Praise

I just want to thank those of you who are praying for Yod. He came into class on Friday while we were teaching a few students, came over to me, and said, "Seven days." I didn't know what to think...."seven days?" What does that mean? He said, "Story, finish the story." Ahh! Yes, the story! And I did. I told him about sin and the Israelites and sacrifices. I told him about the Lamb of God who was a sacrifice for everyone. I told him that everyone has sinned. He agreed. I told him how we need a savior. He wasn't so sure. He believes that if one lives good enough then he can go to heaven. But what is "good enough?" We finished talking about these things, and I sensed that we should talk about something else. And we did.

About 20 minutes later, I sensed we should talk about the Bible again. And we did. I asked him to write a list of things that he thought God was like. He didn't really understand the exercise, but I wrote a list of things that I thought about God. I'll try to post that list later. Then I told the story of the Prodigal Son. When I teach about the Bible, I like to write most of what I say - at least the hard words. I also draw a lot of pictures (even though I'm an awful artist). I told the whole story about the Prodigal Son making sure he really understood it. At the end, I asked what do you think? He took my pen and circled one of the words I had listed about God - forgiving. Exactly! The father is a picture of our Father. I let him know that the story was important to me. It held meaning for me in my life. That seemed to make an impression on him. It wasn't just a random story. It had deeper meanings. That was all for that day. Please continue to pray that I get more opportunites to share the love of God with him.

stu

20 Days Left

There are 20 days left, and we're trying to make the most of it. We still have a couple of weeks of teaching and an English camp next weekend. And then back to America.

Please pray for my friend - we'll call him Yod cause that's his name. I asked him to tell me about the beginning. He personally believes we all come from a single cell (but who really knows?), and then I asked him to tell me what most Thai people believe. He told me an interesting story that truly was kinda cool. I told him what Christians believe. We walked through the 7 days of Creation. I had just finished talking about the first human sin, and then he had a phone call and had to go to a meeting. Please pray that God will give me another opportunity to finish the story and explain why we need a Saviour.

Thankfully others in our group have been able to talk about Jesus. It's refreshingly easy to speak about faith and God in this culture rather than my collegiate bubble.

Please pray that the Holy Spirit would move and convict and shed truth to our friends. I was talking with one of our missionaries last night at dinner about how it's not our responsibility to "win souls" or to "save people." We're called to be obedient. We also talked about how much faith it takes to believe that God sent his Son 2000 years ago to die on the cross and be raised to life. It's a ridiculous story. Think about how foolish it sounds. Pretend you've never heard about the Bible or God's love. Those are our friends - they haven't been taught about Jesus since the day they could form sentences. They've been taught Buddhism and how one must "make merit." Thankfully, it's the Holy Spirit's job to reveal real truth to people. We're called to be obedient.

stu

Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai Friday morning by overnight bus. I was actually able to sleep pretty well on the trip. It's been great so far to be able to relax and enjoy our little holiday!

On Friday, we walked around the city for much of the day. The girls enjoyed a nice American hamburger and french fries. Unfortunately for me, I had already eaten breakfast and wasn't very hungry. We walked around some more and went to the night market around 5. We had booked a trip to go zip lining for Saturday morning, and we had to leave at 7 AM so we decided to call it an early night after some good Thai food.

Zip lining was great! There were 7 of us in all, and we had 2 guides - So and Mai (or Mike, I'm not sure). I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know one guy in particular. He was a Turkish Muslim married to an Indonesian Christian (probably some orthodox version), and they both lived in Holland. They spoke English well, and we talked about everything from politics to religion to movies to computers to history. I had a hard time understanding how a Muslim could be married to a Christian, but he said there are many ways to God. I then asked what he thought about John 14:6. He didn't really have an answer. He kept referring to how the Koran and the Bible had many similar stories and ideas. I wanted to say of course, but the Koran was written well after the Bible - perhaps some of those ideas were borrowed. Anyway, we had great discussion about lots of topics! He was very interested about the States as was I about Europe. I realize how much I love meeting people from different backgrounds and experiences. The other fellow adventurers were both from Malaysia. I found out near the end of the trip that he was in banking and finance. Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk that much. Sad day.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a three hour nap. We went to the night market again last night, and I got some Mickey D's. It was fantastic. My stomach had truly missed the grease and the salt. It was nice, but I really have become accustomed to Thai food. I know I'm going to miss it when I get back to the States. I stayed up late last night reading, and woke up late this morning. It's nice to be able to relax, but I've also realized that I miss Maha Sarakham. I think that there are just too many white people here. Too much English. I feel like a pro since I know a few Thai phrases and words. But it doesn't matter here because so many people speak English. Haha, oh well, we'll be back in a few days. Hope everything is well at home!

stu