Category: Minneke’s Musings

The apartments we lived in in China all had one thing in common… they were full of cockroaches! Some apartments were worse than others. I remember going out to the kitchen in the evenings after the kids were in bed and turning on the kitchen light to go and make a cup of tea… as soon as I turned on the light, I saw a seething mess of little black things with legs scuttling away into the nooks and crannies! They loved the darkness, and thankfully hid away in the daytime. But when it was night, they all came crawling out. I remember being woken up by a very big one biting my face in bed! And to top it off, we had to fight mould in everything as well! When we felt God leading us to move back to New Zealand, I remember thinking “well, at least we won’t have to face cockroaches there!”

When we moved back to New Zealand, we lived in a farmhouse.  It wasn’t long before we found out it was time to face a new pest: mice! I had never dealt with mice before, and they were pooping all over our bed and our baby’s cot! Something had to be done… Thankfully we knew some people who knew what to do. We got good recommendations for some mouse poison that could be out of reach of the kids, and we set traps. We then realised that there were also possums on the farm eating the fruit in the orchards! My uncle helped set up traps and taught us how to check them. The pest situation got under control. Eventually it was also discovered that the mice had been eating away at the wiring in the house! Suddenly, power-sockets stopped working! Half the house had to be re-wired.

We have since moved house, and are now fighting ants! Why did I think there would be a dream home where I wouldn’t have to fight some kind of pest? Some pests erode the safety of our home. Some pose a threat to the health of the inhabitants. Some eat away at the food supply… and some quietly eat away at the interior, unseen, subtle, until one day things start falling apart and stop working. Each pest is different in the way they affect us, and also in the way we must fight them! As far as I know, a mouse trap is useless for keeping ants away!

What are the pests that are trying to infest your life at the moment? Your relationships? Your church? Do you know how to fight them? Are they noticeable, or are they hidden and slowly creeping into your heart?

Here are a few common spiritual “pests” which can become infestations that destroy:

Idolatry (worshipping anything or anyone other than God), pride, selfishness, materialism, disobedience, deception, unforgiveness, unbelief, complacency, destructive thought-patterns, self-sufficiency, jealousy, unhealthy anger.

We will never be free of things trying to invade our life, our mind, our heart, our relationships… they may be different each time, but we need to know how to deal with them. Paul told us in Ephesians that we are not fighting a physical battle as Christians, but a spiritual one. How do we fight that kind of battle? It took me a long time to learn this lesson. It all seemed too abstract to me. But when I started losing control over areas of my life, I started to realise how important it was to fight the battle. Here are some of the weapons that we can use to fight “infestation”:

Prayer, fasting, praise and worship, love and grace, obedience to the truth of Scripture, the gospel, humility, thankfulness, the blood of Christ, our testimony, encouragement, the armour of God (found in Eph. 6:13-17), church discipline, spiritual gifts.

Sometimes, invading pests can turn into “infestations”, and we need others to intervene and help. We don’t have to fight on our own!

Recently I saw a post on social media about natural “pest control”… spiders! Honestly, I hate spiders! Perhaps it’s my years of growing up in Australia, but those things sure creep me out. However, when I was living in rural Korea (which also had a lot of the same spiders that Australia had, funnily enough!), I decided to face my fear, literally. I would go for a walk through the farm-roads, and when I saw a big Orbweb spider in its web, I would walk up close to it, and just look at it. Stare it down! I realised there really was nothing to be afraid of, it was just how they looked! They probably don’t even bite…

Spiders sure are great natural pest controllers! Fear has been a “pest” that has infested my life before, but now I know better… therefore, I’ve (almost) overcome my fear of spiders, and am trying to allow them to just do their pest-controlling job! Perhaps we need to overcome some fears in our lives in order to get the pests out too…

Are you afraid of being obedient to some areas of scripture? Are you afraid of confessing some things to someone? You might just find that these are the very things that will get some pests out of your life!

There are landmines everywhere. They seem to be in most families, most marriages, most churches… things that are not supposed to be talked about, topics we don’t bring up, things that happened that aren’t to be mentioned. If they are, there’s a big explosion and everyone will get hurt.

I’ve been pondering landmines recently, I mean the real ones, and considered a few key things about them… they’re usually weapons used in a war. They’re often hidden, or covered. They explode and hurt people when they’re touched. They are often things left behind long after the initial war is over. They are often stood on later by those who are innocent, uninvolved in the war, or unaware they are there. Then I thought about the relational ones. We go to war in our relationships… “you have something I want, I want to be right, you’re stopping me from having something, you hurt me and I’m going to punish you, I deserve better.” If unresolved, these “wars” leave behind landmines in our relationships… topics that will explode again if they are brought up. They are hidden or covered in an attempt to “preserve the peace”, but are really just creating a minefield. Sometimes, new people come along and unknowingly touch the landmines, and suddenly there is hurt (confusion, cold silence, arguing…).

