We worship at an English-speaking congregation that isn’t Lutheran. Given the choice between attending a more Lutheran service in Bahasa Indonesia when we can’t understand it at all, or dealing with doctrinal and traditional differences where we could hear the Word and be part of Christian community, we opted for the latter. It has been… Continue reading Christ the King
Category: Theology
LCS & TTC
Gotta love acronyms, right?! This afternoon I was blessed to meet with Bishop Lu Guan Hoe of the Lutheran Church in Singapore (LCS). Bishop Lu assumed his position in 2021 and I was happy to congratulate him in person. While the LCMS and the LCS are not in formal partnership, we have a shared Lutheran… Continue reading LCS & TTC
Watching Others Work
There are, of course, many other Christians beyond Lutherans at work in Medan and Indonesia. As we grow our network here we get to meet them and sometimes learn more about the work they’re doing. For instance, I had no idea there were Eastern Orthodox in Indonesia (Antiochan Orthodox, to be more precise). Then I… Continue reading Watching Others Work
The No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week
Pretty inspiring, huh? That’s why I swore I wasn’t going to post this week. Who wants to listen to something like that? Who wants to hear about struggles and illness, about how Satan can grind you down? Good Lord, most people have enough of those issues in their own lives and the lives of their… Continue reading The No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week
First Meeting – Bishop Lawrence of the ELCM
I was blessed today to meet with Bishop Steven Lawrence of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Malaysia (ELCM). He set aside not just time to meet in his office and to introduce me (and my wife, Gena) to their staff, but also to drive us 90-minutes to visit one of their ministries – the Women’s… Continue reading First Meeting – Bishop Lawrence of the ELCM
Hello From….Kuala Lumpur!
No, Kuala Lumpur is not, in fact, in Indonesia. It’s close by though, just across the Malacca Strait, and an hour from the Medan airport. We landed and discovered it was Malaysia’s independence day. Which means in the past two months we’ve celebrated three different independence days – America’s on July 4th, Indonesia’s on August… Continue reading Hello From….Kuala Lumpur!
Home!
It was a long weekend. We were up at 6am to catch a 10am, two-hour flight from Phoenix. A 2-hour stop in San Francisco and then a 10-hour flight to Narita, Tokyo where we had 30 minutes to make it to our next flight, a seven-hour flight to Jakarta, arriving at midnight Saturday night Jakarta… Continue reading Home!
God and Covid
I like to try and apply theology to actual life as much as possible. It disturbs me when these two things that are naturally and unavoidably related appear separated. Sermons and Bible studies should not serve as merely intellectual grist for the mental mill but guideposts and signposts in daily life. Failure to make this… Continue reading God and Covid
Mega
When you go to Walmart, or Target, or Home Depot, or any other number of retail establishments, you expect when you walk in there will be someone you can ask questions of, someone to show you where things are. Sometimes you have to hunt them down, but they’re there. Somewhere. Here in Medan, when you… Continue reading Mega
Goodbye Jimmy
That’s Jimmy, our first pet in Medan. Kind of anticlimactic in many ways. We didn’t pick him out, he picked us. We rarely saw him, except when we’d inadvertently open a cabinet door he was hiding behind. We joked about the parties he would throw when we were away from the apartment, but he was… Continue reading Goodbye Jimmy
The Nelson Family Indonesia 