A word from heaven.

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Tracing back

Still abit jet lagged. Slept in the afternoon from 3pm to 8pm. Wow, super awake at 2am now. Other then that, settling back into Singapore, my family, ministry etc. Since things are still fresh in my mind now, shall do my concluding post for my South America trip.

First of all, some stats:

Total number of days:
40

Number of plane rides taken:
14

Number of cities i set foot on:
9

Number of cities i toured:
7

No. of emails i collected:
11

Next, people are asking me the same questions. So i shall post them here. (Learnt this from Keng Suan, visit her blog and read the post where there's a Q and A about going to Peru, its inspiring!! Look for the post on 24 of June. I added her blog to my link list)

1) How were you robbed?

Haa, it seems like its the only thing people remember about this trip. Haa, its one of the things but not the only thing yeah pp? Haa, please read my day 35, its there.

2) What did you learn?

I learnt so much that's its impossible to list them down. So i shall just give 5 here.

A) On the missions field, not only your strengths will be amplified many times, your weakness as well. When i was in Chile, God showed me so much more about myself and in areas i thougth i was alright in. Pride, Ego, Laziness, Lack of faith, depending on out own strenght. God exposed them all. But its bearable. We just have to pick and the pieces and keep moving forward yeah?

B) God is a magificant God. Travelling to other parts of the world and getting so close to God's wonderful creation. Especially Brazil, it showed me how mighty he is. He created the mountains and the seas and with the same hands he created our most speciallsed and intricate cells. And with the same hands, it held him on the cross. God's mighty hands. After experiencing all these things, you just have no hard to rebel any more.

C) The world is very big. We always say the world is too small for Godly people. But before we are convinced by that, we have to make sure that our world is not just as big as Singapore. In Singapore, everything is so protected, and ready made for u. But the other parts of the world is so different. The chance to travel and live life in a different culture will make a person so much richer in terms of life exprience and the world view. Singaporeans like to see the world from Singapore's perspective, but why not see the world from the world's perspective?

D) Don't take yourself too seriously and dun take things personally. Church planting have many aspects and living together under one roof is one of them. We may know them as friends but when you start living together with all the different living habits, it is inevitable that people will rub shoulders. It takes a while to adjust to one another. I can seriously say that if God was not in the picture, the household in Chile would never be together. I would have killed a few of them by now. Church planting is not going to lala land yeah? But with the grace of God, sometimes, we just have to sit down and talk and sort things out. One of the best way is to laugh things off, put things into perspective and move on. Sometimes when there is conflict, we have to remember that the person who have an opposing stand is opposing the stand not opposing you. Trust in their character that many times, they do not mean to put you down.

E) I learnt so much from the lives of the church planters. David, Eelee, Puisee and Cindy all showed me so many things. One thing they showed me was how to depend much on the power of prayer. As i have mentioned before, not a single event is left un-prayed for. God is a God who answer prayers. The people there are not like super super spirtual people who see the burning bush everyday. They are really simple people with two hands and two legs and have made a simple decision to want to serve God, obey God and experience God in a fresh new manner.

G) Missions is open for everyone but not for anyone. Going on missions as i said is not lala land. There are real spiritual battles going on. We need to grow in our relationship with God cox when our weakness are amplified on the field, many a times it is this relationship which keeps you going.

F) After being back for just two days, i realised how easy it is for us to forget about them in our daily Singaporean lifes. They are infact so far away. From the moment they walked into the customs, they walked away from our daily life. That is true. But i guess in terms of missions support, we can still do alot. Sometimes its not about the actual support but its knowing that there are people back home who are actively interested in what they do, want to help them in whatever manner we can even if it takes the extra mile.

Here are some practical pointers for you to be involved in missions even at home.

i) Get to know the happenings in the church. I'll try to update the happenings as much as possible. You can visit Eelee's blog as well. Keeping yourself updated about missions will see you becoming excited about missions and it'll come into your daily speecha and action. Your people will definately be influenced and missions awareness will go beyond missions conference and missions service.

ii) Prayer support for them is so important. Pray for them. Seeking God as a cooperate body to support our sister churches is so important. If you have any word for them, or prophersy for them, please be faithful to the word of God and tell them. But unless you pray for them, where is the prophersy or the word going to come from?

iii) Email them. Don't just email generic emails like How are you doing? We miss you so much. They will probably copy and paste a paragraph from a data base of standard answers. Haa.. Open up your testimonial to them to encourage them. Or how specific incidents have encouraged you. Share your life with them first. Ask them if they need anything, we can always send it over. They may not reply all the time but there is no harm trying sending yeah? Emotional support back home is so important. Tagging on their tag board may help as well. When i was there, i did some chinese recording for them for their chinese classes. I'm sure there must be ways for us to help them here in Singapore by recording it here. There is always "yousendit" yeah?

iv) Be involved in short term missions trips or exposure trips. My interest in missions started with my first missions trip to Thailand. At that time, we went to Khon Kean and the rural thai areas. It is not expensive and neither will it take up alot of leave. Exopse yourself more to different cultures and widen your horizon. All these expereinces will allow God to deepen your burden for missions.

v) Speak to people who have been back from missions. I'm sure they will be glad to share their stories with you. If your district or sub district is involved in researching on a country, ask to be involved. Ask to help. If the district is not involved, go look it up yourself. Know your geography and modern world history.

vi) They always say its good to pick up a langauge. In my own opinion (and really my own opinion), don't waste money on lessons. Pick up a book and memorise the vocab. What you learn in a language school here in a year, you prob can cover it over there in 3 or 4 weeks. Its much cheaper to learn there also. Again, this is my own opinion. But there are stories of people learning it here and being able to use it immediately there.

We need to be proactive in this yeah?

vii) Think and pray about being a goer yourself. The church in Chile needs a replacement team urgently. Some of them need to come back and rest. Next year january, Eelee will be the only one left in Chile. I hope to be able to send some of my guys there by mid jan on exposure trips to support the church there. If the National Service (NS) ministry can do it, i'm sure other ministries can do something about this as well.

3) Why are you so "on" about missions?

I guess part of it has to do with my personality of being adventuretous and wanting to expereince new things. Another part of it is becasue the founder once said this, "Church planting is the fastest way to complete the great commission" Its not about a feeling thing. Its about a logical and biblical deduction that since God wants to see the whole earth saved, his burden has to be for missions. And if his burden is for missions, i need to put my burden in line with his.

4) Some of them asked me if the experience in Chile had helped me in wanting to go church planting.

I think sometimes when we are young we are still idealistic. There is nothing wrong with it. But after going there and seeing for myself the reality of church planting, i have learnt to count the cost. Day 12 hit me hard when it came to family. I don't think i have became less idealistic, but more of, how to practically go about fulfilling my dreams. I'm sure there are down times during the trip, I'm sure doubts did come into my mind. Who doesn't. But i want to use this experience to work towards my dreams. I have 4 years to go in university and i pray and hope that in this 4 years, i will work towards my dreams of travelling the world for the gospel.

Thank you for reading. I hope that this series of posts have helped you in opening your spiritual eyes towards God's burden for world vision. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at shockerbolt@hotmail.com, tag or comment below.

May God Bless You

Team Chile

Regards,

Jie Hui