The blessing of dirty dishes

We live next to a music school and on Saturday mornings the sounds of the piano or electric guitar can be heard.  The owner invited our kids over to spend time at their home/ music school to visit with other children.

Today Jack spotted a couple kids outside and asked if they could go over.  Although we share a fence, the enterance is on the road behind us.  I let Jack ride his bike over and once he had permission to stay, I took Callie to the fence and lifted her over.  A woman came running over, "Where are you from?!"

Before I continue, let me paint a picture for you: I was in one of Ken's t-shirts (that had been smeared with cinnamon from baking), yoga pants, my hair was piled on top of my head, I was sporting my glasses, and had batter on my hands because I was in the process of making bread.  I was a hot mess (it was 90 degrees outside;)

I smiled and and told her, "America."  I learned that she is Thai, but married a Westerner and lived in America for over a dozen years.  She moved back here in the Spring and felt lonely, didn't really know anyone, missed the U.S. and her son, (age 6) wanted to move back home.  She said that Christmas-time didn't feel the same, so I invited her to a Christmas pageant that we would be attending.  She said, "Yes! You know about God?  I am Buddhist but I want to know and I want to teach my son, but I don't know anything about it.  I know that Christmas is Jesus' birthday."

Shocked, and elated, I quickly agreed to teach her and invited her over. She hugged me (this is not common here!)  I wanted to cry and here's why:  I prayed just 2 days ago that God would give me someone who wanted to hear the Gospel.  We've shared with many people here and although they are kind and polite, they want nothing to do with the Gospel.  But now, someone is ASKING ME TO TEACH HER ABOUT THE LORD!!!

Her son came over to play and I went back to baking and cooking because we had invited a family over for dinner.  A bit later there was a knock at the door.  Callie's new Thai friend (who doesn't speak English) was smiling through the window.  My heart felt full.  The Lord is literally bringing people to our home!!

Soon after, my new friend was at the door to collect her son.  She sat and visited with me for a while and I invited her to stay for dinner. She said, "Really?"  I nodded.  She stood up, hugged me and began crying.  I don't remember what she said exactly, but she thanked me.

As I cooked she talked with me about how homesick she was, even though this is her country, she had been away so long that it no longer felt like home here.  While she talked with Ken about education and I made a dash for the bathroom to throw some make up on, but in my contacts, and do something with the mop of hair on my head, but there was no time to change my clothes).  I also sent a text to our friends to let them know we'd have extra company for dinner.

The couple that came are wonderful believers and he, though American, was raised here.  So he understood the way she felt.  Isn't that awesome that the Lord brought them?  His timing is perfect!  When it came time to eat, we gathered around to pray. Our new friend called her son over to explain what was about to happen, "We are going to pray to the God now."

Dinner and fellowship was such fun.  Our new friend kept saying, "Who can believe this?  I take my son to music class for the first time and here I am!"  I smiled, "God had a different plan for you today."  When it came time to leave she said, "For the first time in 6 months, I am happy to live here, thank you.  Maybe God want me here today."

After everyone left and the kids were in bed, I stared at the dishes with thankfulness.  Most every plate, cup and pot I had were dirty, but I was thankful because it meant our home was full of people.  I searched for the right word to describe the feeling: joy.  I felt filled with joy.

With dishes done, I sat and realized, "This is what I am here to do."  It's the same thing I did in the states. We have only been here a little less than 3 months, but I felt so scattered: trying to find a church, and plug in to a ministry or outreach, but knowing my primary ministry was to be home, teaching and discipling our children.  But look!  God let me stay home and do just that, AND He brought people to us.  I am just in awe of Him today.

Thank you to all of you who pray for us.  God gave us the right home- not because of the size or layout, but because of the people around it that He is bringing in!  Please keep praying.  I truly hope I am able to teach and share with our new friend and pray that the Lord will continue to equip us to accomplish the work He has for us here. 

The Egg Hunt and the unexpected...

Today was our annual Easter Egg Hunt at church.  It was such fun: baby sheep and their mommy, as well as little bunnies to pet, a craft, food, and of course eggs to hunt. 

Our devotional time is the most important because of the opportunity it provides to share the gospel with families who wouldn't otherwise come to church. This year our lesson focused around how baby animals are born to become like their parents.  Their ears listen for their parents calling them, their eyes see danger and their feet carry them away from danger. 

I then used this baby in my ever-growing tummy to help make a point:  my child is becoming more like me as it grows, but like me, it will be born with sin.  I used passages of scripture like Romans 5:19 to tell the children that we're all born of Adam, making us all sinners.   However, God didn't leave us in our sin.  Instead, He sent Jesus Christ to rescue us!  He is the only one who was perfectly obedient to His Father, therefore He is the only One who can take away sin.  

