We couldn’t have asked for better teammates on this venture than Bill and Kim Koester. 

Oh, the rest of the crew we traveled with were great people.  We enjoyed ministry and companionship with Glenn and Debbie Johnson and Mike and Connie Wolfe for the first week, and we had fun with John and Debbie Wetzig.  We really enjoyed getting to know Scott and Diane Mathis better on our Penang holiday.  But it was with the Bill and Kim that we spent the totality of the time.

Those two could be our own kids - they are that age.  But the years between us dissolved as we ate, worked, and traveled together.  It was great to hear how God has worked in their lives to this point, and it was great to see God work through them.  Since they’d made this trip a couple of years ago, Bill was designated as the leader of our team; and he did a very good job as such.

The partnership that was formed over those 18 days has created bonds that I am sure will last a lifetime.

Well, we made it home.  We boarded in Kuala Lumpur, flew to Taipei, got off the plane, got back on, and endured the 11 hour flight to LA.  As I said, we landed in LA Sunday afternoon about 3 hours before we took off from Taipei. 

Don’t ask me how this works.  I’m not sure I even know my own name today, Wednesday, the 19th of March, 200 - something.

We had an overnight in LA before continuing on home on Monday the 17th.  On U.S. soil again, we decided to eat steak at a Sizzler’s down the street from the hotel.  It might have been the best steak I ever ate - if I could have tasted it.

Somewhere between Kuala and Taipei I began to develop what I thought were hives on the right side of my neck.  They didn’t itch much - just seemed to rise up and exist.  Then, after Taipei I noticed them on the left side of my neck - more of them there than on the right side.  And, whether it was coincidence or not, I noticed that the peanuts the Malaysian attendants were passing out were devoid of taste.  In fact, I couldn’t even smell them when I opened the bag.  No sense of taste and no sense of smell.

This was not necessarily a bad thing.  Asian food, with its accompanying aroma, had ceased to be attractive to me long before I boarded for home.  Now I could eat it for nourishment without a care.

But when I bit into that flatiron steak near Mariposa Street in El Segundo CA I wanted to savor it.  And, I couldn’t.  It had great texture.  It was fork-tender.  And, the potato with sour cream felt like it should.  But, for all I knew, I could have been eating grilled coyote and baked taro.

It was a most disappointing meal.  And, only this morning did my ability to enjoy my food return.

The bumps on my neck are still there, by the way.  Probably caused by some sort of despicable Far Eastern parasite that inhabits Malaysian airplane pillows and afflicts bald-headed Westerners.  I hope I survive this.

Anyway, we’re home and trying to straighten out our messed up internal clocks.  Luana went back to work the very next day, like the trooper she is.  I did too, but then I’d been able sleep most of the night.  She, on the other hand, awoke at 4 a.m. and was unable to drift back into dreamland. 

But, she slept last night while it was my turn to become wide awake at 4 a.m. 

Oh well.  It’s a small price to pay for the great experiences we had together in Jesus’ work south of China and east of Thailand.  We’re home, and ready to resume His work here. 

When I stepped into this Starbucks Cafe in the Kuala Lumpur airport, I determined to buy something to justify using the table and the free Internet access.  But, coffee stands and I are not well acquainted, especially those located in foreign surroundings.  So, as I was musing over the menue, and wondering of they “swiped” plastic, a young woman sitting at a table behind me began to give me directions.  She was not an employee, but a customer.

They take credit cards - Visa, she said.  You order over there, pick up over here.  And thus she directed this benighted grandpa - benighted, at the very least, in the ways and means of gourmet coffee places in far off places.

I thanked her and made my purchase, a Caramel Machiatto for Luana and a Mocah for me.

When I finished the previous blog post, I walked by her table, stopping to thank her once again. 

The reason I could understand her directions at the counter was that she was also an American from the USA.  Eureka, CA, to be exact.  And, as I queried further, I found she is the only female Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) pilot/mechanic in the world, and she serves in Sumatra, working primarily in the tsunami relief effort MAF is doing there.  She graduated in the Moody Bible Institute class of 2002.

We had great fellowship, and I found that she will be sitting only 7 rows up the Malalysian Air aisle from Luana and me as we fly the next 14-15 hours to LA.

