Exploring God's Plan

This has been a week full of sightings of God's love and realizations that He has a plan for us here in Asia, even if our team has yet to figure out exactly what that plan is.

God has shown His love through the people we meet all around us. He is seen in the cab driver who bought us flowers and then offered to give us a discount on the drive. He is seen in seemingly random meetings with those who want to help us, invite us into their homes and schools, and start Bible studies with us. God shows His love by remembering the little things we think we don't need—coffee shops and ice cream, lovely sunsets and music, games of Ultimate Frisbee and time to read or play cards. We are surrounded by His beauty even when walking the dirty streets littered with stray dogs and trash.

As this is an “exploratory” trip, we have not come to Asia with an exact plan of how to share God's love with others. This has been difficult for us to grapple with, as it means we have many days with no clear direction of how to spend our time. God has been very gracious in showing us one step at a time where to go and what to do, though He often doesn't make the reasons clear ahead of time. Many times we have followed His leading to attend a conference or go to a meeting and ended up making contacts with people who we hope to work with in the future. One example of this was a “chance” meeting with a teacher we had on Tuesday during the lunchbreak at a conference. We happened to sit at the same table with this man “John,” who began talking about the school he works at. Turns out Peter had already been emailing with John about volunteering at his school! Neither one had ever met each other, nor did we know that John would be at this unrelated conference. It's amazing how coincidences like these keep cropping up: clearly someone has a plan for how this trip will work out! I'm just not that someone.

One more theme of this week has been the strong example of the local Christians we have met. It is a humbling reminder of how to live for God as I see His people here living in faith of His provision and grace every day. Local folks here often have nothing by the world's standards, but they are willing to share that nothing with others, or spend all they earn to share the truth about God with others around them. What an amazing testimony to learn from! There are many examples to share, so stay tuned. God is at work here. Pray that we will join Him in the work that He has planned for us.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." --Ephesians 2:10