Kingdom of Priests

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9

What does it mean that we are a kingdom of priests?

David Ooi talked about this question in one of the bible studies. People from the western Christian world have sometimes questioned David about the leadership: Is it ok that Rathana is pastoring Pillars even though he hasn't been to seminary or had any formal training? How about Rithy (more new to this type of role than Rathana)? How about the students going out to plant the upcoming (5) house churches?

At the last question, I could feel some tension and uncertainty inside of me. Certainly, I agree that seminary isn't a necessary qualification as it is just a man-made institution. Rathana and Rithy have already been leaders in Crossroads in small groups and led mission teams; it seems to me that they have the qualities important for leading Pillars and Cana.

But the students? The groups leading the churches are: 1) Phearum and Singapore, 2) Chantha, Somal, and Sothea, 3) Chetra, Nora, and Pheaktra, 4) girls group, 5) girls group. The students range from upcoming sophomores to seniors. A couple only have been Christians for a couple of months. I thought: Is that really wise? The bible does talk about the choosing of leaders in the church with a degree of strictness and caution (Timothy and James).

But more and more I'm thinking that any genuine Christian -- someone who has a sincere and childlike faith and a desire to change their life according to God's principles -- can have confidence to proclaim what they believe, testify of God's goodness in their lives, and disciple others in growing in God's word. I think judgmental people like me especially need to realize this. Rather than treating new believers only as people to take care of, I need to support them in taking hold of the mantle of priesthood that God has bestowed onto them.

Till you live alone

I have mentioned in several previous posts that one of the big questions I had going into Cambodia was related to work and rest. I feel like in the Bay Area/Caltech, people work so hard and then collapse during their breaks. People are very ambitious and driven, they set goals for themselves and run after them (often quite successfully). In Cambodia, there is not as much hope since the impression I have is that you will not necessarily succeed or find a job even if you work hard. It seems relaxed... almost everyone takes a nap after lunch and they play sports, hang out, have fun over the weekend. One passage I read in Isaiah really made me stop and think:

Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. Isaiah 5:8

In some sense I feel this is kind of true -- Americans are independent but lonely. Certainly, working hard to provide for needs is laudable. I haven't needed to provide for a family (or even myself) yet, so I cannot really understand the pressures, but I still often feel like our needs have been long provided for (esp. compared to the Cambodians). Yet we continue trying to make our lifestyle better (new/bigger house? more gadgets?). Somehow, in this process, I feel like the community relationships are not really developed or deep.

I know that this certainly is more true for me than for the average person. I tend to be very goal-oriented and driven, but I am not really good at building deep relationships :/

Party :D

On the last day, the guys I lived with put together a party for me (awww!). Everyone chipped in a little to buy some sodas and we gathered to drink, chat, and say farewells (well, at least they called it a party). I asked Somal to take a picture for me, so here's to the only picture of the blog :P Not all the guys are in the picture cause some went home recently (vacation started) or went to do some church work outside of the city.

I'm going to be in Taiwan in the upcoming 2 weeks participating in a camp at Tsinghua University. I'm still planning on making short posts for a while on Cambodia as I reflect on the different things I learned/observed (so stay tuned! :D). For those interested in hearing about Taiwan, I probably won't post that here (since this is davidleeincambodia, after all :P) and will just send one long email at the conclusion of the camp (+ one in the middle too?). Pray for me! Ahhh, a little nervous about my history and holiday presentations and how well I'll click with my students + fellow TAs.

A little about the house church(es)

There are currently 3 house churches in this ministry: Crossroads, Pillars, and Cana.

Crossroads is the original one (probably 10+ years?) and is where David Ooi and his family stay at. It is the central hub of activity (visitors + mission teams come here, the joint leadership meetings are here, etc...). Every once in a while, when all 3 churches come together for an event, it will typically be at Crossroads. Approximately 20 guys live at Crossroads (in one huge room with 2 rows of bunk beds); the girls that are a part of Crossroads live in a separate building (Kirirom and another one I can't remember).

Pillars is a house church planted 2-3 years ago and is pastored by a former Crossroads student, Rathana (he started leading the house church while he was still in college!). It has approximately 12 students who all live in the same building (guys and girls on different floors) and is much smaller than the Crossroads building. I previously mentioned the planning/visioning for upcoming house church planting. In fact, 5 (!!) new houses will be planted around Pillars. Each of these houses are about the size of Pillars and will be started with about 3-4 students each from Crossroads (with 2-3 as the leaders). These 5 houses will initially all go to Pillars for worship, but as they grow, the hope is that they will become their own independent house churches. I'll talk about the house church planting plans in a later post (sounds crazy, huh??)

Cana is a house church planted just 1 year ago and is pastored by a former Crossroads student, Rithy. When I last visited, Rithy was dating Dalis (and told me the hilarious story of winning her and her relatives :P). Well... they're now married!! Cana's original vision was to reach out primarily to girls. It has 19 students, all of which are girls (poor Rithy...). Recently, they have begun to reach out to women who were victims of sex trafficking. It is a recent thing that the girls at Cana want to serve in. They are starting a Cana guys group too (currently 2 students living at Crossroads) and Rithy is hoping it will grow larger in time.

Exciting stuff! :)

Riverside

Every weekend, a bunch of the students like to go to the riverside. But it's pretty different: they don't actually stop by the river and hang out there, etc... Instead, they just drive there and around the area before driving back. I think that's one really nice thing about motorcycles. Just driving around, you can really feel and enjoy the environment + night. In a car, you don't really get that sense -- I never really appreciate the difference between scenic routes or fast, boring routes in a car (maybe that's just me). I like it :D

Today, we actually did stop beside the road to buy some snacks... we bought a bagful of fried grasshopper-like bugs and sat down in the grass to chill while munching on them. I bravely ate 5! :P Hahah. Sometimes after eating them, there's a leg that has managed to escape your teeth and you can feel the leg rolling around in your mouth, heehee. Picture a grasshopper leg stuck between your teeth and trying to fish it out with your tongue :P HEEHEE. Sorry, I just had to.

Challenge

Every year, a missions team from LA + the Crossroad students host a Leadership workshop at a local university where they talk about different leadership principles (many of which are motivated from the bible). The dean of the university came to visit our bible study today because he was interested in learning about the wisdom that the bible offers.

We had a Q&A at the end, and I asked: "What do you think is the greatest challenge that students have to face? i.e., What should they try to overcome in preparation for transition to real life?" The gist of his answer was: "Students need to find out who they are. They need to discover what they want to do, who they want to be. People often want to be leaders of others, but before they can lead others, they need to learn to lead themselves."

I thought his comment was very interesting. I'll let you think about it and come to your own conclusions :)

Language

It's very interesting not being able to understand the language that is used almost all the time. As I've mentioned previously, they have bible studies every night and newcomer bible studies too. I usually go to them all even though everything is khmer. On occasion, someone translates for me, but usually I don't have anyone to translate for me. I just sit, flip to the same bible passages they are studying, read and meditate on it, look at the facial/body gestures of the speaker and students -- it's really interesting. In a really strange sense, I often feel like I get so much out of the different studies: either the verse speaks to me deeply, some thought hits me, or the facial expression of a student concentrating and devouring words of life strikes me. Even during dinner conversation or hanging out during the afternoons, most of the conversation is in khmer (of course). It gives me a very interesting feeling of invisibility :P I get to be a bystander and observe the development in interactions, tension, and laughter.

The thing that struck me about all of this is that perhaps language isn't a necessity for the listening that God hopes of us. Listening is a function of the openness of my heart. Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear!