{"id":921,"date":"2021-02-22T15:44:08","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T08:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/?p=921"},"modified":"2024-02-19T03:26:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T20:26:40","slug":"an-added-benefit-of-mission-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/?p=921","title":{"rendered":"An Added Benefit of Missionary Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In May of 2002 my wife Paula was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma cancer and our family of six had to vacate our large house in Chiang Mai Thailand within only three days and get on a plane for the states. A number of OMF missionaries helped close our house and distribute all the earthly goods we had accumulated.<\/p>\n

Yesterday a missionary who coordinated stashing my stuff many years ago sent me a note, \u201cI\u2019ve been getting rid of accumulated stuff and I found your juicer \u2026 I\u2019ve never used it so I\u2019m returning it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I read an article in The Los Angeles Times entitled, For Many People, Gathering Possessions is Just the Stuff of Life. The article states, \u201cThe average U.S. household has 300,000 things, from paper clips to ironing boards. U.S. children make up 3.7% of the children on the planet but have 47% of all the toys and children\u2019s books.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed on furlough that many of the homes I\u2019ve visited with two-car garages park their cars outside! I have a PowerPoint presentation where I show all 30+ homes that our family has lived in over my 41 years of service with OMF. Yes, moving so often was a pain, but it did force us to downsize regularly (yet I do remember counting 18 bags on the carousel during one trip back to the states).<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019m staying in one room in a student dormitory at my seminary and have transferred most of the books I\u2019ve hoarded over the years to the library or onto my kindle. Many times when I\u2019ve needed something quickly, I\u2019ve wished I could be back at my parent\u2019s house which was like a combined hardware\/commodity store with access to most any item on my list. There are obvious drawbacks to the minimalist lifestyle I\u2019ve chosen, yet it has hopefully freed me up to concentrate and focus on the many opportunities for ministry here in this needy country of Thailand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May of 2002 my wife Paula was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma cancer and our family of six had to vacate our large house in Chiang Mai Thailand within only three days and get on a plane for the states. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1025,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions\/1025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiang-mai-orality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}