Home and left Alone. . . with our thoughts

With a rather abrupt but sensible decision we have returned home from our "journey for peace." We left Asia about two weeks ago and we have since been running about in classic busy-life fashion looking for work and seeing family and friends and getting organized but it has not been an altogether harsh come back. Almost always after trips like these you come to expect a certain degree of reverse culture shock. Sometimes it takes a week and other times it can take a month to get used to your new-old climate, to get re-acclimated with the pace, the people, the food, the culture, the politics-the life that it just so happens was not so far removed. Well this time around, probably not much unlike other times around, we find an integral part of this experience of returning home to be about asking questions. Questions like: what now? what purpose is/was there? and what does the future hold? all are seemingly relevant whether connected to our recent chapter or not. The Questions are important. It is all part of the process of 'stumbling towards the light together.' Our experiences were too incredibly rich to list and the lessons that we have gathered will probably take years to fully extrapolate and surely we would not have it any other way. We encountered a people within the Asian context so wholly oriented towards grace and hospitality that I feel this too will take years to grasp in all of its theological gravity. Beautiful people; so ransoming your heart that I have learnt to explain their stories in exactly that tense: when you go abroad to a place like Sri Lanka, Peru, South Africa or Uganda you will certainly leave a fragment of your heart in that place with those people and it is right that it should be this way. Because as one of our great forefathers, Henri Nouwen, urges, our only hope is to open the doors of our hearts and allow others in.

Ultimately we worked between two non-profit organizations. The one-a church so highly involved in social development and so intimately sympathetic to the subversive message of the Gospel that the shame of the widow and the cold felt by the orphan is made real. The second-a youth movement for peace and reconciliation where young children who have grown up knowing war and carnage and vengeance, stopped for a moment and collectively (both sides of the ethnic divide) agreed that there futures would no longer be determined by hatred and such things. In short, it was a hopeful message all around. We can testify that you should not be dismayed for as surely as power is being used in all places right now to promulgate violence there is a more powerful and more transcendent power that is being used to spread true messages of hope. It is alive and well . . .in the love advocate from northern africa, in the peace advocate from Sri Lanka, in the Gospel monger from South Korea, and in the Christian revolutionary from South America. Well, our chapter was very much to do with all of this, we were challenged and pushed and yet we grew closer still-closer to one another and our God in ways that we definitely could not imagine. We thought that we might be in Sri Lanka for a longer time but as it turns out God had different plans from our own, HIS were/are right of course. But it was very hard to except that notion when we had already been so determined in explaining to our supporters that we would be gone for a year on our journey. We spoke at length about what God had meant to do for our lives in that decisive moment and we came away with several things.

If there was one thing we had gathered during our deliberation about a rather abrupt exit it was this: it was premature for us to tell people that we would be gone a year altogether. We found that that timeline had become wholly artificial because in telling people this was our goal it was as if to say, "we have determined the time necessary for us to experience whatever it is that God has in store for us" rather than committing to a posture that says, "we are going to see what God has in store for us." What an amazing banner right? What if that was posted ahead of all of our decisions and deliberations in life from the extraordinary to the completely mundane? We have to wonder.

Visas and So Much More

Today is a very blustery day which is refreshing after the past week which was scorching hot. And when I say blustery I mean gloomy and windy. It's still hot. I can still where a t-shirt and shorts the only difference is I am not sweating profusely. Things have been a bit slow around here lately. Since all the foreigners are gone the church has settled back into its normal pace. Ben and I travel around the city in what are called trishaws or three wheelers or tuk tuks. They are basically like covered golfcarts with a larger engine. I am not quite sure how else to describe them. But in the rain they are quite an adventure to drive in. That is for sure!
The most exiting thing that has been going on is the process of trying to renew our visas. In typical Sri Lankan Fashion the process did not begin until less than a week before our visas expire which has made it exciting to say the least. Today, Friday, our passports were taken to immigration with all the appropriate paperwork and denied! Apparently, Since Ben and I signed our old visas on our passports (like we were told to do the last time we visited immigration two months ago) they think that we got the passport stamps illegally and forged them. Great! So since monday is a holiday, Of Course! (since Sri Lanka is the country who acknowledges the most holidays) Ben and I have to go to immigration on Tusday, the day before our visa expires, and try to pursuade them that 1) we did not forge our old visas and 2) ask for an additional visa. Needless to say we need prayer! We already have a flight lined up just in case we need to buy a ticket last minute and fly out of the country. Life here is exciteing to say the least! So we will let you know what happens with our visas or maybe we will just see you! Please also continue to pray for my stomach because I have been having problems with my acid reflex.

Rain Rain Go Away Come Again Another Day!

So we had a visit from the plumber again this week. Our sink was clogged with a month's worth of gunk and we were unable to do dishes for two days only adding to our cockroach problem. The morning of the plumber's visit we opened our kitchen door to find 7 dead cockroaches scattered on the floor and sink. YES I said SEVEN. They had gotten into the white powder we have been putting out to kill the ants. They are still living in our cupboard though so Ben decided to create his own handy dandy cockroach killer trap. He first got a clay jar filled it two inches full with stale beer and water. Dropped two sticks in it and topped it off with a little ant poison. The next day Ben found a cockroach floating in the jar! Ben-1, Cockroaches-0. (Photo for Proof Below)

We are praying the rain will subside soon. Our home is falling apart. New leaks pop up daily. Meanwhile, there is a miniature lake developing on what would be equivalent to a front driveway. Every time it rains, two or three times a day for a couple minutes or less at a time (and when I say rain I mean tropical torrential downpour) these mammoth sized puddles gather around the house (sometimes in the house). It is not our business to despise the much needed monsoon rain but we'd be lying if we said that we didn't ask the Big Guy Upstairs to turn down the waterworks once and a while. No matter though as we have devised a great way to scale across our gate whilst using the momentum of our bodies to close the gate- at the same time delivering us safely onto the other side...of the puddle/lake of course (As you can see Ben displaying above in his awesome rain boots).

Oh and today we visited a hundred and thirty two year old museum with 40 kids under the age of 12. They even had ancient urinals. Fascinating. We love you all! Thanks for Reading!

