Life-On-Life…for real
26 Jul 2011 3 Comments
What do you do when people become followers of Jesus and are starting from ground zero? They don’t know what a Bible IS much less have ever seen one.
They don’t know ANY of the stories many of us take for granted, not one verse, no baseline of cultural assumptions about Jesus. Starting from scratch.
As best we can tell, this is what you do………..
LIFE ON LIFE, MISSIONAL DISCIPLESHIP.
You open your home, your family, your parenting, your marriage for all to see and watch. You pray for compassion and love to flow from you and through you. You pray you are a good witness, a good example. You pray that they will see Jesus in action and go deeper into understanding who He is.
It is messy, time consuming and very tiring. But it is the very essence of “go and make disciples” and it is worth pouring your life into.
Remember the woman who came to Christ a few weeks ago? We call her “J”. She is now part of our group and we are meeting weekly to disciple her. Remember our helper, P-Ou, who came to Christ at Christmas time? She is here too!
The Thais are leading it, the younger Christians are watching the more mature Thais lead it and they are learning how to lead too. All of this while the new believer learns for the first time. It is multiple levels of discipleship and we are super excited about it.
Would you please pray for us as we do this in our home weekly?
peanut butter & jelly evangelism and a storm upon our souls
15 Jul 2011 5 Comments
Let me tell you what happened yesterday. If you ever wonder if the stuff you read in the Bible is true, if you ever wonder if God is faithful or if He can really use a sinner like you and me…read on because He confirms all of that again in this story.
This story starts with a miracle. It starts with Panida. Many of you know about Panida. She is the Thai woman who was Muslim, she was Grace’s first language school teacher. Grace was the first of us to share the gospel with her. You can read more about her in posts from last year. Long story short, God moved in on her and she became a Christ-follower. I have had the privilege of discipling her and watching her fall more and more in love with Jesus. She is a witness in the truest sense. She tells people about Jesus, as best she can safely. She has some Muslim friends/family she is not safe sharing with (yet) and that is understandable. Yet even in that, she is seeking to grow and do more. Someone asked me recently what I love most about being a missionary in Bangkok. There are many hard things and it is critical to remember the things that brought you here and that power the ongoing desire to stay here in this work. My immediate answer was teaching the Bible (one-on-one or in a very small group) in Thai to Thai women. Particularly someone who has no idea what Jesus is about or what being a Christian means. So, naturally my favorite part of being in Bangkok has been times with Panida. She became a believer last September. She was publicly baptized (just let that sink in for a minute…former Muslim, publicly baptized). We meet twice a week to study the Bible and she teaches me Thai. She continues to dream of how she can open a Christian library or center for kids and adults to come to hear the gospel. We are praying for direction on that right now. Recently, she asked if she could bring a friend to our time together. She did it again this week and here is where the story picks up…
I knew very little about this woman. I knew Panida had met her a little while ago on this small island near where we live called Phra Pradaeng. She shared the Gospel with her and the woman said she wanted to come to church with Panida to hear more. The woman was a Buddhist. We will call her “ J ”.
When they arrived it was 3:45 PM. I did not think they would want to eat, so I did not prepare food. Wrong. I am learning to always have food ready. Always. So, all I had in the house was…..are you ready for this…….PB&J sandwiches, chips and tea. I needed to go to the grocery store! But thankfully, they really like PB&J and hot tea, so we were ok. We made the food and went to the living room. There are two couches and two chairs, but they both sat on the floor. So, we all sat on the floor and ate and talked. Yes, this is Asia.
“J” immediately started telling that she thinks all religions are good and people are good. Panida had told her why our family was here. She told me she was Buddhist, but she had heard of Jesus and wanted to hear more. We talked for while about family. She explained that she has four children. She is 48 years old. Her husband has taken another wife too, and that wife hates her. She said her husband had tried to kill her, so she had to leave the house. She has the four children with her. That was roughly five years ago. She also described suicide attempts, hopelessness and grief. Panida explained that the Bible teaches a lot about family, marriage, hope and life and that it all comes down to Jesus. Panida told her how captivated she was at seeing the peace in Christians, in their marriages and their families and in their struggles.
Panida suggested I tell her first about God creating the world, and go from there.
So we prayed first. I prayed for help. I mean I begged for help actually. I could hear it raining and thundering outside and I felt like God was very, very near.
I remembering specifically praying, “Lord, as we speak of You and tell her of You, please Holy Spirit come and do what only You can do…open her eyes and heart to know You, to know the truth of Jesus. Basically Lord, I am asking You for YOU. Please come and give us more of You. In Your right hand are pleasures forevermore, and our desire and pleasure is You. Please give “J” your peace.”
So we talked on that and then began a DVD Panida had brought called “Chuiwit Mai” or New Life. It starts with Genesis 1 and then explains through Revelation. It was clear and thorough. It taught on original sin, sin today as a result of that sin, Hell and Heaven, Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection and even judgement to come. It was 45 minutes long. I had never seen it presented like that in Thai.
