Missions trip review April/May 2009,
Let me firstly introduce the team for you. accompanying me was, Rhoison Harris, Patrick McConnell and Luke Stewart.
We had made a mad rush back in Australia in the final week of preparation to print, fold and staple as many of the tracts (A pamphlet containing a gospel message) as humanly possible. We employed many volunteers to assist with the venture and when we left Australia we were armed with around 3700 Thai tracts and 1200 English ones.
We were on a trip to evangelise the native peoples of Thailand, Cambodia and Burma, with the distribution of around 1000 English tracts in Singapore on the flight stopover. This work is essentially scattering seed. Because we were limited in our modes of gospel presentation, we assumed it best to have the message of the gospel written in the local languages to distribute, in pamphlet form, to all who would take one. I wouldn’t suggest this is the best mode of evangelism, but one that is indispensible none the less. I believe all Christians are to be preachers and they must preach the gospel wherever and however they can.
Our plan was to spend our first week in Bangkok sharing Jesus (via tracts/pamphlets) on the streets and this we ventured upon with much vigour.
My journal had this entry from our first week in Bangkok preaching on the street with tracts,
”God is great and we feel like we're really making an impact here. We went to a part of this city today called Siam and began to tract near the colleges where English is taught.”
Doing this provided us with the opportunity to engage the locals in discussion about faith and God. We would hand them a tract and anyone who responded with “thank you” (in English) we would ask if they spoke English and begin to share our message with them. We had some amazing conversations with many people this way.
In one part of town near our hotel there was a store owner who took exception to our practices and he came out and began shouting at us (in English) for handing out tracts outside his shop. He really gave us a scolding and told us to get moving and not to tract outside his shop. I apologised as nicely as I could and told him we meant him no trouble and we moved on. I guess it was our first and only real piece of persecution for the trip. All in all people were quite willing to take the tracts and they began reading them almost immediately. It was exciting to walk down a street handing out tracts and then make our way back up the street and many of the people had stopped what they were doing and were reading them. This made me very grateful to our Great God.
There are many other stories from our first week in Bangkok but to cut a long story short, over 4000 gospel tracts were distributed and dozens of conversations were entered into on that precious and eternal subject of salvation. We also made connections with many great people who are labouring in the vineyard of our Lord in that place
(God bless you all. We respect and appreciate every one of you, you know who you are. Thank you).
We arrived the following week in Phnom Phen which is capital of the Kingdom of Cambodia. We were taken to the province of Kâmpóng Cham which is about 3 hours drive NNE. There we met with the workers of the missions base called Heartland International Ministries. The base is also the building used for the Sunday services of the local church of the same name. This was going to be our home for the next week.
Cambodia touched all of our hearts. It’s one of those places in the world where the gospel would surely spread rapidly if there were enough labourers in the field. The Cambodians are a sincere, hospitable people who are eager to meet new people and talk about new things. We spent the majority of our time going from house to house and village to village preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. On some occasions we would pull up at a village and start playing music and sing and before long many people would gather around. They would enjoy the music and then we would give them all a tract and share the gospel with them. The pastors of the local church were gracious enough to accompany us and translate our message. This help was invaluable and for this we are extremely grateful.
We did this at one particular village and just pulled out a guitar and began to sing for any who would listen. A crowd began to gather and we shared the most glorious news they could ever hear: the gospel of Jesus Christ. Approximately 60-70 people listened quietly and took tracts from us. One lady who was sitting near me whilst I was preaching asked the local pastor to come back again and teach her more. She expressed a sincere interest in the things of God. “Oh God may you touch her heart and bring that seed planted in her spirit to full fruition.”
