President Bush honors the Dalai Lama

President Bush honored the Dalai Lama this week. The bastion of freedom heralded the cause of a man who has sought for, fought for, preached for, and lived for the opportunity to go back to his country and again become its dictator. Of course, the people would welcome him back with open arms because they have no other choice. In their view, he already holds absolute power over their souls. Therefore they are obligated to restore to him absolute power over their government if the chance presents itself.

Few understand the bondage Tibetan Buddhism has created in the land it dominates. The country was located in the middle of several of the world's greatest cultures, and yet the people were among the most backward on the planet while the Dalai Lamas ruled them.

The Dalai Lama held them with something far more powerful than fire and sword. He wielded (and still does) spiritual terror as his greatest weapon. If you are not convinced, go look at the art and pictures lamas use to terrorize their victims into submission. These graphically display an afterlife as horrible as any torture chamber on earth only with the exception that death has no releasing power in the Buddhist Hell because death has already occurred.

This is just the beginning. Transmigration (sometimes called reincarnation) means that a person may come back as a new person after death. A person's future existence is decided by factors in his present life. To offend the Dalai Lama would have great repercussions in this life and those to follow. In essence, Tibetan Buddhist leadership has held the Tibetan people hostage for centuries. Now the Dalai Lama aims to reinstate total control of the Tibetan state as well as their religion. He preaches tolerance all around to world to ignorant, gullible people who know nothing of Tibet's history, but he has never renounced his goal to shackle his people politically as well as spiritually. Nor has he ever denounced the regimes that preceded him in Tibet.

Tibetan Buddhism knows nothing in its history of democracy, freedom or peace. There, fear is far deeper than that suffered in war or physical danger. Even now there are little old people prostrating themselves over and over in the dirt as they endlessly circle lamaseries. They do this out of terror of what they may face in the next life. Every true Tibetan Buddhist lives in fear. That is why they willingly waste hour after hour mindlessly spinning pray wheels while reciting mind numbing chants over and over. They must. They have nothing greater to live for. The more devout and sincere a person is, the more the fear is evident.

Welcome to the world of the Dalai Lama's people. Imagine if he once again held all power!

I support my President on most issues, but this time he is wrong. This may win him a few points with the Left, but the Left gives out points for anything but reason.

Deposed dictators are still bad men. The Dalai Lama still dictates to his people spiritually and lusts for the chance to do so again politically.

In a pitiful bid to honor courage, we rewarded craftiness.

Youtube blocked

We aren't able to upload any new videos to Youtube.com for now, because the site has been blocked in at least Beijing.

Perhaps our President's honoring of a would-be dictator (the Dalai Lama) ruffled a few feathers here. Or perhaps the 17th Communist Party Congress in Beijing is to blame.

Anyway, that is why no new videos are popping up.

Becky is teaching again.

With the kids in preschool, Becky has decided to begin teaching again. The school our kids attend doesn't currently need a foreign teacher, so Becky has begun working at a different preschool. It is a prestigious, well-run little preschool in the heart of Beijing

She teaches four mornings a week for two and half hours each time. She loves the school, her colleagues, the students, and teaching youngsters in general. Her late evenings have turned into preparation time for her classes.

The only drawback is the travel time involved in getting to and from the school. Her mornings consist of getting the kids ready, sending them to preschool, riding her bike to the subway station, riding the train for fifty minutes, catching another bus for a short ride, and walking to the the school. Coming home requires the same pattern in reverse. The amount of travel time is less than ideal, but she utilizes it wisely by reading her Bible, praying, and such like.

She has passed up many opportunities to teach fulltime and making quite a lot of money. However, she is already busy enough at home being a wife, mother, hostess... She's amazing!

Preschool

Becky and I have felt for a while that our children's Chinese wasn't progressing as fast as we would have liked. Even though they live in China, they had never been required to lean on their Chinese to function in daily life. There has always been someone to use English when needed. As a result, we could see fluency was not happening.

Another disappointment was the children's lack of playmates their own age. After our second year in China, we had moved off our school campus into a regular apartment. Part of our reason for moving was our desire for our children to have other children to play with. However, we found that there were hardly any children over the age of one. We discovered that the majority of young children in Beijing attend preschools from morning until evening. This was why there were very few children out during the day with whom they could could interact.

We decided to try letting our children attend a preschool in our area on the weekdays for half a day. We looked at several preschools in our area. In the end we decided on a preschool near our home called 未来之星幼儿园 (Future Star Preschool).

Josiah and Amelia attend Monday through Friday starting at eight in the morning. They eat a Chinese breakfast and lunch at the preschool. They have exercise time, story time, play time, various classes, snacks, etc. Originally, we intended to pick them up after lunch, but then we learned that the students have nap time immediately after lunch. So, we decided to let our kids have their naps there. They sleep for two hours until about 3:00 at which time Becky or I are there to pick them up.

So we are trying it out. Josiah has been excited from the first day. Amelia has needed several days to get used to this new idea, but she is quickly adjusting. We have already noticed an improvement in their Chinese.

We are praying for wisdom to know how to provide our kids with the skills and training they need to equip them best for God's service.

Amelia is now two!

Sitting at a little table on our living room floor, Amelia gazed at the made-with-love cupcake before her as we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Lacking an official birthday candle was no problem for Becky. She had lit a match and stuck it in the cupcake. Unfortunately, we sang too slowly or the match lacked resilience. Either way, the match gave out just as we were finishing the song and Amelia was preparing to blow it out. Check out Amelia's perplexed look...


Our celebration spilled over into the next day, when her Daddy had a day off. For lunch we went to one of Amelia's favorite places, "Nonalds" (That is Amelian for McDonalds). Than we took the kids to a little park where Amelia and Josiah rode some rides and had a great time.

What a joy Amelia is to our home! We love everything about her. She has grown so fast. We thank the God for how blessed we are to have her.

Dr. Chappell visits China

One of September's great highlights was the visit of Dr. Paul Chappell from Lancaster, California. He and a delegation made a quick stop in Beijing in the midst of a whirlwind Asian tour. Although they were in Beijing for less than twenty-four hours, it was a wonderful blessing to spend time with those great men.

In spite of the weariness of the trip, Dr. Chappell still radiated the joy and compassion of one whose life is being lived on purpose. It was an honor to sit with him and absorb some more of his vision and counsel. He has a way of always making me a more challenged man.

P.S. One of the men accompanying Dr. Chappell was Kim Ruppert, a sergeant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. I took a moment to explain to him what had happened during our move to our new home. After hearing how the Beijing police handled the situation, he told me that a deputy from his department would have handled the situation in the same way.