Let's Talk Thailand

I can’t believe how the time has flown since my return from Thailand. As you can imagine, it's been a busy couple of months (hence why it's taken me forever to get anything written up on here...) ! It feels like just yesterday we were fundraising, making plans, packing supplies, and stuffing as much information about this foreign country into our heads as possible. But now… it’s all over. We made it there and back with bags full of Thai goodies, heads full of memories and hearts full of encouragement and faith.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning…

As the New Year dawned this past January, this trip was one of the big highlights that I was looking forward to for the year 2015. It was also one of my biggest prayer concerns and one of the most daunting responsibilities I have embarked on.

Planning progressed and as departure day loomed closer, though I was feeling prepared for the trip itself, I found myself insecure about my role on this particular trip. I have never been on overseas missions before and to be in a leadership role over these students was intimidating. I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know what I should be ready for. I didn’t have any idea what God was going to bring our way and I didn’t really know what it was going to look like for me to serve. But the day before we left, God send encouragement and clarity to me from a fellow youth worker who I have looked up to for years. She helped me to clarify my purpose and excited me about my role as both a discipler and a (almost mom-like) comforter on this trip. Being the only female leader, I had the joy of connecting and encouraging the 9 young ladies on the trip and WOW did I end up learning a lot! About myself, about leadership, and about Jesus and His church.

One of my big jobs as a leader was organizing a huge garage sale and silent auction event to raise funds for the trip. We collected donations of used items from friends, family, and other church members and completely packed our gym facility with an incredible array of used “treasures”. Hours and hours of phone calls, pick-ups, organizing, pricing, more organizing, and then selling the items, was totally worth it. I loved every exhausting second of it! We were able to raise over $5000 to put towards the team funding and we had a great time working together to pull it off!

Speaking of funding, I was blown away by the generosity of my family and friends. God's provision through their giving had me in tears as I realized the support group God has built around me. I am blessed with so many loving people who have influenced and encouraged me throughout my life and this trip was such an amazing reminder of that! 

Of course there is not space here to go into all the details that a trip like this really needs in order to be understood (well, there is space, but you probably don't want to sit here for hours reading it...) but I will share some of the biggest highlights and most impactful moments for me.

Week One: Bangkok

During our first week, we served in Bangkok, mostly at the Ruth Center with an amazing little lady named Noi (whose name literally means ‘little’). She works in the slums of Bangkok, serving the elderly who otherwise have no one in the world who cares for them. The biggest part of her ministry is simply visiting, talking, and being a steadfast friend to these men and women who live most of their days in solitude. She shares the glorious news of Christ with them, brings them rice, connects them to each other in community, and organizes construction projects on their homes to improve their living conditions. We had the joyous opportunity to take part in each of these activities. Each day we would make rice deliveries and visit with the grandmas and grandpas. Through the help of a translator we got to hear their stories, pray for their needs and praise God for their faithful witness in the midst of their poverty.

I think one of the most impacting things for me was to see my brothers and sisters in Christ living and worshipping God on the other side of the world. To see the CHURCH in another country, growing, expanding and furthering God’s kingdom was huge for me. They look so different. They speak so different. And yet to hear them sing praises to our God, the SAME God, was amazing; a little taste of heaven. I was convicted about my own stereotyped view of Christianity – stereotypes I didn’t even know I had! And I found myself praising God for His faithfulness across cultures, generations, and countries. I was overflowing with joy in the salvation of these elderly Thai people, for their stories of His grace as He sought out each one of them – men and women who had lived their whole lives serving a false god, with no hope, deserted by their families, but not forgotten by their Saviour.

Another special part of our ministry in Bangkok was the kindergarten we got to visit each day. We ran a short kids program with the kids, aged 2-5. We sang songs, read them Bible stories, played games and made crafts. But more than that, we got to see little kids from the slum communities smile. We got to make them laugh and they got to steal our hearts. It’s amazing the love God gives you for little children. Jesus had a heart for kids and as Christians, I think we should too. They are precious gifts, so full of life and yet so vulnerable to their situations. As I held little Thai girls and boys in my arms, children with whom I couldn’t communicate beyond a hug and a smile, I prayed with all my heart. Their life in the slums is so uncertain and yet they can have the strongest foundation in Christ. How I pray they will reach out to Him and accept His truth in the coming years of their lives!

