“God works in mysterious ways”. Have you ever heard this
phrase? Or maybe you’ve used it before? Maybe you’ve personally experienced
this in your life? Things just happen that you can’t explain or even imagine;
when it all works out for the best, hopefully, it leaves you in awe and praising
God. For us, it happens often. Sometimes, we face huge challenges that gives us
a sense of hopelessness but then God comes to the rescue at just the right
time. In other cases, something happens to us and we found out at a later time
that God was in control the whole time. Also, sometimes we do something very
little and God uses it and turns it into something amazing!
We often think of the time when our oldest daughter Becky
became very sick in the states. It was in the fall of 2005 in Lincoln,
Illinois. Stephen had just completed his dissertation and we were several
months away from going back to Thailand to start AFC’s missions in Southeast
Asia. We were very much on the verge of packing up and making our transition.
One particular night, Mary had to get up and grab some water, it must have been
around 1am, and for some reason she just felt like checking up on the kids. As
she opened Becky’s room, she saw Becky seizing violently. That night, the
ambulance lights lit up just about every room in our small apartment. Everyone
was shocked and all our plans were put on hold.
Initially, no doctor could diagnose what was going on. They
prescribed meds and put her through many tests but nothing helped. The family
was in bad shape; everyone was depressed and tired. Becky, struggled the most,
because she could no longer hang out with friends or play soccer. During that
time, she would have seizures every 20 minutes. On top of this, the family had
to split up. Nick lived with his friend Cody’s family who graciously took him
in so that he could continue high school, John had to live with members of the
church at such a young age, while Mary and Stephen took Becky to the hospital
every week. This went on for 2 whole years, until one of the very few doctors
in the world was able to diagnose this disease of the brain. This disease was
Rasmussen's Encephalitis which dominantly affects young children under 10 but
Becky had it when she was a young adult. At the time, there have only been 4000
cases in the whole world! Surgery was the only option to curing the seizures
but Becky would end up having physical limitations.
There were times during those several years where we just
could not see the light. Everything was gloomy. Crying and nightmares were an
everyday occurrence. We made it day by day with the support of great friends
and brothers and sisters in Christ; we are very thankful for these people and
how God put them in our lives. When we did end up moving back to Thailand, we
realized if Becky had the disease here, it would have been impossible for her
to get the same treatment as she did in the States. Her story has always been
an encouragement to many on the mission field. This story has many more details
but the bottom line is that God is working in ways we can’t even imagine.
Thailand
These past couple of months, we witnessed God working in His
mysterious ways. The first instance was when we visited a Lisu village in Mae
Taeng, which is about an hour drive from Chiang Mai city. This trip was
spontaneous; Stephen and Nick met with a villager who happened to be Stephen’s
brother (cousin according to the western culture). He and his family came out
of Animism many years ago and he remains a strong Christian believer. During this trip, Stephen’s brother asked if
we would be praying for the village because they want to build a church but
struggle to find funds, especially during this Covid pandemic. At this moment,
they hold church service at a member’s small storage shed. We prayed for them
and left the village in order to return home with the heartfelt compassion for
the people because they just want a bigger place so that all the members can
meet and gather in one church building (currently, some of the members have to
stand outside).
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| Visiting Stephen's cousin |
To our surprise, as soon as we pulled up to our house, Stephen received a call from a friend. This man is a Korean missionary who came to Thailand to evangelize with his group of acupuncture doctors. It had been over two years since they last spoke. They greeted each other and asked how each were doing but, I kid you not, the next words that came from Stephen’s friend’s mouth were “do you know any place that needs a church building? Because my Christian business friend in Korea would like to donate some money for that.” We were in awe of how God is working. Now the planning of the church building is on the way!
