How to even begin on Thailand?….
Thailand was the oddest month so far for me. As with every story, there are two sides. Welcome to number 1: "for all outward appearances".
We taught.
We preached.
We shared.
We danced.
We sang.
Sometimes we slept.
We made friends.
We cried.
We got frustrated.
We laughed.
We ATE.
We did life.
This month, we were teaching in new schools almost every day throughout the province of Samut Songkhram. We would goof off with the kids, teach English, give them books teaching them about God's love, sometimes stuffed animals, and always an abundance of high-fives and hugs. Our small team of five would give about three testimonies a week, and teach/preach in church four times throughout a week. That was our "ministry". It was full of long days that required lots of energy. It was amazing to see the kids that it really had an impact on in such a short amount of time, and to see how God was using the things that we thought of as so small and insignificant to reach His little ones. But God had so much more in mind than that. He sent us there for our new friends and family. We met a mix of people from all different countries and cultures within the church we were living and serving at; people at all different levels in their faith, from unbelief to new Christians to those who have walked with God and seen Him move in mighty ways for years. It was here–at what became 'home'–that God allowed us to share with and receive from all of these amazing people. We had the amazing privilege sitting and doing life with these people. Of dinner and coffee dates, of laughing and dancing, of frustrations, communication fails, and lots of hard questions. God allowed us not just to be able to sow into our friends and grow because of them, but to see a new dear friend come to Christ, to see two more baptized, to pray over them and love on them and see it come to life! Greater than any miracle or healing or tear-jerking, heart-wrenching story, is the power of God to turn someone's life around merely by the knowledge of who He is; and the rest follows.
From every Sunday school class, every temple school, every talk, and every tear, He was moving and touching people! Everyone, it seemed, except me. Like I said, there are two very different sides of this story…
