My team and I wrote a blog together about meeting Pat for the first time! Enjoy!
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at the table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. – Luke 12:35-40
We learned quickly to keep our lamps ever burning. It is as simple as one life at a time.
After a weekend of restoration we found ourselves sitting in the front room of our hospitality house waiting for our new ministry host, Pat. Here is what we know… he is a little bit kookie, very Scripture driven, and lives on a farm. He swaggered in like a Thai version of Captain Jack Sparrow with his goatee and long flowy locks. He immediately had us sit down to get to know one another and he began to stare his story. He carried an authenticity that we all appreciated from the start.
He proceeded to tell us that his passion is to love people, one life at a time. It was minutes later when we heard the doorbell ring. Pat casually shouted, “doors open!” as if it were his own house. That is when one of our neighbors shared a picture of her father who had gone missing. It was obvious to us that she was distraught, because he has Alzheimer’s and a heart condition. We knew he couldn’t have gone far, so Pat told us to jump up and start looking, and that he would see us in an hour. We grabbed a partner and a picture of her father, and set off to find him.
We had made sure that our bags were packed and ready to go, but little did we know that the schedule we were given for the day would be interrupted by a divine appointment. As the day progressed, we realized it was not an interruption at all but rather the intended plan all along.
After an hour of looking, we came back together and discovered him to be already found on a nearby neighbor’s front porch. The family was excited and invited us over to their house for a glass of water.
Our host at the hospitality house, Sheila, had prayed the night before specifically for her neighbors to come to know Christ. As we sat in their home the next day, we captured the opportunity to share the Gospel. This truly was a divine appointment. During this time the family gave us insight into each of their lives. Consequently, we learned that the man’s wife is a retired warden of a women’s prison. After retiring she opened a massage parlor, where previous inmates now work. Where is the divine appointment, you may ask? These people weren’t just a random family on the streets, they shared the same vision and heart as Pat, the only thing missing is Jesus.
Our prayer is that Pat can partner with them in providing jobs for previous inmates, and through that avenue, the whole family will come to know Jesus. We’re forever grateful to have started our month of ministry in Thailand focusing on one life at a time. We are excited to go back to our neighbor’s house at the end of this month to follow up. Who knows, maybe Jesus has already captured their hearts!
Lord, may we always keep our lamps ever burning and search for those divine appointments, one life at a time.
