A Call to Theological and Seminary Educators

We need an accredited institution of higher learning that makes precise and high quality Christian education available to the church, in order to form, build, and multiply disciplemakers to the world and at home. We need this institution to be accepted and revered by mission agencies. The courses need to be affordable and/or free. Mission institutions need to recognize the courses taken through these institutions as more than just adequate to provide precise and high quality Christian education. This institution needs to be similar to what the Physician Assistant education model used to represent, a means to quickly educate and train high-quality professional workers to be rapidly deployed into some of the least reached areas in the world.

When we rely on the seminaries to provide all of our education, we are overlooking a large, capable group of non-vocational disciplemakers. This is not a new problem, but somehow it has persisted for far too long as we tend to think that our western traditional educational model of Masters and Doctors should be what Christians adhere to determine the legitimacy of the ministry worker.

Here’s my example. I followed a non-traditional route into my education. I attended junior college for a couple semesters before going into the military at 19. Upon leaving the military, I needed to quickly find a means to support my family, so I attended paramedic school. After graduating and working as a paramedic for a few years, I went back to the first junior college I attended and got a 2 year degree in natural sciences so that I could have enough of my prerequisites done to get into Physician Assistant School. I attended Stanford School of Medicine’s Primary Care Associate Program, which is what they called the Physician Assistant school. Stanford had an agreement with Foothill College (another nearby 2 year college) to award those in the Stanford program an associate’s degree upon completion if the student did not have a bachelor’s degree upon entering. To those who had bachelor’s degrees already, Stanford offered the option of completing their Master’s of Medical Science through St. Francis University. However, there was no option to attain a bachelor’s degree through this program. So when I graudated, I had two associate’s degree, and nearly 250 semester units of college credits. (Bear in mind, most bachelor’s degrees require about 120 semester units). So I have all of this great education, but no bachelor’s degree, and now about $60,000 of student loan debt.

After graduating, I sought to attain a master’s degree either in theology or a master’s of divinity. I applied to several schools, most wouldn’t even look at my application because I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. These schools would have accepted me with my 3.63 GPA if I had a bachelor’s degree in literally anything, but because I didn’t have that piece of paper hanging on my wall, nevermind the fact that my courses at Stanford were graduate level courses that my classmates with bachelor’s degrees already got Master’s degrees for.

So I enrolled in a Christian university to do a bachelor’s completion program. Half way through the first semester I developed a debilitating spinal condition and was unable to continue. After healing from that condition, I was no longer in a position to afford to go back to this expensive program and get the additional 70+ units to have a degree in biblical studies.

But then I heard about this medical school in Missouri, A.T. Still University. This prestigious and highly regarded medical institution had a program for PA’s like me, with tons of college credit but no bachelor’s degree to complete a degree in two years. Not a bachelor’s degree though… a MASTER’S Degree!

Forbes has repeatedly rated a master’s degree in Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS) as one of the most financially lucrative and beneficial graduate degrees out there. The course was completely online and just as beneficial and challenging as any single course I took at Stanford, but I could work on it and work full time supporting a family of 5 while I attended.

So now, with that master’s degree in hand, I again decided that I wanted to attempt to get a formal theological education, because those college credits mean so much, and that theological or divinity degree means so much in missions, which is where I’m called. You’d think these Seminaries who strive to send qualified people into the mission field would be clamoring for a student like me who had a proven academic record, years of professional experience, experience in all sorts of ministry from bible study teaching and homeless ministry to short term missions who could also afford to pay for classes OUT-OF-POCKET now, but no. I have lost count of how many conversations I’ve had with admissions counselors, vice deans and even a seminary president who all tell me the same thing, “You’re master’s degree doesn’t count. We need to see that bachelor’s degree.”

Really?!

Explain to me what’s going on here? I mean, I know this has a lot to do with accreditation and that accrediting agencies will not permit these schools to give masters degrees to people who do not have bachelor’s degrees. Every person I talk to at the schools tells me that they’ve never encountered my situation too. This seems odd to me since AT Still has an entire program dedicated to awarding masters degrees to people like me, who have put more than the amount of work expected to achieve a bachelor’s degree, yet still don’t have it. Let me remind my reader at this point that I have enough college credits to have a bachelor’s degree two times over. I don’t know this for sure, but at one point, I may have been one of the most educated people to NOT have a degree.

So Christian academia, let me pose this question to you. If you truly care about educating people for missionary service, and you truly care about educating leaders in theology and ministry, why make it so hard for this process to even start?

And before you accuse me of taking a short cut, let me run down my curriculum vitae:

30 core semester unit before I was 18 years old.
Joined the Coast Guard and served for 4 years active duty and 4 years reserve
Paramedic school (2 years long)
Worked as full-time paramedic for 6 years, while going back to college and getting another 90 units to complete an associates and prerequiristes for PA school.
PA school at Stanford School of medicine, where I earned another 108 units of graduate level education.
Worked in homeless ministry, delivering sermons, discipling new believers, evangelizing to the poor, the mentally ill and substance abusers.
Regularly visiting Haiti for short term medical missions over the course of 7 years.
Worked as a Physician Assistant, where I had roles in clinical medicine and also in hospital leadership.
Taught Bible studies from  2007 until 2017. Was a church elder.
Completed a Master’s degree in Physician Assistant Studies.
Departing for the mission field to work in Togo as a medical missionary.

