In Mark 9:36 Jesus was trying to teach his disciples what Greatness in the Eyes of God looks like. They were arguing amongst themselves who would be the greatest in God’s Kingdom. Then Jesus sat them down and put a young child before them. He took the child in his arms and said, “Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.”
In Matthew 19:14 The little children were brought to Him that He might put hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me for such is the kingdom of heaven.” And He laid His hands of them and departed from there. Two very interesting encounters the disciples had with Jesus where it would appear their priorities where a little skewed. He used his love for children to give them a picture of how God’s perspectives are so very different from the worlds views and ideas of the order of things. Though these scriptures were meant to teach the disciples about God’s perspective in life, for me, it has reiterated what a wonderful Godly women once taught me when I was a mom of 4 little Derby’s. I was fresh from my first four years on the mission field. Back on states for a year. My kids at that time were 8, 7, 5 and 3. I was struggling so with the responsibility of raising my kids overseas , homeschooling and wanting to be a good wife and missionary. I felt like I was failing miserably. I really didn’t like homeschooling. I still had a ways to go with my fluency in the language. I wanted to be doing meaningful Kingdom work. I was able to attend a seminar taught by a young mom like me, Brenna Stull. Her seminar was about how to pray for your children. Not only did she inspire me to pray for my children in a way I had never imagined, something she said gave me the charge I needed to see God’s perspective for me in this season of life as it related to my children. These precious gifts from God were given to Doug and I to raise and teach about the living God. The scripture I took with me that was the framework of my every plan for my children and for ministry opportunities came from Deuteronomy 6:5-9- 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. After that seminar my whole perspective about parenting changed. I poured myself into showing my children who God was in everything we did. I changed my attitude about homeschooling and put it in the perspective I was trying to learn in my own life, God’s heart for the children. Although I still had some very real worries that my kids may never graduate from college, after December of this year, all my children will have a college degree. We also changed our daily routine so we all got up at 6am to see Dad off to work and have devotions together. At that time, Doug’s schedule was difficult and we never knew if he would be home for dinner, but we knew he would be there for breakfast on the days he wasn’t on call at the hospital so we adjusted. Those were some sweet times with the kids. When they got older we did family Bible study. My girls missed it so much that when they went to college, they invited their friends to their dorm room to skype Bible study with their Dad. Still today they all come to Dad for help in their spiritual walk. They constantly ask him for notes from his personal commentaries. More sweet times still continue. But more than that my children have blessed me beyond my hopes and dreams. Gary, who is now married to Rez who through his witness in High School helped lead her to faith. Gary has been a youth minister since he was 19 years old. He and Rez are raising 2 of their own precious children Karim and Naima. Together Gary and Rez make a beautiful team for the cause of Christ. I love to hear Gary preach. Parts of his father are in every sermon. This summer and last summer he brought a team to help us with our church planting efforts. Both times he preached. It just makes my heart so happy to see. Jonathan has had so many opportunities in his 26 years of life I just can’t wait to see what is next. When he was 14 he was in a full length Thai movie as a main actor, which led him to be interested in mass media. He got a degree in media production and then served as a journeyman with the IMB for 2 years traveling Asia documenting stories of what God is doing in Asia. This summer he led 5 Nehemiah teams in Thailand. Mentoring, teaching and guiding their work. Now he is in his last year of seminary at Southeastern and working as a church planter to Thai/Lao people in North Carolina. He preaches like a young Billy Graham. (sorry mom biased inserted here) and like his brother, parts of his father are seen when he preaches. Becky is a woman who loves God’s word like no other young women I know. She graduated from CBU with a degree in Biblical languages. Her desire is to do translation work for those who still have no way to know God’s Word. She is married to a civil engineer Josh Duvall, who also grew up in Southeast Asia. The two of them are applying as I write to be IMB missionaries wherever the Lord will lead. Both of them use every opportunity God gives to share their faith at work and they lovingly minister in the church in whatever capacity is needed. I’m just giddy with excitement for where they will be this time next year in the world. Sandi is in her last semester of nursing school at CBU. What a beautiful women of faith she has become. She has such a caring sensitive heart in all she does. She has been home every summer of her college years just wanting to work along side her Dad. It’s a joy to see. God has used her in many ways while she has been at CBU to minister and encourage those the Lord has put in her path. This summer she worked for a couple of months in Phoenix. Knowing that I was worried about my mom and dad and not being able to help. She sought every free moment she had to minister to them. She is a light wherever she goes. Whatever job she gets out of nursing school will have to allow her an annual trip to work with her Dad. I’m sure God will provide. These 4 lives the Lord gave me to raise. No mom could be prouder of each one of them. More than that the years I spent to be the mom God asked me to be for them has rewarded my heart with the blessings of their faith. To God be All glory and honor.
