Wrap-up part 1

I can’t believe that I returned from my trip a month ago today.  In some ways it seems like yesterday.  I suppose it’s just the way once you have a family and a job and all of those things that you have to dive headlong back into “real life” after taking ten days off to go a-missioning.  Our team arrived home on a Saturday; I had one day to be with family and reorient myself to normal life before jumping back into work on Monday.  The week after I returned, I was away from home for a night training co-workers at another office.  The week following that, I spent another night away doing training for another group of co-workers.  So, I’ve stayed quite busy since returning and have tried my best to grab snippets of time to reflect and catch up.  Obviously, I haven’t done that too well.  Let me try to fill in the blanks.

 

So our team had a great time in Oradea on Friday.  We appeared on a radio program broadcast Europe-wide and then spent a very fruitful morning teaching undergraduate business students at Emanuel University.  It was energizing and encouraging, but after our obligations were done around noon, we were eager for a few hours of leisure before the trip home on Saturday.  Oradea lies only twenty minutes or so from the Hungarian border and about an hour from the second largest city in Hungary, Debrecen.  It just so happens that Debrecen was once a hotbed of Protestantism in prior centuries and is often called the “Calvinist Rome.”  So, you can imagine how excited we were to have a chance at seeing some great Christian history while getting another stamp in our passports.  Since Romania and Hungary are now in the EU, the border crossing was a breeze, and we were in Debrecen by 1:30pm.  We spent a delightful afternoon walking around this beautiful city and enjoying the architecture and quaint feeling of an old yet modern city.  You know, it’s quite remarkable to observe cultural differences.  Debrecen and eastern Hungary were the far reaches of Protestantism in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, and Calvinism never leapt the border to take hold in Romania.  Instead, Romania clung to its Orthodox roots, and the effects are clearly seen.  There is so much to be said of the Protestant work ethic and the economic gain that comes from the application of biblical principles in a society.  In Hungary, the Calvinists did their best to live all of life in a biblical manner, and the country was and remains leaps and bounds beyond Romania as a result.  As soon as we crossed the border we could see the difference.  Whereas Romania still struggles to overcome its Communist past and is desperately poor and corrupt in many ways, Hungary was clean, orderly, and prosperous even in villages.  Even our Romania guide and friend said so.  It was stark and amazing!  Of course, Hungary shook off Communism sooner than Romania and has been a part of the EU for a short while longer, so that naturally has as affect, too, but one simply cannot discount the Calvinist and Protestant influence on a country.

 

While in Debrecen, we visited the Great Church and the Calvinist College and meandered around downtown for several hours.  And how’s this for providence?  I was amazed by the very few people, almost nil, that spoke any English.  We were visiting Calvinist College and their museums and as we were leaving we attempted to ask the curator to point us to a bookstore.  He had no idea what we were talking about but grabbed a professor-type who was walking down the stairs and out of the building just as we were and asked him to help us.  The “professor” turned out to be the Vice Rector of the school and spoke great English.  What’s more, he studied at Austin Seminary in Texas and had as a professor there a man who was also a professor of Bruce’s on our team and is a member of our church!  We were dumbfounded!  Here we are in the corner of Hungary for four hours at the most, and we run into a fellow believer who knows someone from our church.  Just wild.

 

We also took a chance and asked a representative at the Tourist Information office in town to recommend an authentic Hungarian restaurant for dinner.  We didn’t know if she would send us to her brother’s restaurant or some dive that paid kickbacks to the Tourist office or what.  Instead, we were most pleasantly surprised with a fabulous dinner at Flaska Vendeglo, a wonderfully atmospheric restaurant in the basement of an office/retail building.  It was decorated like a Hungarian farmhouse and served us perhaps the best meal we had on the whole trip.  I had mushroom soup, cucumbers, and pork chops “peasant style.”  The pork chops were delicious and topped with sausage, cheese, pickles (sounds weird, I know), and a great sauce.  My mouth is watering even now just remembering it!

 

We drove back to Oradea around 6pm to get a little sleep before our trip home thoroughly relaxed and having enjoyed a great time in Debrecen.  I can’t wait to see it again in the future!

 

More to come…

Headed home

Saturday, October 27, 2007 – 1:37PM – over the Atlantic Ocean

 

Seat 36F on Northwest flight 93 to Detroit is not so bad.  The legroom is sufficient, and the standard issue pillow is fairly comfortable.  International travel is always interesting.  I’m in the window seat of a three-seat row sitting next to a Philippine medical doctor who lives in Holland and works in Germany.  She is sitting next to a Sri Lankan agricultural development PhD who now lives in Dallas after living in Serbia for seven years.  He travels alternately on a Serbian or American passport and is on his way to the Caribbean for a vacation with his Serbian wife.  Meanwhile, little old me is just waiting to get back to my simple life in Virginia Beach.  Amazing.

 

Dr. Bom departed from Timisoara on Thursday morning in order to fulfill some teaching obligations at Regent this weekend.  The rest of the team traveled to Oradea after dropping him at the airport and spent two fruitful days there.  First, we met with Silviu Tatu, another contact that Bruce knows from OCMS.  He looks like something that just stepped out of a story of Transylvania with his piercing eyes and jet black beard.  He spearheaded a meeting with four other local pastors, and Bruce took the lead in explaining a lot about KPC, the EPC, its church government structure, KPCLU, and what we do in our biblical worldview teaching.  Apparently, the pastors we met are struggling with some church organizational issues and also desire some broader training in societal interaction for their people.  It was a good meeting but the lunch with Silviu afterward was even better.  It turns out that he and his wife have chosen to homeschool their children this year and are among the first in Romania to do so!  As we talked about that, we quickly discovered that his views of education and family align perfectly with our typical teachings in those areas.  God was so good to arrange such a conversation, because Silviu completely relaxed with us and we were able to delve more deeply into our views.  Divine appointments!

