What do you think of when you think of 'risk'? Risk of losing a job; risk of losing a friendship; risk of losing your life.
What do you fear? Fear of losing money; fear of losing respect; fear of losing control.
What about...risk despite losing a job; risk despite losing a friendship; risk DESPITE losing your life.
'Despite', though seemingly a common enough word, has two synonyms not commonly associated: 'against' or 'in defiance of'. Once 'risk' becomes a command, its meaning changes entirely from a noun connoting ominous prospects to a verb augmenting the view of such prospects, though they be unknown. 'Losing a job' or 'losing a friendship' or 'losing your life' are all things that understandably induce fear. Each could be interchanged in a sentence:
Risk despite [losing a job]. Risk despite [fear]. OR, risk against [fear]. Risk in defiance of [fear].
Do you see what I'm getting at? Fear is not from God. So what do we stand against when we risk against fear? Yes, you've guessed it: the devil, evil, the enemy.
Fear is everywhere. I've seen how it convolutes reality into some one dimensional shape to the point where you're seeing in black and white, and somehow you're believing in a flat Earth. You start thinking, 'God forbid I ever get on a boat for India, I'll fall right off of this planet's crust into abyss.' But if you gather up your nautical nerve, you may end up in 'America'. When I say fear, I'm not saying the Holy Spirit sense of warning for protection or cautiousness. This is the kind of fear that makes people irrational, and it makes me angry because of how it distorts one's understanding of life and life's interactions. Specifically if they are followers of Christ.
When you take a risk, you've first and foremost made a big decision. But risk unfolds consequtive decisions of unknown results, each contingent on the last, and often growing more momentous than the first. But you face fear. You choose fear or you begin the process of choosing against it, and moving toward the Lord; who is not the source of fear. Fear always chooses you and will continue trying. Maybe chooses your friends, your job, your words, your thoughts, your appetite, and each time its given permission through omission. It's a nail hammered into an early spiritual grave instead of into your spiritual flesh.
Knowing you're obeying the Lord brings peace and joy because obedience is loving Him. His love returned is far greater and more powerful than imagined from the 'saved' sidelines. Who wants to be the 'starter' on this team? Are we afraid the ball will be passed to us? Don't choose fear by sitting on the sidelines. Society is driven by fear. It is a fear-induced society where no one trusts their neighbor, and that neighbor doesn't find it too hard to return the same sentiments.
Fear's principal agitator is pride. Pride inflames through fear's deceptive lies of the unknown. Unknown. I think God must hang out there. The abyss, right? No sir. The 'unknown' is what hasn't been revealed yet. However, the revelation of Truth and grace came through Jesus Christ. Let's not be confused by the characteristic of mystery that we KNOW is embodied in His deity, which leaves us to wonder at His glory. I have faith in what I know, not in what I've deducted from what I don't know about Him. So let's not be mistaken. He was made known and can be known, if we understand that we too can be known by Him. But we must also trust Him. We must know Him, be known by Him, love Who we know, and trust Who we know. Then express such love to others without fear that we'll lose something even if it's unrequitted -- pride will take its greasy hands and smear itself all over the place here if you let it.
When we trust our Savior and God as reality and the One who fulfills His promises, then what can this world rob us of? You may be naming a few things off in your head right now. More poignantly, what should we fear? In the Name above all names, we have the greatest, holiest authority in all divinity and humanity. And yet, He thought of us. How remarkable is that?! The Cambodian AIDS orphan that I held; He thought of her. The Malawian moslem who had a dream of a dove flying to his shoulder; He thought of him. It's something to awe and revere in how it's said, to fear the Lord. The latter 'fear' carries an entirely different word meaning than the 'fear' I have been contending with. Unfortunately, contention between the two has dulled and with some time amalgamated a perspective of God which charts a map for unexplored waters while on land. This evades interaction with our neighbor and ultimately with God. But to have awe, reverence and a firm understanding that He thought of YOU!
