Upcoming Date: 

September 7 & 8 - In Person Start Dates (refer below)

September 16 - 18 - Pchum Ben Holiday

Last week my wife Melissa and I found ourselves bumping down an unsealed track, trying not to fall out the side of our tuk tuk as the driver navigated around and through what I can only describe as craters. Somehow we'd ended up in a field behind our Borey, with an 8 metre concrete wall on one side of us and a scary looking stray dog trotting towards us on the other. We weren't too worried but I think we were both asking ourselves "How on earth did we end up here?"

Melissa and I first met at a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in suburban Sydney when we were about 12. We've known each other for 26 years and for the most part everything more or less went to plan... finish school, go to uni, get a job, get married, find a church, play sports, have kids (Naomi, 13 and Ben, 10.85), buy a house, find a school, live comfortably.

There were a few little twists along the way (a miscarriage, 6 months apart when I was deployed to Afghanistan when the kids were 0 and 2, and occasional bouts of depression for me) but overall life has been comfortable. We've never really sought out adventure (I didn't even try sushi until I was 33) and adventure has never come looking for us.

So how on earth did we end up in a bumpy tuk tuk, in a foreign country and in the middle of a global pandemic? The answer, of course, is that God's plans are bigger and oh-so-much more certain than ours. 

The church we grew up in had a banner of the 10 commandments on the left, a cross in the centre and a banner of Matthew 28:18-20 on the right:

Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'

I've had that verse memorised since I was 12 but I know God is still teaching me and my family what it means. Step, by little step, God has been pushing us out of our comfort zone. I praise God for the way he has worked in our lives so far, the "good" and the "bad", and I am very much looking forward to what we will learn and how God will re-shape us in our season here at HOPE. We don't have formal Bible training, we aren't bold or adventurous and we only know about three words of Khmer between us but we are keen to use what little we have to help HOPE support Christian families who are on the frontline of God's mission here in Cambodia.

So today, in the busyness of raising kids, preparing lessons, fixing printers, sweeping floors, or typing numbers into spreadsheets, can I encourage you to pause and reflect. You could start with our question, "How on earth did I end up here?", but don't stop there. Take some time to think about how God is currently using you to make disciples of all nations... and then ask God to show you what the next step is, big or small, and for his help in actually taking that step.

Matthew Lindfield