Interludes and Inter-“missions”

 The story isn’t over for those who have followed the events and thoughts in “Along the Hong River” just as it isn’t for us in our renewed life along the Oklahoma River. It is now a full two years since we emptied the storage unit which held our earthly belongings, thinning again our possessions,  before reassembling the puzzle into the space of our home on Northwest 17th Street. A lot of the content of our daily activity is not terribly different than it was while we lived in Hanoi, while some things are decidedly different.

We still rise early (the 5:30 am alarm is mostly redundant since the biologic clock is quite firmly set it would seem) and engage in morning exercise and gospel study. We use that study period to seek guidance and revelatory ideas that will help us lift and serve those whom we may meet or connect with during that day and days ahead. My friend and missionary department proselyting guru David Weidman counseled me to inquire of the Lord each day as to which of our elders or sisters may need an emotional touch of some sort that day. More often than not, when I have done that, the resulting experience has been rich and tender. The lesson for me is that the endowment of love for our fellow missionaries, and for the saints and friends that came into our lives there, carries with it the responsibility and opportunity to continue to minister and grow with them.

It wasn’t very long after we had been home that I realized how treacherous the period of  life following a mission was for most returning missionaries. So many critical decisions were to be made, that would lock them into patterns and positions that would work powerfully for their good, or for ill. Selecting the right spouse seemed to me the most potent of these decisions. So for many months now, I have prayed and fasted for them in that regard, sometimes as a whole, and sometimes for particular ones. The readily obtained answers to these pleadings are beginning to accrue. This month, four new families were founded in the Holy Temples, and lives full of hope and anticipation have been launched together with able and worthy spouses. If the ultimate measure of our efforts is to be measured in the character and devotion of the grandchildren of those missionaries, then we have reason to hope for good inasmuch as so many have begun well, taking to heart the admonition to “do it right from the beginning.” We rejoice in their joy, and hope in their hope.

 

Similarly, as the number of offspring from these marriages begins to grow and these young fresh spirits make their entrance onto the stage of life, we feel great anticipation and excitement. Mission grandchildren, as we have come to refer to these offspring, are a big part of our joy as well. We only regret that limitations on time, resources, and the current travel restrictions have cut off direct contact with these joys, as well as our own biologic grandchildren. 

In another aspect of the heritage of these genealogies, we have the on-going opportunity to see many of the new converts and even former investigators of our time in Vietnam stepping forward to serve full-time missions. For many of these Pioneers, this is not a trivial decision, nor even entirely their own. Our dear friend L was baptized in 2017, the only member of her family, of course. As a young woman who had entered the workforce following school, her family’s next expectation was for her to marry and begin a family. But to make matters more complicated, a sibling was pursuing a career in the Public Security arm of the government. As is well known to all in that division, a primary responsibility is to oversee potentially seditious religious organizations, and therefore any officer with personal OR family connections to religious organizations is black-marked to not advance into increased duties. Hence that same sibling looked upon L as blocking their ability to move up in the security apparatus, and as the oldest child, he easily recruited both parents into opposing L’s participation, attendance, and support for the Church. 

But Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles, after much counsel, prayer, fasting, and gentle persuasion, God did make a wall fall down. What tremendous joy we felt when the text came from L detailing with ebullient joy that both parents had granted permission for L to serve a mission. To make matters even sweeter, we know a certain returned missionary who will be waiting for the completion of that service. So our fasting for L and L’s parents, also meant fasting for a future spouse of infinite worth and high commitment and faith. It was two for one!

And so the rivers flow and we shall both watch from the banks, and at times follow the currents.

Memorials and “Final” chapters

What we hope most to have accomplished in the few months we have lived, loved and wandered among the peoples of Vietnam is to have embodied in some way the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. Looking backwards as we now can on the paths we have taken in this journey, and more especially on the lives of the people we have met, loved and served, we see so many interesting stories, and so much of the sorrows, sadness and struggles of life, mixed wonderfully with moments of joy, happiness and fulfillment. As in Vietnamese cuisine, the sweet, spicy, salty, hot and savory, together with flavors and sensations not well described in English, come together to make a marvelous fusion of experiences that intensify and reinforce the feeling of satisfaction and fulness. So is life as a servant of God on a mission to bless his children. There are many flavors, textures and sensations that enrich us.