All I want is a solid theological education so that I can be better equipped to disciple others and plant churches.

Yet, what I am told is that you want me first to get a piece of paper that I could have earned two times over had I been fortunate enough to have been born near a four-year college or had the funds when I was younger. Instead, you recommend that I spend an additional $10,000+ to get this degree so that I can spend another $10,000 to get your graduate degree, so that I can be better equipped to do what you state is your purpose as an educational institution.

I am so sick of this elitism. It has no place in the church. We scratch our heads at the secularism that is trending in western culture, yet you charge outrageous amounts and place obstacles to those who are willing to do the work?

You can’t call me lazy. You can’t say that I’m trying to find a short cut. Nothing about what I’ve done has been a shorter or easier way than those who went straight to a four year university straight out of high school, got their 120 semester units in 4 years and started graduate school immediately after. I am almost 40 years old, have a wealth of life experience, education and professional credentials. I have worked hard from the time I got my first job the day after I got my driver’s license.

Shame on you!

So here is what we are going to do.

I will start my own school of missions. I will admit those who have a history of work ethic, who have work skills, whether that be in the trades, as a professional, or as a laborer. This school will follow the PA program model in which motivated, qualified people will be given an intense, cost-effective, and high quality education in order that they be prepared and equipped to be rapidly deployed to meet the urgent needs of those who are dying, unreached, unevangelized and undiscipled in the parts of the world that your academic ivory towers mean nothing.

This will be a school for tentmakers, disciplemakers, the men and women that you have arbitrarily determined by your vice for financial capital and academic notoriety to be unqualified, not because of their character or standing before the Lord, but because they have not sought the traditional Western society’s route to education and vocational ministry.

Prob 23:5 Work, leisure, serve, glorify

This is from Proverbs. Verse 5 is one of a few verses that have really struck me today. It just reminds how easily work can be made into something it isn't supposed to be. Working just for the sake of making more money is futile. Working out of enjoyment for the work and to bring God glory through your workmanship, that is where the value of work lies.

There are days when I work, and I LOVE to work, especially in my current job where I could just completely immerse myself in the joy of doing surgery all day (I know that sounds weird and kind of gross to a lot of people). But there are other days where I kind of wish I did something a bit more creative maybe even a little more mundane... this will probably sound ridiculous, but when I think of working just for the pure enjoyment of creating and creating to the glory of Christ, I think of building cabinets and furniture.

There is something so simply and obviously God-glorifying in that work. When the workmanship is top notch, the connections are finely measured and precisely cut, the surface perfectly sanded and the result as the aesthetically pleasing, the satisfaction that results rivals any successful life-saving surgery I've ever had the joy of being part of. That I think is the point.

The work that we are given to do doesn't have inherent value because we are making money or gaining notoriety. Our work has value that comes from the quality that is added to it. The workmanship itself can and should be a form of worship of our Heavenly Father.

Today tomorrow and Tuesday I will fly fish for trout. I don't fish to relax, although I'm sure I will experience a degree of relaxation from it, but I will cast my fly lines into rivers and creeks with joy and the most skilll and precision I can muster, not out of duty but because it's beautiful. When I leisure, I will leisure to the glory of God. When I work, I will work to the glory of God. And in this, while I work and leisure unto the Creator, I bring Him glory, and in His glory I revel like a prisoner given leave of his chains to run through green meadows and enjoy sunlight without the tethers of his crimes. This is freedom and this is joy to serve, to work, to leisure to glorify God!

Toughness isn't just about being able to take pain, it's suffering with satisfaction.

I recently posted this meme to my Facebook account which resulted in a discussion about where toughness comes from. I fell asleep thinking about it and woke up this morning thinking about it. I feel that this warrants a bit more explanation to really dive into this issue not just in the context of parenting but of living.

I once asked someone close to me who was struggling to find purpose in their life this question to help them work this out on their own: “What are you willing to die for?”

I know this sounds melodramatic when you first consider it, but the profundity of this question is critical to our assessment of the meaningfulness of our lives. The problem with asking the question, “What are you living for?” is that people often are wrestling with answering this question when they are looking for purpose or meaning. We often find ourselves unintentionally living for something less significant than we wish we were living for. The trend to tell people to pursue their dreams has recently faced a lot of scrutiny because of the shallowness and lack of pragmatism in that pursuit. But, it’s not for the fact that they are your dreams that this platitude is being criticized, it’s the fact that often these dreams are too small, too self-serving and too unrealistic.

We have, as a society, built an ideology around the pursuit of happiness that boils down to one small individualized endeavor, personal satisfaction with life. Satisfaction comes and goes, I’ve found. There are times when I feel exceedingly satisfied with my life. I feel that my work has meaning, that my relationships are fruitful and mutually beneficial, and that I have the world on the proverbial string. This is a feeling, and as with all feelings, it tends to be fleeting. I find satisfaction in my time in prayer, spending time with my kids, fishing with my dad, gardening, and having deep conversations with my wife. I find satisfaction in being productive at work, writing, fixing something in my home and when my favorite hockey team wins. If you were to rate these things on a scale of 0-10 of significance, they vary greatly.

So it’s is difficult to delineate what truly makes you satisfied with life based on these things because the satisfaction is momentary with each of these. So what about true satisfaction? Where does that even come from? How does this relate to toughness?

