Spring and Summer 2014 Book & Mission Tour Launches in the US

Posted on April 23, 2014 by agedaniel

I am writing this week’s blog post from New York City. Still suffering from jet lag a few days ago I left Bangkok and via Hong Kong and made my way back to the States. Since most of the schools I have been serving in Asia are now on break for several months I opted to return home until August. During this time I will be building a couple of new courses and sharing my teaching experiences. Along with this I will also share themes from my new book Suffering the Tension Between the Seen and the Unseen. My arrival opens up an opportunity.

With this letter you are being invited to book a date with me this spring or summer to speak to your Christian circle in your home, church or town. Here follows a synopsis of the above two areas I would bring to your circle.

One: Stories, Insights and Observations From My Teaching Ministry in the Far East.

Recalling tales and insights garnered from teaching all over the Far East I will open up to your circle first hand experiences and reflections about what is happening in the churches and schools in many places in Asia where I worked. My educational ministry led me into China (as a ‘visitor’ many times), India, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. I am offering you an opportunity to learn about the underground church in China, about the educational endeavors of the Karen Baptists refugees from Burma now still in camps along the Thai-Burma border and other endeavors.

Two: My New Book and Its Thesis – Applied to Life

While tramping around Asia I wrote a book which by now many of you are reading – Suffering the Tension Between the Seen and the Unseen:The Doing and Undoing of Christian Faith, Spirituality, Ethics, Religion and Culture. My thesis contains a fresh insight and challenge subtly radical in its scope. Reflecting on many of life’s experiences that all people struggle with I argue for the recovery of the native tension inherent in faith and hope. Faith’s trust in the unseen sets up a tension with that which is directly seen, felt and experienced when these gain magnitude – real or imagined. And in the same way hope’s interest in better things coming creates a tension and struggle with the problems and pleasures of the present when these gain ascendancy as if they were the be all and end all. The present and the seen time and again suck us in and under them. Faith and hope reassert a healthy tension without falling into the dualism of Eastern religions. I argue that if and when the Church and individual Christians embrace this tension we risk losing easy favor and friendship of the modern world, but if we fail this tension we risk losing the salt that savors the world (‘earth’).

When you book a meeting inviting me to speak to your church or circle I will open up and apply my simple but far reaching thesis developed from Paul’s dictum “we walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). From the truth embedded in this little phrase I work my insight forward indirectly calling into question many of the forms of spirituality, religion and culture that much of American Christianity has been and is presently generating. Could it be that much of our religion is trespassing faith and hope? This would not be a weighty matter if faith and hope were merely two virtues in a long list spiritual Christian graces but faith and hope along with love are the ethical DNA of the Christian way.

Nothing is quite as dangerous as a new insight into an old truth. Once it is grasped it forever stretches the mind beyond the boundaries once considered fixed, safe and secure.

Booking Details: Timelines and Geographical Areas

You can contact me about booking a meeting via email or by phone: 516-996-0905.

April and May – the Northeastern USA
May and June the Southern USA
June and July Midwest and Western USA

There are no travel or speaking charges to book a meeting except in unique situations. This is an opportunity to learn, think and challenge your faith and broaden your vision of the church in the world. Seize the moment and send me an invitation or inquiry, let’s make a date!

Daniel Age

Kawthoolie Karen Baptist Bible School and College Spring 2014 Graduation

Posted on April 3, 2014 by agedaniel

A First Hand Report With Reflections

On Sunday March 22 leaving Chiang Mai I traveled 7 hrs by bus to Mae Sot, Thailand. The next morning Sunday the 23rd bright and early I boarded a pick up bus and traveled along the Burma border for an hour and half north to the Mae La Refugee Camp where I have taught many times since 2011. Kawthoolie Karen Baptist School and College (KKBBSC) was graduating their senior college students and I wanted to be present to encourage and congratulate them. The first service was at 10 AM and lasted till 1pm the second service started at 2 pm and lasted past 6pm. Seated in the congregation I was summoned to the platform where it was hotter but free bottled water was passed out. Three students spoke all toll and many adults – leader figures – honored guests from far and wide. On the platform there were VIPs so called, many seemed a cross between NGO and Church leader with a smattering of volunteer teachers and a couple preachers. These came from Germany, Denmark, Australia, Korea, Malaysia and the US as well as from Thailand and of course the Karen from Burma (most everyone present were already working in Thailand or Asia). I would estimate the entire count of persons present including students to be over 900. This being the case it was especially difficult for anyone with preacher blood coursing through his or her veins to sit down once he mounted the pulpit.

Here follows a few brief reflections taken from my 6 hrs on the platform on this auspicious day with its auspicious guest speakers and honored students.

1. First consider the setting. Mae La Refugee Camp is situated 65 kilo north of Mae Sot along the Thai- Burma border on the Thai side. It is nestled at the base of a great mountain with a sheer rock face and it is out in nowhere. There are no towns or villages even close. It is rugged mountainous terrain typical of the Tak province of Thailand. 50,000 refugees live in this camp their dwellings cut from the flora and fauna they inhabit. In this desolate outback approximately 70 seniors, all Karen save two or three, robed and polished, as the proverb states, “after the similitude of a palace” filled the outdoor pavilion. With all the pomp and ceremony one might find on graduation day in a great cathedral on 5^th Avenue Manhattan the occasion went forward. The setting made me recall a chance casual conversation I had with a young lady sitting at the table next to me in Manhattan a few years back. She told me at long last she believed she now lived in the center of the planet – Hells Kitchen downtown Manhattan. This is where she believed culture peaked and she experienced herself on the cutting edge. I openly scoffed at her judgment but sitting on the platform the thought lit upon my mind like a butterfly delights a blossom – this, here and now, is the center of the planet. Here is why.

2. The Karen have many gifts but among their finest is music and especially singing. They not only love to sing and fill the valley with song from morning to night they have developed exceptional skill. At one point in the ceremony the entire student body rose and sang the Hallelujah Chorus. During the chorus I closed my eyes for a moment and saw the angels weeping. No words can describe the harmonic ecstasy and the sheer spiritual and aesthetic power of this moment. Where such worship occurs, I mused, then and there we find the center of the universe. This is so because in my humble judgment when such exquisite praise occurs in the midst of such hardship, there one has pushed trouble to the periphery and found the goodness of God to be the center of life.