Coauthored By: Rylee and Benjamin Applebee

Leaks, Cockroaches and a Whole Lotta Laughs

We have had three leaks in one week (and the week is not even over yet). On Monday, Ben heard water leaking from one of the many old rooms in the home we live in. He tried to tighten the knob where the leak was coming from and the knob completely snapped off. Water started pouring out all over the floor and of course we did not know how to turn the water off so we had to run next door to our 95 year old land lady’s home and find out where to turn the water off. We finally turned it off but had to spend a day without water (not that big of a deal) until the local plumber came by. Needless to say it was quite a mess but left both of us laughing.
Our next leak happened on Tuesday. I woke up on Tuesday morning to a dark river flowing from underneath our kitchen cabinets. Ben got the mop and we continued to soak up the dirty water until our friend the plumber arrived again. If that was not enough our fridge has been leaking water all day today....haha. What an adventure it is to live here. So we went from a severe ant problem to a cockroach problem. Each morning I slowly open the kitchen door in anticipation of finding another one of our dead friends. They are huge and so gross. But the dead ones we find laying our kitchen floor are much better than the ones living in our cupboards. Our dishwares are pooped on regularly and we hear and see them running around whenever we open the cupboard doors. I had purchased cockroach traps from the USA and was planning on receiving them from the American team but they were stolen out of Monte’s car the night before they left. I am sure the burglar was not too happy with his booty. He received a bunch of crafts, some cockroach traps, girls’ pants, trail mix and some white cake mix. I am sure he was disappointed. We were disappointed too!
It was so great to see familiar faces. We really enjoyed seeing Monte and his team and we loved working with them. But they were here for such a short time and it was hard to see them go.
Ben and I attended our first Sri Lankan 25 year wedding anniversary. We are sitting and eating dinner when all of a sudden there was a huge boom outside the front door and little sparks started flying through the window. I jumped literally on top of the poor woman sitting next to me and just about gave her a heart attack. I guess it is tradition to set off fireworks for 25 year anniversaries....well they didn’t tell us and I did the drop roll and cover because I thought it was a bomb...anyways it was an adventure to say the least and every single Sri Lankan got a crack out of the way I reacted. I was a bit shook up though!
We miss you all dearly! Please be praying against mosquito born illness because many of them are currently going around. Please also pray for peace in times of fear and a community for Ben and I. Thank you and God Bless!

Future Leader's Conference 2009

Sometimes I think the only way the human community will achieve some iota of solidarity is against a common threat or enemy. Take, for example, the cinematic premise of some extra-terrestrial force or presence that threatens to wipe out the human race-only then can we all come together and agree that we are all endangered by some thing. In this scenario no one nation, no one continent suffers more than another in the face of imminent danger or death because after all it is the fate of the world that is at hand. Well what if the fate of the world-society at large-humanity-the global community has already reached this defining moment and many times over? You see, at least one problem with this story line is precisely its essence: united. . .to defeat a common enemy or threat and with this objective you have both American and Chinese, Pakistani and Indian, Israeli and Palestinian, and the whole continent of Africa taking up arms to slaughter an shared enemy. But what if? Just what if these were not the militaristic means to which we came together as a human community? What if two groups-violently entrenched in war against one another for three decades-sat together in a room for five days and decided together the threat itself was difference, fear, hatred, violence and discord. This is what we witnessed a couple of weeks ago at the Future Leader's Conference put on by Sri Lanka Unites. 

At this conference, students ages 12-18, came together from all over the Island-from the south of Galle, the east of Batticaloa, the west of Colombo, the north of Jaffna and many towns in between. Granted these students were selected as the leaders of their respective schools and communities but I assure you that what they accomplished was nothing short of transcendent as it was not just this singular event, rather it was the commitment that each student vowed in taking reconciliation back to their schools, communities and homes. After day one passed along with all of its apprehensions, I saw these children from widely varying backgrounds-Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist along with Burghers, Tamils and Singhalese-take hold against the great transgressions of their forefathers. Of course, the notorious 3-decade long feud that I speak of is the assault against the government waged by the LTTE for a separate state and has, at least, ostensibly been the result of ethnic offense between the Tamils and Singhalese. Both sides have incurred a stream of atrocities-from massive community burnings, namely the early 80's when thousands of lives

 and homes were lost amidst riots, to suicide bombings, one of which in 1996 killed 80 people in one blow. This is the legacy that has been left for these young people to rectify and I trust that with the overall enthusiasm and vigor that we witnessed this event will not be found wanting. However, I must admit that with all the important speakers and special guests and performers there was one thing that stood out to me in getting this movement mobilized and that was the fact that these kids showed up. 

I have learned that as long as human beings walk the earth, words will never match the power of actions. And so you will say to me: but surely no person can act without the transmission of words whether written or in speech! Even still I cannot underscore enough the power of showing up, the deed, the act, the movement of such great and varying methods: nonviolent civil disobedience, the fast, the hunger strike, the sit-in and the constant and unrelenting appeals made by those people of various groups to their Government, their law-bodies and to society at large. And thats what these young people have done. They have laid a deep and severe appeal to one another and their country that they will no longer allow their destinies to be determined by hatred. This is one thing that I have gathered in Sri Lanka from our experiences, from our readings and from our work such that I feel compelled not even to give my word to prove something rather I just go on and prove it. This, I feel, is the key to avoiding those empty words, unfulfilled promises and yet-to-have-seen vows and plans that never seem to materialize yet are filled with talk and talk and talk. This, I am afraid to say, has been an incredible shortfall of my own too and I wish to make a mends by cautioning my tongue as if to censor my own hopes and promises only to liberate them at the proper time and place in all of their glory and proper intent. 

