Jesus answered "....

I am the way and the truth and the life. No One comes to the Father except through me..."

John 14: 6

Beware!! Potentially long blog! (but the best is at the end!)

So today was one of the best reading days I have had thus far.

Today we met with Patinya and worked out the details of our group reading sessions next week...
Let me explain...
Patinya(the host missionary) wants us to attempt to try a group reading session from 6:30 - 8:00 PM on Thursday and Friday evenings (after he cleared it with LST)....
The reason for this is clear, we simply have too many people that can only read during those times because that is when they get off work. Patinya feels that we could contact so many more people if we just tried the groups. So we are! After all, that is the reason that we came to Thailand, to share our faith with as many people as possible.

One of my readers had a quote that I found quite humorous today. We where going over lesson two in the Luke workbook, which describes how the Angel Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she is going to have a son and that he will be the Son of God. When I asked her if she knew what an Angel was, she said

"Like God's Secretary?"

I also had an interesting conversation with Neng (he is probably reading this :) ) He brought up an interesting thought about something that has become all to common in movies and other media that we are bombarded with every day. He asked if it was a good thing or a bad thing when people exclaim the name of Christ or God in moments of anger or frustration. It was a good question, one that I was glad to answer. I told him that it is offensive to God to use His name that way.

My last reader of the day was Toom. She proceeded to tell me about Buddhism and how a good monk told her that Buddha knows Jesus. She said that this monk told her that Jesus has good teachings for the people, the same that Buddha had. She also started to tell me about twelve levels of Heaven and how she believes that Buddha is at the top level and the Christian God and Jesus is somewhere in the middle of the twelve heavens. She also said something about Jesus and God becoming something like a Buddha to rule for 500 years. (At this point I'm very, very confused and my heart is breaking everytime she refers to "the Christian God" as a lower being, basically a pawn of the "great Buddha". The only thing getting me through this explanation of her beliefs without bursting into tears was the light at the end of the tunnel. She was opening up to me, she was sharing her faith with me, which meant that she would be willing to listen to what I had to say.)
She continued.... I wanted to cry.... She finished....
And I started...

"Well, do you mind if I tell you what I believe?"

she said sure..... And I was off to the spiritual races!
The rest is really a blur. I guess I switched to autopilot because I know where I started, and I know where I finished, but everything in the middle came so naturally.
And let me tell you, there is no better look than that of a Thai person that has never heard about Christ hear about him for the first time. It's a look of amazement and wonder. It's the wide eyed, tell me more look that gives a person more fulfillment than all the treasure in all the world.
After I had finished, I asked her if she would like to study with someone from the church in Thai, so that she could fully understand what I had just told her. She said yes, and this Saturday she is going to study with Gap. She talked with him for a good 20 minutes after we had finished and he said that he is very excited about studying with her. He told me that he asked her three questions that she couldn't answer about Buddhism.

"..one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Ephesians 4:5-6

We worship a very real living God! We worship a God that is not confined to temples, monks, or spirit houses. We worship a God that is readily accessible and wishes to be close to us.
He is not a God of mediators and middle men.
We worship a perfect God!