Miracle

Miracle was born for a great destiny. She had everything going for her; she was wonderfully gifted, tremendously loved, and she had people around the world praying for her. But the deformation that had been detected by the first ultrasound somehow missed the touch of God and she died nine hours after birth, havening barely been introduced to her family. I was still in Pakistan so they kept her little body on ice until I could get home to Thailand and attend the cremation.

At Miracle’s first diagnosis, the Thai doctor pushed for an abortion, I mean really pushed, he went so far as to call my daughter ‘stupid’ for wanting to keep her pregnancy. Mai’s twin sister Becky stepped in to confront the cold hearted doctor’s agenda and they ended up moving to another doctor in another hospital who was happy to follow the wishes of Miracle’s very commendable parents.

Months of soaking our minds and hearts in prayer and the Word of God did not change the prognosis. Who knows why, and who cares, we know that God does not change and every good and perfect gift comes from Him - who never changes.

Miracle was born into a great family heritage, and for that we are all very thankful. The world is a contrary place; contrary to heaven and contrary to the Word of God. And that makes our lives and our heritage all the more meaningful, however short or long they may be, we stand for right, for truth, for the glory of God, and to fulfill what He has called us to do.

Certainly, for this granddaughter, I would liked to have known her, her personality, her gifts and dreams, what would have excited her and what injustices would have fired her passion. Yet her short life inspires me, challenges me to do what she possibly might have done had she blossomed to the full potential of that passion.

We are all vulnerable, like children, as Jesus said we must be, if we are to inherit His Kingdom. We trust God in impossible situations and we take risks believing Him for things we cannot control. And His heart breaks, along with ours, at the sadness of this contrary and needy world. While Miracle was being born I was praying for people in Pakistan, someone else’s grandchildren, on deathbeds because of their parent’s poverty. While all around us, the people who call us infidels were blowing themselves up in public places.

Miracle didn’t have opportunity to accomplish much in life and we don’t get many memories of her, but she does stir our passion with this: those of us who remain are so much the more responsible to impact this world with the love of Jesus.

Miracle was born at 9:00 am on March 8, 2010 to Pui & Mai Chalermleamtong and passed away at 6:00 pm the same day.

Our next granddaughter, Lydia, was born March 9, 2010 to Neo & Dow Tritippayapitak. She is the cutest thing...

Pakistan

Now I know what a terrorist bomb blast feels like in real life; what detonating 800 Kilos of explosives can stir in the imagination: a bunch of innocent people in the throes of death along with the looser who pushed the button, and dozens more trying to find their bearings and crawl away from a nightmare that just became theirs.

16 dead and 64 injured in this blast that shook us out of bed on Monday morning. A couple days later, Kris and I flew out of Lahore, and two more suicide bombers killed another 44 and injured 115, followed by an unmanned bomb that injured another 4 people, followed by…

It’s all about terror, terror can make your knees weak and your palms sweat but it won’t give you any sensible advice on how to stay alive. Bombs are real but terror isn’t! So you may as well ignore it. We had an awesome time in Pakistan, we preached in five churches and a leadership conference, prayed for a thousand people, and on top of that, we received copious amounts of love and encouragement for our part in the vision of planting churches and training leaders across Asia.

The air has changed in Pakistan. On our first few trips we traveled freely, shooting video and interacting with people. Then in 2006, we happened to land in Lahore the day that Islamic rage broke out over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. Our conference was interrupted when riots broke out in the streets against anything western. We lovingly refer to this trip as the ‘lock down’ - we were stuck in our room most of the time. In the following year, terrorists began to pillage Christian homes and churches in Pakistan, oppressing the believers into a feeling of helplessness.

But this time, something different began to surface. We preached in a new church that meets in a half finished building, no doors yet, just guards with shotguns and security wands. A couple months earlier they had held an initial open-air crusade in a vacant lot a few doors down. That vacant lot could be seen from the roofs of 12 surrounding buildings and by positioning 12 gunmen on those roofs, there was no fear of snipers that evening. Then we preached at a new church plant in another area, also in an empty lot. Terrorists know this area for its gun-packing Christians and in four attempts the terrorists have not been able to break through. Now days we find ourselves surrounded by Christians packing guns everywhere we go, and I noticed that in many churches the ministry of gun-packing has become a responsibility of the youth group.

The Pakistani police now require churches to have armed guards during services. An AK 47 is nearly a thousand dollars so I think I’ll just buy a shotgun. But should this be a “go buy a sword” or a “turn the other cheek” issue?