Then I thought of the ways to deal with mines. It seems you either need someone who is familiar with the territory and can tell you where to avoid standing, or the mines need to be removed… set off, dug up, thrown out (or something like that, I’m certainly no mine expert!). If the mines are left there, there’s still fear, there’s still tension, and the land can’t be used properly or enjoyed. It seems the best way is to remove them. How do we do this relationally? Maybe things like pride, selfishness, unforgiveness, anger, and judgment need to be removed, repented of… Maybe there has been miscommunication, or misunderstanding. Maybe we need to sometimes humble ourselves and let go of our “rights”, and allow God to be our Defender and Provider. Sometimes this can be a very painful process! And maybe sometimes it needs to be the right time, and probably needs to be covered in a lot of prayer first…

I am certainly not innocent of creating minefields! I am most prone to do it in my marriage. We have a “war”, and then I go cold and silent. If he brings it up again, I fight my point to the bone using every cunning argument I can muster! Sometimes he’s completely unaware that he’s upset me! Fortunately, I have a husband who relentlessly digs up the mines, humbly listens and is always the first to say sorry and want to change. Sometimes I want to say “But I was really enjoying that war!” My Mum used to tell me I should have been a lawyer… I always loved a good argument! Pride, selfishness, punishing others with our anger… these things somehow make us feel entitled, powerful, or in control. But my husband’s attitude leaves me defenseless… I can’t be angry anymore! No matter how much I want to prove my point and be right, his humility and love takes all the air out of my argumentative sails. He tells me that the relationship matters more to him than being right. How does it come so easily to him… I’m also learning to be more communicative about things that have upset me that I know he might be unaware of, and I’m learning how to communicate them effectively and inoffensively.

James had something really interesting to say about all of this…

James 4:1-12  “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:  “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.  11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”

Don’t you just love James?! So practical… and he doesn’t mince his words! He seems to be saying “Recognise what you’re doing, who you’re really fighting, and by God’s grace, stop it!” Easier said than done… but I noticed three key concepts in there: Submit (to God), Resist (evil and your selfish desires), Humble Yourselves. Probably the three things I struggle with most! But as I watch my husband do this (and wonder why it seems so easy for him), and as I start practicing it myself, it seems to get a little easier and happen a little sooner every time.

Side note:
Here are a few things we learned from a marriage course, and learned from our mistakes, that I hope can help others on this relational journey! Certainly not just for marriages…

• Take out the trash – all relationships, especially close ones, regularly build up “trash”… things that were said, hurts that were felt. We try to bring these up for removal regularly with each other. This is especially important with “the little things”… these can easily turn into land mines! 
• We can easily offend each other with how we bring up our hurts. We learned about the “I feel ______ when you ____” statement. For example, “I feel hurt when you spend more time looking at your phone than engaging with me in the evenings”, or “I feel unimportant when you don’t remember the things I talk to you about”. This helps it to be less confrontational than “you don’t think I’m important!” or “you never listen to me!”

This is a wonderful story from my friend, Yenny…

A Christian's life is a journey of faith, where action is much needed to see God's guidance, presence and deliverance throughout our lives. When we act upon our faith, God indeed moves us to His plan and we begin to experience extraordinary things that we would never have imagined. As this verse says: 

Isaiah 40:28-31 “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

In mid January 2020, my family called and told me that my Dad, now 80 years old, was hospitalized due to Alzheimer's disease which he had had for about 4 years, but this time he had internal brain bleeding. My husband and I both come from Indonesia, however for the last 21 years my husband and I have been living in China, where the Lord blessed us with 2 children. We usually visited our parents in Indonesia twice a year. We just visited them last December for Christmas, then 3 weeks later we  all went back to Indonesia when we heard the bad news of my Dad. We were not prepared to be in Indonesia for a long time (after 5 months, we are still here in Indonesia!). We only brought 2 weeks of clothing and necessities. However, God had a different plan! Also during this time, in China the Covid-19 coronavirus just started, so we thought it's a great way to leave china and go to Indonesia for safety reasons too. When we arrived in Indonesia, we were sad to see my Dad was already in a coma. Everyone in my family: Mom, sisters, brothers, sisters and brothers in-laws, nieces , nephews, my parents' grandkids stayed at my father's side for 2 weeks in the hospital. We were praying for a miracle. For the first time ever, my family of now 28 gathered together in the hospital every single day to worship and pray for my Dad's healing. Our relatives and my parents' friends were always there too. 

