Thailand – A Life Overseas |

Rethinking Witness

Rarely does the faith of a missionary kid look exactly the same as their parents. While the journey begins and is rooted in the faith and calling of our parents, it grows and is sustained through our own decisions of faith. In today’s guest post we hear from a third culture kid/missionary kid and her journey of rethinking witness and growing into her own faith. Karissa Knox Sorrell gives us just a glimpse of her honest journey and with it food for both thought and discussion. Please join us today in “Rethinking Witness.” You can read more about Karissa at the end of the post.

On Easter Sunday this year I read a passage from the gospel of John in Thai at my church for a service called Agape Vespers. During Agape Vespers, bilingual volunteers read the gospel in a variety of languages. It’s the passage about Jesus appearing to the disciples after he rose again and Thomas asking to touch Jesus’ scars.

I used to read the Bible in church sometimes, back when I was an MK in Thailand. My Thai youth group friends knew that I wasn’t an adept reader of the language; they would nod and smile encouragingly whenever I read Scripture with my second-grade-level fluency.

Those people loved me. It didn’t matter to them that I spoke their language imperfectly or could barely read it: they cheered me on. My family had come into their Buddhist country holding the flag of Jesus high. We had turned many of them away from the religion of their families. Yet the church became their family, providing them with both recreation and support. Did they love us because we brought them Jesus, or because we gave them a family when they needed one?

It was a very different experience reading Thai again twenty years later in front of my Eastern Orthodox church friends in Franklin, Tennessee. I had practiced at home, but when I was standing in front of the entire church with hundreds of eyes staring at me, I faltered. Phrases that had slid easily off my tongue at home became slush in my mouth. Words that I had read easily before were now unintelligible before my eyes. Somehow, with several skipped words and incorrect tones, I finished reading the passage.

Afterwards, people came up and asked about the Thai. I told them about my past: evangelical Protestant missionary kid, Jesus lover, previously able to speak Thai, more rusty now.

Sometimes I wonder how far removed I am from my old missionary kid life and my old missionary kid faith. In Thailand, I took on my parents’ missionary status as my own. It was easy to stand up for Jesus when I was surrounded by people who didn’t know him. I had all the right answers, and I had abundant enthusiasm. Yet even though I witnessed to my friends over and over, I don’t think I ever led anyone to Jesus.

Today my faith still exists, but it is not always full of enthusiastic answers. Some of the old standby answers perplex me now. Maybe I have become more like Thomas, searching for a faith I can touch, a faith that allows me to doubt sometimes. Like the experience of reading Thai again, talking about Jesus with people feels more like floundering than fluency now.

I don’t witness to people anymore. Well, not with words, at least. I’ve stopped worrying about sharing my message and started trying to truly see people. Looking back at my high school years in Bangkok, I hope that my actions spoke over the rattle of my words. I hope that my friends saw in me a person who cared for them, who listened to their problems, and who tried to make them laugh. I hope they saw me as a friend who just wanted to share life with them, not a friend who was afraid they were going to hell.

People don’t need to be preached to about Jesus. Instead, they need to be loved with Jesus’ love. They need me to listen, bring them casseroles when they have babies, and go with them to difficult doctor appointments. They need to know that I accept them for who they are: humans created by God and worthy of love. My faith is no longer about how many people I can convert to Jesus; it’s about how many times I can find God in someone.

How have you witnessed without words to your community? When have you seen the face of God in the people around you?

Karissa Knox Sorrell is an educator and writer from Nashville, Tennessee. She writes about her upbringing as a missionary kid in Thailand, her conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, and her wrestling toward authentic faith. When not writing, Karissa works with ESL teachers and students. Read more of her writing at http://karissaknoxsorrell.com and follow her on Twitter at KKSorrell.

Picture Credit: http://pixabay.com/en/bible-holy-book-christianity-138977/

Not Hating Your Husband’s Ministry

We welcome Danielle Cevallos as our guest writer today. Her words come to us from Bangkok, Thailand where she and her beautiful family serve.

Early in our marriage my husband and I did ministry alongside of one another. However, in the past 5 years, God has called my husband to something that has forced me to really look at how “we” do ministry. Today he works with an organization that requires him to travel every month. He now trains and encourages national leaders. While it is amazing to see what God is doing all over the world, this has been the first season in our lives where we have not been side by side in ministry.

I would get frustrated that he got to go off into the world and do these awesome things, while I was at home. I wanted to be a part of the adventure and the awesome God things that he got to be part of.

What I didn’t realize at the time,

was that I already was.

I began praying that God would help me to know what ministry “together” looked like in this season in our lives. Here are some things that he gave me

Prayer

About a year ago, God began to show me that this really is the answer to everything! Yes, God is sovereign. But, he has chosen to use our prayers to change things. To make things happen. When I began to pray specifically for my husband and his ministry, support raising, and the specific leaders that he was working with, my heart became considerably more involved in the work that was going on. I was able to encourage him, and lend a new kind of support that I am embarrassed to say, I had not been giving before.

