"January" Newsletter

Dear Friends, Family, and Partners in Ministry,

I do apologize for not taking pictures of enough things these months. All the pictures in this letter are courtesy of my parents during their visit!

Still, many other things have been happening, such as my boyfriend visiting, Calvin College’s Interim Class, a Christian Reformed World Missions retreat, and saying goodbye to NIBI. And learning quite a lot among it all!

Adventures
Over Christmas, my boyfriend Jim flew all the way to visit me for nine days. We had some fabulous adventures exploring the temples of Angkor Wat, biking through the unusual traffic of Phnom Penh, and staying in the homes of villagers in Plong.

Jim and I posing like the ancient Apsara dancers 
etched in the stone pillars of the temples. We had some fun.

Enjoying water lilies on a visit to the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh with Jim.

In the second week of January, students and professors from Calvin College were here in Siem Reap for the Transforming Cambodia interim, the same class that drew me to Cambodia in the first place. It was wonderful to see a dear friend from Calvin, catch up with my professors, and meet many other earnest and curious students. I thank God for this group. I was really proud of Calvin, both professors and students, especially after talking later with some of the missionaries and NGOs here that they visited. They came with such a humble, flexible attitude, and really worked and learned a lot.
The NIBI students and I also got to attend an excellent conference on development that the Calvin students led, along with law school students from a Christian university in Korea and Cambodian students from several universities in Phnom Penh. It was so encouraging to see a student-led conference on issues that really got students to own development issues and go beyond simple answers.
The day after the conference ended, I left for Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I was blessed to attend a Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) retreat for missionaries in South East Asia.  It was truly amazing to meet and spend even a few days with such faithful, courageous people and their families. Hearing about the great diversity of things they do – from translating the Bible into new languages to teaching in seminaries to running social enterprises – has planted all sorts of new


Finally, my parents visited during the second and third weeks of February, and we took a tour of Cambodia together from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Plong to Sihanoukville, by the sea. I thank God so much for the chance to see many of my beloved ones from the US in the flesh these past few months! 

The famous Bayon temple, with its four-faced pillars.

My parents and I were privileged to attend the  traditional Khmer wedding of my friend Boral’s sister. 

(My dad & mom, the bride & groom, me, and Boral) 

My parents and I walking along the road in Plong with some village kids.

Visiting a local watermelon farm near Plong. My parents with the village children.

A floating house on the Tonle Sap lake. 

Those who live on the lake are often landless minorities, such as Muslims or Vietnamese. 

It's quite amazing to see the ingenuity of these landless people. 

We saw many floating gardens like this one, as well as floating chicken coops and floating pig pens!

NIBI
NIBI’s semester ended at the end of February. Two students have been accepted at Korean universities. Please pray for them as they live and study in a foreign country! With only five returning students from this semester, and after finding out that they cannot gain approval to give bachelor’s degrees, NIBI is transitioning to a 2-year program and looking for many new students. Already, there will be two new students from Burma.

My parents were delighted to meet NIBI students, teachers, and office assistants.

New Plans
In January, I received a strong calling to reconsider my plans for after I returned from Cambodia. I had been  planning to enter a program in Memphis for learning to be an inner-city physics teacher. Through experiences here and reflection on past times, I realized that God has been calling me to seminary to learn more about leading worship.

 At the end of February, I applied to Calvin Theological Seminary for a Master’s of Arts in Worship, and I just found out that I have been accepted! I have also applied to live in an intentional Christian community in an inner city neighborhood during my time at seminary. I am so excited to study the Bible, learn more theology, discover more about what it means to worship God, and better understand inner-city American life. 

Thank you for all of your prayers.

Love from Cambodia,

Amanda

Volunteer Intern,

Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM)

P.S. A big thanks goes to the developers of Blogger, who recently seriously improved the user interface for uploading pictures, resulting in this picture-ful blog entry.

Confession as Evangelism

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend, and was encouraging her to grow closer to God. I was telling her about how passionately Jesus wants an intimate relationship with her – not just for them to be comfortable around each other.

My friend finally asked a question that seems to have been burning in her mind through many previous conversations: “When you say all these things… how can you be so certain? How is your faith so strong?”

