Edminsters Online

At one point during the Spring I entertained the idea of attending the 217th PC(USA) General Assembly which was to be held in Birmingham, Alabama in June. I needed to study Presbyterian polity and a course is typically offered at the GA. Also, as many of you might know, a report seeking to point the way toward “Peace, Unity and Purity” in the denomination was to be presented for acceptance. As I am in the process of seeking ordination as a Presbyterian minister with the PC(USA), it seemed a good idea to be present for these discussions and see what kind soup I’m getting myself into.

Our plans for ministry in Estonia this summer eventually derailed the Birmingham trip and so I’ve been scanning the net and various Presbyterian sites in order to get the scoop on what happened at the GA. For those who are interested in reading responses from a significant presbyterian voice calling for renewal in the denomination, I would recommend a site sponsored by Presbyterians for Renewal at www.ga2006.com. I’ve only just begun reading the content here but it seems quite good to me.

I know that in the past, my affiliation with the PC(USA) has raised some eyebrows, especially surrounding the denomination’s divestments from their holdings in certain multinational organizations in Israel and the ongoing debates regarding homosexual ordination. If you’re among those who seem confused as to why a fellow like myself would stay in such an apparently troubled denomination, I’d like to offer a few thoughts that are important to me and have informed my decision to stay.

1. First of all, it is vitally important to realize that the PCUSA is a denomination of churches. One of the reasons our debates have lasted so long in this denomination is that our system of government generally shares decision making power between the national governing body (the General Assembly) and local presbyteries. What seems to be the majority voice at the GA is in actuality the minority voice among the presbyteries. For this reason, past attempts to open the door to homosexual ordination at the GA level have failed time after time when sent to the Presbyteries for ratification. My own Presbytery is morally and theologically conservative/moderate and missionally progressive: a mix which has helped to form my own identity as a Christian minister and missionary. I have found no reason at all to doubt that they are indeed very concerned about sticking to biblical and confessional standards in regards to ordination, Christology, biblical interpretation and other key issues.
2. The fact that our presbytery is embedded in a denomination that seems to be moving in a more liberal direction does give cause for significant concern, but I for one would prefer to get at the hard work of standing against idolotry and reforming the denomination from the inside out rather than breaking away to form the next version of “the faithful church”. Where liberalism chips away at the Church’s foundations, schism sends each room floating off on its own. Can so many disjunctive rooms be called a house? In the long run, schism even serves to amplify idolotry in the Church rather than call it to repentance because in effect we allow it to take on a life of its own, free from the opposition we would otherwise provide. We dupe ourselves into a false sense of purity when we refuse to confront the idolotry and false teaching that arises within the larger body of Christ.
3. The Old Testament gives us plenty of examples of prophets who suffered for holding a minority position when Israel as a nation was deep in unrepentant idolotry. It seems to me that those of us who hold to what seem to be becoming minority views ought to align ourselves with this vocation of the suffering prophet rather than attempting to create a new and holy nation. Likewise, much of the New Testament speaks of a Church composed of the weakest in society, a Church with little if any political voice or sway. It seems to me that standard Christian protocol in all of these situations was and remains to spread and enact the gospel in every circumstance. Before I divert from this norm, I must be sure beyond any doubt that my motivation is based on God’s command and not on my own desire for self preservation.

In a time when many historically faithful denominations and local congregations are struggling to understand how to deal with the social and theological issues that face us, it is in fact cowardly for us to disengage from the debate, in the same way that it was cowardly for the would-be prophet Jonah to flee from his call to preach repentance to the Ninevites. The book of Jonah is clear to emphasize that Jonah’s cowardice was nothing less than fleeing from the face of God.

The last 5 days have been full of camp life. On Wednesday, Matt, Lea, Kadri, Anne, Jana and I departed for a little town called Avispea in Northern Estonia for our first childrens camp of the summer. When we first got there we had a small meeting, then went to sleep. The next day we had to start setting up everything. The kids started to arrive around 3:00 P.M. It took a little while for them all to arrive. I helped some of the kids set up their tents. In all there were about 30 kids at the camp. Not too many, but it was still a reasonable amount considering the area. Not much happened the first day. We had a small camp meeting and went over all the rules and schedules and all the other things that were involved in the camp. After the meeting we started to play some small games to get to know each other. The kids were already warming up, and getting hyper. Most of them already knew each other anyway. They asked me lots of questions like who I was, where I was from, what I was doing there, and all sorts of other curious questions. I couldn’t really answer them because they were talking really fast, and I obviously didn’t speak the same language. When night time came, the kids had to go to their tents and go to sleep. I stayed up to help do nightwatch. The first night was the worst. Kids just wouldn’t go to sleep. They were laughing and talking, and keeping as busy as they possibly could. I stayed up until about 1:30 A.M. I was dead tired.

The next morning I woke up and went outside. Breakfast was already ready. I was so tired I could barely walk. Supposedly some boys had snuck out of their tent at about 3:00 A.M to go to some girls’ tent to play cards. They were required to sleep in the church for the rest of the camp. Today was the first full camp day. The schedule for each day was fairly simple. First breakfast, then a short Bible study. Next was group time. Then free time. And after that was lunch. By lunch time we were all pretty tired. After lunch, games started. Then there was another bible study, and them small groups. Next was sports. I was in charge of teaching and leading the sports games. The first day, I taught wiffleball. It was a little slow at first, but when it got going, everyone was really enjoying it. After sports was snack time and then free time. Then came dinner. It started to cool down around dinner.

