The Sap Will Rise

Tree in Angkor Wat

Tree in Angkor Wat

The Sap Will Rise. © Malcolm J Duncan

When the icy hand of winter

wraps its fingers round your throat

And you feel like you cannot breathe –

the Sap will rise.

When all you see is deadness

When the Spirit’s wind is biting

When the soil of your heart is ice-hard

When growth is a distant memory.

The Sap will rise.

When your words lie like dead leaves,

When your surroundings feel barren,

When the moments in your life feel dark,

When the Son shines through

The clouds of despair and doubt,

The Sap will rise.

When your reading is dry,

When your prayers are hollow,

When your praise is powerless,

When your passion has gone,

The Sap will rise.

Spring will come again.

Roots will drink from Life once more.

Hope will push through the dark soil of despair.

Green, bright, small and vulnerable

Perhaps.

But He is here.

The Sap will rise.

Simple Joy! - Reflection 3 on my Cambodian Visit

'Simple Joy' (Taken on the roadside in Phnom Penh, Sunday 3rd February, 2013) (C) Malcolm J. Duncan.

Joy is a funny thing.

Joy is a funny thing. We so often mistake if for happiness or a light, Cheshire - cat like grin pasted on our faces when people ask us how we are and we want to make sure they think we are okay. We can undervalue its meaning and miss its purpose.

Actually biblical joy is much more akin to the idea of exuberance for life or irrepresible hope or tenacious determination to live or something like that. Its so much deeper- and so much more powerful than just happy. I had been thinking about that a little last Sunday when I was ministering in the morning to the congregation at Living Hope in Christ Church in Phnom Penh. Afterwards, my host, Pastor Barnabas Mamm (Read his book, 'Church Behind the Wire' if you haven't done so already - it is the story of faith in the worst of circumstances) was driving me to a place on the egde of the city where the ministry he is involved in hopes to build a new discipleship centre. On the way, we passed these two boys on the road - and they captured what I meant about 'joy'!

Look at their faces. We stopped and I got talking to the boys a little. The plastic 'hat' on the younger one's head is plastic saucepan. Here were two kids walking along a dirty, dusty road in their bare feet. No shoes to protect them from dangerous glass, snakes or anything else. The neighbourhood was one of the poorest in the city. They had so little - but look at their faces - joy! An exuberant approach to life. They were naturally - not deliberately or academically - enjoying being alive. After I took the photo I showed it them and they laughed and giggled and pointed hilariously (children always do that with photos, don't they) and then our ways parted. They taught me 'joy'. I went back to my schedule and they went on with their day.

Yet these two young boys left an imprint on my heart. Their young, hopeful, life-brimming eyes looked into my soul and left me wondering what has happened to childhood in the UK? When I was a boy, I could easily spend hours playing with a bit of paper and a pen, or an old tennis ball pushed into the bottom of a long sock. Life was there to live and no matter what happened, I had (I think I still do to some extent) an irrepressible optimism. Some pretty bad stuff happened to me when I was a kid - but none of it stole my 'joy'.

When my own children were young, they loved the paper wrapping at Christmas more than the presents, so did yours, no doubt...

So why do we, when we become older, allow this exuberance for life to be taken away, dissolved? Is it cynicism, realism, negativity, life? Or is it we fail to look at the world through the eyes of a child.

As I drove away from the boys, I remembered Jesus words that if we want to enter the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom of Life, we have to become like little children again.

I think I understand why.

Lessons in Generosity and Hospitality - Reflection 2 on my Visit to Cambodia

"Lunch in a Rural Cambodian Village" (Taken 2nd February 2013)

So today found me up with the lark and on the road out of Phnom Penh to minister to men and women who live in villages around 3 hours outside of the city. The journey there was full of fun, laughter and genuine fellowship as I shared my story with other pastors travelling with me and they shared their stories with me.

One had been controlled by evil spirits and his life had been blighted by struggle, sickness and poverty. His whole family had been gripped by fear and sadness and loss, then he met Jesus and everything changed! Since then he has been free from fear, and many of his family have come to know Christ. The sickenesses that he was afflicted with have been lifted and he is serving the Lord with great faith and passion. Another lost most of his family in the 'Killing Fields' yet has forgiven the killers and has come to faith in Jesus and is now reaching out to the very people who attacked him years ago. These are amazing trophies of grace.

