Not sure what comes to your mind when you think of Thailand, but one of the things that comes to my mind is hot. Well it was hot, really hot, until we decided the heat was too much and prayed to God for some relief. He was good and faithful and answered our prayers. I woke up this morning to a Portland like day of 50 degrees and rain.
After breakfast my team met to prep for our day of ministry. A couple of our team members were not feeling the best to so we decided that they should stay back from the morning prayer walk and rest and see how they felt in the afternoon. During our wet prayer walk I received a call from one of our team members who said that they decided to go to the hospital to investigate the stomach pains our other team member, dani, was experiencing.
The rest of us decided to continue on with our afternoon ministry, monk chats; however, the rain and cold resulted in a lack of monks with whom to chat (as in there were zero).* So after some prayer we cut our time short and decided to do a bible study back at the hostel. During the bible study I got another call reporting that our team member had an appendicitis and was going into surgery.
Needless to say the day did not go according to anyone’s plan, but regardless God was very clearly faithful. First off our team member with the appendicitis had never been through surgery before, but our other team member Danielle who accompanied her to the hospital and been through several and also had a sister not long ago suffer an appendicitis. Danielle was the perfect person to be there and encourage and support dani through this.
Secondly, the fact that no monks showed up for the chat meant we were able to pray in the monk chat area openly and ask for God to claim that place. Also, our slower scheduled allowed us to be available to support dani in prayer.
Not every day will go as planned, but everyday God is still on His throne and He is with us.
Praise & Prayer Request: dani’s surgery we very well and she is doing well. Please pray for continued and quick recovery for her body. Thank you.
*At some of the temples there is a specific area that is set aside where tourists can come and sit and chat with monks. This is an opportunity for the monks to practice their English and gives us and open door to have conversations with them about life, religion, faith, and Jesus.
