The Mission to Serve

“A distinct work is assigned to every Christian… God requires every one to be a worker in His vineyard. You are to take up the work that has been placed in your charge, and do it faithfully…God expects a personal service from every one to whom He has entrusted a knowledge of the truth for this time….” Christian Service chapter1.

When we decided to tie the knot and enter into the holy institution of marriage, a lot of things are running through our heads. In fact, ideas of a fancy wedding are everywhere but we decided to break whatever “marriage ceremony norms” that is rampant in our society. We want to make our special day simple but with a great meaning- to pattern our program after how we know our Savior. We can boldly say that prior to this decision God had lovingly led our way to come up with this idea. All things we did as part of our wedding ceremony are all thanks to a mighty God, Who unceasingly show us His amazing grace and providence in our lives.

Join us as we narrate our story, and hopefully may it become a blessing to you.

Countless Answered Prayers

From the time we met until this moment, we have experienced God’s wonderful ways to surprise us with His timely answer to our prayers. One instance was when how God gave us a set of friends in Sriracha who are also missionary-minded and are willing to help others, and how He let us be part of a wonderful family of faith. Upon our arrival here in Thailand last February 2016, with only 60 US Dollars in our pockets, we asked Our Heavenly Father to provide for our needs and to guide us to people who will help us grow spiritually. And, in the most beautiful way, God did answer our petition. He led us to the house of a generous family and eventually to the doors of Sriracha SDA Church.

When God Leads Our Way

Not only did He countlessly answer our prayers but we can feel His continuous guidance when we fervently ask for His presence in everything that we do. We may have weaknesses and lapses, but we are assured that He is always here to lead us and to help us rise again whenever we feel down. When we first arrived in Sriracha, we did not immediately get to be close to these set of friends who became our inspiration to pursue our plans for a simple but meaningful wedding. It took us a few months of God’s leading to be closer to them. One event led to another and we just ended up not just as friends with these people but as a family.

Courage to Stand

Months quickly passed by and it is near our target date for our big day. We are now ready to announce to our friends what will take place in a few months’ time- our wedding. Then from that moment, some friends gave us hints that they are expecting a lavish wedding filled with grandeur and fancy dishes. Some even begin naming hotels around Bangkok as a venue. We have to admit that some sort of pressure is very palpable at that time. We brought all these to the feet of Jesus as we prayed for guidance. Eventually, we managed to stay firm with our decision.

Baffling Experience

As an extension of our wedding, we held an outreach program to the Karen tribe living in Kanchanaburi, Thailand last October 15, 2016. From our funds and gifts plus from various donors, we managed to prepare 750 packed goods filled with 2 kilos of rice, sardines, noodles, and pamphlets plus items of clothing. During the start of the outreach, hundreds of people came and most of our companions feared that our supply of packed goods will run short. Upon seeing a lot of excited people made us rely more on the Almighty’s Divine Providence. A seemingly endless line of people who are eager to receive the goods is enough to melt our heart. Almost everyone on our team noticed that the supplies of goods keep on coming from inside the mission van. When all the Karen people were given the supplies, the village chief reported that a total of 950 individuals received goods! Not only that, we even managed to distribute goods to our fellow Seventh-day Adventist members in the local church plus we also give around 60 packs to the Bamboo School, an orphanage run by our sister in faith Catherine Riley-Bryan known as Mumu Cath among her children in the school. What a truly remarkable and awesome experience! It was just like the pouring of manna to the Israelites in Moses’ time. Upon learning these marvelous events days after the outreach, we were extremely grateful to God’s immense Powers. He had shown us on that day that He is Jehovah Jireh- our ultimate provider.

Prior to this event, right after our wedding last October 12, we were informed that Tak province, our previous outreach destination, has some security measures and will not allow a large group of people to distribute goods in the area. Upon hearing this news, we were more determined that God has a surprise purpose why we have to rearrange our destination at the very last moments.

And yes, God did give us a truly remarkable and uniquely baffling experience of faith. With the success of our outreach, we give all credits to Our Heavenly Father for without Him our task is an utter failure.

The Mission to Serve

With our latest encounter of God’s tremendous power, we are more focused to valiantly serve other people and to let them see Christ in us. Of course, we still have our own personal weaknesses to attend to but we will continuously choose to do what Jesus will do if He is in our place and in the long run, we can overcome these weaknesses and turn them into strengths. And hopefully, someday in that heavenly home, we can joyously be with our beloved God together with the people whose lives we have touched.

When we decided to tie the knot and enter into the holy institution of marriage, we are looking forward on how our union will be of use in God’s eternal kingdom.