We then looked at the life of Christ, a baby who grew to be like His Father.  His ears heard the cries of the blind men alongside of the road; He healed them, and they followed Him.  His eyes saw danger, but He did not turn the other direction.  Instead, "He set His face for Jerusalem."  He knew what awaited, yet He willingly went.  When He arrived in Jerusalem, His feet carried Him to Calvary instead of running from certain death.  He did that for you and me!

"For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."  Romans 5:19

You don't have to live in sin any longer.  By repenting, turning from sin and following Christ, you can be born-again!   If you are a Christian, your life should be lived to grow to be more like your Father: to hear the needs of others and serve them and follow God by obeying Him and sharing the good news of Jesus rising from the dead to save us! 

The egg hunt, food, and fellowship followed.

Later that evening, back at home, we decided to head to Chattanooga.  I had a return to make and had a couple errands to run.  As soon as we took off down the road, it down-poured.  About 15 min. into the drive we came upon a car on the shoulder of I-75 and two people walking ahead.  Ken and I kind of looked at each other and he pulled over.  To make a long story shorter, we gave them a ride. They were teenage boys, looking for their friend.  They used our cel phone and made plans to meet at the gas station.  While waiting, we found out this friend was also walking and they had no real plan of how to get their car fixed, or to get to their destination (downtown Chattanooga). 

 Within 10 min. the third friend showed up, walking in the rain, and got into the van with us.  We drove them downtown and since the rain was so loud, Ken and I could talk without them hearing us.  We felt led to share the gospel with them when we arrived at their drop-off.   We kind of laughed and shook our heads at these clueless boys from Dalton as they called a friend to meet them downtown.

Ken stopped the van in a parking lot.  "Before you leave, can we talk to you for just a few minutes?"  They agreed and listened attentively as we told them that there are no coincidences.  We thought we were going shopping today, but God had it planned for us to share something with you.  We asked if they believed the Bible to be true.  "Yes," said two, "Pretty much," said the third.  (It's always easier to proceed if you know the answer to that question I've learned). 

Here's a summary of the rest of the conversation:
"What would have happened if your car didn't just die along-side the road?  What if you were killed?  Where would you go- heaven or hell?"  They all just looked at us and said they had never really thought about it, but maybe heaven.  We shared how God is just and holy and how James 2:10 says that breaking 1 rule of God's is breaking all rules.  "If you haven't repented from your sin, you would be in hell.   He's using today to warn you of your sin and to repent, to be His child."  We explained what Easter really was about. " I hope God is softening your heart to hear and receive this.  It's up to you now, you have the opportunity to respond to what you've heard."  They sat quiet with eyes focused on us.  After a while I think we said, "Thank you for listening."  They thanked us and we handed each of them a Bible tract on the "10 reasons Christ Came to Die" as they crawled out of our van.

We hoped they would have responded immediately by turning their hearts to the Lord, but that wasn't how it ended.  Please pray for them, that they wrestle with their sin and guilt until it is made right with God.

Last night, I was able to attend "Secret Church" a 6 hour event (which ended up being almost 7) to study Heaven and Hell and what is to come.  I learned how Christ spoke more about hell than anyone and that we shouldn't apologize for sharing the truth of it with others.  David Platt said, "How much do you have to hate someone, to sit in the cubical at work next to them, and never tell them about Christ."  I needed to hear that. So often I neglect to include the reality of hell and the punishment it brings eternally.  I think it's an inward struggle for me....I want to encourage others and build them up, but I also know that I need to tell them the Truth- the gospel.  I can't be a people pleaser, I must be a God- pleaser.

An unexpected conversation with a Cherokee man

My husband parked the mini-van and we unloaded the kids, bundling them up and being careful to avoid the puddles that had accumulated over-night.  This was our first visit to the Audubon Society and today offered many extra events because it was a fundraiser.  Our first stop made the top of the list for the kids: petting an owl and standing next to a falcon. 

Because the Audubon Society is on the Trail of Tears, many of the vendors were Native Americans.  I walked through a couple pottery booths while my husband took the kids to the restroom.   A tent-covered booth labeled, “Iroquois jewelry and Wampum,” (or something to that effect)  caught my eye because we’ll soon be studying Native American history in our homeschool curriculum.

The woman behind the counter greeted me and soon we were making small talk.  She immigrated from Germany and married a Cherokee man.  I told her that I would be leaving America in the coming months (God-willing) for Thailand and her eyes widened, “Thailand, why?!”  “We’ll be telling people about Jesus Christ, that because of our sin we need Him as Savior.”  Those weren’t the words I typically used to explain our move, but the Lord must have prompted me to say it that way.  She didn’t have much more to say, but moments later directed my attention to  a man standing at the entrance to the booth. “You want to talk about sin, you should talk to him.”  I think it caught us both off-guard because with confusion we both asked, “What?” 