 

Shortly before we left on this trip, my Dad mentioned that a choir member had told him that he sat next to a Moldovan pastor on a recent flight.  In their conversation, they talked about our International Reformation ministry in Eastern Europe.  The pastor was excited and suggested that we contact him to see if a visit to Moldova was possible.  Of course, this really excited me because Moldova is the missing link in a completely filled 20/30 window and it is in a perfect position to benefit from the Reformation Institute we’re setting up in Kiev with and for the Belarusians.  Moldova is situated between Romania and Ukraine with easy road access to Kiev.  The people speak Romanian and Russian, and the government is still officially Communist.  The trifecta!  I shared my thoughts on the opening with Bruce, and we chalked it up to another nice idea if God should open the door.  Well, in Oradea one of the pastors at the small morning meeting was Adi Stanciu.  We met him in 2005 on our first trip to Romania.  He has recently stepped down from his pastorship and is now the Executive Director of the Romanian Missionary Society.  They have a publishing operation and while we were in their bookstore looking at the great publications they’ve translated and made available, we stumbled upon a conversation about Moldova.  Adi lit up and said, “You have to go there!  There is a great reformation movement underway there.”  What an amazing confirmation!  He has some contacts there as does Florin, our Romanian friend and regular guide/driver/interpreter.  So, perhaps we’re headed to Moldova next year.  Again, amazing!

 

We finished our work for this year on Thursday and Friday at Emanuel University, a Christian university in Oradea.  On Thursday afternoon, we were participated in the chapel service for students and community business leaders.  Dave spoke for a about an hour and half on Christian leadership and his business background.  He did a great job on short notice.  Bruce spoke briefly about globalization and worldview, and we took questions from the audience.  The chapel was a soaring room with what must have been a five story sculpture on the front wall representing the trinity and the crucifixion and a beautiful stained-glass window.  Dinner was with a business professor (younger than 30) from the school who immigrated to the States from Romania when he was twelve but has now moved back to minister in his native land.  This guy was really fascinating.  He bought his first business at 17, financed solely with his mother’s credit cards, and went on to be a Fulbright scholar and PhD!  A great immigrant story of America’s opportunities.

 

On Friday morning, we were scheduled to teach junior-year business students for their regular management course class.  Before that, though, we were invited to appear on a half-hour program on Radio Vocea Evangheliei.  Dave, Bruce, and I took about ten minutes each answering questions on leadership and respecting authority, globalization and Christianity’s response, and banking and economics.  It was really fun, and I was so pleased with the answers that the Holy Spirit impressed upon me.  Bulgarian TV last summer and Romanian radio—also broadcast by satellite all over Europe—this year!  Media moguls, we are.

 

So, we entered the classroom on a bit of a high and had a great time teaching the students about God’s dominion covenant with man and how that plays itself out through stewardship in economics and business.  The professor had asked be at dinner the night before to speak to the students about the necessity and importance of accounting—a near universally hated course in business school.  The students and our team all had a good laugh as I talked about how much I, too, hate accounting!  I explained, though, its necessity in the stewardship mandate and economic fulfillment, and I think they really caught the idea.  These smaller face-to-face teaching times are usually the most productive, and this was both a great opportunity and great fun.  We left Oradea very fulfilled.

 

Work was done.  Time for some fun before we headed home.  Hungary is only 30 minutes from Oradea.  Why not?!  More to come…

Trying to catch up

Thursday, October 25, 2007 – 2:42AM EST – on the road between Timisoara and Oradea, Romania (9:42AM)

 

I’m so sorry that it’s been a while since I updated you on what’s been happening.  It’s funny that in Belarus where our Internet access is limited that I can update more easily than in Romania where we Internet access in our hotel room.  Since we arrived in Romania late on Monday night—actually early Tuesday morning—we’ve been pretty busy, so I haven’t been able to write.

 

I wish that I could give you all the detail of what we’ve seen and done over the last few days, but it’s not really possible to fully describe everything.  One really has to be over here to get a feel for how these people live and worship.  The wealth of western Europe is slowly creeping over to eastern Europe, and Belarus and Romania have gotten just a small taste.  Each time we’re here, things have changed a little, and it’s encouraging to work with Christians here who want to not just change but reform their countries.

 

We finished our time in Belarus with a great church service Sunday night and meeting with various leaders Monday morning.  Both were sweet times of fellowship and sharing our hearts for the future of Belarus.  It always seems that our time in Belarus is never long enough.  I just love being there.  It’s a throwback to the Soviet Union, and the language is difficult, but the spirit of reform is so strong and our friends there are so wonderful. God has opened incredible doors for us there, and the Christians of the country are so zealous and seeking of reform.  I’m already missing it and waiting for the next opportunity to go back.

