I created this testimonial for a staff devotion at the start of our 2021-2022 school year. It really was a great opportunity to stop and reflect on God's goodness to me through the decades...
Video Transcript:
All right, Thailand greetings everybody, it is great to be able to be here. Even though we're not under the same roof, it's wonderful to be able to actually be online and be able to actually talk and communicate this way. I just wanted to share with you, to see if I can share with you six decades of my life in 15 minutes -- that's my goal. I also want to touch on some of the spiritual journey that I would have experienced at the same time -- something that's been very important to me. Hopefully you'll find it encouraging as well.
I've entitled this devotional “An Answer to Prayer” -- an answer to my prayer that I prayed when I was a teenager. So, let’s start at the beginning of time -- my time at least -- in the early 1960s when I was born in Ontario Canada to a wonderful Christian home. One brother one sister and parents. Actually, my parents almost celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary a couple years ago – almost. God certainly blessed me with a family such as them. I often joke because my sister and my brother are that much older – it is like I kind of had two sets of parents and, so I consider that a blessing, I guess =)
At any rate, I must say some of my fondest memories are up at our cottage. We had a family cottage in northern Ontario for like 50 years and so you can imagine that became a home away from home you might say for me. Not only as an eight-year-old do I have memories there but as a 48-year-old! You can imagine -- a lot of wonderful memories there. There's me in the top picture in a stroller with my older brother older sister and dad's holding me there in the bottom picture.
Now one thing that I have to mention. My immediate family was fairly small, like I said with one brother one sister and parents, but my extended family we're talking dozens and dozens of people. My dad's side of the family when I was a young guy at a family reunion, I counted like over 60 people! Lots of support you know through family.
But one thing I have to mention is just all of the stories and the accounts from my family and the church community. I grew up in the Mennonite Brethren denomination, and if you know anything about the Mennonite Brethren you know they came from the Ukraine and went through the Bolshevik Revolution. Incredibly hard times. My grandparents, actually, were born in the Ukraine and immigrated to Canada in the early 1920s. The Bolshevik Revolution was in the 1917 area, right after World War I and just before a famine so you can imagine -- life was extremely difficult.
I heard stories about my grandfather. For instance, hiding in a haystack in order to escape them murdering him. The haystack was in this barn you can see the middle picture on the left. I believe that is the same barn that he hid where the Red Army during the Bolshevik Revolution tried to kill him with the pitchfork going through the haystack. They avoided him and so he survived to tell us about it. The top right-hand corner: my great uncle was a chauffeur, you might say, for the military. The picture was taken in Odessa in I believe 1917-1918.
The picture right below it, is another great uncle who was leader of a tent mission. They would carry the tent from town to town and raise it and share the gospel to all of those people who came to listen. You can imagine the Bolsheviks were not too happy about that and so he was eventually murdered. I won't go into details because it was way too gruesome, but basically, he and a lot of the other leaders of the tent mission were eventually murdered.
But you know what? I remember sitting in my grandfather's basement and he actually wrote out a lot of these stories. I see him at his typewriter going away at it. I think the first draft was like over 800 pages and so you can imagine how many stories and details he remembered! Eventually this draft became a book they published. He didn't see it actually published, because they published it probably about 20 years after he died. You can see the cover there in the middle bottom picture. It is being used in universities right now so to speak. That's pretty exciting. All of this to say this is the history and background that I grew up in.
So quickly going through the 70s -- yeah, the fashionable decade with purple pants and cords and all that wonderful stuff. In the bottom right you'll see me there as a teenager 16 years old. With an older sister, my first niece came when I was like 16 years old. I believe my niece is now 44, so don't do the math… =)
Through the 70s I was definitely involved in church. That was our community. Our social gathering time was with people in the church. A number of services every Sunday, Sunday School, Bible Study, Men's Group… you name it… Choir Practice… that sort of thing. But one thing I remember about this time, is that there was a lot of talk about God leading us and I certainly understood that and I could understand how He could lead through prayer. I believe I had a fairly good prayer life with God. I could also understand His leading through friends and confirmation, you know, when I had conversations with friends. I could understand that but then there was the Bible…? In all honesty, I did not understand how God could literally lead me through His Word.
