So, unless we went, those people will not be reached with the Gospel, right? The task and the burden is upon myself and my family- it is OUR responsibility to stay in this place, where God called us, until the task is finished, right?
How selfish and arrogant to think of ourselves as THAT important in the task God is doing in South Asia. It does not disqualify us and excuse us from going, however, but if we think we are leading God into those places, we are sadly mistaken, and we can easily be a failure.
We traveled to South Asia, pretty much knowing nothing other than God wanting us in a specific place for His glory. After learning a tremendous amount from our team members and the national brothers there, we felt like this was the place for us- until God called us away in the distant future of His perfect timing. The problem with that thinking is, God's timing is not perfect when we try to control it and put limits on it.
We loved our place of service even before we got there, and grew to love it even more as we stayed, but God had other plans. Our home church was putting a team together to go to Thailand with the task of multiplying disciples, leaders and churches. They asked us if we would consider joining the team and brining our 2 years of experience in church planting to it. WHAT? What about where we are? The ministry is going well. We are seeing a lot of fruit. Many volunteer teams have come through here and brought the vision back home to the U.S. AND, why would we give up being completely taken care of financially through the IMB to go an raise our own financial support to go somewhere else? It did not make any sense to me, and we struggled with the decision of what to do.
So, we prayed about it. We found that we were not sent to South Asia with the IMB just to reach the lost and equip church planters how to focus their ministry and reach the lost themselves. Those are important, but just as important was the valuable time we spent growing in the Lord, and learning how to live overseas, and what further purpose and plan He had for us in His master plan of reaching the unreached. God was equipping us for another purpose and another place of service for Him through our time in South Asia, and the more we prayed, the more we felt that it was time to step out of our new comfort zone we had made and get uncomfortable again in order to glorify God.
So, we said yes and left South Asia. We are now with a team of 11 adults and 5 children (2 of them ours) that are preparing to go to Bangkok, Thailand this year. We are growing as a team by attending a 5 month missionary training school in Atlanta, GA- Global Frontier Missions. By this summer, mostly all of the team will have moved to Bangkok. Since we have had a later start in raising our ministry partners, we will be joining the team later this year. We are excited to be heading out on our 2nd missionary journey as a family, knowing that what God wants is better than what we want. Jesus prayed, in Matthew 26:39 "Father, not my will, but yours be done." Father, no matter where your will takes us, not our will but yours be done.
I'll share more about our times here in Atlanta in future, and SOONER posts.
