In August, I had the joy of team leading a group of God-fearing women in Thachatchai, a small fishing village in Phuket, Thailand. Our contacts, Cindy and Dana, planted Calvary Chapel at the Bridge there seven years ago in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Throughout the month, our team lived upstairs in the church building, and even had the privilege of putting on a fresh coat of paint downstairs where we had events and services.
The majority of the ministry was towards children, as most of the churchgoers are under the age of fifteen. Every Sunday, two of our team members shared testimonies during the worship service, and on Wednesday nights, we would help with the children’s Bible study. At the end of the month, we decided to do a movie showing of The Gospel of John (snacks provided, of course!) and invited people from all over the community to attend. A few new faces showed up that day, including some old ones who had not appeared in a while. Among them was a woman who had been to church before but had not attended for a long time, which is why we hadn’t seen her all month. The following day on our last Sunday in the village, the same woman showed up to worship service with her daughter and eventually her husband (who was Muslim, and had never shown up before). They even stayed for lunch at the church! The Lord had used our little, poorly publicized event to draw this woman that He loved back into the presence of other believers.
Another part of our ministry was accompanying Cindy to the local Thai schools to teach English. Every morning in the car, we would pray for God to be present throughout the day pouring abundant grace, patience, and love into the teachers. There were times when the kids were certainly a handful, but we knew that every opportunity was one to shower love and forgiveness. In the Thai language, the typical response towards an apology is not “I forgive you”, but is actually “No problem.” When one of Cindy’s students misbehaved during class and apologized to her, instead of saying “No problem”, she said “I forgive you.” The other teachers thought that was incredibly strange because it was an atypical response. Cindy emphasized that she says “I forgive you” because this statement acknowledges that there was a problem, but that forgiveness in love has wiped the slate clean. Saying “No problem” does not allow for the concept of what Jesus did for us on the cross to shine through. Through everyday moments like this, His light shines through.
Dana also had a gardening/street cleaning ministry in the community that we took part in for a few days here and there. There was a section on a street where the weeds had overcrowded and spilled onto the pavement. While we were clearing the area, several people stopped by and even tried to talk to us, curious as to why a bunch of foreigners were cleaning a local street. One of the first times we were there, a lady who was selling fried bananas even came out and gave us a bag of what she was selling because she appreciated the work so much. Seeing a visible difference on a small street in a fishing village in Thailand brought a lot more gratification to me than I would have thought.
The rest of our time in Thailand, we prayer walked, studied the Bible, worshiped on the beach, watched the Darren Wilson trilogy (and many more movies…), spent time with our contacts, toured sights, and did an overnight prayer ministry in the red light district (more to come on this in another blog). At the end of the month, we were able to see that God accomplished a lot through us in the opportunities we seized to live and love from where we were at. We seized the time we were given, and we got to see the Author of Time move through it all. Small as those windows were, light still shone through.
“Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, just as I promised to Moses.” Joshua 1:3
