Heading Back Home
Hello Friends and Family!
I know for many of you, the time has gone by quickly, but to Alyssa and I it feels surreal that we are past the one year mark! We left our home in late August last year, and here we are, a year later, feeling very bittersweet that it is almost time to travel back home. We wish were were able to stay longer in Thailand, however, God has made it abundantly clear that it is time for us to go home to California. We are slowly navigating through closing out our projects with the IJM Thailand team, packing up our house, and saying goodbye to all of the amazing people who we have met while here. We appreciate your prayers through this journey! Below are some of the highlights of our trip, as well as some of the reflections that came up along the way.
Alyssa in Bali
The week that I was traveling back to the US, Alyssa got the chance to go with the IJM regional team to an Advocacy summit in Bali! There she supported event management and coordination for a 40 person, four day gathering. Teams from across the region came together to learn from one another and share best practices for engaging with government partners, with the ultimate goal of strengthening political will and advancing the work different IJM teams across the region are doing together. It was a wonderful event, and she was grateful to help create a space where everyone left feeling encouraged, connected, and well resourced for the work ahead. They also gave her the honorary title “fun captain” because of how amazing she was at hosting the ice breakers every day!
Visiting Friends and Family
Knowing that it would be a hard transition from Bangkok back to California, we decided that it merited a short trip back to the US, followed by one final month to say goodbye to everyone here in Thailand. We spent much of the month of September back in California, where we had the chance to go to a few weddings, rest, see family, and reflect on what we learned from our year with IJM.
It was so wonderful to get to spend time with our family after such a long time away. Being back in the US made it salient how much our community of friends and family means to us. We spent most of our time catching up with family - and we met our new nephew finally! There really was too much to list everyone we saw and every conversation we had, but we treasured it all, and I have tried to capture some of the best parts through pictures that we took everywhere. We felt so wonderfully blessed by everyone we met while we were back, especially those who opened up their homes for us to stay and rest!
IJM Info Night at Reality SF
On the 15th, we had the opportunity to join Reality and the IJM volunteers in San Francisco for an event to raise awareness about IJM. It was hosted at Reality SF, and Alyssa and I got to share a little about the work of the IJM Thailand office, and our own personal experiences during the past year. This was an amazing blessing to us! To be clear, Alyssa and I were both extremely nervous to talk in front of an audience like this, and we spent many hours sweating as we discussed and prepared our presentation. I think that even up to the 5 minutes before the presentation started, we still not certain how it would go. Before the event, I had been praying that on top of raising awareness about the good work IJM is doing, God would use it to minister to people somehow. Alyssa and I had had a lot of back and forth throughout the preparation over how to balance sharing data and project reports with sharing stories, with our own experiences and learnings tacked onto the end. As it rolled out, however, I truly believe God gave us the words to speak to share what He has been doing in our lives throughout this year. Preparing for the presentation gave us a very focused time to reflect on our time here, and our consistent reflection was that this year we experienced God like no other time in our lives so far.
IJM Prayer Retreat
God has given us great examples of what it looks like to be a Christian in the workplace in the IJM Thailand staff. The people in the IJM office are energizing to be around. They really take seriously the responsibility that we have, as believers, to bring our faith to all aspects of our lives. That was made especially clear at the yearly prayer retreat that we came back to Thailand just in time to join. It was a very special time, a beautiful mixture of peaceful contemplation, insightful teaching and discussion, and encouraging fellowship. Some of the highlights:
The first day we had a team building activity where we floated down the Mae Kwai river. For people in California, this may not seem all that exciting, but living in Bangkok it can be very difficult to get somewhere where there is nature all around you. We laid back and chatted with friends from the office as we lazily floated for an hour or so (and also sometimes had to wade through shallow sections).
The HR team hosted a session to thank the outgoing fellows, which was just so encouraging and fun. They played a game where they had each of us answer a bunch of questions, then had the whole team guess our answers. It was really sweet to see how well people knew us! There was also a time where people affirmed us and it really blessed us to hear from everyone.
The interns and fellows put on a short skit in the style of “Space Pants” which got a lot of laughs and was a fun bonding experience. Alyssa rocked the scene singing a self written adaptation entitled “Elephant Pants”.
Lots of quiet time to reflect and journal about our year, and prepare for the year to come.
Reflections from our Year
When we planned our trip to THailand, we came with the intention to help the IJM office however we could. I know for myself, I envisioned working late nights, taking field trips every weekend, and feeling the pain of being in a foreign country and not having access to the food, amenities, and community that we were used to. I thought that we would have to battle feeling tired and exhausted, and know what it felt like to experience intense warfare against the forces of evil. I thought it would be a draining year, but at the end of it I will feel most proud of how many hours I worked, what I gave up, and all of the trials that I had seen and experienced on behalf of IJM.