3. Dr Simon the founder and director spoke of the origin of the school. Even though I had heard the story many times before it moved me again. In 1990 having fled Myanmar for the terror of the military that was reaping violence on their land and having found sanctuary in this camp Dr Simon dreamed a dream. With three other teachers and 6 students he opened KKBBSC and now 24 years later it has 500 students. But what’s more, the military who were motivated by ethnic hatred to destroy the Karen will in the end be defeated. Because soon the Karen will return and instead of returning beaten, weakened and begging for land and a share of the means of life they will return stronger, educated their native talents and gifts developed more than anytime in the past and confident of their belonging and right. What is the saying “revenge is sweeter when served cold.” And here certainly no revenge is intended but in the dues of God, (“God laughs at the wicked” the good book tells us) what was chased out and under will reemerge more potent and resilient than before. When justice, dignity and right are violated then it is, if and when education, study and reflection are mixed with this experience, that these become stronger, more self–conscious and determined. From the black churches in America the greater church at large awoke to the Prophets and Christ’s vision of justice. The Kawthoolei Karen Baptist have a distinctive fabric of justice and dignity woven into their religion and from the church in their midst (if they will) other churches in Asia may also awakened to the cause of justice incorporating it into their evangelism. This leads me to my 4^th reflection

4. Of all the distinguished and illustrious guests rich in experience and degrees no one in my humble opinion spoke with the poignancy and clarity as two senior Karen students. Each from his own perspective cast an eye upon their return to their homeland. They spoke of restoration of the land, the community and the work that needs to be done to replant and re-root their culture and nation again. These were at the same time concrete practical and visionary speeches. Never before visiting KKBBSC have I felt the imminence of the Karen hopes as with these seniors. It is as if many of them do indeed carry the burden for the return even more than the elders whose work is passing. “Young men grown up in their youth daughter polished after the similitude of a palace.”

5. Much was said during these speeches about the Karen nation and indeed a nation they were and a nation in exile they remain and a nation determined to be again in their homeland. Sitting there on the platform I could not help but think of the Jewish nation and their Babylonian exile. The shape and form of their nation before and after it changed. National ‘restoration’ no doubt echoed during the seventy years in Babylonian captivity but when the time of restoration came what occurred was not simply a restoration of the way things were in the past but a transformation of it. Judaism did not go forward in the same shape it was before. ‘Restoration’ on the other side of all exiles, no matter their cause, whether personal or collective, is found and built in a new way. The old that was lost when it is reborn goes through a change and re-emerges in a new form. Judaism returned to new religious and ethnic pluralism and keeping their identity depended more upon piety and taking care of the law (Torah) and embodying the way of the law in life. From henceforth the synagogue and the teaching that occurred within it began to emerge and eventually became an important center to hold the people together. This piece of Jewish history is, I believe, very instructive to Karen people at this time in their history – perhaps even more instructive now than the Nehemiah text of rebuilding the wall – the Scripture reading for the graduation.

Add to this historic reflection and comparison the fact that when messiah Jesus came upon the Jewish 1^st century scene he laid the groundwork so as to tie their ethnic identity as the historic people of God to ecclesia not nation perse. The future of nation was caught up by Jesus into the coming Kingdom of God something much bigger and broader than nation. And ecclesia i.e. the called or called out (church) became the gathering point this side of the kingdom and included all believers, Jew and Gentile and existed separate from state/nation. All confusion of church and state stand not only under the judgment of Christian history but also the ways and means of messiah Jesus. Nations do not cease to exist but they cease to be ‘Christian bodies’. There is only one Christian body – “where two or three are gathered in my name there I am present”. Nations who have within them genuine Christian communities (salty eccelsias) indeed benefit and are built up, strengthened and ennobled in a tangential accidental way. This side of the kingdom this is as close as ‘Christian’ comes to any institution whether it be a nation, marriage, political or social body.

Epilogue

I was asked to speak and introduce myself in a 2-minute envelope of time. I may have by passed my name I am not sure. Having taught many of the graduating students some of my insights on faith and hope I wanted to remind them of their significance for the time at hand. So instead of an introduction I told them that if they were to fulfill their graduation commission to serve Christ they must venture what Peter did – walk on water, not literally but after a similitude. The key to walking on water I said was learning to walk by faith not by sight. With this rather abrupt cryptic message lasting 1 minute 43 seconds I sat down. Here follows my meaning that I trust will make it round robin to a few of the graduates.

Yesterday (March 22,2014 and before) you (the graduates) were in the boat called KKBBSC. In this you were not much different than the 12 in the boat called GMS (Galilean Missionary School) under the head master Jesus. Today (March 23) you have gathered with family and friends in the presence of your teachers and elders to hear Christ bid you leave the boat and serve him in the world. In the boat you have each other close and you have the KKBBSC institution under your feet and in this boat you sing, study and play despite your refugee survival. You sing your dream song “row row row your boat gently down the stream merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream.” But now graduation has come and with it the definite word and time has come to arise and get out of the boat and get about your work. Times have and are changing for you. It is time to enlist your youth, zeal, time, strength and talents in service (with the exception of those of you who will post pone this calling and go on and study more). Like Peter, Christ bids you to get out of the boat and serve him in the face of humanity.

The boat symbolizes a degree of security. It is under you and saves you from being submerged in the often troubled waters beneath you. Some of you when you grasp the degree of the challenge ahead will say Lord just let us stay together and row the boat where you want us to go, others will say “give me a bridge Lord.” “Lay up a bridge and I will walk over it and go where it leads and there serve you.” But in the call to serve Christ bids you like Peter to abandon the security of the boat and walk on water.

