The “obvious” choice

Lauren Braatz serves as a missionary and evangelist in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She moved to the mission field in January but didn’t have a chance to attend her pre-field orientation until this summer. Enjoy her reflections!

I had the awesome opportunity to finally attend training! I’m finding it difficult to fully explain everything that we went over and talked about. We spent two weeks talking about living and serving cross-culturally, evangelism, leading and hosting Bible studies, FN organizational things, and lots and lots more.

I had the unique perspective of having already been in my mission field for six months, so I was able to connect many dots of what we were talking about to different experiences that I have already had. Training was such a great time to connect with others and it gave me momentum going into this next part of ministry. There are definitely some ideas and concepts that I want to take back to Chiang Mai.

One thing that stuck with me is the concept of being “qualified.” We talked about how God doesn’t call the equipped, God equips the called. We see in the Bible that very few evangelists are the “obvious” choice. Jesus’ own disciples were fishermen, a Zealot, a tax collector, and others. The disciples were not those who were at the top of the Jewish synagogue school.

How encouraging it is that a recent college grad like me, who never lived cross-culturally and has no seminary or full-on Bible school training, is called and equipped to share the joy of the Gospel.

In the mission field we race like everything relies on us, and at the end of the day, we rest knowing that it doesn’t. This is a liberating thing. We are not burdened with the thought that everything rests on what we do. It is the power of the Holy Spirit.

“As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.

Night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4