soldiers for Jesus

May 24, 2008
We have met our missionary friends here in Dubai and Al-Ain and found them to be exceedingly warm and hospitable. We have been carted around the city, invited into their homes, taken out to eat, and treated to frank conversations of their successes, stresses, and struggles.
Don and Becky are an older couple running a Christian guest house 15 min from Dubai international airport. John and Bev have joined them in this ministry. Ibriham comes and picks you up at the airport coffee shop.
We flopped at their guest house for a few hours upon arrival. Later, after a two hour nap, we talked with Don and Becky over breakfast about their 11 bedroom rented villa with 10 bathrooms. She and her husband chalked up 8,300 guest nights last year! Wow. And this is done with a communal dining room, Christian emblems on the walls, outdoor pool, and lots of creature comforts--all for about $30/night. They do not have a website. They do not advertise. It’s all word of mouth as missionary workers from multiple agencies make their way through the Dubai melting pot, re-tooling in various ways. Christian workers and their families come here from all over the Arabian Peninsula (AP) for medical care, vacations, mental health needs, and stop-overs to and from their sending agencies.
As I work with the “soldiers” of Jesus here in the UAE I am reminded of an old etching on the walls of Gibraltar by an unknown soldier:
God and the soldier, all men admire
In times of danger and not before,
When the danger is passed and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.
The day in and day out ostracism, contempt, and shunning which missionaries in Muslim dominated worlds endure is not insignificant. As an obvious foreigner it is palpable to me. I don’t wear long white gowns with red-checkered kaddifa head-dress. I don’t speak or read Arabic. Some of the Emirates take pity on me and are friendly. Others are not. There seems to be a quality of suspicion and edgy “carefultude” which colors one’s public persona.
I do know that if I openly evangelize Muslims I will either be deported or jailed. The UAE is very strict about this. This leaves the missionary walking warily. Not only can you be deported or jailed, but your agency can also be kicked out of the country due to your indiscretion. Thus the apparent objective, from a visitor’s pespective, is to win souls for Christ in a way that doesn’t leave a public ripple. Get to know your neighbor, make friends over time quietly with associates at work and school, create interest by your lifestyle and loving example as a Christian. And if you choose to evangelize, do so at your own risk personally and corporately.
So for us, as weak Christian soldiers, there is hope. God takes Jacob the worm and turns him into a threshing “instrument with teeth”. Frail reeds can become mighty pillars when we as soldiers travel the paths of obedience. On every side here there are Emirates where ignorance and Muslim affliction abound and oppression is rampant. So we hear a call, “come now, therefore, I will send you.” Like the Lord said to Moses in Exodus 3. Is he saying that to Bethyl and I for such a time as this and to such a people as this? I don’t know. I trust it will become more clear as we continue to walk the walk and quietly, discreetly, talk the talk.

