God is a God of surprises (I love this phrase and believe it!)… Since Friday until today it’s been non-stop suprises. One of them is the chance to participate in an ecumenical Roman Catholic and Lutheran Open Air Sunday Service in the heart of town during their summer fest (the timing was just right for our visit!).
The second one was actually the honour to bring greetings on behalf of Malaysia and China. It’s an unexpected “Blessing” just to play a mini-public role today. I started with “Guten Morgen” (Good Morning in German!) and the crowd just laughed in acceptance. Then followed by “Ge Wei Zhao An” (in Mandarin) and “Selamat Pagi” (in Malay … when I’m overseas I tend to have a new love for our national language) with Marcus translating some greetings following that.
There are more surprises of course (like we were invited for lunch by the Mayor of Fürstenfeldbruck), but in the midst of all this. I felt sad today that we lost a friend to cancer a couple of days ago. She’s been a close friend of May Chin and after reading May Chin’s email I was brought back again and again to down-to-earth realities of life, pain and death.
It’s more than just losing a friend … and I feel bad because I couldn’t be with May Chin as she went for the funeral, it’s also about other details as we look back in how we journeyed with her (or failed in many ways) and that “hits” me hard because whatever one says about all this public role and witness we have (such as the one today I surprisingly experienced) … Ministry is about the personal touch we have with those around us.
I’m very well aware that in about one to two weeks time landing back to Malaysia is more than just coming “home”, it’s about touching the “earth” of the the place that God desires to move in. And of course, He’s most interested with the people he’s placed within my circle of contact.
Forget about getting “big headed”, we need “bigger hearts” …
Kyrie Eleison … Lord have mercy …
May Chin witnessed about this on Sunday and it was very encouraging that your friend was baptised before she passed away. We never know when he will call us home so a stark reminder that we should as you say work on our hearts so that we are ready when he does….