More Than Ice Cream

 More Than Ice Cream

(This is another in the series of blogs from “River Crossings”, several years ago. Enjoy!)

Let me tell you about a girl I met this week.

Her name is Fon (pronounced ‘fawn’) and she came to see me with another girl I was meeting for the first time. Let me back up. The “other girl” had rung me the night before. She got my name from a mutual acquaintance of ours in Japan. She is new in town and a bit lonely, so I said, “Look, even though my kids are coming for a visit this week and between them and language study we don’t have a minute to spare, come to the Dairy Queen on Sunday afternoon after your church service and we’ll at least get to see your face.”

A few of our folks like to go there after the three-hour Thai church service for a taste of “home”. She did, and brought her new friend that she had met on the bus going to church. Fon sat down and seemed relieved that a few of us around the table could speak a few words of Thai. She began to share her story with a colleague who thankfully has more Thai skills than I have (he’s been here something like 20 years). “I want to explore Christianity but I’m afraid,” she began. “I went to several temples (Buddhist) but I felt nothing, only a coldness.” “Because I work nights,” she went on, “I usually can’t sleep on my nights off, but I asked God that if He wanted me to know Him, He’d have to help me sleep. That night, I slept like a baby and got up and went to Church. When I walked in the door I felt a strange warmth, even before I’d met anyone. Now is my third week to go and I’m feeling more and more like there’s a God who loves me!” I shouted out, half joking, “Give that girl a Bible!”.

Without a glance, the colleague reached in his wife’s bag, pulled out HER Thai/English Bible and handed it to the girl. She was stunned. Tony grabbed it back away from her and quickly underlined some of HIS favorite verses and then gave it back. As we left, I thought to myself, “This is what missions is all about: being at the right place at the right time and being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, Who sometimes breaks through what may seem to us as “common sense”.

This colleague, (who incidentally is our business manager and a bit of a penny pincher) makes me proud to be ‘one of the team’. We’re with our kids from Australia this week, and having a ball! Pray for Fon and also that we'll ‘graduate’ from the first module at language school this week! Happy trails, do something outside of yourself, it’s fun!

Marsha and Tony


Comments

  1. TomokoFebruary 13, 2022 at 4:42 PM

    Hi Marsha, Thank you for sharing your story. I believe that God always gives the right place at the right time to each of us to be and listen to His message. God bless you!

    ReplyDelete

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