-The Invisible Realities-

Well here we are, back in Singapore! A technologically advanced, beautiful, clean city with amazing architecture, good economy, and--you guessed it--yummy food. :) The above pic was taken as we walked downtown enjoying the spectacular skyline (whoops, did I just state the obvious...!?). We've enjoyed a few leisure days in-between conferences. In Singapore, "leisure" is the code word for "shopping" so one evening we hit the streets to see the sights and blow some Sing Dollars. I must interject here that there is something very, very romantic (or in our case "ro-tic" since, alas, there was no man among us) about a city at night. The air was muggy with a slight breeze and the strains of a Christmas song wafted from a store as we passed through.

Wait---

WHAT!?

White CHRISTMAS!?!?!?

Now that is strange. Bing Crosby crooning Christmas songs just seems a little twisted when we're sweating and strolling among palm trees wearing flip flops (us, not the palm trees) in Asia. It does not at all feel like the Christmas season. There are an abundance of lights but...where is the snow? Where are the warm spicy drinks? Where is the pair of boots I love to wear because they looks so cute with my black hat and red plaid scarf!? 

Ug! I MUST reprogram my mind because if I insist on traveling AND being so attached to holiday tradition and warm fuzzies for the rest of my life, I am destined to be traumatized during many more seasons to come. Because hot chocolate at 90 degrees just does NOT work. 

For Thanksgiving I skyped with mom. She showed me the turkeys brining, the pumpkin pie ready to be palaced in the oven, and--*sob!*--one of our newer Sobie traditions: pumpkin marzipans all lined up in rows on the counter. I ate Indian food that day. It was an unbelievably memorable Thanksgiving meal. CRAZY good, and I can't exactly complain since I know mom will make me a belated Thanksgiving dinner after I come home in December. 

All these memories and Christmas/Thanksgiving thoughts have me thinking about my family, my warm and inviting home, the rich spiritual meaning of the season for me, and the abundant, abundant blessings that overwhelm me each November and December. 

I am so blessed. I am almost ashamed and embarrassed at how easy I've had it, though I know that all blessings come from God's hand. I can't even describe how many little things I know I take for granted... clean, odorless bathrooms and quick, easy medical care and freedom to talk about whatever want to whomever I want, and a bed raised OFF the ground and no bugs infesting my home and the ability to own a car and the absence of fear when I enter my church and ....wow. It's endless. My life has been filled with one privilege after another and when I stop and think about it--particularly with the focus that being in Asia has brought, I am seriously, literally, overwhelmed. Consider this:

-In Malaysia, there are approx. 28 million ethnic Malay citizens. It is illegal to share the Gospel of Jesus with them. Because of this, it's estimated that there are only about 1 thousand Malay believers. If you were born as one of the 28 million Malays, someone would have to break the law and risk jail time to tell you about Jesus. So, most likely you would never hear.

-Today I listened to a friend of mine who has been working in China among handicapped children. She wept as she told us about the work she does and the children she has encountered. If they are handicapped there's a good chance that their parents will throw them away or give them to an orphanage. At one orphanage she visited she was prohibited from picking up any babies. "They don't cry...they just stare into space because they know they won't be fed or held if they cry anyways. But last time we had come and held them, they cried for a week afterwards. It was because they had hope that someone might come back and pick them up again." Hopeless babies? I have never even considered such a thing. That a human life would be deprived of hope before that person could even say a word or formulate a sentence. My heart breaks. 

-In Malaysia we spoke with a beautiful Christian woman who described the bondage her idols had held her in before Jesus delivered her. Every evening she was paralyzed for a time by the demonic power or her idols and she had no hope for deliverance until she heard the Truth and God set her free. I rejoiced with her but couldn't help but grieve for the millions of people who live in bondage to their idols and will never hear or accept the truth. Like the one Taoist shop owner who exclaimed to me about how REAL her idols were...how she could hear them and and even physically feel their presence when she sacrificed to them. 

-In the newspaper I read about the Buddhist monks who were begging on the street. They live a life depriving themselves of pleasure including the pleasure of food. They eat for nourishment ONLY. any sensual pleasure, they believe, keeps them from enlightenment. It broke my heart to know that these determined men are depriving themselves of the ALL the pleasures God designed us to enjoy...and yet will not reach eternal pleasure because of it! Can you imagine the pressure and needless deprivation of living life this way!? Because we can never hope to work our way to eternal joy and happiness and enlightenment; Only our merciful, powerful God can bring us there; and He DESIGNED us to delight in life, in food, in physical and mental and spiritual joys...in pleasure of all kinds!  What a frustrating life. 

I want God to open my heart to grieve for the things that make HIS heart grieve. I want to be aware of the sorrow in this world and do anything He calls me to do to heal a hurting world in the tiny space of time I will fill on earth. When I am in America I forget it so easily! I pray about my little problems and the problems of my friends but I must fight to remember to pray for the world... the broader picture. I don't want to keep forgetting. I want my heart and my perspective and my vision to be eternally changed. I want to be a "world Christian."  I want to learn how to be like my God, who is infinitely joyful, but infinitely pained. How does a human understand this? God must teach me because I don't know. Please comment if you have anything to add. My words fail, but this Michael Card song has been on my mind today and it captures EXACTLY what I've been thinking:

TEARS OF THE WORLD

In any split second of a moment of time,

In the blink that is one single day,

The sum of the sorrow that wraps round the world

Would catch every soul up and sweep them away.

As vast as the ocean, as deep as the sea,

Swept up in one toxic tide.

By warm salty waves the world weeps its woe

So how can it be that my own eyes are dry?

So open my eyes,

And open my heart,

And grant me the gift of Your grieving.

And awaken in me

The compassion to weep

Just one of the tears of the world.

When God walked among us in the fullness of time

He wept tears as old as the world

Acquainted with sorrow, he took up the cup

And drank every drop of the poison that heals. 

So open my eyes,

And open my heart,

And grant me the gift of Your grieving.

And awaken in me

The compassion to weep

Just one of the tears of the world.

Well, I'm out of words so that's a pretty good sign that I should wind up this post. 
Time to hit the hay--er, air mattress--because conference prep begins tomorrow! 

Love from Singapore. :)