FACE TO FACE
Unexplainable Peace Irene Mellema
Irene and her husband, Jeff, serve in translation work in Thailand, whose language contains 44 consonants and 32 vowels. Another interesting Thai language fact Irene passed along is that Central Thai (one of four dialects) has five distinct tones, and the meaning of a word depends not only on forming the correct sounds, but also on using the correct tone on each syllable, which according to Irene has made for some humorous moments in their language acquisition. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." ( James 1:2-4, NIV) Jeff and I had prepared to be missionaries since we were teenagers. It was then that we felt God's call on our lives so completely to serve him overseas. We went to Bible school to prepare, read books on missions and cross-cultural service, spent time with missionaries, took classes, went on short-term trips, worked cross-culturally in the U.S., went through a missionary prep program and on and on. Even with all that preparation, you never really know what sorts of trials you are going to face. You know it will be hard. But how hard and what aspects will be hard are impossible to know until you face the trial. Sometimes when people ask me what God has taught me as a missionary, I get a bit of a knot in my stomach. I don’t have grand stories of multiple Thai people coming to Christ or miracles that have happened or even many spiritual epiphanies (hopefully one day I will have a few epiphanies of my own, but not yet). Really what God has taught me so far is to persevere. We’ve been in Thailand three years now. What I have done most of those three years, other than being sick and helping my kids navigate this new life, is L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E. I knew that Thai, a tonal language, would make language learning difficult. But no, language learning has been brutal, slow, mentally excruciating. The more I learn the more I realize how much more I need to learn. I still cannot communicate at a heart level, and I can’t yet communicate the gospel clearly. Friendships are slow in the making and I often feel discouraged or like a failure. Throughout these last three years, sometimes I’ve been so lonely it physically makes my heart ache. I grieve as I watch my kids struggle through transition after transition or when they beg to see their grandparents and cousins, but they can’t. There are times I feel totally lost as I try to navigate this foreign culture, and I feel debilitated. There are other times I’ve felt so stressed I thought I might lose my mind. And yet, in the middle of it all, there is this odd, unexplainable peace and underlying joy in spite of my weaknesses and shortcomings and struggles because I know that we are exactly where God wants us. And God has asked me to persevere and not give up. I’ve learned that trials and hardships are not to be avoided. And they definitely are not signs that you are not where God wants you. In fact, quite often trials are the necessary means to produce the kind of fruit in us that God desires. Trials are no surprise to God. Instead, he tells us to consider them pure joy. Joy because of what trials can produce. Joy because we set our minds on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. Joy because, at the end of the day, I am not loved by God because of how well I can speak Thai or how many people I share the gospel with or what I do or don’t do for him, but because I am his. And we press on, trusting the one who can do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. If you are like me, perhaps discouraged, maybe a lot exhausted, maybe struggling in some way, maybe grieving a loss, remember that we have this amazing Father who sees us as we are, knows us and loves us—and a Sovereign Father who also sees the grand picture and says, “I'm not done with you yet, trust me and persevere.”
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