Sermon on generosity and mission work in Southeast Asia and Central America
A guest speaker delivers a Mission Month update at Sumner Redcliffs Anglican Church, sharing stories from decades of work with vulnerable children in Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, and Central America.
Summary
A guest speaker — introduced humorously by Rev Harry Newton as "Reverend COVID" — addresses the congregation at Sumner Redcliffs Church for Mission Month, drawing on 1 John 3 and Luke 12 (the Parable of the Rich Fool) to argue that Christian love must be expressed in concrete action, not words alone. He cites theologian John Stott's claim that Christians who witness poverty and do nothing have fraudulent faith, and draws a parallel with the Plague of Cyprian (AD 249–270), during which early Christians cared for the dying at personal risk, leading to dramatic church growth. The speaker then gives an extended account of his own mission organisation's work since 1990, beginning in Thailand with child prostitutes and expanding to Cambodia, Nepal, northern Thailand, Honduras, and El Salvador. He presents specific individuals — including a human rights lawyer, a cosmetic maxillofacial surgeon, and a medical doctor from an untouchable caste — as evidence that investing in vulnerable children produces transformative Christian leadership. He closes with a challenge to the congregation to contribute not just financially but through skills, education, and expertise, and expresses ambition to expand into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Opening Remarks
Guest Speaker: It's great to be here. I've been on the road — eight or nine weeks in a row — and then next Sunday I'm in Ohopi, and after that I'm in Thailand for a month and a half. It's really busy.
The Call to Active Love — 1 John 3
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
This is pretty hardcore. This is pretty hardcore.
"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but in actions and in truth."
This is very hardcore. This is disturbing. I'm trying to disturb you and make you feel discomforted this morning.
There were a lot of people who wanted to know — well, define "brother or sister." And so they took it to a whole bunch of theologians, and the theologians came back saying that "brother or sister" meant the brotherhood of man. It meant everybody — not just Christian people or Jewish people at that time. Not at all. It meant everybody. So the pressure is on. We're Christian people. The pressure is on us to care for our brothers and our sisters.
John Stott — I'm sure a lot of you have heard of him, the English theologian — he talks about this, and he said: if a Christian can physically witness poverty, possesses the ability to do something about it, but they choose to close their hearts — wait for it, because it gets worse — their claims of knowing God are completely fraudulent.
And that's hardcore.
Now, the problem with me doing a talk like this is that you'll think someone is trying to manipulate you to get money, which is entirely true. But the pressure is on us as Christian people to be generous — not just with money, but in terms of our education and our experiences. It's not simply about funds.
The Plague of Cyprian — A Historical Model for Christian Generosity
So I'll give you an example. Around AD 249 to 270, there was a massive plague called the Plague of Cyprian. Cyprian was the Bishop of Carthage, which was in northern Tunisia, and this man really rocked the boat.
At the peak of it, they estimate that probably about 5,000 Romans were dying in Rome per day. It could have been from smallpox, it could have been from measles — they don't know — but it went on for a period of about 20 years, and people were dying in enormous numbers. The Roman Empire was being badly buffeted by this.
What would happen is, if you lived in a family and somebody in your whānau got this contagion, they would literally be put out on the street. They'd be put out there, and they either recovered or they died — one or the other.
What Cyprian decided to do was say to his people: you people who are rich, you're going to pay for this. You people who aren't so wealthy, you're going to be the ones who actually go out on the street — not that you rich people are going to get out of it, but you poor ones who don't have the funds, you're going to go out on the street and you're going to care for these people. They might die, and you might die caring for them too. But you're going to go out on the street, you're going to care for these people, you're going to bind up their wounds, you're going to give them water, you're going to give them whatever they need, and if they die, you're going to bury them. As Christians, we're going to bury them, and we will cover the financial burden of it.
And so they did this. Of course, a lot of Christian people did die for the sake of these people, some of whom came through it and survived. The result — because these Christian people went as far as that — was that the Christian church grew massively. One of the main catalysts was the generosity of the Christian people at that time. The thought is that the Christian church in the Roman Empire probably grew by about 40% per decade, compounding. That is massive. That is huge.