Everyday Life in Sri Lanka

Western foods are hard to come by here. We now eat Mexican food with kidney beans and rotti (a Sri Lankan flat bread) . A little different! But as close to Mexican food as we can find. It is amazing how anything even a little similar becomes extremely exciting. We found a store that sells m and m’s today. Which was very exciting! I never eat m and m’s in the states and honestly am not even a really a chocolate fan. I know weird. But here I am an addict haha. Ben and I also joined a “gym” in order to meet new people in the community and get out of the house. Our new gym is at a local Catholic school that allows people to come work out after school is over (5pm-9pm). The equipment is quite comical due to its archaic state but we find it very exciting. The trainers at the gym are very amused by the gym’s two new WHITE members. They follow us around to each machine we go to and tell us how to use it. When we are finished with one machine they ask us what we are going to do next and how long we plan on doing it. It is very comical. Sri Lanka is extremely community oriented and the Gym experience is no different. So we are quickly making friends...haha. Ben and I have a lot of alone time. Most days we rarely leave the house. We work from home and so our normal outings are to the market (which I love...it is fun to see what they have in stock this week) and now to the gym. We also visit coffee bean about once a week because it is far away and our favorite Italian restaurant (Ben is Italian if you didn’t know) Echo, which is a strange name for an Italian food restaurant but it has amazing food. AMAZING!
Ben and I are praying we will find more people to hang out with soon but are truly enjoying the time we are given to read, study God’s word and hang out with each other. It is an extremely different from our busy lifestyle in the States and was hard to adjust to but has become a true gift from God. Ben’s best friend has become the neighbor boy across the street. He rings our doorbell at least 5 times a day asking Ben to play cricket. He is currently on holiday for a month (schooling is year round here) so I think we have about three more weeks of continual door bell ringing. But it is nice to have the company haha.
Ben and I went for a run the other day on the beach near our home (Watch our u-tube video of the walk from our house to the beach if you want to see what I am talking about, Not all you-tube videos are posted on our blog but you can just search Applebees4peace and find them all on the you tube website) The experience was an interesting one to say the least. I think I have said this before but, Ben and I rarely see any other white people here. I have never been so aware of my whiteness. People constantly yelled and said hello or just laughed as they watched us run. Although this is a daily occurance it was magnified by the fact that we were running. I guess this is a very funny activity. An interesting and embarrassing experience.
Monte and the rest of the Resplendent Hope team arrived. It is so good to see familiar faces and truly feels refreshing. I am truly enjoying talking and spending time with all of them. It is just what Ben and I needed a little encouragement and community. My health has been very poor lately and I feel extremely frustrated. I have ulcers as many of you know and from the day I arrived in Sri Lanka my stomach acid has been very high and heartburn has been a daily occurrence. I feel extremely frustrated. It seems like I cannot process any food correctly and feel sick daily. Please pray for healing. I am trying to stick to a very strict diet but nothing seems to help. Please continue to pray for Ben and I as we continue on this journey. God is good despite the challenges we are facing and we are learning how to fully rely on him. This is a challenging lesson but a very rewarding one. We are so grateful to have a special time of community with Monte and the resplendent hope team. This is a huge blessing! Please pray for their safety and their trip!

Cricket in Sri Lanka is Absolute Insanity

On our way home from church Ben and I found ourselves right in the middle of a Hindu processional. We did not have our camera but I found a picture off a website http://inlinethumb62.webshots.com/17149/2987394870104237032S600x600Q85.jpg and it truly captures what we saw. Men hung from thousands of hooks piercing their entire body. It was the most horrific religious practice I have ever seen. According to the Hindu religion the more hooks a person has in his/her body the more his/her family will be blessed. This is a religion and people truly in need of Christ’s grace and unfailing love. We are so blessed to have a God who loves us unconditionally. Grace if accepted is such an amazing gift.
Ben and I have truly settled in now and are feeling at home in our new place. We have a huge ant and cockroach problem but we have been spraying daily and we are hoping this will help. We also have two kittens that have made their home in our outdoor shed. They are very cute and we are going to buy food for them today. Monte Pries arrives in Sri Lanka on August 20th and we cannot wait to see him and his team. Not to mention that they are bringing some goodies for us and of course all the crafts (Thanks to Pathways Church and Ben’s family and friends). It will be so nice to see a familiar face. I still get homesick daily. I guess that’s what happens when you have a family who loves you as much as mine does.
These past two weeks have been very challenging for Ben and me we found out my Uncle has brain cancer and it is extremely challenging to be away from family when they are enduring extremely difficult challenges. Praise the Lord for the Pathways community my family has. The church members at pathways have surrounded and supported my family and my uncle during this difficult time and I am so grateful. What a blessing Pathways is to my family and me. Even though I cannot physically be there to support my family I know others are there to pray and love them.
On Wednesday night Ben and I went to our first cricket match (Watch the videos we posted!). Wow it was definitely one of the craziest experiences of my life. We arrived at the cricket match and were immediately surrounded by a mob of thousands and thousands of people who were trying to push the cricket gate down. Police men were literally beating people. One of the members of our group was pushed up against a car by the mob and dislocated her Knee. It was fascinating but I did not enjoy the experience. By the time we actually got into the cricket match (two hours too late) we were forced to sit on the floor because so many people who had not purchased tickets had snuck in. People were leaning on me and breathing on me and basically I wanted to leave the moment I arrived. But we stayed and got the cricket experience and left before the game was over in order to ensure that we would get out of the stadium safely. It was a once in a lifetime experience....Literally!
Thank you for your continued prayer. Please continue to pray for health for both Ben and me. My stomach has not had a normal day since I arrived. Please also pray for my uncle and his healing. Pray for Ben and My eyes to be open to God’s work and what we are supposed to be doing here. Pray we will be open to his direction and his call and seek him in all we do. Thank you we miss and love you all very much.

Tough And Good

Tough but good…its strange how much those tend to coincide. The other day I found myself once again describing a particular situation to someone with those words and I realized that many times in the last year I’ve done so. When Rylee slipped down a flight of stairs-giving us a really good scare and bruising her rear in the process it was quite tough but good. It was tough for all the obvious aforementioned reasons but it was good because it forced us to inch yet again closer to one another and our God. When I was sick for three weeks at a time in Peru-wondering what on earth had come over me and losing thirteen pounds in the process this too was indeed tough but good. It was tough because we felt that we had traveled all that way for a purpose to serve and take action but it was good because we learned the invaluable lesson that in life our plans are not our own. I could go on recounting at least ten to fifteen other times in the recent past where I admittedly answered, ‘it was tough…tough but good.’ The truth is that every person, in retrospect, has the option whether or not to stop at, ‘it was tough.’ and leave it there as if every challenge in life is without consequence. Because most of us who have had just the littlest taste of reality know that no growth is without implication, no life change is without repercussion and no degree of maturation is without cost to our self. And I’m not entirely convinced that only those of us with a belief in the divine will concede that this is true. No, in fact, I am certain that this experience is more of an axiom-a very transcendent and profound aphorism or truism that is futile to fight for any person.

