The Unseen Life: Part 17

As a staff of the Singapore office of an international missionary society, I was going through a list of potential interviewees for missionary service for the coming months, with the available openings on different fields of service in Asia, when suddenly a Voice said, “I want you both to offer yourselves for service overseas with the new inter-missions team!” The apparently new venture was not on the candidature deployment lists in front of me then. I queried, “Oh! What team is that?” He replied, “It will be announced soon.” The following week, at a staff gathering, we were informed that our mission organization, together with several other like-minded groups, would be forming a new team for an initial outreach in a third world country. An appeal for prayer was simultaneously made. 
 
Immediately, my mind went into overdrive in excitement and curiosity, with an overabundance of questions and decisions to be made. Who are these groups we will be partnering with? Who are the unreached people with an unfamiliar name? How will my wife respond to this sudden change in future direction? And how will our families and church react to the decision? What about our finances? And what to do with our apartment? Etcetera! Our routines were turned upside down as we began to fathom the repercussions of relocating. And we were only six months into our marriage then! 
 
A major question that was of immediate relevance was “Why?” Why now when we were much older than the normal missionary applicant? A few days later, that quiet thought elicited an answer: “I want to show you how I love these people to whom you will go to. Besides, by being with them, there are valuable lessons I want you to learn. Don’t worry, I will watch over the two of you.” That latter assurance immediately assuaged my growing concerns. We then set about informing our families and closest friends and consulted with our church’s leadership. Once they gave their blessings, we began the application process. Learning two foreign languages at a mature age raised immediate concerns, but eventually we survived the mission board’s candidature screening process.
 
One day, as we were clearing our home for an eventual rental prior to our departure overseas, He chipped in, “I want you to put your home on the market and donate all its proceeds to whomever you choose.” My immediate reaction to that was my wife’s uncertain response! She had bought the apartment when she began her career as a banker a few years earlier, and I loathed to discuss with her about giving it up so soon. But to my surprise, she agreed to its sale without raising any conditions. This apartment was the most expensive asset in our possession, and to relinquish it would normally elicit some heartaches as property prices were escalating exponentially each year. Under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible for us, when we did return home in the future, to realistically be able to afford to purchase another home. Nevertheless, logically, if God were to dispossess us of this apartment, surely, He would be able to provide for our future, despite the upscaled costs then! The day we commenced our in-house mission orientation programme, the young couple who bought our apartment, took over a fully furnished flat. The total cash proceeds of the sale were then given away.
 
As the ten-week in-house orientation programme ended, we received news that a permanent staff member at the mission’s headquarters required emergency surgery. “Gerald, I want you to give all your savings to this couple tomorrow,”  He instructed. Dutifully we emptied our savings account, which was the balance of our wedding gifts, and anonymously forwarded it to the couple. We learnt later that the sum contributed matched exactly the hospital expenses. We left Singapore with very light hearts and thankful for His faithful provisions. 
 
This journey into a very different cultural and religious environment was to be formative in our walk with God, as He ventured in familiarising us to His unconditional love (agape) towards a distinct racial group from us, with an acquired sensitivity towards their particular spirit world. Due largely to a disintegrating peace and order situation at the time, the lesson in ‘laying down our lives’ became paramount as we served in a highly ignitable conflict zone; where the daily tranquillity masked a hostility between two politically large opposing armed factions. The fact that we persevered is due principally to God’s earlier promise that He would look out for us. He is faithful in every way.