If you are to get anything done for the Lord, if you are to make your way in service and be fruitful you must now graduate from life in the boat to life walking on water, that is to say you must forego the luxury of having a clear, strong, firm and secure foundation under your feet thereby upholding your journey. You must forego your predilection to first have in place all the material needs to get the job done; forgo having a firm foundation under your feet. No, to truly serve and obey his call you are and will be a little beyond the safe zone, beyond your means, beyond your native strength, beyond what hard logic and good common sense dictates and beyond the measure of competence that the preparations you have made heretofore equip you. And here in this place all that is solid melts into air and water and here you learn and relearn to trust something that cannot be seen, touched or felt. And when you venture forth without having all you need to hold you up then and then only have you graduated. Even so be sure all of us without exception fail and graduate over and over by the grace of God. We all hanker after a material foundation under us before we go forward, often demanding it in vain from God and others. Yes where opportunity puts helps, better preparations and supports within your reach do not be foolish, avail yourself to these but know one thing for sure – again and again God calls us out of the boat onto the water to get us where He wants us to go, do what he wants us to do and become what He wants us to be.

Look straight at what is not there, what ‘should’ be there, look directly at your lack of good support and the lack of material economic subsistence under you and your lack of thorough preparations and this absence will gain a negative spiritual magnitude will subdue and overcome your faith and destroy it and you will retreat. Sooner or later in life we all must learn to walk on water else we will either sink into despair and retreat or we will become graspy, demanding and forceful, ways far from the Kingdom of God that Christ has sponsored.

“Underneath are the everlasting arms” so reads the good book but most often you and I cannot see, touch or feel these sturdy caring arms. Courage, duty and Christ call you beyond feeling and sight to go forward on by faith alone and lay up good work and efforts in service to Him and his kingdom.

Together with you in His service,

Daniel Age
Teacher of the Gospel of Christ and Way of Faith

Photo Essay: Dr. Dan’s Teaching Visit to Hill Light Seminary

Posted on February 26, 2014 by agedaniel

From February 2nd through February 14th I was invited to teach the third year students at Hill Light Seminary. This was my first visit to Hill Light, a Karen Seminary, about 25 kilometers South of Mae Sot Thailand along the Burmese border. The school was recently established five years ago in the wake of the Karen diaspora. The school serves around 80 Karen Baptist Students from ages 18 to 24 all Myanmar refugees. By request I was asked to teach an ethics course based on my new book. What follows is a photo essay documenting my experiences at Hill Light.

1. These first two photos are from the Burmese Market a large open market dominated by Burmese immigrants, legal as well as undocumented, who have crossed the border into Thailand. Every morning almost before the roasters crow it is a teeming chaotic throng. My Bus to Hill Light Seminary left from this location.

2. The photo below is another shot at the Burmese market – the blue pick up with the cap is a bus, my bus which took me to a place called Ban Mae Kon Ken and from there I took a motor cycle taxi to the camp. Total Cost – 30 Baht per ride ($1.80)

3. This next shot I took from my bus in route to the seminary as we were leaving the Burmese Market. It was about 6:30 AM and these young monks in training were out for to give the local Mae Sot citizens an opportunity to acquire some fresh merits by supplying them food stuffs – mainly rice. The big fellow, not yet fully groomed and cultured in the soulful monk decorum sported a wide gleeful smile for me.

On an earlier occasion walking on an empty stretch of road I passed two young monk candidates about 9 and 11 years of age. As I passed my phone rang but I had set the ring to a frog tone which in the early morning air sounded true to life. The eleven year old remained expressionless and didn’t blink but the nine-year was over come with amusement and burst out laughing.

4. The next picture was taken at the general assembly which meets every Wednesday morning at 8 AM. In the early morning it is still cool this time of year in Northern, Thailand so many students come bundled up. I am speaking on a New Testament passage which the director requested. These are all 18 to 24-year-old Karen students from Burma who have come across into Northern Thailand seeking sanctuary from in the Myanmar military who invaded their villages killing, abusing and plundering. Myanmar is changing and hopes are high that a return from exile will soon come.

5. I was asked to preach at the Wednesday morning General Assembly on Colossians 1:15-23. Colossians is about fullness – “pleroma.” Holding a cup with water I opted to introduce the point by asking the proverbial question “is the cup half empty or half full?” After sorting out how many pessimist and optimists I was preaching to I proceeded to make my point. The Colossians were being suckered into a religion in which they were told that they could realize pleroma i.e. “fullness” here and now. But in this letter Paul’s testimony can be heard. Christ was indeed filled with all the fullness of God (2:10) but here and now we, on the other hand, suffer much emptiness and only enjoy a small measure of this fulness of the Spirit and life (just a taste of this promised fullness of Hebrews 6:5, Ephesians 1:12 & 13). By faith and hope in and through the Christ we are regarded as full (1:27 & 28)but when the fullness of time comes we will indeed enjoy this fullness in reality full and over flowing.

Now we suffer faith and hope – faith connects to unseen things as they exist by promise and by the word of the Gospel that declares the existence of unseen and even things not felt and experienced directly to be so. And hope lives with a measure of emptiness and suffering with courage waiting for this pleroma. We like the Colossians are tempted to break the tensions inherent in faith and hope and sucker after pseudo fulfillment, spiritual and secular.

6. Here is a shot of my class of third year students. The actual campus is really very beautiful, sitting on a hill-top overlooking a fertile valley. The campus is situated inside an old Karen Thai village called Kway Nam Ku. The building housing this class room, one of seven rooms, was donated by Korean Christians who retain the title and a degree of control over its use.Note the young lady in the front. Before her lies a copy of my book – a gift to each one who came to class and did the assignments. Fifteen students received books (I am in search of donors to back the cost at the discounted student price of $15, please email me if interested).

Third Year Karen Students at Hill Light Seminary

7. Below is a photo of my class and I on the last day of the seminar along with some of the feedback I received from the students on the lectures .

