Discovery

 

On a Good Friday morning, in 2010 I came across a Christian Publishing Ministry advertisement in a Canadian translation work mediation site. The advertisement was for a book translation. It was an evangelical book, written by a certain South Korean pastor. 

I applied, and left for the Good Friday service at church. 

When I returned I found the reply in my inbox. 

This was the start of a seven year long collaboration with the abovementioned publishing ministry. 

In the States Destiny Image, founded by the late Don Nori Sr., had published a number of books written by the named pastor. So, it seemed as if God had answered my need and provided work which I badly needed. It was as if the work He had provided to the mother of Moses who was asked to do something she badly wanted to do, and could do for pay from the Pharaoh's daughter who asked her to take care and nurse the baby she had found in the bulrushes. 

The first book was fully evangelical and together in every way. It blessed me and I do trust, it did the same to the reader. 

Later, I found that a lady pastor with whom we spent some time in the same bible school where I was asked to teach and then fill in the position of the Dean, had visited the named church and was an eager reader of their monthly newsletter which I had been translating on top of the books. She was rather enthusiastic about this ministry and the work they had been doing, and had spent a number of weeks in their central church and smaller churches in South Korea, and her feedback was most positive indeed. She had witnessed firsthand the supernatural, and the healing miracles which took place at the church.

Today, I came across a Reuters article. It spoke about a COVID-19 outbreak in a South Korean church. The name of the church was not mentioned. But.....the name of the small town was familiar. So, I looked it up and yes, the town had a church which belonged to a familiar family of churches. Out of the entire population of less than 500 town people, over half was infected by the disease. As the name of the church was not mentioned, it was safe to assume that this might have been the church in question. Then again, we do not act based on assumption. 

This made me google more, and the search gave me some results which had to do with a recent history of the church denomination. 

Now, the work I was asked to do and continued doing for about seven years, ended suddenly. 

There had been times when the ride was bumpy also earlier, and this time I had made time for their newsletter. The monthly newsletter never came in. I contacted the publishing ministry at the end of the month and found out that they had decided to proceed only with the main languages, and had dropped the minor languages. Estonian language was spoken by a million, and hence, fell into this category. 

So, it came to a sudden halt. 

I found myself like prophet Elijah at the brook which had dried up. God had provided for his needs most miraculously. Then it came to an end. 

Eljah had to do something about it. 

He sought the face (or opinion) of God, and found out that the provision had stopped with a reason. 

It was time to rise and move on, to a different location where God had prepared another source of provision. Elijah did not stay at the brook, but did as advised, and his move blessed both him and the widow with her son with whom he stayed at the new place. 

I wondered for years, what might have made them stop in my case. Of course there was the aspect of them not even telling me about their decision after continous collaboration which had lasted for a number of years. So, it kept me wondering....

Today, my Reuters article inspired google search provided me some answers. Or, the answer to my question. What happened. 

I am not going too deep into it. First, I have learned by experience how things can look one way from the outside and be different. There is an enemy, and he is out to close down ministries, and make the ministers stop. Then again, the accusations were rather serious and there was really no reason to doubt the ladies who had stepped out due to the influence of the #MeToo movement. 

And yet, I had been a part of a ministry, founded by another minister of an Asian heritage. Also he experienced something similar. Was he guilty, or not, I do not really know. Something smelled fishy about his case, though. And then I also saw how some of the ladies who stepped up to testify against him were told things like 'being seated in the same sofa' was sexual etc. This was clearly religion. 

In fact, I had been blamed for something like this, being seated on a bed in the bedroom of the twenty year old Estonian men who were with me at a training course in a Christian rehabilitation village. The context was although rather different, compared to the grapevine which trickled or was poured out all the way to the Estonian Pentecostal church. It was a simple case. An Estonian Lutheran minister of a Toronto congregation visited us at this rehab village in South Florida, and brought us some gifts - bibles (I got a NIV bible), Christian teaching cassettes and other Christian literature (he had also a Pentecostal background - God had taken him out of the Lutheran church, and then told him to go back to it). As we were at a house party with the other leaders of the village, the only quiet place where we could sit down and have a look at the pile of gifts was in the boy's room. And the only place where to sit down there was on one of the beds. But, somehow the story which someone who found us from there managed to invent and release into circulation, was rather different. 

But, then again, sometimes there may be also truth to things. 

In any way, my question regarding the sudden cessation of all work had found a satisfactory answer. 

The church denomination had gone through a shaking. Their leader was found guilty, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He appealed a year later, and was found similarly guilty, with increased sentencing. 

So, it is safe to assume that the judges might have actually known their job, and been impartial and fair to the claimants, not bribed by someone, or tilted due to their personal opinions and ideas. That's it. 

It does not invalidate the work of ministry, and the church overall. 

It provided me an explanation and understanding of what had happened, and why there was such sudden end to everything. 

I did not need any closure. It made me think and ask questions of my own about the work of ministry and the ethos which emphasised my Christian attitude no matter what, and did not necessarily keep their end at the same standard. It would have been respectful to let me know that the work was going to be discontinued after seven years of monthly collaboration and no more was going to come in. It also managed to cause a conflict in my schedule and affect my earnings this month. 

It was my time of the end of a seven year season. 

The brook of provision had run dry, and the ravens came no more. 

It was time for me to ask God what had happened and what did it mean for me. 

As it happened at an inconvenient time, I never really fully gathered myself in the sense of finding the new place of provision which would have been clearly of God. There was a bit here and a bit there, but it was more of a trickle as opposed to a constant flow of a clearly supernatural origin. And what came next, had nothing to do with Christian ministry (although it definitely ministered to me and helped me pay my bills and dues and tithes and offerings and plant some seeds into other ministries, while I had to pause any active ministry due to a need to realign and find my way to my next Christian ministry-related supernatural source of provision). 

This month I came across a similar Christian publishing ministry offer. It came from Ukraine where a Christian publisher reached out via the same translation mediating site and offered Christian book translations. I responded, and the job was mine. The translation was well done. I reviewed it. In an opposite case, I would have been offered to retranslate the manuscript. It was not the case. I did not ask anything and turned it into a favour. 

So, life goes on. 

And even if I did not need an official closure per se, I am glad that I got my closure and understood the sudden closure of the door which had been open for seven years, providing me Christian materials for translation. Paid work which allowed me to spend my days, researching and studying my Bible. Then the door was slammed shut. Which was suprising. And it happened rather suddenly. But now I know the reason behind it. 

Life goes on. 

In the meanwhile I have been recalibrating my work. 

Doors have opened. Doors have closed. 

God revealed the purpose I had been running with. 

Then He asked me to do a few things, and showed me the things to come. So, when they came, I was prepared and the blow did not fully decimate me. For the ball was so-to-say 'in His court'. I could do nothing about it while He could do everything. 

I did not want to do anything on my own anyway. 

I wanted to run the race He had set ahead of me. If that meant putting the brakes on, it was good. 

I had been following His footsteps, allowing Him to lead me, and that had taken me to this place. My heart and my hands were clean. I had been running, with all my eggs so-to-say in one basket, trusting Him and His leading which had taken me here. It was a good place for me. I was in the middle of His will. And sometimes it means slowing down the pace. Or even coming to a halt. A pause. Selah. 

I learned a lot through these experiences. 

Things are not necessarily always how they may look alike from the surface level. 

There is a natural. And then there is supernatural. It is up to use to learn to search out the core of the matter, and draw the right conclusions. 

Proverbs 25:2 ►

King James Bible It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.