Last week one of my readers asked me to comment on the year-long process to become Orthodox and be allowed to participate in the sacraments. Let me begin with a bit of contrast. Recently, an evangelical who worked on the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign, and is a blogger, wrote a posting listing ten problems with […]
Why don’t we reach out to the inner city?
A fellow blogger has asked the question as to why non-inner city Christians do not do more inner city work. I was going to answer his question, and then I realized that my answer would be too long for a simple comment, so I decided to put it here. There are a complex of reasons why non-inner city […]
Lived Theology School
NEW! Opportunities through the Lived Theology School (LTS) program at St John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto Canada. St John the Compassionate Mission is an apostolate of the Carpatho-Russian Diocese. GUEST-WORKER VOLUNTEERS Come alone, or in a group, stay at Lourmel House (LTS), work and pray and share and grow. Accommodation and board provided free. […]
Power encounters and missionaries
When my wife and I were planning to go to missions, we had to read all the mission literature. At that time, one of the big theories was the “power encounter.” What is the power encounter? Basically, it is a demonstration of God’s power that allows the missionary to overcome the cultural and other resistances […]
The poor teach us
The poor teach us. No, no, no, I am not talking some of the sloppy sentimentality that passes for serious thinking in too much of the Hollywood set. Rather, today I am thinking about the example of a friend of mine. In southern Peru, I was field director of a region. I had two indigenous […]
Another Perú missionary stress story
When my wife and I first arrived in Bolivia, in January of 1990, we went to Cochabamba to attend the Instituto de Idiomas Maryknoll (Maryknoll Language Institute). My wife was taking the beginning course, while I was taking the advanced course. Though I was born overseas, I had grown up in the USA. So, I […]
Post-traumatic stress syndrome and the missionary
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. When I was a child, I can remember jokes […]
