BB

I translated for the GA today. It went well. I was feeling pretty sick because of a migraine and anxious and abstract dreams (don't ask :), but I was still able to make my way through the translation. I received quite a few compliments on my Thai. That made me feel good. It feels good to use your talents for good purposes. His talk was very interesting, and ironically centered on many things that have been troubling me lately. He spoke quite a bit about the separation of the gospel and the church. He focused on the importance of separating the two, while simultaneously striving to forgive imperfect people in an imperfect church. It feels good to attend church in Thailand. I think different regions bring different qualities out of us. Being back in Thailand has, in many ways, encouraged me to bless and help other people. In a lot of ways I think that is the Thailand I know. It feels more natural for me to be in Thailand blessing people than to be here pursuing my own ambitions (not that there's anything wrong with me doing all the other stuff too).

I was in my third area, Udorn, and was beginning to feel a peace and contentment with my mission. Early in my mission I had struggled with feelings of inadequacy, having just recently converted to the gospel. Periodically, past sins popped up in my mind and I would lament at the fact that I'd forgotten to repent about them. But Udorn was different. I felt good. I felt like I could accomplish anything and I had a contagious optimism that made me popular in Udorn. Months after I left Udorn, members were still talking about me. Last year nine members from Udorn jumped in a van and drove nine hours to attend my Thai wedding. Once again, it was a wonderful time. One time in Udorn I had a number of consecutive appointments setup with investigators. If I remember right, we had the entire evening filled with appointments at half-hour intervals. However, come evening, every single appointment we had scheduled had fallen through. This wasn't completely unfamiliar too us. As a missionary in Thailand you rarely experience the slammed doors that missionaries in Germany and Russia talk about so often. What you do experience, however, is a lot of broken appointments due to the fact that many people feel socially obligated to make you feel good to your face in the moment. Nonetheless, this night was filled with more disappointment than usual. My companion and I decided that we would go to a small alley and pray for God to send us someone interested. We pulled to the side of the road, took our helmets off, and offered a prayer. As we were lifting our heads up, a man carrying a baby walked right in front us. We talked to him and invited him and his family to meet with us an listen to our message. He gladly accepted our invitation. We taught his family for a few months while I was still in Udorn. We seemed to be reaching his wife, yet he obviously had conflicts that he wasn't divulging. A year or so later I heard that his wife was baptized. He decided not to be baptized. This story continued to fortify me throughout the rest of mission. I felt like God had truly answered our prayer that night. Another thing I came to understand is that so often we expect the stories to have glorious endings where the entire family is just itching to be baptized. It's the subtleties that really matter. Powerful experiences do not always lead to baptism, but many times they do lead to spiritual fortification.

On the same vain, here is one more story about subtlety:

Once again I'm in Udorn. Udorn is located in the north-east region of Thailand, bordering Laos. Laos is perhaps a 1 hour car ride away. The city is vibrant, full of a lot of college students and an extremely active branch (actually, three branches now). I was riding my bike late at night. We didn't have any more appointments that night so we decided to ride around and invite people on the street. Of course, this is typically highly ineffective because people are spooked out by strange white guys in neck ties coming to their gates at eight at night. Actually, other churches were able to keep locals from speaking with Thai missionaries during the Vietnam War and Cold War by spreading a rumor that missionaries were actually undercover CIA agents. I saw a guy out of the corner of my eye and quickly rode my bike over to his gate to talk to him. I called to him and he slowly came over to the gate. I started to talk to him, but soon recognized that there was something going on with him. He told me that his mother had recently passed away. I could tell that he was confused and sad. I told him: "I want you to to know that your mother is in a good place." I went on to bare my testimony about life after death, and told him that that I knew that he would see his mom again. If I remember right, we didn't invite him that night. I felt blessed to be able to comfort him and share an important part of the plan of salvation with him. That, in my mind, is missionary work.