Look for fellowship
I must say I found Emma Thornett’s article (‘The trouble with travel’, June 2001) very revealing. The highlight of her trip was meeting up with link missionaries and being encouraged to be more faithful in her Bible reading and praying. Maybe that was what God led her halfway across the world to discover: that no matter where you are, the basics are still the same.
I remember standing in a vacant lot on Manhattan’s lower-east side one cold January morning in 1993, surrounded by street people sipping hot soup listening to a gospel sermon that would have fit hand-in-glove in any Bible-believing church in Australia.
I had similar experiences of the gospel in Amsterdam, Seoul, Tokyo, Dublin, Jerusalem and Athens. But that was what I was looking for. After 10 months on the hoof, I came back to Australia convinced that God knows exactly what he is doing, is working out his plan in accordance with his will and that all over the world the gospel is bearing fruit and growing (Col 1:6). If I had taken Emma’s advice that travelling and church-going don’t mix, I may never have been blessed in the way I have been!
Stuart Adamson
Maroubra, NSW
