This is a story that you may have read posted by some other members of my team. But it is a story of what happens when you put aside the things you think you should do and allow God to do what he does best. Creating relationships with others and Himself.
Tara, Johnny, Marissa, Shanda, Stephanie, and I hopped a train to ride up to the northern part of Thailand called Chiang Mai. When we decided to go all we knew was that Stephanie had been there before and knew of some cool people we should meet up with. With that in mind the other five of us thought that is enough info and we will just go for it with no other plans. Making a plan with no plan seems like the right thing to doesn’t it? Is that not the way that things are done everywhere? As much as I am a laid back person in the back of mind I was wondering what was going to come of our time with no plan. That little thought is just one of the numerous ways that separates my mind from the mind of God.
So we get to Chiang Mai in the morning and decide to stay at a guest house and wait for the only contacts we had to arrive the day after us. The rest of the day was spent walking around Chiang Mai and going to Starbucks and praying for our team and the team in Myanmar. The next morning we awoke with excitement about meeting the contacts that Stephanie had met from the year before. We proceed to get breakfast and Stephanie began share of some thoughts she was having about our time in Chiang Mai and what she had thought it would look like. In this discussion Matthew 10 came up (you can read it if you like) and little did we know that someone at another table heard this part of the conversation. Our little team discussion ended with us not really knowing what we were going to do and when we would travel to the other town we were going to go to called Chiang Rai.
At that moment the man from the other table came over to us and introduced himself as Vern from Oregon and he is part of ministry in Chiang Rai. We thought great another contact we can make and when we get there we will team up with him and do ministry. This is great. The pieces seemed to be falling into place; we have a contact in Chiang Mai and now one in Chiang Rai. But we still had a small snag, how much time would be devoted to the two places? When would leave to go to Chiang Rai and come back to Chiang Mai or vice versa. In this little bit of confusion Vern says “by the way we are going back to Chiang Rai today and if you would like a ride you can ride with us. If that is good be ready to load up at 2.” What do you say to that?
After being apart of world race for almost five months now, when someone offers you a free ride to a place you are going you take it. Not did he offer us a free ride to Chiang Rai he also offered for us to stay at his place for free. This is another opportunity that you do not pass up.
