Email from Dr. Bacon-Lord's Day morning It is "shirt sleeve" weather here [in Yangon]. Of course it will be a bit chillier up in Tahan, but I have the windbreaker jacket that I brought to take with me. I'm still trying to decide what to take and what not to take. I don't want to be too burdened by luggage, but I want to have enough to change when I need to. Of course I will carry the pictures and the notes & whatnot from the children with me. Ruata came by yesterday afternoon (again) and we talked about the trip and I told him when to be here. It was too bad he had to come all the way over here, but we needed to have his national ident card in order for him to accompany me to Tahan. The plan is that we shall leave Monday mid-morning and fly to Mandalay. The bus to Mandalay would set us back some additional time, so we'll fly that far then take the bus from there. We will travel overnight to Tahan and I'll stay at the TaungZalat hotel on Tuesday night and Wednesday night. Then I will return by bus to Mandalay on Thursday afternoon or overnight and then on Friday I will fly from Mandalay back to Yangon. During my trip to Tahan, of course my first concern is with the children and NLO and the new hostel. But I also hope to see Rev. Khuai (Siang Hope's father) and Dr. Lai Thuama while I am there. I have not yet heard from Lai Thuama, so I hope everything is well with him. I asked Ruata about him and he had not heard anything, but no news is good news in that regard. Ruata said he would call Moses Dawnga and explain our plan to him so that he will arrange for the bus and all from his end of things. Last night Jeff Easley, Ed Adams, and a young man they have with them from Tulsa accompanied me as we went to the Inya Lake hotel for supper. They had an outdoor barbecue buffet. It was a little pricier than usual, but still only about $15 each. I think Dr. Tat learned his buffet expertise from his father! Anyway, I stuck "pretty much" to my diet plan and had a lot of veggies and just a little meat and less dessert than everyone else (no further comment on that). Then when we returned to the hotel, I got out the Greg Bahnsen videos on worldview apologetics. It was a pretty big hit. We watched the first one hour session (It is basically a "talking head" video). Eric Holmberg needs to get some "rights" to some of this and make a "higher production value" video of similar material. I've been getting some exercise in each day and wanted to let you know that I feel fine. Everybody here who knows me is commenting on my appearance -- mostly complimentary. May the grace of God be with you all.
Email from Dr. Bacon-Lord's Day evening. Just wanted to write a short email this evening to let you know about my Lord's Day. It has not been so "active" as some. In fact, it is one of the more peaceful I've spent in some ways. I did preach this morning, but then spent the rest of the day really and truly resting! How nice is that? Jeff seems to be getting ill, so he stayed home today. I lent him my airborne [a health aid that Dr. Bacon takes with him on his trips], hoping maybe it will be of some help to him. I haven't seen him since, so maybe he is at least getting some rest. I sat with Dr. Wayne Curles at breakfast and we had a really good discussion. I ate bananas for breakfast. There were some people who overheard us and I think perhaps the discussion was good for them too. Anyway, we were talking about the importance of understanding that when we come to Christ we are in covenant with God and at the same time we then come into covenant with God's people. He had a number of videos that he brought with him for "discussion points" with his students at MBS (Myanmar Bible Seminary). We talked a little about his videos and the videos that I brought on apologetics from American Vision. We lent each other some interesting DVDs (or rather I hope they are interesting to both of us when we get done watching them). The ones I borrowed are by Richard Pratt and are primarily "multi-media" (meaning some motion video and some presentation video). The ones he borrowed are "talking head" videos of Greg Bahnsen doing his "Basic Training in Apologetics" series. Jeff, Ed, and I watched the first of them last night after returning from the Inya Lake hotel. This morning at Mt. Zion [a local church in Yangon] I spoke on "That Awful Hour," the ninth hour on the cross. The text was Matthew 27:46. As I mentioned previously, I gave Siama my notes ahead of time. And as long as I stuck slavishly to my notes he did a pretty good job of translating (or preaching on his own -- I never know for sure). But if I varied from my notes at all, it was necessary for me to preach to Siama until he could understand and then let him