I just booked our inter-Thailand flights (June 19 Bangkok- Phuket, June 24 Phuket – Chiang Mai, July 3 Chiang Mai-Bangkok-Phnom Penh, July 9 Phnom Penh-Bangkok) and the next morning, I get this travel advisory warning from the Canadian consulate in Bangkok…
“OFFICIAL WARNING: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against non-essential travel to and within Bangkok due to ongoing large-scale political demonstrations, which have been marked by violence, death, and injury.”
Non-essential travel…but for whom? Yeah, maybe we don’t need to travel to Thailand right now, but there are 27 million girls and women enslaved by prostitution and being trafficked like lifeless commodities every year. They are reaching out for help and getting out of their hellhole with the assistance of many Christian and non-governmental organizations. These organizations are in-turn discipling, assisting and also teaching these women very marketable skills like baking, catering, sewing and jewelry design. All these organizations admit that they just need a little more market exposure and are very open to our design suggestions to make these women’s’ natural, creative, God-glorifying skills more profitable and sustainable.
There is something ultra exciting and exhilarating about taking a step out in faith, to go where not many (or any) people would care to venture, and to trust God fully with our wealth and well-being. Joshua and Caleb were energized and ready to trust God with the seemingly impossible conquering of Canaan. Sadly, the rest of the bunch doubted God’s promises and were left meandering through the wilderness for 40 years.
Going to Thailand now would not be the first time we would be taking a step out in faith. I signed up to go to China with ELIC in May 2003, less than a year after the S.A.R.S. outbreak of 2002. To add to the testimony, we found out at orientation that ELIC was the closest to bankruptcy it had ever been. God must have had big plans and hope and a future for that group of faith-walkers…office and overseas workers alike.
Another example…I fell in love with a woman, from a different country, who lived almost as far away and from a different climate and upbringing as this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Canadian could get. I didn’t know if I could get a job in this different country or even if I did, if my employer could get a working-visa for me. 
At our ELIC debriefing time in the San Bernardino mountains, at the end of August, I still did not have a green light for employment and I had to say good-bye indefinitely to my gorgeous girlfriend in that dismal LAX airport. By September 10, my visa had arrived and I booked a flight for the next day (with ring in hand…another step of faith, which every man who gets down on his knee knows well)
My Green Card application was already in process…and missing my Immigration interview was not an option. We visited an immigration lawyer in Beverly Hills, who was able to get the Rolling Stones to hold concerts in America, back in the day, and even he said that there was nothing he could do to help. The on-line estimates were telling us the interview would probably be March 2010 at the earliest (but we signed up for the January 09 Race and had quit our jobs (well, ELIC moved) and our belongings were already in storage. The day after training camp, we got an e-mail saying the interview was scheduled for Dec. 4. Do you believe that God is in the details?
Check out this interesting fact…when we were working at ELIC and Calvary Christian Elementary School, we lived off just as much during that year of employment (a little over $100,000) as we have from the faith-walking support of our beloved friends, family and acquaintances these 6.5 years overseas (3 years Tibet (Dave), 2 years China (Lindsay), 1 year of the World Race and now 6 months at G42). We have never been in want…whether at home or abroad…THANK YOU GOD, and THANK YOU fellow body of Christ!
When God calls us….any of us… to talk to someone we’re not totally comfortable around or go somewhere we don’t really understand, I hope our obedience matches the faith we profess. Was it more of a sacrifice to support us these 6.5 years overseas, a step of faith on your part, too, that other people would join you in the prayers and support we would need. I can definitely see these years as a stretch on your hearts as we’ve been absent and sometimes in dangerous locations. But was it worth it? Most definitely!
Isaiah 49:8-9 “I will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign it’s desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!'”
He has given us every thing we need to bring change into a dark, chaotic and hurting world. The time is now to bring light, order and hope.
