31 March 2013
Dear Phyllis,
He is risen! That was the traditional
greeting for 1st century Christians on Easter morning. I
suppose it is still applicable. Several years ago I was talking with
a Kichijoji speaker who had come from Tokyo to Kobe for the Easter
morning service. I assuming said, “What are you going to say
about the resurrection tomorrow?” Surprisingly he replied, “I
don't plan to speak about the resurrection.” “Why?”
“Because every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday.” That was a
pretty good response, but there is some argument both ways.
Robertson McQuilkins were one of the
top TEAM families in Japan for 15 years from 1953 to 1968. I had the
privilege of having the McQuilkins live with me one summer that
enabled me to see their family from the inside. There certainly were
more dynamic missionaries in Japan. There was no shortage of empire
builders who were busily engaged in promoting their own ministry.
There were some missionaries who lived a very affluent life-style.
But there were very few who lived more wide-out,
everything-for-Jesus, than the McQuilkins. They were the only
missionary family I knew that didn't own a car. They lived in houses
with six kids that very few missionaries would have lived in as a one
child couple. Muriel McQuilkin had a plain nylon dress that she wore
every day. On Saturday night she would wash and iron that dress, and
make it look as pretty as possible to wear it to church on Sunday.
Every day should be Resurrection Day. Every Sunday should be
Resurrection Sunday. But there is nothing wrong with taking one
Sunday a year, and dress it up to make it look especially attractive.
Having said that, that is my Resurrection Sunday message this year.
I really don't have one central theme
to write about this week, but there are several small items to
mention.
Visas are a real hassle here in
Thailand. It is virtually a miracle that I can stay here, but visas
are horribly expensive. Being married to a Thai, you would think that
I could get a spouse visa easily, but even spouse visas are
difficult. In order to get a spouse visa I would have to submit,
with my application, a statement that I have over a $2, 000 monthly
income. I don't have a fraction of that. The Lord has been good to me
in providing a way to get a volunteer visa by a letter from a
foundation of my dear friends Dave and Joyce Moore. To get a one year
visa, I have to travel to Penan, Malaysia each year, which costs a
great deal of money. But the real hassle is that all farangs
(foreigners) have to check in with immigration every 90 days. If you
are late for check-in, it cost 500 baht ($17.50) a day fine. Last
year I thought I was perfectly safe when I went to immigration for
check-in and was shocked that I got tagged for 6 months over-stay. I
had gone to immigration the previous check-in and had a receipt in my
passport showing that I was within limits But they told me, with my
visa, I had to leave the country. Fortunately, the law reads that the
maximum fine for over-stay is 20,000 baht ($750). I died. Where in
the world could I get $750 to pay that fine? Miraculously the Lord
did provided, and I got by by going up to Mae Sai on the Burma
border, paying my fine, and reentering Thailand. But I sure didn't
want to do that again. My last check-in was in December, and I hadn't
thought about it for several weeks. Tuesday night I was having a hard
time falling asleep when suddenly the thought of check-in struck my
brain. Terror surged through me. I leaped out of bed to check my
passport. The stamp on my passport read 16 March; and it was now 26
March. I didn't have to pray about what to do the next day. That was
a given. But even that meant I was 11 days over-stay – 5,500 baht
(close to $200). We scarcely had money enough for two days food, and
didn't have anything close to $200. I broke out in cold sweat so
badly my pajamas were wet. But I knew that was the Lord's problem –
not mine.
Quite miraculously, the next morning
the Lord provided 6,000 baht. Pammy pleaded with me to take the bus
up to Mae Sai, but my bike is cheaper and faster. It is exactly 250
km up there. At 10:00 AM I left Chiang Mai to head for the border.
Many people marvel that I ride my Honda that far in one day, but I
actually enjoy it. Northern Thailand is a beautiful country. It is
fairly mountainous. The first 80 km are going over a bit of a
mountain pass with a tremendous number of hills and curves. That road
is no fun at night, or in the rain, but Wednesday was a nice day, and
it was exhilarating going around those curves at high speed leaning
over on the bike, hoping the tires wouldn't slide out. For the rest
of the way, the road is more or less flat with one more section of
hills and curves. But all of those can be taken at high speed
reasonably safely.
I arrived at the border by 2:00 PM. The
immigration man was pleasant joking with me as I paid my 5,500 baht
fine. I ran across the bridge to Burma to the Burmese passport
control office, paid another 500 baht to get that stamp in my
passport, and was back in Thailand, legally, for another 90 days by
2:25. Praise God!!!
I had not stopped for anything going up
other than gas. On the way back I did allow myself more luxury by
getting a sack of potato chips and a cold drink at 7-11; and then one
more luxury stop for a popsicle at the last gas station before
hitting the mountains between Mae Kachan and Chiang Mai. Pammy was
very concerned about my trip and had given me her cell phone,
pleading that I call her. I did try at Mae Kachan to tell her the
good news that I had had a very good trip, and would be home in an
hour. But cell phones are a little past my pay scale. I can't use
those dumb things, and somehow I never was able to get her on the
line. Both of us were tremendously relived when I walked in the house
at 7:00 that night. It was really quite a miraculous day. The night
before I was agonizing in a cold sweat how I would get out of that
jam. The Lord miraculously provided the fine money. It was exactly
6,000 baht including the 500 baht in Burma. The weather was
excellent, the bike ran good, and I had made extremely good time
riding 500 km in 8 hours. I really wasn't tired when I got home. What
a miracle day!