So as an example, we can see how we are meant to care for all people, and when we are caught caring for all manner of people, we develop a good name.
It was called the Plague of Cyprian — he actually had a plague named after him. I was saying at the earlier service, like COVID, we could call it Harry Newton. And so people would say, "Oh, I've got Harry Newton, it sucks, man," and they stick this thing up your nose and it feels like it's in your brain because they're testing you for Harry Newton. Or people might say, "Oh, I was going to go on an overseas trip to Fiji, but my wife got Harry Newton, so now we can't go." Someone else says, "Oh, I've got long Harry Newton." It's just so cute.
Consumerism as the Enemy of Christian Mission
But for many of us, one of the biggest problems we have is consumerism. We get caught up tūtūing around in the stuff that everybody else does in the world. We lose our focus on what's important, and we tūtū around with stuff that the advertisers want us to get involved in.
Victor Lebeau was one of the architects of post-Second World War economics in America, and this is his commentary on how it's gone:
"We need things to be consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."
And we see what the Council of Economics said in America post-World War II. The American economy wasn't based around trying to help Black or impoverished people within their country. It wasn't about the hospital system or anything like that. I can remember President Trump just after 2008, when they went through the financial crisis — he was encouraging people to get out and spend. And I get it, because it stimulates the economy. But surely we're better than that. Surely we are better than that.
The Speaker's Story — Beginning in Thailand, 1990
We used to live in Tokoroa. You know where that is? Yeah. In Tuk, we all talk like this — well, we used to, with the brothers, because a lot of them are Cook Islanders and Māori. We used to hang out with all these street kids all the time.
My wife and I — it's not because we're noble — we just couldn't be bothered with all that consumer stuff. It just didn't really spin our wheels. It's not because we're noble, it just didn't do it for us.
When we arrived in Thailand in 1990 — I think I've got a picture of us. Yeah, that's us. That little girl in the front, she's now 34 years of age. That's her son sitting over there. So it was a long time ago.
When we started — and I'm not just being self-deprecating, this is the truth — we were total, absolute nobodies. We didn't have a visa, so we just used to leave the country every three months and go down to Malaysia. We had very little money, and sometimes we'd run out of money. We had like five or six boys who were child prostitutes living with us. We'd run out of money and say, "Boys, we've got no more coin." And so these guys would run out of the house and come back an hour later with a whole lot of belt bags they'd stolen off tourists, and they'd bring back pizza boxes full of pizzas.
We really kind of lived rough. We didn't have an organisation. We just kind of went out there — which I don't recommend you do, but it worked for us.
Then, because we were living with those sorts of boys, there was talk that maybe I was a pedophile, because I had all these boys living with us — me and my wife had these boys living with us — which was really freaky and really horrible.
After a while, we had about 30 boys living with us, so it really grew.
My Wife's Cancer and the Shift to Indigenous Leadership
Then my wife got cancer. She got a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma, and it's a killer cancer. You can be all negative and depressed about it, but one of the good things it said to us was: the work can't just rely on us.
I was in Cambodia one time and I stole this idea from a Swiss missionary. Instead of the work being based around us, we started to work with really on-to-it, really good indigenous Christian leadership. These men and women who we still work with — they are so on to it, they are so good. And so now we've been able to set up a whole lot of works all around the place.
The Work — Cambodia, Nepal, and Northern Thailand
You can see where we work. What we try to do is get a hold of kids who are poor, and by and large — not always, but by and large — they have to be really vulnerable. Girls at risk of being sex trafficked, or boys at risk of ending up in gangs, or at risk of getting press-ganged into the Burmese army — that kind of stuff. Really hardcore kids. But they can't be tūtūing around. We want people who try really hard at school. They have to really work at school. Our aim is to develop Christian leadership.
Just to give you some ideas of that — Vibol is on the left-hand side. Vibol is a human rights lawyer now. He came to us when he was about 14 or 15. He's the chair of our board in Cambodia now.