1 Comment
In Mark chapter 1:29-31 we read about Jesus entering the house of Peter and Andrew and being told about Peter’s mother-in-law who was bedridden and very ill. At that moment everything stopped and Jesus ministered to her need and healed her of her sickness. The first thing she does is to get up and start taking care of people. What a great story. Do you ever wonder, does God still heal like this in our time? Yes! He does, I have seen it. His healing often comes in a different package but God still heals. I would like to share this story about a mother-in-law who received a marvelous healing just this past year.
It was a typical mobile clinic day. After a long drive the night before and some rest in our hotel rooms, our team gathered for breakfast, ready to begin another day of clinics. It is our custom to eat, pack and pray. Then we travel down the road to the next clinic. We go to bed late, we get up early, each moment is precious and planned. This particular morning our routine was interrupted by the local pastor, who met us at breakfast and asked for Dr. Doug to please come and see his mother-in-law before we drove out to the clinic site. This was not planned in our nice little schedule. It was really inconvenient. But it was apparent that this pastor was not going anywhere until his mother-in-law was seen. So, Doug asked me to carry on the preparations, and he went to see the pastor’s mother-in-law. When he returned he told me about his visit. This poor women had been bedridden, unable to walk for several years. Doctors in her area had told her she had no hope of recovery. They told her she had a severe stroke and the damage was too bad. After Doug’s exam he felt strongly that this was not an accurate diagnosis. He was pretty confident that this woman may only have a benign tumor of the spine that could be removed and possibly give her all her mobility back. When he returned to the vans he wrote a doctor’s note on a blank piece of paper with the clinic logo on it explaining his suspicions and encouraging the doctors to look again at the spine. He told the pastor to take the letter to the hospital and perhaps they will be able to get some tests done to confirm his diagnosis and schedule surgery. It took some time and many tests but a little over a month ago his mother-in-law had the surgery. Below is a video of her a month after surgery. She was told she might be able to walk after surgery, though it could take a year or longer to find out. Divine appointments are all around us. In this case, ours came from the diligence of a loving son-in-law who, like Peter, was desperate for his wife’s mother to be healed. The Lord saw his heart and met his need. We felt privileged to be a part of it. Let us not grow weary of doing good. (even when it messes with our schedule) for in doing so, we just might see a miracle. It all began about 5 years ago when I attended a conference with many of my missionary co-laborers. We were taught how to share the Gospel using simply drawn pictures. It could be done on a napkin, or a scrap piece of paper from my purse or really anything within reach should the opportunity present itself. We called it, “Drawing C to C” .
After I learned it well, I taught the Gospel sharing method to my staff at TCT and also the clinic staff. It became a great tool in our belt for Gospel sharing opportunities we often have and for new Christians it helped them understand the full Gospel message. clearly. Since that time, we have used this method in many different ways, while talking to our pieceworkers at TCT on our home visits, when the clinic staff has been doing some of the door to door canvasing, when family members of our staff have had questions about Christianity, at our mobile clinics and most recently as a part of our Christmas celebrations. Last year we asked our best artist to draw a progression of pictures from C to C so we could make a flip chart that could be easily used anywhere. We all liked the fact that we could draw it ourselves, but we wanted to have a more “reverent” depiction of the story we were telling. ( quite frankly, some of us couldn’t really draw the simplest angel and make it look holy) The chart turned out beautifully. We also had our new missionaries fresh out of language school learn how to present C to C using our flip chart. This became a great success and another tool for our Gospel sharing efforts. Next, I decided I wanted to make a simple English coloring book using the C to C drawing idea to use in our week long English camps that we had scheduled last summer. I asked my daughter Becky to help me by using her graphic design abilities. She did an amazing job and again another tool was born. This Christmas the wife of our pastor in Bankgla, Khun Wan, decided to take the coloring book, translate it into Thai, and make huge posters with it teaching the kids at church how to present C to C with the posters at our Christmas programs. It was such a huge success, we decided to use the posters at our TCT Christmas programs and teach C to C with an emphasis on when and why Jesus was born and what Christmas means. I believe this was the clearest presentation of the Gospel we have had at our Christmas