Just celebrated another orbit around the Sun this week and got a nice, long email from a former student in whose life Sherry and I have taken particular interest. He had a moment on a bus when he was really living and I wanted to share it with you. He was on a crowded city bus and just became filled with worship. Here it is….

“Pastor, I also realize that heaven is not just a place of happiness but a place of satisfaction… A deep satisfaction which does not thirst for anything. The major problem of the world is that they are thirsty for something: food, water, sex, money, power. But heaven is a place where all the thirst would be gone and it would be a place of peacefulness which comes with satisfaction and contentment.

While I was in the bus this was what happening to me… A glimpse of satisfaction that I am doing God’s will in my life… God has given us this glimpse of satisfaction when we find our true love, when we eat the food that we really wanted, in the climax of the union between man and his wife, and so on… This satisfaction is priceless and it is from God. That was what I felt pastor when I was in the bus.”

Someone said to me this week, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him alone.”

Here is a slideshow of northern Vietnam tribal people from our recent trip. Thanks for the prayers.

I don’t know what I ate, but it was like a tiger in my intestines. With an early morning flight out of Yangon, Myanmar facing me in eight hours, I felt the battle begin. By morning I was like a rag doll. My ribs ached and my throat was burned from vomiting. Then there was the airport. Dead still air with five hundred sweaty people crammed together. No air-conditioner despite the 90 degree heat. No fans either. Nausea is the worst feeling of all to me and I was feeling it in a major way. Sherry pampered me the best she could, but this is the sort of thing you just have to endure alone because everything just hurts.

I was on the verge of throwing up again the whole morning, but made it onto the plane without an incident. I laid my head in Sherry’s lap and fell asleep in that kind of half sleep you have when you are unwell. I was doing ok until she opened a pack of cashews. One whiff and I was heaving again until I fell asleep against the window. I felt some better when I woke upon landing. I was just glad to be in Thailand where care is easily available.

One thing I really love about most of the world is that you can go to a pharmacist directly and get treated without having to make a doctor’s appointment and spend $100 and an entire day just to get what you already know you need. In the airport I went to the pharmacist and described my problems. He gave me three packs of pills, neatly labeled in English and I felt better already knowing that this monster would soon go away. We had a 14 hour layover between flights (our flight back to Manila was a bargain $200 roundtrip but, as it turns out, doesn’t leave till 1:30 AM). So we checked into a cheap hotel and I slept for six hours. I felt much better in a prone position. I think I am on the mend already.

My body has paid for this trip in more than one way. A few days ago on the way to teach Robin’s group I walked across an open sewer that was covered by a wooden sidewalk. The planks held my weight until I was fully committed to them, then broke and I splatted like a water balloon into the dirt eight feet away. At least I didn’t land in the sewer itself. PTL