Our first day in Thailand has been all that I thought and SO much more.
I was challenged a few weeks back by our team leader to process and pray about what it was I was hoping and praying for God to do through this trip. What were my hopes, dreams and fears. What did I want God to do in me and through me. It took me a few days to really understand what God was asking of me and on our first day here, He has started answering.
My prayer was simple:
October 28, 2013
Where do I start?! Jesus! I want Jesus! I want to see Him in a real way that American culture has not shown me. I want to understand how to make Him SO important that nothing else matters! … I truly want God to be the center. To teach me whatever His plans are for me and for “my” hopes and desires to fade away. As cliche as it may sound, my prayer is that my life will say, “In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus!”We started our morning off with breakfast in the hostel dining room. It reminded me of college, on a very small scale. When it comes to foreign lands, sometimes you just have to be thankful for Peanut Butter and Jam toast, when you don’t know what the “soupy rice stuff” actually is or taste like. The OJ tastes like Tang, yum. The gals on my team and I cleared our plates and took the stairs to our floor to freshen up before our team meeting.
That’s when it all began and Thailand got real!
Our team leader, Connie, has been to Thailand with seven other missions teams here. WOW… this woman is a true lover of Jesus and someone I pray I can learn so much from. She has developed a plethora of relationships with people in the guest house, the spa, and even in the markets. They know her as soon as she appears and their eyes light up and the smile they flash is an absolute testament of the love of Christ she has shone in this place. She briefed us on some of the guest house staff and honestly, it was a fleeting thought after she shared it.
We were walking down the hallway to our room after breakfast and the cleaning staff was on the hall. Two Thai ladies. Short and thin. One with dark hair and the other bald. The story Connie shared came back; this was the friend she had met long ago who has been fighting cancer. We were greeted with the Thai “hello” which we were still working on the annunciation, not to insult the natives. They giggled and helped us learn the greeting: Swa-tee-ka. They grinned as we attempted the appropriate annunciation and inflection in our “hello”. We told them we were with Connie. The dark haired woman immediately smiled and began the charades game of showing us her friend has cancer and to pray. You know that sign, where you fold your hands together and bow your head. We all looked at each other, 3 of us, and tried to figure out if she wanted us to pray or if she was going to pray?! Little did we know she meant both.
Robyn jumped right in and prayed over these dear women, especially this sister who was fighting the battle of breast cancer. We all laid hands on her. It was a heartfelt and sincere bonding moment for our team. I mean we really hadn’t done much together yet, we just arrived a few hours earlier and had all of about four hours of sleep. Breakfast hardly qualified as “bonding” to start off such a journey with Jesus I thought. As soon as we said “Amen” together, their hearts smiled and thanked us for our prayers.
Then, without a word, the dark haired woman grabbed EVERYONE’S hands and put them in a pile, one of her hands on top and the bottom of all ours. She prayed. It was in a language I did not know but it was to a God I do know. A God I have seen move in my own life personally in ways I never thought or imagined. I had chill bumps like I had NEVER had while hearing a sister talk to our Heavenly Father. She said, “Amen” and we all hugged and went on our ways; they went back to house cleaning and we went on to our team meeting before heading out for ministry.
We all felt it.
We all knew He was there with us.
We all knew that Jesus showed up!!It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with two Thai women and three Americans, all because of a hallway.
