The Vernon Journal

Many of you have read or heard some of our ministry philosophy “catch-phrases” here on our journal or as we have communicated with you in person. The study of the Akha culture, and the inevitable parallel study of my own American culture has led to a number of cross-cultural keywords that have become very important in my worldview. The biggest keyword that has emerged is Relevance, and I want to unpack it a little for you today. Please bear with me until the end because my heart is to communicate these ideas clearly.

I want to start by sharing an excerpt from an insightful article entitled “Why we don’t go or send much anymore” by Dr. Patrick Johnstone of WEC International (link goes to a repost of the article on John Lambert‘s blog):

My immediate reaction:

There is no question that we in the west are part of an “instant generation”, and as digital-age missionaries to a pre-modern culture, we are constantly changing states, speeds and worldviews as we attempt to communicate to our unique world(s).

In working with the Akha we say the following statement all the time and, although it is admittedly an oversimplification, it is largely true: Relationships in Asia, and specifically with the Akha, have no relevance until they have history. Dr. Johnstone uses different terms, but the same idea lies within his article when he says a missionary has no “right to communicate the gospel” [relevance] until he has “one”-ness [history] with the people.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t correctly handle the Word of Truth as we build history. But too often we feel like we have all the answers, our pride gets in the way and we think everything has to get fixed now. Working in Asia we must realize that until we have history the words we speak have no weight – even if they are true.

Experiences with the Akha

In our Akha village, we have showed the love of Christ by spending a majority of our time sitting, drinking tea, discussing the weather and the crops, learning the Akha language within the context of community, and caring for physical needs without cost or discrimination as we experience the minutia of life within a community in order to build relevance. It is slow. It is unglamorous. But it is necessary to affect a community towards healthy long-term growth.

Our ministry has only recently, after nearly six years of building history, earned enough relational relevance to be a resource of accountability, exhortation and truth in love in a way that will be productively and actively received by some of the people around us.

Unfortunately, this process of patience means that there have been many times where we have seen dysfunctional behavior that is unable to receive input from any source which is not equally as dysfunctional. So, in these times, we have had to stand silently, brokenhearted, so that we might maintain the relationships and history we are building, which, in turn, will give us the relevance to minister restoration to that dysfunction in the future.

The beauty of this worldview is the closeness of the community and the willingness to function in unity. The downfall is that dysfunctional behavior is also universally shared. Relevant voices of influence must show their commitment to unity within the community over a significant period of time without sharing in the same dysfunctions in order to effectively communicate functional life.

Experiences with the West

It is still true in the west that community and companionship are the key factors in administering life-impacting change, but the decision to include or exclude someone or something from our community is made nearly instantaneously. (The exception in this case is the influence of the core family-unit, but in my observation many people in America are even distancing themselves from those nuclear-family relationships that were once such powerful influences in the lives of an individual.)

These “instantaneous decisions” have led to the onset of the online community phenomenons of blogging, forums, and social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We in the western world are much more comfortable extending our attention and trust to someone or something with whom we have no history. We might respond to attraction, position, interests, goals, occupation, production, association, or marketing in our decisions to join or include others in a community.

Online communities make the world smaller, and that small world allows us to communicate globally without moving geographically. Personally, I have a list of missionaries from around the world that I connect with for advice, prayer, exhortation and empathy – but I have only met a few of them face-to-face.

The blessing of this openness to immediate inclusion is that we are free to give and receive the ministry of the gospel in the brief moments of community when our lives glance off of one another in the thousands if not millions of connections we make. We can quickly form meaningful relationships that have immediate positive impact on our lives, and receive Godly encouragement from near stangers. The downfall of this worldview is that we become judgmental, quickly dismissing as irrelevant things that don’t capture our immediate attentions and passions and quickly accepting as valuable things that are at their core damaging but packaged to manipulate our passions.

Defining the Difference

Perhaps the simplest distinction between the Western world I know and the Eastern (Akha) world I have come to learn can be summed up in the following statement:

As for me and my house…

We must exist in both worlds. The world we come from and the world we have been sent to. It is important for Lori and I to continue to engage in our Western culture, even as we minister in the East. So we strive to be transparent, available, and vulnerable in our efforts to communicate via these “instant” platforms: Our blog: The Vernon Journal; Twitter (Paul); Facebook (Paul | Lori); Tumblr (Paul | Lori | Abi).