So what are we to do with this rather exceptional reality? Are we to embrace the tough? The challenge? The change? The stretching, pulling, prodding? I don’t know if I quite know how to ‘embrace’ it all but I can say that I will always, albeit reluctantly, pursue the possible outcome of said ‘toughness’ because I know, from experience, what awaits me on the other side . . . it won’t always be a triumph, at least it is never guaranteed to be immediately, but it will be some bit of growth. To put it in a frank theological expression: this is the precise essence of sanctification by means of constant conversion. So many beautiful dimensions of the word, ‘conversion:’ to turn, to change, to become renewed, to move from one form to another… tough but good; the definitions are so full of potential. Sanctification, meaning the time that we are given here on earth to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds,” “to be conformed by the likeness of his Son”, is a process and we don’t know how long we’re given. This is what is so profound about when the protagonist in a movie finds that he allegedly only has 6 months to live and you can see the immediate conversion of his countenance, his spirit, his vitality, his heart, mind, body and soul. So what is it that we all love to see that newfound take on life? I think we love this formulaic story because we love to see the look on the guy’s face-like everything is so new and fresh and he isn’t going to loose another second before he lives. his. life. And living that life means looking beyond the 12 inches in front of our faces in order that we might discover there is sense to be made of this tough, tough moment. 

HOME SWEET HOME

Ben and I worked all weekend cleaning our new home. We came across many cockroach families but Ben is very good at killing them. We now have a kitchen and although American foods are rare here we have made grilled cheese and pasta. I have even made cookies. I crunched up some Caterbury bars and made chocolate chip cookies YUM! Our room is almost complete but we have found that it is so much hotter living in the city and specifically in this room that we will have to invest in some form of room a/c due to the fact that Ben and I cannot seem to sleep and wake up drenched in our own sweat. We did not use a/c in our old room but it was much cooler than our new 95 degree home. Ben and I got to check in to a hotel for Ben’s bday night and truly had an amazing time of rest and relaxation. Praise the Lord this is just what we needed after a long month of settling in.
I have really been missing my family lately so when you see any of them please give them a hug for me. I do not know what I would do without the support they have continually given Ben and I. As you know, I have really been struggling with fear while being here and my dad, mom and grandmother have continually prayed for me. I also feel so blessed to have families from pathways who have given me bible verses and prayed for me over email. These acts of love have kept Ben and I going. Ben and I feel our trip is just beginning now that we are in our permanent living situation. We have a lot to learn and look forward to forming a community here. The church here is full of mostly young boys so I am sure Ben will do a great job of getting to know them all and I have offered to make cookies and brownies so we hope these treats will help relationships form easily. All of the members of our ten person church hahah speak English so this helps as well. We are also going to be doing our first outreach event for the community in August. We will be putting on a show involving a very talented Karate Guy from the states who will also share his testimony. Please be praying that this will bring new members to our church.
Ben and I have also been busy working for the Sri Lanka unites conference which is in August as well. We are helping create a book for students to take home after the conference. This book will help them create a club on campus which addresses the issues of ethnic conflict and reconciliation in everyday life. We miss you all dearly and love hearing from you so please continue to email us. Our prayer requests are for good health for Ben and I, for our marriage as we grow and learn how to love each other through challenging times and for my fear of sickness that I will learn to rely on God and trust in his plan.

Learning to Trust God every day

I feel I can just start to see the sunlight after our most challenging week yet. I have now recovered from two days of constant trips to the toilet but praise God it did not last very long and was not very aggressive. This week I have felt completely inadequate for work abroad. The Bola girls just left and the three days prior to their trip home a few of the girls came down with an extremely aggressive stomach virus and had to go to the hospital. I lived in fear for these three days that Ben and I would get the virus as well and have to go to the hospital. Praise God we did not get come down with this very challenging sickness. This past week has felt very spiritually oppressive as person after person in the church falls ill and it seems like we are being hit from all sides. Pastor Adrian was hospitalized overnight for very bad asthma. He is currently taking medicine but cannot sleep and has a very hard time breathing. The pain he has been feeling for over a month now was just starting to get better and then he was hit with this. The Kithu Sevena Church in the South was attacked and had to be shut down due to Buddhist extremism. The pastor and his family had to flee for their lives. I have never had to be so dependent on the Lord for every single day (except in Peru). It is challenging here in a very different way as the spiritual warfare feels so real. 

We are going to try to move into our new home Saturday. We had our first cockroach in our room last night. He was very big but Ben did a great job killing him. We also saw our first snake at the farm yesterday. We have had water for the past few days Praise God! And hopefully our new home will have it as well. Please pray for the transition to the English speaking church. It will be challenging at first to adjust to a new area, group of people and a way of life. Please also pray for the recovery of my stomach and protection for Ben and I against sickness. We will be able to cook our own food at the English speaking church so hopefully some of our tummy issues will be lessened. Despite the extreme challenges of fear and sickness last week I am amazed at how good God is. He has given me a peace today that I can only attribute to him. Praise the Lord! Ben and I have been working a lot and we have been able to help the church with many tasks they do not have time to do. We feel so blessed to be busy and have a purpose here. P.S. It is Ben’s birthday on Monday July 27th so if you remember send him an email! Applebee.benjamin1@gmail.com

The Mysterious Workings of God

I am currently laughing as I write this blog because God works in mysterious ways. Ben and I had our first trip to the hospital yesterday. I was walking down the stairs at the Church and took a very bad fall. I went into shock for about five minutes and was unable to see and then was taken to the hospital for x-rays. Nothing is broken and I can now proudly say I have had an x-ray done of my buttock. Sri Lanka’s churches are currently fighting on the front lines of the spiritual battlefield. Both Pastor Adrian and his wife, Auntie Ophilia, have been sick for over a month now and deal with extreme pain on a daily basis. Two weeks ago a young women who has worked in the business world for years decided to make the change over to full time ministry. She is an amazing asset to the Kithu Sevena Team and will certainly bring order to a somewhat chaotic working environment. Since her decision she has caught filaria, a mosquito born illness and also experienced horrific vomiting and was rushed to the hospital. Another staff member just caught Dengue fever. Kithu Sevena has started working a great deal in the North and many devout Buddhists have come to know the Lord. Yesterday we had the opportunity to hear multiple testimonies from pastors working in the refugee camps. One pastor has even been able to set up a church in the middle of a camp. This is truly a miracle. This is a revolutionary time for the church as the church prays for a revival in this country. As the churches hard work continues the devil is continually trying to get in the way using sickness, pain, depression and discouragement. After I fell yesterday the Kithu Sevena team prayed continually for my healing and although I feel extremely sore today I feel much better than yesterday. One of the Pastors at our church came to me this morning and said he was praying for me all night and that God had given him a word for me. Pastor Shri said ‘That although I thought I knew God's vision for my life that it would become blurred while in Sri Lanka but that God would slowly show us what we are called to do. So not to worry." He encouraged us to work on our prayer life and to continue leaning on each other in difficult times. This was so powerful to me. This is exactly how I have been feeling. I no longer know where Ben and I are called to work but I am assured he will make it clear. Now I just need the courage and strength to listen. Through this challenge came many amazing spiritual moments. I feel a new bond with the Sri Lankan team and I believe they feel a new bond with us. They view this challenge as a spiritual attack and have taken Ben and I under their arm. We are now fighting the spiritual fight with them. We are no longer just the white visitors but on their team. It is a truly amazing feeling! Please pray for the spiritual attacks currently taking place on the Kithu Sevena Church Staff. Another prayer request is for Ben and my visas. We only received a two-month visa when we asked for a twelve-month visa. They show great prejudice to Christians here and so Pastor Adrian will have to try to use his political connections to get us a longer visa. Please pray he will be successful. There is an Australian team here currently and it has been very fun for Ben and I to get to know people from this part of the world. Please pray for quick healing over my body so we can travel to the farm on Monday. We have not moved to the English speaking church yet but hopefully we will move their soon. We are very excited about beginning our work there. Thank you for the emails you have sent. Your prayers and encouragement are truly what helps us make it through.

