Category Archives: International Missions

Experience Indonesia

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I just returned from Indonesia working at the Pillar House (Pillar Church’s Orphanage) and spreading the gospel in the people group that lives nearby. The trip was tremendous and I pray that many of you will consider going in the future. I’d like to share some pictures with you from the trip.

Ben Cartwright snaped this photo on his iphone. Its not of particular significance but it’s what most of the homes look like.

Again Ben and the magic phone… this is the sky at dusk atop the Indian ocean bordering the village we ministered in.

When I was walking to the bath one morning a dog was following me and barking at my every move… I said to our interpreter, “If that dog doesn’t shut up he’s going to be lunch!” This is the gruesome scene that awaited me when returned from my bath. Apparently the interpreter misunderstood my comments and thought I said, “I’d like to have that dog for lunch.” I did have the dog for lunch and it was actually pretty tasty.

We had the great privilege of baptizing six new converts and two of our American team members. We decided to baptize at mountain waterfall so all of those being baptized, our team, friends and family all set out for hike through the jungle in search of a water fall. We never found the water fall but we did find water after a few miles of hiking.

This is a picture of the hallway in the hospital near the village where we were working. We found this place to be a tremendous place to share the gospel. The hospital was not air conditioned, only had one electrical outlet per room, six patients in each room (No larger than a hospital Room in the US) the beds were just sheets of plywood). The patients families were all camped in the grass outside each room. I spent hours and hours there and never saw a doctor. No machines, no equipment, very little medicine. The boy pictured in the hallway is the brother of a 1 year old who pulled a boiling pot of cooking oil on her head. They had been there for weeks. We were able to share the message of Jesus to virtually every person on this hallway. We even visited several of the families in their homes when they were discharged.

The national workers that are working to build the pillar house have a dream for the future that they drew out for us before we left. The envision the Pillar House being home to 20 children, several adult workers and being a fully functioning school in the not so distant future.

Exmore Baptist Church sent a ton of new clothes and shoes for the kids who live at the Pillar House. When we started sizing them up and passing out the goods it felt a bit like Christmas morning. The kids were so excited.

This is the whole Pillar House crew with our team just before we left. Please pray for them as they grow up. Pray that the holy spirit would cause them to believe the Gospel and send them out to spread his name throughout Indonesia.

Back to the Pillar House

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A month from today I’m joining a team of five from Pillar Church to visit the Pillar House in Indonesia. We have some work to do, some plans to make and hope to spend a lot of time talking to nationals about Jesus. It’s been more than a year since my last visit to the house so I am anxious to see what progress has been made and to check up on the children who live there. If you want to send a bit of money to help buy some rice for the kids and supplies for the house you can do so by clicking HERE. If you just want to write a note to encourage the kids you can write it on the comments section on this post or send it to my email clint@pillarchurchsbc.com

Theology Matters

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This weekend we had a great time of worship at Pillar Church. We invited the people of our church to show up an hour early this so that we could have a focused time of prayer for Colby & Annie Garman, our missionaries to Iceland. The Garmans are within a week or two of giving birth of to their third child, Gracie, who has a heart defect. Gracie’s Dr’s are saying she is going to have a series of surgeries after birth. Pillar people gathered to pray that God would heal the baby and send the Garmans back to Reykjavik.

Since the Garman’s are here Colby has been working with me on the church planting material I am working on. This week he finished a chapter on the importance of Theology in the life of a church planter.

Here is an excerpt…

“Now here are a couple of thoughts about how a leader can develop and sharpen their theological discernment.