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| Stephen with his Korean friends visiting the church (Currently held in a storage shed) |
In another instance, we witnessed God’s working through our clothing ministry. As you may already know, Mary started the clothing ministry many years ago. This particular time, Mary prepared clothes for a Lahu village at the Golden Triangle, the area where Mekong River converges and Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet. The Golden Triangle has a well-known history of being the center of drug trade because this river reaches international waters quite easily. Some of the villages still grow opium to this day. As for the clothes, it wasn’t easy because there were many conditions we had to meet in order to ship these across the border and carrying them along the Mae Kong international River. Clothes for many of us is our least concern, but it’s such a big deal for people who only have one or two pairs of clothes. While they were preparing the clothes, Stephen’s Bible student has been evangelizing in this area in advance. This month, Stephen and Mary took the clothes to the border and delivered the clothes across the border into Myanmar. A couple days after they returned, Stephen’s student called him saying that 19 of the villagers accepted Christ and were baptized. They have been learning the Bible and now they have experienced the love of Jesus through the clothes. Praise God for how things work out!
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| Stephen and Mary sending clothes across the border |
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| Singing Worship Songs at the Lahu village |
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| Baptism |
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| 19 were baptized at the Golden Triangle this past month |
Online Classes
Our online classes continue to be a huge success. Stephen’s Bible class is going through the exegesis of the four gospels. All of Stephen’s students are Christian leaders from various countries such as China, Myanmar, Thailand, and even Malaysia. The whole class is discussing, after Covid, they would like to have an onsite learning course. So, the planning stage has begun. As for Stephen’s classes for the Chinese Christian leaders, it is now facing a challenge. In China, recently, there is a new law that states that religious teachings online (especially Christianity) is now considered illegal. It is being enforced in the capital but has not reached the rural areas yet. Please pray for this situation because the students in China are many and are hungry to study the Word every week.
Nick’s Laos class has been great. At the moment, he is
teaching how to write an essay, which is a bit difficult especially for Asian
students but they are all trying very hard. During the Christmas season, Nick
was able to share about Jesus, and a brief overview story of the Bible. The
students were pretty interested, especially the novice Monk who joins the class
every week. Now, one of the students, after every class would say “thank you,
Teacher. God bless you!”
Nick and Becky’s Myanmar class are also going really well.
This past December, one of the students decided to get baptized. When asked why
he decided to get baptized, he replied, “after studying more, I want to live
according to God’s will.” Praise God!
Family
This past New Years, our family had the opportunity to travel together to visit relatives in Chiang Rai (about 5 hour drive). It was a great trip, as we had quality family time and were also able to survey how to send clothes across the border. At home, we also had our yearly New Year's party for Nick's soccer boys. We couldn't invite all the neighborhood kids because of the regulation that limited the amount of people at a gathering. They had a great time; Nick and the kids miss meeting and playing soccer (currently, the local government wont allow large physical activity groups). It has been over a year since we last had practice but hopefully we can this year.
Mary and Stephen have been planting green beans in the back yard; these green beans are for the family to enjoy and also for helping out the villagers in the mountains. During this latest Covid outbreak, the big fresh markets, where everyone buys vegetables in bulk, are all closed. The vegetables that we grow are shared with the people in our community and the villagers in the mountains. Praise God for giving us this way to help our neighbors. Becky continues to help around the house. On top of this, she is doing an awesome job teaching her class and also coming up with great ideas for games in Nick’s class. Isaac is almost done with his schooling for the year. He will then have to do summer classes (not because of his grades, most students take summer classes in order prep them for high school). We still can’t believe he’s going into high school! John and Anna are doing well in the States but they face some challenges. Several of the staff members at John’s work have covid during this recent covid surge so that means more workload for the remaining staff. Additionally, the church where John occasionally preaches at has not been meeting for many weeks now because most of the members are elderly. We really want to see John and Anna but with the current situation, it might be awhile. It’s been tough, but for now, video calls will have to suffice.
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| Family trip to visit our relatives with friends |
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| Floating Lanterns is a Thai tradition |
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| At home, we had a New Year's Party for Nick's soccer team |
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| Nick gave a little encouragement talk |
As we look back at our lives, we really see how God works in his own mysterious ways. Mysterious in the sense where we don’t really understand how anything would turn out. It’s a mystery how Becky is still able to be with us today and also how millions of dollars in medical expenses were paid for by someone we don’t know. It’s a mystery how something as mundane as clothing can help lead people to Christ. It’s a mystery how our small missions is impacting in so many places where we never imagined we could go in our lifetime. It’s a mystery for us, but for God, it’s part of His plan.
