Say “YES!”

I’ll start by saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Yes, I know I’m late. But here in Thailand, Christmas is celebrated loosely and New Year is celebrated from January 1st through the Chinese New Year in February, so I’m trying to get away with it… is it working?😀 Well, in any event we do pray that each and every one of you had a wonderful Christmas and are beginning this new year full of Hope, Faith, and Love.

This year, the day after Christmas, we celebrated Christmas with some people we’d never met before. We visited a home for blind children. Some of the children had birth defects, eyes that didn’t work properly, some had no eyes at all. Some were only blind and for others a lack of eyesight was just one of several physical and/or mental challenges.

We had been invited by Bangkok First Church to participate with them in the Home’s Christmas party. The children sang some prepared songs, played games, and received gifts. A few parents and relatives had come to be with their children for this occasion. It was joyful and noisy. We sang fo them and Kevin shared the “good news of great joy!” In the midst of it all I made a new friend. A young woman, recently graduated from high school, who had questions about her life, about what she should do, what she should study and do for an occupation, how best to study English, how to navigate growing up with her family. So many questions I didn’t have the answers to… but I was able to assure her that God had a plan for her life and that she could pray and seek God. I asked if I could pray with her. She said, “Yes… what is pray?” I explained that praying is talking to God. That God hears our prayers and listens and that she could pray to God and God would hear her as well. Her name is Bam (a common nickname). I was able to talk to her and pray with her and connect with her on Facebook.

When people ask us what we do here, I find it hard to give an answer. I teach English, we encourage pastors and Church leaders; we teach when asked; Kevin preaches; we lead Work & Witness teams; we wear many hats, but it’s encounters like this one that really define what we are here for. We are here to meet people face to face, to love on them, hold their hands, celebrate with them, form relationships. These are rarely one and done encounters.  We do our best to form friendships in which we can show the love of Christ and speak the Truth on a regular basis.

I’m the kind of person who likes to have a job, accomplish it (cross it off the list) and move to the next task. That is not what Jesus calls us to do. Relationships take time, work, and sacrifice. They rarely come in the forms we want or expect.  But they are the way we reach people for Christ.  It’s the way Christ came and reached us.  Words are never enough, it’s why Jesus Christ came as the Living Word—the Word made flesh.  He walked among us, talked with us, shared our sorrows, was acquainted with our grief, healed wounds, and ultimately took our sin, our problems, on Himself.   This kind of love is, this kind of relationship is, hard.  It’s what He calls us to.

A few days ago, we went to restaurant on our street, a place we often frequent.  We’ve been trying to get to know the proprietors, trying to form a friendship.  We brought them Christmas cookies.  They gave us bananas grown in their garden.  In case you don’t know this, bananas grow in very large bunches.  The bunch of bananas that you pick up at the grocery store is probably about 1/4 – 1/3 of the bunch it grew on.  These lovely people gave us two whole bunches.  These bananas are excellent.  But there is no way we could finish them all before they turned.  So, what does any good, frugal American do with old bananas?  You guessed it!  We make banana bread (chocolate marbled banana bread, to be exact).  Kevin took a loaf to the restaurant owner.  This happened a few weeks ago.  This week, one of the ladies there, I think she’s one of the cooks, possibly one of the owners, came up raving about our “Banana Cake.”  She’d never had anything like it, she loved it!  Would I make it to sell at the restaurant?  Or would I teach her to make?  Of course!!  We exchanged numbers and now when there are extra bananas she is going to call me and we will bake banana bread together.

Who would have thought that I’d make a friend because my husband decided to share loaf of banana bread?  I’m excited to see where this goes and how God uses it.  Why am I telling you all of this?  Two reasons:

1.  You never know what will happen when you say yes to God.  Keep your eyes open.  Don’t push off those little nudges of the Holy Spirit to bake the bread, or send the email, or… ???  Don’t hesitate to say yes to something you’ve never done before or might not normally do or that might be inconvenient.  You have no idea what God can and will do with your small acts of obedience.  Both of the encounters I shared were unexpected and are still totally open ended.  Both came from us just trying to say yes to whatever God asks of us big or small.  Neither one of these experience is limited to the missionary experience.  Loving on people and being available is a way we can all serve.  Join us! Right where you are, ask God who you can bless and love on for Him today.  Ask Him to bring you people to build relationships with so that you can reflect Him.

2.  We don’t know what will happen.  We know God wants the people involved to come to know Him.  That’s His will.  We don’t know how He will use these encounters.  We would love to get to see these ladies and their families come to Christ.  Maybe we will.  Maybe we’re just breaking up ground or planting seeds. Frankly, that’s not really any of my business… it’s His.  He can use us as He sees fit.  But we do know we need prayer.  Please pray that we will be a blessing to everyone we encounter.  That we will overflow with love and extend grace.  Pray that our words and actions will be only exactly what God wants us to say and do.

This New Year… let’s do this together.  Let’s say yes to the big and the small.  Let’s offer what we have and do whatever He asks.  Let’s get personal, let’s be inconvenienced, let’s get messy.  Let’s let Him work through us to love the world as only He can.  We’ll pray for you.  Please pray for us.