Let me pose a scenario to you. 

Imagine that you are a highly trained soldier. You have a General that you ultimately answer to and this General makes orders to which you dutifully follow. You believe, like any good soldier, that you have a duty and responsibility to die if need be to follow-through on those orders, like any good soldier would.

Why do you follow this General? Because he’s a good man? Because he is always right and you have no will of your own? Or do you follow Him because he has a broad meaningful purpose to which he makes these orders, whether that is to maintain peace, protect you country, or to offensively acquire new land or resources?

You would likely find it difficult to follow orders of a General whose purpose wasn’t in line with what you also believed was a good purpose.

Now imagine that this General and the purpose for which you are fighting just ceased to exist. What does that make you?

On one hand, it may just mean that you are without the larger support of this leader and the organization that follows these orders with single-mindedness, making your commission as a soldier meaningless. At this point, you may cease to even be a soldier.

On the other hand, you may find yourself looking for another general to fight for, or fight for your own personal agenda. As a soldier this may mean becoming a mercenary, a soldier for higher with the ability to shift allegiances if the price is right. Either way, you are either self-serving or meaningless if you don’t have something greater purpose to fight.

This is why directionless young men can be so easily drawn into hate-fueled terrorist organizations like ISIS and the KKK or gangs like MS-13 and Hells Angels. We need something to serve whether it is a way of life, an ideology or a grand purpose. Young men aren’t choosing to be evil, they are choosing to serve something, and the fact that something is evil takes a back seat to a need to live for something with some significance, a life with some sort of purpose. These men are willing to die and suffer for these things. They are willing to endure hardship, even at the hands of these organizations through initiating rituals, training and even abuse because they believe that it is for something bigger than them, bigger than their pain.

So what can prevent this finding purpose in something evil? My presupposition is that at the most basic level, everyone is looking for purpose. If they aren’t, they are then nihilistic and are in turn, serving themselves, which is just finding purpose in serving themselves. Some people may seek to just serve their families, which is good and right and to be willing to live and die to the good of your family is very virtuous. But to what end? Why is your family significant enough to warrant your sacrificial devotion?

The Importance of Ideology.

This is where I find that an ideology is critical to provide direction. We need a goal, an end. Without this end-goal, what we do with the harsh realities of life in a world filled with evil people, systems that oppress us and when we suffer is falter under the weight of it. We can develop a degree of toughness that in turn becomes callousness toward the suffering of others because you’re just trying to survive and avoid the pain and suffering that seems inevitable in life. An ideology, a good and righteous ideology, allows one to endure these things without turning to cruelty and evil. That ideology should be formed as early as possible in our lives that we may evaluate and hone our vision of it so that we have something substantial that will help us retain a since of purpose even when life gets really hard.

We need to form in our children a view that they can and should attempt things to make the world a better place. This should be an encouragement to live for something greater than them. They need to have something to live for beyond selfish pursuit of riches and pleasure because that will eventually still boil down to avoiding pain and suffering at all costs, which we know is impossible. And when that pain and suffering comes, where do they turn? What is there to maintain a vision to just soldier on?

I teach my children an ideology based in the grandest of all purposes, to serve God who has a plan for humanity, His creation, for His pleasure and our good. He has given us, through His Word, a framework for finding meaning in our lives and the inevitable suffering. This framework includes sacrificially serving others, loving our enemies, telling others about His love for humanity, by the gift of salvation and satisfaction in Him through grace.

When we realize that pain and suffering, both physically and emotionally, are inevitable in this life, we also realize that enduring these things is required to propagate life. Even the noted atheist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche noted this in his writings (although he never could come up with a meaning for the suffering) when he wrote, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” We can endure begrudgingly or with satisfaction.

Our satisfaction with life, not just fleeting moments of happiness, then requires a more broad view that we are living for and suffering for something important. This is what drives people to attempt great things, like the Medal of Honor recipient who faces certain death to defend his country or military unit, like the firefighter who risks his life to go into a burning building to retrieve a child that may or may not be alive, and like the doctor that moves his family to a developing country risking illness and insecurity to bring healing and hope to those who would otherwise never know it.

I for one am raising my children to know the importance of living this way. The greatest legacy and inheritance I can leave my children is a since of purpose for their lives rooted in the serving and mitigating the suffering of others, even at great personal cost. This is what makes life worth the pain and suffering. I can suffer for my children, I can suffer for other people’s children and I can even suffer for those who hate me because I am serving my Savior who promises an eternal life without pain and suffering freely by first taking the pain and sin of the world on His shoulders at Calvary. One person that I’m not willing to suffer for is myself. It’s not self-hatred, it just isn’t pragmatic. If I were here just for myself, I would avoid suffering at all cost. If suffering is inevitable, then I have two options, embrace that suffering with a grander purpose to serve Christ and others through the suffering or suffer without purpose at all and possibly ending my own life due to the meaninglessness of it.

A willingness to suffer and possibly die for one’s ideals is true toughness and it is the kind of toughness that does not falter when life reaches a point of perceived hopelessness, where escape from this pain and suffering is impossible.

