First Blog since Asia

My plan was to blog throughout my time in Asia... but God had a different plan.  I was unable to access my blog almost the entire time I was overseas and the few times I could - I was also able to speak with my wife and son, and I chose to do this instead.  So - for the first time, in what feels like months - I return to the world of blogging!

As I sit here and try to think about what to write about my experience, I find the same problem I had as I tried to journal my thoughts each day... words don't do this justice.  Really truly, anything I can think of to say about our experience over there - downplays the reality.  

There is so much I have learned and so much that I have experienced that to record them all would take a long time, and no one would want to read that all - so I will share in bits and pieces as God impresses on me different moments and different experiences from Asia.  

Right now, the thing that is sticking with me - is the Freedom we enjoy here in the USA that is completely foreign in Asia.  Each country we visited had to some degree - a level of persecution or restriction placed upon the Church.  It was heartbreaking to see what some of the Xians have to endure for the Gospel.  But, it was encouraging to see them enduring it and considering it a joy to face trials!

It really struck me in China - that we American Xians have NO IDEA what persecution is.  I have read the New Testament, and I see what the first Christians went through, and I know a little of Church History and what occurred - but it was always a history lesson, never something that I thought still happened today!  Wow, was I naive.  In Beijing - everything is under gov't control!  The cabs are all run by the gov't and there are literally microphones in every cab - video surveillance everywhere you look and NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY!  I asked one of the girls who helped a pastor we were getting to know, if they had a right to privacy, and she looked at me like a confused puppy.  She didn't understand the question!  What a different world we live in here in America.

It's funny - those who know me, would say that I am about as patriotic as an agnostic is religious.  Just don't care.

Well, that has definitely changed as a result of being in Asia.  You don't truly appreciate freedom and rights, until you experience them being taken away!  In China, you aren't allowed to get on Facebook, to get on Twitter, to access blogs.  You can send out emails, but the gov't reads them first.  Your emails come into your Inbox already having been read.  When you are out in public - it is wise to sensor your speech, we didn't use words like "missionary", "Bible", "preaching", "pastor", etc... because the gov't is listening to every word you say!

I knew that I was going to come back changed and that God was going to do a work in my heart - and I had prepared for God to tell me that I was suppose to move to China or something.  Never in my dreams did I imagine I would come back with a love for America and a heart to see our freedoms protected and ensured!  

We need to care about what is happening in our country, we need to care about the laws that are being passed.  And with each new law and each new regulation - we are surrendering our rights and giving more control over to the gov't - who little bit by little bit - is stealing our freedom.  And, having just experienced NO FREEDOM - let me encourage all of us, to get involved and be instruments of change and to become activists for freedom!  Because Xians are the first ones to be censored and monitored.  

Is that what we want????