Drums from the wat.... fighting at my neighbor's house.... dogs barking... moto engines being pieced back together by would-be mechanics revving down the road...the strong smell of everyone burning their daily trash... a funeral playing mournful, horrible music down the road... swatting mosquitoes sitting by a fan....

To some this is an eclectic, attractive part of this mysterious life called missions. And there is an assumption that I've embraced it.

"Oh, I couldn't do it!"  I've heard more than I care to. Its offensive to me more than its the intended compliment.

We do what we do when God says to do it.  We don't know how. We just crawl or inch forward. To say you can't or wouldn't is.... its.... well, its hard to narrate.

I can't do this either.

None of us is super natural.  None of us is super spiritual.  We just do.  We abide.

Have you ever ended a relationship God told you to end, or quit a perfectly good job, or taken out a whopping loan for your new business adventure?  Shew, I could never do that.

See?  We do hard things when there's an unction in our spirit.

There is an Ultimate source of strength. A source of redemption.  Of changed lives.  Of new chapters, and of triumph over loneliness, addiction, confusion, and mediocrity.

We try.

And to not try and laugh it off, well, to me - in any book across the board - is a failure.

So, please don't say you could never do this to a girl that tends to periodically plead for more workers in the field. It breaks my heart.

2015 was a year of no blogs....  a year where I felt I didn't have much to say.... a year where I didn't even know my own thoughts let alone how to convey them.  If you kept checking back - thank you.

I could write about the furlough the last 2 months in the US.  Or I could write today about re-acclimating.  Or even the new work I've been doing in the last year. But I won't.

Today my thought is about a guy I shared a table with at breakfast, which isn't uncommon when you're pressed for space in Asia.  I don't see that carrying over to America well.

The first few minutes are always rough with a new person as they figure out my version of Lori-style Khmer language.  As they figure out where they can laugh and where they can make eye contact with a foreigner.

Halfway done with soup, he says he's the oldest of 5 and that he's hoping God helps him find a new job.  I ask if he knows God.  He says yes.  I ask how.

If you've got a pretty good memory and are keen to look up Asian news you'll remember that in 2011 there was a stampede in Phnom Penh that killed hundreds. It was preventable, horrible, and latter gruesome as they showed bodies on local news so the families would recognize them and come claim them.

He was in that group, stuck on a bridge.  He'd heard of a God that loved him after soccer games on a local church team, but didn't really care.  "It didn't impact my heart"

The night of the stampede being pressed down from all directions he remembered that 'God can give you strength when you're weak'.

"I didn't have breath, but in my mind I screamed for God to give me strength because I was so weak and stuck. And all of a sudden I had strength. My mind got clearer, I had more breath, and I pushed out of the pile, lifting those on top of me off and over, helping them too. I pulled more with me and walked away. I knew that night there was a God, that he'd saved me from death, and I wanted to know about Him."

I love stories like this. I'm pressed to pass them on.  Real. Practical. Undeniable. Efficient. Lovely. If you need God today, ask Him.