This week’s Missionary Monday is a guest post, an excerpt of some correspondence that my friend Jennifer McPhail, ministering in Cambodia, has had recently
with her mother and sisters. They enjoyed reading together One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where
You Are by Ann Voskamp. Each person read the assigned chapter and
then sent an email to the others with their thoughts so that they could discuss its
contents with one another as they have time. Jennifer was supposed to send her contribution
but instead chose to express her heart to them about what God had been speaking
to her about going to Ta Lo.
“I have read the chapter, but now I have the beginnings of one of my
"Ta Lo headaches" (We often return from Ta Lo with a terrible
headache), so I do not promise to do well on book discussion. Let me add
that I am very thankful to have been to Ta Lo today. In fact, I wanted to
share about my day as it relates to Allison's talk about dwelling on worst-case
scenarios.
I too have the curse of an over-active imagination. Yesterday
evening when Forrest called Poh about going out there for services today,
Forrest was planning to go alone. We've just recently had all this
flooding, and along with the water comes increased snake activity on the
remaining dry land. Peht just recently killed a cobra that was after one
of his small children. So I was glad I wasn't going. But then Poh's
wife asked if I was coming this time, and Forrest asked me if I would.
Both of us have been sick, and with his trip to Phnom Penh (this past week) and
the Carlyles coming in tomorrow (returning from furlough), I asked if we could
take the truck in, if he thought it would make it. He did, and so I made
plans to take the whole family to Ta Lo. I know now I must have had some
trepidation last night, because I woke up with fear this morning.
My fears were of a number of dangers, but mainly snakes. And I had
unreasonable fear about Sierra and the water or the snakes. I tried to
think how I could stay home or leave them here, but I knew they needed to be
with mom and dad on this day and not home alone. I wrestled and prayed
desperately, "Lord, I know this fear is not from you. I can't
control it, and I am going to read my Bible now, but I don't know how it is
going to help, since I am reading in Job, Ezekiel, and Revelation!"
I am in the middle of all of these books, so I kind of know the themes, and I
couldn't think how God could speak to my need through this. I started
with Revelation 13, since I usually start in the NT. Verse 10 says,
If anyone is to be taken captive, into
captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must
he be slain.
Here is a call for the endurance and
faith of the saints.
I was bowled over! This passage is in reference to the saints that
will be conquered and martyred by the Beast and the False Prophet, but it
sounds like it is an encouragement of a sort that if God plans for one of them
to be imprisoned or die a certain way, they shouldn't try to escape it.
Instead, endure and have faith!
It is so obscure and bizarre, but God used this to help me today, and I
wanted to share! The day was not easy, but there were many answers to
prayer. I had to go to the market at 6:45, which is way earlier than a
lot of things are usually available, but they had just the things I needed for
a noodle stir-fry to take to Ta Lo. The road was bad, but it was
passable, and our 4-wheel drive worked great. We had lots of family time
in the car, and the kids were really into pointing out things to one another
and being pleasant (for the most part).
When we got to the part I was dreading, where we leave the car and walk in
through the small lake, the water was lower than I was expecting, about three
inches above my knee. Forrest carried Sierra, and I carried our books and
the food bag. The other kids were troopers, and they just love that
walk. Sierra and I are always trailing way behind, but she loves to skip
and stop to look at things. I tried to look hard at the path but not fret
about the tall grasses and rice beyond that. We didn't meet any snakes,
and all six of us got in and out without any leeches, either.
I did, however, have a number of adventures. First, it was great
that I had brought food, since they didn't have any at home, and hadn't seen
any of the itinerant sellers that go out to the "main" road where our
car was. They did kill a chicken, but it obviously wasn't truly ready for
butchering and made for a scant soup made with green papaya. So I used
the skills I had learned over the weeks watching Teem and Panna cook for our
in-between service meal. I washed my spinach and made sure I poured the
water from that washing into the dish pan. I chopped my veggies and
garlic and disposed of the scraps in the right place. I used the right
knife for the vegetable and the machete for the meat. And then I went and
washed the wok in the dishpan with my used veggie-wash water and a piece of
mosquito net for a rag. I set it on the three stones used for a fire pit,
and Teem helped arrange the fire under it. It was already started from
the rice and then the soup cooking. I got some oil from the "counter"
made from the wood planks they are stockpiling to build a better house at some
point. And I cooked my part of the meal over the open fire, squatted down
on my heels. I got to talk to __ about her husband and his church
discipline that started today. He has been such a trial for her! I
told her about Granny (Jennifer’s grandmother was a godly woman who had
suffered much from marital difficulties), and I also explained how church
discipline helps a sinning believer and puts it all in God's hands and not
ours, after we have fulfilled our part of trying to dissuade a brother from
sinning.
Then I noticed that three of my children were in the watering hole out
behind the house! They were so muddy, and they were having a blast!
I had to get more water to clean them off enough for the meal, and I felt bad
about that. Panna was feeling sick, and her baby was ill too, so I asked
her what to do, and she had me serve the kids first. One Khmer platform
bed is under the lean-to of their one-room house, and the other is under the
thatched kitchen roof. The adults eat "in the kitchen," and the
kids eat and have Sunday school on the bed by the house. There are not
enough dishes for everyone, so we eat in shifts, kids and then adults.
There are usually three glasses to drink out of, but today there were just two,
so I am afraid one must have broken. There are piglets and chickens and
dogs and a cat all running around too. It is a beautiful chaos!
After we ate, I skipped
out on clean-up to go teach Sunday school. Forrest had already taught one
session mainly to Poh before we ate, and they would start the worship service
whenever clean-up was done, regardless of whether our class was done yet.
Poh had the book since before the flooding, but he expects me to teach when I
come out. That is a little difficult, since I can't prepare the
lessons. So he told me what he taught last time, and I was to go on with
Cain and Abel. I was thinking hard and fast, and so it took me a minute
to register when the adorable little guy to my left looked at me with big eyes
and said, "Teacher, that's a scorpion on your arm!" I scrambled
around so fast I lost track of the little critter for a minute, and then when I
tried to swat it with the lesson book, it went in between two of the planks of
the bed platform, and I couldn't get it out. I was VERY AWARE of my
surroundings after that. Thankfully, I did not get bitten, nor did anyone
else. The six little children out there are so precious, and my four
mixed very well with them today. They played the rest of the time after
the lesson, while I went and joined the adults. There were a couple
unsaved people there today, and so much opportunity on every side.”
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