Where in the world are we?
Bangkok is the capital of Thailand so it is a huge tourist spot as well. Typically one thinks they will be meeting people from the country they are in but that strangely, largely that has not been the reality for us this month. In this case the Lord said, “Oops, actually you will be talking to people from 12 (or more) other countries in addition to Thailand.” This is so crazy to me! Our route puts us going to 11 countries already and almost all of the places that the people we have gotten to talk with are from countries not included in that list. Some of those people we met taking the water taxi, having lunch, visiting elephants or after spraying them with a water gun. We had the unbelievable opportunity to be in Thailand during Songkran which is the Thai New Year. To celebrate, the city turns into one big, water gun “war zone”. Everyone comes out armed with water guns, buckets, or for a lot of us water bottles and the best attitudes to ring in the New Year. One of our weeks of ministry was spent building relationships with young adults that ran a coffee shop near our hostel who some on our team were able to share the gospel with. During the water festival, they invited us to join with them in the fun and boy did they know what they were doing. While we continuously “reloaded” in the bathtub and water hose our new friends provided, we were able to meet and talk to so many people. A guy from England joined our group for the day, Matt shared Jesus with some Jewish guys who could read his Hebrew tattoo, some college guys from Norway came and went a few times, and some people braved sharing a skewer of precarious meat with some guys who seemed like they were from the Middle East. It blows my mind that some of us may never go to some of these countries, but a seed was still planted either in word or action because of the love of Jesus and His heart for the nations.
Eating our way to the gospel.
Life is ministry and ministry is life. This is real to me now and I will only keep learning as we experience two more months of ATL. Talking to people is typically difficult for me to do because what are you supposed to say and transitioning to the gospel is especially hard. I do not claim to have that part down yet by any means, but I did get to share with my team this month that talking to people is not as difficult as I always thought. People don’t typically have very high expectations; they just want to be seen and loved. Ask any of our ministry partners, my squad or the girl working the ice cream station at McDonalds this month and they will tell you, I am very food motivated. So what better way for the Lord to work in ways that I least expect than when I am focused on food. “Oops, you were ‘off the clock’ for ministry? This is what it looks like to live ministry, now make it your life.” We went as a team to dinner with our leaders one night. There is an amazing Thai restaurant a stones throw from our hotel that we all go very frequently. We know and love the owners and have enjoyed learning their story. Robert, one of the owners, from America, was taking the orders for our group of 11 and was trying to be as quick and efficient as possible. When he was finished, he paused at the table a moment and said, “Can I just tell you all something? We get alot of tourists in here and they aren’t always the most pleasant. There are alot of you and we are often busy but even in that, you all are always so kind and patient. When we reflect on our day as a staff, it is better when any part of your group comes in. You all really change the atmosphere in here.” Needless to say, we tried to tone down our incredibly choked up responses. All I could do was think, Lord, you are being glorified and revealed through our consistency at a restaurant, through the way we treat each other and through the way we “see” people because you want them to feel loved. A similar thing happened on what was supposed to be an “off day”. We were sitting in a fairly large group at a different favorite food spot openly talking to each other. We hear behind us, “Excuse me, I heard you say you were missionaries and I was wondering if you’d mind if I joined you because I’d love it if you’d share the gospel with me.” What a beautiful conversation we got to have with this new friend over lunch and the fruit that we are praying comes out of the conversations continued as he spent several days with some people from our squad including Easter Sunday.
Obviously, all of these stories seem like an oops moment to us, but there is no such thing to God. His goal is to receive glory and pursue the lost and He is willing to interfere with our plans to make sure that happens. We, as imperfect humans, can get upset that our goals weren’t met or have trouble considering a water gun fight ministry or think opportunities were missed because the taxi took you to the wrong stop. (If you’d like more oops stories from this month, shoot me a message!) The Lord is constantly at work and He is always inviting us to partner with Him, but the question is, are you willing? Are you willing to put aside your rigid definition of ministry? Are you willing to talk to that person at the shop? Will you see “oops moments” as divine appointments even though you may never know what comes of the conversation even if you don’t have an opportunity to bring up the name of Jesus? Praise the Lord we serve a God who is alive and active even if we don’t always know what He is up too, but luckily all He asks is for our obedience and our willingness to say Yes in all things.
In the process of building relationships, she mentioned she had a snake. So of course to show her we care, I asked if we could hold it! haha