So, in closing, I’m going to post some important quotes that I often think of when facing tough decisions and inevitable suffering:

“I would rather die now than to live a life of oblivious ease in so sick a world.” – Nate Saint

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”  - Helen Keller

“A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward. Rather than begraudge your problem, explore is. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God.” – Max Lucado

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot

“Wherever you are – be all there.” – Jim Elliot

“All of us suffer some injuries from experiences that seem to have no rhyme or reason. We cannot understand or explain them. We may never know why some things happen in this life. The reason for some of our suffering is known only to the Lord.” – James E. Faust

“And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.” – Nate Saint

 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for on’s friends.” John 15:13

“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have it’s full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-10

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19

“For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,” Philippians 1:29

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church.” Colossians 1:24

“If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. May God help us ourselves by the eternities that separate the Aucas from a Comprehension of Christmas and Him, who though He was rich, yet for our sakes became so poor so that we might, through His poverty, be made rich.” – Nate Saint

“Some want to live within the sound of Church of chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop, within a yard of hell.” – C.T. Studd

“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” – C.T. Studd

“The ‘romance’ of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamour in it; it doesn’t stir a man’s spirit or blood. So don’t come out to be a missionary as an experiment; it is useless and dangerous. Only come if you feel you would rather die than not come. Don’t come is you want to make a great name or want to live long. Come if you feel there is no greater honor, after living for Christ than to die for Him.” – C.T. Studd

“We are frittering away time and money in a multiplicity of conventions, conferences, and retreats, when the real need is to go straight and full steam into battle, with the signal for ‘close action’ flying.” – C.T. Studd

“Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” – Helen Keller

These Idle Sticks

That this could be my prayer as well:

"God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like You, Lord Jesus." - Jim Elliot

Local vs. Global-mindedness: Why we don't really get to choose.

What do you think of when you hear the word poverty?

I think maybe the most common mental image is children walking barefoot through slums in India. Maybe it's a single mom living in a tiny run-down apartment with with a bunch of hungry kids in Chicago. Maybe it's the homeless man "camping" down the street from you in the park your children like to play in during the day.

Here's the issue though. Poverty surrounds us. I look up and see poverty every day, in so many ways. So do you. Many of people choose to ignore it, but not you. You allow the images seep into your mind and maybe even stimulate that supramarginal gyrus, the part of your brain that allows you to have empathy.

But then you are struck by the enormity of the problem. You pray, you distract yourself and say "poverty will always be with us" so what's the point?

But that still bothers you though, right? And we have enough poverty in our own country to worry about, let's help them before the other billions living in abject poverty globally.

The problem is even deeper though. The problem is that we are hopeless. We see American poverty and global poverty as two different issues.

My wife volunteers for an organization that sends boxes of care items to impoverished children worldwide every Christmas season that also open up doors for sharing the gospel in these regions. She annually polls churches in our region for how many of these shoe-boxes they would like to fill and have distributed. There is one church in particular that has turned her down every year. When this opportunity is brought to their attention she has received some interesting responses.

Once she was describing the program to a secretary a few years ago and the secretary said that they don't focus on global issues. They try to only help those right here in this little town. Amazingly, the church ended up packing and sending shoe-boxes anyway.

This year, she brought the issue up again and asked if they'd be donating and they again declined stating that they are making "care packages" of some sort of local children in foster care. This is a commendable thing, caring for the kids separated from their biological moms and dads for a variety of reasons, leading them to feel I'm sure quite forgotten, lonely and without love.

My challenge to this church, and to you is this: This is not an "either-or" situation. We don't need to either be local community-minded or globally-minded. We need to be both. We need to care about the poverty in the streets of Stockton, Modesto, Turlock, Manteca, Riverbank and Oakdale as much as the poverty in the streets of Jakarta, Kathmandu, Tegucigalpa, Aleppo, Mumbai, and Port-Au-Prince.

Here, we have hospitals, social services, aid organizations, police to protect them, churches that see those struck by poverty as individuals, not a problem of numbers and statistics. "Over there", aid agencies are financially strapped and governments are increasingly cracking down on outside influence and access to the impoverished. Hospitals are under-staffed, under-funded, few and far-between. Churches, if they exist in the area, are usually small and as poor as the region they reside in. Police notoriously stay out of international slums, allowing for exploitation, forced labor, human trafficking and violent crimes to go unpunished and unchallenged.

Their problem is our problem. As long as we do nothing to stop it, give it no passing thought, no prayer, no part of ourselves to the solution, we are allowing this to go on. Not just in Mumbai, but here, at home. Their exploitation is our exploitation. Their pain is our pain. Their suffering is our suffering. We were never given the liberty to ignore the plight of the poor and the lost.

But what can we do, right?

Here's a quick suggestion, because this is not an easy transition to make from thinking in a sort of a "them" and "us" dichotomy to thinking "they are us" globally, just start by praying.

Like me, you may need to repent for not caring, for ignoring, or for being too wrapped up in providing comfort for yourself to feel the empathy (that our bodies were designed to actually be able to feel for a reason). Ask God to break your heart. No, seriously. Ask God to break your heart for the poor and the lost. Look for Jesus in your interactions with others as you talk about poverty. Listen for apathy in your life and pray for it to be replaced with a sense of purposeful empathy to be His image-bearing, heaven-revealing Jesus-follower right here on earth... the whole earth.