Hold down the fort

My husband has always been helpful in our home. He enjoys taking our girls places, and working on things with them. He does dishes and folds laundry While he is gone, it is hard. Early on, I used to let him know, in a no-so-subtle way, how hard it was. Imagine how supported one might feel going off into the world knowing that your wife was at home, and super ticked off about it. I prayed hard for a heart that was willing and for the grace to make it through the days while he was gone. I thanked God and my husband for how awesome, present and invested he was while at home. Slowly God has begun to change my heart in this way.

Be ready and available

While there is not always an opportunity for us to work side by side, there are times when those opportunities do arise. I have edited countless newsletters and emails. I have gone on coffee/dinner/support dates. I have travelled to India and worked with the women there. I have written blog posts. I have worked part time, and as of late, have gotten a job in Bangkok so that we can get visas to live there. When it is needed, I try to be available and positive, for whatever he needs.

Give him time to decompress, talk, and relax

When my husband would come home from a trip I would immediately want to hand everything over to him. I learned that one way to support him was to give him some time when he got home. If that was a dinner out, a late morning in, a long conversation about the trip or a Starbucks, then I tried to give him that. I want him to feel okay about leaving both before and after returning home. It isn’t always easy, but one more day, night or morning won’t kill me.

Recently we moved to Bangkok so that my husband could be closer to the work God is doing in Asia. This has been the biggest way I have had to support his ministry thus far. God asked me to leave my life behind for this work. Perhaps the biggest thing that has helped me keep a right perspective is knowing that the same God who calls us, equips us. If he is the one calling my husband, and our family, then he will equip us, both on the front lines and on the home front.

What do your roles in ministry look like within your marriage? What has been helpful in keeping a good perspective on that?

– Danielle Cevallos, missionary in Bangkok, Thailand. Believer in Jesus. Wife to a traveling missionary. Mother of two beautiful young ladies. Friend of amazing women. Southernized New Yorker. Carrie Underwood lover. Fountain Coke/Starbucks addict. Run-on sentence writer, and special educator.

blog: This Life I Live Twitter: @d_cevallos

God Bless THE WORLD

Our last Sunday at church before moving to Thailand. The church was decorated in "The Lord's Army" VBS theme. — Our last Sunday at church before moving to Thailand. The church was decorated in “The Lord’s Army” VBS theme.
I think we’re sending the wrong message here.

Monday, May 26, 2013 marks Memorial Day in the United States. For those of you who may not be familiar with the U.S. holiday, it is day intended to honor members of the U.S. armed forces who have died in service. The Sunday before, many churches all over the U.S. honor those who have died in service and who are currently serving. It is often a tremendous show of people who are “Proud to be an American” and who call upon God to bless America.

It’s also a day that makes me feel very uncomfortable internally as I try to balance my own pride in country and the military history of my own family with the nagging suspicion that our glorification of the military may not always be appropriate.

I commented on a friend’s Facebook post (also a questionable choice on my part) after she posted this story about a teacher who made a statement with one of her lessons:

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom. The kids came into first period, they walked in, there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, “Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?” And she said, “You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn them.” They thought, “Well, maybe it’s our grades.””No,” she said. “Maybe it’s our behavior.”And she told them, “No, it’s not even your behavior.”And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren’s class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. And she says, “Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily.” She said, “Now I’m going to tell you.” Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans , wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. And by the time they had finished placing those desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks. Martha said, “You don’t have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it’s up to you to sit here responsibly to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don’t ever forget it.” (Taken from Snopes.com)

Like me, Ms. Cothren also came from a family with Vietnam and WWII veterans. My comment following the post on Facebook however referred different heroes. I asked, “Why do we honor soldiers above those who have fought for freedom through nonviolent means?”
Then I started thinking about those who live overseas. What does the military mean to people of Europe? Thailand? Bolivia? El Salvador? Why are we able to celebrate the military of the U.S. in church, but churches across the world don’t? Has God indeed blessed America more through the gift of a military that defends our freedoms?

Or did Jesus show us a different way that is more powerful no matter the role of the military?

This is where I tend to lose tracking with my American friends and family. When I start to reveal my pacifist leanings and theories of civil disobedience, the head-shaking and thought bubble (“oh, boy”) pops up.

What should a church or Christian aid organization’s relationship be to the military? Many of us coming from countries where the military is governed by the rule of law want to praise God for our freedoms and protection by (or from) the military. But what about when we work in a country where the military rules by its own law?

If you find yourself taking for granted that the military exists to protect you, you may find it difficult to relate to people who take it for granted that the military exists to bully and exploit them.

A life led overseas often reveals the enmeshment between our faith and our nationalism. And we begin to ask questions that we may not have considered, questions that we might not like the answer to.

This U.S. Memorial Day, let’s remember soldiers around the world who have died in service along with the many more civilians who have died from war, unofficial or not. God bless the World.

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What is your relationship to Memorial Day? And how has it changed the longer you’ve lived overseas? How do you see nationalism creeping into your church?

Justin Schneider — USA (until something better comes up), formerly serving in Thailand.

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