But unlike a meal which comes to a pleasing climax and resolves with a little “mouth decoration” as desserts here are termed, in a mission with real people and real lives, the course is often not finished and fulfilled by just one person. We are forced to put aside many books seemingly in mid-sentence, still hanging on what verb will dominate the remainder of the story and which object will be the consummation of the phrase. We know there are yet many chapters still to be written, twists and turns in plot and theme before the grand story is revealed and the Author’s mind and will are revealed.

We first met Brother Sharp two years ago on one of our first visits to the Mekong. We stayed in the village hotel, with it’s hard bed and the geckos prowling the walls for any insects that ventured in. We met him and his daughter at the head of the dirt path that lead in a kilometer or so to their home on the edge of the rice paddies. Flat and green, yet soured by a dry season that meant salt intrusion, those fields seemed in some ways a metaphor for their lives. He and members of his family had joined the church while living in Cambodia and had felt unity with the saints they met. They weren’t looking for “the true church” per se, but enjoyed the fellowship and accepted the doctrines. But when they moved back to Vietnam to resume work as the opportunities improved, they were far from the pleasures of that fellowship, and the dry ground invited other influences into their lives that soured the crop a bit.

So while they welcomed our visit, they had a different perspective on their spiritual needs at that time, and their affiliation with the larger international church didn’t seem essential to what they sought day to day. They prayed, they sang, they gathered together from time to time, security forces willing, and that was enough.

Our path took us back to their province 18 months later. Sudden losses had entered the family when a son-in-law had passed away suddenly, as though hit by lightening, and their daughter was now struggling to keep that arm of the  family going. As we shared their sorrows and thought about the blessings of being able to bear up the burdens placed on us, we invited them to consider whether temple worship might not offer them strength and comfort. Again we were warmly welcomed as friends, but understanding and hunger for the full plate of gospel blessings was still not evident. I had thought it unlikely following that visit that we would see them again. But circumstances can change.

While planning our trip for the Mission Branch conference this past weekend, word arrived that Brother Sharp had himself passed away and would be buried the following day. We couldn’t make the five hour trip for that, but determined to include a visit there in advance of the branch conference.

The last kilometer of the trip to the blue and white house was now paved in concrete, but the sun was still hot and much  of the path very exposed. The rice was again planted, now just showing sprouts for the first rainy season crop, the paddy partially flooded already from the first week of rain. We found the house, where now were two graves, one still in the final stages of construction, and the other completed but not fully adorned as a more prosperous setting might have required.

As we hugged, and held hands, shared faith and offered comfort a renewed sense of unity and a deeper desire seemed to arise in the hearts of not just the widow or her children, but also in the hearts and minds of their many friends to whom Bro Sharp had been the group minister, ex officio and pro tempore. “Will you come and bring us into the fold, we who have been cast out, and forbidden from meeting” by those in authority or of greater means, was the plea both spoken and implicit as we talked.

I had not ever dedicated a grave before, not in English, much less Vietnamese, but the blessing of comfort and hope from the ministering of authorized servants with priesthood keys, seemed clearly to have brought us there for that purpose, and through the accomplishment of that end, the beginning of a new chapter.

I have wondered how the spirit led early missionaries to Benbow farm where so many were waiting to receive the gospel and who became a vital infusion of strength and faith into the developing church. And I have wondered how missionaries found my ancestors living and working the farmland many, many miles from Stockholm or Uppsala. It is less a mystery to me now, as I see how farmboys from tiny villages in Nghe An become missionaries and then branch presidents, how the children of officers and magnates from distant towns and counties receive the gospel and rise up to bless their fellows and families as Zion is established. And I can see how the congregations of the faithful, through their prayers and entreaties, also bring the servants of God to their doors to minister, and comfort, and teach. It is only the beginning of course, and the many chapters and sequels yet to be written will no doubt be even more engaging and marvelous, but it is a tide of gathering, of refining, of building, that will not be turned back. And it will metaphorically turn the intrusion of salt that sterilizes the land into a salting of the earth that redeems and seasons the abundant harvest.