Thinking back to Haiti 2015 (Part 1)

Elizabeth and I traveled together to Haiti in 2015 to work with International Healthcare Mnistries and the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital to share the love of Jesus with rural Haitians through medicine and friendship.

It was, as all of these medical mission trips are, life changing for so many people. I would just like to share some of the photos from the journey again.

I'll start with photos from our first two days in Haiti. The first village we set up our clinic in was a tiny stone and mortar school that was a long 3 hour or so drive down rocky mountain roads in the back of a large flat bed pick-up.

Standing in the back of the flat bed is a surprisingly exhausting way to travel. (and not easy on a guy who just had back surgery less than a month prior)

A view from the road of a typical rural home and garden with banana trees and leftover USAID tarps from the earthquake recovery covering roofs.

one of the most beautiful roads in Haiti. We were about to drive probably close to a blistering 20mph at this point of the trip.

Arriving at our first clinic day began with school being dismissed early and a lot of interest from the kids. 

This was a normal routine in the morning, I think we only did this once or twice. This is a local preacher leading a morning Bible study on the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital Grounds.

Yep. That's what a mobile pharmacy looks like. Abbey (the one on the right) did an excellent job running unquestionably the most delicate, challenging and detail-oriented departments of the mission.

Local translators get a medical history from the patients, then tell them "the doctor will see you and will help you because we love you in the name of Jesus, Would you like to hear more about Jesus?"
The patients are all assured that their medical complaints will be heard and treated without regard to their religious convictions.

Waiting to be seen.

I'm such an amazing photographer.

View from the school house looking over the mountainous terrain surrounding us on all sides in Chofa.

Even Haiti has some rich folks.

Day 2, we opted out of putting 15 people in the back of a flat bed and instead packed up Toyota Landcruiser and two ATVs. A much better way to travel.

This is a typical little roadside market where anything from chewing gum to charcoal is normally sold. These dot the highways and rural roads of back country Haiti.

I would always ask patients if they would like to pray about anything after I had finished seeing them for their medical complaints. I had to deliver quite a bit of bad news from time to time, because there were thins that I was simply unable to treat. We made as many referrals to the BHM hospital, which I'm positive many people took to heart. Still, there were other cases that I just knew even the Hospital wouldn't have the resources to treat. Living in a developing country is a tough life, somehow though, with everything Haitians have been through over the last 2 centuries, this nation is filled with some of the most indomitably joyful, wise, caring and generous people I've ever met.

The next blog post with show days 3 and 4 of our May 2015 Medical Mission Trip to Haiti.

Created for Good Works.

Got to thinking about this verse today and how it applies to raising my three kids. I acknowledge that modeling a more Christ-like life is essential to their future development as men and women in a culture that is increasingly hostile to our faith and conscience.

Here are four principles of Godly parenting that were discussed in church today. 

"We must fuel our children for success!!
Establish healthy boundaries.
Embrace Biblical values.
Embody Christ-like character." 

-The River Christian Community

Jesus payed a larger price than you probably think.

I sin. But don't get all judgy. So do you. IN fact we all sin. That's why Jesus had to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice and ransom for our sins. I recently read a short story about a boy who built a toy sailboat with great diligence. While playing with it near the coast, the wind changed directions and he lost it to the sea. Or so her thought. Several weeks later as he was walking past a toy shop, he spotted the sailboat in the window. He went in to reclaim his prized possession. The shop keeper refused to give it to him and demanded for him to pay for it. As the boy left the store with his hand-built special toy he was over heard saying, "You are twice my sailboat. First I built you, then I bought you."

That story really resonated with me last night as I was studying through 1 Corinthians and came to this verse. Do I really understand that price of that Jesus payed for the sinners. It probably isn't possible to over estimate the cost. 

I think that if we spent a bit more time thinking about the price that Jesus payed for us, we could better understand what it means to belong to Him. We might appreciate the pain our sin causes. We might be more in love with this gracious Father God who sent His Son into the world to suffer and die for us that his righteousness might be imparted to us.

This should inspire all of us not only to live more righteous lives, not out of fear of God's judgement but in reverence for His perfect loving nature, in gratitude for the price Christ payed on the cross and out of love for a Lord and Savior who came into the world to justify us even when we were and are in staunch rebellion against Him. This should inspire us to tell others about Him. This should inspire us to actively pursue His will and His calling in our lives. We should be inspired to live completely and totally for Him, after all, we are twice His.

Medical Mission Mentors: A Thank You Note

Dr. Sorg and I strategizing on how and where to set-up our mobile clinic in rural Haiti in 2011

Some days I feel like writing but don't have a plan. I know what I want, but I don't know how to accomplish what I want.

I want someone who can help me figure out how to follow my dream of being a career medical missionary. I have an excellent, albeit extremely busy mentor, Dr. Jack Sorg of ABWE. He was a missionary surgeon in the Amazon Basin for 20 years with his wife Sandy. He travels all over the world still, working for ABWE and leading teams on foreign medical mission trips on almost every continent to strengthen and extend the churches that already there.

I turn to him for advice as often as I need it. He is a great resource for me of spiritual and professional wisdom. I praise and thank God for this man and his availability to me.

We first met 5 years ago shortly following the tragic earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We wound up on a team heading up into the rural villages surrounding PAP and seeing to the medical and spiritual needs of those who had been all but cut off from the infrastructure that had previously existed in Port-au-Prince.