In the beginning it was with heavy hearts that we saw our Dad in a coma, but with lots of prayer and family unity, our faith became stronger, and we were at peace, even though we knew he might not make it. In the beginning we prayed for miracles of healing, however as time passed we saw that it's better to let our Dad go back home (in heaven) since he is in a better place since he is a believer, so we prayed for God's will and felt peace about that. We got to spend time in hospital with our Dad for 2 weeks before he passed away. During those 2 weeks, God was amazing in allowing us to see my Dad to have tears rolling down his checks: even though he was in coma he could hear all our prayers, singing worship songs and encouraging words from the bible reading. We even got to see our Dad moving his hands and blinking his eyes a few times each day showing and responding to us that he can hear us talking, praying, singing and reading the bible to him! It was a beautiful bonding relationship between our families. On the last day, February 5th early morning around 4:25 am when our Dad took his last breath, all 28 of us were with him praying and singing and telling him, “It's ok Dad you can go home now, we let you go.” He was in perfect peace with the Lord. We had a beautiful 3-day-long memorial for our Dad, there were about a thousand people (friends & relatives) who came to pay their last respects during these memorials where we have singing & worshipping, prayers, testimonies and sermons. It turns out it was the best time of spreading the gospel to many of our Dad's friends and relatives where they were moved by the preaching, prayers, testimonies and worship. We could feel the presence of God and His angels around us. It was a miraculous moment we will never forget. God was wonderful to take our Dad before the Covid-19 Corona hit in Indonesia in early March. God's timing was perfect. If my Dad was to die in March, we were locked down by Covid and we couldn't do any visitation and the memorial ceremony would not be possible! God gave us the best time and we had a very memorable & blessed time during these 2 weeks and the 3 days memorial ceremony to spread the gospel. God is so amazing & faithful.  

Our original plan was to go back to China in early March because we wanted to spend some time with my Mom going through her grief and loss. Never did we know that by early March the Coronavirus would hit Indonesia, preventing us from going back to China. The Chinese government has closed their border, other than Chinese citizens, we (foreigners) are not allowed to enter China. We were anxious and worried. I have questions: what about my husband's job and my kids' school in China? We don't know when we can go back there. My husband can't go back to work, nor can my daughter go back to school. In addition, we haven't had any income since February. Our faith is being tested. Every day we prayed and put our faith in the Lord. My Mom and other family members and I started a routine of bible study and prayer. Surely enough, after just a month waiting for the Lord, my husband found 3 new projects in Indonesia that he has never done before. God opened the door! My relatives which we have not kept in touch with for a long time suddenly gave my husband a project to buy a face mask and covid test. They made lots of orders as they are the biggest pharmacy in our home town in Indonesia. In addition my husband's friend introduced him to a person whom we never met before and he and my husband made a business deal regarding organic herbs. Thirdly, another connection came from other people connecting my husband to find electrical appliances! All these 3 projects came from people that we don’t know and a cousin that we have never done business with. It’s amazing how God connects us to these different people! Our God is a great God, who can always amaze us. Now we can pay both my children school fees, house mortgage and daily expenses.

When my Dad passed away, my Mom felt lost. She missed him so much and had a hard time sleeping at night. She has been using a sleeping pill, and yet she couldn't sleep well. She felt helpless and down, and continued to have anxiety and was emotionally unstable. Through this lock down and being at home, my Mom and I spent time having our own bible study every night and listening to online sermons, praying and worshipping together. After these 5 months, my Mom is stress free: she has changed! She is no longer taking sleeping pills and she sleeps well without taking pills. Her face is more radiant, she is much happier and joyful! Her faith in the Lord has grown so much and she loves worshiping and bible study. 

Through the experience of my trials, this Covid -19 has turned out to be a blessing for our lives and strengthening my family's faith.  The world might shake us, our situation might scare us, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” 

I want to share with people that as believers we should not be afraid when our situation is scary – God is faithful! He always delivers us. Our hope is in the Lord, not in our situation. He is our rock & fortress. When God allows things to happen in our lives or like this covid-19 , it's because he has a reason and purpose behind it. Trust in Him and seek Him with all our hearts and HE always has a way out for His children and He always helps and  delivers His children. 

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 

1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV.

God's timing is always best! When we have to wait please remember that God is working in all our situations. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 NIV

Be patient when we wait, for God is patient with us, and His timing is best for us. Though we've been waiting to return to China since January, the past 5 months in Indonesia have proven to be a blessing. Three weeks ago, my husband was notified that his job in China is temporarily stalled, due to the COVID-19. However, God has provided him many projects in Indonesia. God knows that if we were to go back to China in March, then there will be no income for us. 

I do believe that when It’s time for us to go back to China, (hopefully this August because my daughter's school opens in early September), then God will open my husband's job. I hope this story will give you strength while waiting for the Lord's answer!

Yenny Kristiana