YWAM's Witness from the Fields of Cambodia 2014

SBS UofN Battambang 2013-2014

2014 YWAM School of Bible Studies, Battambang, Cambodia

Hey friends!

I finished my School of Biblical Studies! The nine-month school has walked me through the Bible five times, and has really challenged me in applying what God’s word says. This training has affected my approach to cross cultural ministry, and given me a foundation I feel much more confident leading people from.

The outreach locations for teaching the Bible study method are still undetermined because the communication trails are tricky to navigate over here with which churches can host us for a certain amount of time doing a specific ministry. I will keep you all in the loop as soon as I hear more of what the outreach will look like.

Street Musicians, Battambang, Cambodia

Here are two stories that happened the other day when I was studying my last book, Matthew:

Fruit!

One of the students from my Bible class that I’d been teaching accepted the Lord last week! I have six students now as a few of them have invited their friends to come. Two of them are not Christian so you can be praying their curiosity continues to develop!

In teaching 'Christian Values' they all love the person of Jesus, but still have a difficult time getting past their worldview of not needing a Savior. They believe the level of heaven they are assigned is based off of how good of a person they are in this life (merit-based salvation).

I believe the power of prayer, and the conviction of the Spirit is at work with what I’m seeing, so please continue to partner with me in this! There were five other students from the Youth Center that had accepted the Lord the same night my student had so it’s been encouraging to see some fruit. A great reminder of why I’m here!

2014 YWAM Students, Battambang, Cambodia

Seeds!

A small coffee shop that I’ve been going to for work always gives me plenty of opportunities to build relationships with the beggars that make their routes everyday. This past week a drunk man walked in with his hands in the pleading clasped position, so I asked the owner to cook up some chicken fried rice for him. They politely asked him to wait outside so I stopped studying the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and took the God given opportunity to apply it.

He wreaked of beer so I told him the reason I was happy to buy him food but not give money was because I didn’t want him to buy more beer with it. Praise God my Khmer language is well enough for conversation, and I got to hear about this man’s life.

He had arthritis in both knees, and he actually lived in a village pretty far from the city where he took care of his grand kids with his wife who was sick because their parents had passed away. The man was in the city begging for money so he could bring back the money for his family. The fried rice took a long time to cook, thank the Lord, and I found out he had heard the gospel before, but hadn’t believed in Jesus. I relayed the Beatitudes to him, and shared how there are difficulties in this life that Jesus will one day take away. I shared how alcohol had affected my family and I, and he started crying!

I’ve never seen anybody from the older generation cry. He didn’t accept the Lord into his life, but he was ready for a change. After he got his rice we talked a little longer, then I asked if I could pray with him, and he consented. In saying goodbye I gave him a few dollars, and said, “I hope you spend this on your family, and not on beer. God bless you”. I plan on seeing this man again, and believe this next time I won’t smell beer on his breath.

Not ten minutes later a couple walked in that I had met before who were making their begging route. The couple is in their fifties, and the husband is blind. I had told them the gospel four months ago, and asked if the wife remembered my face. She said, “Yes”, and the blind husband remembered my voice! I repeated the fried rice process sitting with them outside, and kept going with the Beatitudes. Telling the blind man that he would see one day made him sit on the edge of his seat, and seeing how the wife was much warmer to hearing the hope of Christ was really encouraging for me.

Streets of  Battambang, Cambodia

There’s something God’s doing in my heart with the poor in this city, and I’m excited to see how God will continue to develop it. When hearing a podcast back home the question was thrown out, “When do you feel like your closest to the Lord?”

I found my answer! There’s a sense of joy that I can’t express after having conversations like these that is undoubtedly from the Lord. It’s a great question to ask yourself as well. I think it reveals a bite size piece of purpose and duty that we were created for, and the congruency when we do it is very fulfilling. I was planting seeds of the gospel, but at the same time I feel something growing in my own heart.

I hope and pray you’re all being encouraged with seeing fruit where you’re investing your energy as well! “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9).

