If I had to sum up our past few weeks in Thailand with one word, it would be restorative.
We came into this country licking wounds from a hard month and a nearly week-long travel experience and were met by a breath of fresh air.
That fresh air’s name is Bud.
Bud lives in a two-room house with his adopted stray dog, Becky, on the land where we camp. He is 71 years old and when I found that out a few days after meeting him, my jaw hit the floor. The man doesn’t look a day over 55.
The morning we arrived at the land, it was 6am on a Sunday (we came straight from the bus station after traveling for God knows how many hours) and within minutes of our arrival he had a platter of piping hot pancakes ready for us .. with butter and syrup! It had been over two months since we had seen anything even remotely resembling butter, much less pancakes! No surprise that we were in love with him immediately.
Bud has been a lifelong missionary, traveling almost anywhere you can imagine, while still managing to raise seven children – two natural, five adopted.
He now lives in Thailand, working the land he stewards with the stamina of a man half his age (for which he of course credits God alone) and serving little ones who lovingly call him Uncle Bud.
Every day we wake up with the sun and before we head off into the jungle to work alongside him, Bud serves us breakfast. And not just a stale granola bar or dry cereal – no. He wakes up extra early, and cooks (on his little single burner) eggs, pancakes, french toast, potatoes – you name it. Every day is different and it never ceases to humble me.
He says that before he puts us to work all day he wants us to be happy and have full bellies .. but there’s so much more to it than that.
This is a man who loves to serve and does it as unto the Lord. He is ministering to us in the most basic and tangible way possible .. and it blesses us more than our simple thanks can ever fully express.
The thing that strikes me most about Bud is the quiet way in which he serves.
It’s not flashy or showy. There’s no desire for praise or approval behind his kind gestures. He simply humbles himself to serve those who have come to serve, and I truly believe that God delights more in one man’s simple acts of humility than in any mega church’s high-tech praise and worship.
I have learned so much about what it looks like to give every aspect of my life to others through watching this one man live out his days.
Although our ministry this month has been and will continue to be a lot of physical labor, it has brought life and energy back into us in a way that I didn’t think possible – and we all know that it’s due largely to pancakes in the morning with Bud.
