This morning, I hand washed a little bit of laundry in the bath tub. Aside from how amazing it is I actually did laundry (this is a form of public confession and a shout out to my wife!), I was taken aback by how dirty the water got while I was scrubbing the clothing. What occurred to me was that the water probably gets this dirty in a washing machine. But the benefit we enjoy from modern technology is that we don't have to see the dirt and grime we pick up as it gets washed away and dumped down the drain. In what ways do we conveniently shield ourselves in blissful ignorance from the spiritual grime in our world? What evils lie within our hearts and within the world around us that we simply aren't aware of?

Take human trafficking. I don't think about this dark, horrific, unspeakable crime on a daily or even weekly basis.

But I learned today that a child slave is violated between 5-30 times in a single day.

ZOE's mission is to "reach every person, rescue every child". The ZOE staff is comprised of roughly 80 Thai people and 20-25 long term missionaries. They are involved in the rescue of roughly 30 children a year. Today we had the privilege of visiting ZOE's child rescue center as well as their Bible school. If the mission of ZOE were to be split into prevention, rescue, and restoration, then the rescue center is the main arm finding child victims and prosecuting their aggressors, while the Bible school is where ZOE trains up people to educate others about the perils of trafficking. It was amazing to hear the stories and then see the evidence of God's work being done here. If the human condition is that we are longing for the earth to be filled with God's glory, to see the city not made by human hands descending down from heaven (and I might risk being a little sacrilegious with this thought), then ZOE is a glimpse of that. God's provision has been upon them every step of the way; indeed it was not built by human hands. Their facility is so state of the art, in fact, that Thai government officials who have visited have observed that there are no places like this in all of Asia! This is a place where the broken are brought into relationship, tears are wiped away from their eyes, and they are given a new identity. This isn't due to any human effort. These are humble warriors refusing to run away from evil, but instead carrying God's victory into the darkness and planting signposts that point to His ultimate victory. And the greater the darkness, the brighter the light shines.

Indeed, one story we heard today was about the specific favor ZOE has found among non-Christian police officials, who said, “I've never seen a child where your God couldn't help." God will be glorified. "Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds, and praise your Father who is in heaven."

Tomorrow we will travel with ZOE on an outreach trip and see what the prevention mission looks like up close. Later this week we will meet the children at ZOE and see how restoration works. I'm looking forward to updating you and filling in the picture just a bit more. This has been an incredibly humbling experience for me. I'm still working through everything I'm seeing, but one thing is certain. My faith and my fears are very human-scaled.

Lord, widen my scope and allow me a large, living faith that can carry Your light into the world. Show me the dirt and grime I conveniently mask so You can claim victory over it!

By His grace,

Jason (on behalf of the ZOE team)

PS, I am not sure what our internet access will look like while we are on outreach, but I will update again as soon as I can. Please be praying for health. The enemy has taken notice of us. We've had some "intestinal fortitude" issues and a member of our sister team has befallen the flu.

Boarding our second flight (3.5 hours from Taipei to Chang mai) following the 14 hour haul from Los Angeles to Taipei, I took a moment to change my compression socks to toe socks. I know some people (my wife) cannot bear the thought of cloth between their toes, but for me it’s strangely soothing, especially when my feet feel hot and gross. 

Enjoying the inter-digital moisture wicking goodness of my fresh hosiery, I cracked open my first encouragement card from my prayer support group:

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepares beforehand that we should walk in them” ~Ephesians 2:10

And the personal note: “You are only able to do what you are doing because of the great mercy and grace of God. May that truth anchor you in Jesus.”

Wow. God has provided and will provide what we need in order to bring Him glory and further His kingdom. This is truth in general, to be sure, but in a specific sense: I am doing nothing to make this plane fly. I am doing nothing to assure my safe arrival in Thailand. God has provided these things so that I can preoccupy myself with the sweat between my toes. 

In the same way, I do nothing to earn my salvation and it will not be my specific efforts that may or may not bring the Gospel to the villages we visit during outreach. Fred encouraged and reminded our team that sharing the gospel in Thailand is completely different from sharing it in the states. Our concepts and contexts of spiritual need and salvation are worlds apart. 