Wheat fields ready for harvest Simtuna, Sweden- Quê ngoại của tôi

Approaching the handoff zone

When the snow had been shoveled off the track at our kids’ high school in Maine, track practices could begin. Most years that was possible by April. Among the conditioning workouts and the individual event training soon came the rehearsal of skills for the various relay events that my children occasionally were part of. For each of these events, whether a sprint relay like the 4x100, or a mixed distance event like the medley or the  4x800 meter distance, or some other combination, unquestionably the most critical few seconds are those when the baton is passed from one runner, nearly spent and exhausted, to the next, standing fresh and eager to run. Well executed, the transition could mean the difference in a place on the podium and a team record, or frustration with time lost or even a disqualification for passing the baton outside the specified area. Watching them learn and practice their timing, communication and coordination skills made me appreciate their results all the more. But execution when they were engaged in the excitement and exhaustion of the race was often more challenging than they had anticipated.

In the medical field we have learned that a similar high risk situation is the transition in care, from one baton-carrying provider to another, whether that be doctors, nurses or others. And since these kind of transitions happen many times each day, even small risks multiplied by countless patients mean that someone somewhere is going to suffer when a key detail of their care is missed and the baton falls on the track, or remains in the hand of the prior runner.

Mission presidents in some respects are relay runners too, and care providers, who have to hand off to the next runner an important baton. Well actually it is a host of batons. We don’t get spring practice to rehearse the process with the next phase runner. But we do benefit from some institutional experience and a standard checklist to follow covering a few of the critical hand-overs that must occur seamlessly. But since each mission president functions in a very different setting, even though the title may appear similar, the task ahead for us is uncharted in many respects.

One of the rather unique, contrary to prevailing wisdom kinds of things about church leadership is the very short hand-over allotted to many offices. For Mission Presidents the overlap between arrival of new and departure of the old is rarely longer than 24 hours and may be an hour or less in some circumstances. Couple that with the sleep deprivation of jet lag and it would seem almost certain that the baton will fall to the ground somewhere.  But there is wisdom in this approach, foolish as it seems to conventional wisdom. The mission president must approach his task with enough of a feeling of inadequacy, and enough of ignorance, to always seek the guidance he needs from above, not from the former occupant of his new chair.

While this is especially important for the missionaries to whom he will minister, it also has value with regard to dealing with members and other church leaders. The young missionaries, whom of course we love and think are the best, get to start afresh with the impressions they will make as they meet with their new president, free from any detailed briefing and hence bias from me.

So what is on the checklist? Aside from the details of how to find the washing machine, and the wifi password in the mission home, we will provide to the new mission president a sample suggested schedule for his first month. I sat down to look at that the other day and mapped something out that included visits to interview missionaries in their apartments or districts, some zone conferences, meetings with the district presidencies, speaking in various branches, a couple of days for a whirlwind trip to visit saints in the mission branch and meetings with his counselors in that branch, undoubtedly some last minute temple recommend interviews as people in hords head to the temple in July, and all culminating with a rather significant departure of the very best of his missionaries- 10 of them, almost 20% of his forces. He might take a peek at that and decide to never unpack!

With that schedule in mind, I see my next few weeks filled with 1) efforts to try to resolve problems that have lingered so that he doesn’t need to even know about them, and 2) endeavors to fortify the members and missionaries such that there is a sort of “autopilot” effect for the first few weeks. We have met with two dozen people this week on varying matters of progress- missionary applications, priesthood ordinations, temple recommends and support applications- as we have worked in Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Can Tho and parts in-between.

These visits have impressed upon me how much progress has been taking place while we have been here, and often while we were not looking. The gospel grows along family trees, and seeing now more and more families eagerly preparing to make eternal promises with each other and with God as part of his plan to bring to pass our eternal life and happiness emphasizes that powerfully. So where two years ago was just one hard working young man who was a member of the church, there is now a three generation family of engaged and growing members of the church. Where once was a small group of three members and a few other friends meeting to pray and sing in a tiny upstairs room, is now a group of often thirty members of all generations and ages in several extended families engaged in the work of loving and serving one another- even when they have differences of understanding, and bearing with one another’s weaknesses. I will resist the temptation to go on into boasting, but not the opportunity to “glory in the Lord” as did Ammon. It is a wonderful work and a wonder that has come to pass, and is still coming to pass.