Bangkok Temple Tour

Our final full day in Bangkok, we toured several Buddhist temples and spent the day taking in Thai culture and life in downtown. We spent time praying for the city, the people, and the country of Thailand. I found myself feeling a growing sense of shame as I wandered through the massive and extravagant temples and their extensive, beautiful grounds. These people spend so much time, money, and devotion on their beliefs. They are so dedicated and hopeful but it’s all a lie. And yet I, who know the Truth, I who have a relationship with the Creator God and Saviour of the world, am sometimes so flippant with my faith. I am faint of heart and selfish with my time and money.

I thought of our materialistic culture, our pursuit of wealth, power and fame and I realized we are no different than these Buddhist believers – our idol just isn’t in the shape of a golden Buddha.

Week Two – Chiang Rai

After our week in Bangkok, we left the smothering heat and flew up North to Chiang Rai. Our first taste of Northern Thailand was an hour-long elephant ride through the beautiful hill country of the North where the smog was mostly gone and the temperature much more bearable. The thrill of riding the elephants had everyone in great spirits! 

In the North we served at the Changed Life Center. This center is a place for pastors to come and receive training, encouragement, and safety while they study. It is located right beside the Mekong River where you can look across and see the country of Laos. Many pastors come from Laos where Christians are heavily persecuted. In Thailand they receive biblical training before they head back into their country to continue to reach their people with the Gospel. Other pastors from the hill tribe villages in Northern Thailand also visit the Changed Life Center and are given the opportunity to grow and learn more about the Bible and Christian faith. With the tools and equipping they receive they go back to their villages and congregations energized and ready to teach.

One of my very favourite parts of the trip was travelling with these pastors to their villages and seeing their local ministries in action. I loved hearing their heart (through a translator) for their people, seeing their ministries, the churches they built with their own hands and the dreams they have for the future. Again, seeing the church, the body of Christ, function and flourish on the other side of the world, was eye-opening for me and the whole team.

I was also convicted by the hard-work these pastors do. Not only do they preach the Gospel to often hostile ears, they have to provide their own living through farming, sometimes even providing for others in their community through their work. They build their own homes and churches, and make time to study and disciple others! They make me feel so lazy in comparison. It’s hard not to compare and feel such discouragement and depression at our own lack of strength and hard work. God has given us each different paths, in different countries, yet we’re all part of His church and serve His purpose in a different way.

Staying at the Changed Life Center gave us the opportunity to hear from several of the pastors of Laos and the tribal groups in the area. Their testimonies and conviction was encouraging and inspiring. God really spoke to me through these pastors, teaching me things that I never expected Him to teach while I was on a missions trip.

It reminded me that God’s goal is continually to sanctify us, to grow us to be more like Him in all ways, wherever we are. His faithfulness is real and true, His wisdom is beyond me, and His care and intentions are deeply personal.

And I saw that truth reflected in the work He was doing in the students as well. I truly did feel that God was working in us maybe even more than the people we were serving. And it wasn’t just to give us a more missional heart or to teach us to love and preach to all the world – it was basic things like “love one another” and “be a servant of all”, it was the reality of the hope of our own salvation and praise for His grace and mercy and love in our own lives.

Why is it that God sends us OUT in order to teach us much of the same things we can “learn” without leaving a pew at church? Maybe because in the going, our faith has works – our faith has hands and feet, not merely ears and minds. Our whole body is invested in the journey of sanctification as we sweat and hug kids and are sleep deprived and taste different food and hammer nails and paint murals and smell incense and walk through villages and carry rice and sit in the dust with the elderly. And of course we don’t need to leave North America to do these things or to learn or to be sanctified in Christ… but God said go into all the world and make disciples… I always thought it was for the salvation those who would be disciples; I didn’t really realize it was part of the outworking of my own salvation as well.

And here I will close, because I have to close somewhere. There is so much more to tell and more to ponder. I know that this experience has given more depth to my faith and my understanding of God and the body of Christ. I’m so thankful for the blessing of this opportunity to grow, for the opening of my eyes, and the conviction in my heart. To God be the glory, honour and praise!

Thanks for reading!

February

I can't believe it's already a week into March! It felt like February was dragging on forever and would never end and here we are and April is already creeping up on us!

