The last few weeks have felt surreal. I taught my students for the last time at the end of March and had my last day at school on Tuesday. My students had different responses on my last day. One asked to hear me speak Thai (because I'm not allowed to speak Thai in class but they know I can). I told them (in Thai) that they have been great students and I'll miss them. Students in a different class made really sweet goodbye cards for me. Apart from the card I've posted a picture of, another student wrote: "Thank you for cind (kind) and for study me. I no have present, but I have heart." It was so cute! After five years, it feels a little strange to be moving on.
Yet, I'm so excited for the next step. I've been serving in my local church for the last few years and truly enjoying it, but now I realize that my heart wasn't fully in what I was doing. I always did my best, but so much of my time and energy was spent at school that I didn't have much left over to give at church. In the last few days, I've noticed a change in my heart. I've been really excited to spend time with the kids from the church and felt a greater need to be close to the people in my cell group. Now there's so much more space in my heart and mind for ministry.
Last Sunday, we taught the kids about the disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus. When Jesus broke bread, their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus. After telling the story, I made biscuits with the kids. I brought my oversized toaster oven from home so we could bake them. The kids really enjoyed mixing up the dough, rolling it out, and using a glass to cut out the biscuits. Most Thai families don't have any kind of oven. Baking is a novel concept to them.
Today we had a had a visitor (a friend of one of our members) come to our cell group. He came because he wants to practice speaking English. We sang some Thai and English worship songs. I asked one or our members to explain the meaning of the song "My Redeemer Lives" in Thai. In the process, he shared the Gospel with our new friend Oh. Because Oh isn't a believer yet, we decided to skip our normal lesson and spend some time sharing about our personal experience with God. We wanted him to feel welcome, so we gave him a bit of an introduction before jumping into a lesson from the Bible that he most likely wouldn't understand. After we took turns sharing, Oh said that he had walked past the church many times and always wondered why there's always music and so much noise. He comes from a Buddhist background and thought our worship seemed irreverent. He said he was glad to find out what the church is all about and why Christians do what they do. We also talked to him about how to improve his English since that's why he came to church. Thank God for the opportunity to share the Good News!
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