I haven’t been to church since we got to Thailand.
Instead I spend most of my days going to a Buddhist temple to visit him.
Emmi, our contact for the month, told us during orientation to pray for “the one.” The one person who God will place on our hearts. The one person for us to impact this month.
“If each person here impacts one person, that’s 30 or so people who will be touched. Pray and ask God for the one.”
So I did. And God brought me to him.
His name is Toi. He comes across as the most carefree person (conditioned by years of choosing to let things go), aged in years, but so full of life. He’s 60, but we joke that he has a soul age of 16. He spends his time making jokes and hanging out with us.
He has a heart of gold.
He has devoted all of his time to volunteering at the Buddhist Temple. When I say all of his time, I mean it. He never leaves. He sleeps on the property, eats all of his meals on the property, and works all day on the property. He trims the grass, works in the gardens, cleans the buildings, takes people on tours, serves the monks, etc.
But despite his busy schedule, he makes time for us. Every day when we show up, he stops what he is doing and accompanies us into the temple, where we remove our shoes and sit down to talk. We laugh as he shares stories from his past, and our hearts ache with his as he recalls how long it’s been since he’s seen his son. Being devoted to the temple comes with sacrifices. You can tell on his face that it grieves him to be away from his son, but his diligence to find “the Buddha way” keeps him in this temple.
We talk about Jesus and our faith, often recognizing many similarities, but also differences. Every day we leave and pray as we walk home, thanking God for our friend and for the opportunity to speak openly with him about the love of Jesus.
And the next day we return. And we’ll keep returning as long as we’re in Chiang Mai. When you find the one, you don’t give in to the spirit of apathy that plagues this city. You fight through it, trusting that when God gives you “the one,” he will show up and use you.
Our only job is to be present.
And I don’t want to forget to mention that Toi is the right hand man to the head monk of Chiang Mai, overseer of 1,300 temples and 3,000 monks.
When the Lord gets a hold of Toi’s heart, it will be a glorious day, and the beginning of another chapter for Chiang Mai.
