Students and gifts, and more than a wee little bit of jet-lag...

Myanmar coffee, Myanmar mug, Myanmar t-shirt
gifts of the heart help me to overcome my jet-lag!

I have TOO MUCH work and I'm still jet-lagging, which means I've been waking up at 3:30 a.m. and can't get back to sleep. But today been I made it until 4:30 a.m. so that's progress. It always takes me two weeks. I've tried all the remedies, thank you very much for your concern, it still takes me two full weeks!
But the students, new and old, are intriguing, beautiful, incredibly devoted. Just yesterday I spent time with these graduate students from Myanmar and Indonesia:

• --Two new  students who need to go to the hospital for medical attention - one with a huge boil on his face  who joked it's the devil attacking him trying to dissuade him from seminary studies -- neither of us is convinced that's only a joke!  Thankfully, two local Hong Kong students will help them to negotiate the intimidating queues and triage systems at the public hospital.

• -- A woman who told me about the last month of her mother's life this summer, and how hard it was for her, the student, to return to Hong Kong and give full concentration to her studies. How does one do that? 

• -- Another student whose 30 year old brother was in a terrible motorcycle accident this summer, which left him half paralyzed and unable to walk, talk, or feed himself. There's almost no therapy available for him in that part of Myanmar. So the hospital just sent him home for the family, mostly his ageing mom, to take care of him. 

• -- Another new student came to my office deeply worried about his scholarship fund, which is suddenly way reduced because it comes from Great Britain and the British pound has undergone a big devaluation since Brexit.

And all of that was in addition to the small mountain of financial documents I'm trying to cough up in time for my October meetings for the Mekong Mission Forum in Myanmar. sigh.
But as an unexpected grace to my work,  I've received a dizzying array of "welcome back!" gifts from students including: one bead necklace, one woven purse, two packets of coffee, an angel candle, two "longi" or pieces of cloth to use as a skirt, one bag of peanuts, and a bunch of amazingly delicious red bananas. 

So life is pretty okay back at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong - 

Except for the getting up at 4:30 a.m. part. One more week to go.

New seminary graduate students from Myanmar exploring Hong Kong with one of our LTS faculty colleagues

Abundant Life Christian Church has recently become
one of our local sponsors and prayer partners with S/E Asian students

Change of seasons (at last!)

Hello again from Hong Kong! The weather FINALLY turned a little bit cooler. Some of the students are wearing warm jackets already, whereas we "northerners" are just happy to trade in our sandals and thinnest shirts for more substantial shoes and (still short-sleeved!) shirts. I was also inspired to bake a pumpkin pie this weekend. Most of the Chinese faculty and international students seemed to like it, but maybe they were just being polite. My husband can't stand the stuff, which is all right by me since it means I get an extra helping!

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to lead a delightful group of LTS Mekong students  in a "Biblical women" seminar, looking at some of the lesser known texts about particular women in the Bible. It was marvelous, getting their insights. It turns out that to this day, boys in Myanmar are favored with the "fish head" (considered the best part of the fish for eating!) whereas the girls get the tail. Hmmm! It was great for us to listen together to God's Word, which sometimes comes to us as a female voice -- in the voice of a Biblical woman... or as an insight from a sister in Christ! 

On a very different note, the monkeys have been making very regular visits to our home (backyard) and also like to dive in the pond up at the seminary. Here's a couple of photos from the back roof of our house, where the monkeys enjoyed some ripe starfruit. There was also a recent stand-off between the monkeys and a troop of semi-wild dogs which have been cavorting in the neighborhood, and seem to especially like our yard. The dogs had a grand tiime, madly chasing the monkeys and barking up the trees. The monkeys screeched and shook the branches at the dogs. Thankfully, it seems it was all noise and warnings and no actual violence took place.

 As I said, the weather has turned cooler, so that means it's finally hiking weather again. Here's a photo of one of my favorite hiking companions!

Praise the Lord, my soul;

    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul,

    and forget not all his benefits—

who forgives all your sins

    and heals all your diseases,

 who redeems your life from the pit

    and crowns you with love and compassion,

 who satisfies your desires with good things

    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. -- Psalm 103

Theology, tourist attractions, friends and alumni in Myanmar

Alumni follow-up is one of the sweetest rewards of teaching at the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Hong Kong. Along with serving Hong Kong and Mainland China, LTS is also instrumental in theological education for the Mekong region.

Wayne and I thoroughly enjoyed a "Moving Theology" event for Hong Kong-educated theological alumni in Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma) in May. Many of the LTS and Chinese University alumni now serve as leaders in their home churches and seminaries, including Baptist, Presbyterian and Anglican. 

Dr. Saw Christopher with his siblings. 