God Is Sovereign

The Lord has definitely been growing Ben and I. For those of you who know me well, you know I hate throw-up. I have a completely irrational fear of throw-up. The fact that I fear throw up does not work well with working abroad. I often find myself in awe of the fact that God has given Ben and I a heart to work abroad because in so many ways I am ill equipped. I hate bugs and things that are dirty, have a specialized diet and hate throw up (an almost inevitable part of traveling abroad). This week the Lord truly threw a challenge my way. We traveled to the English speaking church with the girls who live at the church and during the 45 minute drive 7 people threw up. Although this was very challenging, God came through calming my anxiety and giving me joy despite my surroundings. Ben and I were just asked to move to the English speaking church near Colombo. We are sad in one sense because we will be much more secluded from our community but on the other hand we feel this is our calling and the place where we can serve the most. The English speaking church is just starting to get on its feet and due to the language barrier it is the place we will be able to help the most. Pastor Adrian told us that 10% of Sri Lanka’s population speaks English as their first language. These are the people the English speaking church seeks to reach. Many of the English speakers are the educated and elite of Sri Lanka. Kitu Sevena wants to reach this population in order to aid its work for the poor. It also wants to reach this group of people because no one is currently trying to. We are excited and scared to begin the moving process. The new home we will be staying in needs a great deal of cleaning, furniture and work. So we have a lot ahead of us. Please be praying for this transition. 

This week we spent 3 days at Ape Kadella farm and took part in the Asian Access Conference, a conference that seeks to equip Asian pastors for ministry. It was an extremely enlightening time. During our stay we had many visitors to our room. I wish I had a video of Ben and I trying to remove the hoping frog and crazy lizard from our room. Although we succeeded in removing them, we looked up fifteen minutes later to see their eyes staring back at us. So we decided to share our home with them. The farm accommodations have many creatures and their poop. It is always an adventure when we sleep there. Today I have been deeply saddened by the ever present pain in Sri Lanka. Ben and I have heard story after story of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. I met a beautiful 30 year old women who has been living at the widows home at Ape Kadella for 8 months her entire face is burned from the acid her enraged husband threw on her one evening. Ben and I also heard the horrific stories of some of the orphans. A young boy of only 13 was given to the Buddhist monks at a very young age. His mother is a prostitute and his father is dead. He was sexually abused by the monks at night. This is a reality for many boys of poor families. Families give their sons to the monks because they will feed and educate them but sexual abuse is rampant. This young boy now lives at Ape Kadella, he is too emotionally damaged to attend school and sometimes tries to abuse the younger boys at the home. The depth of the brokenness and pain of the thousands of orphans in Sri Lanka is truly unbearable. Sri Lanka is truly a country full of abandon children due to the tsunami and war. Pray for the Orphans and Widows of the broken world we live in. Even though we often cannot see God among the horrific tragedies of our world, HE is Sovereign.

Coconut Skins

It has been brought to my attention that there is some due contextualization for some of my words thus put forward. When I say, "my words" it should not be too difficult to ascertain the identity of which writer belongs to which entry. (Actually, we were joking about that the other day but we both agree that this is a nice compliment that Rylee might catalogue all the experiences that we are having as they candidly occur and that I chime in about some of these other issues and vice versa to be sure.) Some things I wish to add to the account concerning Job, suffering and war; some important things. For example, there are two important factors about Job's overall story that are quite relevant to understanding the presence of human suffering. For one thing, the story opens with what kind of suffering Yahweh might permit in the life of Job- a point that does not rest well with pretty much any of us-believer or not. In other words, the question that we often face: why on earth would God allow evil things to happen (e.g. immense suffering and war)? And one of the conclusions that we come to in the midst of this question is that we cannot comprehend the whys or hows and yet we still believe that HE is omnipotent and wholly good-one simple yet profound definition of what faith is. However, just because we conclude that our minds are too small to understand does not mean that our hearts are too small to sympathize. (When I use the word sympathy, I mean the literal translation, which is 'to suffer with another'.) Additionally, while I cannot necessarily understand the paradox of why God allows us to carry  on in this way I can, I think, understand some of the reasons that man chooses to wage war and these points are the the ones that I wish to seek out and question very intentionally through some posts on the blog especially to our Christian brothers and sisters. For me and for this particular discourse, to revisit Nouwen's Reaching Out is quite helpful for direction,

"Maybe, for the time being, we have to accept the many fluctuations between knowing and not knowing, seeing and not seeing, feeling and not feeling, between days in which our hearts seem tied to a millstone, between moments of ecstatic joy and moments of gloomy depression, between the humble confession that the newspaper holds more than our souls can bear and the realization that it is only through facing up to the reality of our world that we can grow into our own responsibility."

I would like to have Nouwen explain away this entire concept but alas his own instruction suggests that we search our innermost selves in order to live the questions. 

