24
September 2015 SR
SR
Clinton R. Brown
Executive Director
FOCUS on Missions
A
s I understand it, providence is when God makes
provision or gives guidance because of His foreknowledge
of how events are going to unfold. Usually, it seems our
vision is so narrow we miss it entirely, but sometimes
the Holy Spirit gives us insight into what God is doing
or helps us to look back and appreciate what God has
done. Last month I shared a little in an article about
how events in South Korea led to me meeting with a
pastor from India, but I do not feel like I gave God due
credit for how that worked out.
I had actually been trying to get to visit the Seventh
Day Baptist works in India for over a year. My practice
is to chart how long it has been since international
SDB groups have been visited and try to give priority
to regions that have not been visited in a while. India
had moved up my list and I tried to coincide seeing
them with a visit to the Philippines for a conference
with our pastors there. Meanwhile, I was contacted by
new SDB leaders in Seoul, Korea, who were impressing
upon me that they should be moved up in priority on
my visit list. I dismissed their clamoring, until I found
my most probable flight plans returning from India
would have me laying over in Seoul. It seemed to make
sense to me and my Executive Committee that because
I was going to be in Seoul anyway, I should turn my
two-hour stopover into an overnight.
My plans seemed settled until the Indian embassy did
not issue my visa for entry. They held my passport and
delayed my visa until it was coming too close to my
flight to the Philippines. I had to hurriedly make a flight
plan adjustment, skipping India and extending my visit
to South Korea since we were already making arrange-
ments to visit with them. Because of my longer stay in
South Korea, a pastor from a remote Indian state
called Manipur, on the Myanmar border, was able to
meet with me and learn about Seventh Day Baptists.
This happened because he was visiting Seoul for a
Christian leadership conference and met some of our
Korean brethren. It seemed that the way for me to
meet the pastor I needed to meet from India was to not
go to India, but to go to South Korea. Had I gone to
India, I would have been in regions quite distant from
this Indian pastor’s home and working with leaders to
whom he had no connection while he was in South
Korea.
Because my visit to India was delayed, not only was
I able to devote more time to surveying all the SDB
ministry work there and bring a Hindi-speaking SDB
as a guide with me, but there was now a whole new
group that had sprung out of the South Korean visit.
They did not even exist when I had made my original
plans. And now they had established four fledgling
churches in the region. They were on fire to reach
Indians of Myanmar heritage for Christ as well as
their kin and connections in places in Myanmar that
are virtually unreached with the Gospel.
I had worked hard trying to negotiate entry to India in
2013, traveling to embassies in New York and Washing-
ton, DC, in a single day. And I remember my frustration
at being stopped at every turn. Now I feel I see how God
was correcting my course so that He could be glorified
in ways that I could not anticipate. How could I have
guessed, you have to go to South Korea to start
churches in Manipur? I pray this helps keep me praising
God for the unexpected detours, because He knows
where I need to be.
You can’t go
to India…
yet
