This summer I was sent on a team of four to Thailand for a short-term mission trip. Our goal was to aid local believers in sharing the gospel and discipling new believers. We did this by making friends with college students on campuses and at malls to pursue them with the love of Christ and share the good news with them.
Thailand is a majority Buddhist country. Many Thai people have no knowledge of Jesus, not because it is unsafe but because no one is going there to tell them. People are lost and searching for something to fulfill them. One of the ways I saw this was by visiting a Buddhist temple with a friend I met there. She visited the temple often to gain good merit (similar to karma). The temples are often set on a hill and are extraordinarily tall so that they will be closer to who they are praying to. She prayed prayers in a language she did not know. She gave money and would hit gongs around the temple so that her prayers might be lifted up and heard. She was very open and willing to answer my questions and we were able to have some intentional conversations. When I shared the gospel with her, she was quick to point things back to Buddhism and what she has been taught. She is searching, and believes that everyone else is searching, too. But she believes that means all religions can be true, as long as you are trying to be a good person. They are trying to climb an unclimbable mountain. They try to simply do more right than wrong, but the end is never in sight. She doesn’t know how much is “enough.” I am so thankful that I have a God who came down to dwell with me and has made me a temple of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). He hears my prayers even when I don’t have the words to pray. My friend is still searching, but I know we have a God who came to seek and save the lost.
God is not deaf to our prayers for the lost and he is not slow to save people. I was truly amazed at how much God allowed me to see him work this summer through prayer. On our first day of ministry, we prayed to find just one person who would want to be our consistent friend this summer and would be interested in reading the Bible with us. God gave us three friends who wanted to spend time with us almost every day! Two of them had little knowledge of Christianity but agreed to read the Bible with us. Sometimes they would come into our time feeling uneasy, but after reading they would comment how relaxed they felt. The Word of God is truly alive and active! We got to incorporate reading the Bible almost every time we hung out, and they continued to grow in curiosity and asked great questions. They have yet to commit their lives to Christ, but they are continuing to learn and grow with local believers even in our absence. God is still working!
God made it so evident this summer not only that he is faithful to answer prayers, but also that he is faithful to save. While we had the privilege to walk many of our friends through stories of Jesus and the gospel, we were blessed to witness three of our friends accept Jesus as their Savior! God worked through a language barrier and heavy use of Google Translate to open the eyes of our friends! One of these friends, JM, had been connected to local believers before but stopped attending their Bible study when life got busy. When we asked to read the Bible with her, she was more than willing and spent a lot of time trying to show us what she had previously learned. JM shared with us that she felt broken and alone in her life. As we began to read stories of Jesus with her, she expressed how much peace she felt in her day. The Word of God is sweet! She was always open to asking questions to learn more about who Jesus is and why she was feeling this new comfort. One day we read Ephesians 2:1-10 with her. She began to understand how we are all naturally enemies of God, but because of his love, we are offered the free gift of salvation through Jesus' sacrifice. God used his word to reach her that day and she put her faith in Jesus! It was beautiful to see how JM found healing through Jesus and then went to go and tell everyone she knew. She would go on to share the gospel with her roommate and other close friends. She only had foundational knowledge of God, and most of what she knew of God was her testimony, but she knew that this gospel message was too good to keep to herself!
I want to remember to work out of an overflow of joy and gratitude from my own salvation just like she did. It is a miracle not only that I was saved, but that God wants to use me in his mission to seek the lost. We have the freedom to boldly proclaim the gospel because we do not have the power to save people; God does. We simply get the joy of partnering in His ministry!
Isaiah 49:6 says, "It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth."
It is too small a thing for God to be worshiped in the United States alone. It is too small for Him to only be worshiped in Thailand. God is worthy of worship from every tribe, tongue, and nation! Take joy in your salvation and seek to spread that joy to others through sharing the gospel. Pray for the lost and remember that God doesn’t need us but he delights in using us in his plan anyway! Take courage in knowing that God already knows who he is going to save, and that we get the sweet role of finding and pursuing them.