“I like this book very much because it provides many examples to understand. Jesus also used examples in His teaching.We don’t fully understand God and His ways, sometimes not even a little. But this book opened my eyes to walk by faith and not by sight (blindness is not a big deal).” Thit Sae

“I learned so many things from these lectures. Two weeks are too short of a time but we received an advantage from this time….This was strong spiritual food. It encouraged us to deal in God. It also encouraged us to steady our faith… Today we face many challenges and we know we can overcome these when we walk by faith not by sight…” Hsa Klay

“In this class I learned about faith and sight, faith and sight you explained very well and I understand more. I like this class so much because you tell us the teaching using short stories and then I read the chapter in your book which follows the lecture. I want to say thank you that you came and taught our class may the grace of the Lord be with you… the blessing of the Lord over flow you.” Naw Moo Christ

New Teaching Invitation at Hill Light Seminary

Posted on January 27, 2014 by agedaniel

I have recently received and accepted an invitation to teach third year students at Hill Light Seminary at Klee Thoo Klo (Huay Nam Khun) village which is seventeen miles south from Mae Sot, Thailand. The appointment commences on February 2nd.

Hill Light is a new seminary that has been in existence for only a few years. It has an excellent reputation of being well run with good student teachers from Naga Land, India as well as local Karen teachers and excellent leadership. Hill Light trains Karen Baptists from the “Golden Triangle” many exiled from Burma.

Attached is a picture sent to me of last year’s students. This will be my first time teaching at Hill Light. I have been asked to bring my new book on faith and ethics and lecture from it. I will have 15 students. If any one would like to purchase a book for a student at the Southeast Asian student price of $15.00 per copy, please email me at Daniel.Age@gmail.com for more information.

Sunday’s Preach

Posted on January 20, 2014 by agedaniel

On Sunday January 12, I preached on the Lord’s Prayer at the International Christian Fellowship in Udon Thani, Thailand. Here follows a small piece of that message and a few pictures. Following these thoughts are my notes on a new educational endeavor taken from a discussion with the Pastor Ben McClure, the director of the ICF and founder of their new Bible College.

Sunday Preach

7 “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread; 12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; 13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6

Prayer forms us before God and others in a particular way. We are changed from the outside in as well as the inside out by prayer. Form changes spirit just as spirit changes form.

In Matthew 6: 7-14 Jesus is transforming prayer. In his hands prayer is undergoing a decided change. Of course Jesus didn’t invent prayer nor did his earthly progeny David the struggling suffering shepherd Psalmist in his perilous route to the throne. Both did a lot of praying and left their mark on prayer but prayer had been around from times eternal. Almost certainly prayer emerged in history arising from those experiences, times and intersections in the human journey when humans found themselves between a rock and a hard place beyond the measure of their puny resources. In these intractable circumstances humans have always turned to higher powers however they have conceived them. When the Jews emerged into existence under Yahweh prayer went through the monotheistic purification and thanks to David, became filled with great praise as well as great passion looking to and trusting in God for help in these times of need. Despite all that David did to prayer teaching us to mix praise and confidence into our prayers in the face of trouble Jesus does something even greater

Pray “Our Father”

God and father may seem as symmetrical and logical as a lame man and a cane, as a fireman and a red ladder truck, a glove and a hand but this linkage exists only because of Jesus. It is true faint roots of this father identity of God can be traced back to the Old Testament but in Jesus’ hands it is magnified, expanded and informed. Coming to God as father transforms the one praying. Inside this basic furnishing of Jesus prayer we discover ourselves before God as son and daughter. Inside of this identity we belong, we are included in God in a particular way and just so if we are true to this form we commence to embody the proprieties that come with being a son and daughter. These include confidence, a God given dignity and freedom and imbibing the fresh brisk air that we belong. We do not earn our merit our placement with God it is our God given dignity. In giving Himself to us as father he gives us free rightful access to him. We are included in God and the circle of God. We stand and kneel praying and living inside the circle of belonging because God has shown up in and through Jesus as our Father.

Like oil in one’s bones in times of trouble using all manner of spiritual, moral and religious devices humans attempt to get into the inside circle with God where his helps can be readily accessed? Prayer that is full of fret and fever, beset by anxiety of an orphan and driven beyond oneself to promise making (most often which are ropes of sand), prayer that seeks out the holy, person, place or thing through which to mediate one’s petition, prayer which enters into intense spiritual machinations and bodily sufferings and restrictions to bend the “reluctant” hand of the Almighty all betray that the ones praying are wearing the primitive pre-Christian prayer suit. In these two words “our father” Jesus is clothing us and our praying with confidence, freedom and the dignity of a son and daughter beloved and included in the Father’s care.

Do your and my prayers betray spiritual machinations to get inside the circle with the Almighty in order to gain some leverage with Him or do they reflect the freedom and confidence of one who is by the grace of God already inside that circle? Or maybe neither, maybe we stand outside looking in wishing we had a way to the Almighty’s care. Here follows my definitive word ‘You can’t get there from here’. We start from inside because that is where we find ourselves saint, sinners, the good, bad and ugly!

If the shoe fits wear it and if this prayer shapes and forms your humanity before God in a way that is right and good then go with it. It is Jesus’ gift to you. Not because of our own righteousness nor by natural birthright, but by grace in and through the Christ – messiah, God made his way to us as Father. “Father” is costly grace, an adoption maneuver and just so when we, wandering nomads and orphans, utter this appellation it is our doxology and praise and the frame and prelude to all our petitions. Instantly we are no more alone – God is our father and we, looking out through this prism of truth, begin to see many brothers and sisters all around us.

“Our father” is the big deal in this prayer…

A New Christian Bible College Comes Into Existence In Udon Thani, Thailand

Posted on January 19, 2014 by agedaniel

The following is taken from my discussion with Ben McClure director of International Christian Fellowship (ICF) and founder of ICF’s new Bible College.

Pastor Ben started working in Laos 20 years ago. Christianity is limited to three official expressions in Laos, Catholic, a branch of the Evangelical spectrum of Protestantism and the Seventh day Adventists. Any other Christian group was and still is not allowed the rights of assembly. These three groups persisted from an earlier period by virtue of their pre-existing establishment before Laos became communist. Working under an NGO status doing teaching and beneficent work by day and meeting and teaching Laotians the way of Christ by night had its limitations – there was no good way to build believing communities. Their NGO status was closely monitored. Just across the border in Thailand religious liberty existed. This led to pastor McClure’s call to ICF in Udon Thani in the northeastern sector of the country and building the multicultural congregation that exists today. But part of Ben’s heart remained in Laos and this affection led him to start the Bible College. Now with about 10 students, many from Laos he has commenced classes. He has a vision and a fine partner and many native helpers to see it forward. He has his eye on purchasing land and piece by piece, the Lord willing, developing a school where students can become bi-vocational missionaries, going out with the ability and training necessary to plant churches leaving their training period with both a BA degree and the ability to support themselves and support their mission work. It is his hope as well that in time and in a rural location the school will be self-sustaining by developing agricultural horticultural endeavors. I assured him that from time to time I would bring my short-term intensive courses to help him as I have to other fledgling educational endeavors in Southeast Asia.

