So that should catch most of you up to the vaguery of our 140-character updates. Now for the background story, it’s fairly convoluted so please bear with me as I try to unpack it for you…

We woke up very early in order to cross the border in Maesai by 7 am. After going through Thai customs, we crossed the bridge over the Mekong river, which divides the two countries. Once that bridge had been crossed, we found ourselves in a different world. The language, the customs, the people, the food, the vehicles and even the time have all changed. That’s right, having left Thailand at 7:00 am we found ourselves in customs at Tachileik at 6:30 am, as the entire country has set it’s clock 30 minutes off of the rest of the world’s recognized time zones.

Once we had worked our way through customs and the crowd of sellers, we hired a Tuk Tuk to take us to Esther’s home village to see her parents. As is typical in any Akha village, Abi quickly made herself at home, “helping” fix breakfast and playing with all the Akha kids, and (as is also typical) the villagers were all amazed to see a little “foreign girl” speaking Akha and interacting in the Akha world.

After the delicious breakfast and great time in the village, we headed off to the dedication celebration for the new church. It was beautiful, and over 500 people from the various Foursquare churches in the region came down. A majority (probably 80%) of the attendees were actually hilltribe members – most of them were Lahu but many Akha were there as well. We enjoyed speaking with the pastor and Bible students from the church, but Lori and I especially enjoyed connecting with the Akha and Lahu people who came down. (The Lahu are a group related to the Akha, and although the two languages are unique and distinct, most Lahu speak a little Akha and vice versa.) Abi put on the traditional Burmese outfit that Esther had tailored for her as a Christmas present, and even wore Thanakha – the traditional face-paint of the region.

In the middle of the service I (Paul) was asked to come up and give thanks for the offering, I was planning on speaking in English with a translator, but when I got up front there was no translator, so I decided to just stumble along in Akha. Once I finished, the reaction of the crowd told me that most of them could in fact understand Akha, and it was great to connect with everyone in a language they could understand – although they were extremely gracious overlooking the ineloquence of my words.

We really enjoyed our time and look forward to some great opportunities that are on the horizon to continue to build into the new relationships we have with these Foursquare churches.

Mae Sot is a border town between Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Historically, many Karen refugees have come into Thailand seeking asylum and live in refugee camps in the area. Like many border towns, it has a mixture of languages and cultures packed densely into a small area.

It is a little daunting to move from a region where we can speak a very common language, Akha, to a region where there are very few Akha and the majority languages are Thai, Burmese and Karen. We are looking forward to the opportunity to increase our Thai language skills, and are grateful as always for the huge blessing that Esther is for our language needs. We speak to her in Akha, and she can translate it to Thai or Burmese as needed.

We don’t really know what to expect in Mae Sot, but know that the National President of Foursquare Thailand pastors the church there and we are honored to get a chance to get to know him and his ministry a little more. Here’s an excerpt from the Worldbase Thailand website regarding the ministry in Mae Sot:

Pastor Jack Hayford continues his six-part series “Anointed to Serve” as shared with leaders, pastors and dignitaries of the Foursquare Gospel church at the Eastern Counsel of Foursquare Churches conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

Originally recorded and cast by our Foursquare friends at Mustard Seed Fellowship Canningvale, Western Australia. Used by permission.

When our life purpose is in perspective, our global perspective is also aligned. Rick and his wife Kay wrote an article about the five giant problems facing the world today addressing this global worldview. A few years ago I would have written half of these off with glib remarks or even misused spiritual cliches because I would have been made uncomfortable and overwhelmed by the problems in the world. But good pastors (and good missionaries) challenge us in our comfort zones… so here is his list of giant problems that the church cannot ignore:

A spectacular picture of the pressing needs in this world. The article goes on to speak more in depth on the practical role the church needs to play in these needs. Take a moment to read Rick and Kay’s full article Facing the World’s Five Giants from pastors.com.

Now, I’m a Foursquare Missionary with a Reformed (Calvinist) leaning – so I can be all over the map with this kind of stuff, but I really enjoyed what Adrian wrote here and agree with most of what he says (I also agree with some of the comments added at the end).