When it ended, Panida asked “J” what she thought. She said, “TRUTH, that is truth”.
I was stunned. I think I may have even gasped. She explained she had never heard that before. She said she believed it all. Panida started to cry. I’ve never seen her cry, I am usually the one who cries. We talked more and more. “J” said she felt covered in peace. She said she felt like if she died right then she knew she would be ok because of Jesus. She said she never knew how to be forgiven, but now she saw. She said she wanted to tell her family, other people she knows. She said very few people here know about this. Panida confirmed that, she continually tells me that.
So, we prayed and asked and answered many questions. It was 5 hours of intense discussion. In the end, Panida lead her in a prayer of salvation. She will begin meeting with us weekly to study the BIble. I am going to pick her up at the pier Sunday and take her to church with me. Panida is out of town on an evangelistic outreach retreat. Amazing, isn’t it? God changes everything. EVERY THING.
Please pray for her and for us all. Things rarely look like we think they will…PB&J, sitting on the floor in Asia watching a storm move in upon our souls. God is saving people.
here we are…just before they left
I finally got them to sit on the couch for a picture! Five hours on the floor, one minute on the comfe couch!
Thank you for reading.
-paula
Gkanika and the kiddos every Saturday
14 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
Things have blossomed on Saturdays for us and the ministry we do at Gkanika’s church is expanding.
Recently, after a morning there while having some noodles with the kids, I asked a little girl about food. I asked her is she likes to cook. She replied yes, but what she really wanted was to one day make a cake. I told her, “Hey, I can teach you that!”
For the first time since moving to Asia, I was glad to own a toaster oven as my only oven. Its portable! Gkanika really wants to help the kids learn English (second only to the Bible) so I had the idea to teach the cake baking while teaching the English vocabulary of the ingredients too. Fun and English. All that came AFTER the Bible lesson I assure you! 
It was really fun! The kids loved it! They were afraid of the hand-held mixer though, which surprised me considering the machines they are so near everyday!
the sick boy
14 Jul 2011 1 Comment
A few Sundays ago, I was trying to keep up with the pastor (all of it is in Thai) and my mind started wandering. I had this thought…what if there are sick kids today in the slums, maybe we should go to them and pray for them after we spend time with the other kids. We always pray for the kids, but this was going to be different. I tucked the thought away and tried to focus again on the sermon in Thai.
Here is Da praying for some of the healthy kids
But I kept thinking about the sick ones and wondering if we could pray for them too…
Later as our time was ending in the slums, I went to one of the women who leads the children’s ministry outreach (Knot) and asked her about maybe praying for any of the kids who were sick. She agreed and quickly began asking around if there were sick children we could go to and pray for. One little girl (probably 7 years old) came running up and said yes, her little brother had been very sick and could not come outside. She said she would take us to him. So Knot, Bobby and I began the trek deep into the slum to find the area this family lived in.
My mind started to wonder, is it going to be ok with his family if we show up like this? What if people are drunk or hostile toward us? The deeper we walked the more graphic the scene became. Water everywhere, tin sheets as walls, visible people lying around. You can see into each room/area, zero privacy. It is filthy, it is incredible poverty. The little girls seemed oblivious. They were skipping and laughing, holding my hand and my arms. Smiling and excited that were we coming with them. I began to pray silently in my heart…”Lord, please give us courage, let Your Spirit fall upon this place. Keep us calm and protect us, please help these people.” We kept walking deeper into the slum community, turning down paths and seeing more and more people.
Finally we got to the place where the boy lived. Knot spoke for us and explained that we wanted to help. Could we see him and pray for him? The father agreed and brought him out. He was maybe 3 or 4 years old and covered with chicken pox. I could tell Knot was concerned. She whispered to me in English…”be very careful, don’t touch him. It is very contagious.” She also said, “Pee Paula, I have never had chicken pox”. I knew that both Bobby and I HAD had it and we would be ok. So, we knelt down, reached for his little hands, and began to pray for him. I could hear Bobby and Knot praying as I did too, yet all else went very quiet. “Lord please heal this child. Lord, let Your love be known by this miracle to all who live here. Let your healing power come upon him and give him Your peace. Please protect this family from getting sick and please open their eyes to Your love”.
After we finished and opened our eyes, this little boy was kneeling before us perfectly still and silent with his eyes closed. I feel certain no one had ever prayed for him like that. It was really surprising to see him still kneeling there, eyes closed and perfectly still. Maybe God’s peace was already upon him, I don’t know, but it was beautiful to see!
The girls followed us all the way to our cars as we were leaving. Here is a picture of them:
the kids at Kaset slums
14 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
Recently we were back to the slum community behind Kaset University, to do work with the childrens’ ministry from Covenant Church. Our team of six people from Perimeter Church was here and we took them as well. We played games, sang songs and just had a great time with the children.
We taught (with a skit) the Bible lesson of Moses and God opening the Red Sea. As always, many of the adults watched from a distance…but they watched and I know they can see our love for the kids (and for them too). We taught English to the kids too, simple 15 minute lessons practicing pronunciation.