This is our strength because it's here we find our incapability to know or save ourselves without Him, and therefore we find our need for something so intimate with our Creator. We're drawn in by His light. Seeing the consequences of ourselves being independent from that gives some a contrite heart and leads to repentence. For these people, they can't help but fall to their knees and in time humility results. Another strength against fear: humility through a contrite heart. Fear can't hold onto a person who is choosing the nails in the spiritual flesh which leads to humility. Pride can't stick because its being actively eroded and redressed with the fruits of the Spirit; all which hold far more authority than pride. Hate, gossip, slander, or any other manifestation of pride will be considered undesirable and avoided at the cost of one's fullness in the Lord, witness, and expression of our love for Him to the world. When you boast in Him, you've already resolved in seeing yourself for who you are, a sinner just like the next person, but then choosing to recognize who you are in Him. You give no authority to the enemy or its fear in your life, because you are functioning instead in the authority of the Lord.
This is called freedom. No fear. No condemnation. No pretence. No hate.
Relinguishing control of the illusions in our lives to God will bring forth what He has offered and still offers. FREEDOM. Freedom to His children of faith and eternal life for everyone who believes. Freedom my friend has a lot more to do with risking than you may think. As small as baking cookies for neighbor who you haven't talked to in four years, or as large as leaving your career, the question is: is what He's saying worth the risk?
Something I've been learning since my return to the U.S .
I've been watching Isaac a lot, my nephew, and since I love him dearly I don't mind. One day while watching him I said, "Isaac, give me the brush or I'll have to take it away from you." I recognized that voice. And you think. Who? Your mother? No.
Actually, those same words were being spoken to me from our Father in Heaven. I heard His voice through the identical verbal words that came from my mouth to Isaac. He wants to give lavishly in ways that surpass expectations but we hold onto things that may be good, but can die in our hands. When we give whatever it may be to Him, the source of life, they grow into what they should and were intended to be in our lives. Blessings instead of curses.
He said, "Extend your hands to me. Choose to give me the things I've entrusted to you for a time so that I can give back 10-fold and more fully to you. So that I don't have to take them away from you. Don't allow those gifts to decompose in your hands, because just like seeds I will plant another in that leftover 'soil' (in your life) and ask the same as I'm asking now. I desire good things for you. Trust in me. "
Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIM, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3
"God gives where He finds empty hands." St. Augustine
Dear supporters, encouragers, and prayer warriors,
I could not have done this year without you.
Thank you for your devotion and love stateside that was an essential part of this trip of missions.
This isn't the last of the blogs, but I wanted to send a big THANK YOU to each of you. This is not necessarily the end of missionary life as the United States is another ministry site of great proportions, and not to mention the strong mission possibility in my future of continued work overseas, but more long-term. Where the Lord might have me in the future is not certain, but I am certain that I am a missionary at heart.
So here's a few THANK YOUs ...
U.S.A.
Thanks to so many for coming alongside me and having the same vision for His kingdom. Believing in the specific call placed on me to be sent has made all the difference, and will change the remainder of my life in so many incredible ways.
Mexico/Nicaragua
Gracias for your prayers against sickness.
Vietnam
Ca-mun for responding to updates and blogs with encouragement.
Thailand
Korp Kun Ka for remembering me at random moments of your day and praying for me.
Cambodia
Acoon for your great comments to the blogs written and feeling the pain for the Cambodians along with me.
England
Cheers to each of you trusting in the Lord right alongside us with the country swap.
Mozambique
Obrigada for praying for protection over our group. It was needed.
Swaziland
Siyabonga for considering supporting fellow squad members in need.
Malawi
Zicomo for showing grace with the lack of blogs being produced and responding so well when blogs did come.
Hungary
Kisanom for your prayers of provision. He provided in full.
Romania/Moldova
Multumesc for caring for the lives of gypsies and Moldovans a globe away from you.
*Special thanks to Angie Simmons for sending those letters of encouragement (with pics!) and for all your love over the past year*
I encourage you now, as witnesses of this loving and powerful God that we serve, that you continue be the light in this world. We all have a call. It is our responsibility to respond. It may not be a call to Thailand or outside this nation, but in daily decisions that lead us to obedience and ultimately vocation. Again, thank you. You give reason to hope in the church.
