phracêā thrng reīyk ("God is calling")
“At 18, Chit was a Buddhist struggling to make a living in Burma. One day Chit met a pastor who shared the Gospel with him. He put his faith in Jesus and began to excitedly tell his family about the message of forgiveness from sin that Jesus had given him. His family became very angry with Chit and he suffered much rejection and opposition from his parents.
One day Chit was travelling on a bus with his Pastor in a very mountainous part of Burma. The bus was full of people. As the bus driver was turning a corner, he lost control and the bus went off the road and down the mountain. Tragically, everyone on the bus died except for Chit and his pastor...”
Why God chooses to work through people rather than miraculously intervene is a question even the wisest theologians struggle to answer; the reality is that God is perpetually calling his people to step up, step out and play a role in his grand redemptive work in the world. For a select number, that call begs a more dramatic response.
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An “ordinary day in 2000” is when the call came for Dave and Louise Sinclair-Peters. “We were surprised to receive a phone call from Ricky and Karen Sanchez, old friends from Seminary,” explains Louise. “They were forming a team of 3 families to plant churches in Thailand. Would we pray about making a 10-year commitment and being part of their team?” The call caught them off-guard—“we had never considered being missionaries before”—and their initial reaction reflected as much. “As soon as we put down the phone we started laughing at the impossibility of moving a family with four kids to Thailand,” recalls Louise. “But as we began to pray about going, it was God who was about to have the last laugh!”
By late 2000, God orchestrated the initial funds and cleared the path for them to join Mennonite Brethren Missions and Services International (MBMSI)’s “Team 2000.” By January of 2001, they were on the ground in Thailand.
“Chit was traumatized by severity of the bus accident and loss of life. But as he and his pastor walked away, his Pastor turned to him and said, ‘Without a doubt, God has spared your life for a purpose Chit, never forget that!’
The following year, Chit decided that he would go to Thailand to find work. His family was very poor and he thought that Thailand would be his ‘ticket to riches.’ But the exact opposite was true. Chit ended up being a slave to the owner of a shrimp farm who paid him very low wages. He wondered how he ended up so far from home.”
“My least favourite part of being a missionary in Thailand is sweating at 40 degrees in a little tin shack,” says Louise without hesitation. But having completed their original 10-year commitment to MBMSI’s work in Thailand, Dave, Louise and family are heading back for more. “We have a vision to keep loving Thai and Burmese people,” she says. “We love being able to see them come to the Lord, discipling them so they’re ready for baptism, watching God answer their prayers, watching strangers come together thanks to the Lord and seeing them love each other sacrificially...” It quickly becomes apparent that the Sinclair-Peters love these people with a divine passion, and that passion is bearing fruit.
But while God is using their passion to fuel their ministry’s exponential growth, the practical needs of the ministry have also mushroomed. And that’s where Eastview comes in.
“Lonely and isolated in the middle of Chachoernsao, Chit gradually went back to living like he did before he became a Christian. He spent his days working, gambling, smoking and drinking hard.
One day Chit decided to walk 5 km down the red dirt road to the market. That day, Pastor Isaiah and our missionary team were also at the market hanging out at the Burmese food store. We introduced ourselves to Chit and invited him to church. We were a little started when he eagerly accepted our invitation! Our friend, John reached out in friendship to Chit and they immediately became good friends. One day at church, Chit came to the front of the church, knelt down in prayer and wept. At that moment, he knew he was like the lost sheep that Jesus talked about in the Bible.”
Dave and Louise had been in Thailand for years ministering to the Thai people. But it is only more recently that they learned of a different population in need. “We got quite a surprise in the rice fields near Chachoernsao,” relates Louise. “In that area alone there are around 10,000 Burmese people working in factories.” After praying for a pastor for this new flock, God led them to Pastor Isaiah, and in the past year, they have had a hand in three separate church plants, including the first Burmese church in Thailand. “We only budgeted for one church, but we’re experiencing an explosion of growth and people are coming to the Lord,” says Louise excitedly. But the highs don’t come without commensurate lows; with a determined gaze, Louise admitted “we don’t know how we’re going to pay our pastors next month.”
The truth is, God has known all along how he’s planned to meet their needs. Unbeknownst to the Sinclair-Peters, He had been preparing hearts at Eastview for this work. “Five years ago, God laid Burma on my heart,” relates Pastor Delbert Enns. This alone speaks to God’s providential plan: this was before the Sinclair-Peters began their work with the Burmese and well before Delbert was in any leadership role at Eastview. Now, standing on the precipice of Eastview and its missions emphasis on Thailand, Louise feels the Holy Spirit arranging a “great partnership” between the church, Dave and Louise, and the Burmese leaders. “The calling on Eastview is huge,” she says. “Not every church has that, but that’s what God has arranged through Delbert.”
“Chit cried out to God to forgive him for his sins. After that day, Chit had a voracious appetite to study God's Word. He went everywhere we went and started to help us share the gospel with other Burmese people.
One day we heard about a 3-month Bible study course being offered in Burmese in Bangkok. We invited Chit to pray about going. He asked his employer if he would return his work permit so that he could go to Bible school. His boss refused. It was illegal for the boss to keep the work permit but he wanted to control Chit. Chit was so excited to learn more about Jesus that he did a very risky thing; He went to Bible school without any legal paperwork!”
In Thailand, Dave, Louise and their team are busy planting churches, caring for HIV orphans, and seeing God move “in unprecedented ways in this Buddhist nation.” In doing so, they routinely accept risks we wouldn’t dream of in North America. Sneaking into a locked compound at night to share the Gospel with some enslaved Burmese immigrants is all part of a day’s work.
Eastview member Raymond Friesen joined Louise and Pastor Isaiah on just such an expedition. “It was amazing,” he recounts. “We snuck in while it was totally dark, but because I had my camera light, Pastor Isaiah was actually able to read from his Bible.” Lives were changed that night.
“For 3 months Chit stayed on the church property for fear that he would be arrested if he left. But this was a sacrifice that Chit gladly made for the sake of knowing Christ more. When we saw Chit at the end of the course, he ran to hug us and thank us for sending him to Bible school. He excitedly told us that God has put a fire inside of him! He knows he is an evangelist and now he wants to help us plant more Burmese churches in Chachoernsao.”
A calling: Dave and Louise received one ten years ago, and God cleared the way that they might play a profound role in the redeeming work He is doing in the lives of hundreds of Thai and Burmese people. Now God is calling Eastview to intercede on behalf of an area of the world where less than one-third of one percent of the population is Christian.
How that will happen will become clear in the next few weeks, but as a church we can begin to prudently pray and prepare to answer the call as it is revealed. As the Sinclair-Peters accept the risks inherent in a life lived with a sensitivity to the Spirit’s guidance, we are called to a similar life here at home, sacrificing our own comforts and the securities of our own construction in exchange for the life of faith and reliance on God to which He has called us.
You might not get a phone call from an old friend from seminary. You might not be one of two survivors of a terrible bus crash. But God is calling you too. And Louise would tell you—as would Abraham’s wife Sarah—when God calls, it’s no laughing matter. He’s looking to use you and, compared to that, there’s no higher calling.
Next Service
- Sunday, May 20th
- 9:15 AM & 11:15 AM
- Nailing Fear: Misunderstanding
- Delbert Enns
