Hello dear friends,
The rain pours down as I sit in the doorway of a small duplex in Thachatchai, Thailand. I like listening to the rain. Even more so at this moment, I like the refreshing breeze that it brings. If I close my eyes, I can picture myself near the shoreline just down the road. I imagine the breeze to be even nicer over there. I’ve posted quite a few new pictures that you can check out on my facebook…www.facebook.com/shirleylouise (note: you don’t have to be my facebook friend or even a member of facebook to see them! 🙂
Sometimes the race is easy. I soon found out that as easy as it can be…it is often more difficult than anything else I have done. Graduate school was hard…this is even more grueling. There are days when I love being here. There are also days where I just want to go home. Days where I just want to throw in the towel and forfeit. Days when I wonder…what in the world have I gotten myself into! Am I really making a difference? Do people even hear what I say or see God’s light in me??? (and it’s only been 2 1/2 months!)
And then sometimes wonderful things happen.
Friday evening we had the opportunity to hand out literature at a festival. It was the 1st night and they were celebrating Loi Krathong. Loi Krathong takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. This usually falls in November on our calender. The ceremony involves hand made baskets that are sent into the water. The point of doing this is to pay pentance to the water gods for polluting it all year. It’s strange…but it’s what they do here.
We handed out videos and literature to anyone that would take it. And since our knowledge of the Thai language consists of good morning/afternoon/evening and thank you (sawatdee kha and korp khun kha) we don’t say much 🙂 They use the same word for good morning, afternoon, and evening. The only difference is for males. All of their sentences end with krap instead of kha. Anyhow, a woman from one of the food vendors came over to see what the farangs (foreigners) were handing out. We gave her a video of the Jesus film, a tract, and a pamplet about the church we are working with. She had a small boy who waited at the stand. I took over a child’s tract for him to look at. He couldn’t have been any more than 3 or 4 years old. He looked over it for several minutes back and front. Then I saw his mother bend down to help him. She eventually took it so she could read it to him. That made my heart happy and full of joy.
And then there’s the story from today. I was able to ride the riding lawn mower. My favorite part about actually being on the mower was the view when I turned the corner. There’s not much else like seeing the sun just after it’s risen and nestled just above the mountain top. After cutting weeds and grass for a good hour and a half, it stopped working 🙁 Every time I tried to engage the blade it died. I rode it over to where our contact was working and we quickly determined that I had mowed over a rope and it was now entangled and intertwined between the two blades. One of the ladies from the church was there talking to the pastor.
She pulled out a knife to start cutting away as Dana and I held the mower up high enough for her to squat down and reach it. (She’s Aisan…she’s tiny) Her blade was small…really small! And not really doing the job. I ran back to the house to get a larger knife. When I returned she got back to work. Then just a few monents later a young guy, probably in his late 20’s, wandered by. He was curious about what was going on and then offered to help. He finished getting the rope out and the lady from the church began to tell him about Jesus. Thailand is 94% Buddhists and only 1% Christian. Dana began to tell me that he has had conversations with the man before but never really got this far with him. The man and the woman exchanged numbers so she could call him and pick him up for church on Sunday! Praise the Lord for tangled up ropes in a riding mower. Please keep him in your prayers as well as our team. I’m praying he comes on Sunday. Everyone on my team is getting the opportunity to share a testimony about what God has done in our lives. Pray that God will use the words that come out of my mouth to speak to him.
We’ve also been able to see God’s hand of protection over us. We found out Sunday evening that we had been robbed. Someone broke into our duplex while we were in church. The odd thing is that they only stole money. Laptops, cameras, and ipods were all in plain view! The money all belongs to God anyhow. As a team, we prayed for the thief who took our money. We prayed blessings over him and spoke forgiveness.
Thank you all so much for your love and support! It means more than you know. Have a wonderully blessed Thanksgiving!!
Much love from Thailand,
Michelle