Read, Read, Read! There is no substitute for literacy.  There is a little maxim that I believe to be true. I am not 100% sure, but thus far it fits everything I know about church leadership. Here it is: Some leaders love to read. Other leaders discipline themselves to read. I have yet to find a respectable leader that does neither. So here are some suggestions about reading

  • Read the Bible. Regardless of what you think about N.T. Wright’s view of justification, he is a great scholar and has done some amazing work in defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. When I read The Resurrection of the Son of God I was amazed at the scope of his understanding of the entirety of scripture. Later I remember hearing him discuss his habits in regards to Bible reading and he said that there is no substitute for the repeated reading of scripture (I believe he said that he reads the Old Testament twice every year and the NT four times).
  • Read classic Christian theological works. If someone has long been dead and is still being published there is usually a good reason. Become informed about influential Christian thinkers of the past and read portions of their work.  A few years back I set out to read one Puritan classic each month of the year. Although I did not quite accomplish my goal that year it has led to an ongoing habit of reading books from that era.  Each generation has certain assumptions that they do not test and others that they constantly challenge. Sometimes the greatest problems are in the areas we assume we have right. Reading books from other eras aids us in examining those areas that our own assumes to true.
  • Read authors that disagree with you. Evangelicalism has its people it loves to hate.  We are often tempted to criticize a movement or another Pastor before giving them a fair hearing. You cannot read everything, but if you are going to criticize, it is important to know that you are not misrepresenting someone. Furthermore we develop discernment when we read the best arguments that others have to offer and take time to critique what they have to say.”

A Few Updates

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Trying to catch up here a bit on the happenings of my life. Pillar Church is going through some really exciting times right now.

  • A few weeks ago a Marine in our congregation (Roy Garza) shared with our congregation his desire to plant a new church near the south gate of Quantico about ten miles from our current location.
  • We started a new topical series on “The Doctrines of Hell” this past week. Ironically it was extremely hot in the school where we meet. You can catch the first audio lesson HERE.
  • Our missionaries to Iceland, the Garmans returned home to address a heart problem with their unborn child. It has been bitter sweet to have them back with us.
  • I have finished the first five chapters in a book designed to help “regular” guys (Without formal education or experience) wrestle with major issues related to starting new churches. In the next post I will put a few excerpts from the chapters. Colby (mentioned in the previous bullet point) has been helping me with the project.
  • I just celebrated 10 years of marriage to my wife Jennifer. I sold my beloved motorcycle and bought us two tickets to Cancun, Mexico. It is the first time (Since our 1 year anniversary) that we have gone on a vacation without kids. It was a blast and well worth the motorcycle. You can see the pictures HERE
  • Pillar Church has two upcoming international trips 1) Toronto – taking a team of 8 to Toronto City Mission 2) Bali – A team of four is headed to the Pillar House in Bali Indonesia.

Iceland Update

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Many people have asked me about what is going on in Iceland with the Volcano and how it is affecting the Garman family. I spoke with Colby for some time earlier this week and they said that unlike the rest of Europe Reykjavik has only been mildly effected by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Colby said that up to this point they have seen no sign of ash or volcano even though they are less than 80 miles from the eruption. The Garmans posted THIS UPDATE yesterday.

If you would like to see some very  impressive photography from the eruption you can see it HERE.

The greater concern for the Garmans at this point is that they have recently learned that there unborn child has a heart condition that will require them to return to the US for a few months. Please pray for them as they go through yet another very difficult situation. I encourage you to send them a note of encouragement or a prayer to there email at garmancj@comcast.net

Overdue Updates

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Here are some photos from the Pillar House in Indonesia. These were sent to me by an American who works on the island and went out for a visit last week. You will notice that off of the left side of the house they put a little car port that they hope to use as a garage to repair cars. If the kids living here learn a trade (like working on cars) they can make money to support and further the ministry. We are hoping to bring some mechanics and tools with us when we visit this summer. The plan is to get there.. buy some cars, teach the kids to fix them then sell the cars and use the proceeds to help the kids.

As you can see by the second photo cars are not the only thing that need attention. A coconut with a bit of momentum could probably take out the entire roof so we are hoping to replace that with a new stronger roof. Of course we have other projects planned too… we are going to put in a new floor and get some electricity in the place. If you think you might me interested in Joining us for our trip this summer please here are a few details.