Looking back, I realize how naive of a vision this was. We had almost no idea exactly what we would be working on, and we both came out of a work sector that is known for worshipping money, speed of innovation, and intellectual ability. This is not what was needed to help the IJM office. Their business model is the complete opposite of a tech company- instead of building towards making money, they build towards making meaningful changes to people’s lives. Instead of speed, they take the long view, as they know that it is steady, dedicated commitment over many years that makes the difference. Although the whole office is composed of incredibly smart people, they lead instead with love, compassion, and humility. Intellectual ability matters very little when you are working in service of the marginalized of society.
On top of this, Bangkok is not nearly so foreign as we imagined. To our surprise, there is less violent crime in Bangkok than there is in San Francisco. The public transit system is extensive and very accessible. While there are definitely some foods that are hard to find, the majority of the creature comforts of the US can be found here in some limited fashion. They have parks, movie theaters, and gyms. I had imagined living the missionary life of having to make many foods from scratch, but the reality is that most people don’t even make their own meals, as it is significantly cheaper to eat out than it is to make food at home. It is still very different than the US, and navigating those differences has been extremely challenging, but the challenge has been less like that of the explorer, and more that of the foreigner, the transplant, who has to learn what the deeper differences are between two locations that on the surface look substantially similar.
We also did not work nearly as much as I thought we would. Growing up on the mission field, I saw a multitude of examples of people who gave their every waking moment to the mission. Waking early, getting home late, giving every weekend and spare moment to their chosen ministry. I thought that this would be me- I even told Alyssa before we came that I would be spending the year working late nights on every project I could. This was not what God had for us here though.
With so little experience and language skills, there was a hard limit to how much we could offer the IJM team. We definitely gave whatever we could- hosting or helping with events, taking notes for meetings and workshops, joining the team on trips to the field. I even brought some of my engineering skills to bear by designing a new office layout for the team, so that they could fit their staffing plans for the next few years. At the end of the day, though, most of the time this did not fill more than a busy work week. There were few late nights, and the majority of the weekends were our own. Having come through it, I think that this was a blessing that God gave us this year- it allowed us to engage with the culture, with our church, and with our community in ways that we never had thought of. Because we had the time, we were able to take Thai language lessons when we first arrived, which set us up so well to engage with the culture. We were able to get to know our co-workers, to spend time hearing about their lives, their prayers, and their experiences with IJM. We were able to engage with our church, to join in on various ministries, and to dive deep with our community group. We were able to have friends, to visit the tourist spots, to try the local foods. We were able to join a gym and stay healthy, to read books and listen to sermons, and to pray daily.
Despite what I thought this year would look like, God still worked in both Alyssa and I in an amazing way. God filled our time this year with growth, answers to prayer, and a much more full understanding of what life is like in a multi-cultural Christian community. Three main lessons came up, which we shared in our talk at Reality, but I also wanted to reflect on here.
The first was humility. Throughout the year, we were really given alot of practice being humbled. Not knowing the language, we were constantly asking for help, asking for translation, asking for a guide. Knowing very little about the workings of IJM, we had to really on the help of the Thailand team to understand where to focus our energy.
The second was learning to rely on God and His will in answering prayer. We had no better example of this than the daily prayers that the IJM Thailand team made about their casework, their direction, and their daily bread. We also got to see God come through many times over when it came to handling our visas. Even with our latest entry to Thailand, we were unsure as to whether we would make it in, or get sent back to the US. We prayed many times this year that God would open the doors that He wanted us to go through, and He came through in a powerful way!
Finally, God has been teaching us about how beautiful Christian community can be. When we came to Bangkok, were were both very afraid that building community would be difficult, since we would only be joining people’s lives for a year before moving back home. We prayed for God to provide other Christians for us to be around, and He came through! We learned so much this year about Christianity in other cultures, and also how amazing it is to be in a community that is dedicated to loving one another in every stage of life. It was truly beautiful.
-
Thailand recently saw significant rains that led to major flooding in several parts of the city. Pray for those affected, that they can get the help they need.
-
As we move back to the US, please pray for us to navigate wisely through all of the logistical and administrative challenges that this poses.
-
Pray for the upcoming workshop that the IJM Thailand team is having to review the progress made on this initiative and decide on next steps for the program.
-
Some of the cases and initiatives IJM is working towards are closer to the timescale of decades than years. This work is heavy, and requires incredible perseverance.
