In these days of Facebook, My Space and Twitter, many people in the west are discovering old friends they haven’t seen for many years. I, myself, since giving in to the inevitable and joining Facebook, have linked up with many old friends from high school, university and Bible College whom I haven’t met for ages. While this is a pleasure denied to the computer-illiterate older generation in upcountry Thailand, last week the Lord bestowed a similar blessing on one of the old Christian aunties in Pak Phanang.
The story started two weeks ago when I visited Mr Brateep, a former church member of a church started by a missionary friend in Bangkok. Mr Brateep had recently returned his to childhood home in Krabi province, not too far from where I live in Pak Phanang. Mr Brateep introduced me to Pastor Samart, the pastor of Lam Thap Church where Brateep had started attending. As we chatted, it turned out that Pastor Samart had spent two years evangelising in Pak Phanang back thirty years ago when he was a young man. “Do you know Mrs Ing?” he asked me. “She was one of the people who believed back then.”
“Aunty Ing?” I replied. “Yes, she’s one of the faithful members of our church in Pak Phanang these days.”
Aunty Ing has often told me of how she came to the Lord. She said one night she dreamt that she saw a man walking across the water towards her. The next day a team from a church in the provincial city were distributing tracts in Pak Phanang and gave one to Ing. The picture on the front of the tract was that of Jesus walking on water – and was the exact same picture as what she had seen in her dream the night before. And so Aunty Ing believed that God was real and that he was truly interested in her.
In the end, only a handful of people came to the Lord, and so the work stopped. Aunty Ing tried travelling to the mother church in Nakhon Si Thammarat city every Sunday, but the trip was long and eventually became too expensive for her to afford on her small salary. Ing stopped going to church and slowly drifted away from the Lord.
Four years ago, I and my wife spent five weeks looking for a house to rent in Pak Phanang. The options were very limited and we weren’t at all impressed by anything we had seen so far. Finally the last day came when we decided we had to make a decision and get on with the work.
“Lord,” we prayed, “you know that we’re here to serve you. We want to live in the house that you’ve chosen for us. Please guide us because today we have to make a decision.”
A few minutes later Belinda pointed to a narrow laneway. “I don’t think we’ve been down there yet,” she said.
Driving down the laneway we discovered a lovely little two-story townhouse that seemed unoccupied. Stopping at the corner store nearby, we asked if the house was for rent.
“Yes,” was the reply. “The owner’s sister lives next door and will be home for lunch soon.”
Sure enough, the owner’s sister turned up a couple of minutes later. The house was for rent! She was pleased to show us through the house, but stopped after a few minutes and asked, “But how did you know if the house would be for rent? We didn’t put a sign up.”
“Our God led us here!” we answered.
It turned out that God had guided us to rent a house not 50 metres away from where Aunty Ing was living at the time. We met her a few days after moving.
“I used to be a Christian, you know,” she said to Belinda that day. Belinda had to pick her jaw up off the ground! “But I haven’t been to church for a long time.”
“Why don’t you come and worship with us?” asked Belinda.
“Oh no thanks, but I’ll send my granddaughters along,” she replied.
Belinda and Ing had this same conversation dozens of times. Sure enough, Ing’s two granddaughters whom she was looking after soon started frequenting our house. They and three other girls became the core of our first kids’ club in Pak Phanang. But Ing was still walking far away from the Lord.
However, through a visit from her old pastor from Nakhon and our continued encouragement, Aunty Ing slowly started coming to church and her faith began to grow again.
Yesterday, as I was getting ready for our weekly team meeting, I received a phone call from Pastor Samart. He and his wife have a close friend living in Pak Phanang who has recently started showing interest in the gospel. They were coming to visit the wife’s mother in Nakhon Si Thammarat city, and wanted to visit us in Pak Phanang in order to introduce us to this friend of theirs. At first I thought it wouldn’t work, as I was due to catch a plane to Bangkok. But not long after this I received a phone call from the airline saying that the plane would be delayed by three hours!
We quickly called the pastor again to confirm that we could meet him in the afternoon. He, along with his wife and another friend introduced us to their friend in Pak Phanang, a retired school teacher. After visiting the friend’s house I led them to Aunty Ing’s house. I alighted from my motorcycle and was the first to greet Ing.
“I’ve brought someone to meet you,” I said to her.
“Who?” she asked, but just then Pastor Samart stepped out of his car and Aunty Ing’s face lit up. She was absolutely delighted!
Ing, Pastor Samart and his wife spent some time catching up with each other. They talked about the old days, their families and about the other people who came to the Lord back thirty years ago.
“I walked far away from the Lord. But since meeting ‘younger brother’ Jeff, I’ve returned to Him and he has blessed me greatly!” Ing told the pastor with tears of joy streaming down her face. “I used to live in a little shack when Jeff met me, and my children hardly sent me anything, but since I’ve returned to the Lord my son built me this lovely house and sends a good income every month.”
The great thing about serving the Lord hear is that we get to see amazing things like this all the time. And the Lord didn't even need Facebook to bring it about!