What a wonderfully refreshing, God-appointed meeting in this corner of the world!  What a great Palm Sunday experience as we both rejoiced in our risen Lord Jesus!

Her name is Amber Desist, and you may visit her bio here:  http://www.maf.org/desist.

When we were offered the chance to make a side trip to Penang, Melaysia on the way home the Koesters, Mathises, and VanCampens jumped at it.  A once in a lifetime opportunity, probably, to spend two nights in the Maui of Malaysia. 

Penang is an island off the northwest coast of this Asian country, an island about 23 miles long from north to south, and an island filled with tourist accomodations.

At our own expense, we three couples flew the 50 minutes north from Kuala to land on this island paradise.   It’s a paradise, that is, if you don’t mind heat and humidity.  We dind’t mind - for the short time we were there.  But, I wouldn’t want to experience that kind of moisture in the air all of the time!

But those two factors didn’t keep us from renting some 125cc motor bikes to tour a bit of the island, nor from trying parasailing (really inexpensive here), nor from riding the “banana boat” (an inflated and large banana-type of craft pulled at a fast pace behind a speedboat.  We had a great R&R time here, sort of a buffer and preparation for the huge changes in time we are about to experience on the flight home.  You are 13 hours behind us.  We will arrive in LA at 5:30 this evening, about 3 1/2 hours after we take off from Taipei!

It’s Palm Sunday here, and we are athe the airport in the middle of the huge palm oil plantations on this part of Malaysia.  By the time we leave at 3:30 p.m. you folks still be in bed very early on the same day.  Have a great Palm Sunday where ever you are.

One of the things Jesus did in his earthly ministry was to heal people of all kinds of diseases.  And, there were plenty of diseases, as the pages of Scripture illustrate, that afflicted folks: blindness, palsy, lameness, deafness, dumbness, blood disorders, and the biggie, leprosy.  Oh, and let’s not forget the physical ailments caused by demon possession.

His tactic was most interesting.  He didn’t challenge people to believe in him before he healed them, but afterward.  And that’s the way it seems to be in the large subcontinent from which I have just flown.

The fellow who will be taking charge of the whole state in which my class is conducting ministry told Bill and me an interesting story.  About 15 years ago his mother was diagnosed with leprosy.  She lost the feeling in her leg, and spots began to appear on her body.  Doctors could only tell her what was going to happen.  There is no cure.

Velukumar was not a believer in Jesus at that time.  But, after the doctors had given up hope, a traveling evangelist came to their town.  This man prayed for healing for the afflicted mother.

In less than a month all of the spots were gone, and the feeling returned to the lady’s leg.  She immediately believed in the Healer, as did her son who is now working in Berean church planting in this country.  Not only that, but 300 other folks placed their faith in Jesus.

Velukumar told us that the people of this land will believe when they observe a stupendous thing like this, and that those who believe have, in his words, “double faith.”  What he meant is that those who come to Christ this way are totally committed believers who have a passion for seeing others saved.

“First they come to him as the Healer,” he said, “and then they believe in him as the Savior.”

That set me to thinking.  Why is it in our country that praying for healing is often either a last resort, or something we do to “help” the doctors and their modern medicine accomplish the task?  Is it because we have so much more in the way of material things that we really don’t need Jesus for anything?  Is it because we think this sort of thing happend in Bible times, but it’s not for today?  I don’t know.

I do know this has caused me to assess my response when someone asks me to pray for a person they know who has a physical need.  That response, for the most part, has been, “What’s his spiritual condition?”  Maybe I’d better revise my approach.

This was brought home to me in the first conference we attended.  There, on the last day when one of the indigenous pastors was preaching, a man who was obviously not a pastor came into the room and sat in the back. 

When the meeting was over, one of the Berean pastors brought the man to Bill and me and told us he’d just met the man earlier in the week near the conference site.  He said the man was a Hindu, and that he had an injury, or deformity, to his back.  The pastor asked me to pray for healing.

All of a sudden my former approach didn’t seem to be appropriate.  Here was a man in need, a pastor who trusted God implicitly to heal, and a request for me, the visiting dignitary, to pray for physical wholeness.  The man was a Hindu, for crying out loud!