That was my first experience with medical missions, but before I even went, I knew that this was something that I had been called to. I was just a paramedic then. I was taking my pre-requisities for PA school during the day at a local junior college and working nights on an ambulance in Stockton, CA. I exhausted my Montgomery GI Bill before I even started PA school at Stanford. With 3 kids and a mortgage, having visited Haiti twice and no income, it would be 3 years before I saw Dr. Sorg again. It was at a conference where I met up with him and another missionary surgeon whom I revere for his generous spirit and willingness to speak into my life when I need encouragement, Dr. Bob Cropsey.

I guess I just needed to take a moment and express my gratitude for how these two men have made a positive impact in my life over the last few years and how I increasingly lean on their wisdom and insight to further prepare me for this dream I have.

If you are looking for a mentor to help you get started in medical missions, this site is a great place to start: http://www.medicalmissions.com/community/mentors

Shatter Your Plans on the Floor

"Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) - Google Art Project - edited"

I would not have chosen to do it this way. I never really wanted to be a Physician Assistant. It should have never occurred to me to use medical training to fulfill the Great Commission, yet it did. I had no plans for anything apart from making a living, raising some kids and watching some hockey on my days off.

I did not aspire to leave my firefighting job after working so hard to land it. I did not want to turn down a flight medic position (a job I had dreamed of since I was a teenager). I did not wake up one morning and just decide that it would be in my best interest to quit my career as a paramedic so that I could live on a fraction of the pay, live out of a suitcase for two years while my family barely scraped by a hundred miles away. I never considered that it would be this great idea to miss four solid months of work due to debilitating and paralyzing illness and injury during my rookie year of being a PA. I did not decide that it was best for me to go to rural Haiti, travelling on rocky mountain back roads in an SUV a month after spinal surgery. I did not conclude to have such financial insecurity in my first year as a PA.

My Tower of Babel (and we all have one) crumbled, as they always do. Apparently some people build more sturdy towers than me, because the second I place one brick on top of another, it seems, God knocks it over. I suppose (and I am) thankful that He does. I'm learning to not ask why. And I don't look at it as if I'm being bullied.

Here's how the story goes down: Some guys want to build a city and tower that would reach the heavens and unite the world. Literally, they said "...so that we can make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)

That's all well and good, right? Nope. Not for God's people. Who do we as His adopted children exalt in our efforts, our accomplishments, our life goals? GOD. Yahweh!

I'm not saying that I've failed at anything (of course I've failed at lot's of stuff) but what I'm saying is that God is at work. He sets my path straight. When I focus on my own schemes and dreams, I tend to look away from the perfect plan of God because what I want is, more often than not, quite self-serving.

If we seek the Lord's Kingdom, that tendency to pursue more self-exalting things becomes less and less of a burden. As we seek to exalt the Lord in our lives, our struggles and troubles and failures, and hardships and set-backs adn even our tragedies begin to make more sense. Of course there are many "why?" questions that will never be answered. I think one of the primary functions of this faith is to eliminate the need to have our "why's" and answered and just continue on, enduring for His glory, even when our plans fall to pieces.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you and your ideas.

The Wisdom of God > My Wisdom

I struggle to always keep in step with the Spirit moment by moment. To submit and give up everything truly is radical and terrifying. However, when I think deeply about it, walking in my own wisdom, contrary to the spirit leading, is even more frightful. Though I struggle, I know that ultimately I want nothing more than to live in total surrender and abandonment to the spirit every moment I have left on this earth.

The spirit may leave me in total sacrifice financially, or he may lead me toward humiliation in the opinions of people around me. The spirit may ask me to move to a different city, a different state, or a different country. The spirit may ask me to stay where I am and spend my time in very different ways than I do now. The spirit could lead me towards actions like into Samuel six, where David danced before the Lord "with all his might". Others were shamed by his undignified display of worship to God, yet David said that he didn't care and that he would become even more undignified for the sake of the Lord.

Adventure or Nothing: A Young Woman's Pursuit of Happiness

I've been inspired by several noteworthy women in my life. Some notable examples are women like my Susan B. Anthony, Lottie Moon, Helen Keller, Elisabeth Elliot (and of course my mother and wife). Today, I met another one. I can't even use her name here, but I have permission to tell her story.

She grew up here in the Central Valley of California like me. This is a dry, withering, drought infested, economicaly depressed and increasingly drug riddled area with high levels of poverty. I don't get to witness much good in my area. My work has never allowed it, working in ER's, on the streets as a paramedic, in a rural health center, and in homeless ministry. I really need to branch out more, or get the heck out of this region.

But this woman, half a decade younger than me saw life that way as well. She woke up one day pregnant and on the streets after her boyfriend kicked her out. She determined that she wasn't going to end up depending on the government to support she and her children and enrolled in nearby college.

On a whim she applied for a job with a large multi-national company in a major Midwest city. She never thought she'd get the job and was shocked when it was offered to her. She is making a good sum of money and has found a house in a nice suburb of that city. She is still a single mom and came home to take care of some final details but has been living in this city so foreign to her for two months. She related to me that the city is a scary place to her. It's never someplace that she could have seen her self but realized that there was no future for her or her children here and decided that it was worth the risk.

