Usually I am not a huge fan of Nietzsche, but this is particularly terrific.

“What induces one man to use false weights, another to set his house on fire after having insured it for more than its value, while ¾ of our upper class indulge in legalized fraud . . . what gives rise to all this? It is not real want – for their existence is by no means precarious . . . but they are urged day and night by a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly, and by an equally terrible longing and love for those heaps of gold. . . What was once done ‘for the love of God’ is now done for the love of money.” (Nietzsche, The Dawn of Days)

Thanks to Andy Nedlechev in Europe for digging this one up…

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I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. The world has become so small, so borderless and so friendly during these last 9 years of travel, it just kinda seemed like a move was inevitable. Sure, moving out of the country I grew up in has it’s disadvantages (mostly being 10,000 miles away from my adorable little nieces and soon to arrive nephew), but “things” everywhere have become so familiar, it might as well be down the street.

We are moving here to help a friend with his company; a company I strongly believe in; a company that is changing its world as it changes the lives of its partners and employees.

It’s been quite the journey to get here. And I start today.

Finally.

Here’s to the start of career number two.

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It had to be a script from a movie. In one scene I was chatting with high-powered fund managers and Singapore “Wall Street” Executives, and in the next embarking on an Indonesia jungle speedboat ride through former headhunter territory, being chased by a massive storm surrounded by haunted, fog-covered islands that looked like they were meant to lie unexplored so as to protect humanity from the angry beasts within.

Such was my recent trip to Asia.

I arrived in Singapore at 1:30am Monday morning after flying for 2 straight days. Dead tired, I pulled myself out of the plane and walked out of the jet way. Sitting right outside of the gate was Dr. Suparno, a long time friend and soon to be new boss. We cleared immigration then made our way to his mother’s home, finally getting to bed at 3am.

A short four hours later we were up and ready for the “road show” – a series of meetings where we showcase the company to fund managers from a variety of different fund management companies.

We were going from one high rise skyscraper to another, each with a seemingly more amazing view than the previous.

I have never experienced anything like it. It seemed surreal. Actually, this whole year has seemed surreal; from asking to bride to marry me, to leaving Crown – a ministry I have known and loved ever since graduating from college, to now preparing to change continents, climates, and cultures as we move to Indonesia.

I have to admit that many times it has felt like an out of body experience. I was looking down on myself from above wondering if I really knew what I was doing…

But God’s peace transcends all understand, and He’s been especially generous with it lately.

After finishing four days of the “road show”, I had the joy of picking up my future bride, Rocio, from the airport. How cool it was to introduce her to a sampling of my life of jet lag, planes, trains and cultures.

Oh how many times before I had longed for this while sitting alone in an airport somewhere. I remembered a time in Zambia, when I had joined up with a 12Stone mission trip for a while before leaving a few days early. After visiting Victoria Falls, having just seen the most breathtaking, beautiful spots in all of creation, I found myself sitting at the Livingstone airport, longing for someone to share in all the beauty, adventure and excitement.

Now in Singapore with my bride to be, I was reminded of how thankful I am to God for providing a companion.

After we had spent a few hours in Singapore together, we began our journey to see the heart of the business I will be joining there.

It was a one and a half hour flight to Jakarta, followed by a lot of scurrying to make it to the domestic terminal from where our next flight was to leave. We arrived at the airport 15 minutes before takeoff.  Out of breath from the mad dash through the airport, we got to our gate 5 minutes before departure…and a full 2 hrs before our seriously delayed flight would actually leave.

Ha. Hurry up and wait.

The delayed flight finally left and took us, quite literally, to the center of the earth. Pontianak is one of only a couple cities located directly on the equator.

And we felt it. It was HOT.

From Pontianak we traveled another 1.5 hours by car, being thrown this way and that by the broken pavement until it seemed we had lost our way.

Then the cars stopped and out we stepped onto a rickety dock that had me “counting the cost” of each step. Rocio had the privilege of using her first “squatty potty”, and if you haven’t had the privilege of using one, be very glad.