 

On the way to our Monday morning meeting with key leaders in Minsk, we had the great privilege to stop and absorb a little of the spirit of a really sacred place.  Just off the ring road in one area of Minsk is a place called Kurapaty.  Between 1937 and 1939, Stalin and his henchmen in Belarus, took the Jews, the elites, and others they deemed undesirable to the forest and shot them execution style.  Today, Kurapaty is a memorial site maintained by private donations and volunteers in honor of the nearly 200,000 people that were exterminated there.  For hundreds of yards through the forest there are memorial crosses and markers.  It was cold, the air was misty, and we could hardly speak as we pondered what occurred there.  Pits are all around where mass graves were found and the earth caved in on the piles of bones.  The government of Belarus won’t officially acknowledge what occurred there, they purposefully built a highway through the center of the site, and there is near constant vandalism from nationalists.  So many volunteers have worked to keep it as a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man and as a caution to never let it happen again.

 

Following our departure from Belarus, I had another chance to visit one of my favorite places, Vienna.  We had a four hour layover between our flights from Minsk to Timisoara, so Bruce and I hopped the train into Vienna for a little sightseeing and leg-stretching.  It was briskly cold, perfect for walking around an old European city!  We poked our heads into Stephansdom, the huge cathedral in the center of the city, and St. Peter’s Church, a beautiful slightly smaller cathedral around the corner.  On the way back to the train, we saw part of the city wall from the 1500s where the Viennese fought off the Turks and stopped the spread of Islam into Europe into the 1600s.  Very cool.  Minsk is an interesting city, but I certainly wouldn’t call it beautiful.  Vienna is beautiful and stunning.  I love it more every time.

 

That takes us up to Romania where we’re into our third day and second city.  More to come…

Romania surprises again

Thursday, October 25, 2007 – 2:49PM EST - Oradea, Romania (9:49PM)

 

It seems that it’s always with a little uncertainty that we travel to Romania.  We’ve been here each year since 2005, and every time there has been at least one end left untied when we arrived.  This year was no different.  Dani Raducanu, the mayor of the small village of Baru Mare that we met in 2005, was very eager for us to come and teach on the biblical worldview of politics and how to do government “Christianly.”  We talked to him about bringing some local politicians from his county (equiv. of our states) and from his political party headquarters in Timisoara.  Things were set pretty well for that before we came, and then for about two weeks before we departed the states, silence.  We had no more contact from Dani.  Things went great in Belarus, and I wondered if we would flounder our way through the first couple of days through Romania.  Of course, God had other great plans for us.

 

We arrived just after midnight Tuesday morning and stumbled to bed about 2AM.  On Tuesday, we gave Dr. Bom the nickel tour of the sites of the Romanian revolution that began in Timisoara in 1989.  That afternoon, we met with Corneliu and Cris from Elim Theological Seminary.  It was a very satisfying meeting sharing what we do in our ministry and learning of their desire for more training for local pastors and lay leaders on biblical worldview basics and church/society interface.  Bruce knows both of them from his studies at Oxford, and our hearts were really united immediately.  Following the afternoon meeting, all of us went to the Areopagus Center, sort of a Christian cultural think tank.  Dr. Bom and Bruce gave a presentation on biblical worldview, European politics, and human rights.  We took questions from the attendees at the end, and I shared a bit about my experience using both biblical morality and solid analytics to solve problems and make recommendations from a sound business and moral footing.  I was also able to give a few examples of biblical economics regarding taxation and private property to demonstrate that the Bible does indeed speak to economic matters.  Good stuff and fun!

 

So we came to Wednesday when we scheduled to meet with Dani Raducanu and teach a political seminar.  We finally reached him midday on Tuesday and found out that his village had flooded from the recent rains and that he had to play mayor and couldn’t leave to come to Timisoara.  Certainly a worthy reason for not meeting us but it was a little frustrating since keeping our commitment to him was the primary reason that we came back to Romania this year!  Nonetheless, God had other plans for us that were beyond what we could have thought, and today showed us that.

 

Before I get to Thursday, however, I want to share a little about Dr. Philip Bom.  He is a professor at the Regent University School of Government.  He is Dutch-born but a resident and citizen of America for the last 50 odd years.  Dr. Bom will be 70 next year but remains a spry and hilariously engaging chap.  It was a delight to have him travel with us through Belarus and the first couple of days in Romania.  On Wednesday night, we met with members of the Christian Democratic People’s Party in Timisoara.  At the meeting were the vice-mayor of the City and the Vice President of the county (again, like our states) who is a candidate for the European Parliament.  Dr. Bom’s specialty is International Politics, specifically Europe, and he really had that rapt with an hour long presentation.  It was fabulous.  I thoroughly enjoyed his company the whole trip—he reminded me very much of my grandfather—but was especially struck by the stories he shared at lunch on Tuesday about growing up in Holland during WWII, the liberation of his town by Canadian troops, and the Christian witness of his father.  One of the more meaningful moments of the trip for me was when Dr. Bom, over a lunch of grilled chicken breast, choked up and couldn’t speak for a moment as he recounted how his father would give up sure and more profitable sales as a fisherman on Sunday in order to faithfully observe the Sabbath.  It was a tremendous testimony and a touching moment of watching a son, albeit one of 70 years of age, show genuine love for his father.  Moments like those are among the most cherished of my times ministering here over the last several years.  More to come…

The Sixteenth Century

Monday, October 22, 2007 – 11:36AM EST– somewhere in the air between Minsk, Belarus and Vienna, Austria (6:36PM)

You might remember from previous blog entries on my other trips that our teams always make a point of visiting some historical sites of cultural and/or religious significance in the nation we’re visiting. Our time in Minsk on other trips has always been so packed that we’ve not had much of an opportunity to do that outside of Minsk itself while driving from one place to the next. In 2005 when we visited, we did get to go to a place called Niasvizh, but it was a very out-and-back trip and it was dark shortly after we arrived. We ran quickly past a couple of sites and then hoofed it back to Minsk for a meeting of some sort. This time, we specifically set aside a full morning and part of an afternoon to see some sites.

