It's All About Him All the Time

Today I am remembering a moment in my office before we left. 

I was setting up "THE BINDER" of information, planning and schedules that would facilitate all the ministry we had been asked to do on this particular visit to Hot Springs.  The "Day Camp" section bothered me.  Flipping through the pages there just seemed to be so many blanks, so many lessons incomplete, so many 'outlines' but not enough 'fleshing out'.  The harsh Ontario winter had cancelled two strategic planning meetings, and my Mom's hip injury had eliminated the second to last time the Team had planned to be together.  There just seemed to be so much more to do before leaving, yet, here we were, packing up.

We were a small Team too.  There had been 11 of us considering the trip last fall.  For various and well thought out reasons, others had to decline, leaving only four of us to accomplish the various ministry requests, the biggest being Day Camp.  We were expecting 50 kids. 

I remember my prayerful packing, asking God what He actually intended to do with such an 'understaffed' and 'unprepared' Team.  I felt like Gideon, trusting God for something big with such a small army.  As I snapped the rings closed for the last time, and tucked the binder into my suitcase, I just said, "God, it's all about You all the time anyways."

Today that is more real than I can say.  Thirteen children made decisions to follow Jesus today.

Thirteen.

Suradet had asked us to pray for 12.  To be honest, I was not really expecting that much of a response.  Sorry.  I know that sounds weak-faithed.  But this was a brand new bunch of kids.  They didn't know us before Monday, and many of them had not heard of Jesus before coming to Day Camp.  Every day, we talked a little more about Him, about how much we loved Him because He loved us first, so much.  Every day we told them that on Thursday we would explain how to follow Jesus if they wanted to.  And then, today, Thursday, we did. 

And 13 of them indicated on their card that they had prayed the prayer we had prayed together asking Jesus to forgive their sins and be boss of their life.

Thirteen.

Only God really knows what has transpired in little hearts today.  But watching them stand in a line and having Suradet and the Highview Team pray over them, one by one, there was no doubt in my mind that something significant and darkness-crushing has happened here today. 

It will now fall to Suradet and the Hot Springs Church to follow through with these kids and their families.  Tomorrow we will take a picture of every child, and later Suradet will mail it to their homes and invite them to investigate the claims of Jesus on Sunday's at 10:30.   It is of course our hope that, like Sang who made the same decision two years ago, we will see them becoming more and more part of this Christian community each time we come back to visit.

I love the humility of this.  Especially for me, who so loves her binders!  I love how God doesn't need any more than loving, willing hearts to do His work, and how abundantly sufficient He is to overcome the harshest of Canadian winters and the smallest of Canadian Teams, and be BIG and BOLD and AWESOME
and DARKNESS-CRUSHING in far away wonderful places like a little Buddhist school northeast of Chiang Mai.   I love that it's so not about us and all about Him.

Somehow, for some reason, we got to be part of this today.  With Suradet and Yupa and the Hot Springs Church.  Together.  God did this for His glory today.  And we got to be here. 

Later, for lunch, Suradet brought out some fresh white bread and the wild mountain honey he'd collected the day before.  And then later again, closer to supper, a large bunch of bananas, freshly hacked from the tree, was brought down and put on the table under the dining shelter.   I ate too much. 

But it was that kind of day.  Abundant.  Free.  Full of the raw goodness of God.

Pictures to follow.