I love my life. Every single day, I am amazed that God has called me to live where I do and to do what I do.
However, sometimes there are surprises. This story is about a time God asked me to obey him and sacrifice something he had given me. But the results brought so much joy.
Wedding Gift From God
In 2021, I got married. (That’s a whole crazy story in itself.)
And I believe that God gave me and my wife a house for the first 18 months of our marriage.
It was a nice, new house, with a washing machine and it had two rooms with air-conditioners. A washing machine and air-conditioner! The landlord installed a water pump to make sure we could have showers every day. There were ample plug sockets.
The house was clean. Everything worked well.
The house was in a neighbourhood that was near where some of our closest friends lived. We could easily invite them over. We had some of their children over two or three times a week so we could babysit them after school.
But the biggest perk of where we lived was that it was a nice, clean neighbourhood next to a pretty small lake. Around this lake, it was green and there were trees. Sometimes, the water hyacinth would cover the lake and it would become this undulating mass of emerald leaves. At night, swallows would dive and swoop over the lake, collecting insects.
For some of you reading this, you probably think that this sounds like a pretty normal house. But where we live, it isn’t.
We live in Asia as missionaries. The city we live in is rapidly developing. It is often hot, dirty and smelly. Because many of the housing developments were put up quickly and at low cost, they quickly degrade. There are often problems and there is very little green space.
There are not many neighbourhoods that look upon a lake. In fact, when we told other missionaries about this lake, they reacted as if we found Narnia.
Our house was a real gift from God. It was a small sanctuary as we settled into married life. It was lovely.
But God asked us to give it up.
A Sudden Move
Towards the end of 2022, God asked me and my wife to move from our neighbourhood. He put the Muslim people within my city in our hearts.
The Muslims within this city are a part of a frontier people group. This simply means that they are a group of people who are defined by cultural, linguistic or social boundaries, and they have not had an opportunity to hear the gospel. This group lives in quite a close-knit community on the outskirts of the city.
And God was calling us to be the people who would hopefully share the gospel with them.
My wife and I prayed, “God, if you want us to move to the Muslim area, give us a house.”
And he did. After driving around the neighbourhood a few times, we found a place that was available for rent.
It was not as good as the house near the lake.
Everything did not work. In fact, as I was looking around the house, I got (mildly) electrocuted. I was testing one of the light switches and I didn’t notice that the wire was exposed. My wedding ring made contact with the live metal. I could feel the electricity buzz around the ring and pass into my finger.
It hurt. It took everything in me not to say a curse word.
We signed the contract for the house 15 minutes later. (The landlord did get the light switch fixed.)
We moved into the house at the beginning of December 2022.
This house had no peaceful lake nearby. We swapped it for a chicken slaughterhouse, so at 4 a.m. every morning we can hear the chickens passing from life to death, and then being plucked in what looks like a washing machine.
Speaking of washing machines, this house didn’t have one. So we had to wash our clothes by hand. I’m so thankful for my wife, who did most of that!
We had no air conditioners, so we had to sleep through the hot Asian nights with just fans. There are very few plug sockets, so our current house has extension leads trailing everywhere.
Our friends are now 45 minutes away, instead of 5. God gave us a bat to keep us company, though. Yes, at night a bat would come into our house and swoop around a few times.
Reading this, you probably think that we made a terrible mistake.
Gift of Joy
This decision to move was probably one of the best decisions of our lives.
Nor was it a difficult decision. It was just a decision to obey what God had asked us to do.
In taking these steps, God has blessed us so much.
During the short time we have lived here, God has enabled me to start teaching English in my living room. (I’m a qualified teacher before you ask!) We teach teenagers and young adults from our new area. These classes bring me so much joy.
We’ve got to know so many people from the area and we’re quickly making new friends.
When we drive around on our motorbikes, we can hardly go on a journey where we aren’t waved at by someone. God has given us the gift of community here. This sense of connection has brought us so much joy.
As the city is developing, so is our area. We are only a short distance from 3 very well-stocked supermarkets that have opened within the last 18 months. Last week, a Starbucks opened nearby. Little shops or market stalls have been popping up all around that make our lives more convenient. These small blessings have brought us joy.
We visited our home countries for a total of 4 months last year. During that time, we were given gifts so we could buy an air-conditioner for our bedroom and a washing machine. These both give us joy.
Trust God
Romans 15:13 (NIV) tells us this:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We can step out in obedience to God because we can trust in him. And as we do that, God can fill us with all joy and peace, and we may overflow with hope.
What a wonderful God we have.
Respond
Maybe, after reading this story, you are wondering how it applies to you. You probably aren’t a missionary in Asia, but I still think that God might be asking you to reflect and respond. Prayerfully ask yourself these questions.
- Are there any areas in your life where you need to trust God?
- What steps of obedience is God asking you to make?
- What has God given to you that brings you joy?
Justin Marsh is a missionary who has served in Asia for over six years. He is the country leader of a team of missionaries and has just completed an MA that looks at missional practice. Whilst his team works within a range of contexts across the country, Justin’s focus is on Muslim minority groups.
He writes about embarrassing stories on the mission field, mission practice, and his faith. Consider following him to hear more about his Asian adventures.
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