Khap Khun Ka (Thank You)
September 20, 2016
Dear Friends and Family,
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| (me, Yaay Sawat, Granddaughter Dtong) |
Most of my ministry during the four weeks was simply learning to be present. I did not have my own spending money, did not have my phone and wore the same three sets of clothes everyday. But because I did not have much, I was a lot less distracted by material stuffs. Rid of much distraction, I got the chance to spend more time with God than I usually would, which was great, but at the same time, it was very difficult with not much to do with my Yaay. I enjoy serving and doing stuff as my way of following Jesus, but God wanted to bring to my attention that I am worth more than what I can do for Him. God wanted me to understand that He loves me for being me. While living with Yaay Sawat, more than not having much to do, we also had a communication barrier, I did not speak Thai and she did not speak English. Much of our dialogue would be my Yaay asking me, “Janet, you eat?” and I would respond, “Yes, I eat.” Most of our time together consisted of us watching Thai soap operas, eating, and sleeping. But another significant thing we did together was making desserts at 3am in the morning and selling them at 6am in front of 7/11. Through this experience, I got to understand God’s mission field. In the sense that when I made desserts with my Yaay, I would keep messing up the dough, either making it too thick or too thin, and yet my Yaay would still patiently teach me how to do it correctly. She’s an 84-year-old woman, super boss, and she could’ve totally made the desserts herself without my help. This mirrors how God’s mission field is like. God doesn’t need my help for the mission, but yet He still invites me to work alongside Him. I often mess up, but He continues to guide me and allows me to work with Him.
Slowly but surely, God taught me how He loves me and at the same time, how much He loves every individual in this world. On that note, I got to experience a story in the gospel come to life. We were studying John 11, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The question was, “What is dead to you that you would like Jesus to bring to life?” I had no idea, but living with Yaay Sawat, her granddaughter also occasionally lived with us. She was the same age as me, and as I was living with her, I saw many aspects of my BC self in her that I did not want to face. God was inviting me to love her even more and it occurred to me that this was it; the “dead” that I needed to bring to life was my BC self, the one who did not know Jesus yet. I did not believe that Jesus would accept my past brokenness of selfishness, loneliness, and attention-crazy-ness. But Jesus said otherwise, He said He knew me and loved me then. Through ministering to the granddaughter, Jesus was inviting me to love on my old self and showing me that I was lovely even before I knew Him. I was blown away and in awe of Him bringing to life what I wanted to leave buried in the grave. This brought me to the point of humility in understanding how broken I am and how I need Jesus so desperately. And it brings me to this quote that my teammate, Justin Lee, wrote, “Jesus does not need us to complete the Mission, we need the Mission for Jesus to complete us. It is in His perfection that He called the imperfect to do His perfect will, thereby perfecting them.” The Lord has done great transformation in my heart to love on the people around me by showing me how much He has loved me first. Again, thank you so much for supporting me throughout my trip. I could not have done it without your support! All glory, honor, and power to our Lord, Jesus Christ! God Bless!
-Janet Chan
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