celebrations yet. The results….. people are being reached. In Nan, Bangkla, and Tungmahajaren, we had completely captive audiences while we share the message together. Never before have we had the responses we have had from this presentation. In all of those centers, ALL of the hearers said they were interested to understand this story more, and more than 16 said they were ready to pray with our evangelist to make God their Lord and Savior. We are still following up on all those women. Just yesterday we saw one whole family changed by the Gospel of Christ as a result of hearing this clear presentation of God's plan for them. His message will not return void. ....And that’s the story of C to C and me. It was a great day! Today in our sharing time, my staff were all amazed that the ladies were so attentive while we shared the Gospel yesterday. Usually in our evangelism time at the center, they are very disruptive and don't really pay much attention. But on this day, they were silent. We know of one person who we will be visiting next week who may be ready to choose Christ. She lives in an area where we are trying to start a church but still have no believers. May the Lord bless it. Two days before the program, I woke up very sick with a throat infection. I could hardly swallow, I had a fever, and my voice was strained I was sure I would not be able to speak. As I tried to find a replacement and all who I asked refused, I felt the Lord say to me. "Let me take care of it. Prepare to be there." When I awoke yesterday morning, my voice was fine and my throat pain was minimal. Glory be to God. Several months ago I began dialoguing with one of the WMU staff at Worldcraft.org about making some purses for their 2015 fall catalog. As we made samples and I shopped for the right materials, I hoped this would not only bring us a nice size order for this little group of rural Thai women in a small village in Chaing Klang, but but also provide more chances to share the love of Christ and how to know him. My hope was not disappointed, a few weeks after the samples were approved, we had our largest order ever of purses from Worldcrafts. I was so excited. When I called the group leader there, she said, “I’m not sure we can make these in time, we’ve never made this much before. Can we hire more women?”
I enthusiastically said, “Yes!” So, Wanpen, went about finding just the right women to help her with the order. A woman in her neighborhood, Bun, found out about the work available and came to see if she could help. Wanpen explained to her that she would like to teach her about God once a week during the time she worked for us, and she agreed. Little did she know that this young lady had learned a little about God when she was young and even went to church with a friend, and then when she was in college she also had some Christian friends. But no one had explained to her how to follow God. She always wondered about it. So as Wanpen began to explain God’s plan for her life, things began to make sense and 2 weeks ago, she gave her life to Christ and is now being discipled by Wanpen and others at the local church. All because she came to sew some purses. What a great work we have. I visited these ladies last week and found so many wonderful things. En, another new believer who came to Christ after being hired to work on orders for TCT last year, is now a vibrant believer, and a leader in the local church. In addition to that, her whole countenance has changed. She has gone from being a shy, backward little thing to a woman of great faith. You can see it all over her face. She is now the one encouraging Bun. It was a joy to see. One of the ladies who works making the wallets and also attends the Bible studies wants desperately to give her life to Christ. However, her husband will not allow it. He won’t allow her to eat with the Christians or go to the church building. He will allow her to work from Wanpen’s home where she does get to learn more about God. She cannot bring any Christian reading material home or her husband will burn it. So I promised her that I would ask all my friends to pray for her and that the Lord would change her husband’s heart, like he did for En. Our God is big and mighty. Join me in praying for these ladies in Chaing Klang.
Here is the direct link to find our purses at the Worldcraft website http://www.wmustore.com/product.asp?sku=H154236 Thai provinces are divided into districts, similar to what we might call counties. Each one has tens of thousands of people in it. Our burden is that there are seemingly a countless number of districts that have no churches – and many without even a single Christian. For over 20 years our family has worked here with the desire to see God’s kingdom come and His will be done here in Thailand just as it is in heaven. We share Christ with patients at the clinic, we knock on doors and visit people in their homes, we teach English in schools as a springboard to bring the Gospel to communities, and we do mobile clinics in districts all over the country with the desire to see people introduced to the Father’s love so that a local body of believers might be born and the Lord would be glorified in their praise.
