When I tell people I am on a 11 month journey to spread the love of Christ to the world I know that’s the first thing that comes to people’s mind. But, in all honesty, that’s not what I feel like. Especially this month.
Vietnam has been unexpectedly comfortable as you can read in one of my previous blogs. When we arrived in Nha Trang it turned out that our contact had the impression that we had come to simply tour around and visit. So you can understand that we haven’t exactly been doing a lot of ‘ministry’ as a result. The language barrier has been harder here then anywhere else so far as well, so that makes creating our own ministry even harder then I expected.
A contact that expected tourists + a small amount of people that know Vietnamese=
A very small amount of ministry.
Or is there?
What truly is ministry? Can I only minister to those who don’t know the Lord? Or to those who are not a part of my missions team?
That’s what this month has taught me. We spent one of our days on a boat trip going from Island to Island doing what almost every tourist does in Nha Trang. Doesn’t sound like ministry does it?
Well what if I told you that every person in my team took the time on those tropical islands, while snorkeling, laying on the beach, and swimming in the ocean to share the gospel with everyone we talked with?
Probably changes your mind a bit doesn’t it? I don’t want you to get the idea that this trip has just been an evangelical vacation, believe me it hasn’t. But there has been moments that it has felt like that.
Here is the facts though. Ministry is what you make it. I could work in a church for years and do no ministry at all, and I could tour a part of the world and do more ministry on the plane on the way then a pastor does from the pulpit.
You may call me a heretic. I would say that I am just giving you a modern day version of Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan(Luke 10:29-37), maybe more so the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-32). Check it out and tell me what you think.
On another note, I am now $1,000 away from being fully funded, which still puts me way ahead of schedule. Unfortunatly that's not the case with some of my squad mates, so I am asking those of you who feel lead or desire to, to give to some of them to make the december deadline. My buddy Heath is one of them if you go to his blog here you can donate to his race, http://heithdaniels.theworldrace.org/
