“Occupy till I come…it will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.” (Luke 19:30-Luke 12:43) We were beginning to look like our passport pictures, so we decided to go home. We left the heat and humidity of the Philippines, stopped in Singapore and Malaysia, took a 36-hour train ride in India and dodged cows and garbage in Nepal before we arrived in Los Angeles. There we double-locked the doors as the city was girding up for possible riots. We were back in the good old USA. Reverse culture shock set in. We had forgotten the privileges of America – hot water from the tap, safe drinking water, dishwashers, orderly traffic, clean streets, and fast service at the post office and the bank. And the choices! Soup or salad? What kind of salad dressing? Baked potato or French fries? Whole milk, 2%, or non-fat? Choose from 25 kinds of cereal, and wear 55% cotton and 45% polyester or 100% polyester or 100% cotton or any number of other combinations. There is no end to it. After a three-month trip sharing in churches about what the Lord is doing in Asia and encouraging participation in the mission mandate that Jesus gave to all of us, we retired from Foursquare Missions. But we were not retired from serving the Lord; there is unfinished business. Our first seven years of “retirement” have meant three trips to Nepal and three to the Philippines, 11 months in Malawi, three months in Singapore and Cambodia, and a planned trip to Romania. Missionaries don’t retire; they just keep going and going and going. ~Don & Sharon Nicholson – Former Missionaries to the Philippines Story taken from, "From the Field: 365 Missionary Stories to Encourage Your Daily Walk" (2002)
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 14:04:03 +0000