John Fanai ن

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

“Live to be forgotten that Christ may be remembered.”

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

The second worldview shift that hit our family: We should be using our resources to help people around us.. we should invest our life as a family to bring the gospel to those who have no opportunity to hear it." -Gail Chen. RIP

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

“The first worldview change that happened in our lives was understanding that the chief end of our family, the main purpose of our existence, is the praise of God's glorious grace, not the preservation or promotion of our own comfort, safety, or happiness in this world.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@tedstur @Scott_W_Dunford @ChrisHowles @MissioNexus @Modern_Day @TheUpstreamC @MissionsPodcast Thanks!

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Lately, I’ve seen many returned cross-cultural missionaries walk away from Jesus, struggle spiritually, or disengage from church altogether. Have any studies or articles been written about this? @ChrisHowles , @MissioNexus , @tedstur , @Modern_Day @TheUpstreamC ,@MissionsPodcast

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@RadiusInt We love what Radius Asia is doing in Taiwan.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

It seems to me that there is some revived interest in traditional stuff, after many years of modernization and development where many traditional pieces are being vanished or torn down.

[Tong Bingxue 仝冰雪 @tongbingxue]

The Zhongyuan Festival中元节—known locally as the Ghost Festival in Kaili, Guizhou, it runs from tonight (the 13th day of the 7th lunar month) through the 15th.

These evenings, families gather by the riverside (as designated by the local authorities for fire safety) to burn paper offerings, honoring the spirits of their departed loved ones. 🔥🕯️

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

They started Radius Asia, training specifically Chinese speakers to reach unreached language groups, the type of training we don’t really see in Taiwan, or perhaps even in the wider Chinese speaking world.

May God raise up more Taiwanese believers to follow in her footsteps.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

One of the key and influential mission leaders in Taiwan, Gail Chen, went home to be with Jesus yesterday after battling cancer for many years! A huge loss for Taiwan and the Chinese-speaking world!

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Sister Gail, along with Brother Wayne and their young family, was in PNG for about 12 years, reaching unreached language groups, translating the Bible, and planting a church. They came back a few years ago after handing over the leadership of the church to the locals.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@matthew_loftus @Plough I can’t wait to read this book. A few years ago, I read Frank Farudi’s book on Therapy Culture. It’s good to see a book from a Christian perspective and understand its impact.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@ChrisHowles @tedstur @MissioNexus @Modern_Day @TheUpstreamC @MissionsPodcast @bradleyrbell This is intriguing! Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the article. :)

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@Scott_W_Dunford @ChrisHowles @MissioNexus @tedstur @Modern_Day @TheUpstreamC @MissionsPodcast Would you suggest that perhaps engaging in primarily spiritual activities isn’t sufficient; you need more well rounded activities?

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Thank you so much for your responses! I appreciate the work that you are all doing. I have benefited from your articles, podcasts, etc.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@bonniekristian @jeff_bilbro Does this book focus mainly on US evangelicalism?

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

https://t.co/iHEkElnkWE

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Dan Everett was a young Christian missionary.. on a mission to convert a small indigenous group called the Piraha, who lived in the Brazilian Amazon.Over the years he began to understand them, but the things they told him caused his worldview to fall apart.

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

@ Arise Asia -Go where there is No Gospel

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Amen!!

[John Fanai ن @johnafanai]

Allan Yeh makes important point at China Congress for World Evangelization Chinese in Kuching. Idolization of elders vrs western idolization of youth. What the Chinese theology can contribute

[Charlie D. Becker @charliedbecker]

I'm a second-generation bookseller. My family runs Houston's largest used & rare bookstore and I'm building an AI tool for used bookstores. We got hit by exactly these orders, including a single order for 70 obscure books that made us pause online sales entirely. So I dug in. I don't think this connects the way people want it to.

Every ingredient of the viral story is true. ISBNdb really does advertise sourcing books for AI companies. Anthropic really did destructively scan millions of books though they were mostly acquired through things like library deaccessions, not bookstore inventory. And booksellers really are getting bizarre bulk orders. But "rare" here isn't what you're picturing. It's The Insider's Guide to Metro Denver (1995) and how-to-use-WordPerfect 1991 manuals. Obscure, but often not precious.

When we combed through our orders, nearly every book bought from us was either unavailable on Amazon or listed there at 5, 10, 20x our price on the platform they were purchased on. And the shipments are going to FBA prep companies: which is what you do with a book you're about to resell, not one you're about to cut apart. There is more than circumstantial evidence that this is a well-funded company running algorithmic arbitrage, buying underpriced or out-of-stock books to relist on Amazon at markup. This evidence includes an official denial that they are selling to train AI but I don't want to mention them for several reasons. You can Google it.

That's more mundane than the shredder story. The actual risk is worse, though, because it's quieter: books that don't sell via FBA eventually get liquidated. If we really hold the last copies of some of these (and comparing platforms, it looks like we might) we're feeding them into a portal they may not come back from. No AI company required.

Everyone assumes the internet preserved everything. It didn't. Many of these books have almost no metadata anywhere, just a scattered listings across proprietary databases then nothing. That's what my project is for: building better bibliographic records for these books than exist anywhere else, so we at least have a map of what we stand to lose. So the Library of Alexandria is still burning, just more slowly, and kore from “who cares” than from some cinematic villain.

(I am open to being corrected.)

Full writeup: https://t.co/tHXMH0L3us