That is what I have committed to do for our time here in Sri Lanka and it is what I am committed to do for the rest of my life: live the questions. I will risk vulnerability, irrelevancy and uncertainty if it means that my fellow brothers and sisters might begin to live the questions themselves; the, "questions about why we live and love, work and die" and the question of suffering-that will not soon escape my own heart. And I can say that as I find myself presently pondering this question, I am neither cast into a severe bitterness about those who wage war or inflict pain nor am I subdued by a false sense of contentment that there is nothing we can do to affect the great sufferings of others. That is the difference in my question about suffering: I am not suggesting that you search your hearts with the intention of solving the problem of evil (for that task is left for HIM alone) rather what I am asking of us all is to consider what role we are playing in coming alongside our fellow image bearers.  

Perhaps something else that I want to accomplish through this post is to say: some of the things that I write about will come across as outspoken; some of the things will not sit well with you at first or at all; some of the things might seem politically polarized but I can assure you that all of the things that I write about will be thoroughly thought through. The things that I write about are coming from a sincere passion to share and to share in an honest, real and forthright manner. In another way, I am trying to empty myself in order that I might be filled through this service; I am trying to empty my heart and my mind in order that I might experience an internal poverty that is open and willing to be fed and filled once again. I want to become like the so many coconut skins that we have come across-lying there cracked and open, empty and broken, and yet still useful in some way or another. Part of this experience is what Nouwen calls the 'solitude of heart' and so just as I began with the words of Henri Nouwen, I cannot help but finish with his words simply because they appear to make sense of these issues with such acute articulation,

"In the solitude of the heart we can truly listen to the pains of the world because there we can recognize them not as strange and unfamiliar pains, but as pains that are indeed our own. There we can see that what is most universal is most personal and that indeed nothing human is strange to us. There we can feel that the cruel reality of history is indeed the reality of the human heart, our own included, and that to protest asks, first of all, for a confession of our own participation in the human condition."

A Week and Three days

Wow...I do not even know where to begin. It is truly amazing how busy we are here. We have now been here a week and three days and already have visited the south, where the tsunami hit, and Ape Kedella, Kithu Sevena’s farm which includes two orphanages, a home for widows and their children, job training and a missiological research and training center with housing for the students. In addition we were able to visit an elephant orphanage for war affected elephants. Some of the elephants were injured in the war (a leg destroyed by a land mine or eyes shot by poachers) others had lost their families. It is amazing how the war has affected so many aspects of Sri Lankan society. Our shower and toilet was fixed and we spent hours cleaning the room and making it feel like home. Last night we were told that we would no longer be living in that room and that we would have a “new permanent” room. This was very challenging for Ben and I. When you are experiencing culture shock you tend to hold tightly to certain comforts. The room had become our home and it was challenging to embrace the move with grace and love. But we made it through and we spent this morning cleaning everything. In the end, this is a much better place for us. So praise God for his providence.
Today was also laundry day. And yes there needs to be a whole day dedicated to laundry. In general men are never seen doing laundry here so the girls at the house got quite a kick out of Ben scrubbing away. It is amazing how much time it takes to do your laundry by hand. Not only does it take forever the outcome is barely cleaner than what you started with. All of our white clothing is now blue somehow...But luckily Blue matches pretty much all of the clothing we brought. Currently there is a Biola team working here, there are about 10 girls, and staying at the church. So between the girls at the orphanage, me and the Biola girls Ben is extremely outnumbered. Today is our fourth of July we will be going to a BBQ at the American embassy which I imagine will be small seeing that I have not seen any other white people here besides the Biola girls. It is extremely challenging to get visas here and Pastor Adrian said that there are very few missionaries living and working in Sri Lanka. It is very different than Africa, where you are likely to come into contact with multiple missionary families.
Ben and I are working very closely with Pastor Adrian and are basically his personal assistants and are capturing video footage and pictures of all of the projects for their future website. I am continually awed by pastor Adrian’s faith. Kithu Sevena, although in a poor area, has worked very hard and funds almost all of its work on its own. They establish projects without the funds and watch as God continually provides. The church has set up programs to train people how to breed pigs, chickens and even flowers. Ben and I are very happy to be working with Pastor Adrian because we feel our strengths are truly being used. We feel we actually can help the church which is an amazing feeling. My bed is currently broken and breaks when I sit on it. Ben just sat on it and fell to the ground...oh the joys of living abroad. Our feet have stopped swelling and the bug bites have lessened ever since we fumigated our room with extra strength bug killer. We are really settling in which is a great feeling.

Job

We all know that the start of Job's story is a horrible tale, a truly sad beginning. Some of us receive this but then simply dismiss it as purely allegorical; then perhaps it didn't really happen and this was not a real man's pain. Many of us actually do interpret the story as rooted in time-that is to say-factual, not merely symbolic and because it is an infamous part of the Pentateuch, we sort of marginalize it into some Sunday school category. The point is: this story of tremendous loss is real. It happens every single day all around the world. Take, for example, these two stories that we have come across within one week of our stay here. First, the testimony of a Sri Lankan girl, named Thulasi, from the Northern territories (the area most afflicted with the war as this was the rebel headquarters) who is currently taking care of her younger sister. This young girl is no older than ten years of age and the title of her report from the North reads, "a baby carrying a baby"-surely this is an appropriate caption as Thulasi is now her sister's primary caretaker in a land riddled with chaos and desperation. As the story goes Thulasi's family was huddled inside a homemade bunker when her parents ran out to retrieve something from their home just yards away. Thulasi lost her parents to an air force raid that day and her story is not the only one of its kind. 

Another example are the the girls that live beneath us-the girls who have been rescued from abusive situations. I like to refer to them as the, "church girls" because they live here on the campus and they are involved in serving the church in numerous capacities: from laying out the mats during communion to cooking and cleaning-they are amazingly strong and courageous people. As orphans, these girls have one another, they have the Church and they have their Abba; beyond that they know no biological kin. 

You see there are several stories like this; stories of loss and suffering and unimaginable pain. My time, my experience has not afforded me the luxury of being apologetic about these encounters. And that is why, even though I bear in mind my own junior highers back home who may read this, I cannot spare the details of this last story. The details about how children just like them have been abducted (or falsely adopted rather) into sex slavery. Apparently, after the tsunami swept through the Southern villages, some people from the West came through the camps (that had been setup up for survival in the aftermath) and found children who had no one to take care of them. These people from the West were allowed to adopt these kids who had just lost their parents, siblings, families, in some cases-everyone. Consequently, they were then sold into slavery, their bodies into bondage. Bearing in mind this dastardly record, I ask myself why I was meant to ponder such things; I ask God what sense there is in His plan for this type of exposure. The questions I should also be asking myself are what am I going to do about it; what was I meant to do with this knowledge? The answer to that question is still very much in the works; it is a question that I won't let a day go to waist for. 

