Rachel's Viewfinder
Yes, it’s true! The Bogans are going to Thailand!
Earlier this year, traveling to Thailand was only a possibility. SIM’s next communications gathering was looming in the near future. Only two people would be sent from the US office. But there are seven people on the Media Productions Team. Who would go?
Shortly after we got married, Robo and I started the application process for our passports. I had mine since I was fourteen, but needed to change it to my married name. Robo had never been on a plane, much less left the US. Not knowing how long the process would take, we got our passports in order. Then we waited.
In May, our department director took us out to dinner. He wanted to see how things were doing between us work and marriage-wise. He also had a few questions. He wanted to send the most strategic people to Thailand for the communications gathering. So how did we think we fit? How would the team benefit from our going?
As a Communications Specialist, working with video, online media, newsletters and other print materials, with my primary focus having been missionaries, I didn’t think it was super important that I be there. After all, the gathering would fall just before the fall SIMCO (SIM Candidate Orientation). But as we talked, Robo brought up something. As the Digital Wrangler, he has been tasked with building a new website for the US office of SIM. On the docket to discuss in Thailand was SIM branding. That would dictate all sorts of things for the website. And Robo needs that information to complete his task on schedule.
Our director nodded and smiled. He didn’t promise anything that night. But he said to start getting ready.
In late June, we were finally given the green light. It was official! We were going to Thailand. So began getting vaccinations, making arrangements for travel, and accommodating food allergies. In the middle of this process, our director had an idea. What if we went early to Thailand and filmed a video?
The flurry of activity began all over again. Robo started communicating with the Thailand personnel about doing a video. They were all excited. Thailand has not had much video coverage from SIM yet. Many missionaries use media tools produced by other sending agencies to communicate about their ministries. A new, SIM-produced tool was a welcome opportunity.
It’s now the end of September. Robo and I are leaving for Thailand in two more short weeks. Two weeks! I can’t believe our trip is nearly here!
Prayer Requests:
Our Thailand trip is from October 10-24. Please pray for us as we travel. We will be flying from Charlotte, to New York, to Frankfurt, to Singapore, to Chiang Mai, Thailand. That’s a LOT of flying! We’re both excited. This will also be a new experience for Robo. As I mentioned earlier, he’s never been on a plane, and never been out of the US. Talk about a new adventure!
Pray for our video shoot. Neither of us has filmed a video outside of the US. This will present many new challenges for us. Pray for wisdom and sensitivity as we work in a new and different culture. Pray for our equipment that everything would work well. Pray also for us as we acclimate to Thailand!
Pray also for SIM’s communication gathering. Called SIM Connect, twenty-four people from fourteen different countries are converging in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We will be discussing SIM’s communication needs and resources. Pray for wisdom and community as we work together, discuss and encourage each other. Pray also for what comes out of this gathering. Pray we move together in unity and with purpose.
How you can be involved:
We have just a little while longer to get ready for Thailand. You can help! Find a random fact about Thailand (you can use Google!) and post it as a comment to this post! And keep checking the blog. We have videos, photos and more planned to come!
(Originally posted on www.rachelandrobo.com )
“So where will you be living?”
That’s usually the first question after the initial, “Wow! God is so GOOD” comment on my recent engagement. It always catches me off guard, but I suppose it shouldn’t. I’m getting married, and I’ll be following my husband’s lead. So the assumption seems to be that I’ll be leaving Charlotte, and my work with SIM.
The beautiful reality is that God has called Robo to Charlotte and to work with SIM once his school loans are paid off. The Lord has not only brought someone who suits me as a life companion, but who compliments me as a workmate. Right down to the same ministry with the same organization. Praise the Lord!
Our plan as of right now is:
1). We continue living in Charlotte, NC, or somewhere in the near vicinity.
2). Rachel continues to work with SIM USA in the Media Department as a supported missionary.
3). Robo get’s a job and works to pay off his school loans as quickly as possible.
4). Robo joins SIM USA as a supported missionary and together we continue to serve in the Media Department.
A lot of this is in need of PRAYER! The Lord has blessed us with the option of living in the house I currently live in. My roommates are moving out just before the wedding. While this provides us with a place to live, we’re currently experiencing problems with the house that our landlord has preferred not to fix. One of these is the septic tank. Pray that the Lord would either provide us with a new home, or that our landlord would make the necessary repairs.
Another prayer request is for my continued support. Right now, SIM USA has made me a permanent part of the Home Staff. This means my support requirement is higher (about $2700 a month), but I now have health care and retirement! I also have a higher “salary”. Robo and I plan to live on my “salary”, so we can put the entirety of whatever his paycheck will be towards paying off his school loans.
Which brings up another prayer request! Pray that the Lord would bless Robo with a job in the video production/web industry. Reasons for this include the need for Robo to maintain his production skills in a media environment, as well as earning a paycheck big enough to pay his loans.
For those of you giving financial to my ministry, my support account information will still be the same, save for the fact that I will be Rachel BOGAN. :D *excited*
In August last year, I was boogie boarding at Mrytle Beach when I felt the Lord speak to me and tell me “it was time to catch a wave.” At the time, I thought the Lord was referring to SIM’s desire to send me on a 3-6 month short term trip out of the USA. I excitedly shared with my supporters the news and waited for the Lord to move.