Photo: Pastor Ben McClure with members of the International Christian Fellowship

The Bengali Angel and the Miraculous Acquisition of the Book.

Posted on December 31, 2013 by agedaniel

Bangkok, Thailand

Suffering the Tension Between the Seen and the Unseen, the elusive book I have made claim to writing is now in my possession! Via Air Asia it made its way from Malaysia to Thailand on the 21^st of December but rather than arriving at Udon Thani as planned, it was mistakenly routed to Bangkok. But I could not reach Bangkok until after Christmas. Truth is stranger than fiction. Here follows the story of the Bengali Angel and the acquisition of the books.

The Lord used my new friend the Bengali Angel to move the hearts of Thai Customs. Anything I write about the difficulty gaining possession of these books is an understatement. We arrived on the 29th at International Cargo and after four calls to our absentee interpreter Nurse Rittiwong to interpret we left with instructions to return tomorrow. Bright and early we arrived the next morning only to be told that sometime between the time we left the day before and the present moment Thai Customs had decided to add an additional day to their New Year holiday calendar. “Please come back January 2” They said. “No one is here to process your books through customs.” We met a wall of resistance.

My pleas and Pearl’s (daughter) were met with “we are sorry, no way possible, today is now a holiday,” and with this epitaph the man who had come out to meet us from behind the window walked around a corner to disappear into an office deeper into the warehouse. At this moment the Bengali Angel mounted wings and barely touching the ground flew after him and lighting upon him smothered him with gentle pleas insisting that his professor Dr. Age had only one day left to receive the books before proceeding to his next post of duty.

Meanwhile I was pacing the loading deck in incoherent circles muttering insulting prayers to God. Since the shipment, bad luck had followed hard on my heels. By now my bad luck in obtaining the books had cascaded into a domino effect of ill luck. Chiayee and Dr. Ong from MBTS seminary had pulled out all stops to insure the books would reach me by Christmas and they delivered and they arrived on time! But whilst they arrived in Thailand on time for no fault of theirs they arrived at the wrong cargo depot in the wrong city. By the time I caught up with them they had been in storage 8 days. Events had side swiped all possibilities of receiving them before Christmas.

Soon Som, the Bengali Angel, came flying back around the corner and seized my computer where the shipping manifest was and disappeared again. He had managed to insert a little wedge in their determination to send us packing without even a chunk of coal in our bags. There were a few customs release agents preparing to depart yet in the office but the big boss had left. The authority to proceed was missing – what to do? Perhaps he could be reached by cell phone, Som reasoned. Soon he came whipping around the corner again and secured my passport and disappeared. We began to sense that a small window of possibility may be materializing, but we had no free confidence.

Reckoning the passing of time, the matter easily remained suspended in an indeterminate state of being for several hours. The first serious evidence of which way the wind was blowing was that Som returned to fetch me for an interview about who I was and what I was doing in Thailand and the nature of the writing. Debriefing me on the short walk to the lead assistant we integrated our stories that was basically true. By now they had studied my international movements recorded on my passport. The first question was “What was I doing here in Thailand and whether I was selling the books here in Thailand?” Evidently my answer seemed relatively benign so they proceeded to inquire about the books and their content. Casting about for a response I remembered a line from Luther when he was asked by Charles the 5th at the Diet of Worms about what was in his books and he said, “Well these books help people live better lives.” So I said, “My book is about helping people be good people and it is about ethics and faith.”

By this time Pearl, Som and I had taken up residence inside the Customs office where four female assistants were being ostensibly detained from their holiday. If one were writing this tale as fiction almost surely one would compose a climax at this point in the story. But in truth no climax occurred for 5 hours. Evidently some phone calls were made and we noticed two assistants were conferring frequently and then the forms starting materializing and signatures were requested. Then we had to determine the value of the 17 boxes (500 books) for a tax we would pay if they released them. Pearl was bold – she said were weren’t selling them in Thailand and had not paid to have them published so the only measurement of value had to turn not by market sales but how much it cost the publishers to print and ship one copy. Using this we put forth a ridiculously low value of 50 cents per copy.

Time was passing and by now we had been in the Customs office for 3-1/2 hours. Recently in Bangkok and all over Thailand, political protests have been roaring. They are almost surely on the verge of their 12th coup since trying democracy. Was I bringing politically charged material into Bangkok to fuel the fires of protest under the guise of a “spiritual, be a better person” glove? The lead assistant that emerged to broker the release process was a young pleasant Thai woman but sensing the buck would stop at her desk if she allowed the divisive material into Thailand she made a call to the for the boxes to be brought from deep inside the warehouse for a physical examination of the book and its contents. I had not seen the printed copy up to this point so we all walked to the fenced in warehousing section, a button was pushed and the gate went up and out came all my books on a pallet carried by a lift truck.

She opened a box and began to examine a copy. Pearl, Som and I had our first gander. I had a little rush but it was still too early for jubilation. The assistant studied the title and looked at the table of contents and then replaced the copy and walked toward the warehouse. Pearl who was doing a quick review was told to replace her copy. I also put my copy back into the box. I studied her face to see which way the wind was blowing. On my word I must report she had a very weird look on her face. I knew what she was thinking, “whatever this book is it is not what I had thought it was.” She seemed a little out of joint, not in her attitude but in her understanding about the book and of me. Thailand is 99% Buddhist and my subtitle has the phrase “The Doing and Undoing of Christian Faith, Religion, Ethics…” It was if she had swallowed an awkward shaped bite of food without chewing it and we did not know whether it was going to go down or come up. The forklift wheeled the books back behind the high-gated fence. Now there they were visible but out of reach.

