20 November 2011
Dear Phyllis,
I have found my journey to heaven has been many miles of daily plodding along a fairly straight path punctuated by a few major mile-markers and turns in the road. It appears that we have come to one of those major moments this past week.
Fourteen years ago I boarded a plane in Tokyo to go to Vietnam on what I thought was a one way trip. While in Bangkok waiting for a visa to Vietnam, I met a man who told me the man I needed to meet lived in Chiang Mai. It was through that word of advice that I first met Mark. Basically we have been working together ever since.
When I was terminated at NLL in 2003, I had no income or any place to live. Mark let me live in a room of a house he was renting for a Bible warehouse. This has been my home for the past eight years.
Last week Mark told me that he had signed a contract on a new home for himself about 30km from here and was closing down everything in this part of town. He has offered this house to me, and said he would speak to the house owner to see about having the rental contract changed to my name. Inasmuch as this house has basically been Mark's warehouse, he has always covered the expense. This has allowed me to live extremely low budget. But with the weight of that coming this way it is somewhat of an open question whether or not we can afford to live here. The rent has been extremely reasonable, but it has not been changed in ten years. If the owner does not raise the rent from what it is now we might be able to manage to pay it, but if it goes too high, that will mean a move to some other location.
If we stay here, I have my shop, and can continue to minister as we have for the past year. My primary purpose for coming to SEA was to engage in Bible logistics. But that has changed considerably in recent years, and I have done very little traveling in the past two years. Since Pammy has come on board, there has been a significant increase in the number of contacts, which has opened up an increase in preaching and personal work. Where previously, my main focus was more out of the country, but now our major activity is here in Chiang Mai. Before she came to Chiang Mai for Bible school, Pammy had been living in Lamping, which is a fairly large city 100km from here. Her sister and brother-in-law have a very large piece of land there that is available to us. Pammy has frequently mentioned the possibility of moving down there and do church work. Personally I don't want to.
I love it here in Chiang Mai. All my contacts are here. We are engaged in helping several churches in this area right now. I have my shop here. All that would be canceled by a move. I can't imagine building another shop in Lamping like the one the Lord has given me here. I have had many shops over the years but this is the best one yet . But a Righter 9 earthquake, and a radical upheaval of everything, is not unprecedented. Nearly every turn in the road thus far has been marked with a total devastation of everything I counted dear, and a major venture into the unknown. I really had hoped I had made my last relocation and vocation. But that may be in the offering. In a week or two we should know what is next.
This morning I was preaching at the Forgiveness Church again. This was my third time. Pastor Peter (Thai pastor) has asked me to work with him and preach there regularly each month. I like that brother very much. Really, it would be hard to find a better man. And we enjoy the church. They are wonderful people, but my last two times there have been extremely bad. Three weeks ago I had such a bad Sunday I vowed that would be the last. But Peter called last week asking if I could come today, and I decided to give e it one more try. I really felt I had a message from God. Up until 10:00 o'clock last night I had been in a blank. But quite suddenly I felt the Lord gave me a text that I hadn't preached on in 40 years. This morning, as I was up early meeting with Jesus, the message seemed to come together.
I don't know what happened, but he devil was faithful in causing a huge upheaval before we got to church .Pammy woke up this morning with a slight headache and decided to go get a massage before church. I don't know why, but what was supposed to be an hour absence turned out to be two and a half. We were already late for church by the time Pammy got home, and she hadn't gotten dressed for church yet. And the church was over half an hour drive away. I was so mad I told her to call Peter and tell him we weren't coming. Peter assured us it would be no problem if we were late and pleaded that we come anyway. It was a pretty quiet ride to church. I was in a terrible mood when we got there.
I always count on at least 45 minutes for a message and can easily go well over an hour if the clock will permit. But Peter requested that I keep myself to 35 minutes. The last time I spoke there he passed up a note to Pammy, who was in interpreting, asking that I quit in 2 minutes., I did. I thought it would not be surprising to get another note to shut up and sit down. I did.
The message the Lord gave me was on the Love Slave in Ex. 21:1-6. It was a wonderful economic leveler that the Lord instituted in Israel when He wrote in the law the mandate to release every seven year. This was a time when all debts were to be canceled, all property reverted to the original owner, and all slaves released. This whole issue of the Love Slave started out as an economic one. The very fact that you were talking about slaves meant someone property.
