No Knowedge

06. February 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: 2013, Devotional, Mission Reports

I walk down the quiet Bangkok street. Many roof covered tables sit along the sidewalk. Such diversity. Everywhere. One stand is selling meat snacks, the next one is selling bed sheets, while another is selling clothes. People are everywhere just like any big city. But this city is different…

This city is populated with 12 million people! 12 million! The percentage of Christians is just a few percent. The vast majority of these people have never even heard of Jesus name! They don’t know anything about Him! They have no knowledge of the One who gave His life for them.

In Africa I saw Christians everywhere. There were many churches all around in the towns. Many signs around the towns demonstrated a Christian foundation and knowledge of Christ. But here in Thailand there’s almost no Christian influence among the Thai people. They speak a language I can’t even understand. The letters look like scribbles to my English trained mind. It’s not even close to English. And yet, someone must reach out to them.

God doesn’t call His people to an easy work. Instead He calls us to the opposite. It’s not easy. It’s not fun and games. It requires us to get out of our comfortable zone.

 

I think of the group of missionary interests that I’m with. Many of them have never traveled overseas before. For many of them coming to Thailand was definitely getting out of their comfort zone. They were afraid of it. They did it anyway. Now they’ve found that getting around in a foreign Asian country isn’t that bad after all. Time to move on!

Tomorrow we go to Cambodia. Next week we go to India. Even though finances want to stop us, though our faith might fail us, forward we go. People need to hear about the Gift that Christ has give to them! Missionaries need to go… I pray that resulting from this trip, more missionaries will be sent to these places where there is No Knowledge.

Lift off

22. January 2013 · Comments Off on Lift off · Categories: 2013, Mission Reports

Atlanta… Asia.

I wonder what I would have said if 10 years ago someone would have told me that I would be traveling internationally doing mission work to countries around the world… I probably wouldn’t have believed it.

I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight to Bangkok. It’s my first time on Korean Air. It will be my first experience on a larger Asian airline. I look forward to arriving in Bangkok.

This time I’m not traveling alone. The Woods are sitting close by with two other families. There are a few others coming as well. All in all we will total 27. We haven’t been able to see the whole way clear from the beginning but in making the next step, God opens the way. It is an exercise in faith…

In 2 weeks we are going to India… There will be a series of meetings, and we want to visit the children schools as well.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Reflections

18. January 2013 · 1 comment · Categories: 2013, Mission Reports

It was such a crazy year! And amazing at the same time. I remember back to when I first arrived in Nairobi. I didn’t know the town, or the people, or much of the way things worked there. During the following 10 months that would certainly change!

Shooting video, making graphics, managing editing and production, working with few volunteers, coordinating with other people (sometimes a challenge!), learning how to work with people, going to record a huge series of meetings in Tanzania, getting equipment for broadcasting, setting up the equipment and testing it, preparing video content for broadcast, managing burnout, depending on God, continuing work and production, managing production and broadcasting, making playlists for each day’s broadcast, working hard editing as a volunteer for the Gospel Flames HopeTV event in Uganda, seeing the time come for us to pay the 2CBN broadcasting bill, seeing God work, seeing the wrath of the enemy, my computer stolen, proof that God is faithful, seeing people come to assist, and finally being able to hand over management to Frank. A blessed year, and yet the hardest in my life. Something I’d never done before, yet something I could never have done without God’s help. Times when I wished for death, but other times when I was glad I didn’t. Extreme loneliness, yet learning to trust God more…  2012 was indeed an extreme growing experience for me!

Shortly before I left in Dec, I thought about what would have happened if I didn’t go there in the first place. It brought tears to my eyes as I realized that everything I saw… from the programs broadcasting on the TV to the studio and the team… none of it would exist if I wouldn’t have gone. Souls that have seen our programming would have been lost if I didn’t go.

Perhaps…  God is calling you to go to some far away place to work as a missionary, to be a pioneer in His cause. Is He calling you? Then don’t delay! If you delay, souls will be lost. If you go, then you will have the privilege of being a tool in God’s hands and being used by Him. There is nothing ever in this whole world that can amount to the satisfaction of reflecting back and realizing that God used you as a tool in His hands to reach people for Him. There is nothing like it!

Twinkle Toes

16. January 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: 2013, Devotional

My eyes rush along the lines… fearing the ending.

Twinkle Toes was my cat from the age of 9 years old. She was shy and yet friendly to those she knew. Her name came because she had a small bit of white at the tips of her feet, and on her underside against the black fur everywhere else. She wasn’t like any cat, she was very meticulous about grooming herself, and keeping herself clean. She didn’t roam away from home very often. She could nearly always be found around the house somewhere, most of the time in her favorite cat box in the woodshed. Always polite to the other cats, even at mealtime when the pushy ones got to eat first she would contentedly wait her turn. Often I remember taking one of the food dishes and putting it off out of the way so she could eat. One of our cats was particularly pushy and would come to check out if this food was different. Never a fighter, Twinkle Toes just let him take the bowl and eat the food, returning to eating after he left satisfied it wasn’t something special!

I think back on that year that she had a kitten. I still remember finding her in the garage in a box off in one corner, with a kitten! He was a single kitten, that dark gradated off-white color to his fur and a short stubby tail with a crooked bone at the end. He grew to be a good strong cat, when we gave him away to some friends. But that’s the only time I can recall Twinkle Toes having a kitten or kittens. She just wasn’t the type to be out in the woods messing with the male cats. She was too careful for that. When the rest of our cats were giving us too many kittens, Twinkle Toes got in with the lot that went to the vet to be neutered. But her personality never changed, she still was the same shy laid-back cat.

I remember just two weeks ago when I was at home… Twinkle Toes and the other two cats were living in a box on the front porch. Over the years, aging together, they were getting along quite well. I remember spending time with Twinkle Toes, petting her. I noticed how thin and bony she had become. But she still remembered me and enjoyed every second that I spent with her.

The words sink in as I read… The email was typed by my mom. Twinkle Toes had taken a turn for the worse. Thin, weak and frail, she could hardly walk. My mom brought her inside out of the cold winter weather, putting her on her lap while she worked. Instead of putting her back outside when she finished she laid her on a towel on the bathroom floor. On the floor, she enjoyed the heat coming through the heated tiles. With food and water near, she rested contentedly. When my mom started to put her outside before going to town, Twinkle Toes politely refused. Having stayed outside in cold winter weather nearly all her life, this time she wanted to stay inside. It was only reasonable, she was weak enough… it might do her good.

When my mom returned home from town 8 hours later, she found that Twinkle Toes had died contentedly right on the warm tile. Even though we live in a world of sin, it’s hard to part with the animals that God puts in our lives…

I can think of many lessons to be learned here, but one stands out among all the rest. A cat, one of the least of all Creation, is able to tug at our heart strings… yet what about other people, who’s souls are infinitely of more worth. Do they tug at our heart strings? Do we allow them to tug at our heart strings? Or do we just shut them off, outside our life, with no connection to us, or to the Truth, the Way, the Life? Do you let the cries of the unreached, the cries of the Macedonians, the cries of those with no opportunity, do you let their cries tug at your heart strings? Will you?

 

Newer articles »