In the beginning of the trip I decided to paint something from each country of ministry. Each has some significance or story. But I'll be sharing an excerpt from my journal about what God was doing, next to the painting. So alas, after some leg pulling I've put this blog together.(more blogs to come to close out the trip)
Drum roll please...
Mexico: 7/8/08
"We went to a house where we sang worship, prayed and I gave a word from the Lord. He is good. He provided me with John 3:1-21 saying that Jesus makes you reborn with the Holy Spirit and gives life. I read the verses in Spanish and spoke what I was being told by God. The wife there afterwards had us pray for those in a circle who wanted to know Jesus. Each of those people prayed that Jesus would come into their hearts. Amazing. They gave us food and drink. We took of it. Those of us who think it takes years of hearing of Jesus to know Him might find this too quick, too simple. But the Gospel is simple enough to be understood by a child and the faith of a child is all He asks. It starts with a mustard seed."
Nicaragua: 8/18/08 (after the male witch encounter)
"We have a choice everyday how we are going to live our lives, what we will recognize as reality and what we're going to live for. My challenge for you is to not allow the trivial strife for comfort or whatever the vice be, lead you down a lukewarm road of complacency and ultimately death. Rise up and live for what brings life in Christ. Be a threat to what robs like a theif in the night, and overcome evil with good."
*Both Mexico and Nicaragua paintings are done in cafes*
Vietnam: 9/13/08
"Through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City sign after sign read in a language completely foriegn to me. When ordering hot tea and a plate of pineapple for breakfast I received hot tea with pineapple flavoring. Then upon ordering hot black coffee, I received iced expresso with chocolate flavoring. My last attempt was the lunch order of plain noodles with beef and the meal arrived drenched in thick sauce without beef. Maybe if I order the iced coffee next time, hot coffee will show up? In such stark contrast to Nicaragua, I suspect God is fix'n to use this time well to stretch me. Maybe to exhibit His strength instead of mine?"
*Buddhist temple across from the local Pho stand*
Cambodia: 10/7/08
"The sun is setting on another day in Phnom Penh. Most of this feels like a dream from which one day I'll awake and think, what? Think myself happy because I awoke or happy because I dreamt?...I have no answers. I have absolutely nothing but the promises God gives me. How utterly broken I am! Hear the cry of my heart Lord!"
*Angkor Wat near Siem Reap*
Thailand: 11/3/08
"Today we chopped down big branches from a tree, picked and carried papayas (apparently a cow's delight) and bananas, I learned how to make Pad Thai, and we went out into a snake ridden field/jungle to chop weeks with our machetes and sickles to clear the land for electric wire fencing. Then after dinner, we had Bible study and played cards. The mountains with the sunset and stars at night are all extraordinarily magnificant. The words don't even adequately express this beauty."
*God's a better painter than I am. Plus I don't know where my Thailand pic is.*
England: 12/18/08
"It says in Hunger for Reality, 'if we are informed, we realize that many of the young people who grow up in evangelical churches deny the faith before they are 25'. Sitting in a London Starbucks makes it easy to get comfortable and forget that the majority of people walking passed this window on Oxford street don't know the great hope and life in Christ. During this season the cafe is playing Christmas songs but they reach most ears as another familiar sound of the season, but nothing more. They all want to be great fortresses that no one can enter, but each of them acts as a wall against the other; even though they haven't laid a single brick. We are each other's great masons. What a pity this is. None of us are fortresses though, not one. Psalm 46:11"
*Big Ben*
Swaziland: 1/31/09
"Sawubona, unjani? The children are precious beyond words. Many have lost their parents to AIDS and even some themselves suffer from HIV. There are Grandmas (go-gos) and children left in this land, and most everyone else have HIV or are looking for jobs but the cost for transportation is too high to go to the places to apply. So they're stuck loafing at their homesteads. We gave shoes to kids from the care points after washing their feet and praying for them. So much need is here."
*Shoes of Swazi orphans*
Mozambique: 1/16/09
"The goat was slaughtered and skinned about an acre away from the center of the site here, but now we have a goat stew feast. But the well is about 3km away, making it difficult to replenish water."
