For part IV Click Here.
Realizing that your nationality is a gift from God to use for His glory totally explains my mom’s passion for her people. She was an evangelist to the core but there was a particular passion for her people, Thai people. She was never prideful about being Thai, she just enjoyed it, loved it and cherished it. She didn’t have tattoos written in Thai (nothing wrong with tattoos, by the way). She didn’t marginalize people for not being Thai. It didn’t matter to my mom who you were or where you came from; if you didn’t know Jesus you were going to hear about Him. And even if you already knew Jesus you were still going to hear about Him. I’ve often said that if George Whitefield were an Asian woman he would be my mother.
My mom’s plan was to retire from working here in the States and then become a full-time missionary in Thailand. I would’ve loved to see her passion lived out. I’ve always wondered why the Lord didn’t allow this to happen. “Look at all the people she could’ve led to You, Lord!” I would say. But that wasn’t in the plans. As I went to Thailand bearing that in mind, I remembered the faces of people she shared the gospel of Christ with. I remembered the people she led to the Lord. I remembered the church she attended in Bangkok. And above all, I remembered her passion for Thailand and her people. I always thought her passion for Thailand and Thai people was, “Her thing.” I had my own “thing,” which I wanted to accomplish, my own plans.
In my previous post, I mentioned my own realization that our nationality is a gift from God and that I’ve come to love my “Thai-ness.” During this trip, that reality was brought home for me. My uncle (aka The Thai Tycoon), the one who will own half of Thailand by 2016, built another warehouse for his fireworks company outside the city of Bangkok. It was in a neighborhood my mom enjoyed because of the open fields and nice weather. The warehouse was colossal. He basically built it from the ground up and is currently building another one. My uncle gave us the tour of the facilities, showing us the offices and the unfinished portions, describing what they would look like afterwards.
In a small section of the premises, my uncle had built shacks as living accommodations for some of his workers. They may look sad initially, but when compared to where those workers would be living without working for my uncle, they are far better. I immediately thought about what my mom would do if she were there on the grounds. There’s no doubt in my mind she would have been in the kitchen cooking tons of food and taking it to the workers everyday. And you know what else? You guessed it. She’d be preaching the gospel of Christ to every single person and loving every minute of it. Although she would have known that she had workers to cook for her or do anything else for her, she would have refused and said, “I can do this myself . . . just give me my Thai Bible! I need to preach!” She would have been a living example of coming to serve instead of being served.
Speaking of my mom, my uncle (her younger brother) showed me the second story of the warehouse right above his office. He told me that he built the entire second story just for my mom. He walked me through the master bedroom, the living room, and the guest room he had built. It was all for my mom. My uncle relished the opportunity to give back to his big sister for taking care of him for all those years. Sadly, she would never get the opportunity to use it.
I stood in the master bedroom for a while and I couldn’t move. Then I slowly walked around imaging how my mom would have set up the room, how she would have packed things and allowed them to clutter, where she would sit and read her Bible, the closet she would have sat in, constantly praying for me and wondering when I’d ever get married. I imagined the kinds of books she would have had on the shelf, the hundreds of pairs of shoes that my sister stopped wearing that she would have had to wear because she didn’t want them to go to waste, and the pictures of her children (mainly me) she would have had up all around the room. No, I couldn’t move. Completely overcome with emotions, I broke down and cried. My uncle embraced me and told me its okay and said, “You’ll have to be the one to use [the room].” I couldn’t respond but only thought to myself, “Maybe I will. But if I do, I know I’ll have a lot to live up to.”
After wiping off the tears and collecting ourselves, we went down to my uncle’s office and made plans for dinner. He likes making plans for dinner and I like that he likes making plans for dinner because when his favorite nephew is in town, he will spare no expense to make sure I get the royal treatment. And yes, we feasted that night.
Other thoughts regarding my family history came to mind. It was difficult to process while I was there in Bangkok. It was like asking a neurosurgeon in the middle of brain surgery, “Hey, how are you doing that?” and the surgeon giving a look back that says, “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?” When you’re in the thick of things it’s difficult to explain. So after getting back home I thought about that moment on the second floor of my uncle’s warehouse and how beautiful my uncle made it for my mom. But instead of wondering why the Lord never allowed it to happen I remember Jesus’ words:
1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (John 14:1-3 – NIV).
No matter how beautiful we can make our homes here, Jesus has prepared a place far better and beyond our comprehension, which will display His glory in the ultimate way, namely, meeting Him in glory.
But when my mom went home to the Lord, she left something behind. It was the seed of her passion for Thailand, a seed to have a passion for your people. Will that seed grow? I have no way of knowing with certainty. I thought for certain my mom would live to see my children and win countless souls to Christ in Thailand. That dream is gone. But maybe, just maybe . . . the seed she planted in her son might still grow and see that dream someday realized. Maybe.
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