Slavery was a highly undesireable occupation. It wasn't something a boy wanted to become when he grew up. The only way a person got to to be a slave was when he had gone past absolute zero financially. There were several incidents mentioned in the Bible when a person got so destitute that the bottom line was they got sold as slave to pay their debt. That is how they got to be a slave. Fortunately, that tenure only lasted six years and the seventh year the slave was to be released. But if he loved his master and didn't want to walk out the door, he could opt to become a love slave. At that time his master was to take him to the door post and bore a hole in his ear with an ail. When that happened his hope for release was gone and he would serve his master forever.
The Lord in His graciousness doesn't force anyone be be His child or serve Him. But the fact is there is a segment of Christianity that is in church because they have to. There are tens of thousands of children raised in Christian homes that have no choice, and many would much rather be somewhere else. There are a lot of husbands that just get dragged off by their wives to go to church. Dear Isami San of the New Beginning Church was one. He told me how much he disliked going to church but had no option because Miwa, his wife, had a ring in his nose and he got dragged off each week. He used to tell me how kurushi (suffering) it was. Fortunately, he caught a fierce fever for Jesus on a trip to Vietnam, and came home so fired up he made Miwa look backslid. Isami wound up the pastor of The New Beginning Church.
I was talking to Dr. Kim, who is the president of Pammy's seminary, yesterday. I asked him when he got saved. He told me he was raised in a Christian home, but the Lord never meant anything to him until he got into college. At that time he made a commitment to serve Jesus, and has been going full bore for the past 30 years. I met a pastor in Laos two years ago who was the son of a Lao pastor. Of course, he was raised in a Christian home. He must have been very outstanding because, when the communists took over in 1975, he was selected for pilot training, and sent to Moscow for training. He came back to Laos and was a helicopter pilot until the wraps came off, and it was discovered that he was a Christian He was given the choice of what suit he wanted to wear – a flying suit or a prison suit. He told me, while in prison, he made the decision to give his life serving Jesus. Today he is the leader of the fastest growing Christian group in Laos.
Theologically it is a nice message to preach about becoming Jesus' Love Slave. But realistically there are some questions I can't answer. I have known a number of outstanding missionaries over the years who tell how they made a decision to become a missionary at an early age, and have never veered from the path. At mission conferences, it is common to preach an inspirational message on missions, and give an appeal for young people to come forward to be missionaries. Unfortunately only a small percentage of those who come forward ever make it to the mission field.
For the Love Slave in Ex. 21 when the hole was bored in his ear there was no chance of changing his mind later on. But dedication to love and serve Jesus doesn't work that way. For some there is a clear time when Jesus stepped forward to take His place on the throne of their heart. And they have been in love with Jesus ever since. But I have found that dedication is not a one time act. It is a daily commitment.
I don''t know if this is just a recent phenomenon or one that has been in humanity since Adam, but it seems to me to be a horrible plague of shallowness to a commitment today. Certainly y this is true in marriage. I knew a missionary who boasted to me how he was having a squall with his wife and threatened her,“The next time I speak you, it will be with my layer.” I couldn't believe it! I was stunned that a Christian could be so irresponsible as to threaten his wife with a divorce over a squall. I knew a Christian wife who got mad at her husband and threw her wedding ring out the window. Unbelievable! I was talking with a missionary lady one night when she said, “Bill Cook, if I was your wife I would have left you years ago.” I replied, “Yes, Jane, I can believe that. But with that statement you have just told me what you think of the permanence of marriage and the level of your commitment to Jesus.” Oddly enough I never got invited to that house again for coffee. But what, pray tell, can we say about the wedding vow. We make a mockery of it by our fair-weather commitment to marriage. Making a serious vow to God doesn't mean a thing, and millions flippantly walk out the door, never considering that perhaps they should keep that vow they made to God.
And that certainly applies to serving Jesus. Twenty years ago I was talking to a Japanese brother telling him about the hard time I was having. He flippantly remarked, “Why don't you dedicate your heart to Christ?” Ordinarily I would have considered that comment highly insulting. I had been a missionary for 30 years and I thought I was fairly dedicated. But I was amazed at what came out of my mouth. When he said that, I burst into tears and replied, “Because I don't know how. I have been trying to dedicate my life to Christ for 30 years but I don't know how to do it.” If Jesus doesn't accept us and bore a hole in our ear, all our good intentions are for no avail.
It was a good message but I didn't get a chance to give it this morning. In 35 minute I had only covered about one third. I got a note and sat down.
Maybe some other time.
bill
PS: Gomen nasai but this week Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday got wiped out and it is now Wednesday
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