But there is an interesting hidden
factor behind my over-stay incident. When we first met Pammy asked me
if I could make her a new bed. “We will need a double bed when we
get married.” It was a year later before I finally got the bed
made. People spend one third of their lives in bed, and I believe a
bed is one of the most important pieces of furniture in the house.
Accordingly, when I made our bed I made it one of the most important
projects of my life. It really is beautiful. We had bought a mattress
when we were first married that we had slept on for one year. But
after I got the bed finished, and put the mattress on the bed, for
some unexplained reason Pammy started sleeping in another room. It
really hurt me every night when she would get out of bed, go in the
other room, and sleep in a pile of pillows that looked like a rats
nest. Finally, I hit the breaking point. I thought, “If she doesn't
likes this bed, we don't need it. I can sleep anyplace”. It hurt
too much sleeping by myself in that double bed. A week ago she got up
at 2:00 AM to go in the other room. I couldn't sleep. At 3:00 AM I
got up, took the bed apart, and stacked it against the wall. Pammy
felt I did it as a statement of revenge to hurt her. She pleaded with
me to put the bed back together again, but I was adamant. I was
either going to sell or burn that dumb thing. For a week the bed was
a problem. I was stung by her rejection of me and the bed. There was
no way I was going to back off and put that thing together again. But
then at midnight Tuesday night the Lord got my attention.
The beat definition of justification
is just-as-if-I-never-sinned. When the Lord justifies us He
destroys the records, and it is just as if I never had done anything
wrong. That is not the way it works with me. If someone crosses
my line, and does something against me, I am going to engrave that in
stone, and never let anyone forget what they have done. I certainly
was not going to put that bed incident behind me. But the biblical
principle is “He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath
shewed no mercy” (Jm. 2:13). Man howdy, I was stuck! I was in
as bad a spot as I could get. I was 11 days over-stay, and didn't
have money to pay the fine. And every day I let it go was another 500
baht. If God didn't help me, death would have been a joyous escape.
If I wanted God's help, I better back off and show a little mercy. At
midnight I humbly told Pammy, “I'm sorry. I am wrong. I'll put the
bed back together.” I suggested that we just put the mattress on
it, but she wanted the headboard installed also. At 12:30 I went out
in my shop to get some tools, and at 1:00 AM we finally slept in our
reassembled bed. Perhaps the Lord might prefer that I put my stone
chisel away, and not engrave the offenses of others so deeply in
rock. If I want justification to work one way for me, maybe I should
use the same principle in showing mercy towards others.
The week before, we had had another
problem. Pammy had asked me to make a small cabinet for the bathroom.
When I went to hang it, I laid my drill on the kitchen island and
went back to my shop to get some other things. When I came back, I
found my drill lying on the floor. Pammy didn't like my laying things
on the kitchen counter. I was so angry that I vowed never to bring a
tool in the house again. The cabinet didn't get hung. A few days
later Pammy pleaded with me to hang the cabinet, and I refused. Dave
Moore was there and said a word in the Spirit – “That attitude
doesn't help”. I had to admit that it didn't help, and maybe it
would be wiser to do some things that did help, rather than
supporting the devil's work of division. Dave helped me get the
cabinet hung.
Another small, but strange thing,
happened last week. Twelve years ago, when I stuck my hand in the
saw, cutting off a bunch of fingers, an odd growth developed where
the surgeon had reattached my index finger and my middle finger. I
have no idea why or what it was other than it looked like a stone
about the size of a large BB. Over the years I have tried to dig it
off, but it was part of the skin like a wart. From time to time I
have thought about someday having it surgically removed, but it
wasn't hurting anything and I just let it go.
Two years ago a friend got us started
raising honey bees. At first I was very cautious about working with
the bee hives and handling the bees. Over time I learned that if you
are careful the bees are no problem. For two years I had never been
stung. But Thursday, as I was inspecting the bee frames in the hives,
I got my first sting. A bee got me on the middle finger of my left
hand. Of course it stung for a few minutes, but bee stings are part
of life, and it wasn't too serious. My finger and hand did swell a
little, but that was little more than a irritation. The next morning
I was rubbing my hand when suddenly the small rock wart fell off. I
have no idea what happened, or why it suddenly fell off – but it is
gone.
Medically speaking, I can't imagine how
there could be any connection with a bee sting and a wart falling
off, but somehow they did seem to be related. Maybe it is wrong to
try to derive a spiritual lesson from the small incidents of life but
I couldn't help thinking that perhaps the Lord had something to say
to me through this incident. If there is a meaning, perhaps it is
that sometimes the Lord sends painful events in life to clear up
totally dis-related problems. I wasn't happy to get stung by the bee,
but I was grateful to have the wart gone.
In both cases with the problem of the
bed and the cabinet I felt perfectly correct. I was right and Pammy
was wrong. I might have been right, but my attitude didn't help. And
the Lord had to put me in an agonizing dilemma with my over-stay to
resolve the problem of the bed. Praise God, I lost both argument, and
peace has come to our home again.
Praise God, He is risen – even in my
heart;
bill
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