Our first unexpected home assignment of 8 months came to an end and here we were saying goodbye again to our families at the airport. The main reason for the early home assignment, speech therapy for one of our children, had helped to the point where we could return. We would still need to continue daily therapy ourselves back in Thailand with help from video calls with the speech therapist in Australia. So on to our second term in Thailand and the adventures that lay ahead.
Our sons first fishing boat trip
It was this home assignment that I really developed a passion for fishing and in particular rock fishing. I enjoyed fishing before that, but had not fished much at all. I do remember a few times fishing on family holidays but I had little idea of how to fish. I recall fishing on a bridge when I was young and getting lots of fish on the line, but as I was pulling the fish out of the water and up to where I was standing the bridge, the line would be cut and I would lose the fish. I realize now that they were probably whiting and my hooks were too short.
I had a couple of offshore fishing trip trips. There was a memorable charter with Scotty Lyons with my father-in-law and friends from church, when the bonito were running and Jason Koh latched on to a sizable mac tuna. Poor Tony’s sea sickness medicine was not up to scratch and his stomach provided a lot of fish food.
But it was on a family holiday to Avoca that I started rock fishing for the first time and was hooked after the rush of catching a bucket full of bonito (type of tuna fish) and the fishing line screaming as the fish pull line.
Rock fishing is considered the most dangerous sport in Australia as many, mostly Asian fishermen are drowned each year as they are hit by waves and thrown in the water. Some cannot swim or are not wearing life jackets.
Rock fishing is one of the things I miss most living in Chiang Mai, 700km from the nearest beach / ocean.
Rest and renewal is one of the objectives of home assignment and fishing helped towards achieving that.
One thing we learnt over that time, over and over again, was to hold our future plans lightly, as inevitably there would be twists and turns that we could have never expected. But God’s faithfulness was the anchor.
At this point, the plan (which we hold lightly) is for Rich to return in early August. Aidan will remain in Thailand until the end of 2021, and Luca until mid 2022 when he will finish highschool.
Our final home assignment will be for 6 months. We will take the month of August for Rich to rest and settle back to Australia. Then from September we will be available to visit and report back to our supporting churches and small groups until the end of January 2022. Then we will take a period of long service leave for 3 months which will take us up to the end of April 2020.
After that point, we are not yet sure of the future. Rich plans to still be involved in Thai digital media and internet evangelism ministry part-time from Australia with short-term trips to Thailand as needed. Although we will still be affiliated with OMF, we think we will be self-funded in this work rather than continuing to receive financial support from churches or supporters.
We are so thankful to you and our supporting churches for the partnership over more than 15 years. God has taken us from pioneering church planting, to teaching and discipling at the James O Fraser Centre, to mission leadership and digital media and internet evangelism ministries. It has been quite a journey, full of joy and pain, laughter and tears. It certainly has been a refining process where we’ve been confronted with the depths of our sinfulness and inadequacies, but enabled to experience God in unexpected and wonderful ways. We approach the end of our time in Thailand, weary but profoundly thankful to God and to all of you.
Whether it’s an urban legend or not I’m unsure, but we’ve been told that missionaries used to leave their home countries with a coffin packed as this was how they were likely to come home. There was little issue of having to detach from your home country as communication was limited to letters which took months to send and receive. How things have changed from that era of missions.
Today, missionaries face the opposite challenge with social media allowing us to connect with our family, friends and supporters back home in a way that was not possible even 14 years ago when we first left for Thailand. The problem can be that missionaries remain attached to their relationships back home so it may be more difficult to establish significant attachments in the countries they serve in.
Missionaries are not immune to the dangers of social media or Netflix addiction, but may be more prone to stumbling in this area as an escape from the additional pressures and stresses of missionary life. Following family and friends lives on social media can lead to discouragement, being reminded of special events which you are missing out on, which increases homesickness. One effect, however, that Lisa has noticed is understanding that this world is really not our home; also that Jesus understands loneliness and isolation too, and is working to bring us full fellowship with others, and with God.
Missionaries also face the challenge of how to best use social and digital media effectively in evangelism and discipleship, if they are using it at all. Unfortunately, there are as yet, very few missionaries involved in this field.
At our OMF leadership meetings last week, Rich shared the vision of one day using Facebook advertising to target possible seekers in the neighbourhood surrounding a local church. But we pondered whether there was an ethical dilemma when Facebook has been used to manipulate presidential elections and Brexit outcomes, as highlighted in the documentary, “The Great Hack”.
It is not all negative though. Supporters are given greater insight into missionary life and have greater connection with the missionaries they support. Prayer can be requested almost instantaneously when an emergency arises. It has allowed our family to be connected while we are currently apart.
Please pray for us and other missionaries you know in this difficult era in modern day missions. Pray that God would reign in this area of all of our lives.
We have an American couple of staying in our guest flat. He had turned the gas burner, however, he had the glass top cover down (the photo has the glass cover raised). Then he noticed a burning smell and couldn't work out what was happening. He called me son who quickly pointed out the obvious problem, the glass cover was down! The burning smell was the rubber stoppers on the glass that was being burnt.
It is funny how things that are obvious in one culture is not so obvious in another. I do recognise that there are stove tops that have an electric element that heats on a glass top, so perhaps that was the confusion. The things that you need to adjust to in a new culture.
People outside of Asia would probably never have heard of it, but Lazada is the Amazon of Thailand. You can buy almost everything on it (apart from a car or house) and it is generally much cheaper than buying the same item in the shops. We've bought everything from laptops, freezers, a kids pool, to mouth wash. I would say that we have a Lazada delivery at least once a week and in some weeks 3-4 days in that week. This week, my son ordered a hammock and my other son vitamins.
Before my wife left to return to Australia, she made some Lazada orders knowing that she probably couldn't get the same items so cheaply there.
These sculptures were made from the chaff of rice fields at Huay Teung Tao Lake in Chiang Mai. They were amazing.
This is the Thailand Media Network, a Christian network which aims to collaborate and help each other in various Christian media projects. The network meets once every 2 months in Chiang Mai. We have the meeting at our different organisations and this time I hosted the meeting at the OMF Mekong Centre.
This month we saw the preview of the new movie, "Soul Prison" which looks great. It will be released in cinemas in Bangkok and Chiang Mai later this year.
I shared a video from the Bible Project Thai.
Posts
All Comments