“You have a question about sin,” she directed him.  The Native American man (her husband) said, “Oh sin, yes.  What sin will send me to hell?”  Honestly, I couldn’t believe God opened this door!  I was excited, yet focused on answering the question, “Any sin.”  He clarified, “But what sin?  Give me an example.”  I rattled off a few, from lying to cheating.  He didn’t believe in sin, and said he had none.  When I pressed him on the issue, he said that it wasn’t sin, just human nature.  He casually said that he was God.  I said very calmly, “You can’t be.  You have sin, and you can’t take mine away.  You are no different than me.”

My husband showed up at about this time and patiently stayed close by with the kids, while I shared the gospel with this man.  He grew up in church but said he had no example to follow, just an old man- a drunk that sat under a tree. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked.  “I had not one person to look to as an example.”  “Oh, yes I do.  You saw people who say they are Christians but are really just hypocrites.”  I don’t think he expected that answer, but he revisited that excuse more than once, “I have no one to follow, no example.” 

I prayed in my head, asking God to give me scripture and words to speak.  He did.  “You have an example, just like I do: Jesus.  People will always fail, because they have sin.  If you watch my life, I will sin and disappoint you.  The conversation continued like a country road, winding away, and then coming back.  I told him we all have sin, and need someone without sin as our example and that is why we have Christ!  He was without excuse.

If you have any background knowledge you know that Native Americans are very “atuned’ to nature.  I asked who his creator was.  His only response was “the grandfather.”  He had no explanation for how life began, or an afterlife.  I spoke, “Look at creation; it testifies that there must be a God who created it.  Yet, all of this beauty will be destroyed.  My God is so loving that He warned us, through the Bible.  Isn’t that what a loving God would do?  Tell you?”  I shared how provided a solution to sin through Christ.

He listened and guided me to a wall of t-shirts for sale with statements of his faith across the back of them.  There were four and he led me to the first, asking me to read it.  We discussed the philosophy behind this shirt and the next.  I agreed that we should use only from nature what we need, but most of the other “spiritual” content was faulted.  T-shirt number three brought blunt truth from my lips.  To sum up the quote on this shirt: we are born innocent, people hurt us and we are not responsible for the kind of people it made us.  I finished reading it, “Well, that is a lie.  No one is born innocent, I have kids, I know.”  He proceeded to tell me that my children’s short-comings were a result of my thoughts and actions when I carried them in pregnancy.  I honestly took no offense to this and simply said, “My children were born of Adam, they are sinners.  They need a new-birth in Christ, one to take away their sin.”

“I want to know something,” he asked, “What will you think about me when you walk away from here?”  I looked into his face and spoke from the heart with tears forming in my eyes, “I want to cry, because I want you to know my God.”  I grabbed his arm and tugged his sleeve, “I want to pull you to Him and for you follow Him, but you won’t.”    

He smiled and laughed, “I just want you to accept me as I am.”  I said, “If I loved you, I wouldn’t.  If I saw a friend walking down the wrong road, I would tell them, because I loved them.  He smiled and laughed hard, not in a demeaning way, I honestly think I amused him. I continued, “If I had no love for you, I would have walked away.  I wouldn’t continue talking to you, would I?”  “No, you wouldn’t,” he agreed. 

I finished discussing the forth shirt with him and our conversation came to an end.  I asked for his business card and as his wife handed it to me, he ended, “I think we will be good friends.  My door is always open to people who want hear the things I teach.”  Oh, if only the door to his heart was open to hear words of Truth!  I said, “I will be praying that you will read your Bible and follow Christ.”

Today was planned out, we did everything on our list, yet that one encounter changed my entire day.  I realize how the Lord has used the past two weeks to prepare me for this conversation and I certainly didn’t see it coming.  I was using the content from the Sunday sermons to teach to our kids during lunch and was encouraged our son’s response to it, but God also used 10 days of lunch conversations and Bible study to equip me!

 Reflecting on the day, I could be discouraged that the man didn’t profess any desire to seek Christ, but  I know that is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It wasn’t until we drove home and I shared the conversation with Ken, that I realized something.   The wife of the Native American man heard the whole conversation…and she was the one who initiated it!  Perhaps the Lord was speaking to her…I don’t know…

I have a confession: this morning we woke early to pass out Easter service invitations to a subdivision near our church.  The last time we went door to door like this we asked people about their beliefs and shared the gospel with them.  It was hard, out of my comfort zone, and involved weeks of intentional preparation by studying Scripture and being prepared to give an answer.  I said to myself this morning, “I am so glad I don’t have to do that today, I feel so unprepared.”  I’m thankful, that in spite of my sinful attitude, neglecting the call to always be ready to give an answer, God still used me. 