However, being helpless is not the same as being hopeless. Paraphrasing from the book “Wrestling with an Angel” (thank you, pastor Dan!), God places burdens on us we cannot possibly bear alone so that His power may be made perfect in our weakness. To be saved, we all must be raised from spiritual death, given a new heart that loves and desires Him, given a new mind that treasures the Gospel, and given saving faith in Christ’s sacrificial death for our sins. All these actions are passive. It is a work that we all receive by the great grace and mercy of God while our hearts were/are still dead in sin. 

God gives what God requires, no matter how big or small, for each of us who desire to live for Him. For this trip, that happens to include an airplane and competent airline crew to transport our team to Thailand. A team selected by Him since literally forever ago. Loving support from our church.  Technology to be able to communicate with you instantaneously. The infrastructure already in place in the form of ZOE’s ministry. The preparation of hearts to hear the beauty of a Gospel that is incomprehensible in its sacrificial generosity...

And yes, toe socks :)

2018 Thailand Medical Missions Team: (l-r) Denna, Irene, Zohreh, Fred, Carol, Pam, Karen, Jason

We are here at LAX (Saturday, Sept 1, 2018, 10 pm), safely through security and waiting at our gate!  Funnily enough, Irene was pulled aside for "random screening", and my bag was searched not because of the lithium ion batteries, or the church's GoPro, or the liquids I forgot to pull out of my bag, but because of my lacrosse ball!

We are so blessed by the huge turnout for our departure (upon first approximation, about 50 strong!).  Personally, I was given a set of cards for each day of the trip from both my prayer partner support group and my daughters!  This evening was a great reminder that we are not traveling just the eight of us, but we have our families and our church family sending us and partnering with us on this journey.  Seeing the team members breaking off with their respective support teams, brought together for a purpose, I was struck by the fact that this is indeed a work pre-planned and fore-known by our great God, who brought this team together for whatever work He has before us.  So we have this assurance that no matter what comes, nothing is by chance or by accident.  

As Irene mentioned during our prayer time tonight, please pray for team unity, as well as flexibility as we embark on this journey!  14 hours to Taipei, two hours on layover, four hours to Chiang Mai.  Then the real work begins!

Blessed by you!

Jason (on behalf of the ZOE team)

"But I urge you, believers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in full agreement in what you say, and that there be no divisions or factions among you, but that you be perfectly united in your way of thinking and in your judgment." 1 Corinthians 1:10

Our Quest for a Church that Loves and Accepts Families with Special Needs

by Sandra Su Chan

As summertime approached, I became very aware of the upcoming Evergreen SGV All-Summer Church Conference and anxiety started to creep in. I read the flyer over and over, and I wondered if this was an event that us, a family with a special needs child, should endeavor to join. We, parents of special needs are very cautious about joining non-special needs communities and events outside our disability community. We are in a constant state of high alert towards our child with disabilities and his ongoing special needs.

We need to take every detail into consideration. We need to be brave to go out of our comfort zone. We want to protect our family from stares, judgment, feelings of inadequacy, fear of being disruptive and disturbing, fear of exposing ourselves and our daily struggles as we raise our son Nathan, a child with Down Syndrome. My mind rushes through all kinds of different scenarios and situations in order to have plans A, B, and C ready, just in case… This process is very stressful and exhausting, to say the least.

Our son Nathan brings us so much joy and he makes us proud with his many accomplishments. We, as parents, advocate for him all the time, so he can have the same opportunities as others to learn, grow and thrive. But reality is that over time, feeling rejected and judged can take its toll on a family. We start to believe that we don’t deserve to be included or to belong to any group other than our disability community.

We start to feel like outcasts. It is hard to feel this way myself, but it is way more painful to see our daughter go through this feeling of rejection as well. Many tears were shed between my daughter Joanne and I, as she too struggles to make friends and connect with the kids at church. Our Church School teachers are very loving, kind, and accepting. We love to hear: It’s okay, you can go. It’s not a problem. We feel Jesus’ love through them. But, how would it be in a different setting like the All Church Summer Conference with unfamiliar faces and caregivers unknown to Nathan? Would my daughter have a roommate? Would we be accepted in our small groups? We had so many fears and concerns but in a leap of faith, we decided to attend the Conference. Throughout the entire Conference we saw God confirming His will for us and for the church family. He had a plan for each one of us! There were a lot of behind the scenes work and God’s intervention to make that happen. We felt His love and care for our family. We had a blessed stay at Biola University. Thoughtful housing arrangements provided us with all the amenities needed for us to feel at home. God also provided a wonderful counselor that was a perfect match for Nathan. Joanne, too, was happy to have friendly roommates. It was a great experience for her to make new friends without feeling isolated and not having to worry about her brother, as he was being well taken care of and having a great time himself. As for me and my husband, we had a peaceful and enjoyable time attending the lectures of Pastor Cory and Pastor Rocky, our small groups were powerful and we felt the Holy Spirit ministering to us.