You are wondering if my late post means that I didn't finish my February book - well if you assumed I failed already in month two... you'd be wrong! I successfully completed my second book of the year: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

I've been working on this book for awhile and can honestly say that it wasn't what I expected. Firstly, I don't like the title. The entire time I was reading this book I kept waiting for "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to have meaning buuuuuut it never really did - until the very last line of the book which I suppose was quite beautiful and symbolic... but I think I prefer the alternate title "Life Among the Lowly".

I found this classic to be truly incredible - both engaging to the imagination, intriguing to the mind and eye-opening to this historical time-period. Harriet Beecher Stowe used the novel to critique the people, practices, thoughts and culture of the United States and the depth with which she analyzed human nature was truly inspiring. She spoke about faith and heartache, about hope and human nature. She taught deep concepts about perseverance and salvation, sin and freedom.

A few of my favourite quotes:

But what needs tell the story, told too oft, - every day told,- of heart-strings rent and broken,- the weak broken and torn for the profit and convenience of the strong! It needs not to be told;- every day is telling it,- telling it, too, in the ear of the One who is not deaf, though he long be silent. (139)

All that they knew was, that they [the Revelation and prophecies] spoke of a glory to be revealed, - a wondrous something yet to come, wherein their soul rejoiced, yet knew not why; and though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities, - the eternal past, the eternal future. The light shines only on a small space around her; therefore, she needs must yearn towards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers in her own expecting nature. (276)

For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one's feeling, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on! Still we must eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again, - still bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions, - pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it has fled. (323)

Calmly the rosy hue of dawn was stealing into the room. The morning star stood, with its solemn, holy eye of light, looking down on the man of sin, from the brightening sky. O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, "Behold! thou has one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!"(400)

This book sometimes seemed to reach right into my heart and speak words that I didn't even know how to voice and at other times caused me to deeply reflect and ponder. I can't give it a higher recommendation if you want to read a novel with meaning, purpose, and depth.

Moving forward, March, as I said, is already much begun and in no less than a week, I will be across the world, in Thailand. How odd that sounds. How impossible and unlikely. And yet, next Saturday I will be, Lord willing, stepping onto a plane and flying away.

 

January

Well, we've all made it. One month of 2015 completed and only eleven left. How are all those resolutions/goals coming? 

For myself, looking back on January, I have some regrets but mostly I am surprised to find that I think I'm on track with most of my goals. 

Our half-marathon running schedule has been a little haphazard with the distractions and busyness of daily life and events, but we are still okay. I've also started memorizing 2 Peter. I can already tell that memorizing this book is going to be a delightful journey. 

Aaaaaand I successfully completed January's book! 

Gospel Coach - Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God

by Scott Thomas and Tom Wood. 

We are studying this book in my a small group with church and though at times it seemed rather inapplicable to me (it is a book geared towards helping ministry leaders coach other leaders), I found many practical, theological, and helpful tidbits to pull from it. Since one of my goals for this year was to be more intentional with relationships and building into people, Gospel Coach, has given me some tools through which to do that in a Gospel-centered way. 

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

People have an immense need to be useful, but no one likes to be used. (page 24)

Though a person can believe the message of the gospel, functionally we often reveal a deeper, heart-level belief that our power, approval, comfort and security are more worthy of pursuit than God. (page 47) 

The gospel is more than just the power of God to save us; it is the power of God to sanctify us, to make us the very people the gospel declares us to be. (page 59)

We cannot turn a good thing into an ultimate thing or it immediately becomes a bad thing... (page 67) 

Success is a false indicator of God's love for us... (page 67)

We worship what gives us our identity. (page 74) 

Tolerating sin is a willful leap towards committing it. True repentance loathes sin deeply. (page 89)

Life is sometimes temporarily painful, but Jesus is always eternally glorious. (page 144)

There are many more, but let's not get carried away. If you are seeking to be a good "coach" or "mentor" or simply a good leader, this is a great book. The book itself serves as a sort of mentor -  convicting, reassuring, inspiring, and teaching throughout its pages. I'm glad I didn't let it continue to sit half-read on my shelf. It was a good one to start the year with.

Now, on to February!