Generosity embodied.

When we got the village, the whole community had gathered to hear the 'English' (!) preacher. We were met with beautiful fresh coconuts, served a lavish lunch (see picture) and honoured in so many ways. I preached on 2 Corinthians 1:10 and encouraged those present to remember that God had delivered them, was delivering them and would deliver them. They had been set free from the penalty of sin, were given power over sin and would one day be freed from the very presence of sin. We had a wonderful time of fellowship and celebration together.

What has struck me here, as in so many other countries I have visited to minister, is the utter kindness and generosity of the people. They have so very little, yet give so much away. The lunch is just an example. The best chickens prepared for us. Beautiful dressings for more rice than I have ever seen (the Khmer people have rice with everything!). Fish caught and delicately prepared. Noodles, dips, bottles of water, coconut. The table cleaned and set out especially. The room pristine and ready for  respectful hearing of God's word. 

It's more than just food and clean rooms though. The generosity and hospitality of the people here is seen in their welcome, their love, their attitude, their smile. You feel it when they greet you. You sense it when they give you a glass of water. They want you to know you are welcome. They aren't being legalistic, doing something because they have to. They are being generous because they have experienced the generosity of God, because they have a culture of honour that outstrips anything I have ever seen in so called 'Christian' Britain and because they believe that those who teach God's word are worthy of double honour (something deeply biblical about that and often forgotten in our churches in the UK).

They may be poor - but they are rich in their kindness. Maybe it is because they do not see their possessions as symbols of their status? Maybe it is because they are more biblical than us. Maybe they are not as caught up with 'stuff' as we are. Maybe they are just more willing to embrace the reality of being the family of God.  There are many reasons why believers I have encountered in other parts of the world are more generous and hospitable than we Christians in Europe.

To be honest, the church in the UK (by and large) has nothing, absolutely nothing, to teach the church in Asia or Africa and or Australasia, or even the USA, about generosity and hospitality. Every single country I have visited over the years has been better at being generous than the UK church. Don;t get me wrong - I am not having a sideways swipe at any church that I have led or lead in the UK. I happen to think that Gold Hill is a kind, generous and open handed community and there is no other place I would rather be and no other local church I would rather lead (I miss you guys sooooo much when I am away). Yet we still have much to learn.

Real generosity - lavish kindness like you see here - is not a stifling, 'we can't afford to be kind', 'don't give them too much' kind of attitude. Real generosity, the kind that opens your eyes in wonder and leaves you speechless in gratitude springs from the conviction that Christ has been lavishly generous to us and so we should be to others. It springs from a deep understanding that it really is more blessed to give than receive. It flows from the belief that the church should be a kind, open-hearted, loving, giving, authentic community that welcomes strangers, provides food for the hungry, water for the thirsty and a warm, whole-hearted welcome to those whom we meet.

Paul told the early church to 'do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith'. I think there is something of the early church's true koinonia, genuine oneness and willingness to be a family that we in the West have lost and are losing.  I also think the early church knew how to honour those who taught it, led it, loved it and prayed for it in a way that many of our churches have lost.

I thank God for the ways in which He is ministering to me through the people of Cambodia. I thank God for the church here. I pray I can be as generous in my time and sharing of my gifts with them and others around the world and in the UK as they have been with me.

And I know this - the church here will never out-give the generous, abundant, lavishing kind God that sent His Son for us.

A Viral Campaign...

Let's start a viral generosity campaign! Give something away this week. Invite some friends for a meal. Give someone a gift of time, or a cup of coffee or a smile. Bless your church leaders by praying for them. Make sure you honour them financially. Be lavish with God's resources that He has entrusted to you. Who knows - we might just change our communities one life at a time. And the world will be changed when our communities are. Let the church of Jesus be known as the most generous, kind, compassionate people on earth!

Beauty in the midst of pain - reflections on my first days in Cambodia

Small Flower at Killing Fields

Beauty in the Midst of Pain (Picture taken at Killing Fields on 31st January 2013)

I arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday 28th January and leave on the 11th February. Until the middle of the first week of February I am serving in and around Phnom Penh then I travel by coach to Siam Reap to serve there with some colleagues.