But, I adjusted quickly, laid my hand on his back, and prayed.  Bill joined me.  And as we prayed I actually believed that the man was going to be healed.  I also prayed that he’d come to know Jesus.

It will be interesting and exciting to receive followup news from that Berean pastor concerning this.

My own students gave two thrilling testimonies graduation night of similar healings and subsequent belief as they’ve preached the Word of God in their designated places of ministry. 

Maybe the students have taught the teacher something about healing here that should be the the way it is back there at home.

We interupted our taxi ride to the convention site to buy some gifts for the men.  Giving gifts here seems to be sort of a love language.  Our ladies had already thought of this, purchasing pearl necklaces (about $2.50 each) for the 30 indigenous ladies.  Bill and I were scrambling concerning what to do for the men.

Our capable driver, Chander, pulled over to what passes for a curb right in front of a tiny shop containing numerous items, among them the pens we thought we’d buy.  But in that stand we also found leather wallets (from $2 to $4 each) as well as pens (40 cents each), and we purchased 60 of each for the equivalent of $3 each. 

These and the necklaces were mere tokens, but you’d have thought we gave our friends the most exotic and expensive gifts imagineable.

In tearful goodby speeches on the part of Kim and Luana, and more masculine eulogies on the part of Bill and me, we bade them all farewell.  They thought we had been such an encouragement to them, but we four white folks knew it was the other way around. 

We came away from this convention thinking that the Berean Fellowship in India is in very capable hands and very strong.

We practically had to tear ourselves away from our photo-hungry hosts, but we eventually made it into the taxi and back to the hotel.  In just an hour we head for the airport, the port city, and the shores of Malaysia.  We will arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 5:30 tomorrow morning - Thursday for us, still Wednesday for you.

In this case, with these dear friends, Shakespeare was absolutely correct:  Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Luana says that today, the last day here, she was sitting on a plastic lawn chair in the women’s meeting when it collapsed with her.  It was the same room in which we’d interviewed the men yesterday, and probably the same chair.  At any rate, it was the same result.

And, the women have the same sense of humor as the men, because they laughed loudly as well before they began to express concern that she’d been hurt.  The men, on the other hand, expressed no such concern, probably because I was laughing as loudly as they.

We “dignitaries” sat behind a cloth covered table as we interviewed each of the graduates.  I was seated on a plastic lawn chair of the rigid white type that seems to be ubiquitous here.  However, it was the only one of its kind the room.

The afternoon wore on, and about 7 men into the process I began to have the sensation that my my chair was somehow slipping on the marble floor.  I adjusted it, sort of leaning forward and shifting my weight.

The eighth candidate was Omkar, my friend who had bought the belt for me last October.  His interview was a bit longer than the ones before him, and as we were answering his questions about how to teach the people he would win to Jesus how to give Biblically so as to support his ministry in the future, I felt the chair once more beginning to slip.

Only, it wasn’t sliding on the floor.  The left rear leg had finally decided enough was enough, and it slowly folded under me.

The whole thing happened, it seemed, in slow motion.  I went over backwards, disappearing from Omkar’s surprised eyes, and tumbling out of the chair.  I arose, unhurt, but the rest of the men could not conain themselves.  We all laughed uproarously, creating such a commotion that the other 14 graduates rushed into the room to investigate.

Needless to say, I exchanged that chair for one of more study construction, and the interview proceded to its conclusion without further incident.

These folks laugh easily, and I don’t mind providing them opportunities to do so

It took only 40 minutes to make the trip to the Convention site, a journey that took an hour yesterday.  But, that 40 minutes was the beginning of a long day.

It was long, but it was profitable and full of blessing.  Let me recount it.

First we enjoyed a fifteen minute worship segment with a capella singing.  Then a CCC indigenous fellow gave a devotional.  Though he was from this country he spoke through an interpreter, either for our sakes or because he didn’t speak the language of this state.  That took 45 minutes. 

Immediately after this, Bill stood to deliver a message on John 14.  That took us to tea break - 1/2 hour or so of fellowship with CCC leadership - a man named Thomas Pycad, one named Velukumar, another named Itte, and another named Chacko.  Good men all.