Ben

June 17, 2014

2014 YWAM Students, Battambang, Cambodia

For more information on YWAM - 

Youth with a Mission

YWAM: "To Make Jesus Known in all the world"

Thomas Jay Oord - On Salvation: God's part and ours

On Salvation: God's part and ours

by Thomas Jay Oord

A short Wesleyan explanation of God's offer of 

salvation and free creaturely response

Related

How Does God Move and Act in the Universe? - "Eight Positions of Divine Sovereignty"

*preferred: "Essential Kenosis Freewill Theism"

Comments

• 

  Russ Slater Thanks Tom. I kept waiting for an open kenosis view where a new band comes in, pushes the old band off the stage, and plays hip hop or something, which neither partner knows, and must learn together. 

  June 16 at 3:59pm · Edited · Like · 3

• 

  Kenneth L. Harrell Thomas Jay Oord, thanks for this. I am glad you distinguished views 2 and 3. Many from view 1 insist that 2 and 3 are the same. In a lecture at Calvin College a professor insisted that Wesley and all Arminians are semi-pelagian. While I am sure that is true of Finney and that that view of conversion is still popular among Southern Baptists I do not believe that it does justice to the Wesleyan-Arminian position. Will you show how your view is not just more attractive but more biblical?

  June 16 at 3:58pm · Like · 1
• 

  Thomas Jay Oord Thanks, Kenneth. The arguments for showing the view is more biblical come from arguments about love, covenant, and moral responsibility found in Scripture. Find the details in books such as "Why I am a Wesleyan and Not a Calvinist," by Jerry Walls or "Arminian Theology," by Roger Olson
• 
  

Ron Hunter

This is good and consistent with the revelation of God's action to humanity in scripture. It is important to note that the freedom and ability to respond to the invitation and the dance is a God ordained, created dynamic of humanity. People do not have any agency removed from God's design. That said, the ability evokes a responsibility that is either directed cooperatively with God or otherwise. In the conversations I am in the objection to the third option in favor of the first is the perception that we on the other side of the dance floor are dead, incapable of response. 

Thomas Oord

I agree entirely, Ron. We Wesleyans think God's grace makes us alive to respond freely to the gift. So while we are dead abstractly speaking, in reality God's grace enlivens us to the possibility of responding to God's call and living abundant life!

Nick Carpenter

Love the analogies, even though it sounds odd to hear of a Nazarene dancing haha. The third part you discussed, with free agency in dancing, would that be considered divine-human synergism?

Thomas Oord

Thanks, Nick. Yes, the third part involves synergism, but with God acting first -- preveniently -- to empower and inspire response.

Bob Luhn

I love this image of the dance ! There is one other scenario as well, God stays on His side of the "gym" and makes us work our way all the way to Him. You may have to crawl on hands and knees over broken glass, or pray x- number of prayers or in some way earn enough merit to gain His attention and favor. Only when He thinks you have done enough does He stoop to save you. How wonderful to realize that God comes all the way to us and then graciously, humbly, non-coercively " asks for our hand." I just love this!!

Thomas Oord

Thanks, Bob. You describe even better the second way I mention briefly in this video. I wish I had added the additional "works righteousness" examples you offer!

Jeremy Lyon

Great explanation of the Wesleyan view of salvation. Prevenient Grace + Free Will.

Cathy Lyon

Dance on! And follow His lead.

Discover Science - A Cosmic Recipe for Earthlings

Cosmic Recipe for Earthlings

http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/2013/august/cosmic-recipe-for-earthlings

By Dolly Setton

Crucial elements in people formed later in the universe's history than expected.

Stars cook up nearly all of the approximately 60 atomic elements in people’s bodies. But exactly how that works remains a mystery. Astrophysicists have developed cutting-edge computer simulations to grapple with an array of related puzzles:

• What were stars like when they first appeared in the universe over 13 billion years ago, starting the process of modern element production?

• What do we know about the nature of the death of massive stars — signaled by Type II supernovae — that fashion crucial elements such as calcium and oxygen?

• How might the burned-out stars called white dwarfs be brought to ruin by other stars in so-called Type Ia supernovae, inciting the fiery alchemy that yielded much of the iron in our blood and the potassium in our brains?

Scientists are still trying to figure out what triggers an individual Type Ia supernova and to determine the identity of the partner star to the exploding white dwarf. The Hubble Space Telescope’s recent discovery of the earliest known Type Ia supernova from more than 10 billion years ago, plus other results, favor a scenario in which two white dwarfs merge. 