What found me at the Thrift Store

        I dropped the bags off in the car and walked to Chuck E Cheese to meet up with Ken and the kids.  I tried to open the door, but it was locked.  I pulled the exit door and it too was locked.  Their hours were posted and they should have been open!  People were inside, but no one looked my way.  God was at work, but I didn't know it yet...

Tonight we ventured out to America's Thrift Store in Hixson.  We hadn't been there in a long time and we needed a couple things....and with Chuck E Cheese right next door we thought the kids could take their tokens and play a few games. 

 Callie found this V-tech computer.  When I asked her, "What is it?"  She announced, "Pink!"  To my surprise it had batteries and worked (and only $2.48). Ken's shopping was quick, as usual, so he took the kids to play while I continued to shop. 

•  a large magnet (.15 cents)
• A leaf shaped basket (.25 cents) perfect for our Autumn activities in school.
• A play-doh set- brand new!  ($1.49)
• Don't Spill the Beans (.49 cents) It even has all the pieces!
• I don't know what you call the little box with the pins that leaves a relief, but it was .15 cents.
• Vintage Fisher price Calculator/Grocery list. Cute imaginative play ahead!  (.15 cents)
• Travel Size Mancala- brand new!  It has cute little rocks as pieces and MADE IN THAILAND:)  (.39 cents)
• Play iron.  (.15 cents).

So, all of this for about $6.  Not bad!  I usually leave smiling, thinking about how I'll wash and sanitize everything as soon I get home, and start planning how I'll use the school supplies, or when I'll give the little toys and activities to the kids, but tonight was different.

I dropped the bags off in the car and walked to Chuck E Cheese to meet up with Ken and the kids.  I tried to open the door, but it was locked.  I pulled the exit door and it too was locked.  Their hours were posted and they should have been open!  People were inside, but no one looked my way.  God was at work, but I didn't know it yet.

A man walked up to me, "Can you help me?"  

 I asked him what he needed.  His response: 

"I'm drunk, and I just need an open door."

My mind starting running through the list, what shelters are around here, who can I call to get a phone number of a place to help him... I was also aware of the locked door in front of me.  As I talked to this man, someone walked out of Chuck E. Cheese.  I held the door, but instead of walking in, I continued talking.  I know that sounds irresponsible, or unsafe, but I truly feel this was the Lord's leading. ( I did tell him that my husband was waiting inside for me.)

I told him that I was a Christian and he quickly met it with "I am too- praise God."  I confronted him, "If you are, why aren't you serving the Lord with your life?"  He told me that he was in college and that he loved people.  I said, "Look at your life- you are a slave to sin.  You are drunk and you do drugs (he told me that too).  Why are you a Christian?  Why will God let you into heaven?"  ( That sounds harsh, but I really said it in love and concern).  He said, "I don't deserve heaven or anything good, there's nothing good about me."

What an opportunity!  I told him that I didn't deserve anything good, that I- just like him was a sinner.  The Lord directed the conversation as this man talked about how he really loved his mother, I shared how God's love was deeper, about God the Father sending His Son for us!  I told him to look at his life, to see how he was in bondage to sin.  He held out his arms to show me they were covered in tattoos and he began crying, "I AM in bondage, it's written all over me."  I remember seeing a skull, but I don't remember anything else.  I wasn't scared.  I just looked into his face and told him about the apostle Paul and how he spent his life, until God changed him.

This man told me his name was Ben and that he had done terrible things too.  By this time he was smoking...and crying....and then thanking me.  I offered to call him a cab, but he said he lived in an apartment within walking distance. I encouraged him to read the Bible, starting with the book of John and then Romans. I told him to read it on the internet if he didn't have a Bible.  He agreed.  We talked a bit more, and he asked to shake my hand.  He apologized for bothering me, and I smiled.  "You were God's answer to my prayer.  I asked him to give me someone to talk to about Christ, and he sent you here.  I used to be so afraid to share my faith, but if it's the best thing in my life, why wouldn't I share it?  I'm so glad God brought you here and that I got to talk to you."  He thanked me again, and as he walked away he said, "Romans and John, right?"

I walked into Chuck E. Cheese and told Ken all that had happened.  He was excited too.  The whole car ride home, in-between our conversations, I kept thinking how good God is, how gracious He is and how He's changing my life....I'll leave you with this:

Today during lunch I was telling the kids about compassion (our character trait for the next week or so) and I told them we'd be learning about the Good Samaritan.  We also read the parable of the seeds (to go along with our study of fruit).  Jack and I talked for a long time about planting seeds by sharing the Word of God.  Several hours later, I met Ben, and had the opportunity to live out what I'd been teaching.

 I'm just humbled by it all....The Word of God is active and living and powerful!  I'm also reminded that the only good in me is God living and working through me.