Then as we were finishing the message, three Buddhist Monks came our way walking down the dusty road. I motioned to one of our team to go to them and present them with a tract. They took it curiously and asked us what we were doing there. We replied that we were here sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the people. The (seeming) leader of the three, who spoke English, then asked us what our plans were. We responded that we had no real plan but just wanted to preach to all who would listen. This seemed to please them and they asked us if we were willing to go to their monastery and preach to the Monks there. I couldn’t resist my excitement and answered with a resounding, “YES!” The monastery was quite a beautiful building, as they all are. No expense seems too great when building one of these places. They are lavish and an obvious paradox to the general humble abode the common people live in. We answered their questions about western life and why we had come to Cambodia what we planned to do and how we planned to do it. We answered plainly that we were preachers of Jesus Christ and had come to share His message to all who would listen. I then began to tell them about the great God, who is preeminent above all other gods. The one true God who would judge the world of their sin and render to them the punishment He had promised long before to all who would live ungodly lives. This seemed agreeable to them and then I began to share how this great and just God wouldn’t just sit by and see His whole creation slip into hell due to their own unrighteousness, but that He would in fact come Himself to this place in the form of a man (Jesus) and take the penalty they had earned from their evil deeds. I also shared that this Jesus died on a cross to take the place of all who would come to Him and believe in Him and follow Him; through repentance and faith. That this was all He required from anyone no matter what their race or religion, that He would accept all who would just humbly give their lives over to Him. And for those who don’t do this, He would punish them as their sins deserve in hell forever. They seemed interested in this theology and we began then to talk a little about Buddhism. I strived to show them that their religion was in fact unjust as there was no atonement for sins committed. Buddhism has five precepts that if broken will lead the guilty straight to hell. I asked the monks if they had broken any of these laws themselves before. They looked shocked that I would ask this and then their shock turned to embarrassment as they all admitted they had indeed been guilty. I then asked them what hope had they of redemption without a redeemer and this question seemed to pierce them more than any other. I told them about how great God was and that His greatness wasn’t just summed up in His high and lofty nature but that this God also condescended (became low) to our state and lived among His subjects so He could die to provide the atonement that all needed. I told them that they needed Jesus Christ as much as anyone else because they were guilty sinners. The main monk who spoke the most then confided to us that he had tried to read the Buddhist holy books and found them difficult to understand. I told him that the bible was God’s holy book and that he would find it easy to understand it if he read it with a humble heart. He then asked me if I could procure him a copy of it for him to read.
We soon left that place and I couldn’t help but be a little excited at the opportunity God had provided to us. We had ventured into the very jaws of the lion (the devil) and attempted to pull out those who were being deceived in to hell. My joy was full and brimming over that we had also seemed to make some significant impressions on them and they were going to pursue this truth for themselves. (now I just have to make sure that local Pastor DOES in fact return to give them a bible) .
After the preaching trip to the monastery we went to the hospital in the afternoon. It was the most putrid hospital one could imagine and defies description. It was simply foul! There were people dying all over the place. It was difficult to see them just lying in the intense heat on timber slats that were supposed to be beds. We made our way over to the AIDS ward and found the place almost empty except for one lady laying on one of the uncomfortable beds and suffering all the discomforts of HIV. She was lying in a contorted manner half naked, with her husband and mother there to nurse her. She might have been about 30-40 years of age. There seemed little to no life left in her and I began, through the interpreter, to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to her. She was receptive and told me that she wanted to be saved from her sins. I responded with the affirmation that Jesus Christ was able and willing to save her if she put all her trust in Him. She was certain that she would and we prayed together: it was an amazing experience. God will judge sincerity and I will rejoice that one so close to the judgement seat had made her peace and would now be received there with rejoicing. We then walked out the door and found the rest of the AIDS victims sitting down or hanging in hammocks on the porch of the hospital trying to find relief from the heat. I asked Rhoison to share with them all the message of Christ and he did a great job. They were all quite receptive. We left them with tracts and moved onto the trauma ward.
The trauma ward was quite a special experience. ‘Crazy’ and ‘mind-blowing’ are two adjectives that come to mind. We would go to one bed and ask the person laying there what they suffered from. This often wasn’t necessary as the wounds were commonly unattended to and glaringly apparent. The patients would just lay there waiting for their turn to be treated by the extremely short amount of staff. One young man obviously had a broken femur and the bone was pressing against his skin. He said that he had been in an accident and was waiting for his operation. I asked him how long had he been waiting there, and his answer blew me away… “Ten days,” was the reply… I couldn’t believe my ears. They would just give him enough pain killers to lay there on a timber bed for 10 days and wait his turn. He wasn’t the worse case we witnessed either, just the first. The stories seemed to go from bad to worse. Another man had breaks on his wrist, thigh and shin bones. He also had been waiting for days. We prayed for each one and shared Jesus with many, handing tracts out to any who would take them.
We approached a middle aged man who was laying in obvious agony. He had dressed wounds on his abdomen and it was revealed he had just had his appendix taken out. He was writhing in pain; fists clenched and face contorted. We asked him if he wanted us to pray for him and he was quite eager so we laid our hands on him and prayed a prayer to our God the healer. The man was very thankful, he took a tract, and we moved on to the next person. The next person also requested prayer. As I was praying for this person my eyes opened to look back at the last gentleman who was in so much agony. I was quite interested in how he was going as I felt very helpless. When I looked back at him he had a big smile on his face and his countenance had totally changed. I alerted my translator and he asked him if he felt better and the man said almost all the pain was gone. I marvelled all over again at the greatness of our God.
We offered many prayers for the sick that day as well as our primary business of preaching to all who would hear.
