Yap Kai Xin
To say that this mission trip was full of the Lord’s goodness would be an understatement. You know how there are times when God invites you into His presence simply to bless you? This was one of those moments.
The 2-week trip to support Heartfriends Centru Kristaun (HCK) in Manatuto, Timor Leste, was borne out of a conversation between its Director, the indomitable Janice (whom some may know from the years she worked as a church staff before becoming a full-time missionary), and her cell leaders, Andrew and Jacqueline. HCK provides job skills training to youths between 18 and 25 in Timor Leste. Janice shared that beyond job skills, the students in HCK needed greater health literacy. Andrew and Jacqueline, being doctors, rose to the occasion.
Putting together a group of ten youths, young adults, and the young-at-heart was an exercise in faith and patience. Yet slowly but surely, the Lord provided the open doors, willing hearts, and favour with bosses (who approved leaves!) that allowed something resembling a team to coalesce. Our mission was to develop a 2-week health literacy module, comprising lessons on physical health (exercise, nutrition, infectious and non-infectious diseases), emotional health (mental health and cyber wellness), and spiritual and relational health (relationships, gender identity, men’s and women’s sexuality). We had our work cut out for us, but little did we know how deeply we would be blessed even as we gave.
The hospitality of God’s workers
The blessing began from the very moment we stepped off the plane, with Janice picking us up and whisking us off to attend Sunday service at Agape church in Dili, the capital of Timor Leste. There, Pastor Nilton, an SJSM member who heads the church, warmly welcomed us by seating translators next to us, taking us on a tour of the church compound, and regaling us with harrowing stories of his adventures advancing God’s kingdom in the land. His wife, Raquel, and two sons, Asafe and Benjamin, opened their home and hearts to us. Later, Pastor Nilton would come all the way to HCK to pick us up and drive us back to the airport in Dili.
Janice was a wonderful host too, full of the sincerity and steel needed to navigate life as a missionary (and the traffic conditions!) in a foreign land. She went to great lengths to make sure we were settling in well – buying us bread every morning for breakfast, moving the roosters further from our rooms so that their loud morning “alarms” would not wake us up, organising a campfire on our first day and a barbecue on our last, and recounting story after story of God’s faithfulness in Timor Leste. All this while running HCK!
Sam and Lyn, the wonderful married couple sent by our church to serve as HCK’s operations manager and pastoral staff respectively, also received us with great love and warmth. Sam quietly made sure we were well taken care of. He lit mosquito coils for us at night, brought us water in the morning, and even helped the girls on our team with a choked toilet on one of the days. Lyn was warm and motherly in her support of us as we sought to do God’s work together. Her morning devotions to the students consistently hit the spiritual spot, setting a strong foundation for our module lessons later in the day.
The hospitality of the students
The students opened up their hearts to us as well. Theirs was great joy – resounding in their loud singing of their favourite song, “Haksolok” (meaning “joy/happy”), during the campfire – but also deep sorrow – many shared difficult personal stories of painful experiences when they came up for prayer during ministry times. They were authentic and real in their interactions with us, giving us the gift of their true selves.
The hospitality of the trainers
We also received much love from the trainers at the school. These were locals who themselves had been students at HCK. They lovingly served as translators for our lessons, and prayer partners during ministry times. In small ways and big, the trainers showed their love for us and the students by going above and beyond the call of their job. Rosalia delayed the start of her big job in the capital in order to serve with us. Sandra stayed up late into the night studying materials for the lesson she was translating the next day. Alberto gamely shared his testimony of overcoming addiction on short notice.
One particular trainer’s story touched us deeply. Geri is a student in HCK who became a trainer. Wanting to better himself and contribute to his country, he travels to Dili on the weekend to study law on a part-time basis. On the weekdays, beyond his work at HCK, he teaches youths in his village basic English at his house for free.
On our last night, he invited us to his house. He showed us his open porch that doubled up as a classroom. There, a whiteboard was affixed, scrawled with markings from the previous class he taught. He invited us into his room and pointed out the candle he used to burn literal midnight oil for studying after work. We saw in Geri a willingness to give of himself and to open up his home as a place where others can receive.
The hospitality of God
Yet above all, we experienced the hospitality of God. Before the trip, we sensed that the Lord had given us Psalm 84:10a – better is one day in His courts than a thousand elsewhere. We knew that we had been invited into His temple and called to be gatekeepers that beckoned others in.
True enough, the presence of the Lord was so real throughout the trip. We saw Him in the vibrant sunsets and magnificent night skies. We saw Him in the moments of laughter and camaraderie with the students and within our team. We saw Him in the lessons we taught, during which we had the privilege to declare His truth – that the students are loved, chosen, forgiven, redeemed and adopted; that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit; that God has a plan and a future for them; that their sins can be forgiven and lives restored when they turn to God in repentance and faith.
Most of all, we saw Him in the moments of ministry that we had with the students. As we prayed for and with the students, we had the privilege to witness the divine exchange and transaction between each of them and the Lord. We saw them give Him their hurt, pain, brokenness, and repentance; and receive in return the great gifts of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and restoration.
Better is One Day
The Lord is the host and we are His guests. He gives us a seat at the table and lavishes a feast on us. He invites us to partake of the living Bread and drink deep from living waters. This trip to Timor Leste was just our way of pulling the chair out to invite our Timorese brothers and sisters to sit beside us at His table and feast together on His goodness. In the process, our own cups were filled to overflowing.
All glory to God, who gives us immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.