"How I love you Lord, I urge my heart to say. But my mind plays the chord and I'm off on my day. How I love you God, I tell it ought not be today to know my lot and then watch it fray. How I love you Lord, I hear my heart sing. Sing about joy and sword, you've offered everything."
*Indian Ocean coast*
Malawi: 2/15/09
"We sat down and slowly a group of 5 children gathered in front of me. I began playing with them and then teaching them a hand game, in return asking them to teach me. The kids were more than thrilled. I'm learning often how to laugh at myself. At this point a group of 30-40 people congregated in front and behind Steph and I. We were trying to learn the song we learned here in Nkoatakota, but couldn't remember. I decided to sing the Mozambique song. I finished it in their language Chichewa, 'zicom Yesu' -- thank you Jesus. They wanted to hear more singing , more songs from ME!"
*Jake Livingston tree where the slave trade ended verbally*
Romania:4/7/09
"Yesterday was a good day filled with surprises. We picked up trash from the backyard area. Also, we painted the tree trunks and did various jobs around the house. It was fun to spend time with the family and to play with the kids who tell me, 'I much love Andrea'. So precious. I especially love the way they all live together and take care of one another. I love how the gypsies are people of passion."
*Baby lambs are slaughtered on Easter*
Hungary: 3/26/09
"I miss everyone and all that life there entailed. Lord please bless them and encourage them. I thank you for them. I praise You for Your loving kindness and how you've lavished me and Shanda with such extravagance! There are no words. You are good."
*Chain bridge in Budapest*
Moldova: 5/3/09
"We were in Slobozia village for a week where we stayed with Olga's family. An amazing family of Godly character. I even got to help translate when Katea went to Chisinau. I learned how to plant potatoes, beans and drank strawberry campot for the first time. That time will always be with me. 'Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints...the LORD delights in those who put their hope in his unfailing love'. Psalm 146"
Since April 23rd, a small group and I went to Moldova and served with an extraordinary family in a village for about 8 days. Talking to youth about prayer, giving testimonies about our lives and the trip, singing at services (and even having worship practice to carry a note!), hoeing up weeds around grapevine for the elderly, planting potatoes/beans, stripping down warped walls and reconstructing a room for four children with a neglegent mother, and having solid fellowship with amazing Moldovans. We used word and deed to share the love of Christ. And had fun doing it.
We worked hard and played hard...
All in the family minus two brothers -- incredible family Moldovan Spring brought red tulips everywhere!
Planted potatoes on their land The Moldovan kids we helped
Even the bunicas (old women) from the community got involved
is a hard one for the Christian youth of the country. As we have seen in so many places and churches around the world, including our own churches, religion often gets in the way of faith. The Communistic and Orthodox background here in Romania influences the religion and gives the country an extra challenge when it comes to faith. During Easter weekend we were witnesses to the challenges that religion and persecution have on one young girl.
Alex is a thirteen year old Gypsy girl growing up in Viile Tecii, Romania. She has believed in God for a few years now but has been scared to make the step of faith that comes with baptism. It is hard enough to be a young Gypsy girl in a country that does not welcome your race, but even harder to have a faith outside the religious box of Orthodox Christianity. When Alex found her faith in the salvation that comes only through Jesus, she and her family no longer attended the Orthodox Church and the teasing and harassment at school began. Alex wanted to be baptized but the church told her she was too young and she was scared this act of faith would make life even harder for her at school. Both religion and persecution were keeping her from acting on her new-found faith.
When Alex heard that two of the American girls wanted to be baptized on Easter Sunday, she finally worked up her courage to be baptized as well. Tears streamed down her face for the majority of the service because she was both excited and scared. She was excited to finally share her faith with her community and friends, but scared about the consequences it might bring to her social life. With her mother close by and her father baptizing her, Alex finally made her step of faith!
