Hi Friends!
I just wanted to give you a quick update on what is going on in Thailand!
We arrived at Zion Hostel in Chiang Mai after a long day of traveling. While Zion does host external guests, it functions primarily as an Adventures in Missions base in Thailand. Its been amazing because we’ve had opportunities to be poured into by Staff that is affiliated with our program and have the same beliefs, vision, and mission.
This month is a bit different than most months will look on the World Race. Not only is it All Squad Month, meaning all 39 of us are under one roof, but its also Ask the Lord (ATL) Month.
Ask the Lord is an opportunity to get outside the bounds of one ministry and really put the concept of “Life is mission, and Mission is Life” to the test.
Some teams are only doing 2 days of ATL, and do have set ministries the rest of the week.
My team has been given ATL for the entire month.
What this looks like for us is waking up each morning, and intentionally sitting with the Lord and asking Him what He has for us that day. It could be a vision, a name, a place, a vague direction we should head in…anything really. Then we go out and walk the city. That could be just us walking down the Red Light District and praying as we walk. Or it could look like us sparking up a conversation with a stranger and building a relationship with them.
Its unrealistic to think that every stranger we come in contact with is going to be saved right in that moment. Not that it is outside of the Character of God. That can and, I believe, will happen. But our objective really is to plant seeds.
Talk to them about their life, the things they believe and why they believe them.
Another objective of Ask the Lord month is to seek out new ministry partners to connect with the World Race. One of my teammates, Calin, has friends from her home Church who moved to Chiang Mai to work with an organization that hosts an after school program for kids in the red light district. Most of their parents make about $1 USD a day and are still working in to the night. There is a huge safety issue for these kids being home alone after school. The program teaches bible lessons, life skills classes, english, and most of all…has fun! They encourage kids to just be kids. We have no idea the kinds of things they are exposed to at home and they deserve to just be a kid sometimes. This program gives them that space. We work with this program 3 days a week from 4-6. The rest of our time is spent in Ask the Lord.
None of us have really been given the space to really learn what it means to hear from the Lord.
But its amazing what can happen when you intentionally ask the Lord to reveal things to you.
We usually start our days with a team bible study and then head in to worship and prayer.
When we were praying that first day, I kept on seeing a pair of blue Nike tennis shoes. We didn’t end up doing an official ATL walk that day but I still kept looking for the guy with the blue Nike shoes. The next morning, as I was praying, I felt the Lord tell me, “Stop looking for the guy with the Blue Nike shoes, or your going to miss everyone else I have for you today.”
I completely gave that to the Lord knowing that if I happened upon the guy, it would be the Lord’s timing; not mine.
After our time of prayer, my team and I decided to go out to this book store we kept passing. My teammate, Jeorgi, had been feeling led to go there, and I had too. We go to the book store and look around, but didn’t really feel any reason to stay there. As we were leaving we realized there was an entire top floor! We spent way too much time there, dilly dallying in the isles and realized it was already time for lunch.
I left feeling super convicted that I had been more preoccupied with the stationary than I was with trying to make connections with people.
We went to our usual place right next to our hostel to grab some lunch. I was the last person to get my food and I walked to our table to find my teammates looking they had seen a ghost.
Calin says, “Look behind you. Guy with blue Nike shoes.”
WHAT.
Queue a few moments of freaking out because like…what do I say, he probably doesn’t speak English, and every other excuse in the book.
He started to stand up to put away His dishes and it felt like someone else (read: JESUS) grabbed my hand and pulled me up.
Afterwards my teammates commented on how crazy that was to watch because one moment I was this ball of fear and the next moment I was being launched into the air to go tell some dude, “Jesus told me to come talk to you because you had on blue Nike shoes.”
Our conversation didn’t last long because he had NO idea what I was saying.
This morning in my quiet time with the Lord, he brought to mind a ministry that another team is a part of. They are going out in to the city to find people who would be interested in coming to a language exchange program.
That is the simple Gospel at its finest, folks.
It doesn’t always have to be diving right into things. Trust me, I tried with Seem. And he had no idea what I was talking about. With only .7% of Thai people being Christian, a huge percentage of them literally don’t know who God is.
You have to start somewhere.
And the reality is, I will only be here for a week and a half more (which, btw, is nuts). Thats where short term programs fail. If you plant a seed, there has to be someone there to water it.
Like I said before, most of the time sharing the gospel looks more like building relationships.
With the language exchange program, he can not only build His English skills, but He can also form relationships with a program that is literally a 20 second walk from where he works. He can continue to be poured in to by believers, and hopefully become a believer himself.
What I learned today are two things I’ve always known to be true, but have never quite activated.
…1…
It is NOT my timing, but His. If I hadn’t given over control of finding Seem to the Lord, I would of inevitably been trying to find him in my own strength and in all the wrong places. If we hadn’t stayed at the Bookstore for longer than we intended, we wouldn’t have been at the Restaurant at the same time as him.
…2…
The same power and authority that Jesus has, lives inside of you when you accept Him as your Savior. There were certainly thoughts of fear when we found the boy with the blue nike shoes. But, the majority of my thoughts centered around…wait so I didn’t just pull that vision out of nowhere? That was actually the Lord?
His word says in Acts 2: 17-18, “In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men with dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women.’”
Its easy to wonder how the heck you are supposed to know if a word, vision, etc is from God. I suppose you don’t. But His Word tells us that it is in His character to pour His spirit on ALL people. Not just your pastor, or your mentor, or that friend who can recite the whole bible.
ALL people.
So, intentionally ask the Lord to reveal to you great and hidden things you did not know.
Step out on a limb that whatever you feel like He told you really was Him.
And if it wasn’t Him, no harm, no foul.
But if it was Him, step out in it.
“For no word from God will ever fail.”
L U K E 1 : 3 7
Thanks for reading!