I remember this like it was yesterday – I was laying in bed, just about to fall asleep, and I looked over and I saw the Bible on my nightstand and I wondered how words that were written thousands of years ago could apply to my life. Well, I remember praying and I said “Lord please show me how your Word applies to my life.” That's kind of what I want to share with you because He certainly answered that prayer!
So right out of high school, I went to work as a computer operator at an insurance company. That’s a story in and of itself. But it was a wonderful learning opportunity. I soon learned that I could not be anything other than a computer operator unless I actually had a degree, so I applied to go to Trinity Western University in British Columbia Canada for my undergraduate studies. I went there for about five years and then after that decided to jump right into graduate studies, and ended up going to University Colorado at Denver. When I was putting this together, I was looking at this picture of the building in the bottom right -- that is the building at the University of Colorado where I spent years of my life in architecture school. It was like, you can imagine, getting architecture portfolios together until two-three-four in the morning… a couple hours of sleep and going at it again the next day. We just didn't know anything about weekends and vacation, that sort of stuff. It was kind of a long four years but I made it through, by the grace of God.
At that time, I really wanted to do my homework (so to speak) and get more serious about my relationship with God, finding out what was in His Word. I connected with a bunch of people who were like-minded, who really wanted to learn more about God as well. God certainly blessed me with friends! We were able to encourage and challenge each other and all that good stuff. I actually did graduate as well and there's a picture of that (as proof =) Okay, so in the 90s when I was actually in Denver Colorado – you can imagine it was beautiful place to study – always a 15-minute ride away from a number of trailheads. That was really a wonderful place to get to know God in a different way as well -- through his nature, hiking and fishing. It was just really wonderful.
It was during this time that I realized the way that I learned best was really by writing stuff down, memorizing, categorizing. Some people may call me a “geek” that way but that's just the way I learn. It really dawned on me that I should be utilizing these methods of learning while going through Scripture. I started what's called the Scriptural Journal. I'd say maybe a few times a month I would come up with a journal entry about something that I might have learned in life. A life lesson, and then retrieving different scripture passages that relate to that lesson. Maybe confirming, maybe giving me more direction, or challenging me in certain ways. That’s when the Scriptural Journal started to become a huge part of the learning experience.
I was in Denver for about 15 years and remember the day God was like, “You need to move.” I'm like “No!” because after 15 years, my church was there, my house was there, friends, memories, school, hiking… you name it, it was there. It was undeniable that He wanted me to move, so five months later I ended up moving to northern Ontario in cottage country -- actually staying at our cottage for a number of years. That was another wonderful time -- still in nature, different nature, but it was nature all the same. I was actually able to do an online graduate degree from Liberty University for a Master's of Education where I started learning what it means to be a school counselor.
Cruising right along here, I then moved to Korea and my first job was in Taejon Korea. Wow, lots of stories there too but we'll leave it at that. It was during my time at the school in Korea that I was able to go on a number of different short-term mission trips. Wow, those are life-changing in a lot of ways! So, I ended up going to Borneo and Bangalore numerous times each and really getting to know a lot of the kids there, some from the orphanage. Just being able to develop relationships. Some kids that I knew at eight years of age at the time, I'm still in contact with right now which is awesome! They are in their 20s now. It's a real privilege to be part of their lives.
That leads me to the 2010s and God leading me to ICS (International Community School in Bangkok Thailand). It's been a blessing as well to be part of this school for the last -- I can't believe -- almost 10 years now. The one-on-one conversations that I've had with parents and students and some staff members, I will cherish. I really praise God for leading me here as well.