Since our commitments on Sunday were not until the afternoon, we planned a good tour of some historic cites. Part of the impetus for the reformation movement in Belarus is the reconnection with the Christians there to their “Golden Age,” that time in the 1500s when the Protestant Reformation reached Belarus, and its leaders embraced Protestantism and Calvinism and saw tremendous improvements in their society as a result. It was to a few notable sites from that period that we went. Our tour guides were A. and Y. (no names for security sake), history professors, A. (pastor and doctoral student), and O. (a student). All are active in the New Reformation Movement and have attended our seminars. We left first thing in the morning. The temperature had dropped considerably overnight, but the 33 degree temperature outside was quickly forgotten as we climbed into the van and talked about history and laughed about funny translations and jokes. We even had historical Belarusian folk music playing for part of the time!

We traveled first to a small town where a Calvinist church has stood since the 1600s. It’s in pretty bad disrepair since no one has taken care of it for years, but it was remarkable to hear of the history of that town and its one-time embrace of Protestantism. From there, we went to Niasvizh to see the statue of Simon Budny, the first publisher of Protestant literature in what is now Belarus, and a large church there. This was the site that we visited in 2005.

One quick aside on the drive to Niasvizh. We started down a down road that was a supposed shortcut. After a while, the road was deteriorating to the point where it was not passable. We turned around, but as we did, we hit a pothole and the back end of the van lurched and made an awful moaning sound like something had seriously broken or we had hit a large animal or something. Several of us looked at each other startled and then cracked up as we realized that the awful noise was simply the beginning of another folk song—timed perfectly with our jolt! Hilarious!

From Niasvizh, we drove to a real historical highlight and one we’ve waited quite a while to see. We made it out to Mir Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but better yet a jewel of the reformation history of Belarus. The castle is relatively small as medieval fortresses go, but it dates from the 15th century and is in remarkably great shape. It was home to the Protestant branch of the Radziwil family that ruled Belarus at the time of construction and brought the reformation to the land. We had a great time climbing the incredibly steep stairs from level to level and enjoying the pictures from all around Belarus that were mounting inside. Some pictures later.

After a tremendous historical tour, we made our way back to downtown Minsk and ate at the Lido cafeteria, a popular eatery. Nine of us ate a two or three course afternoon meal for $25. Can’t beat that! More to come…

Home sweet home... of sorts

Sunday, October 21, 2007 – 12:28AM EST– Minsk, Belarus (7:28AM)

What a delightful time we had last night! After the seminars, we drove down through downtown to see the lights on all the buildings and then to an apartment of a local pastor for dinner. The downtown area is so impressive with all the imposing buildings, and it’s even prettier at night. 99% of Minsk was wiped out in WWII, so there are literally only three or four original buildings. That means that most of the buildings downtown were built by German prisoners of war or in the ear of Stalin. They are huge stone edifices that stretch for blocks and blocks. The architecture is appealing to me. Most of it is not the typical Soviet cement block monstrosity-type that you see from pictures. It is very German/Austro-Hungarian with some ornamentation. Nonetheless, everything is overly huge and screams authoritarian.

We also saw the new National Library building that was completed within the last couple of years. It is a far departure from the typical stone government buildings around downtown. The Library is a very modern building with a towering cylindrical structure that goes up probably fifteen stories. The cylinder is covered with colored lights that change continuously, and there is an enormous sign out front with scrolling messages. Fascinating.

At the end of our drive through town, we arrived at the apartment of Valery and his wife. He is a local pastor, and it was a treat for us to dine with them in their home. Boris and Bella were with us as well as Alex, a seminar attendee that we met on Friday, and pastor Pavel and his wife. The food was delicious, especially the main chicken dish, and we enjoyed a fabulous time of discussion and conversation about education, politics (both current events and theoretical principles), and general “in America…” and “in Belarus…” type questions. There was much laughter at times, much seriousness at times, and I so enjoyed the opportunity we had to talk to ordinary people in their environment and to get to know them a little better. This is the first time we’ve been in a Belarusian’s flat over all of our visits here, and it was very special. It made for a later night than we anticipated, but it was well worth it. More to come…

The first two days

As I write, Bruce has just begun the first session of the day at our seminars in Minsk. This is day two of the seminar. We had about 50 people in attendance yesterday at first day of the seminars. It was a closed session of select people in order to minimize publicity and the possibility of interruption by the authorities. There were eight 50 minute sessions, four by Bruce on theology and the importance of theological study in the pursuit of nation reformation and four by Dr. Bom on democracy and democratization. The response of the people was very good, though were some comments that some of the subject matter was a little abstract and hard to grasp. That was not surprising to us, but we knew that this year would bring things at a whole new level. As we move to the formation of the reformation institute here, our teaching will take a more and more academic tone and move to a more “university” level of thought. Based on the questions and response at the end of the day, it was apparent that most in attendance really enjoyed everything and appreciated the material.

One of the more intriguing questions asked of us at the end of the day was the difference between reading the Bible devotionally each day and studying it exegetically for deep theological study. Very interesting. Bruce answered it well, but it was a demonstration to me of the true attentive paid to the seminars by the people here and their desire to really learn.