We regrouped back in the office. And slowing we could sense the tide was not going out but coming in – the tide began to turn in our favor. Forms were delivered to us. Som, true to form, acting as an intermediary moving back and forth, brokered our questions about how to fill out the forms. They liked dealing with him. He had a tenacious disarming way with them that was far more compatible to Thai social decorum. So called falangs (Westerners) are often subtle as a train smash, but Som was cut from a different cloth and his Bengali accent and wry smile teased their charm. By the end I believe they were leaving many gaps in the process just to enjoy his mediation.

At this point I was summoned to the elder woman’s desk to sign and pay the first of four fees. At the elder woman’s side was the younger assistant. It was at this moment she glanced at me and nodded affirmatively “the process will be completed today” she smiled. With this news we took a walk to the main terminal and ate a 2 pm breakfast with zest.

In all toll I signed my name 37 times and we collectively emptied our pockets of over 5000 Bhat. When the books came through the gate to the loading dock the Thai assistants openly shined on us. In truth, they all blessed us with grace and warmth. When all was said and done, it must be said every single person in the whole process, about nine in total from both departments, was warm and gracious and rejoiced that they had succeeded in releasing the books to us.

Now we knew the “gods” of resistance had been defeated and that whatever challenges remained could not stop us. We had two simple tasks left – get 17 boxes of books from Air Cargo Don Muang Airport to a place of temporary storage. Pearl flagged down a four by four taxi with just enough room for three people, 17 boxes and the driver who we suborned with money into our service. Securing temporary storage was less a miracle, maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 2 compared to the Bengali maneuver.

One of the lessons in the book is that if we walk by true faith we must endure resistance and contradiction and we must hang in there daring to expect things to work out in the long run while suffering feelings and emotions that tempt one to conclude God has left us in the lurch and is not interested in our plight or frankly opposed to the matter at hand. Ironically, I found myself caught in these polar opposites at the terminus. Maybe I need not only to write this book but read it and well. Perhaps some of you might need it also.

Photo documentation of our epic retrieval by Som.

The Story of the Conversion and Calling of Pastor Zhang

Posted on November 15, 2013 by agedaniel

For the last three years I have traveled to Beijing and taught courses in Pastor Zhang’s seminary. On my last trip in the late summer of 2013 we went out to dinner together and I noticed his limp was more pronounced than the previous time I visited so I inquired. The following story came to me from this encounter here written with accuracy by Peter and Jennifer (their English names), two young converts from pastor Zhang’s Ministry.

This is the story of the conversion and calling of Pastor Zhang an evangelist in Central China for the last thirty-five years.

Pastor Zhang was born in a rural area in the central part of China in a locale where people had never heard about the story of Jesus. But things can be changed by the extraordinary grace of God.

When he was sixteen, he was very ill. He could not move any part of his body, just like a human vegetable. The doctor at the hospital told his parents they were powerless to save him, and he would die soon. This feeling of helplessness was terrible to him. The only thing he could do was to cry for help from all kinds of supernatural powers.

At that time, a believer who he knew nothing about nor had ever met, living far away, came to his village by God’s leading. This believer had lost her twin daughters 30 years earlier (i.e. they were separated from her and lost in the great masses of humanity that characterize China). She was a believer in Jesus at this time. Over a long period she kept on praying to Jesus and searching for her daughters insistently. Finally she got a message about where her daughters were. So she came to see her children and by coincidence, one of her daughters was Pastor Zhang’s neighbor. After knowing Pastor Zhang’s story, the older sister told him about Jesus and prayed for him every day. Zhang chose to believe God and swore that if he could walk again, he would pledge his life to Jesus.

Amazingly, he stood at his feet again! All the doctors who had ever treated him were shocked. From thenceforth he walked but always with a limp perchance to remind him forever of the Lord’s amazing grace. Immediately after this healing he began to read the Bible and soon he trained to become a worker of God. By the way, the Bible was not available to every believer in those days. He had to borrow a Bible from a brother and then he wrote out a copy of the New Testament by his hand for himself. After he began to work for God, hundreds of people believed Jesus because of his preaching and story.

Noticeably, preaching was forbidden in China at that time. Pastor Zhang was put in the jail for 2 years. After being set free, he went on with the work. Furthermore, some other works he has done are very profound, such as connecting Chinese churches with the churches around the globe and building up the seminaries.

All the above is what we know about Pastor Zhang. May God bless his workers around the world, especially Pastor Zhang and Daniel Age.

China Fall 2013 Photo Essay

Posted on October 12, 2013 by agedaniel

The following pictures were taken between China and Malaysia during the months of August and September 2013. I invite you to meet my students, friends and get a taste for my teaching travels.

The three pictures below were taken on August 23rd in a seminary located in the top of a non government church located in a village not far from the South China Sea. It is a new endeavor started by a “Brother Chen” who recently used his well developed organizational enterprise skills to launch this little college/seminary endeavor. The teachers come and go like myself from a list circulated by the underground church leaders and educators.

The first day we convened I wore a tie as is my habit but no other student came wearing a tie. The next day 12 guys had a tie on. No word was ever mentioned about class attire.

Not all but many of these masters level students traveled long distances to do their degree.

Zhang’s Beijing Truth Masters Class in Beijing. September 25, 2013.

During break time students administering recovery therapy to the Galatian’s teacher doing like the Galatians did for Paul when he sought sanctuary with them the first time. “Revive comrade we’ve only 2 chapters and three verses to go.” Union Seminary September 25, 2013.

Student dish washing clean up crew at Union… Near the South China Sea, September 26, 2013.

My Union Seminary Galatians class. China September 27, 2013.

After sitting front and center three feet from my table all day everyday transcribing my Galatians lectures she required a picture shoot before presenting me with her gift a full size home made paper rabbit in spite of care warning got squashed in my suitcase. September 27, 2013, Union Seminary China.

My Union Seminary Galatians class. China September 27, 2013.

Fixing dinner the old fashion way. China September 2013.

More traditional dinner prep. China September 2013.