The other boy came from a very deprived situation — 18 kids in the family. His father used to beat him with a motorbike chain and with cable wires, for whatever reason. He didn't even have a pencil to go to school. Then, just through being discipled in the homes, he graduated high school and then graduated MBBS. He's a medical doctor. He got invited to Paris, where he studied general surgery and cosmetic maxillofacial surgery. He's back in Cambodia now. He could be a millionaire, but he gives his money away because he set up NGOs caring for poor people. We're trying to carry it on — so that they own the projects.
This boy here, Sushal Nepali, is from a Hindu caste known as the untouchables. That's his wife-to-be in a couple of weeks — she's from Kerala in South India. He got into the second-best medical school in India from Nepal, travelled down to India, graduated MBBS, and has just graduated general surgery as well. He wants to do a super-specialty — they call it — in gastroenterology. She's also a doctor. So this guy has gone from nothing up to now being married to another doctor. That's what we're trying to produce. They're really good Christian people. Sushal would be the most educated, smartest person in his whole tribe.
Have any of you been to Chiang Rai? Chiang Rai is about three hours north of Chiang Mai. They run a home for kids up there.
Central America — Honduras and El Salvador
We've also set up in Central America. Andy Miller — he's not here, is he? Because if he was here, he'd be loud. Andy has been so incredibly helpful in setting up in Central America. We've set up in Honduras and El Salvador, and we want to set up in Guatemala as well. Those three countries are the three northern triangle countries where the gangs are so prevalent — MS-13 and Barrio 18. You name all the gangs in New Zealand and multiply it by 100. These guys are incredibly violent.
We work with kids who could end up like that, or who are victims of gang violence. We take on young fellas. If you look at our website, you can see a bit more.
One Boy's Story — From San Pedro Sula to Honduras and Back
As an example of one of the boys we work with — this particular boy, when he was about 12 or 13, left San Pedro Sula in Honduras. San Pedro Sula is ranked as the most dangerous city in the world. He left San Pedro and travelled up to Guatemala, and then from Guatemala he travelled up into southern Mexico when he was about 12 or 13. He cleaned the streets in southern Mexico during that time.
Then his mum paid for a coyote to take him over the border from Mexico to cross the Rio Grande into Texas. My translator at that time, Andy Miller, was telling me about it all, because we interviewed him. I asked him, "How deep was the Rio Grande? What was that like?" And he said, "Oh, it wasn't a big deal — it was only about chest high, just walked through."
The coyote said to them: when we cross the border into Texas, here's a phone — dial 911. ICE is going to pick you up. ICE picked him up. He got sent to a centre where they triage what his story is, and then he got sent to another centre where there were about 5,000 of these kids, and it was like hell on earth — everybody smacking on everybody else, Bully Boy Central — so he had to learn how to fight. Obviously he was depressed. By this time he was about 14.
He was there for quite a long time, and then he got transported from Texas right up to Michigan — if you know that, that's like vertically straight up the country to the other end, poking into Canada. He stayed there for a while. He was getting suicidal, thinking about how he might kill himself. Then a woman from neighbouring Wisconsin took him in.
He went to live in Wisconsin. They didn't get on — this lady and this boy did not get on. This boy would have gone through significant trauma. He would have been a nightmare to look after. He ended up seeing a psychiatrist and all that kind of stuff.
Then somehow he got flown back to San Pedro Sula again in Honduras. So he's back home. His dad lived in a gang zone and his mum lived in a gang zone, so he'd go and visit his parents, crossing gang zones. You don't want to cross gang zones.
Finally, these gang guys pull him over, smack him around a bit, and say, "Dude, what are you doing? You're crossing gang zones all the time. Who do you work for? You're not working for us — you're working for the other crowd." They put a gun to his head and say, "You've got five seconds. Run before we shoot you." So he ran. Obviously they didn't shoot him. But where was he going to go? He had nowhere to go.
