Change of plans

Sometimes the Lord answers our prayers exactly as we asked. Other times, He completely changes our plans to bring us even greater blessings.

After going downtown a few times now, I thought I had some of this figured out. As we prepared to go out, I figured we would go see those we had already shared with, and if we had more time or they weren't there, we would go find someone new to share with. Then we found out one of our translators was sick and couldn't join us. That's ok. My pen rai. We'll go back and see Oum since she spoke good English. We may can even say a quick hello to Ma'am, even though we would need a translator to get much farther than pleasantries.

We started walking down the street to find Oum, but she wasn't there. A little further down, we looked for Ma'am. Not seeing her at the bar, we turned around to see the back of her head following an old white man down the street. I felt sick and hurt for her.

On top of the swelling emotions from seeing Ma'am, now my plan A and B were both gone within the first few minutes of us being there. No one we know to talk to and no translator: now what?
Lindy, my partner for the night, had come to Thailand on a different mission last summer and connected with a woman at a massage parlor in her city, and just a few days ago she ran into the woman on our ministry street. So, we went to find J and see if we could share with her. We found the massage parlor where she worked, but she was busy eating supper with the other workers. We said hello and that we would come back shortly.

Not knowing what else to do, we did what we did to start with: we prayer walked. We prayed over the girls we passed, our other teammates as they shared, and for our conversation when we returned to see J.

We had told J we would come back for a massage. When we get a massage, we have the girl's full attention for a while and can share one on one. Business had been slow too, so this would be a small physical blessing for them. Lindy began to visit with J, and I met Mar.

Mar's tank and short-shorts looked much like the wardrobe of the rest of the street, and she told me right off that she didn't speak much English. Oh great. Will my whole time here be wasted tonight?  I had started to feel a little frustrated and discouraged after seeing Ma'am leave, and it was discouraging to have no one else that I knew spoke the same language. But I decided to make the most of it and talk to Mar as much as I could. 

Her English turned out to be much better than I first assumed, though not great. She told me about her three children, one of whom is my age. She did not look old enough to have a 19 year old, but most of these women don't look their age. We continued with small talk a little, then she leaned over and said quietly,

"If you are from America, are you a Christian?" Wow, Lord, she opened the conversation for me. I told her I was, and she smiled and said she was too. 

Other people here (rarely, but some) have told me they are Christian. When I ask how they became a Christian, they say they were born Christian, so when I asked Mar, I fully expected her to be a Christian by name only because her family claimed Christianity. But her answer completely shocked me. She told me her story, of course with some details not completely explained because of limited English.

The family used to be Buddhist. Her father had two wives and 12 children (not sure of time line of all this-broken English). When Mar was a toddler, her mother and some of her siblings died. After the deaths, the living family members turned to Christianity. Mar told me how she refuses to go to work on Sundays because she goes home to go to church with her two youngest children. Her brother is a teacher or pastor. She also told me that she does not drink, and when customers call for "at home massages" she won't go out. To work on a street filled with every temptation imaginable, she tries to live set apart. 

She told me she is the only Christian at this massage parlor. The owner and other workers are all Buddhist. I can only imagine how difficult-- to be the only believer surrounded not only by people of another faith but also to work in such a dark area. 

I asked if we could come back and teach English and tell Bible stories, but she made it sound like the boss wasn't a fan of that. 

Pray for a door to open to share with Mar's fellow workers and for a softening of the owner's heart. 

Pray for encouragement for Mar to continue to live out her faith and have courage to share with the other women.  

She hugged me warmly when we got up to leave. I pray she felt as blessed by the encounter as I did.

So, the night was nothing like I had thought or planned it would be.  Some doors were closed for the night, but others were opened. Who knows, maybe Mar and J can be our connection to share the gospel with the entire massage parlor. I'm thankful for her testimony and for the time to get to know her, and I am hopeful that the Lord will open more doors to share there.

Just to top of my evening full of reminders of the sovereignty of God, a dear friend had sent me Ephesians 3:20, "now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ever ask or imagine…" I'm so thankful God's plans are much bigger and much better than mine. 

Thanks for the prayers! 

Taylor