Since we were in a relatively remote part of Myanmar - Wayne and I became something of tourist attraction ourselves. These Buddhist monks were delighted to snap photos of themselves with Wayne... a different kind of inter-faith dialogue!

Lutheran Theological Seminary (Hong Kong) -  Myanmar alumni

Theological Sisters!

LTS alumni, family and friends!

Wayne became the tourist attraction for a group of monks.

Christian theology in a Buddhist context - what can we learn from one another?

Prayer Mountain, Karen State.

Beauty I

Beauty II

8Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;

no deeds can compare with yours.

9All the nations you have made

will come and worship before you, Lord;

they will bring glory to your name.

10For you are great and do marvelous deeds;

you alone are God.

  -- Psalm 86

Juxtapositions: Ash Wednesday and Chinese New Year of the Goat

This year Ash Wednesday and Chinese New Year Eve came on the same day. Chinese New Year celebrations are so important, even the Roman Catholic cardinal in Hong Kong gave his flock an official "dispensation" from Ash Wednesday fasting.

At the Lutheran Theological Seminary (Hong Kong) we had the imposition of ashes in the morning followed by Chinese New Year feasting in the evening.

On the first Day of the Chinese New Year (it's the Year of the Goat) we combined traditions by going on a 14 mile wilderness hike (walking with Jesus), scaling the steep climbs of the Hong Kong hills (almost like mountain goats). LTS students from Myanmar are much better climbers than their international professors from the flatlands of the Midwest (USA) and the Netherlands!

Our hearty friends and colleagues from the Netherlands.

Happy we can still climb mountains together!

Definitely the last hike for this particular pair of shoes!!!

"These hills remind us of home" Seemed to me
they weren't even breathing hard.

We did it! Here's to a great start to the Chinese New Year of the Goat...
and the Holy Season of Lent...

18The high mountains belong to the wild goats...

24How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; 

the earth is full of your creatures...

30When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

- from Psalm 104

September Weather, Monkeys and Church Angels

Please note the heat index. Yes, that's right. 108F !!!

It's been hot. This is the second time this week I've see the heat index at 108F.

Rumour is a typhoon is on its way. At least that may cool things down??!

The monkeys have been active. This big guy was hanging around our house yesterday. I'm grateful for the bars on our windows. 

The STUDENTS! It's been wonderful to return to new and "old" students at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong.

Three of our new students from Myanmar.

One of our "old" students from Indonesia,
Rospita is turning into an amazing scholar and is on schedule to finish her doctorate this spring.

And today (Sunday September 14th) Wayne and I each returned to our respective local Lutheran churches where we each serve as "sacramental minister."

We had each been feeling a little low -- overwhelmed by the heat, the monkeys in our yard and in our heads (!), the mounds and mounds of work awaiting us (Wayne is co-teaching an intensive course for a group of mostly Mainland Chinese students this coming week... and has not yet been assured there will be a translator! Did I mention our Mandarin skills consist of "ni-hao!" ??? Pray for him and the students!)

But today, each of us at our respective churches, we were strongly reminded of one of Bill Hybel's great sayings, "The local church is the hope of the world." By all means Wayne and I believe in a global church. We love the inter-connections of the Body of Christ. Amazing! Beautiful! Exotic! Awesome! Absolutely Necessary! But the local church -- in every place -- is where hand touches hand, live voices sing, Bread of Life given, encouragement received, forgiveness of neighbor is put into practice.

And today, we had the return of the Men's Choir at Ma On Shan Truth Lutheran Church:

Love these guys! I'll try and add the video later. Note the harmonica player in the corner.

And to top it off - still warm boiled red eggs in honor of the first moon (first month of life) of a grandchild to a congregational member: The egg symbolizes new life, the color red symbolizes good fortune and joy.

good fortune, joy, and delicious, too!

Today, it was good to be back in Hong Kong. Except for the weather. 

10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  -- Jesus, speaking in the Gospel of John 15:10-12 (NIV)

Launching out from Lake Toba, Indonesia

After a several month hiatus, Marathonangel returns with this guest post from Dr. Wayne L. Nieminen (a.k.a. my husband) returning to Hong Kong from an LTS faculty trip to Indonesia:

+++++++

Have you toiled all night near the shore in vain?

Push away from the shore, launch out:

Where the flood is deep cast your nets again.

Push away from the shore, launch out;

There a blessing waits your soul to take,

Haste away from the barren strand;

Toil no more where the surges break;

“Launch out’ is your Lord’s command. 

