Lindie-Ann Taylor is the Caribbean’s first missionary to Asia. Pam met her as part of her outreach and training in Cambodia. She was in Kuala Lumpur recently on her way to Singapore for a conference with her mission board, Operation Mobilization (www.om.org), and we had the pleasure of her company for a couple of days.

Lindie-Ann has an amazing testimony. She is very bright young lady with a degree in Agriculture and a fine Christian family behind her. She also had a very bright and comfortable future in front of her, as her pastor and had already singled her for a unique role at home. He was not pleased when she announced she was going to the mission field instead. This is just not something that everyone does.

But Lindie-Ann is not everyone. She was living happily in Trinidad when she began having very vivid dreams of living in a tribal village. She did not know where it was at first, just that she was meant to live there, and that they needed her. After six months of this, all the while praying that God would make sense of what she was dreaming, she began to hear the name ‘Cambodia’ spoken as if someone were talking in the next room. Often she would go around the corner expecting to meet someone in conversation, but never did. But she did start doing some research into what she came to understand as her target mission country.

This led to a conversation with the leadership in her denomination. After some prayer they decided to invite her to speak at an upcoming conference. Having never spoken in a public setting before, Lindie-Ann was concerned; all the more when she found out the she was the only scheduled speaker! She left the conference with her entire support pledged, dazed and amazed at what God had done for her and through her in such a short period of time.

Her dream became reality as she entered a tribal village in Cambodia and began to live among the people, as the people there do; in a thatched hut mostly open to the elements, wading through ankle-deep sewage water in the street when it rained, eating what was available in the meager markets. Through all of this Lindie-Ann presevered, believing that God had called her there for His purpose. After a year of this she earned a visit from her mission board who undertook a necessary upgrade in her accommodations that included space for teaching the local children.

Lindie-Ann’s smile could power a small village all by itself as she talks about the children she teaches and the friends she has made. After just 14 months in Cambodia she is already fluent enough enough to preach in Khmer once a week. She admits it is pretty simple Khmer, but then these are pretty simple people. But it doesn’t take fluency to see Lindie-Ann’s passion for Christ, and it doesn’t take an advanced education to see her committment to the poor of Cambodia and her willingness to share in their struggles and their hardships. This is the sacrifice it takes to win the lost for Christ.