The results indicate that crucial elements in people formed later in the history of the universe than many had expected, says David Jones, the lead astronomer on the Hubble study. “It took (very roughly) about 750 million years longer to form the first 50 percent of the iron in the modern universe.”

Early Fireball Star

Out of the primordial hydrogen and helium created in the Big Bang, clouds coalesced within 100 million years, eventually forming the first stars. This simulation shows light from an early star 100 million years after the Big Bang. When this fireball — millions of times brighter than the sun — dies in a titanic explosion called a supernova, it hurls out elements such as oxygen, carbon and magnesium.

First Galaxies

About 500 million years after the Big Bang, one of the first galaxies in the universe formed, containing stars of about the same mass as the sun — which can live for 10 billion years — as well as lighter stars. The green and whitish regions depict elements such as carbon and oxygen.

Star Explosion

This simulated image shows the first half-second of an explosion of a star 15 times more massive than the sun. Called a core collapse supernova explosion, one example of which is a Type II, these are a source of about a dozen major elements in people, including iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and zinc. The sphere in the center is a newly born neutron star, the superdense corpse that remains of the former star. The scale from top to bottom is 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles.

Supernova Blast

About one-and-a-half minutes into a Type Ia supernova explosion, elements created in the blast —iron (red), surrounded by silicon and sulfur (green) — are spat out with typical velocities of about 6,214 miles per second. Some oxygen (blue) is left after the explosion, but little carbon remains.

Red Giant

A star the size of the sun becomes a “red giant” toward the end of its 10-billion-year life span, a phase in which its outer atmosphere expands a great deal. The white region at the center is the dense, hot core where hydrogen and helium are still burning in two concentric shells. Between those two shells, carbon is combining with helium to form oxygen.

Human Body Ingredients

The four ingredients below are essential parts of the body’s protein, carbohydrate and fat architecture. (Expressed as percentage of body weight).

Oxygen — 65.0%

Critical to the conversion of food into energy.

Carbon — 18.5%

The so-called backbone of the building blocks of the body and a key part of other important compounds, such as testosterone and estrogen.

Hydrogen — 9.5%

Helps transport nutrients, remove wastes and regulate body temperature. Also plays an important role in energy production.

Nitrogen — 3.3%

Found in amino acids, the building blocks of proteins; an essential part of the nucleic acids that constitute DNA.

Other Key Elements

Calcium — 1.5%

Lends rigidity and strength to bones and teeth; also important for the functioning of nerves and muscles, and for blood clotting. 

Phosphorus — 1.0%  

Needed for building and maintaining bones and teeth; also found in the molecule ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which provides energy that drives chemical reactions in cells. 

Potassium — 0.4%  

Important for electrical signaling in nerves and maintaining the balance of water in the body. 

Sulfur — 0.3%  

Found in cartilage, insulin (the hormone that enables the body to use sugar), breast milk, proteins that play a role in the immune system, and keratin, a substance in skin, hair and nails.

Chlorine — 0.2% 

Needed by nerves to function properly; also helps produce gastric juices. 

Sodium — 0.2%  

Plays a critical role in nerves’ electrical signaling; also helps regulate the amount of water in the body. 

Magnesium — 0.1% 

Plays an important role in the structure of the skeleton and muscles; also found in molecules that help enzymes use ATP to supply energy for chemical reactions in cells. 

Iodine (trace amount) 

Part of an essential hormone produced by the thyroid gland; regulates metabolism. 

Iron (trace amount)  

Part of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in red blood cells. 

Zinc (trace amount)  

Forms part of some enzymes involved in digestion.

Galaxy Rising

Related - 

R.E. Slater - Star Light, Star Bright (poem)

Even the Pope Notices the InEqualities of Life

Pope Francis speaks during his general audience at St Peter's square on June 11, 2014 at the Vatican.

AFP PHOTO / VINCENZO PINTO (Photo credit should read VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)

VINCENZO PINTO via Getty Images

Pope Francis Warns The Global Economy Is Near Collapse

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/pope-francis-economy_n_5491831.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

The Huffington Post  | By Alexander C. Kaufman

Posted: 06/13/2014 10:16 am EDT Updated: 06/13/2014 12:59 pm EDT

---

The global economic system is near collapse, according to Pope Francis.

An economy built on money-worship and war and scarred by yawning inequality andyouth unemployment cannot survive, the 77-year-old Roman Catholic leader suggested in a newly published interview.