  • When Are you going? July 31-Aug 8, 2010
  • How much will the trip cost? Generally the trips are between 1900-2200 USD. That is food, travel, lodging & Insurance.
  • How long does it take to get there? about 24 hrs… NYC>TOYKO>BALI
  • What would I be doing? You would be on one of three teams. 1) Construction 2) Mechanics 3) Evangelism

If you are interested in finding out more please email me at Clint@pillarchurchsbc.com

Simon and Garmanfunkle

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Living with the Garmans is like living inside a Saturday Night Live Sketch… non-stop comedy. This week has been a great time of catching up on our lives and talking about the ministry they have here. The Garmans have made the (very wise) decision to direct the majority of their attention during this first phase of ministry on learning the Icelandic language. It is a difficult language compounded by the fact that the vast majority of Icelanders speak fluent English. This makes learning Icelandic difficult because English is always available as a default. Tonight an Icelander who has known Colby and Annie for a few weeks told me that he has never known a foreigner to learn the language so quickly. The week to this point was spent preparing for an event that took place tonight.. Colby, Annie and I performed a Christmas concert in the basement of a downtown Reykjavik’s Café Rot. We chose eight songs that told the Biblical Christmas story and talked about the significance of the incarnation.

The Garmans promoted the event through Facebook. Per capita Iceland has the greatest number of Facebook users in the world. More than 150,000 Icelanders have a Facebook account. Nearly half of the 320,000 people living in Iceland have a Facebook account. (46.89%).

About 50 people came to the concert and it went great. Each song was dripping  gospel  and we giving us the  opportunity to talk about the songs during and after the concert with those who attended. Everyone stayed around for an hour or so after the event and talked. Please pray for Colby & Annie as they continue to work in Reykjavik.

Traveling With Ruthe

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I’m riding a bus between DC and NYC right now (wi-fi on a bus? Wow!) with my 5-year-old daughter Ruthe. Ruthe and I are going to spend the day today in NYC before flying out to Reykjavik tonight to visit our good friends the Garmans. This is a sweet trip for me because this time three years ago my family and I were on month three of a four-month church planting project in Reykjavik. It’s a great city and we loved our time there. Our family and our church have had a tremendous desire to see the gospel spread there since we learned spiritual condition of the country. Our work there has gone well and we are hoping that having the Garman’s there full time will give the project some real traction. While Ruthe and I travel Jennifer and our boys is in the sunshine state visiting her solder brother who recently returned safely from the war in Iraq.

I’m not use to traveling with children when Jennifer is not with me. I have already broken several of the cardinal house rules. Ruthe’s hair went without being brushed for about 36+ hours (if you have never seen Ruthe’s hair you cannot possibly understand why that is so bad), we left the house for our December trip for “Ice” land with only a pair of church sandals – oops. We had donuts for dinner last night at 9:30pm, then cheese-its for breakfast this morning. Ruthe’s not supposed to drink anything after 7pm but she was downing a Sunkist at 11:00pm. But… she’s still alive and having a grand time.

I plan to post our adventures throughout the week. If you are in town this weekend Pillar Church will be continuing the Man of the House series with Pastor Naethan Hendrix teaching “A Man Guides Patiently” and at Lakeside Pastor Bryan Scott will be continuing our series in Galatians.

The Land of Fire & Ice

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Slide20I’m getting ready to drop in on the Garmans for a few days  to catch up on the ministry in Iceland we started back in 2006. The Garman family is serving faithfully there and I am hoping to learn a little about loving Jesus by spending a few days with some real missionaries. This trip is going to be extra special because I have the privileged of traveling with my favorite 5 year old, Ruthe. Ruthe was 3 when we lived in Iceland and remembers very little of our time there but has agreed to accompany me on the trip in order to give the Garman girls a few days of love. If the technical gods are with us the Garmans will be joining Pillar Church (Via Satellite) this Sunday morning… so be there or be square. Please pray for the Garmans and the people of Iceland. The winter months are historically a difficult time for Icelanders with nearly 24 hrs of darkness and frigid temperatures. This year should be especially depressing given the collapse of the Icelandic economy earlier this year. You can read about the Garman’s and there adventures in Reykjavik HERE. If you love the Garman’s and want to send something with me make their winter a bit warmer please feel free to contact me sometime between now and thanksgiving or use the comments section of this post to write them a message.