May 20, 2008
Bethyl and I are waiting here at LAX to board the Cathay Pacific 747 to Dubai. People milling around me as I sit on the concrete terminal floor, plugged in, charging my laptop. Mothers and small children are pre-boarding. Peoples’ faces bemused, preoccupied, blank, avoidant of eye contact as I sit here foolishly smiling, feeling joyful about the upcoming huge opportunities lying before us to savor and share the love of Papa with those folks around me. It’s to be a focused discipline: scan people’s faces for whatever is true, noble, authentic, beautiful--the best in them and not the worst. It is only then that our lives, our journey, will work all together for good and we will be woven into His most excellent harmonies.
May 21, 2008
We are on a little break here at the Hong Kong airport after a delay and re-routing to Seoul, Korea, for re-fueling due to very strong headwinds crossing the Pacific (about 80 mph). We were on the ground in Korea for about an hour and then on for another 3 hours to Hong Kong, about 13 hrs total. Now, after a three hour layover, we are in the air again for an 8 hr flight to Dubai. Presently we are over Hanoi, 34,000 feet, heading west at 538 mph ground speed in the Airbus 330. We’ve done some reading, napping, listening to music. And, I, Bethyl might add ~ praying. We prayed that assignments against us, and which we made agreements with, would be broken in the strong Name of Jesus. Perhaps it’s not amazing, but quite jarring to recognize the power of the enemy to tear down What He ordains.
One particularly interesting conversation was with a Chinese woman, L. We were standing and I was stretching at the rear of the airplane; this 30ish woman was holding her 16 mo old baby. I, Vance, said , “what a beautiful baby.” That was all it took to begin an inspired conversation.
As we talked L. was amazingly open about her life. She shared that she was living now in Irvine but her family was going home for 2 months to visit her mother on the family’s annual pilgrimage. I stood, nodded, smiled, listened, asked open ended questions, prayed for an opening and guidance. She said she was often lonely and tended to isolate in her neighborhood. Her husband traveled a lot and she often felt overwhelmed with her two small children. I was silently sympathetic. She related that her own mother, who was recovering from depression, anorexia, even being suicidal, had visited from Hong Kong a year ago.
L. said she felt responsible for her mom’s depression by abandoning her. Now she herself was depressed, obsessive, compulsive, on and off medications, and her 5 yr old was talking about death. She said she was non-religious, but used the Mariner’s Church childcare facilities close to her home. She mentioned they were very hospitable, and she was curious about their teachings. I smiled and said, “I admire the Mariner’s work” and shared that I attend a very similar church in Fullerton.” I tell her, “I experience a very real and loving Father who directs my life and my chance meetings.” She said, “I think God sent you to talk with me.” What an amazing comment from a non-religious woman.
Someone prompted me to ask L. about her father. She said she had grown up outside Guangzhou and that her dad had left on business when she was three or four. She hadn’t seen much of him exception an occasional cameo appearance when he showed up and asked to be admired and respected. I felt her shrink and bristle as she spoke, eyes sparkly and contemptuous. My comment was how painful that must have been for her to be left by her daddy. Her mad crumpled into sad as she teared up and rocked her baby. I knew I must have been about her father’s age.
I say, “you’re an amazingly courageous woman to speak to a strange man in this way by the water fountain. But the blessing in this for you is that you get some hope. A bit of a good dad to give you a taste of the real Dad who loves and will not leave her--a little experience of what a loving father might be like—someone not so much interested in taking but in giving.” She nodded, wet eyed. Our conversation ended as I gave her my card and said, “feel free to email me if you would like to speak further. God is at work here. All the message of the Christian Bible is from a loving Father who says, in short, ‘come closer’. He loves you, L., and sent me to tell you that.”
A few hours later as everyone was disembarking, she passed by, smiling, baby-laden, and said I should bill her for a therapy session. I just smiled and pointed up.
“Jesus, bring this child and her children and her husband to know you as Savior and Lord. And, thank you for this little wayside chat.“
Soon we are to land in Dubai. We have sailed silently over Karachi after moving over Mumbai. Soon we will meet our dear friend and colleague, Mary. One of our last encounters was at Jonathan’s Memorial Service at Eastside early August 2007. It was at the time of Johnny’s death that I, Bethyl, saw the image of a door standing slightly open, and knew God was beginning to open the door of opportunities. As we’ve watched the monitor screen throughout the flights, we stand, I mean, sit amazed at the careful, attentive, care of our Lord in keeping these huge planes afloat in the air and guiding our path. We are thankful for Him. “By the Living Word of God we shall prevail, standing on the promises of God.”

5/6/08:Request For Prayer

Will you pray for us?

“We want to know God’s thoughts…the rest are details”

We’re doing what we believe we are on the plant to do!

• Share His love in ways we hear Him telling us to do
• We’re excited to go and listen for His Voice now and along-the-way
• “I, being in the way, the Lord led me…” [Genesis 24:27]
• Tuesday, May 20th through June 28th 2008

We’ll travel together in the Middle East & Kyrgyzstan [Al Ain, United Arab Emirates-75 miles outside Dubai]; Travel through Amman, Jordan to Israel (Mt. Carmel); Larnica, Cyprus; flying through Moscow to Kyrgyzstan. Bethyl will return to the USA on June 22nd. Vance will travel to Guangzhou, China, returning to the USA on June 28th

Our venues include:

• Teaching marriage and family wellness, and worship for chapel time.
• Worldwide Mission Fellowship Convocation. Focus on the prophetic significance of Israel, the Church, and Islam with Jews, Arabs, and Gentiles from the nations being built together “as a dwelling place for God in the Spirit” [Ephesians 2:22]. Followed by a time of rest near the Sea of Galilee
• Consulting and teaching with missionaries located in Cyprus who are involved in a mobile member care team reaching into the middle east
• Listening… more listening … more listening  as we gather among believing workers, hoping to encourage and leave blessings along the way
• Central Asia workers conference (“Prepare our Hearts for Intimacy, Purity, Suffering) offering consulting, counseling, and workshops & seminars for Youth with a Mission [YWAM]
• Book editing from English to Mandarin in China, working with fourteen readers from across China. The job will be to contextualize, as appropriate to each dialect, the book Vance wrote last year for Chinese missionaries traveling from Beijing to Jerusalem.

Prayer:

1. Wellness & safety: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually
2. Sufficient rest of spirit to hear His Voice
3. Listening well ~ for Him, to one another, to all we meet informally and formally
4. Seeking direction for our future work. Is this where God wants us to live and minister to this population of people, in this place, at this time?