One of the best parts of these trips it the time we have to fellowship with each other over meals. We’ve enjoyed two great dinners in the evenings we’ve been here. On Thursday night after we arrived, Boris and Bella took us to The Beatles Café. It was a hoot! Pictures of the Beatles everywhere, life-size cut-outs of the band posed on a stage in the corner, and Beatles music playing in the background. Bruce and I especially enjoyed it, and we both ordered the “Paul McCartney,” supposedly Paul’s favorite meal of fried chicken, French fries, and bacon. I also had a Greek salad with fabulous sharp feta cheese. Also with us were Vitaly, our interpreter, Benjamin and his wife Nelly (the first pastor of the church we’re partnered with), Dima and his wife Marina (associate pastor the church), and Boris and Bella. It was a great time of getting caught up on what has happened since we were last together and sharing our vision for the next few days and the future. Following dinner, it was back to the hotel where I crashed for a good eight hours. Nice!

After the seminars last night, we went to Bergamo, a fancy Italian restaurant nearer downtown. With us were Boris and Bella, Vitaly, Yuri (a seminar attendee and local small business owner), and Dmitry (a pastor from Grodno in the western part of the country). The food was great and the service was good, but the kitchen was sloooooooooowwww. Whenever we’re over here, we simply accept the fact that service is different than back home and the patience is truly a virtue. This was something altogether different, though. Dave and I sat together at one end of the able, and we waited 90 minutes for our food after ordering. What’s so strange, though, is that others at our table waiting only 20 minutes or so and one guy was served his meal and dessert long before we got our meal. So, put the wait together with the waitress’ refusal to let me order what I initially requested, and it was an interesting experience. But, we really had a great time of fellowship. Lots of laughter and joking mixed with very serious conversation and discussion of history. It’s so good to be back in Minsk! It’s an intellectual and cultural experience I treasure. More to come…

Minsk is booming!

After three flights and eighteen hours of travel, we’ve arrived in Minsk safe and sound. We were last here in 2005, and the city is booming! There is new construction all over, roads are refurbished and resurfaced, and apartment buildings and single-family houses are being built everywhere. It’s really something to see. Everyone knows that the official government figures for economic growth are padded and baloney, but perhaps there’s more to the bluster than it would appear. “On the ground” evidence would point to some real strength after all. There is no denying, though, that this remains by and large a command economy with little sanctioned free market activity without oppressively heavy red tape and taxes that are higher than gross revenues in some cases. I just hope that when freedom does come and the economy blossoms for real that it doesn’t grow too fast and result in the huge disparity between the “haves” (the oligarchs) and the “have nots” (everyone else) as in Russia. I suppose it could be a blessing in some ways that Belarus does not have the tremendous natural oil and gas resources that does Russia so that that windfall will not be available to the select few to hoard for themselves.

We’re sitting in our room in the good ol’ Orbita Hotel resting a little while before dinner with some of our friends and other leaders here. Even the hotel has been spiffed up and renovated since we were last here in 2005. The rooms have carpet, and the reception desk has been totally redone. It actually looks nice instead of like a mafia den.

I slept about five hours between the flight to Frankfurt and the flight to Minsk. Not too bad, and I feel pretty good. By nine o’clock tonight, I’ll surely be ready for bed, but so far, so good. We flew Northwest Airlines from Norfolk to Frankfurt (via Detroit), and it was fine. Nice flight attendants, typical American airline “comfort” which is basic but fine. Then we flew Lufthansa, the German airline, from Frankfurt to Minsk. Everyone jokes about German efficiency, but it’s a very real thing. The only problem is that the attendants and customer service staff are almost robotic. Helpful but not exactly friendly. Not my favorite airline, but our choices are limited when flying into Minsk. I don’t think that Delta will be bidding for a NY-Minsk non-stop anytime soon.

I exchanged a couple of text messages with my wife. Jonathan had a bit of a difficult evening with me being gone, and Karen said that she can sense some spiritual attack to discourage her and against the kids’ health. I’d appreciate your prayers. More to come…

Under way

I’m sitting in the Detroit Airport waiting to board flight number two, the long one across the pond to Frankfurt where we’ll connect onward to Minsk. The first flight was uneventful—just a quick hop in the wrong direction away from Europe toward Detroit. Isn’t the airline hub and spoke system interesting? As we have a three hour layover here in Detroit, we made our way to the chapel—excuse me, “Religious Reflection Room,”—to take the opportunity to pray together as a team for the first time today. It was tremendous. Very interesting, also, I might add. Since the room is in the middle of an airport and the airport lies in the middle of the largest concentration of Muslims in the United States, we had several Muslims keeping us company while we prayed. Prayer rugs and the whole bit. When we first got into the room, there was a married couple on their prayer rugs. She was not in a burkha, per se, but had a full head covering and long robe. He was dressed like any other urban black man in sweats. The four sides of the room was clearly marked with compass points, and there was an inlay in the rug pointing eastward (Mecca).