The gravity of such a move struck me like a bolt of lightning as I sat there dumbfounded by what I was hearing. This woman, barely old enough to have a college degree had already accomplished what so many more privileged people fail to do every day. She admits her fear, but tells me that her faith in God is stronger than that fear and grows more every day. I have heard stories like this in my life, I've heard a lot of bragging about personal accomplishments, but never have I spoken to someone so humble, so capable and so faithful that she didn't even doubt this opportunity. She didn't worry about whether it was God's will for her life. She didn't poll as many people as she could find, she didn't try reading tea leaves. She trusted God and took a huge step of faith at a moment's notice when she was asked in that unexpected phone call, "yes or no?"

Helen Keller, Lottie Moon, Elisabeth Elliot, Susan B. Anthony and the multitudes of other courageous women whom loved and trusted their Lord would have applauded this woman's character along with me, of that I have no doubt. What a blessing to meet her! I will forever be inspired by her faith, strength, courage, humility and love for her children and I aspire to be more like her in so many ways.

Send us.

A photo from our most recent medical mission to Haiti in May 2015

I find that there are days, long days that start early with frustrations that seem insurmountable. Frustrations about finances, security, social standing, and reputation mount on me. I find that in those times I tend to either withdraw into my thoughts, seeking escapism rather than facing the insecurities or I step out, face them and look to The Lord for answers. When those answers don't come immediately, I still become frightened.

I've made career decisions, very recently, career decisions that seem foolish. I turned down a position to be trained in neurosurgery. I would have gained such valuable experience and expertise that career-long earnings and job security would be concerns of the past. 

I had to take a stand and ask the questions "What am I doing this for? What am I pursuing and where do I put my trust?" I have financial insecurity now. My paychecks bounce, my checking account has become overdrawn for the second time in the last 6 weeks because of this too. I don't understand why this is happening. The frustrations for my wife and me are mounting. After graduating from one of the finest schools in the world, we find ourselves worse off financially than we were when I was a paramedic, working nights and and going to school full-time by day. 

And I have to remind myself why I turned this position down. I chose to stay in this job position. I pray every day that the Lord opens a door into another job. One that prepares me for the mission field both with knowledge and experience but also with financial security. I know that there will be other job offers. I'm assured by other physicians that there are other jobs out there that will prepare me. 

The problem for me is that is seems that there are so few people that understand our calling into missions. And we need that encouragement right now. No, we REALLY need that encouragement right now.

We are buried in debt now and feel hopeless at times to ever climb out of this financial hole. How could someone who only wants to bring God glory, share His Word with the unsaved, bring medicine to the hurting, malnourished developing world face so much opposition? Some would say that it's because I'm not meant for missions, that God has something else in mind for my family.

It certainly seems that way at times. But here is where we must take our stand. There is NO guarantee that life will be easy when you follow Christ. In fact, one may argue that the only guarantee any person may have when deciding to follow Christ is that life will be very difficult.

Recently, I was watching a webcast in which Dr. Kent Brantley was giving some updates on Ebola medicine and at the end fielded some questions. During this time he relayed a question that he had heard about his own fight with Ebola. He had been asked if it was his faith that healed him of the Ebola. He got very serious for a second and said that following Jesus, being filled with faith and being a Christian doesn't protect you from anything. 

Then he shocked me something that should have never shocked me when he proposed, "I got Ebola because of my faith."

I started thinking about his trials, the trials of Steve Saint and his father, and numerous others who followed Jesus into turmoil. 

The fact is that I'm sick to death of half-heartedly pursuing this. I'm sick to death of being embarassed because of everything that we struggle with financially. The world tells us that this isn't how we were meant to live, but experience tells me, the Bible shows me and the Gospel compels me that difficulty and trial is part of it. 

So we walk along, unsure of ourselves, knowing not what the future will bring. Afraid to fall into obscurity, becoming entirely irrelevant, we just keep going. Our faith isn't the size of a mustard seed, it's much much smaller, but we still believe. We feel very alone, but we believe. We have no one to walk beside us and provide direction. We have no one that seems convinced as I am that God has called me to missions. I mean if I were to follow conventional wisdom, the fact that my church seems not to be interested in preparing us for the mission field, our friends (save a few really staunch devoted supporters of our calling) are not interested in praying with us, walking with us or encouraging us to move into the mission field. In fact, there are days when I feel entirely alone in this. Days like those I doubt. I seriously doubt! But God will do something to draw me back onto the path, reigniting that passion for medical missions.

If you are reading this and you care at all, if you have any encouragement, advice, want to walk alongside us, please let me know. Until that day, we will wait to be sent.

A Call to Our Churches: As The Native Among You.

More than 13 million people worldwide have fled conflicts and crises in which religion has been a key factor, according to the 2015 report from the US Commission on International Religion Freedom (USCIRF). Timothy C. Morgan, 13 Million Flee Religion-Linked Conflicts Worldwide (Christianity Today)

The question that we should be asking ourselves after these opening words from this article is: "Where are all of these refugees going?"

According to the USCIRF, about 100,000 or more per year should be coming to the US. Our current ceiling for accepting refugees annually is about 70,000.

Personally having met many refugees who successfully found asylum in the United States in the 80's from the Khmer Rouge and knowing children of refugees from other nations in Southeast Asia, this issue of housing and integrating refugees is definitely not a new one.

