Every Missionary’s Plight

  I can’t count how many times I have been told over the years how much I must love Thailand and how adventurous I must be to live so far away in a strange foreign land.  If those people only knew how much I am challenged every day and the struggles I face to be content to stay, they would be shocked.  In reality, all missionaries are just a breath away from going home.  We all need your prayers to keep us where we are.  It is a wonderful gift of God each day that we get up from our slumber and walk into the day before us with the Presence of God leading our steps, our encounters, and our decisions.  It is a glorious feeling to know you are right where God wants you to be for the time being.  When I put my head down on my pillow at night I understand Psalm 4:8 better and better.  “I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

 Lately the needs of my family in the States have been before me.  I don’t want to worry or try to step in for God, but it does get hard sometimes.  When my daughter-in-law just needs a mom nearby to offer a helping hand with those precious babies… when my youngest daughter is sick and needs her mom for just a day… when my parents just need someone to stop by and play some dominos or pull their weeds.  I am a fixer and I want to fix all their problems.  Then I look at the needs before me here in Thailand.  200+ women who work from their home and not only depend on my wisdom to keep providing income for their families but need me  and my staff to share Christ with them in all our ways.  My husband who needs me to have a peaceful home to come to and good meals to eat after seeing 80 patients a day, and to help pick up the slack of his daily grind, and to work alongside him when our ministries intersect.  My full time staff who need me to be a good example and a wise counsellor.  So much to do, so many lives who I want to be a part of.  The great work of our Lord and Savior sustains me and I cling to the verses He gives me all the time:  “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ² Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”^[a]made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body (II Corinthians 4:1-10).