Sunday, September 24, 2017

Reflections from Laura

The night before we left on this trip I looked at the weather in Bangkok as I had every other night and it hadn't changed much from thunderstorms and clouds and showers. Not only would it be extra uncomfortable to be wearing a rain poncho in 94 degree heat and humidity but once we got there we found out that many people would probably not show up for their appointments if it was raining. True to his promises, God provided us with what we need and in this case it was no rain for pretty much the whole week. It didn't start to pour until we had finished our day on Saturday and we were preparing to fly home. This gave 1000 people a chance to see what the church was like inside and realize that it was not a scary place at all but one filled with love and smiles and people showing a servant's heart. I had heard that one woman was thankful to have an opportunity to see inside of the church because she was afraid that if she went she would be put on a wooden cross because that is all she had seen and knew about being a Christian. We literally were starting at Ground Zero with people who have sometimes not even heard of our God. As one of the team members put it, the biggest Ministry that we can give is showing how we, as Christians, came halfway around the world just to be present to help with this eyeglass Clinic. The language barrier was frequent but the smiles and the hand motions and the hugs communicated just as effectively.

One of the stations I worked was to hand out glasses. I tried to learn some new Thai words and my favorite one was 'dudi' which means "looks good" and when it is said with a thumbs up there were many smiles when they tried on their glasses. There were very few people who asked for a different style, most took what they were given whether it was small oval granny glasses for men or Aviator style glasses for women, depending on the prescription . The gratitude and smiles when they could see and read again said it all.

What a privilege it was to show the love of Jesus to the Thai people.

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