All of that was very intriguing to see, but I was amazed at the spiritual atmosphere in the room. The Muslim couple was in the room when we arrived, and it was extremely difficult for me to focus on the Lord and pray until they left. Wow! I haven’t felt anything like that before. I intended to pray for them, pray that their spiritual chains would be broken and that the bondage of Islam would fall off of them, but I struggled mightily to do so. It left me feeling a bit inadequate, but it was such a good reminder that I am indeed inadequate without Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, now and especially on these trips. The spiritual warfare is intense, but we have been given the power to pierce the clouds of darkness and deliver the word of the Lord. I guess I should have expected that the warfare would start before we even left the U.S.! More to come…

Belarus and Romania Update #6

Tomorrow is the day we depart.  Visas are in hand, bags are almost packed, and just a few loose ends to tie up.  I wanted to thank you all again for your support, both in prayer and financially.  I will leave tomorrow 95% funded, and that is huge!  God is so good, and I appreciate so very much all that you have done to make this year’s trip a possibility.  Just a few quick things today:

 

• The weather forecast for our entire time in Minsk is mid- to high-30s with snow possible on several days.  Lows in the 20s overnight.  Yikes!
• Going forward, I might just post updates to http://scottsreformation.blogspot.com rather than emailing to each of you individually.  It depends on our setup and Internet access.
• Thousands of people crowded the streets of Minsk to protest the current government and to demand freedom last weekend.  The police were out in force to break things up.  It will be interesting to hear some of the firsthand accounts.  Check out http://www.charter97.org for more info.

 

Some prayer requests as I depart:

 

• Please pray for peace and protection for my family
• We are having a little trouble rounding up the audio-video equipment we need to carry with us still.  Please pray that we can get what we need.
• Safety on our long travel day tomorrow and the ability to rest on the planes as we’ll hit the ground running when we land.
• Please pray for servant’s hearts, Godly wisdom to impart, discernment for every situation, and divine appointments.

 

Thanks again for all you do and your interest.  I couldn’t go without you behind me!  More to come…

 

Scott

Belarus visas are here!

It’s been quite the twisted and sordid journey, but our Belarus visas arrived this afternoon.  Saturday!  We’re all set to go.  Our first team member can proceed on his travels tomorrow, and the rest of his will leave Wednesday for Belarus with much peace of mind.  Praise God for His faithfulness and always right on time.  I’ll to fill you in on the story sometime.  It’s too long for a simple email.  More to come…

 

Scott

Belarus and Romania Update #5

Good news! As of Wednesday evening, we still had not received our Belarusian visas back approved and processed from the Embassy. The five business day timeframe we were promised has passed, so I’ve been a little worried. Well, we contacted the Embassy this morning and were told that our visas were approved and issued yesterday (Wednesday) and should arrive back to us today or Friday. This is a tremendous answer to prayer, and I am slightly relieved. We absolutely must have the visas and passports back tomorrow so that one of our team members will have his passport to travel internationally on Sunday before meeting us next week in Belarus, so I will feel better when I hear that the visa package has been received by the church and we’re all set to go. Pray with me, won’t you?

There has been a flurry of activity in the last week. All seminar outlines have been sent to Belarus for translation ahead of our arrival. The Romania seminars have stretched from three to four days, and we’ll be dividing our time evenly between two cities. A Christian university (how’s your Romanian?) in Oradea has invited to address both faculty and administration and students. We are thrilled at the opportunity and are confident that this will lead to more divine appointments. As you may remember, the emerging focus of this ministry and desire of our hearts is to establish institutes in strategic spots in Eastern Europe that will train pastors and lay leaders in all disciplines in the principles and practices of biblical worldview. These meetings in Oradea could go far to planting that seed in Romania.

I thought I’d try to make things a little more interesting this time for the armchair globetrotters. Here’s the route we’ll take:

We’ll hit at least five countries—the U.S., Germany, Belarus, Austria, and Romania—and do our primary work in three cities: Minsk, Timisoara, and Oradea. When we get to Romania, we’ll be only a couple of hours from both the Serbian and Hungarian borders. If have any free time after seminars, we may try to get another stamp in our passports from one of the neighbors!

Six days to go, and I’m starting to turn my thoughts to packing and logistics. I’d appreciate your prayers for the following this week:

• Pray for safe and timely delivery of our passports and visas. The primary hurdle has been crossed; we just need to get everything back.
• My funding is up to 89%! Thank you for your selfless generosity. Please pray for full support.
• Pray for good time management for all the team members in this next week. We need to make sure we pack everything we need and nothing we don’t—weight limits!—and we still have normal lives to lead before we go.
• Pray for open hearts where we’re going and servant hearts for us as we teach.
• Pray for safety in our travels, protection for our families while we’re gone, and peace in our households with us away.

I am so very blessed by your support, gifts, and words of encouragement. More to come…

Belarus and Romania Update #4

I am typing this with a joyful cramp in my hand. I have just finished writing numerous thank-you notes in hopes of expressing even a small amount of my gratitude to you who gave so generously toward my upcoming trip in just this past couple of weeks. As a result of those gifts, my funding is up to 87%, and I am overjoyed! One of things that God has been impressing on me is not just His faithfulness to provide but also how amazing is the body of Christ that so many of you would give so sacrificially. As I began this ministry journey four years ago, I was astounded at how quickly gifts flew in the door to support my first trip. Since that time, I have been consistently humbled more deeply as so many of you have supported me again and again in successive years. I really don’t know what to say, and I pray that I will be ever faithful to God’s call for me and your expectations. I am also representing you as I attempt to carry His banner in the dark places.

The first few days after my last update were quite the flurry of activity. After telling you that our team’s Belarusian visas were approved and received, I found out that our application packet was simply returned to us unprocessed. We hadn’t received correct instructions and left out the primary visa application document. As a testament to God’s providence, the one member of our team who does not live locally in Hampton Roads was in town last weekend and was available to sign his application and provide the necessary information. I ran around the church on Sunday and on email over the weekend to compile everything we needed, and the full applications were signed, sealed, and sent off to the Embassy for processing late on Monday afternoon. There is a real time crunch on now, and we’ll need the prayers.

