In this post, we’ll look through the visual and verbal snapshots of Asia captured by four of our missionaries:
Last month, Mac Mitchell of the October 2010 World Race, was in the Philippines:
Pray for Tent City from mac mitchell on Vimeo.
We go to Tent City twice a week to bring a hot meal to victims of past typhoons, who are living in this “temporary” establishment after losing their homes to a number of typhoons last year.
He and his squad are now in Thailand. Mac, with Phil, Shaun and Dustin, is tasked with ministering in Bangla Road in Phuket and they ask for your prayers.
Jake Morris and his team, Johnny Gospelseed, spent last month – their first of the World Race (January 2011) – in Thailand. He paints a streetscape of Kalasin – the large Buddhist temples, the many monks, the ubiquitous smell of incense, numerous shrines…
This is a strange culture [to me]. I cannot imagine walking down the street back in Minnesota to stuff some small animal into a dark hole and hope for good karma. Yet the people here are far from strange; they are warm and caring. They work, smile, and laugh just like everyone back in the States.But, there is one difference I have noticed between the Buddhists and the Christians here. Most of the Thai Buddhists that I have met live for the present, and have a forlorn attitude toward the future. It is as if their destiny has already been determined, and little room exists for big dreams…
Noe Rivera and his teammates partnered with a ministry in India last month. One late night, around 2:00 a.m., a week-old baby girl was brought to the ministry offices. She had been abandoned, and was found, swaddled, under a seat of a train-car coming from Nepal. The officials who found her brought her to the ministry and Noe got a chance to meet her. I soon walked downstaris to the garden where Indian ladies were holding and feeding her. I held her in my arms. My heart had so many emotions in that moment: sadness, joy, and hope. Hope was what I prayed over her. God has a future and a hope for her. She miraculously was brought to a wonderful Christian community in the middle of Hindu India. She was miraculously put in the arms of loving ladies. And she will miraculously already be adopted by southern Indians who will raise her in a home that loves Jesus.
The June 2010 World Race asked the Lord where to go for ministry this month and Nathan Salley and his team are in the bustling city of Saigon, Vietnam.
Ministry looked like a lot of things in Saigon. Orphanage one day. Tea time hang-outs with twenty-somethings at night. Another day we just walked around the park and prayed for opportunities to tell people about Jesus.One night we went out to dinner with our new Vietnamese friends. They decided to pick us up on their motorbikes and Vespas to save us some cab fare.I rode on the back of Mai’s bike. She’s in her 50s and drives with the confidence of John Wayne in a Western flick. It felt like a Six Flags’ ride weaving in and out of night traffic more crowded than the Denver Tech Center on a good day. Trip highlight for sure.
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