God's not dead!
Just watched this film with my brother and a friend and it is so true! God is not dead here, nor in the rest of the world. From my adventure to Thailand, despite seeing many obstacles and barriers to the gospel being spread, we got to witness God's kingdom grow and be apart of the process! From what we had learned in the lectures, and experienced in our time in Chaing Mai, Chaing Rai, Bangkok, and Pattaya, there are many ways to share the gospel; but out of all the lectures and visual acts of sharing that we experienced, one thing is for sure, credibility. To share the gospel it is important that our lives reflect what we say. Actions speak louder than words, and we are constantly being renewed.
Our lifestyle will speak about what is important, and especially in Thai culture, relationships are intertwined with your values.
God is so good! He remains faithful though we are broken. We were pushed to our limits during our out reach time--for about 2 months we worked about 8-9 hour days in the heat, painting, scraping, moving, and cleaning, then later to come home eat, and usually plan for the future events and more meetings. But despite the physical condition, one of the most cherished things that we learned during that time was the power of prayer. It seems so small, but is so strong. Going back to even the beginning of my time in Thailand, even during the lecture phase which lasted about 3 months, when we prayed and interceded together as a body, that is when we got to hear the stories of prayers answered. Not only that, but it was cool to see the heart focus of our prayers transition into something that we got to witness in the later outreach time to come. God is so GOOD!
We begun by praying for an issue that heated our hearts and burned with a distaste for injustice as we prayed for the issue of human trafficking. We were given the home work assignment to research it and see what we could find out about it. Angrily many of us felt a sense of hopelessness as we wanted to change the circumstances and situation. But as we discussed, we realized we do not have the ability to change it by our power nor ourselves. As we began to intercede and cry out, our worship leader Tab encouraged us to write words that stuck out to us as we prayed. Words like family, hurt, and other things cam to be written, root of the human trafficking issue. But what was unique was out of the three pieces of largely cut paper-a body, a heart, a triangle- each which represented a catagorization method for the words or visions received. As the weeks passed, there came a time where our prayer focus changed, as we realized we can not stop it from the outside in, but tour heart cry was directed toward the rising generation of Thai people. For the youth. As well as came the vision for the Thai church to arise. It has been years of missionaries trying to evangelize the gospel in Thailand, but many have had trouble and there remains a percentage of less than 2% of Thai's claim to be christians.
We got to witness in the North that God is raising up a generation of Thai and Hilltribe leaders to proclaim his message. People after His heart. It was amazing to work with the Christian Paisanart School in Chaing Rai, as well as see brothers and sisters becoming apart of the community and patiently proclaiming the Gospel through the means of Business! God is alive! One of my highlight moments was seeing kids come running to the front to receive Christ, and not only kids but one of the ladies that take care of the kids who had been having physical problems and worships idols, come to the front to accept Jesus Christ, with tears in her eyes I got to see her come. The Lord knows those who are his and is claiming lives for himself! Praise God! The second amazing answer to prayer was the prayer for the 200 mattresses for the kids. Praise God for providing !!! Not only did he provide but he has such a sense of doing it. He used our group to put together the things we had, and he multiplied it! Not only that but I had made a comment that I felt that the mattresses were going to come falling out of the sky if that was even possible right? But the day that they presented the mattresses, they had the kids tossing them off of the 2nd floor balcony where they were stored! They were falling out of the sky! So cool right?
Something as simple as a mattress, but I think it was just one way that God wanted to reach out and love on those kids, to show them that even the most basic things he cares about, and that he wants good for them not harm. What an amazing God we serve.
God is not Dead!
Thank you all for your prayers and support; for your time and love to send me to Thailand to learn about the Kingdom Business. its practices. I have been awefull on keeping everyone posted and I am very sorry about the delay time. I know that especially during the challenging months your prayers were heard as God has used your prayers and love to give not only me but the team strength as we were pushed to our limits; He hears, and nothing is impossible for him. Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Chaing Rai who are sowing, planting and reapung dailiy for God's kingdom. A comon struggle was the desperate need for workers, and for encouragement. Also pray for the Tamar Center in Pattaya who continue to pull girls out of bars by sharing the gospel and intentionally living life with them; Also for brothers and sisters in Bangkok whom are using Businesses to glorify God by doing it with excellence and making him known in and out tf the workplace. And las but not least, pray for our brothers and sisters in Chaing Mai who continue to train and reach out into various parts of Thailand to show Christ's love. Blessing and may God continue to recieve all the Glory for the work we do, how ever large or small. Start as a servant, God will do the Big :)