Through these mediums, we try to frequently communicate our otherwise slow ministry to those of you who cover, support and partner with us while we geographically remain in the midst of that ministry. We know that there are thousands of causes, ministries and opportunities out there to partner with, and we want you to know that we value your partnership and desire to share with you how your partnership is furthuring the gospel in us, among the Akha, and throughout the world.

How do you connect with your communities? And how can we best communicate our lives and experiences to you and your communities as we minister to the Akha?

Every once in a while, I encounter a surreal moment where I think to myself, “Wow, my life is really weird!” Today was one of those moments. I had prepared a lunch of spicy fried noodles with egg and peanuts for Abi’s lunch. (As I write, I’m realizing that this lunch, in itself, would probably be classified by most of  our readers as unusual, especially for a 3 year old, but this is normal for us.) Anyone who knows anything about Asian food, knows that noodles simply must be eaten with chopsticks. Of course, the Akha use chopsticks for every meal, but even the Thais, who use forks and spoons most of the time (bet you didn’t know this!), ALWAYS use chopsticks when eating noodles. It’s just the way it should be!

Well, to get back to the story, Abi has been showing a lot of interest in chopsticks lately. At mealtime she always steals one of our chopsticks to play with and ends up trying, unsuccessfully, to stab at her food. So today, as I served up her noodles, I remembered a blog post I read recently about children’s chopsticks. So, I threw together a pair of “training chopsticks” and she went to town. I swear she ate more at that meal than she has EVER eaten (at least when feeding herself!)

As I was sitting there watching her eat with as much parental pride as is legally allowed, I realized that the heightened degree of sentimentality with which I was viewing this milestone was not really normal (at least not for the majority of Americans). Most of our American friends will not have pictures of their children using chopsticks for the first time at the age of three. Nor will they forever cherish the first set of “baby-chopsticks” given to their children by their Akha Grandpa.

So, I guess I just thought I’d share one of the little differences about raising a child overseas. What are the milestones and memories that you have cherished from your child’s life?

We’ve had a bit of a blogging dry spell recently (and by that I mean “I’ve had a bit of a blogging dry spell.” Thank goodness my husband has the motivation to post every once in a while!). Any how, I’m trying to get back into the blogging groove, so I just thought I’d share this cute picture of Paul & Abi sharpening the machete in front of our village home (hut). Not only is it a super cute picture, but I think it’s a good representation of our life in the village. People are always asking us what we do in the village, and well, sometimes it’s just this: doing life, village style.

Over the past seven months we have had a number of ultrasounds, including an attempt to have a 4-d video ultrasound at the private hospital in Chiang Rai (the technician was not available) in order to determine whether we are having a boy or a girl, and until last night she just wouldn’t cooperate with our attempts. But now we are pleased to announce that we are having a baby girl!!! Lori is due on October 16th and we are very excited for the newest arrival to the Vernon family.

Pregnant in Paradise

This has been such a pleasant pregnancy that we haven’t done too many updates as Lori has progressed. We keep looking for something to write about, but with a pregnancy the only “newsworthy” items are usually negative news like morning sickness or complications. Thankfully, this pregnancy has gone very smoothly, with the exception of a brief food poisoning stint, Lori and the baby have been wonderfully healthy.

Abigail has been doing very well with whole the process and she is always talking about how she’s going to be a big sister and all of the things she is going to do with “her baby”. It’s really nice that she’s old enough to absorb some of the changes that will happen in her life once her baby sister arrives. She has a good friend who just had a baby sister as well and has been able to observe a big sister and how to treat newborn babies.

We’re excited about this new chapter for our family, and we are grateful for all of you around the world who play such important roles in our lives and ministry.

p.s. for those of you who are asking the inevitable next question, Lori and I are still discussing what we are going to name her. we do have a name that we are leaning towards, but I don’t think Lori wants me to share it with everyone yet.
I’m Zealous, Admittedly, But Enigmas Leavemystery.

p.p.s. yes, i did intend to remove the space between the last two words of the last sentence.

A documentary created by a Media Light team in 2010 that gives a little bit of a glimpse into our lives with the Akha in Southeast Asia.