Calling

Pursuit of calling is never easy. God did not give us a task and tell us it would be easy. My experience in pursuing the calling of God has taught me that sometimes the road gets long, hard, and tough. But it is because we know our calling is from God that we push through.

Luke 9:23 says, Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Taking up a cross is a tough thing to do. The significance is huge. But one thing I know is it isn't easy. Never said it would be easy. But we are called to follow Him. If God is calling you somewhere don't shy away from that calling because it is too hard. Don't shy away because you need more schooling or you won't get a full time job or you won't get health benefits. Know your calling and pursue it. Take up your cross to follow Him. You don't want to compromise that or your life will be bleak and lifeless. God WILL take care of you. The calling of God is too important to compromise for some short term worldly gain.

Brett Favre, Colts, and Monday Morning Prayer

Everything is right with the world. Brett Favre threw an unnecessary interception to cost his team a Super Bowl birth. The Colts dominated the miracle Jets like they were supposed to do and I was back at my Monday morning pastor's prayer time. It feels good to be back home and in my normal routine and sports back to normal.

But things won't be the same for me. My task is clear: help people understand the people acrossed the world need our help. They need our resources and things we can give them but more than that they need Jesus. Watch out Jesus is on the move.

Home Stretch

Today we decided on the area for the exact location of the ministry in Siam Square. It will be from Starbucks to MBK to the Train Stop. It is about 10 square blocks. Really cool. Today in the square there were bands set up playing. Really a nice atmosphere to meet and hang out with people. We then took Steve Strong and Jim Sappia out to get some Outback.

We are pumped about what God might do. Tomorrow we meet with the Field Leadership Team to discuss the ministry and hear some possible decisions.


Tomorrow at 11:30 we fly back to Taipei to begin our journey home. We are in Taipei for one day and then fly to LA. We will red eye it back to Detroit then on to EWR for a 8:47am arrival.


Short trip but great and I am ready to see my family. Miss them a lot.

Slumdog Bangkok

Today we saw some of the worst living conditions and how a lot of people live in across the world which makes you appreciate all that we have in America. Even the worst of living conditions in America don't compare to the slums of Bangkok. Things we have they don't: sewage system, trash pickup system, more than one 20x10 foot room, and much much more. We saw kids without pants or shirts. We saw feces everywhere and all we smelled was urine. Parents just put clothes on the children with whatever they had and it wasn't much. This slum will break anyone's heart upon visiting. The children wanted to be with you. They wanted to hang out and check out your technology just like any other child. Many children there probably don't experience much love and just wanted us to hug them. We saw people living in broken down shacks and living in an area that none of us would settle for. We saw trash everywhere, saw slums built on dirty water filled with sewage, children who didn't have a lot of food, and a slum lottery where the most they could win was 40 baht which is equivalent to about 1 dollar. Let me tell you it was bad and we have to do something. To know about this and not do something is just wrong. American's are a culture of being in the know. We know about Haiti and want to do something. We should do something but the people in the slums of Bangkok are living in a condition that many die every month just for where they live. I can tell you most of us would not live one month in those conditions.

I'm sure if they just had proper sewage and drainage more people would live. I'm sure if someone would bring them food they could not be hungry. If someone would clothe them their body could be protected. If someone would love and play with their children they would feel love. If someone would take the time to know them you could see their real need is a Savior and you could share the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus is what these people need. We can share the Gospel in real and tangible ways by meeting basic needs that none of us could comprehend.

It is my hope that through our ministry in Bangkok we can provide the hope of Jesus to the people of Siam Square as well as the people of the slums. It will look different in each location. One Rich and the other poor. One is our normal and one is nothing we have ever experienced nor will we. One has Starbucks at every corner and one lives on Starbucks' trash. There are so many differences but there is one thing in common: the people need Jesus.

It is time to do something.

Now that I know....

.....I have to do something......

To do NOTHING....

.....is to disobey God....

I will be obedient and I will not ignore.

What will you do now that you know?

I know we will do something...

Some images of our experience in the slum Klong Toey, Bangkok's largest...

Swaticup

Hello. Today we had a great day exploring Thailand for the first time. Bangkok is a big city that will wear you down. We hung out with our missionary Jim Sappia for the first half of the day and he gave us a tour of the area we are looking to do ministry, Siam Square. I think it will be a great place to do ministry. We had our first Thai contact Vrandy and found that many Thai in this area know some English. Enough to hold a conversation. The university closest to Siam Square has many of their classes in English. So knowing and being able to use English is a big in to this area of the city we are trying to reach.

I will let some of the images of today speak.

Siam Square where we are looking to do the ministry....lot's of people...

Our first Thai contact Vrandy
Marcos getting a fish foot massage
Yeah. yeah. we ate at Hard Rock Cafe
Us with the Sappia Family and Michelle Olsen

Land of the Thai

We have made it to our destination: Thailand. It is exciting to finally be able to explore the ministry in Bangkok. We have tons of meetings set up with local pastors and ministries. Pray connections go well and God moves in us as we come up with a strategy for ministry here.

One thing I have noticed while being around missionaries is that they have a huge vision for their countries. HUGE! Every missionary I have talked to has had the attitude of let's reach our whole country. How am I going to do it? I think this should translate back to us in Plainsboro. How can we think outside of our city box and have a bigger view of reaching people for Jesus. How can we have a state view and a world view? I am so grateful to be a part of a church that is about reaching the world for Jesus and investing in a ministry like one we are going to. But individually I think many of us miss the point of the mission God gave us. What are you doing to make disciples in the whole world? It starts with praying leads to giving and ends up at going. I believe if you aren't going you are disobeying God's Great Commission found in Matthew 28. "Go into all the world and make disciples..." Where are you going?