After June 2014 graduation celebrations, members of the Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS) faculty journeyed to Northern Sumatra, Indonesia for our annual retreat.   We visited church leaders and LTS alumni who now serve a marvelous array of institutions within the Gereja Kristen Protestant Indonesia Church (GKPI – 355,000 members ) and Huria Kristen Batak Protestant (HKBP – with over 4.1 million members).  We were moved by these church ministries to the blind, orphans, Moslems and schools for teaching and preaching, training pastors and deaconesses.   A vibrant holistic ministry of Word, Sacrament, Service, Education and Song was evident to all.  

 One early evening we found ourselves on a passenger ferry crossing Lake Toba on our way to Samosir Island.   Lake Toba is the result of the eruption of a “super volcano” which took place about 75,000 years.  It is said to have been the greatest volcanic eruption within the last 25 million years of the earth’s history.  Samosir island formed from the cone of the volcano and is surrounded by a lake that is nearly 100 kilometers long, 30 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep.  This extraordinary geological event is said to have been responsible for changing the climate of the earth. 

 The sun was about to set when we boarded the ferry.  We faced a warm but growing headwind.  Our HKBP guides sung hymns as the captain navigated the choppy waters and the Southern Cross constellation seemed to travel with us above our heads.  I later read that the “crux” constellation was “circumpolar” – always above the horizon in the southern hemisphere.  Sailors used it as navigational aid – a guidepost.

I remembered an old hymn, “Launch Out.” written by Rev. James Bruce Mackay (author of some 60 hymns) who lived from 1861-1940.   It is one of the many nautical hymns composed in the missionary era.  Those hymn writers knew about capricious seas, rogue waves, incoming swells, gusts of winds, typhoons, as well as the sea’s calmness - The sea was a metaphor for the unpredictability and arbitrariness of life.

Nevertheless, MacKay believed that the Savior continually called his disciples to “push away from the shore, launch out.”  We, the LTS Hong Kong faculty, were witnesses to the Indonesian churches “launching out” through its many ministries.  The kingdom of God is emerging across the globe with men and women dreaming big dreams - reimagining the world.  And we, as teachers, felt privileged and grateful to have a (small) role in God’s movement in these churches and in this country.

  

The refrain for MacKay’s hymn is:  “Launch out, launch out; Push away from the shore, launch out;  God’s grace flows free, like a might sea, And the Master calls, “Launch out!”  May we as the Lutheran Theological Seminary – faculty, students and staff  together -  continue to “launch out” !!! 

Dancing a Prayer of Sadness

We received word of a terrible, tragic  death of the 24 year old friend of one of our sons.
Our world will not be the same.
This is the kid who lived down the street. Who slept over at our house in a pile of boys in the basement. Who had a world class science project. Who got up in the dark winter mornings to get to 6 a.m. team wrestling practices at the school. An athlete and a scholar.

Whose Mom & Dad took him to church, showed up at every school event, whose Mom & Dad loved him madly. Who was our son's good friend, and fun. A law school student.

Who was a Christian. Who, yes, messed with drugs and alcohol, which everyone expected was a passing thing. Maybe it was or wasn't, but somehow this bright young man lost sight of all light, and got desperate. And took his own life.

Our son called us, facetime, across the continents and ocean. This is when it's hard to be so far away. There are times when to see your kid on a little phone screen is not enough.

In Christian tradition, it's Lent, and at the LTS chapel we entered into the season of dust and ashes with (of all things) dancing.

Southeast Asian dancing is expressive, from the arch of the foot to the plane of the outstretched hand.
Just so, our spirits try to express sadness, and anger, and confession, and more sadness, in prayer.

It is for just a death like this,  that we Christians insistently cling to hope beyond all hope: That there will, in fact, be full redemption, a rising up, of this particular and beloved life, the good friend of our son.

In Romans 8:26, St. Paul writes:  the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

Eight Horses of the Bible - A meditation in honor of the Lunar New Year 2014

Happy Chinese New Year of the Horse!

The New Year is supposed to bring Spring with it, but it's still very much Winter in Hong Kong: 
Many consecutive days of gray rain and temperatures of 45F outside means winter coats are needed inside, in our unheated seminary classrooms.

And yet, students smile and "firecracker flowers" brighten the dull landscape. Good things are abloom, even in the midst of a gray Hong Kong winter!

Meanwhile, check out the excerpts (below) from a recent sermon by yours truly, on Biblical horse imagery for the New Year of the Horse. And remember:

Some trust in chariots

 and some in horses,

    but we trust in 

the name of the Lord our God.

