Isaiah 6:8 says, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me”. I first heard of this verse about a year ago and I have kept it close to my heart. Now a year later and 3 weeks in, it’s reality. I am His and I am here to tell you about where He has sent me.
If you read my last blog you may know how I do not understand all of this. I rest in the knowledge that our God is love and His calling/plans are going to seem crazy at first, but in the end you’ll know how very intentional they were.
So far He has sent me to two schools to teach English. When I first heard we were teaching English I was excited even though I knew nothing about teaching. It was something new, but I knew God had something to do with it so… I made my lesson plan. I walked into my first classroom the next day as “Teacher”. The precious children and their eagerness to learn from the moment they stood up in their cute uniforms and said in unison “Good-morn-ing-teach-er” made my heart melt. God’s love was shown in every classroom at that school.
The next week He sent my team and I to a different school that was much smaller and we taught more English. It was a completely different experience. It did not matter that we were playing silly games with the kids, improvising Jonah and the Whale, and singing songs the teachers and principal wanted to thank us in all of the ways they knew how because of our help. They treated us to a huge lunch everyday, had us take pictures and shake hands with each of the students, gave us bags handmade by the students, and asked us to please come back and teach about our religion! The principal met with our Pastor and said they want to learn about our religion because they only know about Buddha. God is moving here!
God called, I answered “I am Yours”. I can only wonder that God let me be a small part of His work.
This past week I have been doing some labor. I have never sweat so much in my life. Laying cement is almost work I physically do not have enough strength to do. This was to help Pastors family, but I have a hard time seeing God’s hand in this kind of work because I was not really sure of its fruitfulness. I did not find out until most of the hard work was done what Pastor’s plan for this house was. I was encouraged to know that 2 out of the 3 rooms are going to be for others when they need a place to stay. Pastor is so faithful and is always looking for ways to bless and encourage others, and I am overjoyed I have sweat dripping down my face to be a part of this!
& more about my life if you are curious…
So here I am in a little village called Sikhoraphum (6 hours from Bangkok by bus). We have found a little coffee shop down the street that we may use a little too often to get mocha frappes, smoothies, and milkshakes (yes, that makes us spoiled…) BUT, the Buddhist barista listens to English Christian music so we hope to spread our ministry to her too.
We love the market and sometimes it is fun to hop on the family tandem bike with a teammate over to the market.
I feel it also necessary to inform you more about my living conditions. The apartment 3 of us stay in is so nice, it has just accumulated a quarantined room for lice, a mouse that we are now pretty sure is a house rat because it crawled across me one night, still bitter. And one night at 3am I awoke to my teammate saying “I was stung by a scorpion, and it hurts”. Needless to say that was fun, Pastor killed it with 2 sticks, and my teammate did not have to go to the hospital, PRAISE!
We get a lot of stares and people always want to know where we are from and why we came to their village. That always makes me so happy because if they speak broken English we can tell them that we are working for the church, but most of the time the language barrier is too strong and all I all I can say is “God Bless You!” in Thai. It’s a beautiful start at least!
I am catching on to Thai a little bit, so that is helpful! And it is so fun to practice on my translator and host family. They laugh a lot at me, but it’s okay I am sure I will be a professional by the time I leave! I’ve become fond of conversations that go nowhere!
And last but never least, THANK YOU to all of my supporters. These are only some of stories you are a part of and I wish you were here to experience it with me, these blogs never seem to do it justice, however, thank you for trusting in God that he’s moving and changing lives even when it is hard to see thousands of miles away.
Your prayers are precious to me! Please pray for my team and our boldness to make God our priority. Just as easy as it is to be distracted from the Lord’s plan at home it is easy to get distracted here. Please pray that the devil will stop speaking lies over me. I still have doubts I am not where I am supposed to be or that I am not becoming who God has called me to be. And please pray for Pastor’s house. He is trusting in the Lord’s faithfulness to provide the money he needs to pay it off by the end of the month.
Although, it was not easy getting here and I am worn from the crazy transitioning, it is glorious reliance on the Lord I am learning to lean into deeper everyday. Thanks for reading!
LOVE YA!
Britt
