Sawadee from Thailand!
Thanks for all your prayers for not only me but for Thailand as a whole this past month. With the riots that went on in Bangkok last month I went back to Chiang Rai for a week until things settled down. There were many deaths and damages done to the buildings in Bangkok, but now everything seems to have returned back to normal.
The past couple of weeks I have seen God work in many students’ lives and seen several choose to give their life to follow Christ! One of these students is Oh, who many of you have been praying for. Oh, is a university student who I first met at the beginning of my time in Bangkok. He has been hanging out with the cell group I am involved in for nearly 2 years and last Sunday was a day to celebrate as he confessed his belief in Jesus as his Savior and Lord!! To the right is a picture of me and our new brother in Christ, Oh!!
The picture on the left is a picture taken today of 2 girls who became Christians—Nim and Tack! They study English in the same building as our church and came to attend church today for the first time in their lives. After hearing the Good News for the first time, they accepted the truth that salvation can be found only in Jesus Christ!! Also this past Wednesday at cell group a girl named Mew, who has been coming to study English as an outreach of our cell group during the week, gave her life to follow Jesus!! Praise God for His work in the lives of these students and growing a generation of students to spread His glory and fame throughout Thailand!
**** PRAYER REQUESTS****
1) Unbelievers—Pui, Germe, Wai Phyo, Not
2) Pray for safety and good time during trip to Israel (I will be leaving this Tuesday)
3) Adjustment back working in Chiang Rai
What God has been teaching me…
One day I was singing with my cell group in Bangkok a song that talks about how we don’t know what tomorrow will bring—will we have happiness or will we be met by a problem? This song iterates the fact that we never know what will happen even in the very next moment of our lives. One day I was singing with my cell group and then the next day I received a phone call that I needed to move back to Chiang Rai to avoid the danger that was going on in Bangkok. My life looked totally different in the matter of a few hours. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my friends, and for many I didn’t even have the chance to say bye. I was told I would be staying in CR from then on and not go back to study more in Bangkok.
Through this whole situation God was teaching me much of what He taught Abraham when God asked
him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering, which is found in Genesis 22. God was teaching me the
important lesson of obedience.
5 Things I learned about Obedience to God through Abraham’s example and my situation…
1) Obedience requires immediate action. Delayed obedience isn’t obedience at all. Abraham heard
God’s voice of what to do and Abraham got up early the next morning to do it (22:3). No time to
prepare and savor more time with Isaac, Abraham obeyed immediately.
2) Obedience doesn’t mean you have to understand. It also requires adjusting your life. Before God
told Abraham to do this God had already told Abraham that he would have a son named Isaac,
and that he would establish a covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendents
(Gen 17:19). Perhaps Abraham was thinking, “How can God fulfill his promise about Isaac if I
sacrifice him?” Sometimes we might not understand why God is telling us to do what He does, we
don’t see how it fits into God’s plan, but we must take God at His word and trust Him anyway.
Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the
Lord.”
3) Obedience brings blessing into your life. Don’t miss out on God’s blessings by not obeying God.
Through his willingness to obey, Abraham received the blessing of knowing God better and He
became more real in Abraham’s life. Abraham learned just how Good and Faithful GOD IS. The
Lord also said, “Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will
surely bless you ….all nations one earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” Genesis
22:16, 18.
4) Obedience to GOD requires He be number one in your life. God asked Abraham to give up Isaac,
who he loved a lot. God might ask us to give up something or someone very close to us. He is
testing us to make sure we still love him first in our lives. Don’t let a gift from God—a person, your
career, your status, etc. have your heart more than God does. Obedience requires that we hold
loosely onto things and cling tightly onto God.
5) Obedience is worship. Our life is greater evidence we love God than our words. Genesis 22:5 says
that Moses went to his servants and said, “Stay here while I and the boy go over there. We will
WORSHIP and then we will come back to you.” They were not going up the mountain to have a
worship service and sing a few songs; their obedience to God was worship in itself.
I am now back living in Bangkok. I stayed in Chiang Rai for one week and received many blessings
from God during my time there. At the time it was all happening I didn’t understand why—but God
tested and taught me many things, and like Abraham, I too learned just how Good and Faithful
God is. After a week in Chiang Rai, God opened a way for me to come back to Bangkok and study
for one more term of Thai language and have the opportunity to say goodbye to friends.
Serving a God that is Good all the time,
Kim
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