The challenge that I will pose to any readers out there is to think about these people for a moment; consider them and then read about Job again as if it were about a real man's true and deep pain. Maybe you will understand why Job's friends wept as they did when they approached him. Then think about everything you know about war; everything you've ever heard about warfare. Are the realities of warfare constructive? Or is war a necessary medium for construction; resolution; communication? Or if you believe in peace? Love? the Gospel. . . ? Where do they fit in? And if you're thinking to yourself: haven't men warred since the beginning of time? The truth is: that statement is fundamentally false; not all men have waged war against another. That presumption is a Western recollection that is not rooted in a global, historic record as many civilizations have posited themselves wholly opposed to war. And in case this orientation against war appears a neo-hippie ideology, I assure you the Prince of Peace would have been a lifetime subscriber. 

Life on the Beautiful Island of Sri Lanka

It is amazing how much joy going to the market can bring. Since arriving, Ben and I have been able to do very little on our own. Sri Lankan culture is extremely hospitable to the point that a guest is not to do anything on their own. This is difficult to adjust to due to our individualistic society but the Lord has helped us be patient and today we made it to the grocery store! We still do not have towels but at least we have shampoo now. Moving to a foreign country brings us to the humbling place of an infant. We are now fully reliant on people and God for all of our needs. This is a challenging but amazing message. Currently we have a broken toilet filled with smelly stuff, a broken shower and a sink with no water. Due to this situation it has been extremely challenging to clean ourselves. Our shower does not clean it more drips. I cannot help but laughing at this point but I must admit I have cried a few times. The thing that always seems to set off my crying episode is hitting my head on the 5 foot three inch doorway into our bathroom. But today I feel so accomplished I am literally giggly. 

One amazing thing you learn while living abroad is to truly embrace and love the small accomplishments. It is Sunday morning here and truly the first time since we arrived that I have had any down time. This is surprising to both Ben and I who came here expecting a very slow paced culture and to have oodles of free time. Although this culture is very slow paced in some ways (for example we have asked for our clogged shower and broken sink to be fixed since we have arrived and have yet to see results). As a whole I believe this slow mentality represents the culture but the Devisser family (the pastor family of the church we are working for) is another breed. Since the moment we arrived our days have been packed from 7am to 11pm. The eating schedule here is very different than ours and challenging to get used to. Breakfast is served around 7am followed by lunch between 1-3 and Dinner is served during my bedtime at 9-11. We do not eat snacks in between so I feel hungry often during the long periods of waiting but also am not able to eat the very large portions they eat at one time. They provide toilet paper for foreigners at the home we are staying at but toilet paper is rarely found outside of the Church. The toilets look the same except for the sprayer used for washing located next to the toilet. The shower is crazy no water pressure, freezing, clogged and located above the toilet so the entire floor and bathroom is soaked every time it is used. We need to pray against mosquito born diseases but we have been using bug spray every day and night and we hope he will not get too many more bites. They are not too painful and I have cream that helps them not itch and heal. 

Since we have been here what we are going to be doing has changed greatly. We were told that we were going to be living at the English speaking church and working with Prashan's organization Sri Lanka Unites but, the second day we were here Pastor Adrian met with us and discussed our strengths and what he needed at the church. He said that although Prashan could use us and he had been praying for a secretary and someone to help market the church to the west. He told us that our skills were needed at the church. This is a bit challenging to hear because I am extremely passionate about Prashan’s work but I think we will still be able to experience a great deal of what he is doing. Currently we are living in the Orphanage. Our goal is to move into the church office right next door when a short term missionary leaves in a few weeks. This would give us a bit of private space but we will see. Either way we will be surrounded by people most of the day. This is a cultural norm I am trying to get used to. It can be extremely socially draining. The orphans at the home range from 7-18. Ben and my feet have been extremely swollen since we arrived and mine have ached due to the high level of swelling but yesterday although our feet still swelled was the first day they did not ache Praise God. I think I am adjusting to the climate. I am now used to not sleeping with any covers and just on a sheet with a fan. It is their wet season right now and rains three or more times a day so it is a bit cooler than normal but still extremely humid. The food is difficult for my stomach. Their diet basically consists of things I am not supposed to eat including spicy food, acidic fruit and caffeine (Tea or Nescafe) three times a day. They now know I cannot eat spicy foods so they are making it mild for me. Breakfast is very good and my favorite meal of the day. We eat with our hands which is fun except that my hand constantly smells of Sri Lankan spices haha. Ben and I have literally become a part of the Devisser family we eat dinner with them very often. Last night we went to their home for a ten o’clock dinner which was very good but I was very tired. The day before yesterday was an amazing day. We were able to meet all of the pastors who work for the Devissers all over the country. Many pastors from the north came and told stories of the challenges they were facing. Pastor Adrian taught on the differences of the western and Asian church and the need for Asian theology. He discussed the fact that the Asian church has been brought up using irrelevant western theology, church planting methods and evangelism tools that do not work in Asia and how the church needs to change this. Yesterday was also a very amazing day. We got to travel to the south were the tsunami hit. Although a great deal is rebuilt now seeing the lines of the wave and hearing the stories of destruction was very moving. We visited a Buddhist center which is doing amazing things in the community. It is interesting how God uses people of other religions to do amazing good. I am overcome with God’s grace, provision and guidance. He is truly a God of good things and brings joy to times of struggle.

Those who fear to suffer, suffer from fear

The above title comes from an artistic portrait that was drawn up by a Sri Lankan youth villager. This particular young person comes from a village named Seenigama in the southern portion of the island-the same portion that was literally devastated by a tsunami in 2004. Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit this village that has now been commandeered by a non-government organization named Foundation of Goodness. This organization that yields itself to the tagline, "from waves of destruction flows waves of compassion" has rehabilitated this small village by offering everything from medical and dental services to a full-fledged cricket field and olympic sized pool. These services, that are provided completely free, are meant to empower young people and adults alike to realize the potential within themselves in order that they might contribute something to humanity. The man who spearheads it all is a devout buddhist although he quite mystified us all throughout the day by using words like "loving kindness," "compassion," "soft heart" and "blessed." Suffice to say, this man's valor was unquestionably affirmed when his secretary proceeded to explain the tsunami story. As it turns out there were actually two waves with the second being the absolute leveler and so after the first wave of the tsunami came and poured through their facilities, including a children's daycare center, this man took it upon himself to run into the camp and grab as many children as he could. He escaped with the children, on foot no less, to run for the higher ground just before the second wave wholly decimated his family's estate, the facilities and a hand full of surrounding villages. 

