You may not have noticed her while she was here, but you'll miss her now she's gone.
Deb Chen, the Sales & Marketing manager and head of Total Visual Solutions at Anglican Media Sydney rarely stepped out from behind her products, preferring to play a John the Baptist role " "she decreased that they might increase'.
For the past five years, though, she has been a vital conduit through which many producers and services have made themselves known to the Sydney Anglican community and the Christian world.
But from December 5 she will be marketing the gospel in Thailand.
"For my whole life (and I suspect for a lot of other people out there) the question hasn’t been so much ‘Why go?’, it’s probably been more ‘Why shouldn’t I go?’" Deb says.
Short-term mission, long-term change
Five years ago, her sister's family decided to become missionaries in Thailand, and the question gained more force.
"While I was fully supportive of them going, I came up with plenty of excuses as to why that would never be me heading over - ‘I'm not good at learning new languages’ (I had to repeat Chinese school Kindy 3 times before I quit), ‘All my friends and family are in Sydney’, ‘There are so many gospel needs in Sydney still’, ‘I'm a single female, how would I cope overseas on my own?’, ‘I haven’t done any formal theological studies’ " the list just went on," she recalls.
But a short-term mission to Thailand to "better understand' what her sister was doing changed everything.
"Suddenly every excuse that I had ever thought up became irrelevant. Sure it’s frustrating not to be able to fully communicate, but I was starting to get a handle of the language, even after three weeks."
Thailand’s religious wealth, spiritual poverty
More importantly, Deb began to see the desperate poverty of the Thai people, not in resources but in Bible teaching.
"The Thais I met were such a gentle, friendly and loving people, yet so completely lost in a spiritual sense.
"When you go to Thailand ‘religion’ is so in your face with lots of Wats (temples), monks, Buddhist shrines everywhere. It’s a country with about 65 millon people and less then one per cent of those are ‘Christian’.
“The Thai Christians that I met were also so hungry to read and understand the Bible more, but there is just such a huge lack of ‘good’ resources available for them," Deb explains.
"As I spoke with my sister's family and went to churches and met Thai Christians, I realised that even me with no formal theological training I had a much greater understanding of the Bible than many of the Thais and, dare I say, even some of the missionaries over there.
“It made me realise how much I’ve taken for granted the great Bible teaching I've received my whole life," she explains.
Deb will initially be taking part in a three-week mission to Chiang Mai in the north of the country with her church, Drummoyne Presbyterian, then staying on for at least a year with the Christian mission organisation Pioneers.
She will be using her media skills in a number of arenas, as well as cultivating relationships on the ground.
"What’s really struck me is that here in Sydney we have such an abundance of great resources, and if I go I can easily be replaced.
“But over in Thailand, there is just a huge need, so why not go?" she says.
"I know that our God who created this world can do anything and work miracles and I hope that he works a miracle in me in sharing my life as a Christian with the Thais."
Click here to read Deb's mission blog Plaa Plaa Plaa.
