New Asian Friends in Lincoln, Nebraska

Last Monday I hopped a ride down to Lincoln, Nebraska, where I’m  visiting and speaking for the next couple of weeks. To my surprise, when I got out of the car in front of the home of my host family, I was greeted by a man with Taiwanese ancestry—the first I’ve met in Iowa or Nebraska.

Kevin is a cancer doctor at an area hospital. His wife Maybelle, a Filipino American, is a PA (physician’s assistant) in another location. Both Kevin and Maybelle are faithfully living out the call to “Be Light” in the marketplace.

Kevin invited me to “job shadow” with him yesterday, visiting  patients and hanging out in his office at the radiology clinic. As you can see, he’s a huge Jeremy Lin fan!

Read more about Kevin and his Taiwanese roots on page 23 of this article about Lincoln’s 20 Under 40.

Also, for anyone interested in leaning more about cancer, Kevin highly recommends the recent bestseller The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Besides church meetings and meals, other activities I enjoyed this week included taking Kevin and Maybelle’s friendly pit-bull Laoban 老闆 (Mandarin Chinese for “boss”) for an hour-long walk while his owners were working. LaoBan pulls very hard on the leash!

I

 

Thursday night after basketball with a few men from the church and community, we enjoyed some Vietnamese-style sandwiches, bubble tea, and coffee!

Charles City, Iowa

Last Friday I rode 6 hours from Nebraska to visit friends here in Charles City and Nashua, Iowa. Last year and on several other previous occasions, they  visited us in Taiwan.

Last year back in Taiwan my neighbor and friend Mr. Ding had drawn and presented this picture of a dragon to Sheila. She and her husband  since purchased a box for it and put it on the shelf in their house in Iowa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also last night, we passed by the famous country church below.

Tomorrow, westward to Lincoln, Nebraska!

American Beef

Yesterday afternoon my new friend Steve took me around with his brother and son while they moved cattle from one field to another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Moving Cattle

On the third trip, they moved two bulls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the farm, these calves had just been weaned from their mothers a few days previously.

i

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I

Weaned Calves

In the evening I had another chance to share at the church again. People asked lots of good questions.

Cabin in the Country

The friendly folks here in Brunswick, Nebraska (population 129) have put me up for my 4 day visit in a lovely cabin by a pond on remote private property…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a little too chilly fo sliding down the sliding board, using the diving board, or for swimming, but I’ve enjoyed walking around.

 

 

 

 

I I I I I

I woke up Sunday to a dozen or so wild turkeys. There are also deer and blue heron to be admired from the comfort of the front porch, dozens of easily-spotted trout in the creek just behind the cabin, as well as the beautiful starry nighttime sky far clearer than any I’ve observed for several years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To top it all off, earlier Monday evening before rushing off for an appointment I enjoyed pulling in three good-size largemouth bass-- 2 of which pulled on the reel’s drag--- all within a half hour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Tuesday morning I caught 4 more nice ones—in just a 20 minute span!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday I had the privilege of sharing three times about Taiwan.  Though there were no meetings Monday, I enjoyed getting together with two couples for good meals and conversations. Meetings are on for both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. A great start to tour so far!

The Power of Habit in Societies

A few days ago I finished listening/reading to The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg.  While overall just an average, common sense read, the chapter about Habits of Societies: How Movements Happen stuck out to me. This chapter first shares the story of Rick Warren planting Saddleback Church. It then traces the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement by telling the story of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the recruitment and involvement of Martin Luther King, Jr in all this.

As the bus boycott expanded from a few days to two months, the  commitment and enthusiasm of the local black community surrounding the young Dr. King began to fade. But one evening a bomb explosion in front of the Kings’ house galvanized the community and its extended web of relationships, transforming it almost overnight into a self-organizing  movement learning and implementing new habits.   They began to take greater ownership of their movement.

According to the author, movements don’t emerge because everyone suddenly decides to face the same direction at once. They rely on social patterns that begin as the habits of friendship, grow through the habits of communities, and are sustained by new habits that change participants’ sense of self. (p. 244)

As I reflect on this statement in relation to my work the last five years  as a church planter amongst the traditionally conservative working class peoples living along Taiwan’s western coastal plain in south-central Taiwan I can make the following observations:

1. We have correctly been prioritizing relationships and relation-building. We’ve gotten to know a number of people and while perhaps not all that many are true friends, we do have many acquaintances.

2. We have seen limited success thus far in empowering our small church community take ownership of the work. Like Dr. King who wrote in the days leading up to the pivotal bomb blast: “Complaints began to rise. From early morning to late at night my telephone rang and my doorbell was seldom silent. I began to have doubts about the ability of the Negro community to continue the struggle.” Likewise, we've been seeing people renege on commitments we thought they had already made to Christ. We have yet to see phenomenal success in helping our friends to establish new habits of faith.

In his book Career-Defining Crises in Mission, Paul Keidel writes of the believers who endured persecution in the early church: “Their faith belonged to them and no one could take it away. Their believe was so real that it fit in the culture through their habits. (italics added).  May God’s Spirit continue to lead and to guide along the western coastal plain of south-central Taiwan.