We have met with many Sri Lankans thus far, always with the utmost hospitality and tender kindness, and we are starting to find that these people know about suffering in more ways than one. The war had waged for nearly 30 years and within that period of time a catastrophic wave of unparalleled proportions ended the lives of nearly 100,000 people. We definitely do not know suffering like this. So too the church has experienced suffering from many places and being exposed to these people makes a theology of suffering all the more relevant. The persecution that they have endured has in turn evoked a response to reach out, to help, to resuscitate it's believers and to evangelize to those who have never believed before. And this model, this charge has brought us to a place of awe once again. From all of this we have found that the calling is present and we want to be involved in whatever way possible so we have hatched an agreement with Pastor Adrian-the leader here. The work that we have found, or that the Lord has laid out for us rather, is to help Kithu Sevana (his church) with their administrative organization. This work will include writing (for a newsletter and website), secretarial work, website work, photography and video compilation as well as some marketing in that general area. This work is the prayer that Pastor Adrian has meditated on for a long while as he has never retained this type of assistance in all of his 16 years of leadership. So it appears that there will be many more trips like the one aforementioned to see the people and places that have been affected by the Kithu Sevana movement-that is one of peace, grace and truth. 

The Apparent size of Him Who Saves

Just a few Sundays ago I was struck by the apparent size of our Caretaker. I was standing off to the side of the congregation so as to fully appreciate the entire scope of those standing and worshiping-a small bunch to be sure but a group of remarkable people nonetheless. On recent Sundays, given my relative position on the periphery I have taken it upon myself to help usher those who are searching for seats. The church was getting more and more full, in fact, I believe it was one of the greatest capacities that I have ever witnessed at Pathways (still a congregation of perhaps 150-200 on any given day). It was right then: at the point that I resolvedly began worshipping when my eyes and heart welled up with awe due to His presence. It suddenly occurred to me, gazing over the heads of my brothers and sisters, that despite of who I am and despite of what I may try and do, the Lord shows up irrespective. Of course, HE was already there to begin with; His presence is far too expansive, far too pervasive for us to try and manufacture an encounter with Him. It was at that moment, listening to Jeff carry the lightest piano riff, that I realized, certainly not for the first time, exactly how small I am relative to the size of our Maker. Certainly we have all heard of this kind of experience and if there were no implications for this sort of awe then it might blend into the myriad of Christian proverbs already in circulation. But, alas, I believe the implications are widespread. 

A reality check of just how small we truly are is important for several reasons. One implication for being in awe of our maker's infinite power and faith is the degree of surrender that it invokes. There is, of course, an entire new chapter that could be opened about the act of surrender alone but that is what we do when we come to a place that realizes the size of God relative to us all-surrender. This is part of the lesson that we are learning as we crawl nearer to our departure. We find ourselves in a place of a very surreal nature given that we have graduated from Azusa Pacific and it feels as if for the first time that the road is no longer paved. Of course the path is carved and there are still signs but we feel quite humbled with this newfound freedom and decision-that is: what to do now. Of course the way that we have answered to the best of our ability is by embarking on this new journey to Sri Lanka. And this is the point that is relative to surrendering; we are going on our knees as if to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed by thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

"Reaching Out"

When I read the following words from Henri Nouwen's Reaching Out there is a certain unavoidable resonance within our lives that, "In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic, life we are called to reach out, with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God." Nouwen was a man whose words we visit often for encouragement and guidance but more than anything else I believe that Nouwen's words are so powerful because they are very telling about humanities core. So much of what Nouwen was saying confronted the naked truth of our insecurities and deficiencies and he suggested that only our Father could heal those pains by calling us his beloved. We are, indeed, his beloved children and yet so many of us go through life with the feeling that we do not belong to a loving Father. Some of us become convinced that, "I am what I do" or, "I am what you say I am" as Nouwen categorizes and these are our daily realities; these are our truths. As much as we are going to this new place wholly as learners, in a way we are going to breath that highly subversive truth into the lives of others; that truth that says: you are beloved. 

Perhaps it is no subtle coincidence that on the eve of our journey there have been unparalleled developments towards peace. An ethnic civil war that has raged for the last 27 years between the Sinhalese government and a separatist group named the "Tamil Tigers," has come to an end. While the end of the war came by the means of brute force and the conflict is, by no means, resolved, it is nonetheless a milestone. I do not mean to suggest that God abated these warring tides specifically for the two of us be allowed entrance, but there is a certain remarkable characteristic that for years Rylee has been longing to go, then we finally settle a date-months ago and a month before we are to leave the war ostensibly ends. I will tell you: there is no timing like the Lord's timing; there is no foresight like the Lord's foresight and there is no sovereignty like the Lord's sovereignty. 

Over the past year we have had the distinct journey of leading a group of junior highers and high schoolers; an experience that has proven to be transformative beyond measure. During our time at Pathways church, we have underestimated the movement of working with these young people, some of which are going through the most challenging and life-altering moments ever imaginable. One of these junior highers who has proven to be a remarkably passionate and faithful young follower asked us one Sunday who had won the war. We did our best to explain some of the complexities of this conflict but we concluded with the point that we believe that: in war, there are no winners. This point, while politically disputable for some, is a question that we believe every God-fearing individual should ask themselves at some point in their lifetime. Really the question is one of allegiances; an allegiance to political affiliation, to country, to possession or to the Son of Man. If the Son of Man truly was the Prince of Peace and if He truly was dedicated to breathing life into others than we must intentionally take a stance that is against the use of arms in concluding any conflict. It is this stance that guides us to the former battlegrounds of Sri Lanka in order to partake in whatever it is that the people of Sri Lanka have for us. 

So, like I've said, we are going as learners. We want to learn from the people: the mothers, brothers, sisters and children. We want to find out what Sri Lanka is from them-through their stories. Our goal is to embark as humble servants-fully at the disposal of the people and their needs. We want to go and breath grace and truth by sharing the identity of all believers that is: beloved.