(See pictures) It’s been a week since I returned from Asia. What a Trip! I believe God used it to help build things He has already been doing. For those of you who weren’t on the trip prayer e-mail, I’m going to put a few excerpts from those messages. The one below comes from and excursion that I took that lasted a couple of days in “The Large Country in East Asia” itself.

From March 30:

The first dinner in “The Large Country in East Asia” WAS truly amazing. I was staying in the home of a high level executive of a important company who was a student at UTA and the time with him, his family and three of his classmates blessed me. His parents cooked and it was like being in a Hong Kong Restaurant. Three of his classmates, also significant businessmen that I knew well joined us. One even traveled half-way across the country to be there. 

Three members of this UTA class took me to place golf at a special club in “The Large Country in East Asia”. I was crossing two cultures, I had never played golf at a club before (one culture) and the Asian style (walking on the course with a professional caddy – two cultures) was also new. I also hadn’t played in more than a year and a half.  I was anxious and asked some to pray that I would not be so bad as to be a distraction from the conversation. My discussions with the guys were good. Golf was a real entry point to the hearts of these guys to significant things while we were in Arlington. They looked forward to the golf but also the little talks Ron used to share. They told me that they will never forget that time and the discussion turned toward life issues. 

A student flew all the way down from far North in “The Large Country in East Asia” (making a point that he came just for this after hearing about it a couple of days earlier), was tearful in his sharing how much our friendship and exposure to God and real peace meant to him. Another, also from far away, in tears,  shared about the impact his host family had on his life. Several shared fond memories of the discussions they had with us about significant things.  Another who came from afar shared about how much he learned in his times with Ron and how much that meant to him. A young lady who flew all the way from the capital, shared how the others in the capital wanted to be there, but she was the only one who could break away and she felt uncomfortable with the responsibility of representing them. She then shared a lot of special memories, including things about her son’s experience with his Boy Scout leader, who came out to the Capital to visit because the Scout leader’s son was serving in a church related English program there. Another of the student’s sons shared how his teacher at Duff Elementary continues to communicate and plans to come out some day… 

Probably the most notable story was from someone who was not one of the students we knew at UTA. This student, a post-doc researcher at UTA, shared about the impact friends at FBC Arlington had on him. He was touched by how open they were to him and how much they lived Jesus’ love. As he heard the stories this night, he used that as examples of the truth of the love of Jesus followers. He has not yet become a follower but he wanted to bring the same thing to “The Large Country in East Asia”. As an instructor here, he has had students over his house. He enjoyed it for a time, but the normal flaky nature of students made him discouraged. He asked me how we did it, year in, year out. I was able to share the story about the promise by Jesus to give is a spring of living water that never runs dry. It was a delightful conversation. 

Honestly, most of the stories shared were examples of followers of Jesus just being themselves – living out loving God and loving others. I don’t think most of us thought twice about what we were doing… I know I didn’t too much, but it rubbed off and I know Jesus was honored