Dr. John Ong president of MBTS with his wife at dinner. Thanks to Dr. Ong’s leadership this school runs well. It is a place where mission and education come together. Carved into a ridge overlooking Penang Bay MBTS is like a precious pearl in the grip of the sea. Truly God has blessed this school and gifted it with a visionary mission minded leader of no small talent.

“Red sky in the morning sailor take warning, red sky at night sailor’s delight”. My guest room a few miles from MBTS overlooking the Penang Bay in Malaysia at around 6 AM just before the call to prayer heard from the mosque a few blocks away. Malaysia, September 5, 2013.

This is a great nation on route to become considerably more powerful no question about it. But could have the Chairman envisaged his people out ‘capitalizing’ the West’s greatest capitalist. Capitalism’s energy here, especially Shanghai and South staggers the mind! Yes some of it is tied to the public purse but now Jeanne’s out of the bottle independent business tycoons are multiplying like the frogs of Egypt.

I have made a number of trips to China now and not with my head in the sand. They love American culture forget politics that for the professionals to worry about. Here in Beijing out for stroll one evening I came upon the Happiness Mart. Somewhere they picked up the idea that a business must mix a feeling experience with their product service. Dropping all subtly this business opted for a one line ringer that would fulfill the new advertising ethos. It was just a simple Seven Eleven type market.

Charles my assigned interpreter for one seminary told me he was exceptionally gifted. Time will tell but for now one thing I can safely say is that he is plagued with angst and guilt so much so that he was twisting with existential conflict whilst translating my words into Mandarin. Early on he confessed he was not only translating my words to his comrades but arguing with their logic and claim for how he was living his life. He could not look at the class directly without translating their learning faces into faces scorning and shaming him.Projections of the soul I assured him. I found it humorous and never withdrew from his obsession to try to talk his way free. Charles my friend its hard to kick against the pricks.

Mr Chen a quite humble man actually is the wheel that turns ever other wheel in his neck of the Christian woods. It was this man who moved a small mountain and launched a seminary where I taught my 2 Corinthians 5:7 ethics course this August.I found him disappear then appear. At one moment he was doing my washing and chasing down food for me, the next moment tending to his fledgling seminary project all the while never letting anything slip at his enterprise running a small factory in town. Every time he talks you think he is ready to break into a full laugh but to conclude that he is not reading and judging everything with a very careful discerning eye would be to make a gross mistake

Waiting for the five minute transition from live happy swimming fishy to a Chinamen’s warm belly. The setting here is a century old restaurant where fish pace up and down a ditch directly behind the cooks kitchen. A night out with the Union President for an old fashioned meal. China September 2013.

During my Galatian lectures in southern China [“Union”] Stephen sat on the back row smiling all the time. It wasn’t until 20 hours into the course when he passed me a question written in perfect English that I realized he could speak and write English well and was getting everything I said two times at every blow. In time we chatted and I learned more about his work. Married with a child he is plotting his mission project. Almost all of the students are cooking up a mission outreach project of some kind rather than graduating to an established church based ministry. Students rarely come to seminary here to matriculate directly to a church ministry. Stephen has his eye on Japan and knows Japanese. I have connected him to my old Japanese friends from bygone days studying in St Andrews and they are chatting. I am thinking this mission model would serve seminary and ministry in the West well. Ministry is too soft and cushy in the West where a kind of post missionary ministry that lacks verve and nerve has thrown its shroud over the church and the land. Ministry purified by mission clarifies what is transmissible in one’s faith if anything. China at Union September 27, 2013.

Dr Dan’s Teaching Mission Update: China – Fall 2013

Posted on October 5, 2013 by agedaniel

Dr Dan’s Teaching Mission Update: China Fall 2013

There are over 100 underground seminaries currently flourishing in China. A few operate out in the open in the south but most carry on in the shadows. To date over the last three years I have a served a little less than ten. There are Government approved and co-opted churches in which the government has ultimate restrictive control and say and then there are the underground churches. The former derive their permission to exist from the state and the latter from God. The former I call churches organized around top down power and the latter underground church is organized around bottom up power. The mere fact of the relocation of power in the underground movement accounts for a good deal of the new energy that is released.

I am writing this having just returned from China to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand where I will attempt some R&R and do the final editing for the long over do book “Existence and Faith: The Doing and Undoing of Religion in America”. Circumstances beyond my control have delayed the final editing until now. Here follows a brief report of the five legs of my mission teach in China then out to Malaysia and back in again. Of the five stops three were especially skittish about pictures and any precise blogging that would draw attention to their location and identity. In many places the situation appears to be loosening and it is but then just about when one thinks that calm has at long last arrived here to stay the corpse of old zealots suddenly starts kicking and flagellating.

I will avoid a chronological order and share bits and pieces freely of this six-week run. The visa process is sometimes daunting and from my standpoint inflicts unnecessary burdens. In order to fulfill my assignments I had to go in and come out and then return – always as a tourist.

At least one school I worked in has achieved a working sharing relationship with an approved government church and enjoys greater freedom. I have included with their permission a number of pictures from my time with them. There are cities in the south of China from Shanghai to Hangzhou where little government resistance occurs. My impression is that schools from the North and West have migrated to these cities and set up shop but remain very careful perhaps far beyond any caution due. Within 10 years the situation will be radically different, the Chinese are can do people extremely aggressive and undaunted at this time in history. Traveling to many Asian countries I feel this distinction sharply. The day when Mainland Chinese underground churches will educate their own teachers cannot be far away. Several of my students are going abroad for M Div’s. One leader told me within ten years itinerant teachers from the west and other Asian countries will not be needed.

In Beijing I asked one leader what the key to his success in planting and building churches was from a human standpoint and he simply said the government loosened the chokehold on us just a little and we immediately exploited this slight easement. He has been working for thirty years building underground churches and his story is amazing. It is being written up for me and will be posted soon.

