GREAT NEWS!!!!!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

11:30 pm

            I just found out yesterday that I will be receiving a stipend from the student missions program at Southern! It's actually a pretty big deal, because this whole first month that I have been here, I haven't had any source of financial support. Just a day or two before I had left to come to Bangkok, I realized that I had never actually had a conversation with the SM office about my stipend. They had told me to direct all my questions to the people I would be working with and/or people who had been to where I was going. They had all told me that they received a stipend every month from the SM program. I called to see if I could ask them how it was going to work and all I got was a confused response and that they would call me back. I didn't receive a call from them and it was the night before I was going to leave. Naturally, I started to get nervous. Suddenly, I remembered something... something I wish I hadn't remembered: the financial agreement form I had signed. I read it over once more and found what I had forgotten. The policy was that I was to raise the requisite $3,000 for the mission program and then, on top of that, any other funds that I might need (i.e. stipend). At this point I was freaking out a little. I was less than twelve hours from shipping out to Bangkok, and there was no guarantee that once I got there, I would have money to live on for nine months. I spent hours trying to figure out what I could do about it. I even became angry and tried to blame people.

            Eventually, I calmed down. My dad said he would work on it and gave me some money he had saved himself that he was going to give me anyways in case of emergencies (which is what I have been living on thus far). I figured that since God got me this far, surely He would take care of me when I got to where He was sending me. I'm sure that there has been sacrifice in order for me to receive the stipend. Ultimately, I can only blame myself for not addressing the issue earlier. I feel so silly though for getting worked up about it. God had proven to me months before I came here that this is where He wanted me and He continues to do so. I trusted Him with everything else, but I let this one thing get me down and for some time I hadn't been trusting my God. In my devotions recently, God has shown me lots of His promises regarding fear, worry, and our trust in Him. I thought that I would share them here:

"Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap." - Luke 21:34

"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side." - Psalm 3:5-6

"If you make the Most High your dwelling--even the Lord, who is my refuge--then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." - Psalm 91:9-12

"The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, 'Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you'" - 1 Kings 19:7

"This is what the Lord says: 'Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.'" - Jeremiah 17:5-8

These passages are just ones that I have come across in the past month. It's so amazing, because really they are saying if we trust in God, we have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear also means we have nothing to worry about. Nothing should cause us anxiety. I know we have been told this so many times, but how often to we actually remember and believe it? Honestly, if we are afraid of anything, then we aren't trusting these promises. Now, there is the instinctual sense of fear, which at times is appropriate. Psalms is full of David crying like a little girl, because he is so frightened. However, he always cried out to God. Even though he gave in to fear, he didn't face it alone. He prayed for the protection he knew God would grant him. I think many times we forget to share our fears with God and claim the promises of protection that He has given us.

Here are some pictures to catch you up on what's been happening:

DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!

Cory Goodwin's Wall Mural in Thonburi

Yes, that's a 5-story waterfall inside a mall

Some park Goi took me to on Sunday... it was probably the size of two Disney theme parks. We went kayaking, but I'm definitely going to go back and take wind-surfing lessons =)

I just thought this was cool