One thing before I wrap this up: I just wanted to say that in 2018 I was able to go to the Ukraine. You remember me talking about being in the basement of my grandfather's house where he was typing away. Well, I was actually able to see and visit the places that he talked about. It was great! You know, it was like stories coming to life. Myself and a number of relatives -- it was a pretty large group -- that went back to the Ukraine in order to see the stomping grounds of where our relatives lived back in the early 1900s.
In the middle picture there on the right-hand side: that is a picture of my grandfather by the house that he grew up in Halbstadt. He's seven years old there. Believe it or not, the house is still standing one hundred years later. In the bottom picture, my aunt and myself are standing at the same spot that my grandfather was standing. Well, you can imagine after a hundred years of going through the Bolshevik Revolution, famine, you name it, World War II, World War I… it really took a beating… but it was really kind of impressive to see the house still standing.
The Scriptural Journal that I started in the 1990s kind of became an iPod Spiritual Concordance now. The iPhone came along -- awesome -- because now it meant that I could actually carry the Bible with me and start categorizing and taking notes and writing on my own. It was wonderful to be able to go through all the chapters of the Bible -- I have another 15 to go -- but to be able to take passages and put them into certain categories to see how a passage relates to a category. I must say it's just been an amazing answer to prayer, going back to these categories and seeing the passages and the verses from New Testament, Old Testament… all of these different passages that relate to different elements of life. I mean it's been humbling -- actually mind-blowing -- to be honest! So, the simple prayer of asking God to show me how his book applied to my life, wow, yeah, He certainly answered that and it has been amazing.
I must say though, too, through the past few years I've had some kind of tough times -- times that I really didn't expect. Like being diagnosed with malignant cancer and having surgery and, you know, having to don a hat all the time. It's what it is. But even at times like this, it's been wonderful to know that God is close and to know that I can open up His Word at any time for encouragement and experience a peace that passes understanding. It's beyond what I can even imagine!
So, looking back, I really want to sum it up. I can't believe I'm actually entering the seventh decade of my life. Where did it go? But whatever -- reality strikes -- it's been amazing to see how God has answered the prayer of a teenager right up until today. What I want to emphasize is what I found in His Word all of these years with past, present and future.
PAST: Who is God, how did He operate in the people's lives before us, how did He lead them, what is His idea of sin and the consequence of sin… you name it… I mean it's just a wealth of experiences of His children. And getting to know Him and living life with Him. It’s been a treasure trove to read all about that.
PRESENT: And, obviously, Christ coming to earth, showing us the way, showing us how we are to strive and to live right now. There is no goal, no end point. I mean it's constantly trying to apply His Word to life and to do our best possible. That is invaluable.
FUTURE: Honestly, probably the biggest surprise was understanding that prophecy is in Scripture. In fact, I've heard it's about one-third of Scripture! If you think about it, I mean Christ's first coming was prophesied in the Old Testament. Well, that came and went and all of those prophecies in the Old Testament that pointed to Christ's first coming were fulfilled to a hundred percent (100%) accuracy. I mean you can't get better than that! There are even more prophecies about His second coming and so how important it is for us to know about what He plans for this world, as crazy as it is right now. It should be no surprise for those who look to His Word. You can see exactly what's going on because He tells us through the words of His prophets thousands of years ago to amazing accuracy. He tells us exactly what's going on.
So anyway, that is what I've learned in Scripture. Just two words of encouragement…
1. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, so I want to encourage you to really dig into Scripture when you can. Find out what He has to say to you in His Word and find out how that relates to your working out your salvation.
2. Like I was saying before, this world is kind of crazy. Lies are being thrown at us all the time, all day every day, and so we obviously need to know our basis of truth -- and we can get that through God's Word. He tells us exactly what truth is, so in order to know the lies, we need to learn the truth so we can identify and discern the lies. I just want to encourage you to learn His truth.
All right, with that said I'm going to leave it at that. Thanks for sticking it out and listening, and I hope this was an encouragement to you as it was to me. We'll talk to you later.
