From KL to NC!

From the US, Zoom brings inductive teaching of the gospel of Mark to a church of new believers in rural India

Dear Friends,
Our lives have changed dramatically in the last six weeks—from the seventeenth floor of a high rise to a house surrounded by forest, from train trips to the dense city center of Kuala Lumpur for staff meetings to owning our first car in several years and walking to church staff meetings three minutes away, from daily phone calls on Lisa’s part with her mother expressing unhappiness with her life to daily expressions of joy and gratitude at the fresh food we serve her and the care we express as we assist her with life. This last change confirms that we have made the right move, even if it was hard to say goodbye (for now at least) to friends, students, and coworkers in Malaysia.
In late April we sent out a letter about our need to move to Durham. We asked for prayers for guidance and provision for us, and we are thankful for your prayers! God indeed did pave the way for us when one friend who read our request connected us with Triangle Grace Church in Durham, which was in a leadership transition with their young adults ministry. Within 3 weeks of our arrival in Durham, we had moved into the home that the previous young adults ministry leaders had vacated, and the church members even built a ramp for Nancy. We are exchanging part-time work with this ministry and other aspects of life of the church for rent on the home. If we had moved to Durham without this arrangement, we’d obviously have looked for a church home, and likely would have chosen Triangle Grace as the church for us.  But with this arrangement, we came into the church not only with housing, but with ministry partners and open doors for teaching and investment in the lives of young people. We have quickly come to appreciate the senior pastor and his wife, who welcomed us into their home and family life for a week while we were getting settled here.
Let me give you a glimpse of how ministry in Asia is continuing in exciting ways. Yesterday (Saturday) morning, I taught a session on Jesus’ varying leadership styles with Odisha pastors and leaders, including several women. Later, pastors and lay leaders in Nepal gathered to look at Abigail’s wise handling of the conflict between (not-yet-king) David and her rude husband, Nabal. We both remain quite engaged in teaching in Asia, and as we were doing during the pandemic, that has all been mediated through Zoom in the last month. Here is a list of our current weekly commitments:
Rich

• 1 Session with Nepali pastors and lay leaders
• 1 Session with Chinese lay leaders
• 5 Sessions with Indian pastors, church planters and lay leaders in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Andra Pradesh states.
• 2 Sessions teaching a course on John’s gospel in Malaysia at Alpha Omega International College

Lisa:

• Preaching course for MA students in Malaysia at St Paul’s Theological College.
• Ethics course for doctoral students in Malaysia at Asia Graduate School of Theology.
• An asynchronous course for Fuller Seminary D.Min. students from around the globe.

We are also grading for courses we taught before we left Malaysia, and preparing for new courses we will be teaching in the fall and early next year.
Having been to India and Nepal already twice this year, I was hoping to be able to arrange another trip sometime in the later summer, say early August. But that will now no longer be possible. But what is possible is scheduling short conferences in India like the one I did this past week with my partner Pastor Subash in Southern Odisha state. Subash leads a network of over 100 mostly rural pastors and church planters. Some of these pastors, usually about 25, are on a zoom call with me every week. But many of them could not afford the cost of a smart phone or the monthly data costs to enable them to participate in the Zoom calls.
So Pastor Subash scheduled a two-day conference in Karli, a small village about 70 minutes outside the Subash’s hometown. He brought several close-by pastors together with 30 members of the newly planted congregation in Karli to study with me the first few chapters of the gospel of Mark. We met 10-4PM (India time) each day for two days and I taught 3 90-minute sessions each day. (The sessions were 12:30AM to 6:30 AM for me, so they did alter my sleep schedule somewhat!) Subash had one device, with which he could hear and see my teaching, and from which he translated both directions the inductive study we did together. (This is pictured above.) I had taught in-person in many places like Karli, but it was a real pleasure and privilege to gather with relatively new believers and to hear their questions as we studied the gospel of Mark as if they were hearing it for the first time, because almost all of them were. Though they were rural people, without a lot of higher education, they asked great and sometimes surprising questions of the text. They were powerfully struck by the words and actions of Jesus as displayed in the pages of Mark.
We appreciate your prayers.

• Please pray for us for continued consistent care for Nancy.
• Please pray for our ongoing teaching in Asia and for discernment regarding planned trips to India this fall. Likely our two trips will become one just for me. We need discernment for timing and focus.
• Please pray for the ministry we have begun here in Durham at Triangle Grace Church with the group of around 10 young adults. We also will be preaching and teaching as there are opportunities, the first of which is Lisa preaching on July 7th.

Thank you for all your prayers as we continue our transition. So many of you replied to our last email with encouragement and prayers, and please keep those coming!
Rich and Lisa
          Bruce, Bill and Doug, members of the facilities team at the church, built the ramp that makes
Nancy’s entry into our forest-surrounded home possible. I dug post holes and fetched things.