Please read the first part first.
Little did I know that that was his last Friday.
I came bounding back from the market with Erin on Sunday night and ran into our translator, Lah. She tells me that Pastor wants us to sing at a funeral and I shake my head in agreement.
“Did you know him? The man who died, did you know him?” I ask.
“Yes, it was the man that we prayed for.”
My heart sunk to the bottom of my stomach and I felt sorrow wash over me. With a heavy heart, I said ok and forced myself up the stairs to avoid an awkward situation.
The next morning, Team Pneuma headed out for our last invitation to teach English and we gave it all we had and a few kids even came up for the prayer for salvation, but in the back of my mind, I will still thinking about him.
He was dead.
The man we prayed for so fervently, had died and we were going to his funeral that night. This is not what I expected when I signed up for the World Race.
That afternoon, I talked with different teammates about it and most were at peace because that man was experiencing the ultimate healing in being away from the sin, death, pain, and misery of this world, but my spirit was not as settled.
I laid on my sleeping pad and talked to my teammate Jenny about it.
“Yes, I get that God answers prayers in different ways than we expect and yes, I understand that this man has been healed in the eternal sense, but we were not made to deal with death. Death was never part of God’s plan and even though rationally, I see the good, emotionally, death is still hard and I hurt for the people hurting.”
But then, I started to think about those hurting people.
Those hurting people are still alive.
Those hurting people can still hear the gospel.
Those hurting people can still hear the gospel and be transformed by the furious love of the Maker of the universe.
Hope and joy began to surge through my body when I started to become more and more aware of His master plan.
His goal is to get the most glory and in this situation; this man’s death served as a platform for Jesus to be proclaimed to those who are perishing.
God, you are so good! I see what you did there!
I have never in my life been excited to go to a funeral until yesterday.
I started to see outside of myself and started to see how God was going to pour out Himself to these people at the funeral.
The family is split: some are Christian and some are Buddhist, so there were two ceremonies. The Buddhist ceremony and then the Christian one.
When we arrived, the Buddhist monks were saying prayers and there were a lot of rituals happening and we observed and waited for our turn.
[In case you were wondering, Thai funerals are very informal. There are plastic chairs set up under an outdoor tent; children passing out water, coffee and soup; and many conversations happening around the grounds.]
The clock hit 8:35 and it was time to transition. Out with acknowledgement to false gods, idols, and the dead and in with adoration and worship for the one true God, the living, breathing God of the Bible.
“Your love is deeper than my view of grace, higher than this worldly place, longer than the road I travel, wider than the gap you filled.”
Team Pneuma sang those sweet words into the atmosphere and with eyes closed and hearts abandoned, we surrendered our voices to Jesus and prayed that through the language barrier, those sweet Thai people would feel his love.
We sang hymns in Thai and English and gave honor to God for this man, a monk who had found Jesus less than 10 years ago.
Can you imagine encountering Jesus in your 70s?!
At the end of the funerals, we gathered around the family and laid hands on them and prayed prayers of blessing and encouragement over them and I felt so privileged to be a part of their story.
Maybe our prayers killed that man, but in that moment, our fervent prayers were speaking life into the dead and dormant crevices of that family’s heart and I believe that many more will come to know Jesus from his death.
Romans 8:28: And in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