Then back to the meeting room for a workshop session based on John 14.  At this meeting only men were present because their wives were meeting with Luana and Kim.  Oh, I forgot - the men were instructed by Sunny, the coordinator of the convention, that they were to care for the children while their wives met.  I have several priceless shots of these gentle men holding their tiny babies and children.  You should know that the Berean Fellowship in India has a great future because of all the young children in the homes of these young pastors and wives.

Lunch followed this session.  It was now 1 p.m.  For two hours, more or less, after lunch there was almost a forced rest period.  Sunny ushered Luana and me to a room with two chairs and two single beds and practically commanded us to relax.

But, at about 3:30 Bill and I began to interview each of the 15 graduates.  We were assisted in this by Itti - the Cluster Field Trainer, Shrikanth and Venkat - the ILA trainers and leaders of the district in which these pastors will work, and Velukumar.

It was a draining 2 1/2 hours.  But at the same time it was a special time because these were the students Mark and I taught last October.  It was a special privilege to lay hands on each of them at the close of their interviews and pray, committing them to our God and asking his blessing on them and their families as they go out to the field.

The interviews put us a half an hour late for the evening session, but this was not begun until we made our appearance.   By that time I was utterly exhausted and emotionally drained, but Bill prayed up enough energy for me to get up and preach on  John 15.  I cut and pasted in my mind, because dinner was supposed to be served at 7:30 and the message was timed for an hour (30 minutes times 2 because of the translation needed). 

At one point Sunny, the translator, leaned over to me and muttered, “It’s dinner time.”  But we have such a great working relationship that I laughed and said, “I’m almost finished,” and went on.  I finished at 7:45. 

God was good.  I survived, and so did they.

It’s now 10:26 p.m. on Wednesday.  I think I’ll go to bed.

It took an hour for our taxi driver to navigate the choked streets to the Catholic retreat center outside of town.  Choked is a very descriptive term for roads that could not have accommodated even one more vehicle.  That hour was filled with eager anticipation, because at the end of the trip I would reunited with the fifteen students I’d taught back in October. 

We arrived to hear spirited singing from the meeting room.  As Luana and I entered and were ushered to the front, later to be joined there by Bill and Kim, I spotted the guys.  They looked smart, all dressed in dark slacks, white shirts, and matching ties.  All fifteen of them had stuck it out.

I made eye contact with each of them from the seat I occupied on the platform.  Their smiles were contagious, and their obvious delight warmed my heart. 

This convention was a sharp contrast to the first place we visited in that everything was planned, every detail had been taken into consideration. 

Several folks came to the front and presented us and the rest of the “dignitaries” with beautiful flower leis.  A couple of songs were sung by the crowd of 48 pastors, wives, and children.  (It appears that every pastor from this state is present, including the man named Joseph for whom our church family has been praying.  He and his flock have been threatened with beatings by radical idol-worshippers, you may remember.)  Two members of the class gave testimonies about how God had used them in ministry in the last nine months, with people being healed and brought to faith in Jesus.  And a pastor played his guitar and sang beautifully in English with his equally beautiful wife.

Then Itte introduced me and asked me to deliver the commencement address.  It was a real thrill to make John 13:1-17 personal for these guys, challenging them about what they should expect as they went out as church-planting Berean pastors as opposed to what they might expect.  Bill and I then both prayed prayers of dedication over these fellows before the meeting was dismissed for supper at 7:30 p.m. 

We ate with the pastors and their families.  It was a thrill to meet the wives of the five married students, and to also make the acquaintance of their tiny children.  I wandered through the dining room taking pictures of families, creating quite a bit of laughter when I paired up two folks who weren’t married to each other for a photo.

Then, though I’d tried to avoid it with the picture-taking, I was practically forced to eat by well-meaning ladies.  But the rice and curd was good, and I satisfied my hosts by partaking. 

Tomorrow Bill preaches on John 14, we and the ILA trainers conduct personal interviews with the graduates, and I preach in the evening on John 15:1-17.  It will be a long and tiring day that I am sure will be rewarding as well. 

The reunion with these men has blessed me immensely, and I am so glad I was able to return.