Late December 2007 

I wanted to include a short story my missionary friend Mark Fender (left) included in a recent Newsletter. Mark is the Country Director of Int’l Teams and runs our EFC-KEY satellite office in Kompong Cham city for us. 

“Our dog Sophia eats quite well. Not long ago the in laws and our new niece Ali were here for a visit.  My wife, Sopheaktra decided to make some beef soup. The byproduct of this culinary project was a few large beef bones.  Now, our dog Sophia loves bones. She doesn't gnaw on them; she devours them. Even fish bones and chicken bones (which you probably aren't supposed to give to dogs) - they're like eating potato chips to our little dog.  Well, I knew that Sophia would be overwhelmed with doggy joy at the prospect of those large beef bones to chew on. 

Sure enough, when I took one of those bones downstairs, Sophia was quite interested. I let her stare at it for a minute before giving it to her and then, when I finally gave it to her, an interesting thing happened.  Once she had the bone, I couldn't get near her. If I approached her and her newly received "treasure," she would growl like she was part wolf.  Not the playful growl of ‘playing keep away’ as we enjoy doing.  It was more of a "you move one more step closer and I'll rip your arm off" kind of growl.  It's kind of ironic that I was the one who gave her the bone, and now she was desperate to protect it from me.” 

Mark explains the parable in terms of a special message from God for him, in that he is like Sophia in being overly possessive with the abundant good gifts that God gives him. For some reason I love this story because I can picture Mark clearly, being so hurt that his little tiny scraggily dust mop-like cherished dog would betray his love and turn on him for a large bone.   

I have a different slant on the story. In my parable, the large bone is still a huge gift, but instead it is in the terms of the privilege to make an impact on the Cambodian society through the raising up of emerging Jesus-following leaders. If you saw little Sophie, there was no way she was going to grab the bone, trot away and hide that bone from Mark. It would take all she had to move it 5 feet and it might take her all day and into the night. The gift I am given is just as big and unwieldy. It has to be given away. It is too big to carry alone or even with the help of my associates. My joy from God’s gift of opportunity and vision for Cambodia will be the passing on of this gift in the form of a contribution which will be my investment in the lives of emerging leaders and leaving them with the skills and tools on how to deal with globalization’s effect on Cambodia and the ramifications of an increasingly growing group of post-modern young people in the major cities. This means thinking about a Kingdom response to a new culture, global and local politics, justice issues, poverty, economics, and the environment. Addressing these issues with informed, intelligent and biblical responses will open up the door for a great Christian Witness among the 14 million people of Cambodia.

This also means it will be an incredibly busy next few months, graduating 25 Diamond Project Level 1 Students (year 4) and launching year 5 on the same day and then a week later, having a combined ‘team building’ retreat with both DP Level 1 and DP level 2 (DP 2 being an in-service, non-formal training for more experienced leaders, focusing on world view and the impact of local and global cultural trends, how to interpret them and respond biblically).  

Speaking of bones, I had a few small ones thrown my way today. 

Small Gifts from Today:  

• Swimming in the ocean with Jordan, having Zebra fish (about 4 inches long) following us around, and having him still call me ‘daddy.’
  
• Seeing Jordan wrestling in the pure white sand with a dark Cambodian boy his age laughing so hard his sides are about to burst. They were trying to get each other to say the Cambodian equivalent of “uncle.”

• Watching the young girls with their twinkling dark brown eyes (who should be in school) come around to sell fruit and trinkets, listening to their almost flawless but accented English, as they try to cut deals with foreigner tourists.

Debbi had a Christmas party for our close ‘not–yet-believing’ friends and neighbors. 

On Christmas morning we exchanged very light gifts (i.e., I got a box of Cheezits, Alana go a box of Whoppers) so we could give out rice and noodles on Christmas day to our poorest neighbors in our neighborhood.  
 

Church Resource Ministries – 1240 N Lakeview Ave Suite 120. Anaheim, CA. 92807 -1831    Donor Services: donorservices@crmleaders.org.

1-800-777-6658

Brian and Debbi Maher

P.O. Box 2178

Phnom Penh, III

Cambodia

Brian@maherfamily.info

Debbi@maherfamily.info 

Tags: Gecko Tails December 2007

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