Why We Are Here...

November, 1985 at Home in Bangkok, Thailand

P’Nid: (sitting in the rocking chair) "Nat, where do people go after they die?"

Natalie: (sitting at the dining room table doing homework) "You're reborn of course."

P’Nid: (almost as if not fully hearing his youngest sister's response) "Nat, where do people go after they die?"

Natalie: (giving her brother a strange look) "I told you, you're reborn, reincarnated."

P’Nid: (asking for a third time) "Nat, where do people go after they die?"

Natalie: (frustrated at her brother’s repeated question) "You're reborn P’Nid!!! That’s what Mom says, go and ask Mom!!"

P’Nid was my brother, my elder by 22 years, who at the time, was dying and in the last stages of liver cancer. The above conversation is one that took place on a warm evening in Thailand one day as he and I sat together in our home in Bangkok. I was only 13 years old, attending 8th grade at an English school not too far from home. At the time, I was not yet a believer and was practicing Buddhism as my mother had taught me. My answers to P’Nid’s questions fully reflect that upbringing. To this day, this conversation is one that is not only vivid in my memory, but haunting as well. Why haunting? As I reflect back, placing myself in my brother's shoes, I realize how unsure he was of his destiny. Born and raised a Buddhist, he was a full grown man of 35 years, on the brink of death, asking his baby sister where he would go after death. What does it feel like to look at death in the eye and not know for sure what lies beyond? My brother knew how it felt, and so do millions of Thai people without Christ, who have and will ultimately face this same uncertainty.

Eleven Years Later

August, 1996 at Home in Bangkok, Thailand

Natalie: (sitting at her mother’s bedside) "Mom, do you know what?"

Mom: (her tired and weary face turns to her baby daughter) "Hmmm...what's that?"

Natalie: "Do you know that right now there are about 500 people praying for you? The people at my church in America are praying for you right now."

Mom: (her face takes a noticeable change in expression, there is curiosity in her eyes and a look of comfort seems to temporarily erase the weariness that was there before) "500?"

Natalie: "Yes... and do you know, Mom...that if you were to close your eyes right now and not wake up again, if you trust and believe in Jesus, He will be right there with open arms to welcome you into heaven."

(Mom is attentive, listening, quietly taking it all in.)

Natalie: "I know this for sure Mom. Without a doubt...100%. (Pausing and explaining slowly, Natalie continues to share the Gospel)...So if you trust in Him, Mom, He’ll be right there for you with open arms."

At the age of 66, my mother was dying, in her final stages of cancer. This conversation took place 11 years after the one I had with my brother. This talk, however, took a different turn. After spending three weeks with my mother during her final days, I continued to share with her the comforting assurance of the Gospel. She took hold of Christ one day praying with me to accept Jesus into her heart. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?...thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:55,57) My mother died just as my brother had, yet she knew Who waited for her on the other side of death. Millions of Thai people have yet to know, but they are waiting to hear of this same saving message of Christ. As God calls us to Thailand, this is why we go.

Our Salvation Stories

Milo’s Testimony
What better way could a young Korean boy learn about American culture than to go to an American Christian church? That’s why my parents thought, and so church was a normal part of my new American life having moved from Korea at 6 years of age. "Going to church and being good, is that all there is to living?" That question plagued me. My inquisitive mind felt that there had to be more to religion than just being a good person. Just to be good did not seem very meaningful. In high school I had a youth pastor who seemed good, but he often struggled with a badness that others could not see from the outside. On the outside he looked very good, but there was something more about his faith, he did not live to be good but he lived for God. His deeper purpose for his faith was not for goodness sake but for God, a higher purpose, a meaningful purpose. My goodness on the outside was a mask for the emptiness on the inside. I realized that being good for goodness sake was frustrating and empty. But living for God’s eternal purposes rather than good’s short-lived purposes seemed the most sensible. Trying to be good on the outside was frustrating and impossible, but living for my Creator’s eternal purposes was worthwhile... fulfilling what my Creator had intended for me on the inside and the outside.

Natalie’s Testimony

College glasses.

In the midst of my senior year in high school, I began to wonder about "God". Born and raised a Buddhist into a Thai family, I obediently prayed the Buddhist prayers and tried to meditate as my mother and sister had taught me before leaving Thailand to come to the states for further education. However, as I prayed and meditated, I began to wonder about God. Is there really a God? If so, what was this God like? Unknown to me at the time, God was working in my heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. After about three weeks of wondering and seeking, one of my close friends invited me to her church’s revival meeting. Up to this point, God had been working through the prayers of a handful of very close Christian friends who loved me and accepted me as I was, and prayed for my salvation nonetheless. To them, I am eternally grateful, for it was that night at the revival, March 16, 1990, that I came to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. What I discovered that night at the meeting was something that I had never experienced before. As the people around me were singing and worshipping God, I saw how much they loved God, and even more amazingly so, I saw how much their God was loving them back! I thought to myself, "I don’t have this. I want this!" And so I stood up, and asked Christ to come into my heart. As college was right around the corner, I entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Coming in as a freshman, I had no idea all that God would have in store for me during my years here on this campus. It was here that I would come to grow in my relationship with Christ, receive God’s vision and burden for my own people at the Urbana ‘90 conference, receive my calling into full-time ministry, marry my husband, and give birth to our beautiful children. I give thanks to the Lord...

God's Call to Thailand
Natalie
I had always planned on returning to Thailand after college even before coming to know Christ. Thailand had come to be my home since moving there from the States during my junior-high years. I had always envisioned going back to Thailand to settle into a comfortable life with a well-paying job in the business world. However, God changed all those motivations after I attended the Urbana ‘90 conference. It was here that I first learned about missions and God’s heart for the world. It was here that I realized that my purpose to return to Thailand was much greater and bigger than my own selfish ambitions. It was here that I saw the Lord’s vision and love for the Thai people. It was here that I committed to return to Thailand with the purpose of sharing Christ with my fellow Thai.

Milo

College glasses.

During the summer of 1989, I was struck with the image of a Chinese man in Tiananmen Square, Beijing who defiantly stood in the path of a giant Chinese army tank. With that kind of heart for political freedom, I began to pray for true spiritual freedom from sin that Christ could bring to China. Little did I know those prayers would ignite into a heart for missions to Asia. As the door to China seemed to close for me, Thailand was another country for which I was praying. I almost went to Thailand on two occasions even before I ever met Natalie! Then in 1990, a new Thai Christian came to U of I with a burden to get as many people to pray for her people... that was Natalie. My prayers for Thailand and missions grew and grew. However, upon graduating from college, I was about 80% sure about medicine and/or ministry. Praying through Psalms and asking what was on God’s heart, I was convinced that my reasons for going toward medical missions was out of fear of my parents more than obedience to God. The Lord very clearly convicted me that He wanted me to go to seminary for the coming fall semester out of obedience and faith in Him alone. My parents were absolutely against it. They told me, "Since you weren’t responsible in college, we’re going to take responsibility for your life now." I was hoping that they would just kick me out of the house-- it would have been easier and then I could just do whatever I needed to do. But they said, "You’re going to do what we tell you to do." Yet, I was so sure that God wanted me to go. To make a very long story short, I basically ran away from home. I do not endorse this for everyone. That was totally out of character for me because it was so against my parents and it was so risky. There was absolutely no back up plan. Miraculously within one week, God changed my parents’ hearts to accept my going into ministry. Looking back, I can’t believe I did that. But I also know that the only way I could have done that was if I was absolutely sure of my calling.