I taught again in Beijing, stayed in a modest hotel and walked to the ‘school’ located in business high-rise office building. Here I met up fifteen older students working on their master degree. The course was Christian Ethics. The challenge during this week was translation. The translator that was originally planned fell through the last minute so two young guys were immediately drafted. English to Mandarin takes an experienced translator to pull off, these guys were not trained and still in the early stages of learning English. Many things could not be translated so I invented stories and suborned them into my service like mules enlisted to carry one’s luggage. I would spin a story and then show where the idea was in the story. Straight concept was way out of reach. But it was the heart these two guys nicknamed King David and Joseph the favored son. While one translated the other manned the computer word search back up post. The second day Joseph said he was whipped his brain had never worked so hard – and he looked haggard. I was like Pharaoh’s taskmaster lashing them to deliver the goods. But they had heart – and prayed, really embracing the challenge with spirit and this proved the tipping point I am sure. Spirit and grace salvaged the week and in fact this is true. And on the last day the students demanded that I share something from my own story in life and ministry so I told a few personal stories with no agenda whatsoever. So grateful were they to see my ‘in the trenches real person identity trying to work out my calling juggling the fatherhood duties of not so distant bygone days that they secretly pulled their RMB’s and gifted me a small send-off – a brisk and sweet embrace of their kindness and gratitude to me for my sojourn to their school.

This time, as always, it was a steady culinary struggle. Chinese eat many things at one meal. One meal where I went out with the surrounding pastors to a restaurant I counted 37 dishes on the table that turned in the middle. I am gastrointestinally challenged and did not look forward to school mealtime. Often I thought how to come up with a good excuse to legitimize my absence at the table, perhaps resort to the tried and true method – cut my toe off or run into a building face first. In spite of gastrointestinal disturbances by the grace of God I kept one foot out of the net and kept laying up new bounty on my ‘new’ ethics insights and also on my ride through Galatians. In Paul’s faith – sight polarity [2 Corithians5:7] there is an ethical well of pure water so deep and fresh as to be inexhaustible. In my course through Galatians I paid attention, to D G Dunn, Wright and Sanders gathering many insights [‘The New Perspective] but then went on to show that their Covenantal Nomism paradigm disintegrates under post exilic Hasidim separatism which infected 1st Century Judaism with legalism coming through the back door. After working through this book time and again I have never understood Paul so well. Even now Paul, who is the radical thinker and theologian Apostle, is domesticated by the church. In order to unhook Christianity from the train called Judaism and set it free to go into the Gentile world unencumbered by food laws, Sabbath days and holy rituals like circumcision and the other 600 plus laws he reshaped the people of God identity and the ethics that would carry it. Thanks to Paul the Christian way is ‘extra nomos’ – outside law. These insights and ‘new’ ideas I will put in my theological discussion column in this blog in 2 weeks.

After my first August run in China I went to Penang, Malaysia to meet the president of MBTS and speak to the student body and take a three-hour lecture with the D Ministry students on the foundation of Christian Ethics. The president Dr John Ong is a prince of a man and able leader of this school. I am honored to have bumped into him and liaise with MBTS to help out in their China seminary education mission. Beyond their service to Malaysia, China is their main mission field and they are coordinating teachers for underground seminaries all over China ranging from 40 students to a hundred or more.

The last school I served in southern China, ‘Union’ (September 18 to 27) had 46 students terrible as an army with banners. Before class started they sang and then prayed and when the appointed student prays he or she pauses between complete phrases at which moment the entire class provides a resounding a refrain – “amen”. It stirs the blood to say the least. I found the students spirited, full of questions and so full of youth’s verve trying their best to calibrate their devotion with what is true in the Christian faith. I am sure I fielded over 150 questions during this one week, eight hour a day course on Galatians.

Many students come to Union from far away some from the Mongolian border. In the middle of the week the president took me out to dinner in the mountains with my translators to a restaurant that dates back to the old way of raising one’s own food, cooking in a kitchen that dates back to the 1800’s with a little ditch outside the kitchen where live fish await their destiny so that from swimming to eating is a matter of a few minutes.

At dinner I learned about the president’s history. During the Cultural Revolution they confiscated all Bible’s all around China also in the city I was teaching in threatening imprisonment and hard labor for those who did not surrender them. He told me how his mother salvaged the only Bible in the area wrapping it in plastic and hiding it between a rock crevice under the stone bridge in her neighborhood much later when the heat resided she recovered it and it survives to this day. And true to her devotion her son now the president and founder of Union became an evangelist and traveled China for years building little clandestine house churches eventually ending up in prison. Such is the salt behind this school’s beginning by this family.

At Union one girl sat on the front row 20 years old with the maturity far exceeding her years. She had a natural way of keeping everything real and the questions she asked revealed her mind. With dead seriousness wrapping her question in a beguiling smile, as if it was a bit humorous and serious at the same time, she asked me why unlike her classmates the Christian message didn’t wind her up with zeal and feeling, surely there was something fundamentally wrong with her she implored. I told her to sit easy with feelings and flux of zeal and devotion and close to the teaching that made sense and spoke to her. She said “I think what you teach makes sense to me”. She was one of three out of the entire class who spoke English. She traveled 40 hrs by train from a city in the northwest close to Russia.

I went again to the motorcycle prison seminary. This is the name that I penned on it because when one goes into this school (once a motorcycle factory) there is no coming out until you served your time. This year about 70 students attend and live there male and female. The school is as obvious as a bird’s nest in a thicket. You can be looking right at it and never see a school. Once inside walks outside are prohibited. Inside an intense routine of worship, study, classes, and (in keeping with their habit) fast eating occurs like clockwork. Romances are not allowed. But who is surprised when 10 minutes after graduation ‘friends’ transmute into bride and groom and start ringing the wedding bells.

In my upcoming blog posting I will share a few thoughts and stories from the other seminaries that I taught at in China during this August – September 2013 run. Attached are a few Union pictures and a few others from 2 other schools plus a couple shots from my street walks. With these there are a couple shots from my visit to MBTS.

I must confess I am spent totally. Lecturing all day every day including morning and evening refocusing the lectures ends up a 12 hr day. I emptied the bucket again and again until there was not a drop. Chiang Mai is my appointed R&R town in northern Thailand. Here I will spend a couple weeks making the final, long over do, changes on my book before submitting it to MBTS then return to teach at a new Karen seminary along the Thai Burma border [Masters students only

God Bless you

Daniel

Don’t miss more photos from the road posted in the following China Photo Essay Post.

existence and faith

Author Archives: agedaniel