Building Bridges in Southeast Asia

We had an incredible time overseas just getting to know people and hearing their stories.  We learned so much about how to engage people and begin building relationships with them, and we had so much fun doing just that!

We stayed in host homes in a small village, and in the afternoons we spent time walking through the town chatting with anyone who spoke English.  Of course, we knew a few pleasantries in the local language, but not much past that.  I was surprised at the incredible hospitality of everyone there.  We were invited into several homes for tea or coffee and were able to spend quite a bit of time learning about what life is like in that village.

Along the way we met many people who were interested in teaching us new words or sharing new foods with us.  I also got to hold lots of babies!  Children on their way to or from school were eager to be in pictures and to shout out the few English words they knew.  We got a lot of "Hey Mister!" even when they were talking to Sarah or me.  I guess they haven't learned the word Mrs. yet.  We made friends with one woman and her children, and we visited her several times during our stay in the village.  She spoke excellent English so it was fun to be able to ask a lot of questions and learn all about her life there.  I even got her address so we can stay in touch.

I'm learning that everything about ministry is relational.  Jesus was all about building relationships with his followers and allowing them to know him on a personal level.  Shouldn't we be doing the same thing?  How can we expect to share the gospel with people we've never taken the time to get to know?  I've come to realize that doing missions is an incredibly slow process, especially in Muslim communities.  On this trip we took a few baby steps in sharing Christ and that was to being building bridges with people in the village.  The mission workers who are there full time will continue getting to know these new friends and over time will share the gospel.  We were but one small step in a long process.



Actually this was incredibly humbling.  On mission trips you typically want to go, share the gospel and be able to see people coming to faith in Christ right then and there.  How eye opening it was to learn that's not how things work here.  In fact, the missionaries we spent time with have been there for nearly a decade and have yet to see one person come to faith in Christ.  They might not see a lot of fruit from their labor, but they know that God is faithful, and they are incredibly blessed in their ministry.  We were blessed as well to be a part of their greater work within this country!