The Road to Thailand

Well, this week we are back visiting Thailand and it seems like a good place to start telling the story of how we came to be here in the first place in a foreign land, many miles from the UK.

The story started about 30 years ago and it would be about another 15 years before God showed us where He wanted us to go…..

The Sabbath & a Bend in the Road

Early in his Christian life, Dave spent quite a while struggling with God over various issues.

At the time, Rebecca had joined a church and was committed and happy there, with no intention of moving.

But God started talking to Dave about surrendering everything in his life to Him and showed him a picture of a road with a bend in it.

“Where does it go?” Dave asked.

“You have to go, to see,” said God.

Dave fancifully dreamed of being part of a church where there were Sunday School picnics and trips to the seaside, but this was not what God had in mind, He wanted Dave’s obedience.

One issue God picked Dave up on was the Sabbath, and He challenged Dave to go the Seventh Day Adventist Church, where his friend from work went.

This would not have been his choice!

One evening Dave decided to pay a visit to Springfield, and said to God, “If you want me to do this, send Matthew, from

Ghana, to talk to me.”

The meeting started and Matthew had not turned up, “I’m safe,” thought Dave.

A bit into the meeting, who should come in and sit in the only spare seat, next to him, but Matthew!

After the meeting, during the mealtime, they chatted.

“Where are you from?”  Dave asked.

“Ghana,” replied Matthew.

“I suppose you worship on a Sunday there?” said Dave.

Matthew looked at him and replied, “Well, I don’t normally talk about this, seeing as I am in your church, but seeing as you

have asked me, I have to answer,” he said.

“We are actually the only church in Ghana to meet on a Saturday, as we believe it’s the Lord’s Sabbath.”

He proceeded to show Dave his Bible, where he had highlighted all the scriptures on the Sabbath!

Dave was floored! God had got him.

He went home and that weekend he told Rebecca that he was planning to go to the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

“Go ahead and do what you have to do,” Rebecca told him as he put his hand on the door handle, “But I’m not going

anywhere, I made a promise to be in this church!”

As Dave opened the door, ready to leave everything behind, his wife, his house, everything he loved, he saw a vision of the

bend in the road, coming around to meet him!

“Now, you’ve done it, you’ve put me first!” God said.

“Now go and join whichever church you want, but don’t ever say that I called you.”

Later, Dave asked God about his future and God showed him a picture of an Australian hat, with the corks hanging down.

Dave said to God, “I don’t want to go to the tropics, I hate the heat!”

When we first got married, we went to the Bahamas on our honeymoon, as Rebecca had been born there.

We went in mid-June and it was sweltering and we hated the heat, it was defiitely not for us!

It was not until about fifteen years later when we went to Thailand for a wedding that God called us to Thailand and we we were under Australian covering, under COC (Christian Outreach Centre) and our pastor and national oversight for our missionary organization, were both Australian!

Sometimes we think God has a sense of humour, sending us to a place that was hot and filled with mosquitoes, cockroaches snakes and rats but we had some of the best times of our lives there and made some of the best friends and we, a couple who had decided not to have children, ended up working with kids in a children’s home, schools and in the slums! 

This is how our story started….