After a 16 hour plane ride (with a short layover in Doha, Qatar), 3 days of rest and administration to-do’s in Johannesburg, and an 18 hour bus ride, our team has safely arrived and settled in Cape Town, South Africa! We are working and serving in the beautiful suburb of Oceanview… more to come on that in our next blog!
But now that we are out of Vietnam, I can divulge a little more information about our time there. We worked in speaking rooms engaging in conversation with Vietnamese adults who wanted to practice their English. In Vietnam, students are taught English through reading and writing by Vietnamese teachers who do not know the correct pronunciation of English words. So, many adults flock to the place in which we worked to practice speaking English correctly with native speakers for hours at a time. It was a unique way to minister to people by caring for them through actions and hopefully witnessing to them further if deeper friendships were made or opportunities came up to hang out with them outside of the speaking rooms. But, for me, with that uniqueness many times came added challenges. Our purpose to share the love of God was clear, but so many times we could not be clear about it because of the governmental environment in which we were working.
On top of the unique ministry opportunities that we had this month, I was also personally posed with another difficult challenge this month. I got sick. Really sick. My illness started with severe headaches, fevers, and nausea. And as many of you know, I ended up being admitted into the hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for 7 days. For the first 5 days the doctors could not figure out what ailed me, but it turned out to be Typhoid Fever. Yikes! Thankfully I am all better now.
But as hard as I tried to fight it, I admit that these challenges led to growing frustrations toward God. I didn’t understand why the government had to be the way it was. I grew frustrated when opportunities didn’t naturally come up to witness to new friends outside of the speaking rooms. I didn’t understand why God allowed me to get so violently sick. And I became upset because my sickness took me out of ministry for almost two weeks. I felt as though I missed out on so many experiences and opportunities in Vietnam.
These frustrations led me to question God; question why I was even on this trip, why I kept getting sick, why God had me in Vietnam when I didn’t feel like I was making an impact at all.
But God was faithful in revealing to me what He was trying to teach me through the process. He spoke to me through Psalm 111:10 – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!” He revealed to me that I allowed myself to have these doubts because I did not truly fear Him. I did not even know what it meant to fear Him.
In response to this, God has been showing me that to fear Him, to fully respect and trust Him for who He is, I have to believe in all of Him, not just the parts of Him I want to believe. By that I mean… I know that I love that God loves me; I know that I love that He is all-knowing and is our ultimate healer and comforter. But do I also love that He is a fair judge? Do I love that He shows me discipline? If I don’t fully believe in all of Him and love all of Him, then I am just serving a God that I have created in my head with the certain attributes of God that I choose to cling to.
I question God’s plan for my life and get frustrated when “bad” things happen to me, because in my mind these “bad” things go against what the God I have created in my head would want for me. But if I had full reverence of who God says He is, if I fully believed in all of Him, then I would trust His plan and not get frustrated when “bad” things happened because I knew He always knows what is best.
I can’t just choose to love and believe in only certain parts of God. I have to love and believe in all of Him. That is the only thing that will create a true fear of the Lord. And truly fearing Him is the only thing that will give understanding in His plans and purpose for my life. Questioning Him won’t. Getting frustrated with Him will not help.
As I pursue God more, He continues to reveal to me that a true and healthy fear of the Lord will produce wisdom and will give me the passion to be thankful in all circumstances and praise Him forever.
