It was our joy and gift to return to Thailand during the month of June. It was a promise kept for our kids, it was a time to see friends who are like family, it was a chance to experience together where we lived for 15 years, and it was a time to bookend our journey by closing down our rental home and manage our earthly belongings. The Lord was so gracious to allow it and we were blessed, though at times it was very hard – hard to say goodbye to a community, place, and way of life that we loved, as well as challenging to dismantle our home on the other side of the globe from where I now sit.
Thank you for your prayers – we know many of you were with us in spirit. We have endless appreciation for the “stayers” in Chiang Mai that loved us and served us in our leaving.
We plan to share more in upcoming posts.
Please join us in prayer:
– for Chris as we anticipate another round of testing come August 18. We rejoice that our insurance approved a full year of his special medication, this was unexpected.
–for wisdom in our professional roles regarding when to take on additional responsibilities
I crafted the liturgy below as we prepared to leave our community in Thailand after 15 years. It draws inspiration from and incorporates excerpts from Douglas Kaine McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy Volumes I–III. I am deeply grateful for the beauty and richness of the words in these books, which helped shape this liturgy. Often, before saying farewell to friends, I would gather everyone together to read this liturgy to both remember who God is and grieve our moving away.
Oh Christ, Exalted Prince of Heaven, O Christ Radiant King of Earth,
Your glories are everlasting.
You are the living head of your body, the divine bridegroom of your church. You are the desire of all nations.
You hold authority over death and life, over all peoples and kingdoms, over all principalities and powers. All creation is your inheritance. You are the fullness that fills all things.
Through you all things were created and by your redeeming works all things will be made new.
All glory and power are yours O Christ. You lack nothing.
You are worthy of praise. Your ways are holy and high. When emotions swirl’round our feet like a rising flood, we will lift our hands in prayer, reaching to you, for the waters respond to your command.
In our grief you are with us,
Through it we come to know you more.
You make all things beautiful
And you do so in your time, not in ours.
The list of our uncertainties is long. But longer still is the list of your provisions.
When we are overwhelmed, let your Spirit bring to our remembrance stories of
your faithfulness. Let us count the many ways you have met, supported, taught, and delivered each of us in days gone by.
For you have been faithful, O Lord.
Let those past moments of deliverance and joy come to mind, that our hearts might again believe in the gracious reality of your love.
Amidst the pain that lades these days, give us courage, O Lord; courage to live them fully, to love and to allow ourselves to be loved, to remember, grieve, and honor what was, to live with thanksgiving in what is, and to invest in the hope of what will be.
Be at work gilding these long heartbreaks with the advent of new joys, good friendships, true fellowships, unexpected delights.
Remind us once again and again of your goodness, your presence, your promises.
For this is who we are: a people of The Promise-
a people shaped in the image of the God whose very being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness.
So we, your children, are also at liberty to lament our losses, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their coming restoration.
And that is who you are,
Restorer of all things.
You were before all things, you created all things, and
in you all things are held together.
There is no corner of creation you will fail to redeem, even this.
You are Lord of Lords, and King of Kings,
O Jesus Christ, our King of Everything.
Amen
Wonderful words! May God comfort you and help you to adjust back to the States. May Chris testing go well. Praying that way. Caryl
Thanks for this update–will continue to pray for you and your family as you work through this difficult transition…
Dear Chris and Rebecca,
what wonderful words of praise to our Heavenly Father and Lord of all things. I understand some of your pain as I also had to leave our beloved city and make home in a home country that has become less familiar. But praise God, He has been faithful and will be faithful each step of the way!
Love in our Loving Lord,
Hella
Hi Hella, this is Karen Lynip. It’s fun to see your name. I know on the Hirts prayer letter responses, Steve and I got to know them during the ICC course in Waxhaw several years ago and have followed them with loving prayer ever since and we pray for you too!
Love this, thank you Hella. Missing you & your ceaseless energy and faith.
I may as well write my note here too…
As we are also forced into an undesired move because of larger family health, we are also in a transition plagued by chaos worms (cf: Chad Loftis & Michael Chen’s effective and fun ideas- the latter preserved on youtube!) that want to eat our brains and obstruct our ministry. But … if they eat our fruits of the spirit (especially for me and us, patience) as well as the helpful missionary attribute of tolerance of ambiguity as we are getting re-acquainted with being competent and in a safe social net as a hidden immigrant here, the chaos worms’ impact is lessened. I’m glad your Hirt family & ours share so much experiences (incl cleaning the whole front of the kuaytiaw restaurant! & talent shows! ), purpose, vocabulary, grief, submission to God’s authority, and future rewards.