We've had regular influx of refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq and several other nations for several years. But finding your way in the US isn't easy. The film "The Good Lie" is an excellently done glimpse into the challenges of settling in a new nation.

In spite of Christian leaders calling for Christians and other religious minorities to remain in the countries, it seems as if most in the Middle East and other nations where violence and oppression against minority religious groups is a mainstay have decided the the risk is too high and since 2007 the US has accepted 84,900 Iraqi refugees alone.

Why should we be involved?

In Leviticus, when God is establishing the law for His people He specifically makes mention of the foreigner when He says:

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV)

When I read this article that I quote in the very beginning of this post, I can't help but wonder what re-settlement is going to be like for these families. Where will we put them, will they end up in ghettos? Will we be willing to help them acquire the skills and knowledge to navigate our complex society? Will there be jobs where they will be able to make enough to support their families? This is something the church, at-large, must bear a great deal of responsibility for.

I want to make a call out to the churches of my home town and beyond:

Let's open our homes to refugees! Let's actively seek out opportunities to welcome them into our lives no matter how inconvenient, uncomfortable and cumbersome it might be!

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV)

Where Is The Urgency?

“The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.” Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

What do you believe in? What would you die for? It's a heavy heavy question and heavy heavy questions aren't really all that fun to answer if you don't like to think. Thinking takes practice. Thinking takes patience. Thinking requires getting rid of distractions and just... thinking.  Believe it or not, we have to learn how to think. People who think a lot seem to be a bit more serious and even slightly more awkward than people who don't. But we need to think and we fail to think.

Organize your thoughts for a moment. What do you you believe in? Do you believe that you are alive? Do you believe that what is happening around you is actually happening and that your current surroundings actually exist? Can you prove it?

What if your life is actually happening and there are two story lines occurring around you all the time? One story line is what you are living in day-to-day. That includes waking up, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, going to work, picking the kids up from school, studying for an exam. Then there is another deeper thread that is connecting humanity together. This one is even more important because it has eternal consequences. Either you believe that these two story lines exist or you don't. I'm not going to try and convince you of either.

What I want us to think through together is the "what if?" What if there is a deeper story-line that has eternal consequences? What if that underlying deeper story-line is intricately interwoven into the day-to-day happenings of your life? What if the eternal implications were life and death, a life everlasting in relationship with a creator God who loves you more than you can ever imagine or a life of everlasting in separation from that creator God who loves you more than you can ever imagine?

Again, my point isn't to prove to you that this is the truth. I want you to consider the implications if this is the truth.

So let's just say that the deeper story-line is interwoven with your day to day tedium like washing dishes, studying for your test, picking out the right shoes for you outfit today. We have to live life in the tedium, it's crucial otherwise we'd be naked and hungry. And it's easy to ignore the deeper story-line in our lives. I'd venture to guess that most of us do. There are a ton of people out there who would like to sell you their version of a deeper story-line whether it has to do with new-age philosophy, eastern religious thought, Islam, Christianity or secularism (which one might argue has no deeper story-line). People are living and dying every day for these deeper story-lines while we go on living comfortably either ignoring them altogether or broaching them halfheartedly.

It's the halfhearted pursuit that concerns me the most. When we know that there is something so incredibly important that our eternity and, more importantly, the eternity of others depends on how it plays out but only pursue living out that story with the slightest modicum of intentionality, we are in essence defeating ourselves and committing a crime against our own moral standard.

Let me explain. There is s disease that is killing people throughout the world. You and a handful of others know what the cure is for that disease and have the knowledge to save humanity. Some people say that there is no cure, some say that there is no disease, some say that their cure is the real one and your cure wont work, but for argument's sake, let's say that you do actually have a very real cure for a very real disease. You have some options with what you do with it. You can depend on others to pass on the knowledge/cure. You can withhold the knowledge/cure because you don't want people to think you are crazy for saying you have it. You can occasionally tell a few chosen people over the course of your lifetime about the knowledge/cure or you can make a choice to live to see as many people cured as possible. Which would be the most moral choice?

The moral choice is obviously to get knowledge of the cure out to as many people as possible, even making it part of your life's mission. That is the sense of urgency that Christians should be living with everyday. We don't, or at least most of us don't, and that should bother us. So why don't we treat the Gospel with the same sort of urgency? I'm sure that we can come up with several reasons if we were to sit down and brain storm.

Allow me to submit some of my ponderings: Part of the problem is that it's a weighty topic to give much thought to. It burdens our hearts for people in a way that breaks down certain protective barriers that we have spent our entire lives fortifying. We don't know how people will react. We are afraid of what a message of such urgency would do to our friendships, families, work environments and even our churches. It's not cool to carry around something to heavy and burdensome because once it is shared there is no taking it back and maintaining any sort of ethical consistency with our lives.

We need this sense of urgency in our churches, and frankly, folks, I don't see it. As a matter of fact, the church of America is awash with comfortably neutered Christians who are hard chargers for the gospel at church and maybe even in Bible study but away from church, how do they express the love and life giving truth of the Gospel message?

I'm no less guilty of this than anyone else, but let's pray this together, that God renews a sense of urgency in our hearts to reach out, touch lives and hearts, in grace and the love of Jesus Christ. Let's pray that our hearts are broken for the lost and that we would become willing vehicles of the Holy Spirit to reveal the underlying story-line that unites all of humanity.