-- Psalm 20:7

Excerpts from a Sermon:            Eight Horses from the Bible 

Rev. Christa von Zychlin

Lunar New Year of the Horse

Season of Epiphany

2014

In honor of Chinese New Year of the Horse,

here are eight horses of the Bible who still speak to us today:

HORSE #1

            “Do you give the horse its strength
    or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
²⁰ Do you make it leap like a locust,
    striking terror with its proud snorting?
²¹ It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
    and charges into the fray.
²² It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;            -- Job 30

In these verses, God himself is speaking to Job.  Job, who has suffered beyond what any human being should suffer. And it is a strange comfort to Job, but it is a comfort. Sometimes, there is no answer to pain, sorrow or suffering. But God says, look at my Creation, and don’t doubt me. Just look at the horse, its muscles its power its strength, its joy, its beauty. God says, I am the God of that horse.

 And I am God of you, Job, even in all of your incomprehensible suffering

HORSE #2

³¹ The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
    but victory rests with the Lord. -- Proverbs 21:31.

The battle horse reminds us it is good to prepare for things. We will have battles in life and we’d better get ready to fight them. So let’s get our spiritual armor in place, but make sure we’re fighting as Christ did – not with violence and hate, but with the armor of God, the weapons of the Spirit.

and still, even with the best preparations,  success is not in our hands, but is with God… and that’s more than ok, it is good!

HORSE #3

 

⁹ I liken you, my darling, to a mare
    among Pharaoh’s chariot horses.  --Song of Solomon 1:9

 Valentines’ Day is coming up and some of you men may want to use this line for the ladies…

 or maybe not!!

 The Song of Solomon is a love song celebrating the sexual love between a man and a woman, -- and that’s a good thing.

But it’s also always been understood as an allegory – the allegory of love between God and our soul, our deepest self.

 God sees each one of us, individually, with eyes of love. Like a bridegroom for his one & only bride, like a bride for her one & only husband.

Among all the horses, the horseman sees this one special mare.

Among all the people God has created, God also sees you, in your most inward and personal self,  and you are uniquely beautiful to him.

HORSE #4

And yet and yet - It is because we are so precious and beautiful in God’s sight that He gets so enraged at the hurt we inflict on other people and on all of creation.

”None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle.”  -- Jeremiah 8:6

In the preceding chapter (7) the prophet Jeremiah makes a list of sins that really matter to God:

-- the sin of oppressing the alien:           

who are the “aliens” (strangers, weirdo’s, uninvited ones) in your neighborhood?

-- the sin of neglecting the fatherless and widowed:                       

what are we doing for  the fatherless  and the orphaned, throughout China and Southeast Asia?  How are vulnerable single women – today’s “widows” young and old – being treated, exploited, or sold all over in today’s economies?

-- the sin of following other gods:

where do you and I pour out our offerings, what does our credit card or our bank statement or our business practices say about who the gods are in our lives?

In which way are you and I like horse number 4, “Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle”

Horse # 4 is the horse that leads to spiritual death, each of us fighting our own battles, dashing about like horse without a rider. We call ourselves  Christians, but in so many ways live as if we have no Saviour to lead us.

Horse #4 calls us to repentance.

HORSE #5, 6, 7, 8

 ² I looked, and behold, a white horse… a red horse… a black horse… a pale horse…”  -- Revelation 6:1-8

What destination does living apart from God bring us to?

Sin has already (I believe) unleashed the parabolic horses of Revelation 6 into our world, the four horses of the apocalypse:

the white horse -- bent on conquest, represents the sin of power-grabbing.

the red horse, the color of blood, represents war. God revealed in Christ hates war and violence between humans; for Christians, there is no such thing as a righteous human war.

the black horse is the horse of famine and scarcity, but also represents unfair trade practices, so prices for ordinary food is high, so people at the bottom of the economic pyramids have to work all day just in order to eat, so as go back to work another day. Meanwhile, the rich get richer.

The last horse is the pale horse of death.

Those are the eight horses of the Bible:

Ah, but there is one more horse. Surprise! There is a 9th horse to consider.

(This is the last time a horse is mentioned in the Bible)

HORSE #9

The old visionary John continues speaking of what he once saw in a vision:

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.

His eyes like blazing fire, on his head crowns, dressed in a robe dipped in blood” – Revelation 19:11

Whose blood is He wearing?  It is his own blood – unlike any other conqueror, this One wears his own blood.

Written on his robe he has this name:

(Do you know His name?)

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS…

The final horse of the Bible, the ninth horse, is the horse on which the Son of Man is seated. He comes as the one who wins all battles, who brings all justice, who leads his people forward into the New Heaven and the New Earth where peace reigns, where justice lives, where love of neighbor is practiced with imagination and strength.

Horses of the Bible.  We have much to live and learn and to DO as Christians, living in this New Year of the Horse.

As a website about the Chinese understanding of the horse put it:

 Horses can give people a ride to their destination. Therefore, the horse is not only a symbol of traveling, but also a sign of speedy success.”

May God give us good travels, a great destination and the right kind of success in this New Year of the Horse. Amen.