Of course, God always blesses those who step out in faith and Ferdinand's story is not a coincidence. Ferdinand is a young man who lives two houses down from Alex and her family. He has struggled with alcohol for years and his addiction has quickly been destroying his life. He is known in the community has a troubled young man, and his wife and child left him when the abuse got to be too much. Not that long ago, Ferdinand hit rock bottom when he got into a bar fight that left him in the hospital. He had made a deal with God that if he lived he would turn his life around, but after being released from the hospital he quickly went back to his same old ways.
Little did Ferdinand know that God would hold him to his promise. While Ferdinand stood across the street listening to the testimonies and watching young Alex be baptized, tears started streaming down his face. He had remembered the promise he made to God and was finally ready to give his life over to his Creator. He said that he could not explain what happened in his heart but he knew God had moved and in a moment he was changed! In that moment, Ferdinand knew that he wanted to be baptized and there was no stopping him.
I've already seen the difference that Ferdinand's faith has made in his life. One of the first days we were in the village this man came up to Katie and I with inappropriate intentions. I didn't understand what he was saying but his actions made his motives clear. As always, we blew him off and then avoided him every time we saw him outside his house. The day after Ferdinand was baptized, a few men were walking down the street at night and stopped to make a few comments in our direction. Ferdinand was outside his house and quickly came to our defense. The man who was once quick to join in the taunting was now standing up against his peers in our defense. This is just a small example of what God has done in Ferdinand's life already, but we see the evidence of his new faith in so many ways! God has completely restored him into a whole new person!
Gypsies claim no nation and are nomads who constantly move from place to place and only call one another home. I think I can understand this nomadic life. I have been experiencing something similar for over 10 months. It ages and tires anyone, and so has an effect on the body and mind. Girls get married and pregnant around 14 years old and guys don't wait any later than their early 20's to tie the knot. This is significantly different than most of Europe.
I often wonder if the 'gypsy' inside will ever grow tame and silent?
This question saturates my thoughts lately with the trip's end nearing. sometimes I hope for it, but I hope more for what it brings and ignites from within. The 'gypsy' within is considered reckless, impractical and foolish. I've heard more than those to describe what drives my reasons to do a trip like this. While off of ministry I climb the Transylvania foothills to find solitude and on top a pasture I watch the flocks of sheep grazing. Having an escape to wander and find a way without anyone's supervision or opinion is a beautiful thing. Each hill that I climb leaves me wondering for what is beyond it.
When was the last time you've wondered in awe instead of wondered in angst?
My God causes me to wonder. I think many have either lost the wonder in God, or never thought it an important aspect of a relationship with Him. It's been said that 'we cease to wonder at what we understand'. Maybe we understand God then absolutely? I admittably do not. Whether it sounds cheesy or not, I feel exquisite when I'm set to wonder about Him. I feel loved that God would care to give me joy at the mere sense of wonder. It's connected closely with the untamed spirit that awakens me and fills me with life. Not always predictable or safe, but always sure. Because the source is unfeigned and light.
It's true that I've grown tired of sleeping every night in a sleeping bag in someone else's house, using someone else's kitchen, and wearing the same shirt and pants a few consequitive times before being washed. To name a few. But what I said in Nicaragua I still say now: "Prefiero que yo sea una vaga sino que no me haga caso un llamado y viva pasiva para toda mi vida".
*I rather I be a vagabond than ignore a call and live passively for all of my life.*
I want to give Katie credit for this blog, she did a great job with the right words and pictures. Thanks Katie. I'll be getting a blog out soon. >>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
In their music I feel the burdens of a downtrodden people. I hear the echoes of a history of repression and sadness, a yearning for a common home for their common culture. The Gypsies as a people group have never had a country of their own, and something in my spirit feels that, though I don't understand their language.
Historically, the Roma or Sigani (Gypsy) people came from India. Known as travelers, as vagabonds, as mysterious and outcast, Gypsies have settled in many countries, but are still able to communicate using the Gypsy language (of which there are several dialects) and feel kinship with one another. They have settled in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, other parts of Europe and other more far-flung places like America.
Seemingly wherever they go or however long they've been settled there, the Gypsy people are not considered local. Their identity is marked on their ID cards as a separate minority, not belonging. They've been prejudiced against, stereotyped and disliked.