BP is a district about 40 minutes southwest of us. There is no body of believers there. There has never been a church there. Three years ago we began concentrated efforts to bring the Gospel to BP. We did a number of mobile clinics, taught English in schools, knocked on door after door, passed out tracts in the market, and shared the Gospel over and over again – year after year. Occasionally, someone would show interest for a short time, but local pressure and their own disbelief would always stop them short of following Christ. Then a few weeks ago, Gary and Rez brought a team to join forces with a team from South Mountain to come teach English and again help us take the Gospel into BP. Sandi came a couple months in advance and she and I teamed up with some of my Thai staff to walk the streets of BP, knocking on doors, sharing Christ with people we met on the streets, and passing out tracts in the market. In all our visits, we found no one even remotely interested. But the principal of the school was very anxious to have us come help his students learn English, and many of the school’s students were freshly embroiled in a number of personal difficulties, so the Lord was preparing the soil for the Gospel seed that Gary and Rez’ team was bringing. After 4 days of teaching English and sharing the Good News, we gathered in the middle of the school’s soccer field to worship the Lord and intercede on behalf of the people there. Two boys from the school followed us, and accepting our invitation, they joined us as we sang and prayed. We asked them how we could pray for them and then gathered around them to pray. Both of them were from broken homes. After our time together, I asked the boys where they were headed. One said that he was going to set up his roadside cart where he and his mom sold home-made ice cream every day after school. I asked if we could visit. Nearly 20 of us drove up to his little stand where he and his mom were selling their coconut ice cream. Mong was obviously very happy to have us visit him, and his mom was perhaps even happier. We all enjoyed having ice cream together, and enjoyed getting to know each other even more. Soon we were talking about the Lord and His plan for our life. I asked Mong’s mom if he had talked to her about what he was learning about God through the English teachers. She said, “Yes, I think he wants to become a Christian.” I asked her how she felt about that and she said, “Well, I’d like to know more about it.” I said that I would be very happy to tell her more and asked when we could meet to learn about God. She said, “How about right now?” So right there we talked with her about who God is – that He made the world, that He is holy, that He loves us, and will one day judge all men and decide their eternal destiny. When we finished, she seemed eager to have us come back – and very eager for us to continue to befriend her son. Then a week later, we visited again. This time a friend of the family was there. Also a student at the school where we did the English camp. I asked her if she had talked to Mong and his mom about God, and her reply was, “I want to become a Christian too!” So right there, just as Mong and his mom had done a week earlier, she prayed to make Christ her Lord. Now there are 3 in this place that had no believers for such a very long time. The “church” of BP is still very small – just 3 believers, with a faith that is less than 2 weeks old. But Sandi encouraged me with a quote from Zechariah: “Do not despise the day of small beginnings.” I am overjoyed by seeing the Lord save these 3 precious people. Please pray for BP and this brand new family of faith – and thank the Lord with us for these days of small beginnings. A week later we returned and taught her more of the death and resurrection of Jesus and how men could have their sins forgiven and at last be right with God. When we finished I invited her to repent of her sins and submit to God as Lord of her life. And right there, at a table a few feet from her ice cream stand, she and her son (who smilingly said that he was very ready!) placed their faith in Christ. We rejoiced as we watched salvation come to this BP family. Aunt N. was wheeled in to see me a month ago. She had severe Rheumatoid arthritis which had steadily worsened over the years despite treatment at several different hospitals. She was in misery with severe pain in virtually all her joints. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand, couldn’t dress herself. She was miserable. Yesterday, she nearly ran in to the clinic for her follow up appointment and to tell us what God had done for her.
The night after she saw us at the clinic, while lying in her bed late at night, a bearded man with a cross appeared to her. She said, “I was confused that a Christian would come to see me because I was Buddhist. I thought he might be an important Christian person, but I didn’t recognize him so I asked, ‘Who are you?’ The man answered simply, ‘Dad.’ The man said to her, ‘Get up, take your medicine from the Christians, and you will be healed.’ Then he led me by the hand out of bed and walked me over to the table where your medicine was. I took the medicine and the next morning I was so excited to tell my family what had happened. I told them that they could do what they wanted, but I was going to follow the Christian God.” We made Aunt N. retell her story for us over and over again as all our staff wanted to hear her tell her wonderful news. Then we made her retell her testimony for DP who was visiting us that day. She was so excited by both her encounter with God and with how good she felt. She said, “Look at me! I can walk. I can ride my motorcycle! I can dress myself! And Sunday I will come to worship God with you!” Please pray for Aunt N. She lives in Klong Keuan, a district that has never had a church. We have tried for years to start a work there – doing mobile clinics, holding English camps, and even going door to door to share the Gospel, but we have never had anyone come to Christ there – until now. May the Lord use Aunt N.’s faith to begin His church in Klong Keuan! .... and Sunday she did come to church and worshiped the One True God! Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." –Zechariah 4:10Baan Po, a place that has never had a church and where almost no one knows God. With an effort to change that we have been going out on Thursdays for the past few months to knock on the doors and hearts of the people in Baan Po. We soon discovered, not surprisingly, that hardened hearts and blinded souls made up the people who populated this city. Week after week, door after door, no one has even shown a glimmer of interest. The same awkward laughs, crooked smiles, and annoyed greetings possessed everyone we met and talked with. Until today. Winding our way through the back roads and rice fields we stopped at a small cluster of houses. A man stood at his drink stand ready for us to order. We asked for some milk teas and told him why we were here. We came to tell him who the Creator of the universe was and how He could cleanse him of his sin. His expression was different from the dozens of blank faces we are usually met with. He told us how he tried to wash his sins away at the temple and he went every week to make merit but knew it was not enough. After a long conversation with Ratana he agreed to have us come back and teach him more every week. Ratana’s brother who was being shared with by our wonderful x-ray tech came over and joined our conversation. He agreed he wanted to know more and that he and his brother would meet with us to learn more.