“We are excluding an entire generation to sustain a system that is not good,” he toldLa Vanguardia’s Vatican reporter, Henrique Cymerman. (Read an English translation here.) “Our global economic system can’t take any more.”

The pontiff said he was especially concerned about youth unemployment, which hit 13.1 percent last year, according to a report by the International Labor Organization.

"The rate of unemployment is very worrisome to me, which in some countries is over 50 percent," he said. "Someone told me that 75 million young Europeans under 25 years of age are unemployed. That is an atrocity."

That 75 million is actually the total for the whole world, according to the ILO, but that is still too much youth unemployment.

Pope Francis denounced the influence of war and the military on the global economy in particular:

“We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done,” he said.

"But since we cannot wage the Third World War, we make regional wars," he added. "And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies -- the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money -- are obviously cleaned up."

Pope Francis is gaining a reputation for pointed comments on the global economy. In April, amid feverish media coverage of French economist Thomas Piketty's bombshell book on income inequality, he made clear his stance on the widening wealth gap with a tweet saying: "Inequality is the root of social evil."

Fittingly, the pope commemorated Thursday's kick-off game of the World Cup – a global tournament that has so far cost host nation Brazil at least $15 billion and sparked violent protest by the country’s disenfranchised poor – with this message to his 4.14 million Twitter followers:

I wish everyone a wonderful World Cup, played in a spirit of true fraternity.

3:30 AM - 12 Jun 2014 - Pope Francis on Twitter

When Christian Beliefs Make for Unaffected Religious People

"Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are

often shaped and adjusted by our social goals."

- Jim Forest

Here's a painful reminder that Christian belief isn't necessarily translated into Christian action. More the rather, religious belief that is uncrucified to Jesus' reforms and actions will always sustain the religious heart wearing the mask of Christ and not the heart of Christ....

R.E. Slater

June 15, 2014

*ps. It would be similarly interesting to compare the civil actions of the 10 most non-Christian states in America. If this is done please notify this blog post for a follow up reference. Thanks.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Life in the Most Religious States

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/life-in-the-most-religiou_b_5494776.html

by Geoffrey R. Stone

Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago

Posted: 06/14/2014 10:48 am EDT Updated: 06/14/2014 10:59 am EDT

I recently came across a list of the ten most religious states in America. They are, in order: Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Oklahoma.

One might assume that life in the most religious states in the nation would approximate the idealized "City upon a Hill" envisioned some four hundred years ago by John Winthrop, the Puritan colonist who served as first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

To check that assumption, I did some research:

Eight of these ten states joined the Confederacy and fought a bloody Civil War to defend the institution of slavery.

Nine of these ten states still had racially segregated schools at the time of the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Five of these ten states are still among the worst states in the nation in terms of the continuing racial segregation of their public schools.

Eight of these ten states are among the eleven states in the nation with the highest rates of incarceration.

All of these ten states still have the death penalty.

Seven of these ten states are among the ten states in the nation with the highest percentage of their citizens living under the poverty level.

Six of these ten states are among the nine worst states in the nation in rates of obesity.

Nine of these ten states are among the twenty states in the nation with the highest rates of smoking.

Seven of these ten states rank in the bottom ten states in the nation in the overall health of citizens.

Nine of these ten states rank in the bottom thirteen states in the nation in life expectancy.

Seven of these ten states rank in the bottom ten states in the nation in the quality of healthcare.

Five of these ten states are the only states in the nation without a minimum wage law.

All ten of these ten states rank in the bottom sixteen states in the nation in minimum wage.

Nine of these ten states ranks in the bottom eighteen states in the nation in per pupil expenditures for public education.

Nine of these ten states rank in the bottom twenty states in the nation in the quality of high school education.

Nine of these ten states are among the twenty worst states in the nation in terms of gun deaths per capita.

Five of these ten states are among the ten states in the nation whose citizens watch the most online pornography.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. Perhaps it just means that people who live in states with bad values are more likely to turn to religion. But "City on a Hill"? Probably not what John Winthrop had in mind.

Oh, one other thing: The citizens of these ten states are fervently Republican. Eighty percent of their United States senators, for example, are members of the Republican Party, whereas only thirty-six percent of the senators from the other forty states are Republicans.