About: Us and how we got to Thailand

 

We are Duane & Marcia Binkley. I, Duane, will be writing most or all of this blog but it never would have happened without Marcia so it is equally hers.

Marcia was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in the Broadview Baptist Church.  Marcia’s maternal grandparents were missionaries to what is now South Sudan in the 1920s. Contracting TB, they didn’t stay there long but it was long enough that Marcia’s mother was born in the Sudan. Their mission service also instilled a missionary spirit in the family. So, Marcia’s family would host visiting missionaries and Marcia grew up with the idea that she too might be a missionary.

I grew up attending the Mentor Headlands Baptist Church in Mentor, Ohio. While a junior in high school, the family moved an hour south where we attended the Cuyahoga Falls Baptist Church.  Both Marcia’s and my family were active with The Koinonia Camp and Conference Center which is where we met.  So, we were aware of each other for some years, but got together at Koinonia while both working as summer staff during our college years.

As we were dating and got engaged Marcia would talk of her interest in international missions. I wouldn’t reject the idea, but in all honesty didn’t think it would ever happen to “real people” like us. We got married in October of 1979 and then went about the business of getting established in the adult world in northeast Ohio.  I had majored in Conservation and was working for local Soil and Water Conservation Districts. Marcia had majored in Psychology and Sociology and was working with people with various disabilities.

We were married for a year or so then Ronald Reagan took office in January of 1981. Shortly after, budget cuts from “Reagonomics” eliminated Marcia’s job and mine was threatened. (On at least two separate occasions I went to work thinking it was my last day only to get an afternoon call saying a little more funding was found so I could keep working for a while longer.)

Apparently, it was time to re-evaluate our career choices!  Were we really serious about missions? If so, it was time to either “do it or drop it”.  It wasn’t a tough choice for Marcia as she’d had a life long calling. For me though, it was a growing process. At first I thought, “Yeah, I could do US based mission work, let’s see what’s out there”.  Nothing really opened up. Time went on and I started thinking, “Yeah, I could go to some other country but only for a short time.” Again, nothing really opened up.  More time passed and I thought, “Well if we went to another country we’d really need to learn the language. And if we did that we’d need to stay long enough to make the language learning worthwhile. That would mean we’d need to stay several years at least, but yeah, I could do that.” Yet again, more time would pass with nothing opening up.  Eventually, I came to the place where I thought, “Well if I can stay for several years I guess I could stay for several more, but it would need to be in the right place.” Still again, nothing opened up. Finally, I reached a point where I honestly felt like I would be willing to go anywhere and do anything for any length of time. After all, if God was calling us and opening the doors then all the risk was His, not ours.

Shortly after reaching this point, International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches expressed interest in having us come join an agricultural and irrigation project among the Karen people in Northwest Thailand. Could it be that “real people” like us could become a missionary? Was God opening this door for us?

Thus began a long application process.  I remember completing over 50 pages of forms and papers before losing count and Marcia did the same.  Of course, this was all done on manual or electric typewriters as there were no PCs and the only Apples grew on trees in 1981.  It all took like a year or so before we were finally accepted. Honestly, we likely would have given up several times as it just seemed to take too long. However, Rev. Bill Offutt, our local pastor in Jefferson, Ohio was always encouraging and advocating on our behalf. We credit him for getting us through the process.

While the process took some time, it was good as it allowed us as well as International Ministries to really consider our calling and if it was what God had in mind for us. We were officially commissioned and prepared to go by June of 1982 but there were (and remain) limited numbers of visas available for missionaries in Thailand so we had to wait for several more months. Finally, in November of 1982, we boarded a plane in Cleveland, Ohio destined for Bangkok, Thailand.