| That is Thai for praise the lord!!!! so I was really worried about really being able to meet students in the last two weeks I have at Mae Fah Luang, and I was worried I would check out and not be useful, so I prayed that God would be able to use me even though I had such a short time left here in Thailand. As I see my roommates just getting even more and more restless, I can't help but get restless as well. But God heard my prayers, and was insistent on using me my last two weeks here. He helped me to meet three girls in very different ways. The very first day, we were charged to walk around campus and pray as we went. Jessica and I headed out, and we had not been praying more than 5 min when a girl walked up to us and asked about a christian cell group meeting. I was so speechless, and so on a mission I didn't act coherently. I babbled something about I have a friend that can tell her about when and where she can find one and gave her a phone number. later I realized I didn't even introduce myself to her! I also found out that she is a christian and knows campus crusade people in chiang mai, and was able to get a hold of the thai staff in chiang rai(my friend never even called her ) anyway she made it to church the following sunday and I was able to redeem myself there and properly introduce myself. That same night the first day of school we had a pizza party at our friends house near campus. we went and picked up a bunch of students, and people just keep showing up, it was great just to be able to see some friends we had not seen in a while, and also meet some new random people. among those people were two freshmen chinese girls. when we met them, I asked how the first day of school was going, and one of the girls just started pouring out her heart and sharing all the many probelms she was having. I then took that opportunity to tell her about my freshmen year of college and the role God played in it, and what I saw him doing in the lives of my friends. she was very interested, and wanted to meet up with me and my friends again. the next day we saw them walking around, and we were able to meet up and chat for a while. I started to ask her about how her second day went, and then she had a whole bunch of questions for me about how God could help her. this is where I think the Holy spirit came in and started to take over the conversation because I can't really remember what questions she asked, or what I answered, but I know I ended up sharing the gospel with her. I was able to tell her about how god loves all of us, but because of sin, we are separated from him, and can't experience his love and plan for our lives. so he sent his son jesus to bridge this gap, and through Jesus, through believing in him and inviting Him to some into our hearts through a personal decision, we CAN experience God's love and plan for our lives. when I was talking to her about this, she saidyes I think god can help me. and I wondered where she got that from, and then I remembered what I had told her the day before, and about how God helped me and my friends through stress and hard times my freshmen year. I asked her if she wanted to invite Jesus to come into her life and she said yes! later I was talking to one of my friends and she said the girl's friend that was with her is a Christian and has been trying to share about Jesus with her for a long time, but she had never been interested before. so praise the lord that I was able to share something with her that related to what she was going through, that she could understand the gospel better! the last story is a lot of fun. I think that tuesday before I met up with my chinese friend, I was sitting in a remote part of campus that students will visit when they have breaks during their classes. there weren't many students about, and most of them looked very occupied. usually I go and get a drink and just ask students if I can sit with them during the break. since there were no good groups to join, I just sat by myself, sort of collecting my thoughts and arranging my planner and schedule, making lists of stuff I needed to do, breaking to pray for students occationally in between thoughts. anyway as I was sitting there feeling completely useless, a girl I recognized, but I didn't know how I knew her called my name. I was very surprised. she asked what I was doing there and I said I was just waiting to talk to students. I asked if she wanted to sit with me for a while, so she sat down and two of her friends sat down as well. they asked what I was doing at the university, and when I told them I teach the bible one of the girls asked me very excitedly if I go to church ever friday. I told her I went on sundays. I asked her if she was maybe interested in coming with me on sunday. she asked very excitedly again if they sang songs about love and taught about love and I said yes. she asked if people who were not christian could go, I again replied yes, so I set up a time to meet her to go to church together on sunday. later I saw a friend of mine who goes to that church, and asked her if she could take Koong(it actually means shrimp) to church, since she would be going as well. she said she could call her and take her. so I saw koong on sunday and set up a time to meet with her today, monday. she said that she could. when I saw her today I asked her what she thhought of church. she said she was feeling bad or something later that night, and remembered something the pastor had taught about and opened up a bible my friend had given her and she said it made her feel better so she really liked it a lot. I then asked if she wanted to study the bible with my friends, and she said she would. as we got to talking more, we were talking sings songs in thai and about me learning to read thai to be able to sing the songs and I showed her the first real sentance I learned to read. I happened to have a booklet with the bible verse in it and read it to her. I then asked her if she wanted to go through the booklet with me, since it helped to explain what christians believe and she wanted to go through it. as we got to the end, it asks where you are in your life now, do you want to decide to have christ in your life? when I asked her this she said yes! so I gave her the booklet and she was going to go home and pray. she told me she had heard about christians from her friend and was very interested in christianity for a long time, and so I was glad I was able to share this with her. I was also able to answer lots of questions she had about various small things like praying and confessing sin and such. I am so glad God has been able to use me these past couple weeks. it's so strange how you can be working so hard one year to reach out to students and meet them and share about God with them, and many times they just want to practice english, and just meet you to practice their english. so it was very encouraging to be able to make a difference in a couple lives in just a few short days! it also makes excited to go back to the states and possibly continue to do campus ministry |
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