Tied to the dock was what would be our little home for the next 4 hours. The little speed boat sat 8 people in benches across, and there were 8 of us.

We precariously made our way from the dock to the teetering boat.

As we pushed off and started the engine the guys on the dock began yelling at us in Bahasa. The boat operator quickly stopped the engine and pulled an eight-foot log out from under the boat.

Wow.

This was going to be an interesting trip…

We made our way down the two-boat-width channel, under bridges that we barely fit through, and ended up in a much larger, slowly moving river.

While flying through the glass-like water at 50+mph, I couldn’t help but think that the water would be perfect for wakeboarding. Um, with a really thick bodysuit…you know, one that can withstand snake bites.

A couple hours down the river, it emptied into a bay. We hit the bay right at about the same time the storm did.

As did the fog and rain.

And we lost our vision.

We knew there were several larger ships in the bay that could easily crush our little 18 foot boat, so we had to navigate our way to shallower waters.

But which way was the shore?

Thanks to three iPhone compasses, simultaneously pulled out, we found safe harbor near to the shore, where we waited out the storm in safety.

Note: The previous sentence was almost omitted to avoid the accidental opportunity for apple addicts to worship.

Though the storm passed, it left behind a cloudy eeriness, like a mixture of awe and terror.

I couldn’t help but dream of “King Kong” islands and ghostly worlds, yet to be discovered for good reason.

We passed through the bay and found the river that would lead us closer to the plantation. The choppy water turned clear again and my visions of wakeboarding returned.

Slashing through and around the narrow bends, we were sure to honk at every corner, hoping any unsuspecting and unseen vessels would hear. This was my favorite part of the journey. As we traveled further and further upstream, the banks of the river began to close in, as if preparing to swallow us whole.

It was during this part of the journey I began to imagine the headhunters (gone now for a few decades), peering through the thick jungle, blow dart guns ready to send their fury into our necks, putting us to sleep before we were seasoned and tenderized. It felt like the set of an Indiana Jones movie, I kept leaning over to Rocio and saying “This is so cool!”

I’m sure she got sick of it.

Just before the river had its chance to gulp us down, we alighted at another little dock, but this time more sturdy, holding our weight without loudly groaning its complaints.

Having been “windblown” for the past 4 hours, I felt itchy as my blood fed the capillaries that had been starving for attention.

Still not having completed our journey, we hopped into the two pick-ups that were there waiting for us. The last hour to the plantation would prove to be the most difficult for me. The jostling and jolting from the unpaved roads worked it magic on my stomach, leaving me thrilled and victorious to have finally completed the journey; my feet planted on something that wasn’t moving.

The plantation had an austere feeling to it. Stately trees towered overhead and for miles in all directions. It made the place seem more like a sanctuary.

After washing up and dropping our stuff in our rooms, we went down to the mill.

Quite a feat of technology, the mill has the capacity to produce 60 metric tons of crude palm oil per hour.

We watched the trucks bring in the fruit, dumping them in the distribution area where they were emptied into bins. The bins carried them through to where the fruit was separated from the bunch, and then the fruit was crushed and turned into oil. Just like that.

We only were able to spend one day at the plantation, but it was great to meet some of the 2000 employees. It’s going to be so cool to join up with this effort.

Knowing what we were in for made the trip back uneventful, and, after another flight delay, we made it safely to Jakarta.

The last few days of our trip was spent in Jakarta looking at potential places to live, and potential jobs for Rocio. I think we found some great candidates for both.

The trip itself was representative of the “rollercoaster” adventure on which we are getting ready to embark.

Engagement. Marriage. New home. New job. New continent.

This is how it’s supposed to work right?

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Untitled from Matt Elsberry on Vimeo.
It’s been a great last two weeks on this, my first Crown trip as a volunteer. The leaders in these nations are bringing it.

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So my friend Matt Hall was out here last week for his Anesthesiology boards (yeah, he’s a doctor). Jokingly, he kept ribbing me about the company I was joining, asking if we let the kids in our sweat shops take breaks for water.
Haha, Matty.
Nonetheless, our humorous banter that day made me want to share a [...]

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