Oh how wonderful, how marvelous, how great the Lord is. It would be silly of us to not be elated in this small beginning. The Bible tells us the Lord rejoices in these small things. If our massively powerful God can take delight in these small beginnings, shouldn’t we too? Ratana and his brother live just down the road from the high school that is hosting a week of English camps led by our son Gary and 2 churches from Arizona. Please pray for these two men and the students that we will be teaching from July 20-24th. Pray that the Lord will bless these small beginnings. "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.”—Luke 14:23There are plenty of exceptions, but many things that happen on mobile clinic can be expected and are pretty routine. For instance, it is expected and routine for there to be a nurse’s station with blood pressure cuffs, a doctor’s station with flash lights and tongue depressors, and a pharmacy station with all the meds laid out A-Z. It is expected that everyone who comes will have the gospel shared with them one on one. It is routine for us and expected that on a mobile clinic there are patients to be seen. But on this particularly special day on mobile clinic in June 2015 there was no one. We had arrived early in the morning to the village where we had appointed to hold a mobile clinic. We had set up our tables, set out our meds, and set our sights on treating the sick and preaching the kingdom of God. We only lacked one thing. There were no patients. We had sent out our invitation, but no one was coming.
To solve this simple issue Uncle Rob Pengra suggested we go into the village and tell them that we were here. So three of us set off in an effort to “compel” people to come get their free meds and hear about the God who made the world. At the fourth house I walked into there I met a sweet auntie who was about 50 years old who had all sorts of questions and was very excited when I told her about the clinic. About midway through one of her sentences she grabbed my arm and whispered, “You need to go visit that house (she pointed) my neighbor has a very sick child who never leaves her room.” Many things came to my head on why she was whispering this information to me. One thought being that I should not go into that house alone. Right at that moment Uncle Rob walked up to us as we were talking. “Perfect timing,” I thought, “now I can to the house without hesitation.” The Lord knew I would be messing up this opportunity if I did not go, so in his perfect timing he sent Uncle Rob. We walked up to the house and a kind man greeted us and immediately showed us into the house. Assuming I was a doctor, (probably because I had my stethoscope around my neck), he proceeded to tell me a bunch of information that I was not understanding about the girl behind the door we stood in front of. Not sure what to expect I nodded my head and opened the door. I met two sunken eyes that looked at me from a mat on the floor. A 19 year old girl, we will call Tye, was skin and bone and deathly still in the center of the room. Her grandmother, sitting next to her, got up to come and tell me about all the doctors they had seen and how they couldn’t afford the “special” doctor because they had little money. I told them I would be back with a doctor shortly and I ran back to the clinic to grab my dad. When we came back we discovered that Tye had an incurable complication of Aids. We went through her bag of medicines and found that there was nothing that we could add that would help to cure her dying body. But, we did have lots to offer to cure her dying soul. We shared the gospel with her. We started by introducing her to the Creator of the universe. We talked with her about the ugliness of sin, and the Savior who made a way for us to be with that awesome loving Creator. My dad asked her before he started sharing if she had strength to speak. She said yes and after the gospel had been shared she said she believed in Jesus Christ and she prayed to receive Him into her life. We prayed over her and with her after this and talked to the grandmother awhile after this. The local pastor was then able to be brought to the house and he prayed for Tye again and said he would be able to visit her weekly. When Jesus walked the Earth rarely did you find him in one place for an extended amount of time. He went to people, He found people, so that His house would be full. You would think that with thousands flocking to Him He would have a good reason to stay in one place but He didn’t. Jesus sought people out – and He gave us His example so that we would do the same. What a mighty awesome God we serve. I want to serve Him in His house and in the highways and byways as well. I want His house to be full. (By the way, after our little visit into the village, over 200 people came to see us and hear the gospel story.) |