Beautiful liturgy, thank you. I like that liturgy for the grief of an unexpected and undesired move. (beat that, AI- writing a liturgyand associated video on anything in the style of “Every Moment Holy.” Chris, let us know when you try that experiment, 555!)
FYI, we may attend the Florida wksp in October.
also, we’re now based in Dallas, so hit us up any time you’re in town!
Thanks for sharing about your journey back to Thailand and how you’re processing through the grief. I appreciate your lament as we also head back to Thailand this week for work in southern Thailand. We won’t even go to CM this time. But I’m sure it will stir up emotions! I’ll probably read through your liturgy a few times in the coming weeks, Sue
Beautiful.
God sees you, He hears you and He loves you.
Our family continues to pray for you all.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for this update. We are so glad that you as a family could go back “home” and have some closure. We will continue to pray as you settle into the Fall and all the schedules. Praying for His wisdom and guidance. Love you guys, Gerry and Diane.
May He continue to remind you of his goodness, his promises and his presence as he has along this journey you are all on.
Your faith is evident of your love for him and his precious love for each of you.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful prayer! Continuing to pray for you all. Much love from our family to yours.
It was such a blessing to spend time with you all. It was special for me to reconnect with you in your Thailand home. I look forward to connecting in the future and visiting you in Michigan…when I do my retirement tour of the USA! We can dream!
Dear Chris and Becca, we were in the U.S. when you were in Chiang Mai, so we missed seeing you there. I’m so glad for this gift that God gave you to go back and say good-bye. We were so blessed by your lives in Chiang Mai. Thank you for all that you invested in our family. We praise God for how He has been with you in every step of your journey and will continue to be with you. We send our love.
Thank you for sharing about your trip back to Thailand and the liturgy you used when saying farewell to your dear friends. I can’t even begin to imagine the hard that it was, but am grateful there was also good. I look forward to hearing more about the experience in future posts. I prayed for your family often while you were there.
So glad you could have that final time as a family to have a sense of closure in Thailand as well as take care of practical matters to close your home in Nepal. May God be with you all as you continue to adapt to your new environment, face health challenges, and and continue to serve from the USA. Blessings to you all!
What a beautiful liturgy. Thank you for sharing it with us and allowing us to be blessed through it as well. I pray you God’s complete healing and His many blessings for this new chapter in all your lives, and for His many future blessings that we can’t even imagine now. May you be blessed with courage for each day and God’s peace that passes all understanding.
Oh Lord You Have Been Good, You Have Been Faithful….
A trip filled with so many emotions, but your memories will always be a part of
your life. Prayers for your August tests being done….
How can you not love this family!!! Makes me kind of proud to be their uncle! Life races on. Let the adventures continue!
Just a brief observation from your family photo: your sons are young men now! Lucas looks to be the tallest in the family! Thailand will always be a part of your hearts, a part of your family history. Thank you for serving the people of that country!!! May many come to know Jesus their saviour through your work.
Dear Chris and Rebecca: This was a wonderful encouragement. What a blessing you are to me and so many who follow your story. Thank you for sharing your incredible journey.
Well done, ye good and faithful servants! Keep on giving glory to the Lord!
Oh friends, I am so moved by your writinf here. Thank you for sharing. You are so dearly loved and respected and missed. I pray the Lord restore to you all that has been lost. For new meaningful and close relationships, for a place to belong, for deep and meaningful friendships for your children, for restoration of stability, both in body and for your hearts. And so many more things. I’m praising God that the insurance company approved Chris’s medication for the year. What an incredible gift! Thank you for sharing this journey with us…. I feel your heart and I hope you feel our love for you. – Bethany for us Randolph’s
I so enjoy reading your updates and viewing your photos. Viewing the latest gave me a big smile and a wow ! You have a grownup size family… smile. What a blessing. And a blessing to those of us reading your epistles…
More prayers and blessings….
In my prayers daily. God bless! Enjoy reading your updates.