explain to the rest of the church. He had gone to the trouble of translating the notes I gave him into Burmese (or perhaps into Mizo) and so he was able to do better when I stuck to the script. There were only two places where I departed from my notes. The first time I told him I was going to "wing it" for just a minute while I explained something a little more fully. He was a little frightened because it was the first time he had done any "dynamic" translation, so it was kind of hard on him. The second time was right at the end of the sermon at which time I wanted to make a few additional applicatory remarks. The first was for comfort. I told them that if Christ did only kind acts during his life on earth and still the people hated him enough to crucify him, that they should not be surprised if their kind acts are returned on their heads as evil acts by others. I used the example of giving food and aide to their neighbors while at the same time their block leader makes it difficult for them to worship. In the second application, which was for exhortation, I encouraged them to bring the message of Christ's death for sins to the people of Myanmar. If Christ would undergo his Father's displeasure on account of sinners, then we should be willing to undergo the displeasure of men to bring that message to others. I did not go to the City Mart yesterday, so I had not laid in food against the Sabbath, so I made a pot of coffee and had some coffee and a protein bar for lunch. Then I watched some of the Richard Pratt videos this afternoon. He is professor of OT at RTS in Orlando. The videos are very well done for the most part. He presents the covenants from a biblical perspective (i.e. Bible history) moreso than from a systematic perspecive. I don't mean that his presentation is unsystematic -- simply that it is doing service to OT survey rather than to Systematic Theology. The Lord's blessings on you.
Email from Dr. Bacon-Monday morning I hope that this will catch you when you come home from church on Lord's Day PM.[because of the 12 hours difference in time, Dr. Bacon's Monday morning is Mrs. Bacon's Sunday evening!] I will be leaving here in about 3.5 hours to go to the airport, so I may not get any email you send (this evening). Of course, I will be back to GGI sometime on Friday evening, so go ahead and send the email to me during the week at this email address, but I will write to you from either TSO or Moonstar. Oh! I found my hearing aids. I thought I had left them on my desk, but they were in a compartment of my computer bag, so now I can hear again. Yesterday I preached at the Mt. Zion Evangelical Reformed Church in Tamwe township. The usual people were there, except that Dr. Thang Bwee is still in Australia for some conference or other. The sermon seemed very well received, so I was thankful for that. Then I had discussions with Tun Hlaing, Siama, and the Korean missionary Sohn. We discussed how we will proceed with the Psalter project and the continued teaching of the Pastoral Epistles upon my return. We have 10 "professional musicians" who will be working with us on the project. That is the reason we had to make so many rules that look like simple "sanctified common sense." We will be employing men who simply don't have it. Then, too, we turned down having a woman be a part of this. We decided that since part of the purpose of singing Psalms is "teaching and admonishing" and since women are forbidden to teach in the church that it is better to keep women off the committee even if they are very talented musically. This morning I will leave, DV, for Tahan. The airplane that goes to Kalemyo (the town right next door to Tahan) is quite unreliable, so I have made arrangements to fly to Mandalay and then take a basaka from Mandalay to Tahan. We will likely travel all night, so I am bringing my MP3 player along to listen to some sermons on Daniel that I brought with me. I'm taking my camera and hope to take lots of pictures while I'm there, especially of the new hostel that is nearly built and ready for dedication. I don't know if the bricks are laid yet, but the structure and roof have been finished I think. At any rate, I will have pictures of whatever progress has been made. I will attempt to post them to the blog upon my return from Tahan. But if I am unable to do that from Yangon, then I will post them upon my return to the USA. I will send more info from Tahan once I arrive. Remember we are on the other side of the world from you, so please be patient as there is likely to be a delay between my arrival there while you are sleeping and the first email you receive. All my love and the blessings of the Lord, Richard Bacon GOLDEN GUEST INN Yangon, Myanmar
Older
Top