On the trip front, we made some great progress in this week in firming up the Romania portion of our trip. We have accepted invitations to speak at a seminary and a university in addition to our planned seminar with local and national politicians. Great! We are excited at these new opportunities, and they will connect us with people in Romania who are true leaders among protestant Christians. God continues to open amazing doors for us, and I know that even more divine appointments will transpire once we’re in country.

Here’s what you can be praying for this week:

• My family. Karen is anxious about my time away. Please pray that there will be peace in my house and that the children will not react negatively to my being gone. The boys know that daddy goes on ‘big trips’ but it’s never easy for us to be separated for so long.
• Visas! We absolutely must have our approved visas back in hand by Friday, October 12, as one team member is going out of the country ahead of the rest of us. This timeframe is feasible but tight. Please pray for no more hang-ups.
• Safe travel. We will cover about 12,500 miles in the air and on the ground (thankfully mostly in the air!) during this trip. Please pray for smooth connections, safe drivers, and clear roads from place to place.
• Preparation of our hearts and minds. Each of my team members has a life outside of this trip and ministry, and we’ll all be busy with the day-to-day right up until we leave. Please pray that God would be preparing us for the message we have to bring, the people that we will meet, and the servanthood that we need to demonstrate. Pray for humility, wisdom, and effective communication.

Thank you all so much! Only two weeks to go now—wow. More to come…

BIG prayer request for the trip

Well, it turns out I jumped the gun a bit yesterday with the praise report about receiving our Belarusian visas and being approved. As it turns out, the instructions we were given weren’t right and all of our applications were sent back unprocessed because we didn’t submit full paperwork. We should have time to complete and re-submit the required paperwork, but I would ask for your prayer for this. Time is getting short, and the visas are a must if we are to travel to Belarus! More to come...

Belarus and Romania Update #3

Only a very brief update this time as I approach three weeks out from my trip to Belarus and Romania in October. Lots of planning still going on, and we are making solid progress on finalizing all of our seminars and meetings for our time in Romania. I appreciate very much your prayers and encouragement.

Praise reports and items for prayer:

1. Fantastic news! I was informed today that our visas for entry into Belarus have been approved, and our passports have been received back from the Belarusian Embassy. This is a huge hurdle cleared and a large answer to prayer. Please pray for safe and smooth entry into the country.

2. My funding is at about 75%. I am so encouraged by God’s faithfulness and your ongoing support.

3. We have made some key new contacts for Romania that could open tremendous doors for future ministry. Pray that we would go in with humility and with hearts to learn how we can serve, not just teach.

4. Of course, I continue to ask for prayer for my family while I am gone. They will need supernatural support, and they always welcome a phone call or visit from you while I’m away.

Thank you all for lifting me, my family, and my teammates up in prayer. I’m getting very excited about what’s ahead! More to come…

Belarus and Romania Update #2

Down to four weeks now. We leave Wednesday, October 17, and preparation continues for our trip to Belarus and Romania. Just a quick update this week on my trip and the ministry that you have been so faithful in supporting:

Many of you had the opportunity to hear Yaroslav Lukasik speak at KPC last summer when he was visiting from Belarus. He is the dear friend of ours from Belarus who has since been deported from the country for his steadfast refusal to close down his church and temper his message of reformation in Belarus. He has since relocated with his family just over the border in Poland and continues to be a steadfast worker on behalf of Belarus though he has been barred from re-entry for five years. He has been visiting in Virginia Beach this week, and I had the opportunity to share dinner and breakfast with him on a couple of days this week. What a joy to see him and hear of his unmatched zeal for the Lord’s work in Belarus! He encouraged us so much ahead of our trip.

Some things to praise the Lord for and pray for this week:

• My funding is up to 70%. Thank you!
  
  
• We are finding ways to trim our costs in Romania, and the Euro is coming down ever so slightly against the dollar. (You didn’t know international money markets were a part of missions work, did you?!)
  
  
• Our visas for entry into Belarus have been sent to the Embassy and are in process. Pray for smooth approval and a quick turn-around.
  
  
• As always, I would appreciate your prayer for my family as I leave them for this extended period.

You are the best, and I am always blessed by your words of encouragement to me. Thank you! More to come...

Belarus and Romania Update #1

Five weeks from today, I will land in Belarus with my teammates for another round of ministry and teaching in Eastern Europe. I wrote to you a couple of weeks ago with an update, and I wanted to share the latest about our journey and plans. The plane tickets are booked, day-to-day itineraries are settled, and now we simply work on filling in the daily schedule.

Belarus has come together extremely well. We are quite excited about the seminars to be held there, and some fantastic teaching topics have been arranged. There will be 16 hours of intensive teaching over two days on topics such as “Sounds Methods of Biblical Theology,” “Constitutional Democracy,” Introduction to Economics,” and “Worldview Conceptions,” among others. During the other two days there, we will have extensive meetings on the formation of the training institute I’ve told you about and several meetings with local pastors in order to encourage them in the midst of their persecution and introduce them to a holistic Biblical worldview. This will be my third trip to Belarus, and my heart has grown so attached to the country and people. The zeal of the Christians there who live under the daily threat of real physical and spiritual persecution is amazing to see. I really can’t wait to go back!

We are making headway as well on the Romania portion of our trip. The primary focus of the time there is the teaching in the city of Timisoara of biblical principles of government and politics. Our seminars have been expanded to include national politicians from the Timisoara area and certain pastors and laypeople from a large church that we’ve worked with previously. These are in addition to the local political leaders from a small interior county (equivalent to a U.S. state) that we originally planned to teach. We will also be going to the far northwest of the country to meet with pastors and Christian academic leaders to discuss potential partnerships and find how we can best serve them with our ministry in the future. God is ever expanding our tent!