After dinner was the campfire. The campfire was really cool. All the small groups put on their own skits, and songs, and other things. We played some games, and usually had some type of campfire snack like smoked fish, marshmellows or baked potatoes. The campfire lasted about 2 hours and some nights even longer. Finally, the kids were sent to there tents around 10:00 or 10:30 P.M. I didn’t do night watch this time.

When I woke up the next morning I wasn’t nearly as tired as I was the day before. This day was really hot. It was about 35 degrees celcius which is about 95 degrees farenheight. It made the whole day much harder. Even worse, we discovered that sometime during the night, the well had either run dry or the pump had broken. From this point on, we had to drive to a neigbhor’s house with a 50 gallon tank three times a day in order to get enough water for the cooking, cleaning and drinking water. Everyone was tired, and didn’t want to do much. When it came time for sports, I wasn’t even sure if they wanted to play. I decided to teach ultimate frisbee. Some of them already knew how to play, which made it alot easier. It actually went much better than I had planned. They wanted to play girls versus boys. It was really fun. The girls actually did fairly well. They scored the first point. But then the boys came storming back to win 5 to 4.

They rest of the day was fairly slow becasue of the hot temperature. After the first Bible study, we surprised the kids and told them were going to take them swimming at a nearby lake. It felt so good to swim in such hot weather. It was also a great way to wash the fish/sweat/dirt stink off of our 30 little kids. At the lake, there were tiny little frogs all over the place. They were about the size of youre pinky nails. There were thousands of them, swimming in the water, and laying in the sun, and hiding under a big log. It was really cool.

Later, back at the campfire, we played a game that was really fun. We made a big circle of people, and everyone had o join hands. In the middle of the circle was a bucket, and on top of the bucket was a plastic container. The point of the game was to pull and push as much as you could, and try to get the person next to you to bump the bucket, and knock over the plastic container. You also had to keep a good grip of the hand of the people to your left and right becasue if your hands slipped loose, you both went out. It was everyone’s favorite game. We played it multiple times every day.

Sunday morning was our last day of camp and I woke up sick. I had eaten some unripe gooseberries from a bush that the kids had showed me, and … well I’m sure you get the idea. Nevertheless, at 11:00 A.M, there was going to be a short church service that the kids were helping to put on. They sang some songs and did some skits. I spoke a little, but it was very short. After church, it was free time until 3:00 P.M when the kids would have to start being transported back to the nearby towns. We played lots of games, and frisbee, and went on this enourmous swing. Then the time came when the kids had to start leaving. They asked me questions like if I was comming back, or If I would write to them. I wasn’t sure if I was actually comming back so I just answered “maybe”. After another hour or so, all the kids were gone. It had been a long tiresome camp, but I enjoyed it.

The past week has been very tiring and long. On Tuesday, Matt, Leah, and I got in our rental car and started to make our way to a tiny town called Avispea. We were going there to have a meeting about one of the camps that were going to be put on. The family we stayed with had four little boys, ages 2, 5, and 9. They were very entertaining, and were fun to wrestle around with. I tought the oldest one some wrestling moves, and after he learned them, all he wanted to do was wrestle. We stayed with this family for 2 more days. On Friday we had to go to a different town for another meeting about a camp.

The town we were headed to this time was not as small but it was’nt big by any means. It was called Antslat. It was located in the far southern part of Estonia. Pretty much no one speaks English there so I did a lot of listening. They had there first meeting right after we arrived. Supposedly it went well. After the meeting was finished we went to the upstairs part of the church where we were going to sleep and watched a movie on Leah’s laptop.

When we woke up the next morning there were people already at the church ready for another meeting with Matt and Leah. I didn’t go to the meeting becasue i knew it would be boring, so instead I mowed he lawn. It was a really big lawn so it kept me occupied until there meeting was finished. After there meeting we got in the car and headed toward Voru, one of the larger towns in the area. We went to the store and got chicken, and salad, and al kinds of good stuff. Now that we had food, we decided to go down to the beach to eat it. After eating, we swam around for a little while. There was a water slide, and it was fun to go on. Matt wouldnt go on it. What a wussy. It was really fun.

The next day we had to drive all the way home. It was about 4 1/2 hours drive. To add to it, it was very humid and hot. When we finally arrived back home in Viimsi, Siim, his cousin Christian, and I wrode dirtbikes. The one I rode was really old. They said it was a classic. I enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me of riding motorcylces and four wheelers in The Yaak. The past week had been long, but there have been some awesome activities.

Two days ago, we celebrated Midsummers Eve (Jaanip?ev). It is the longest day of the year, and it is a big holiday for Estonians. Everyone puts up he Estonian flag and then they build bonfires and stay up very late. During that time we even went waterskiing. Arvo took people out on his boat, then let them try to waterski if they wanted to. I didnt do it because the wetsuit didn’t fit me. The water was too cold to be going in just swimming trunks. It was a very fun time.

The next morning we all slept in. At about 11:30, Matt, Leah, Arvo, Kaie, and I went on a short 3 kilometer hike. Most of it was boardwalk. In fact 2 1/2 of the kilometers were just of boardwalk. When we got back to the car, we drove to a nearby lake and swam. It was overpopulated on the beach, so we went and found our own spot. After swimming, we were going to go hike one more trail that lead to a good climbing boulder, but we couldn’t seem to find the trail so we just drove home.

Hey y’all,

We’ll be moving to a new suite when we return to Vancouver in August. Here’s the new address beginning August 20th:

4372 Elgin Street
Vancouver, BC
V5V 4R7
CANADA

Our phone numbers remain:
Home: 604 321 6989
Cell: 778 881 3276