We returned to the missions base and had our dinner. On the missions trip program the nights are free but we were still very eager to go out village preaching again. We convinced some of the young guys to come out with us. They spoke very little English but we were willing to try anyway. The first house we stopped at we were made very welcome and the lady of the house went and got her neighbour so she could also hear the gospel as well. I tried almost in vain to preach to her through the interpreter. It turned out that she already considered herself a believer. I asked her had she been to the local church and she replied that she had no time for church as she had to work. I felt to press the believer’s obligation to be in constant Christian fellowship and never to grow habitual in church truancy (Heb 10:25). If she considered herself a follower of Jesus Christ then church attendance would naturally be a high priority. She listened and received my encouragement silently. I then asked her if she could read. She replied that she could and when I asked her if she had ever owned a bible, she said no. I told her I would get her one and it would be waiting for her that Sunday in the local church service if she could find the time to attend. I had the sense in my spirit that she really wasn’t a Christian at all. Sunday came and I was booked to preach in that very church. I had her bible ready and was somewhat doubtful whether she would even show up. I preached my sermon and the pastor came up and conducted an altar call for anyone who wanted to surrender their life to Christ. Low and behold there she was, coming forward as sincere as I ever saw anyone, offering herself wholly to Christ the great Saviour. I gave her the bible and my heart leaped with the most rapturous joy. Truly a brand plucked from the burning!
Our time in Cambodia was also taken up with visiting the slums and preaching the gospel to those desperate and utterly hopeless people. Along with the words of life we also gave them bags of rice to feed their belly.
Our last day in Cambodia entailed travelling the two and a half hours back to Phnom Phen (the capital). We had thousands of tracts to unload so we stopped along the way in some villages and literally canvassed the whole town with the good news of Jesus Christ.
We then left Cambodia and arrived in Chiang Rai the following morning. Chiang Rai is the northern most city in Thailand and not to be confused with the more well-known Chiang Mai. We connected with a missions base there and slept on the floor of the church building for the week. I shared earlier that before we embarked on our trip we printed folded and stapled most of our tracts ourselves. By the third week of our trip we had just three left! I asked the local pastor if there was a print shop handy that I could get more photocopied, he took me for a drive around to have a look. We found a place that would copy, fold staple for 1.6 Baht each,6 Australian cents! This was incredibly cheap so I asked him to print 10 000 for me. This is how we spent a large portion of our final week; scattering the seed of the gospel all over that place. We distributed around 7000 of these tracts in six days and left the pastor with 3000 for himself to use.
(I have since learned that now that this pastor has under 1000 left and is receiving great responses to the tracts, and that his church has since doubled since our work in that place.)
During our final week we hired a car and ventured into the mountains on the Thai-Burmese border. The local Pastor who would act as our interpreter could speak Thai, English and Lahu. This last language is spoken by many hill tribes on the border and is a distinct language of its own. These people have their own Lahu culture and don’t consider themselves Thai, Chinese or Burmese. We had heard that one of these villages had no church, preacher or gospel, so we made a trip to this remote place in the mountains. It was a beautiful village, made almost entirely of bamboo. The people were excited about seeing white people and we gave them all gospel tracts (only the young people can read so tracting isn’t very effective in villages like this one). We then pulled out the guitar and began to sing for them. They enjoyed it and all gathered around to listen. Through the pastor, I then preached to them the divine truths of Jesus Christ. They were all pleased with the discourse and thanked us for coming by.
(I’m very eager to plant a church in this village as I’m quite sure the gospel would take root with these humble, open people, if only there was a constant witness in that place. If you have a heart for this please contact me, as I have since procured a local pastor from Chiang Rai who speaks the Lahu language and is very willing to go and spend his life there building up a church. This kind of venture I can’t do on my own and I’ll need some assistance)
We got back in our vehicle and drove off to another Lahu village. We were racing the setting of the sun because the roads were so horrible on the mountains it really wasn’t safe in the day, let alone at night, when visibility was almost nil. There were inclines that our 4wheel drive couldn’t climb, and we had to all get out so it could be driven up the almost vertical slope (no guard rails either)!
We arrived at our next village after sundown and by the grace of God all in one piece. As we pulled up in that next village we heard the meeting bell ringing. There had been a meeting planned on our arrival for all who wanted to come and hear the westerners’ message. This village had a building for a church but again no pastor. Around 70+ people crammed into the church building and we sang and preached to them the good news. The people admitted that they had never heard anything like the message we gave them and they were all very impressed by it. One young man (who looked around 16 or 17 years of age), seemed to have some kind of mental disability; his speech was slurred and he seemed to lack concentration. This young man came forward and asked to be prayed for so he could receive salvation. We obliged gleefully and then he gave the rest of the people a message of his own in his native tongue. I was doubtful if this guy had it all together but for some reason all the people listened to him with deep concentration. Later on when we returned to our bamboo hut to sleep, he came in and began discoursing with the pastor we had with us. Again I was ignorant of the content of the conversation but couldn’t understand who this guy was. The pastor leaned over to me and told me he was a very well respected man in his village and a kind of village leader. I couldn’t help but thinking that it was a joke. I asked the pastor if this guy was serious and the pastor told me it was true. I asked him why he seemed to act like he was mentally ill or something and the pastor told me the man had arrived at the meeting drunk and that he was sincere in his decision for Christ. It made sense to me now why everyone listened to him in the church building. I asked the pastor how old this he was and the pastor said he was in his late twenties. Well I was shocked and learned a good lesson on making judgements about people I don’t know!
