Okay – I’m going to be honest with you. Getting to Thailand was brutal. I left the house at 4:30am on Monday morning, rode 5 hours, took one 14 hour flight, and one 4 and a half hour flight. Upon arriving after midnight Thailand time on Wednesday morning in Bangkok airport, I had been traveling for over 31 hours. I’m not looking forward to the journey home.
But the upside of that travel time was meeting and getting to know a lot of the team who is traveling with me. I heard some great stories on the way as well. I heard a story about a chicken farmer who prayed that God would tell him whether to keep chicken farming part time and pastoring part time or whether he should become a full time pastor. That night, a storm came that wiped out half of his chicken pens. He got the hint and entered ministry full time.
I heard how one of our team members found herself in a conversation with someone on the plane that even without really trying became centered on Christianity and what Christians believe. This person was able to use the long flight to share and even allow the questioner to watch a video about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection while flying. The film brought her to tears as she said, “I believe that all of this happened to Jesus.”
And although technically it happened after we landed, I heard a story about a Thai man who was living in America and had his windshield broken one day on the interstate when a block of ice from the car in front of him came crashing through. Fortunately, he was not injured at all. This led to an encounter with a Christian pastor who gave a message about thanking God for everything – this person wondered why he didn’t feel the need to thank God after coming through his car accident unscathed. While that question was nagging at him over the next couple of weeks, God brought a person into his Thai food restaurant that had grown up in Thailand as a missionary kid. This customer was able to answer the questions in his mind and he gave his life to Christ pretty soon after that.
These were all vivid reminders of a God who intercedes in the lives of those who seek him. In Jeremiah 29:13, God tells the nation of Israel who had turned away from him that one day they would seek him and find him when they sought him with all of their heart. The reason the long trip is worth it is because I know that there are people here who are seeking God and I can’t wait to watch those stories unfold.
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