His mum paid for him to go to another city called Siguatepeque in Honduras. He went there. But it seems as though his mum and he felt like the people looking after him in that city might sell him to the gangs. So he had to come back to San Pedro Sula again. But he had nowhere to go because he couldn't stay home. So he stayed in a Christian radio station. That would drive me nuts — listening to Christian music all the time. It would drive me nuts. But anyway.
I said to him, "What was it like staying in the Christian radio station for three months?" And he said, "Oh, it was nothing, because I was used to being in a cell anyway." So it was no big deal.
Then we got a hold of him. He was significantly difficult for us — not easy at all. The house parents were pulling their hair out with him. But he's now settled down.
Academic Results in Honduras
Our Honduran boys do very well at school. They go to a Montessori school near San Pedro Sula. Two of the boys who are getting really close to university age — one is getting 98% at school, the other is getting 97%. The next boy down is only getting 96%. And the boy I just talked about — he's averaging 90%. He'll do better as he gets further into the system.
We're seeing that there is massive potential in Central America for what we do. The potential is off the charts.
Reporting to the Church and the Parable of the Rich Fool
The church here supports our work, so it's only right that I report to you about what's going on. Obviously, people like me tell you all the good stories. There are plenty of failures, plenty of disappointments — if I go into that, I'll start crying.
You'll see in this passage that the prime word is greed. He had an abundance of possessions, and he was greedy. It seems like he did not, through his own hard work and rat cunning, get this bumper crop from the fields — it just came to him. And then, of course, we see further down where it says: "You fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you." The implication being: your life is not your own. It's loaned to you.
And of course, people like me are going to say: all your money, all your skills, everything else you have — it's loaned to you. From those who are given much, much is required.
Jewish people believed that if you were a seriously successful businessman like this person, it was God's blessing. But for us, if our security is in our possessions, we have a fundamental fault within our lives. His life was demanded from him. The thing that gets me — and again, you might think I'm trying to manipulate, I promise you I'm not — is that he had the potential to do so much good, and he just blew it. He just blew it. And soon after he died, according to the story, he blew it. He had the chance to do such cool stuff, but he blew it.
We too are challenged. When we became Christians — if we were serious about it — our life is not our own. Everything we have belongs to God. So we'd better do something with it. We're stewards of our life, of our possessions, of our education.
But so often we are caught lacking courage, being sidetracked, or making the trivial important. That's a good line — I'm going to say it again. So often we're caught lacking courage, or we're sidetracked — like with the consumerism thing that Victor Lebeau was talking about — or we make the trivial important.
Now I'm really going to step on some sacred cows here. I would say the whole COVID thing from three years ago — we really made that a big deal in so many churches in New Zealand. And in the end, dare I say it, it's kind of just trivial, because we need to make the main thing the main thing. We don't get caught up in all the COVID bickering. To be honest with you, I have no clue about what this church was like with that. But we must be caught doing good things for the kingdom.
A Challenge to the Congregation — Skills, Expertise, and the DRC
As an organisation, we need funds, obviously. But it's not just about funds. It's about people's experience and expertise. You may be a Bible college teacher — well, why don't you use that in Myanmar? You don't have to just do it in New Zealand. Why don't you use it in Thailand? You don't have to just do it in Christchurch. We have all these wonderful resources and a wealth of education here. Let's use that for the world.
Some of you have probably studied aid and development over the years. I can send you to places.
We would like to start up in — everybody laughs when I say it — the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's called the rape capital of the world. It's not a great place, but it's where we should be. And every time I say it, people just go, "Oh, nah, I'm busy." But that's where we should be.
I just want to thank the church for your support for our work. If you want to sign up to get our propaganda, I'll have that out the back there. If you want me to come along to any of your home groups — because you're giving us money, if you want us to come along to any of your home groups and talk about what we do, bring it on. Just let me know. I'm always up for catching up with people, especially when they're giving us funds. We should be reporting on what's happening.
Rev Harry Newton: Reverend COVID. You know, I've been called many things. This is the first time I've ever been called that. Let's give him a round of applause.