So this month the men’s team has been serving at Agape near Chiang Mai, Thailand. But we have been staying down the road at a nearby guest house. There we have 3 rooms between the 7 of us. Each room has a couple of beds, a microwave, a fridge, A/C, and wifi. It is easily the nicest setup any of us has had on the race so far. We feel very rich.
Every morning we wake up, make our own breakfast, shower (maybe, it’s still the race), have some quiet time with God, and then start our 5 minute walk to Agape. We don’t always walk together. Some people take longer to get ready. Others like to go early to do devotions with the Thai volunteers. None of us mind, we all get there eventually. Then we work. Like I mentioned in my last blog (Manly Men), we have been doing a pretty good variety of things, but it is usually pretty exhausting work. And Thailand is HOT. So by 4 o’clock we wrap up our work and walk back to the guest house. Some times, a few of us will stay back and play with the kids before they go to supper. Or a few of us will sneak away to their music room and play for a bit on the pianos and drums. Usually though, we are all pretty exhausted and are happy just to go back to our rooms and relax.
Friday was my last day doing ministry with the guys. On Monday, I get to meet back up with Kristin (Yay!) and we will start our trip to Phuket, Thailand, a few days before the rest of the squad gets there for our debrief. I started looking back at the few weeks we’ve been here and wondering what effect we’ve had here. How much did we bless our host this month? Did we do our best? Did we bring kingdom this month?
Walking home, i realized my head was down. NEEDTOBREATHE was playing through my headphones. I was pretty tired from the work we had done that day and i was walking alone because i had to hang back a couple minutes before walking home. So then I had to ask: how much did we miss this month because our heads were down? How many chances did we miss to love on a kid because we just wanted to go lie down in our A/C rooms? How many conversations did we miss with each other because we were on our own devices in our own rooms? We were too lazy to walk the three feet down the hall to the next room.
There are times were we go about our day, even while we’re doing ministry, but we pass by each other like ships in the night. Our team still did awesome this month. We helped the team at Agape accomplish a lot in a short amount of time and took some of the pressure off of the group of guys that runs maintenance there year round. We made a couple of connections with beautiful, joyful kids who love to play. We had conversations about spiritual leadership and growing as men of God. But what opportunities did we miss. I know I separated myself more than i needed to. I know i picked A/C over loving on those kids more than once this month.
Going forward, for the next 4 months (only 4 left after Thailand???), I want to keep my head up. I want to let God direct me and for me to be listening when He tells me to speak up. Ministry is great, but I don’t want to miss a conversation or not give/receive kingdom bringing feedback just because it’s our “off” day. My guess is, God can manage my time far better than i could and His plan will be far more rewarding than an air conditioned room ever would be.
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Below is the video of the song Ships in the Night by Matt Kearney. It is a great song that gave me some inspiration for this blog. Take a few minutes to check it out if you’ve never heard it before.
