gardening with God

It has begun.

I want to share this experience with you, but may it be for God's glory and not my own.

I gave a tract to a lady sitting on the street this morning. Then she asked me to sit with her, and she starts searching through her bag, and I'm pretty confused and sure she's crazy. Then she pulls out a little card. It's a picture of Jesus. 

I love those moments when you know God has brought you to the exact square metre you are standing in. 

She spoke a teeeeny bit of English, and I'm not even gonna claim that I know a teeeeny bit of Thai, so it was a hard conversation to follow. I pointed at the picture and said "Jesus", and she nodded. She asked me if Jesus lived in Chiang Mai or Australia (I didn't tell her where I was from so I don't know why she asked that? Maybe an Australian gave it to her). I said "pra jow" (God), and pointed to the sky. I tried to say friend and father and saviour, and she just sort of nodded and smiled. I asked if I could pray for her, but she didn't understand so she offered me her food. (A homeless woman offered me her breakfast.) She started telling me all this stuff, I had no clue what she was saying, but I think she just needed someone to listen, you know? Then God prompted me to go back to my room and get my Thai bible and phrasebook. So I told her I would come back, power-walked the k, grabbed it, and returned to her. 

(Side note: On the way back I wondered if I should take her to a restaurant to talk or if we should stay on the street. My fleshly self liked the idea of not having to sit on the ground with a million tourists walking past, so I told God it would give her dignity. He said she wasn't concerned with 'dignity' and that I should 'meet her where she's at'. Literally. On the street.)

When I got there, God gave me all these verses to show her. She helped me find them, and she read them out loud to herself, going far beyond where I'd told her to stop. Then she told me that when she was 18, her mother had been in a bicycle accident and could no longer work, so my Thai friend (shiz I forgot her name!) had had to work in the Night Bazaar to earn money for her family. She said alot lot more, something about Bangkok and a "man-boy" (haha, maybe her son or brother??). She told me that a new bicycle costs 10,000 baht (I think maybe she wanted me to buy one for them). I showed her verses from Matthew about God providing our needs, and about turning to Jesus all you weary and find rest in Him. I don't know if these things meant anything to her, but God reminded me I am only planting a seed, He must do the watering. 

I told her I was going to come and visit her tomorrow ("prung nee"). God told me to rip out some pages from the Bible and give them to her (gasp!!! rip pages from the Holy Book?!), and to give her some money, and then I left.

I don't know what's next. Do you? I guess I go tomorrow and rip out more pages and pray more. Maybe I should invite her to the church I'm going to? 

Can you pray that God would soften her heart. Pray that she would not just read the words on those pages as words, but as a key to life. Ask that God would use His Holy Spirit in me to minister to her in the way that she needs it, not the way that I would like her to need it.

Thanks guys.