All in all, it’s a good read. Check it out if you have the time:

During that time a young man voiced what many of us were developing in our own understanding of relationships in his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. While we had arguments and disagreements about the firmness of the stances he took on the issue, in that book Joshua Harris emerged as one of the voices of my generation.
One of the voices that is listened to.
One of the voices that can reach into our generation and culture and put into words the events and philosophies on our hearts.

We grew, we married, we experienced life, and Josh Harris continued to write books on these experiences. Now we’re the adults in the world. We’re the ones having kids, running companies and shaping ministries. As we enter this new phase of life, Josh has once again written a book that looks with insight into the ideas that our communities are talking about in his newest title: Stop Dating the Church

Once again, he says it all in the title. With the exception of my friend Andy, who has been part of the same church for years, most of us wandered from church to church in our younger years. We actually embraced the fact that they were the wandering years of our lives. I havent read Joshua’s newest book, and being on the other side of the globe I might never get to read it, but it’s not hard to see this is my generation’s new challenge: Dig In.

If there is hypocrosy, weakness, dullness, whatever-ness in the church we have a choice. We can continue to “break up” with our churches when things aren’t what we want and move on to something easier, something new and sexy, but that road leads to dirty old men, set in their hypocrisies. Isn’t that what we had problems with in the first place? Or we can dig in, we can follow God and impact our brothers and sisters around us to do the same.

Many of us are still young, still prone to run, but it is time to dig those heals in and make the church our family, not a one-night stand.

Since then, there has been a media frenzy, with news sources as far away as China, & Quatar covering the story. As expected, the blogosphere has responded in force. A simple search from Blogger.com‘s front page yields hundreds of results, most of them condemning the Christian church for being backward and sexist, decrying the injustice and inequality of this situation. Christian blogs, not wanting to be left out, have joined the discussion as well and lively conversations about 1 Timothy 2:12 and the role of women in ministry have ensued.

While I’m usually all in favor of a good discussion on the roles of women in ministry (having been a female bible student the subject is not unfamiliar to me), it seems to me that there are many other issues surrounding this situation, which are not being addressed by anyone!

According to statements released by the church board and the pastor, it seems that Ms. Lambert’s dismissal didn’t really hinge on the “women shall not have authority” argument. In fact, the church openly states that currently 55% of the board members and 87% of Sunday School teachers are women. It turns out that the 1 Timothy 2:12 argument cited in the dismissal letter was simply the scapegoat reason that they used on advice the of legal counsel who were doing everything in their power to avoid a messy lawsuit.

If I’ve just lost you with the whole lawsuit thing, let me backtrack a bit to explain. The pastor explains in his statement that this story actually began months ago, when a small group of parishioners, “unhappy with new members [and] changes that were being made” in the church, “decided to forgo the mechanisms that [are] in place for dealing with conflicts or disagreements within the church and elected to hire a local attorney and aired their grievances in a letter to the Watertown Daily Times.” After an official “reprimand” from the church board and an encouragement to settle church matters within the church, “several of those individuals continued to engage in activities the Board viewed as detrimental to the church family.”

I would say the real issue at hand is this: The state of the Christian church, in which parishioners bring legal action against their church, change and growth in the church is so violently rejected, and it’s considered normal for a long-time member of the church to go to the local newspaper to air his/her complaints instead of working things out with the church directly. Let’s talk about Matthew 18 and the way we can work out differences in love, instead of displaying our dirty laundry for the world to see. Maybe it’s not nearly as controversial or exciting as 1 Timothy 2:12, but it’s obviously needed.

The press wants to make this whole thing about “women’s roles in the church” where the church becomes the big bad “chauvinist” wolf. Like I said before, I’m all for discussing “women’s roles in the church”; it’s an important and intersting topic! But as a Christian community let’s call apples “apples” and discuss all the issues surrounding this situation, instead of simply reacting to the “spin” of the press!

So, those are my thoughts. Hopefully they’ll stir things up in the blogosphere! Any comments?

Albert Pujols.

The Dominican kid who became the Major League MVP and who, despite fame and fortune, values his family, marriage and faith in Christ. If you have an MP3 player, or if you just want to listen on your computer, take the time to listen to Focus on the Family‘s Dr. James Dobson and his conversations with Albert and Dee Dee Pujols: