So I have been sick the last couple of days with what the doctor called, Laryngitis. I don't know if I really had laryngitis, but I was pretty sick. The doctors here are a little different. I don't know if they fully know what they are doing, but they give out antibiotics for pretty much anything. So in the end it works out. Anyway, this "laryngitis" basically made me really congested, totally exhausted, and gave me a minor sore throat. If I had to guess, I think it was caused by the dust that we are constantly breathing in. It's kind of crazy how dusty it is here. As of right now I am feeling almost 100% again. While I was sick, though, I had small periods of time to read in between sleeping and eating(thankfully I still had somewhat of an appetite).
I started to think how much it really sucked to be sick. Especially, when I would be trying to sleep and our neighbor would be cutting wood with his different power tools or listening to the kids in the streets constantly yelling at each other or hearing loud music from a nearby wedding. Obviously, all of those things tended to annoy me much more when I was sick.
However, while I was reading my bible I was reminded of the verse in James, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." (1: 2-3) And then I couldn't help but think of the Apostles of the early church when they were brought before the Sanhedrin and they were all flogged. After they were flogged, it says in verse 41 of Acts chapter 5, "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name." I know that my suffering was nothing compared any of the apostles suffering, but it helped me change my perspective. I started to dwell on how I could have this sickness, but at the same time have this mentality of joy for what I was going through for the name of Christ.
I don't think it is about not having an emotion other than happiness during any hard circumstance, but rather, it's having those emotions and at the same time having this sense of joy that goes beyond any of those momentary emotions. I don't know if any of this makes sense to you, but it is what I've been thinking and reading about.
Please leave any comments or shoot me an email if you happen to look at these verses differently. I'd love to hear your insight.
Before I go, let me tell you what else I've been reading: "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne, The Bible, and Deitreich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship." So check them out if you get a chance. Until next Saturday, hope you all are doing well.
God is good. All the time.
Dan
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Korenglish
So, before I start, sorry that the last blog wasn't very long. Anyway, another week has gone by, as crazy as that seems. This past week Dan and I were asked to play in the worship band at Moriah Presbyterian Church. The church was planted by Korean missionaries, but they have a Khmer pastor. They were having a youth conference for Khmer people aged 15 - 25 in and around our area. I thought it was weird that they would pick such a wide age range, but it seemed to work in their culture.
Back to Dan and I playing music, they asked us to play with a couple of the Khmer guys from their church(who were pretty good for how little they had been trained). We had to go to a couple of practices to get ready for the conference. We would practice these 20 different songs, of which, Dan and I didn't know the melody or the words(being that they were written in Khmer). There were a couple American worship songs that we knew the melodies to, but the words were still in Khmer. Trying to follow and play along with a song, in which, you can't read the words can be pretty tough.
Now the guy coordinating our multi-nationality worship team was a Korean missionary named Lee. Now, Lee is a very calm and relaxed individual, that is, until you put him in charge of a worship band. While we practice, he starts waving his arms making air guitar motions to what he wants our guitars to do or air piano motions to what he wants the piano to do. And on almost every song he would yell in his thick Korean accent, "fastay, fastay" which would mean play faster. And every once in a while, he would throw in a "so fastay" which, of course, would mean play a lot faster. Dan and I thought it was quite hilarious. In all seriousness though, Lee was an incredible man.
He speaks English(Korenglish), Khmer, and Korean and he's such a nice guy. He would always tell me that my Khmer pronunciation was better than his. Anyway, aside from playing we also got to attend some of the lectures at the conference. The speaker was a Korean man who was introduced to me as Pastor Cho. He was also a really nice guy. He speak, read, and write in 9 languages(german, english, new testament greek, spanish, hebrew, khmer, korean, chinese, and japanese)!
Every time before he would speak we would sing God Bless America, but instead of America everyone would put in Cambodia. It was really good. Pastor Cho spoke on "how to love God" and faith. I am still trying to process what he said, but as soon as I do I'll try to put some of his points up on the blog.
Well, I have to go home and pack because, tomorrow, we are heading down to a beach town called Sihanoukville for a couple of days to say good-bye to one of the teams that is leaving. I will blog again soon probably within the next couple of days. Talk to you soon.
God is good. All the time.
Dan
Back to Dan and I playing music, they asked us to play with a couple of the Khmer guys from their church(who were pretty good for how little they had been trained). We had to go to a couple of practices to get ready for the conference. We would practice these 20 different songs, of which, Dan and I didn't know the melody or the words(being that they were written in Khmer). There were a couple American worship songs that we knew the melodies to, but the words were still in Khmer. Trying to follow and play along with a song, in which, you can't read the words can be pretty tough.
Now the guy coordinating our multi-nationality worship team was a Korean missionary named Lee. Now, Lee is a very calm and relaxed individual, that is, until you put him in charge of a worship band. While we practice, he starts waving his arms making air guitar motions to what he wants our guitars to do or air piano motions to what he wants the piano to do. And on almost every song he would yell in his thick Korean accent, "fastay, fastay" which would mean play faster. And every once in a while, he would throw in a "so fastay" which, of course, would mean play a lot faster. Dan and I thought it was quite hilarious. In all seriousness though, Lee was an incredible man.
He speaks English(Korenglish), Khmer, and Korean and he's such a nice guy. He would always tell me that my Khmer pronunciation was better than his. Anyway, aside from playing we also got to attend some of the lectures at the conference. The speaker was a Korean man who was introduced to me as Pastor Cho. He was also a really nice guy. He speak, read, and write in 9 languages(german, english, new testament greek, spanish, hebrew, khmer, korean, chinese, and japanese)!
Every time before he would speak we would sing God Bless America, but instead of America everyone would put in Cambodia. It was really good. Pastor Cho spoke on "how to love God" and faith. I am still trying to process what he said, but as soon as I do I'll try to put some of his points up on the blog.
Well, I have to go home and pack because, tomorrow, we are heading down to a beach town called Sihanoukville for a couple of days to say good-bye to one of the teams that is leaving. I will blog again soon probably within the next couple of days. Talk to you soon.
God is good. All the time.
Dan
Saturday, February 2, 2008
I have 20 minutes to post this blog
With that said I am going to try and cram as much info into this as I can in 20 minutes. So, I had my first guitar class and pretty much every student has never even touched a guitar before. One of the kids was holding the guitar upside down. So that is what I'm dealing with, but it's actually really good because if they weren't all beginners I wouldn't have much to teach them. So far they have learned: how to read a chord diagram, the parts of the guitar, "D"and "G"chords(essential for any worship song), and how to tune a guitar. Next class we'll teach: Face-melting solos.
The class has been a lot of fun, but its also been challenging because I need to use a translator. Katy just called and this was as far as I got. Sorry. Talk to you soon. I'll try to get back to this before Saturday.
God is good. All the time.
Dan
The class has been a lot of fun, but its also been challenging because I need to use a translator. Katy just called and this was as far as I got. Sorry. Talk to you soon. I'll try to get back to this before Saturday.
God is good. All the time.
Dan
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