Mission Emphasis Week

Last Sunday service, GCC had its Mission Emphasis Week, a service focussing on mission work and how the church as a whole can move towards that direction. When it comes to mission, it always excites me somehow. We had the privilege of having Pastor Richard, a pastor who have been serving for almost 30 years now in the mission field, to speak and to share with us in particularly about the Penan people. Pastor Richard is currently working very closely with the Penan (when I say working closely I mean he actually hikes and lives in the interior with this group of people) in Borneo. He came with a bag loaded with experience, knowledge and passion. I'm always amazed by people like himself - people like Jim Elliot, Hudson Taylor and even Eric Liddell - people who are willing to literally live a life of reckless abandon for the sake of the gospel. Simply astonishing.

I first started to develop a heart for mission, cross-cultural mission to be more exact, about 3 years back under FES's S.T.O.M.P. programme where I had my first visit into the interior of Sarawak to be part of the Iban community. Since then, I've been going back to Sarawak. Last year, with His guidance, I had the chance to organize my first mission trip called G-S.T.O.M.P with a group of graduates who too shared a heart for mission and in particularly, the Iban community. I can say with all my heart that every single time I stepped out there, God has never failed to remind me of something old and reveal to me something new. He holds a different agenda for me each time.

Interestingly enough, while last Sunday was on Mission Emphasis, a friend of mine who was part of G-S.T.O.M.P. last year was coincidentally up in Penang for a break. I had the chance to catch up with her, shared about our passion and heart for the Iban community and even traded thoughts as to how we can further develop G-S.T.O.M.P. It's always encouraging to have conversations such as this with people who share the same conviction. Not many people these days, especially people in our current generation, are willing to take time out from their daily routine to do short-term mission trips any longer. I guess the idea of stepping out of our comfort zone - nice bed, clean bathroom, air-conditioned room and good food - isn't too appealing to many.

The thing I'm most attracted to about the Iban community is their life of total simplicity which in turn, enables them to access freely into living a life of simple faith. Simple faith is something that we urban people seem to have long forgotten amidst all the turmoil of our concrete jungle. This group of people are not "contaminated", so to speak, by the pollution of what this modern world has to offer. This people don't have proper electricity running 24hours a day, no phone lines, no running water and no proper toilets for that matter. They live day by day, depending on simple things like nature to provide food, rain and river for water and above all, God for everything. I too am constantly struggling to learn to live simply. I guess coming from a big city, we will constantly wrestle with the idea of stepping out from here and into the interiors. But when we so decide to do that, it's amazing what God can teach us through that journey.

If I could only share one thing that amazes me about going for a cross-cultural mission, it would be the realisation that God's children is from every corner of the world - no matter how different our world and theirs may be - how different our cultures, background, language and lifestyle - it need not matter at all because through One man we have become one family. That's the evident beauty about cross-cultural mission. It's hard to describe how my spirit reacted when I had my first experience worshipping in Bahasa Malaysia, my first experience praying in BM or Iban for that matter, my first experience preaching in BM and my first experience witnessing the Iban people sharing their testimonies. It left me totally in awe of how big our God is and how loving He is.

And here I find myself in a room with full-fledge electricity powering the fan that's blowing right into my face while connecting half way across the world through this ingenious technology called internet as I sip a nice hot cup of Milo away.

Ahhh... sweet isn't it?

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How long shall we stay in our comfort zone?