But in September, the Lord moved very unexpectedly. At first, it seemed to be a turn in the wrong direction. The trip SIM wanted me to take dissolved into thin air, and about the same time, I said good-bye to a long-time friend and I became depressed. Admittedly, all I wanted to do was call it quits and do something—anything—else. I had a conversation with my Dad right about then. He asked me if I was happy with my life. I stammered out an answer, but deep inside I knew I was not happy at all. Tired, frustrated and broken, I gave up. I was ready for God to build me back up into whatever He wanted.
“Whatever He wanted” turned out to be equally unexpected. God brought a man into my life. I met Robert in May last year, when the Lord brought him to SIM USA to complete his internship requirement to graduate from Cedarville University. We had hit it off, but remained friends only at work. At the end of the summer, he went back to Ohio at the end of his internship. That was it. But in September, God brought Robert back to SIM for a month. We started hanging out more and built a friendship outside of work. So much so that Claude actually took us aside one evening and told us that we needed to be careful in the way we interacted because people would start talking about us at the Office.
It was a slightly embarrassing conversation, to say the least! At that point, I was not admitting to myself how much I liked Robert. But that conversation ended up opening the door to something both Robert and I had thought of and both dismissed as impossible: a relationship between the two of us. Shortly after that conversation with Claude, Robert and I went out to play skeeball together. After our game, he told me he liked me. And I had to tell him that i liked him too. We then started talking every night for at least four hours. And from the talking, we started dating.
And now, in just a few more short weeks, I will become Robert’s wife. Golly, I’m going to be a married woman…the thought keeps hitting me in odd ways. But as I know Robert more and more, I see that the Lord brought the right man into my life. He’s passionate about the Lord, he wants to use his media skills in ministry, and he suits me as a husband and life long companion.
When God told me to catch a wave, I was expecting a completely different ride. I thought I would have a new task, a new place, or a new ministry that I’d be doing. Instead, God brought me something completely unexpected. He brought me my husband.
(To read the original “Catch a Wave” post, click here: http://www.rachelfinder.com/post/964769521)
It’s all about perspective.
God has taken me through a lot these past two months. My visit up north at the end of August marked a major turning point in my life and ministry. It’s funny how the moments that seem small and insignificant end up being the life-changing moments. One such moment happened when I renamed my Cube “The Kobayashi Maru.”
My Cube, otherwise known as my office cubicle, had come to define a lot of what I thought about my life and my ministry in Charlotte, NC. When I joined SIM, I thought I would soon be traveling around the globe as a sort of “kingdom reporter.” But as I came to live, work and serve in an increasingly more and more permanent function at the USA him office, the more and more I felt stuck in life. While I was up north, I shared with excitement that I would soon be going overseas. Finally!! I looked ahead to the future and saw what I always though God was calling me to be: an overseas missionary. Needless to say, when I got back to Charlotte and found out that those plans fell through, I was crushed. I was back to my tiny, four-walled Cube, making short videos about missionaries while never getting to go to the places they talked about.
I was frustrated and upset. I felt as though there was a glass ceiling above my head, and I had hit it. Soundly. That glass ceiling was preventing me from being where I thought God had called me and doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing. But that’s where God reminded me of a lesson I learned from watching Star Trek:
In the movies, there’s a running theme about a test all Starfleet cadets must take while at Starfleet Academy. It’s called “The Kobayashi Maru.” The test is a no-win scenario where the participants must experience what it feels like to lose a battle and accept the helplessness and fear as a result. But one resourceful cadet, James T. Kirk, decided he didn’t like the no-win scenario, so he hacked into the computers, made the test winnable, and changed the outcome of the test. Some said he cheated, others gave him a commendation for original thinking. The point though, was that he refused to accept the present situation and let it define him. I stared at the gray walls of my Cube, and decided that i was not going to let my present situation define me. I made a sign, taped it over my phone, and stared at it.
Instead of focusing on the glass ceiling above my head, I started thinking of ways around it. At first, those thoughts were along the lines of “what else can I do with SIM?” I was thinking that perhaps I was supposed to move out of Media and try something different.
That’s when I started reading my journals from three years ago. I retraced my thinking process as I began pursuing full-time mission service. At that time, I had no idea how God could use me. All I had heard of was the possibility of doing childrens’ ministry, or something like that. Media hadn’t even come on the radar. But tucked between the pages, in April 2007, was a sheet of paper. On it I had written an idea I had for mission work. Though it written it from the perspective of using my creative writing skills instead of video-production, it describes verbatim the missionary storytelling and media work I do now. The idea of blowing the lid of the missionary world and showing the Church whats going on around the world was exciting and stimulating! At the end of my thoughts I wrote, “God, can i REALLY do this for the rest of my life? I’d feel like a combination of Indiana Jones, Paul, Ben Franklin, H.D. Thoreau, Peter Jennings, Bingham Young, and Phileas Fogg if I could do this for the rest of my life.”
I sat, thinking about my current ministry and my life, and I realized I’m doing exactly what I had asked God for. And I realized that if I was going to be speaking to the Western Church in America, I had to stay and work in America. Other missionaries go to the culture in which they serve. I was too. It just happened to be the same culture I grew up in. And with that in mind, I finally came to the peaceful conclusion that I AM doing, living and serving in EXACTLY the place God wants me to be.
Changing my perspective, and employing a lesson from Star Trek helped me see a slightly different view of my life and ministry. Admittedly, nothing has really changed. I’m still doing the same sort of projects for missionaries going to countries I’ve never visited. I still live in Charlotte, NC. But my Kobayashi Maru is no longer a no-win scenario.