It is often small details that seem to point out the Lord’s hand in this ministry. One such was evident today, as we traveled with Judy Battchi, a long term friend, who has been visiting, and just happens to speak Mandarin fluently. We visited my counselor, deep in the Mekong delta in the small village outside of Bac Lieu where he lives with one daughter. But today, of all days to visit, his other daughter from Cambodia, and who is also a member, though perhaps less frequently attending church there, was visiting. And with her she brought her Chinese husband, who speaks Vietnamese hardly at all, but who could easily speak with Judy and ask all sorts of questions that have been unanswered in their years of marriage.

The miracles, small and large, will continue, even as we stumble into the baton exchange zone, tired and panting, and therefore willing to hand the task to younger and fresher legs, and with complete confidence that the grace of a loving God will compensate for our inability or lack of practice in handing off each and every unfinished detail. Our checklist of checklists continues to grow!

Quantum leaps and Linear Thinking

We spent some time of late waiting on the road leading up to the ferry to cross the Mekong into Long Xuyen. We’ve been this way before, and on normal days the traffic backs up a bit, but the three or four ferries running simultaneously manage to keep the back up to a 30-45 minute wait. But add in the ending of the Tet holiday, when half of the populace is enjoying the last few days of their time off work, and another portion is trying to get back to their daily lives so they can resume work, and the shippers are trying to catch up with the shelves-emptying buying that preceded the holiday, and it should not surprise one that the waiting time doubles or triples.

Prior to the building of bridges such waits were just a part of the travel and one factored in the wait and the vagaries of such travel into one’s expectations. Then they started to build the grand suspension bridges across the Mekong that we have today, and suddenly the paradigm changes. And while traffic across the bridges can still slow down on holidays (as it did over the Ben Tre bridge the last time we visited there on a three-day weekend) the thinking has changed.

So it is with infrastructure. The bridge spans the chasm and suddenly every subsequent traveler ceases to dread the journey or ponder their life while they wait on the descent and ascent of the chasm.

That’s very much what we have been doing with this mission. We have been building the bridges across chasms of disbelief. We have been building the freeways (or at least the straight roads) that subsequent generations of God’s Army will follow to further the establishment of the cities of Zion. Things like robust visa processes still stymy us at times. Getting materials for use in the growing number of branches, or for use of our branch builders still occasionally get stalled in crossing. But more and more the basic matters become routine, proceduralized and sometimes simpler.

We have noticed that at times the work seems to perk along at a rather linear pace, proportionate to the number of workers. And we have been blessed to be a mission whose ranks have increased wonderfully over the past two years as others have commented. But sometimes, irrespective of the gross numbers, there seems to be a jump in the curves, a shift in the slope, an underlying change in the assumptions of what is possible.

We will discuss a question in the coming Mission Presidents Seminar that we posed with our leadership counsel a few months back. A question that asks what is possible, what it would take, to bring every area, every companionship, into the productive phase of the work.

We see fields that lie fallow during certain seasons of the year, but then are brought into production with re-plowing, planting and the maturing of the tropical sun and rains. Similarly, we have been learning how to prepare the paddy, how to engineer the watering and drainage in our young branches, how to nurture the paddy rice so that it can be transplanted into appropriately spacing and then flourish until it is ready for the harvest.

We have spent a little time again in the Mekong, which though it is the breadbasket of this country, is not yet ready to be brought into regular cultivation in the harvest of the Lord. But the land is sometimes so fertile that the harvest can hardly be restrained. This is the one place where we have seen the conversion of entire extended families to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a humility, and a hunger, that when exposed to the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, seem to allow a rapid harvest. And in that we rejoice both in the harvest, and the Lord of the Harvest.

We sometimes are still caught doing linear thinking when the Lord is seeing a quantum leap. And we understand more fully his assertion that he will “hasten his work in his time” in conjunction with the prophetic words of Elder Holland, “You are witnessing the birth of the church in a day.” We are grateful that this is our day.