On the first Sunday after the Conference, we were thrilled that Pastor Cory addressed the subject of Special Needs — advantages and disadvantages in his sermon. We could not believe how God in His perfect timing was putting everything together for us and our church family.

Disability is a part of life. People with disabilities are part of the body of Christ too. We are all connected in this journey, all of us! Perhaps special needs are not your particular battle in life, but the one thing we all share is Christ. We can change for the better. Together in Christ, we can be a better Church. One Church that can love, accept, and embrace all, regardless of color, shape, or abilities.

Chua Family Reflections on ACSC 2018:

by Shannon Chua

What a blessed time to be with our church family at Evergreen SGV! From the moment we were so warmly welcomed by the registration team up until we loaded up our car alongside our friends, we felt an undeniable presence of community at our first ACSC. A huge “thank you!” to all who faithfully served to coordinate such a refreshing and fruitful weekend!

In all honesty, we came into ACSC in a rough place. Packing, loading kids and luggage (and lots of guitar equipment…), fighting traffic, and forgetting that the car was low on gas all added up to a stressful afternoon heading into the conference! However, from the first night’s worship and preaching, and simply being surrounded by our church family, God was able to set a positive tone of community for us from the very outset. Here are the highlights for our family.

Preaching: Pastor Cory sharing story after story of God’s faithfulness throughout Evergreen’s journey reminded us that God is so intimately and intricately involved in the lives of those He loves, and that He is not only “God with us,” but also “God for us!” We loved hearing about how our church is involved in feeding its members, serving the local community (especially the kids at Don Julian Elementary) and in reaching the lost around the world! It was so exciting to hear Pastor Rocky reaffirm the church’s commitment to the Word, loving Christ, and sharing God’s love with the lost. One moment that sticks out in our minds is Ian Nagata’s testimony of how God is working in Japan; in the midst of countless seemingly random coincidences, God is telling a story of redemption for a nation that sorely needs Him. It was an amazing reminder that in our lives, even if we can’t see it, God is fulfilling His purpose, and it is beautiful.

Seminars: Shannon attended a seminar, Restoration Therapy, by Aimee Machida Angeles on Friday afternoon. She found new ways to think about conflict; specifically, replacing the pain cycle (the lies we believe) with the peace cycle (the truth). It was a great antidote to the conflict that arose from the stress of Thursday. Jason and the kids loved making capes and busy bags at Diane Lieu’s seminar at the same time. The whole family enjoyed Jill Hatcher’s art seminar on Saturday afternoon (making an undersea collage) and came home with some beautiful artwork and new art skills.

Worship: How great was it to be in a smaller auditorium and to hear our brothers and sisters worshiping together! God is worthy of our praise!

Small groups: There is so much wisdom to be found amongst our brother and sisters here at Evergreen SGV! One of the best moments of the retreat for Jason came from something someone in his small group said--in essence, when we take risks according to God's call, all the risk and all the loss is in the temporal and physical realm. As far as the spiritual realm is concerned, we only stand to gain. When we are worried about what we may lose by giving our all to God, what is God giving us in the spiritual realm? God is constantly after our hearts, even if it means taking away those things that make us comfortable in the flesh.

Community: This was the top highlight of the weekend for us. From “kid swapping” for children’s ministry drop off to goofing off in the pool, from spontaneous prayer meetings to watching our kids run around in capes (in the words of Edna Mode from The Incredibles, “NO capes!!!”), we were acutely aware of how God was using the time to strengthen our existing friendships and form new ones. Whenever we felt just a little (or a lot) overwhelmed with the kids, someone was there to help. When our hands were just a little too full, someone miraculously appeared with a wagon. When Taylor didn’t like her milk tea boba, there was a youth group member ready to drink it for her! What a miracle that as God’s children grow closer together, Christ’s body is strengthened! Indeed, our God is worthy to be praised, and He is indeed “God for us!”