 

Looking Forward

The year 2014 was the hardest year of my life. And even though it's already four days into the new year, it doesn’t feel like it has truly ended because all the things that made 2014 hard, haven't gone away. I wanted to honestly reflect on the past year, to write and remember what it was, so that maybe I can grow and learn and move past. And maybe, just maybe, one day in a future that I can’t imagine ever arriving, I will be able to look back on the words I wrote this January and see how God has brought healing and answers, shown His faithfulness and sovereignty. Maybe I will be able to see my own weakness better, in the light of His strength, and I pray I will see that I have grown. 

But those reflections are my own, not for the world to see. Instead, I'm writing this post more to look ahead to this new year than to dwell on the old.

Looking forward, to 2015, I have made some goals this new year, whether you want to call them resolutions, hopes, dreams, desires, or merely challenges that I am putting to myself, I have made them for real – for the first time. I’ve always kind of laughed at resolution making, because I find myself naturally pessimistic and too practical. Nobody really keeps those resolutions anyways right? It takes more than a great New Years Eve party to make a real commitment. 

But for the past month of December, I have been thinking about some goals I have for myself in the next year, some things I really want to do. I know I have a better chance of following through if I write them down and tell others, and keep them forefront instead of letting them be forgotten until next December when I realized I have failed to accomplish them. Some of my goals are specific, some of them are more vague intentions, some I haven’t completely figured out or decided on, but here they are:

• Finish one book each month. This doesn’t mean from start to finish necessarily. This is more a goal to finish up all these half-started books I have laying around. It is aggravating and disappointing to have these bookmarked pages silently shouting at me in all their unfinished incompleteness. It’s time to get them read.
• Run a half marathon. With the partnership of my favourite running friend, my sister and I will hopefully complete this goal in May of this year. Starting next week, the training begins!
• Memorize a book of the Bible – undecided yet on which one… something short and doable, something to really dig into and commit to heart, and hopefully to have forever after
• Be intentional with relationships, especially with those whom I wish to build into. Be more sacrificial with my time and money, in order to encourage, listen to, and KNOW others.

I potentially want to add "blogging more" to that list... but I don't want to be unrealistic. I haven't blogged on here for a year and though I would like to, I (pessimistically) don't see myself making the time on a regular basis, however much I want to. I do hope to write some short reviews for each book I complete however - so maybe that will happen. 

On a positive note, I have to mention that I have several events to look forward to this year with much anticipation including a missions trip to Thailand, new babies in the family, three weddings, and running that half marathon. Looking forward, it really does seem like it could be an exciting year. 

But honestly, I’m afraid of 2015. I have learned that life can change in an instant and sometimes that change doesn’t go away or even get easier or any better at all. Sometimes time doesn't heal and understanding never comes. I have realized again that I have no control, and yet I still act as if I do and I repeatedly try to take it. In 2015 I anticipate being put in my place again and again and again. I anticipate more struggle and pain and failure.

But I also anticipate hope and reassurance and victory. I anticipate joy and purpose and love. I look forward to growth and new life and peace. Because Jesus. 

My blessed Jesus makes no mistakes! When we see all His meaning, we shall then understand, what now we can only trustfully believe, that all is well - best for us, best for the cause most dear to us, best for the good of others and the glory of God.  

John G. Paton

Everyone wants a piece

Just a few minutes ago I opened my email to a whole list of promotions all begging me to use up the last of my money on their products, promising that they had that perfect item that would complete my list of Christmas gifts.

They all want a piece of me this Christmas. In our materialistic, consumer-based society, it seems like everyone wants a piece! The stores want our money, our jobs want as much work as they can get - giving the least amount of holiday time possible, our friends and family want our time, the charities want our donations and volunteer hours, the special shows and concerts want our attendance, and the cameras want our smiles. 

Sometimes it feels like we aren't just doing the consuming, we ourselves are, in fact, being consumed by this holiday season. Piece by piece by piece. 

And yet, it's "the most wonderful time of the year"! The time of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. Funny that, our greatest desires during this season are usually never realized. Our hopes for a peaceful, joyful celebration surrounded by those we love, celebrating the greatest gift of all, usually go unmet. We have spent so much time consuming and being consumed, that when it all comes down to it, we have nothing left. 

Everyone around us wants a piece, but really... what we all want more is peace. Something we can't get from each other or even ourselves. We ache for that great hope of Christ's return and we pray that we will be filled with joy and love from above. 

At least I hope we do. I hope we stop and let go a little bit this season. Don't be consumed by the holiday, but rather, be filled.

For "every good thing and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation of shifting shadow" (James 1:17).