Whoa.

I realized in that moment just how falsely I had been portraying myself all along – perhaps through our entire friendship.  I begged her forgiveness.

Plain and simple, I am not that certain. I suspect I may also speak for others who are seen as “strong Christians” by their communities. Though I had been exhorting my friend fervently, I am not without my own doubts. In fact, part of why I speak the truths I know so boldly is that my own mouth needs to confess and be saved, my own heart needs to hear and be reassured.

There are some strong philosophical evidences for Christianity, which can satisfy at an academic level. And most of the time I am fairly convinced that the gospel is true, but at its core in my heart, my faith is merely this: the gospel is the most beautiful story I have ever heard or ever will hear, and it requires my all. I do not know for certain that it is true.  But the more I come to know God, the more strongly I believe that there is no one else worth giving my life to. And beyond that, I realize more and more how desperately I need God. So I give him my all and accept the risks.

As I told my friend, when I say that Jesus longs for an intimate relationship with his people, it’s not that I somehow have this unattainable faith and I’m 100% certain. It’s just that I’m betting my life on it.

I am convinced that this confession of my own falseness and my own doubts was infinitely more helpful to her than any reassurances I could have given.

In home group this week, I re-encountered a constantly reoccurring theme in the arena of evangelism (and, I am convinced, discipleship): modern Westerners have no concept of their own sin, and thus, their need of a savior. The goodness of the Good News is contingent on understanding the bad news of the fall, which non-Christians have little incentive to study and Christians themselves may question (particularly those who grew up in the church). I recently heard that a funeral singer was asked to sing Amazing Grace, but not to sing “a wretch like me,” since after all, the deceased had been a nice person.

Many condemn “the angry god of the old testament” because they see no need for his punishment. They have no understanding of the nature of the relationship between creation and Creator, nor of the gravity of our offenses against him. Without such an understanding, they see God as vindictive, controlling, and immature. Yet any careful study of human nature surely concludes that human beings are corrupt. How many times have I heard complaints against corrupt politicians? Or cynical assumptions that societal self-interest will prevent the changes we all claim to long for? And here in Cambodia, with fewer incentives for people to act honestly, it’s common knowledge that the extent of corruption is almost without limit.

Do we truly believe that a society of blameless people would end up this way? Surely not! I suppose we could shun free will, blame imperfect systems, and consider people innocent of committing crimes that the system incentivizes. But then… who created the imperfect system?

And if humanity as a whole is guilty, it follows that you and I are individually guilty, whether we seem like nice people or not. When I stop and meditate on God’s nature and remember my place in relation to him, my hidden guilt (perhaps much of it not-so-hidden to others) is overwhelming, save for Christ’s assurance. Perhaps our (and certainly Satan’s) reason for preserving the perpetual commotion of our lives that drowns out such introspection.

So if the West is in great need of truthful introspection (I say the West because I don’t know enough about the rest of the world), what are we going to do about it? I know from experience that it’s no good listening to a sermon and thinking, “gee, I wish what’s-her-face were here to hear this,” because the Spirit convicts me that the reason I, and not what’s-her-face, am sitting in the pew is that I’m the one who needs to hear the sermon. If we truly want to meet this need for introspection, we will start (however painfully) with ourselves.

Once we understand our own desperate need for the mercy of God because of our sins (and here I overstep the bounds I just set in the paragraph above by telling you this before I dare to practice it myself), I propose (I know this is really new and radical) that we actually confess these sins, and ask for forgiveness from those that we offend, especially non-Christians.

For so long, Christians – no, I myself – have caused or let themselves be seen as holier than average. To prove that we are Christians, we hide our sins. I confess I am an expert at avoiding obvious sins and indulging in hidden ones. This causes other people to hide their sins around me, too. And it becomes a vicious cycle. Have we forgotten that the saintlier we truly become, the better we understand the truth, and the more clearly we see just how far we have fallen from God’s holiness?

What if instead, Christians were seen as particularly willing to confess our own faults and ask for forgiveness? How much more would that open doors and hearts for others (unbelievers and fellow believers) to see their need for a savior?