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Eastern Voices
The last few months I have been fairly regularly attending bible reading sessions hosted by the Grace and Mercy Foundation in New York City. They hold sessions three times a week and I can attend their Monday evening program since it aligns with my Tuesday morning. It’s been a rich experience, listening to God’s word together and seeing people from many parts of the world. I shared about their grand opening here in Tokyo a few months ago but now with the pandemic, these sessions have been growing. There are a few hundred people on my call alone every week. Reading scripture in community is a rewarding experience and I hope...
Learning About Emotional IntelligenceA little over a year ago my colleague Mary Jo Wilson, Vice President for Missional Engagement, took several of our staff through a journey learning about our Emotional Intelligence (EQ). She was certified just prior to lead groups like this and we were one of her early guinea pigs. Having read about EQ the last several years, I thought I would score fairly high on the scales. Was I in for a surprise! I knew that at least one or two of my colleagues would score higher than me. They seem far more adept in emotional intelligence than me but I actually scored lower than I thought. Ouch!...
We are gripped with the current protests going on in the U.S. and also now in other countries. With the strain of COVID-19 still evident, the protests against racial injustice have created an important conversation. We welcome this conversation and long to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ lived out in our midst. Yet, during this season, we have a responsibility to report on the mission God has called us to serve—developing leaders who first experience personal transformation and then extend the transforming power of the gospel to those communities around them. We strive to change the few who change the many. And you help us do that!
“I sense God is moving us toward home churches in the coming days.” (Adrian De Visser) Right before hearing these words from my colleague Adrian who leads a church movement in Sri Lanka, another colleague, Herman Moldez, shared a similar sentiment as he watched the church changing in the Philippines during COVID-19. While many have shared concerns about having to close their church doors for a while, these two leaders see a silver lining in the dark clouds. Like John Wesley led in England in the 1700s, church is being re-thought and re-considered at least in terms that we may know it as in the modern era. The church was always simply the body of Christ gathered—not a building on the corner where people gather.
breakthrough / ˈbreɪkˌθruː /
noun “a sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development.” – Oxford English Dictionary
At the end of 2019, Silk and I felt led to choose a word that would be the focus for the new year. I had just completed a quasi-sabbatical to finish my dissertation and we were looking forward to what was in store for 2020. And, 2020 was sure to be spectacular: Asian Access was...
“That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” – John 17:21
Our planet is in a period of sustained grief: a season hit by a global pandemic, it’s corresponding recession/depression, and the tensions rising from emergency lockdowns and shelter in place orders and advisories. In addition, we are struck with racial tensions flaring, and the mistreatment of ethnic minorities by many and the killing of African Americans by police officers gone bad. Now the lockdowns have turned into curfews across the nation because of the reactions of rioters and looters on a scale like we have not seen in decades. While my friends in the US are seeing this ongoing saga play out day in and day out, my colleagues across Asia are feeling its implications even within the church...
Joe Handley | My bio
Joe joined Asian Access as president in 2008 and has logged many miles traveling across the Asian continent. One thing he has learned is to platform other leaders. In this blog, he hopes to share some of their stories that will encourage you to engage with Asian Access that strives to change the few, who change the many.
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