A few prayer requests:

• Because a majority of the expenses for our trip is in euros, the weak dollar has caused the total cost to rise. Please pray for favorable exchange rates while we’re traveling and for the ability to reduce expenses without sacrificing safety in our room and board.
  
  
• My personal fundraising stands at about 60% of my goal. Please pray that I would reach 100% soon. Thank you for all of your generous gifts!
  
  
• While travel to Belarus is not dangerous, per se, it’s not a walk in the park either. Please pray for our safety and protection and for the peace of mind of our spouses who anxiously await our return.

You all have been such wonderful supporters of me and this ministry, and I am deeply grateful. I’ll be updating regularly from now through the end of the trip. More to come…

The McCain Decimation is America's Decimation

Marc Ambinder - The McCain Decimation - The Inside Story

I read this story this morning and just shook my head.  I'm no big fan of McCain and think that while he is a genuine American hero, he is no defender of conservatism.  What really got me though is just how illustrative the McCain campaign is of the disaster that is our political system.

I suppose that we might never know the real story behind the shake-up in McCain's campaign but the article highlighted the frustration of McCain's campaign manager that was not given total control over messaging, spending, and the like.  That amazed me.  If you listen to regular Americans, conservatives or liberal, on talk radio or read them in print, it's pretty quickly apparent that what everyone longs for is principal--a politician that actually has an overarching set of principals and lives them even after they get to Washington.  Now I understand that politics is a hardball sport and today's campaigns require large staffs and nimble managers to coordinate media, financing, etc. but how pathetic is it that a campaign manager demand control over messaging?  And how equally pathetic is it that a candidate would even entertain that demand?  Where is the politician, be they an incumbent or a newcomer, that puts his foot down and says, "this is what I believe, massaging it for the media be damned."

For too long, America has put up with grand talk from our politicians with no principled actions to follow.  Even a desparate situation like immigration has been pushed to the back-burner because it's too politically volatile to debate this close to an election!  Ridiculous.  McCain is imploding for a number of reason but maybe he's simply just another politician who relies on a campaign manager to tell him what he believes and how to express it.  Decimation, indeed.

More to come...

Communism continues to obliterate

Struggles as breadwinners head West - Frontier: Europe - MSNBC.com

Here's another of your standard "husband leaves family for a time in hopes of a better life for all" story. It's about a Latvian family enduring a temporary separation as the husband/father works as a skilled construction worker in England so that he can support his wife and two children back in Latvia. Something struck me, though, in the telling. The wife and children "live(s) in one of the bleak Khrushchev-era apartment blocks known as “khrushchovki” that litter cities across the former Soviet Union. It's a step up from their previous home, a desolate cabin in the woods."

Isn't it incredible how communism continues to exert it's insidious ambition over countries that broke away more than 15 years ago? The damage wreaked by the Soviet Union on its satellite states in an attempt to Russify and communize them will be seen for decades to come. Today, it is manifesting itself in families splitting apart and populations leaving in droves because of the inability for the economies to recover in some nations. These are countries with rich histories going back centuries! And families are consigned to living in crumbling concrete tombs, a testament to the limits of man's power when he strives to create a "better man" apart from God's plan. More to come...

The right way to go about immigration

James Jay Carafano on Immigration on National Review Online Annotated

Mr. Carafano's article is spot on regarding defeat of the immigration bill and how the issue ought to be handled. Here's the core thought:

===
Rather than just throwing up its hands, throwing around blame, and throwing out the hope of comprehensive reform, Congress should try an alternative approach: (1) Deny amnesty to people here illegally that will help deter future illegal migration and make the point that we insist everyone respect the rule of law. (2) Enforce workplace laws on the books and gain back control of our southern border. (3) Create more practical and flexible legal opportunities to come and work in the United States. Together these measures offer a real strategy for breaking America’s addiction to undocumented labor.
===

This is exactly right! Those of us who opposed the immigration bill didn't oppose it on the basis of denying more immigrants the chance at the American dream. We opposed giving them a free pass for their illegal actions upon entering the country in the first place. Following this three-fold approach makes perfect sense. Of course, it doesn't fit the political agenda of those in Washington, so we'll probably never see it done. I don't know about you, but I'm getting real tired of politicians elected to represent--not lead--us in Washington totally ignoring the screams of the American people regarding important issues. Perhaps this bill's defeat is the first hole in the dike holding back some real change in how Congress responds to 'we the people.' More to come...

The evolution of faith and reason

What I Think About Evolution - New York Times Annotated

A very good article by Senator Sam Brownback addressing evolution via the intersection of faith and reason. Senator Brownback is a Catholic, so much of his philosophy mirrors the Church's teaching on the faith/reason scale. It's no less valid to me an an evangelical, though. I've excerpted a portion that especially expresses my feelings on evolution. More to come...

===
People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.
===

Nicely articulated! This captures extremely well what I believe. More to come...

Our newest blessing has arrived!

Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord. - Psalm 127:3

The Lord has blessed us again and our newest gift, Rachel Joelle Walter, has arrived! She was born Wednesday, May 23, at 4:40pm. Rachel weighed in at 7lbs 2oz and is 19 1/2 inches long. She also has a fine set of lungs that were exercised freely upon arrival! Delivery was a little rough this time, but Mom and baby are doing fine. Thank you for all your prayers. God is good, and His blessings are abundant! More to come...