My first few days have been days when I have seen the beauty and the depth of this land. My first lodgings (I have since moved to the next ones) were just on the corner of Tuol Sleng, the notorious prison of the Paul Pot years where thousands and thousands of people were imprisoned. Most were sent from there to the Killing Fields where they were executed. Yesterday I visited both Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields and was deeply moved by both. The people of this land have endured much.

They have been occupied, brutalised and butchered, yet they carry a gentle, loving and gracious spirit that is deeply moving. Yet you know there is a deep wound in this land. A wound caused by decades of pain and loss. You cannot meet anyone whose family have not been affected by the history of Cambodia over the last thirty years. Whole generations gone. What for? Some for being able to read, others because they wore glasses. Others because they went to school. Needless, meaningless and indescribable. The pain this nation has had to endure is such that no nation should have to endure it.

A Cambodian Holocaust.

There is only one word for what the people here have endured - a holocaust. Conservative estimates put the deaths over the Paul Pot years at between 2 and 3 million people. I met a man today whose 6 brothers and sisters, mother and father and entire family were butchered. He survived alone. Yesterday I spoke with someone whose relatives were killed in front of them. Next week I will meet someone who was taken to the Killing Fields, hit on the the back of the head with a hoe and thrown into a mass grave, presumed dead. Other bodies were thrown on top of him, then DDT was poured over all the bodies to mask the stench. It ate its way through the bodies too - but did not reach this man. He crawled through the blood and the remains of others and now lives to tell the story of the God who rescued him. The man I met today is training and releasing many people to extend God's Kingdom.

In the midst of the terrible pain, you see, there is hope. A vibrant, red, indestructible hope that blazes out in the midst of the pain. A hope which has been born out of the blood of many, and now seeks to point people to the God who can turn this land around - no, the God is turning this land around.

We do not want to beg.

At the Killing Fields, as I left, there was a sign which read, 'We are Cambodians! We do not want to beg, we want to work!' There is a resolve about the spirit of these people - a determination. They do not want to stay locked in the past. They want to look forward. The people are blighted at the same time with a deep, deep sadness. How could they not be? A whole nation's psyche has been crushed. But if you look closley you see flickers of hope. Tiny hints that suggest the people jere do not want to stay victims.

It may take another twenty years, but I believe the sign outside the Killing Fields. I choose to believe that the people I have met are the future of this nation. Cambodia has fine Christian leaders who are working tirelessly to raise up a generation of people who can go further than they have. Perhaps the men and women of today are still too closely connected to the Pol Pot years? Perhaps they will not be the ones to lead Cambodia's church into its full inheritance - but they are working to raise up a generation who will. I see passion, faith and hope in the people here. I spent time today with young leaders and pastors who have a passion for the Kingdom and want to see Cambodia changed. I listened to them pray and cry out to God for their nation, for their family and for their villages. I saw them weep for those who have gone and cry out for those yet to be. I see faith in their eyes for a brighter future - one where justice and equity and fairness are once again hallmarks of this nation.

Bands on Bamboo at Killing Fields (1)

Bands of Hope (Taken at the Killing Fields, 31st January 2013)

Bands of Hope

At the Killing Fields, there are thousands of brightly coloured bands tied around bamboo fences which mark mass graves. They have been left by people as memories - markers of a loved one who mattered. The flutter defiantly in the wind, their colours glinting in the sun. They hang on the 'Killing Tree', a terrible spot where infants were lifted by the feet and had their heads bashed against the trunk of a gnarled tree, then their remains tossed into an open mass grave. Each brightly coloured band screams at those who visit - we will not forget them. Paul Pot could not destroy the bands of family. He could not destroy the love that existed and still exists between those who love one another. The bands that now flutter in the wind declare to a watching world that the lives of those who died mattered - the lives of those who died matter. This country has 300 such killing fields - and each is marked by great sadness, but they are also marked by what I describe here as 'Bands of hope'.

There are other bands of hope too - men and women, children and young people who love Christ and love Cambodia. They are bright, beautiful bands of people who declare defiantly to the world that God has a plan for this nation. He will turn the tide of sadness and once again laughter will fill homes, cities and this country.

I am honoured to be here and serve them. I pray that I can continue to do so.