, they probably would not survive after the trauma of the week whacker.

I called to the dog, who had been lounging in the grass and panting after chasing a few birds and enjoying the freedom beyond our front gate. He ran quickly to me knowing a treat was in my pocket. I grabbed his leash and picked up my bag of brokenness and my trowel.

No sooner had we started off for home, than I noticed a multitude of seeds lying around a nearby tree. Some were fresh and green, others had blackened skins their bottoms nestling into the earth. None had taken root yet.

It occurred to me that these might be the best to collect. To save.

They hadn’t sprouted yet.

They hadn’t been damaged either.

They were certainly in the wrong place to ever hope to become a mature tree. At some point these seeds which might soon begin to sprout, would eventually become the victim of next month’s weed whacker. In a matter of time any of these seeds which might manage to sprout, will get cut down like the older seedling siblings I had been routing around for earlier.

As I picked up more than two dozen seeds, it was all somehow symbolic to me.

This way it was easy. No digging, no roots to be broken. No chance of transplanting shock.

The seeds could come back with me and find a safer place to be nurtured and sprout.

As I walked back I thought of the children of the world in places where they are targets of human trafficking. I thought of all the passion that people of this generation have for, and their mission of rescuing young people who are in horrible places and forced to do horrible things.

I thought about the long term lack of success these rescue operations experience. The trauma and psychological damage done to the human seedlings who had begun to sprout in those dangerous places is devastating. The chance of lasting change from a permanent transplant to a safer life is very slim.

It’s not just a matter of going out and taking these kids away from their place of slavery. So many of them, after a rescue, and nurture, and counseling, and skills training, end up going back to the place of bondage instead of making a healthy life in a safer less dangerous place.

In Thailand. In China. In Ukraine. In Moldova. In the Philippines. In Romania. In Nepal…everywhere this is happening.

And I thought of those who are called to work with younger children. Those who are giving education, or housing to the orphans who might have eventually been victims of trafficking? These kids are like the multiple seeds on the ground. They have not taken root in the awful life of slavery. They have had the trauma of falling from the parent tree, but have not yet experienced the hacking off of their youthfulness. They are easier to rescue. There are no roots to dig out. Their tender broken stems won’t get crushed even more in my bag in the process of trying to take them back to safety.

It’s certainly not as interesting to pick a bunch of seeds up off the ground as it is to dig out the seedlings. There’s no drama. It’s a bit more boring, and will take more mundane nurture to see them sprout.

But I’ll bet in the end, years from today, there will be more healthy trees because I rescued the young ones before they’d sprouted, taken root, or gotten wacked.

I’m certainly not saying that rescuing trafficked slaves is a useless enterprise. My insight from the seeds today is that we should ramp up our efforts in pre-empting the slavery.

We’ll have more flourishing forests of strong adults if we give even more attention to  gathering up the lost seeds and nurturing them before they are broken.

Time will tell if I am wrong about this.

WE CAN DO SOMETHING! be a modern abolitionist

Made a blog for my friend yesterday. Activist Angel Corrigan is building an English library for a school in Nepal. Students have been rescued from sex trafficking. We CAN do be modern abolitionists by supporting the on the ground workers who are helping these kids!

Check it out from this link.