Your love is amazingSteady and unchangingYour love is a mountainFirm beneath my feet
(this sticks out to me as I am surrounded by mountains in Thailand)
This past week was our last week in our first village. We've spent three weeks here and I cannot possibly describe all of our experiences, they have been indescribable to say the least. Just an update on everything.
We moved into Joy's home Monday evening. It was difficult to say goodbye to Ulm's family that we had been staying with. Khun Thii (the mom) began crying when we left and this broke my heart. They sent us off to Joy's with a huge amount of bananas and then we were off to our third host home.
I have a big announcement on Ulm. We found out Monday evening that she is so close to accepting Christ. She knows there is a God, but is fearful and currently weighing her options. Her aunt is the village headmaster's wife, so she has a lot of pressure on her. We hope to see her come to our worship services in the new village beginning Sunday. I desperately hope to see the whole family come to Christ.
Earlier this week we also went off to deactivate a spirit house. There is a spirit house in the village that the people bring offerings to and such. This is a place where Satan has a huge stronghold. This whole experience was most definitely something that we had never done before. It was a process of commanding Satan to leave the place and I could truly see a lighter place once I opened my eyes; there was a great burden lifted off of us.
We have also had the great joy this week of teaching in a local school and going to their recital. We taught three english classes on wednesday to a little over 100 students. It was truly a great experience, Kari was able to give her testimony and we all passed out tracts to the students.
On Thursday our supervisors did a study with us on a parable that meant a lot to me and I wanted to share it with you all. Turn to Matthew 13 and you will find the parable of the farmer sowing seed. This is important to me bc all that we can do here is plant seeds. We are not always going to get the privilege of seeing fruit produced. God has his own timing in everything. If someone is ready for salvation then we get the amazing opportunity to partake in the harvest. It is truly an amazing opportunity that God includes us in the process at all. This is important to remember when we leave a village only seeing seeds planted, but no visible fruit.
Our relationship with Ulm grew so much over the past few weeks. She is so precious and an amazing girl to get to know. Her sister came home from the university and came over to braid our hair into some amazing thai braids. Words cannot describe how much I love this family.
They even helped us make treat bags for our english kids. Funny story about that one: when you can't read Thai, cough drops might end up going into the goody bags haha. We had 8 kids in english class on saturday. I have to admit that it was a little discouraging bc our numbers had grown so high, but it all went really well. I was able to help with the little kids group this week bc none of the older kids showed up. Most of my older girls had to go to school. The gospel was presented to all of the kids at the end of english. These kids are so precious.
Later that afternoon we were sent for to go to the village headmaster's home-big deal! Khun Kim, the lady that has been having the dreams, was in a motorcycle accident friday night. A car ran her off of the road and she now has a black eye, scraped up elbow, and has hurt her leg to the point where she cant walk. We laid hands on her and prayed for her, it was all that we could do.
We had to leave the village Sunday and words simply cannot describe the goodbyes. Before we left, Ulm's family was provided with a Bible and all of their hearts seem so open now. They were the hardest family to say goodbye to. Khun Thii started bawling and pulled me into a hug-I lost it! People do not typically show emotion here. This completely broke my heart. One of our girls Giv( we went to her bday party) never stopped crying. How do you say goodbye to people who havent came to know Christ yet?
Words simply cannot describe the moment and I trust that God has a plan and that Rung. can further the ministry here along with our supervisors, and without us. It is a moment that I will definitely not forget. Right now we are leaving from our vacation and I will update you all on the amazing vacation on next week's update. Thank you all for reading these, and if you notice the titles-they are all songs that stick out to me during that week. Love you all!
~Morgan