Our prayer is that through this ministry in Bangkok the masses find Jesus and many churches are planted in Bangkok as a result. It is so cool to be a pioneer of this new ministry. Please join us in praying over these next four days that we lay appropriate ground work for this pioneering. May God go before us and ordain connections and give us supernatural blessings. May we say God moved in a powerful way.

Wiped Out

Today we hit our jet lag wall of tiredness. We visited some cool places: Cheng Kai Shek Memorial, Taipei 101 which is the tallest building in the world, and a Buddhist temple. We also saw where they plan on planting a church in Taipei. It is interesting that the section of town that this ministry is happening no Buddhist temple is. But the church is penetrating this community. It is neat to see God move in that way.

The Buddhist temple was sad. We visited the temple and just watched the feeble attempts of people crying out to an idol. They were praying to something that wasn't there. These people were hopeless because they were missing the truth. They need God and need someone to bring them God. The really sad part is they don't know God and have missed it. All of our hearts were broke for these people. We will pray for what God is doing here and pray that he moves in us as we go to Bangkok tomorrow.

We had a lot of great conversations with some missionaries. We got to hang out with Rick and Tammie Romano our missionaries in Mexico that we support. We got to talk to Pete Brokkopp and hear his heart for Africa. We met Dennis who is a 50 plus year old church planter in Denver reaching out to young adults. It was a great day full of connections and conversations. The day had a lot of great conversations with our team about the future that God has for us and where he is moving. I think it is awesome that sometimes God has to rip us out of our current context for Him to speak to our hearts. If you are looking for God to speak I would encourage you to find a different context and listen for God because he will speak in those situations.

Thanks for your prayers. Please continue to pray.

Some pics from the day:

Matt, Kyle, Rick, and I on top of Taipei 101

People without hope in need of a Savior...they don't know...who will bring the Gospel to them?

First Day

Today is our first day in Taiwan. After our arrival we went straight to our hotel in Ximending. It was about midnight local time but getting close to lunch time according to our bodies so we went to a local restaurant and had food. Since we are in Taiwan it is better known as Chinese food and it was really good. We finally got to bed about 2:30am local time and I am up and at em at about 7am local time. Pray for us that we get adjusted well.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance is holding its annual short term missions leadership meetings so far we have met the coordinators for short term missions in Cambodia and Philadelphia. We will see Rick and Tammie Romano today who are the missionaries we support in Mexico. We have already had a great initial conversation with Matt Peace about the possible ministry in Thailand. Things are already exciting for us as a church and our involvement in Thailand. There are many decisions to be made as well figuring out how to connect Thailand's needs with our service to young adults.

It is time to go explore this city of Taipei. Today we will explore the ministry of Taipei and a few cultural stops as well.

Here are a couple of images of our trip so far:

This is the restaurant we ate at:

Here is us after about 30 hours of travel

We landed

After 28 hours of travel we have reached our destination. It is about 10pm here in Taiwan Tuesday evening so we have lost a day during travel.

We start our trip with a day in Taipei, Taiwan. We will be looking at the ministry here to see how we might do it in Bangkok.

We(Kyle, Matt, Marcos, and myself) are exicited and tired. We also smell pretty bad:) our flight from Detroit to Tokyo was delayed and the people of Japan were kind enough to hold the flight from Tokyo to Taiwan. Without that help we may have been trying to book a flight in englenese.

Thank you for those that are praying for us it has helped and given us a smooth trip so far. Continue to pray for travel safety, health(this is key), and great connections.

Here is a great pic of our action so far:)

Thailand Subscription

If you would like to follow our trip to Thailand this next week go to my blog matthewleemurphy.blogspot.com and subscribe to it. When you do that you will get updates in your inbox.

Pray for us as we travel and that we make good connections for the start of this new ministry in Bangkok, Thailand.

Discouraged?

It seems many I know have been discouraged recently including myself. I believe that we are in a spiritual war. Because we are in a spiritual war we need to be aware that the enemy will be attacking. Satan does not want you to succeed and he has been around the block a few times. Because of this we must pursue God so that we are resting completely in Him.

As we pursue God's calling in our lives let's make sure we are aware the enemy wants us to be discouraged. So be encouraged that you are heading in the right direction and use the discouragment you feel as motivation to pursue Jesus who will help you to defeat that discouragement.

Discouragement also sets in when we are identifying ourselves in something other than Jesus Christ. The more our identity is in Jesus the less the difficulties of life bother us. When we completely trust in Jesus we know he will take care of us.

Jesus' comments sum it up below:

Matthew 11:28-30

28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Family Goals

When setting goals make sure you set some clear family goals. In fact I would argue that your family goals should fall right after your drawing closer to Jesus goals. I didn't say spiritual goals because sometimes people will put ministry goals in there as well and I in no way support sacrificing your family on the altar of ministry. It says in scripture that those who minister should be good managers of their family. I believe all of us should focus on our families first but so many times our families come behind career, ministry, and hobbies.

Where is your family in your new year's resolutions?

Here are some of my family goals:

Pray with them every night

Do something to help around the house before I go into 'relax' mode

Play with my son every night

Have 2 focused family weekend or week (depending on funds:) vacations a year (non-extended family related)

Have 1-2 family outings a month (day trip type things)

I want to connect with my family spiritually, serve them, and do stuff with them.

Happy New Year and I hope that everyone is enjoying being back at work full swing...