“You will be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to testify to them and to unbelievers…” Matthew�10:18
Eight of us brought it in closer, sitting side-by-side in a diner. What’s the plan? Any ideas? Someone whispered low about the Russian mob having just come into the city, that they’re involved here and now, and that’s why bar ministry isn’t permitted this month. We sat back, our food being set before us, and set a plan. Since Aimee had a fever back at our place and we didn’t want to separate as a group, we’d stay one more day in Chiang Mai before �moving out to the village. �But we’d be intentional. We could…do a lot of different things. Servant-hearts offered to do laundry for teams with members at the hospital; someone wanted to give encouragement to team-mates; who wants to go prayer-walking to a temple? I did! I always do…
At 11:30, Jen, Anika, Sara, and I set out in blazing 100-plus-degree weather, and quietly prayed on our walk. Jen said we should go to a new temple, one that we hadn’t seen on our Monday tour. Yes. Good idea. Several sweat-drops and a stop for refreshment later, we came to two temples, right across the street from each other. Which one should we go to? The bigger one.�
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Fancy, fancy, with lots of steps. “Naka” statues lined the steps. (Those were snakes with five snakes coming out of each mouth, meant to ward off evil spirits.) A man and woman sat at the entrance of the temple, and the man said, “Yes, of course you can come inside!” We knew to slip off our shoes. A bright red carpet felt our bare feet. Buddha, large and stately, sat there in front, on the right, to the left. But there was no one inside but us. Anika suggested, “No one’s inside, guys. Why don’t we sit down and pray?” So we folded our feet delicately, trying not to offend anyone with the soles of our feet. Culture. Good job, guys.
As we opened our mouths to pray, a man came and put a fan on, a welcome manner in this climate! He went out. The man at the door came in. He was small, middle-age, and amiable. �Like we had already planned a lesson in Buddhism, he sat in front of us and began relating the teachings which he follows. Ten minutes into our lecture, I noticed smiles forming on my team-mate’s mouths, saying that they were thrilled by the door the Lord had just cracked open with this man. The man introduced himself. “T-O-I” he said. �By then we had already been talking for a while. The sun beams on the carpet had already moved noticeably. �
Toi told us about the temple, that the king of Thailand built it in 1973. �Suddenly an elderly monk walked by, and Toi explained to us who he was. �He–at eighty-three years old–oversees the 1,300 temples that are in Chiang Mai, and Toi is his care-giver. �”You will be brought before governors and kings because of me, to testify to them and to unbelievers…” When all of a sudden Toi mentioned Jesus in his lecture, we saw the heavens open up and that cracked door turned loose to full exposure. Gospel time, straight ahead.
“I have read the Bible,” Toi explained. “A man from Lithuania gave me a Bible, so I read the stories.” A thought came to mind. He, as a Buddhist, loves the earth and the circle of life, so Genesis came to my mind. “What do you think of Genesis?” I asked the kind man. “Yes, I’ve read it,” he reminded me. I asked God for clarity, wanted to be respectful. The man had even gone to get a book of Buddha’s teaching for us, when I asked him if there was a book for his religion. He had been speaking of the Bible and Koran, so I was curious to know if he had a book as well. I circled back around to Genesis.
“In the beginning of the world, God made the animals and humans. He took dust from the earth, and He made a man from it. And then! He breathed His breath into him!…God told the man and woman that they could eat from absolutely any tree in the beautiful garden. Only one they couldn’t eat from…Humans were good, until they ate from the forbidden tree of good and evil…God asked, “Where are you?” and had to clothe their nakedness…Jesus was slain from the beginning of the world…God came off His throne in heaven, became a human, came into the world naked, just like Adam and Eve were…for us…” Toi nodded. Exhilaration surged through my veins. The Gospel makes so much sense.
“Jesus said that unless a seed goes into the ground and dies, it can not bear fruit. But He said that if it dies, it will be good for us…When He was placed in the ground, He was the seed that died…The first thing He told one of His followers when He came out of the ground was, “I go to My Father and your Father…” God is our Father. �
Toi smiled, seeming delighted.�
Anika, Sara, and Jen were listening and sharing the Gospel, each having a different perspective and Holy Spirit inclination. Toi listened, for three hours. God turned a simple prayer-walk into a time for the care-giver of the overseer of all Chiang Mai temples–a man honored by the king–to hear about salvation. Toi welcomed us to visit him again soon. He heard about Jesus simply because we were available to where the Spirit would take us.
