I have been traveling for more hours than I care to think about–and I’m doing great! I was reminded today how much I love to experience new cultures as I landed in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.

I am acutally sitting in the Bangkok airport right now getting ready to jump on my final leg of the journey to Pakistan–a five-hour flight to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city. I am playing a psychological game with myself by telling my mind that it was just last night that I jumped on a plane versus a couple of days ago. It seems to be working because I feel like my biological clock is ticking in the right region of the world. In other words, by the time I land in Islamabad tonight, I will be ready for bed.

We have been laid over in Bangkok now for eight hours. A group of guys from my team and I decided that we wanted to grab a quick tour of the city. Instead of opting for a regular bus tour with a guide, we chose to jump on a boat in the river and experience it from that perspective. It was amazing to drift through little canals and see how people here actually experience life. I felt like I was in a Nat’l Geographic film as I watched men and women paddle out to meet our boat in their little boats to sell us bananas and chicken kabobs. I was tempted to taste, but decided not to.

God has already answered a huge prayer. My team is tasked with hauling over ten 100 lb. pipe bending machines to aid in the building of the structure that we will be building. We weren’t sure that customs and then the airplane co. themselves were going to let us to it. We have been praying for a long time (I’d try to put a number to the hours or days, but I’m so confused right now that I’d get it wrong anyway) and just found out an hour ago that they have been cleared all of the way to Islamabad.

God has big things in store for the next two weeks. Keep praying, though, because it just started to snow in the Himalays where we’ll be and several people (nationals) have been hospitalized due to hypothermia.

I’m not sure if I’ll get to write again before I return.

As I am going into a Muslim nation, I want to ask you to join me in an unusual prayer experience. In the Muslim faith, it is their custom to bow and pray five times a day. Would you consider doing this for me, my team, and the people that we get the opportunity to love?

Prayer time 1: For physical strength. My body isn’t at 100% and we will be working hard long hours and sleeping on the cold, hard ground.

Prayer time 2: For the people of Pakistan that we will see. Pray for the love of Christ to reach deep into their souls as we serve them. Pray especially for those who won’t see love.

Prayer time 3: For emotional strength. We will be seen as the only hope by many.

Prayer time 4: For safety. Pakistan isn’t the safest place to be right now. Pray for protection and genuine relationships to develop between us and the Pakistanis that we will be working with and near.

Prayer time 5: For spiritual strength. I want to see the people of Pakistan like God sees them.

I can’t wait to hear your stories of what this experience was like. Please write your prayers on the comment column so that I can read them if I ever get internet acess.

Until I return,
I remain Unconventional

I met a homeless guy named Alex today in the Tenderloin.

He and I ate breakfast together and spent some time talking about why the Colts were going to win the superbowl this year.

We then spent some time cleaning the shelter we were in. I had a bottle of Formula 409 and he had a rag. What a time we had scrubbing the steps of a stage, the top of a ping-pong table, the edges of a pool table, the top of a piano–anything that we could find to scrub–we scrubbed!

When we were done, someone asked us if we could scrub the walls with bleach and a new rag. While we were waiting for the bleach we were looking at a floor rug that looked like the earth that was hanging on the wall. It was a bit of an abstract image of the earth, but you could make out specific continents.

Soon we had the bleach in hand. Alex had the bottle and I was scrubbing by now. When we got to where the earth-rug was I said, “Be careful that you don’t get any bleach on the world.”

He said, “That’s what the world needs–a good bleaching.”
I agreed.

I got offered marijuana and a palm reading.

I was just in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco over the Thanksgiving Holiday with a couple of high school students and about 40 people from a church that is actually concerned with the “least of these.” Our desire was to prepare a home-cooked meal to bring to the homeless instead of preparing it in some church building somewhere and inviting them “in” to ours.

Here are some snapshots…

I saw a little boy (2 years old) of an affluent family playing tackle football with a homeless little boy (2 years old). Unlike I had ever experienced before, I watched as two people couldn’t care less that one was affluent and the other wasn’t. I watched two little boys love each other and speak the love language of physical touch (along with uninteligable grunts and giggles). I watched a mom with tears in her eyes and a proud dad get it.

I saw families serving together. For these families, no longer is spiritual formation being outsourced to the church. Instead, they are taking the responsiblity of spiritual formation back into their homes. Is there anything more powerful than kids watching their parents follow Jesus?

I heard the inhabitants of Hippie Hill become inspired by a rag-tag group of Jesus-followers.

I watched tears form in homeless people’s eyes as they were asked, “Light meat or dark?” and actually got to choose.

I leave on November 27th for Arizona. They’ll train us for a day and then we fly to Isalmabad by way of Hong Kong.

I’ll be there until the 11th of December. If I have the chance to get to a computer while I’m there, I will update my blog instead of trying to email the stories to everyone. If I do not have computer access, I will upload the stories after I get home.

During the interview between this service organization and myself, they asked me the following question:
What are you doing to prepare emotionally, physically, and spiriutally for this trip?

I answered:
Emotionally–How do you prepare emotionally for seeing the devastation of a 7.6 earthquake that leaves 3 million people homeless in the mountains? I guess I’m sharing the story with my communities and asking them to help me prepare.

Physically–I run, cycle, and swim a lot. I’ll keep doing that. I’m also pretty comfortable in high alpine situations.

Spiritually–God has been preparing me for this for 25 years. If I just started to prepare now, I’d be in big trouble!

Conisder this: What will it be like to offer a hand of friendship, brotherhood, and compassion to those that the American media would identify as our enemy?

Let this story be told!