The next day we made a border crossing over to the Union of Myanmar (Burma). We had about 1000 tracts in Burmese to distribute and were all very excited about getting over into what is considered by many Christians a closed country. We made it over the border and no one even checked our bags. We were cautious as to how to distribute a thousand tracts without being caught by police. We walked around a market place handing them out one at a time, trying to be careful not to be seen. In these markets are many people who carry around with them a kind of over-the-shoulder tray that holds all kinds of things they are trying to sell. They follow westerners around and just harass them until they buy something to bring themselves some relief. One young girl was following us. Rhoison gave her a tract and thought that might persuade her to go away. But it didn’t, and so he thought another might do the trick. She took the second one, ran off, handed it to someone, and came running back with a big smile on her face and her hand out. I thought this was a little odd so I gave her another few and she did the same. On her return we gave her a bunch of ten and the same process occurred. When she returned her face was alight and she was asking us for more and more, so we gave her a couple of hundred this time and off she went. We thought to ourselves that this might be the way God had arranged for our tracts to be distributed in Burma. She returned and had three other young people all with hands outstretched wanting more, so we obliged. We then found a cafe to drink coffee in as our little army went out and circulated the gospel for us. This young girl was very clever and avoided all security and police by ducking around them into small shops and hiding every time one approached her to ask her what she was doing. We were amazed. Had this been us we would have been caught and deported at best, arrested and locked up and who knows what else at worst. How great is our God! He provides for us and keeps His children safe. We eventually ran out of tracts and all the children were somewhat disappointed. We thanked them and gave the young girl who was the ring leader some money for her troubles (which it must be said she wasn’t all too fussed about, it certainly wasn’t about the money for her.) Was she a Christian? We don’t know. Was she an angel? Eternity will tell. She was definitely a messenger sent by God to assist us in the proclamation of His message of hope. By this time we knew it was time to get out. Security was eyeing us suspiciously and we walked briskly toward the border and when they saw we were on our way out they stopped following us. We entered Thailand again and rejoiced in our triumph and the triumph if the gospel cause.
Praise God who does all things so wonderfully!
We departed Thailand for Brisbane flying the same route we took to get there: Patrick and I with Royal Brunei airlines and Luke and Rhoison with JetStar (the latter two stopping in Singapore again and passing out more tracts on their stopover). We arrived home on the 6th of May 2009.
Suffice to say there are many more stories to be told, but I feel like I have said enough to give a glimpse of the adventures we have had.
Christ our Lord once said, “...Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16)
This we have striven to do and I am confident that with the 20 000+ tracts we handed out and countless many who heard the gospel from our lips, we have simply been obedient to this command. No more, no less. May He, who has no beginning and no end, find reason to improve our efforts in the saving of many souls.
We want to sincerely thank all who supported us in prayer. This is a most precious gift you have offered us and who knows how many dangers we were spared due to those supplications. We will see in eternity what these prayers have achieved. So thank you all. It is also appropriate to offer our humble thanks to all who assisted financially. Your gifts of support have made this venture possible. Without them we would have had very few tracts to distribute and our impact would have been minimal compared to the scope of what we actually achieved. This trip, we believe, was a worthy cause and we appreciate all who demonstrated it as such with their money, not just verbal assent. So I offer my heartfelt thanks to you all. Your reward is in heaven. “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” (Psalm 2:8)
And lastly but certainly most importantly, we want to thank our most precious Lord and King. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to bring You glory. Please Lord, take our efforts and do with them as You see fit; but my yearning is that whatever You see fit to do, would bring You utmost glory. Bless You my Lord and ten thousand thanks to You, my most glorious KING!
O worship the King, all glorious above, O gratefully sing His power and His love; Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days, Pavilioned in splendour, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space,His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail; Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end, Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
O measureless might! Ineffable love!While angels delight to worship Thee above, The humbler creation, though feeble their lays, With true adoration shall all sing Thy praise.
Thank for taking the time to read this report.
I do hope you’ll contact me with any comments or questions that might arise from this. I look forward to hearing from you.
Craig Ireland
Website) http://www.preachworldwide.com/Craig_C_Ireland
Email) caigireland@inbox.com
Ph) 07 3133 3032
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