Sad day

Yesterday (New Year's Adam) we said good bye to 8 new friends who had come to this part of the world to teach English at a local school. They were amazing and accomplished so much in about 10 days. Prior to their departure we visited a park near where our kids live. It is an amazing park filled with beautiful trees and plants. The locals have added statues with character. The park is a work-in-progress in that they are adding to it continually, including transplanting huge trees. It truly is remarkable.

Here's the truly sad part. They've also constructed an extremely large Buddhist temple. We looked through the temple and saw all the monks and workers, along with the many people purchasing incense sticks and offering prayers to...uhhhhh, to...ummmm, prayers to "whoever might be there." They believe all roads lead to their concept of heaven. The truth is none of their roads lead to heaven. Judy and I commented to our friends to take a good look at the faces of the people offering incense and prayers to "the great unknown" because they'll not see those same faces in heaven UNLESS. That made us extremely sad. As we walked through the compound I kept repeating, "Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord" and so wanting that to become a reality for the folks there.

In town today we encountered several Buddhist monks wanting to give us a blessing and to receive one in return (I think they expected that their "received" blessings would be of a monetary type). I have to admit I didn't have much patience with them. Yes, they are deluded, part of the spiritual darkness so prevalent here and darkness operates like darkness. But knowing how they are deluding so many made me want to do anything but give them a blessing. However I've decided to pray for them by the names I "affectionately" gave them: Moe, Larry and Curly. I really think God will know who they are as I lift their names from time-to-time.

As I write there's only 98 minutes left in this year and decade. "Good bye ought oh and hello decade of the teens." Happy New Year, readers.