~My team and I have been in Thailand for two weeks now, and the things we have been able to see and do are incredible.
Week #1
We stayed in Nong Khai and taught at a school each day. The first part of the day we worked with kindergarten on learning numbers, colors, ABCs, and singing silly songs. Then we would stand in front of 100+ children in the assembly room singing, dancing and playing games with them. They absolutely loved it! I think the chicken dance or the hokey pokey had to be their favorite.
Another day we traveled to a village that is in the process of building their meeting places. We taught a little bit of English, sang songs (bc of course), read a bible story to the kids, and just got to fellowship with our fellow Thai brothers and sisters in Christ. We ate some incredible local vegetables with rice, eggs, and spring rolls, probably the best food ive had in my entire life.
We had street Pad Thai and held a chunky baby at church. What more could you want in life.
Week #2
We drove into a province called Nam Som to work with a local church. And by “drove” I mean all six of us shoved into the bed of a truck and sat in a torrential downpour of rain for 2 hours. It was quite the experience. Rain drops hitting your face at 60MPH isn’t the most comfortable thing.
We are working with a local pastor in his community in any capacity that we are needed.
Our first day we went to see a church that is being built in the community. Its not finished yet, but everything thats built so far has been donated by the community who are desperate to see a church go up. They can only build as fast as materials are donated, and some members who donated materials have already passed away, and never got to see it finished. Even through this, the pastors have been so faithful and put their full trust in the Lord to provide.
Day two we got to work at a school! We taught songs per usual, went over body parts in English and talked about emotions and feelings. We did a funny activity where they had to draw their own “feelings” faces, which was hilarious.
The third day we got to hike up to a prayer mountain where hundreds of pastors have met, preached, prayed, gathered, and worshipped. It was so serene and beautiful. We prayed over the churches land and the ministry, that both would be blessed and prosperous. There was something so amazing about praying on top of a mountain in Thailand where hundreds of other believers have called out to the same loving Father.
Yesterday we met and prayed for several church members in the communities. They all had two things in common, they had recently gone through a loss or a sickness, and they all loved Jesus.
One family in particular were just amazing. Twelve years ago, this man was mowing the lawn when he was hit by a reckless driver. He recovered and has been doing find except that three months ago, he all of the sudden couldn’t walk and couldn’t move like before. The doctors said there is something wrong with his spine from the accident that didn’t come to light until now.
So his beautiful wife has been taking care of him 24/7. For as long as she has been married to him, she had prayed for his salvation. It wasn’t until he became crippled that the Lord answered her prayer.
In his loss and injuries, the Lord revealed himself so completely to this man. If that isn’t true faith and trust, I don’t know what is. Sin nature would compel us to wallow in our bad situations, but this amazing man of God chose to lean on the Lord for strength in his weakness. He had such a joy and peace about him and a light in his eyes that was all Jesus.
It was the most encouraging and inspiring thing I have seen. Jesus has a plan for every season in life. Good, bad, healthy, sick….He has a purpose for everything that happens to us. And its our choice to see that and to embrace that. I want a faith like this man. What a beautiful savior we have.
Since we have been here, it has not stopped raining. The church in which we are staying was flooded, and the school that we taught in this morning was also flooded.
But, today we trudged through the ankle deep water anyways and it was such an awesome time getting to see the kids so excited about the little crabs they were finding. We got to hand out toys and clothes from Samaritans Purse. And on the way home, in the cab of a truck again, we had the opportunity to take in the beauty of Thailand. The thick fog laid softly on the tops of the mountains and the misty fields were bright green from all of the rain.
The Lord has blessed us to immensly just in the last two weeks. Yes its been raining everyday, things have been rescheduled, cancelled, and flooded. But Jesus is still so good. He has given us exactly what we need and always will.
He is so so good.
