Wednesday, December 14, 2011

A Vision of the Kingdom of God

Here in Cambodia we talk about transformational development. We have a vision of a Cambodia where all kids can have good nutrition and grow strong. That all kids can have education and all adults can access good health care. A vision of reconciled enemies, of good parenting and peaceful communities. Where the majority poor can have access to some of the resources of the minority rich. Where people are paid a fair wage and their rights are protected. A place where people have secure tenure of their land free from the threat of eviction. I want to see people coming into a transforming relationship with God and embarking on a life of discipleship following Jesus.

This is a vision of the Kingdom of God for this place and God is at work here transforming evil into good, enmity to friendship, poverty to sustainable lives, and brokenness to fullness in Jesus. God's at work here and it’s exciting to be a part of it.

Life in the Kingdom

Henri Nowen talks about “two kinds of death” – one into the Kingdom of God and one into Hell. Dying into ‘new life’ always seems a strange way of entering the kingdom. To have life in the Kingdom we need to ‘give life away’. Jesus teaches this in a number of ways – seeds rely on death before bringing new life, coming to God in simplicity as children, ‘giving everything away’ to really know God, and selling “everything” to buy the field with the treasure or the pearl of great price.

What does this mean for us as Jesus followers?

Matt 11 came to me:
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

It encourages us to take our place and be deeply connected with him and get into what is happening in his Kingdom. It’s a voice of encouragement to those of us who are “weary and carry heavy burdens” – “I will give you rest”. Not a rest of doing nothing, but rather a rest because we are yoked with Jesus. He will help us and we will get our lives aligned with him. This life is “easy and the burden light”. Sometimes it doesn’t feel so light or easy – but the promise remains.
This is life in the Kingdom.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Real Communication

Since moving here to Cambodia I have been surprised how many people in the international missions community have low-level Cambodian language skills. Even some 10-15 year ‘veterans’ can’t do the most basic teaching and training, tasks in Khmer let alone preaching and leading more complex conversations. Many can of course and their hard work learning the language, understanding culture and bringing the two together into meaningful conversations means they are confident to share at depth directly with Cambodian people.

Common reasons given are: “There was so much work to do I just had to get right into it”, “they all understand English anyway and they learn faster than I ever could”, and “I have a great translator”. All good pragmatic reasons but one wonders if they would have been more effective in the their work and ministry communicating directly into Cambodian language

Recently Rachael was asked to give a lecture at the National Physiotherapy conference. They assumed she would use English and they assigned her a translator. At just under the two-year mark she is well short of being able to deliver such a speech in Khmer so the offer was kindly accepted. Notes were sent off three weeks before to be translated and for familiarisation of the material by the translator.

She met the translator before the meeting and speaking in Khmer together it became clear he had misunderstood the key concepts of her paper. She was speaking about brain ‘plasticity’ – the ability of the brain to re-learn basic tasks like speech and movement through systematic ‘training’ activities post trauma - in the context of working with patients with strokes, head injuries and other neurological conditions. He, however, had translated the concept as having brain ‘surgery’ to correct the problem.

It showed clearly how, even in their field of expertise, many of the concepts we want translators to communicate are really tricky. Let alone the translators who are just good English speakers and have to translate in fields outside their direct knowledge area.

I have been reminded again of the importance of language and culture in communicating ‘information for transformation’. I know it makes the mission process more challenging and elongated but the outcomes just have to be better in the long run. So who wants to ‘put their hand up’ for lots of preparation and learning to come and serve the people of Cambodia?