Our ministry contact, John Fracker, is an American missionary who's gone local (married a wonderful local gal and is now raising a child in Viile Tecii). He likes to tell us one joke he's heard from the Christian Gypsies.
When we all get to heaven, we're all going to speak in one language....That language is going to be Gypsy language!
I believe that any Christian should be able to identify in some small way with the Gypsy people. Why? Because we don't belong here on this earth. This is not our home. Rather, we were created to be at home with God.
"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ...Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one." ~Heb. 11: 13, 16
"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, ... For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight." ~2 Cor. 5: 1-7
Like the Gypsies, able to feel kinship with one another no matter which country they've settled in, I've felt kinship with the church everywhere we've been on the Race this year. Whether Nicaragua, Vietnam, Burma, Swaziland, Malawi or here in Romania, we have one Spirit--the Spirit of God--that dwells within our hearts and unites us as the body of Christ on earth, the church. We as members of one family all know our home is not this earth.
"Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, *American, Gypsy or Romanian*, but Christ IS all, and IS IN all." ~Col. 3:11
Where is your home? Are you at home here on earth? Or does your spirit long for the heavenly home we were created to dwell in with God?
Starting tomorrow there will be 51 more days left for the July 08 World Race squad. Some of us in Malawi began reading the Psalms as 'countdown with Scripture'. That quickly escaped my consciousness after Africa with travel and general busyness, but I took a peek today at Psalm 51.
"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me....Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you...O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise....The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart."
A breakdown from my mind of the passage:
A pure heart is needed for a steadfast spirit. To sustain and remain steadfast requires a willingness rising from desire for restoration. Knowledge of sin (not restored) leads to brokenness and then restoration when it results in turning to God. Joy results when the choice is made to call out in repentance and then praise, and further choices made resulting in action toward Him spurs on willingness and back to joy, which is key to being sustained. Lastly, us sinners have gone through this and continue to, so that we can testify to those who don't know or understand -- that there exists a way, the WAY. In fact, we of the faith have chosen it, continue to choose it daily, and the WAY leads to hope everlasting in the God who keeps His promises. We may not be living in the age of ram sacrificing in the "West", but we manage to find substitutes for appeasing our guilty consciences which we often deify.
<--A good example of when I was not only imperfect in translating but more markedly very frustrated by someone who was frustrated at me -- the speaker. oops, and in front of 100+ people watching. one day out of the 300+ days I've been on this trip interacting with all kinds of situations. You can imagine how many more similar examples I have...
My point is this...Those who "teach transgressors [God's] ways" have been transgressors themselves and therefore can testify to the restoring power of His ways. We are still nonetheless imperfect, but yet perfectly made for the restoring, glorifying and perfected plans through those very same imperfections of our broken state. Thanks Psalm 51.
Mexico: 7/8/08
Nicaragua: 8/18/08 (after the male witch encounter)
England: 12/18/08
We worked hard and played hard...
resized[1].jpg)
Gypsies claim no nation and are nomads who constantly move from place to place and only call one another home. I think I can understand this nomadic life. I have been experiencing something similar for over 10 months. It ages and tires anyone, and so has an effect on the body and mind. Girls get married and pregnant around 14 years old and guys don't wait any later than their early 20's to tie the knot. This is significantly different than most of Europe. 
nearing. sometimes I hope for it, but I hope more for what it brings and ignites from within. The 'gypsy' within is considered reckless, impractical and foolish. I've heard more than those to describe what drives my reasons to do a trip like this. While off of ministry I climb the Transylvania foothills to find solitude and on top a pasture I watch the flocks of sheep grazing. Having an escape to wander and find a way without anyone's supervision or opinion is a beautiful thing. Each hill that I climb leaves me wondering for what is beyond it. 
When was the last time you've wondered in awe instead of wondered in angst? 
Historically, the Roma or Sigani (Gypsy) people came from India. Known as travelers, as vagabonds, as mysterious and outcast, Gypsies have settled in many countries, but are still able to communicate using the Gypsy language (of which there are several dialects) and feel kinship with one another. They have settled in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, other parts of Europe and other more far-flung places like America. 
