Hello again.
We started our day with a visit to the house of Auntie Ling and Uncle Bpong. It was an interesting visit considering that this couple were new believers, and we did NOT have any interpreters with us. It was just God, Saa Yan (who hardly speaks English) and the group, with our rudimentary thai. Thank God that we managed to pull through the communication barrier. We sang songs to lighten up the mood, prayed for the Uncle’s hurting knees and the Auntie’s Gastro-intestinal problems. Uncle played the Er-Hu for us pretty amazing stuff!
At the premises, we also prayed for a lady that we presumed to be hearing impaired and thus had accompanying speech impairments, as if the difficulty of not being able to speak thai was not enough. Either way, God shone through and we managed to lift her mood with song and dance, big actions and smiles. Eventually we managed to pray for her, although she must not have heard a word we said, or understood them. We used the art drawn by Enting and Peilin to minister to her. i really felt that we lifted her moods and gave her a hope, it seemed as though we were showering a lot of love and affection on her, something she does not get, or hardly even gets.
In the afternoon, we split up to two groups. One stayed back at Thanpraporn to decorate and prepare for the English camp, whereas the other went to conduct cell group at another place in Thanpraporn. The former did not have much to share, except that they had an ambulance break down in front of the church haha.
So, as we mentioned earlier, a group comprising of Neo, Kusha, Dan, Eunice, Keith, Louisa and Peilin and of course, Uncle Henry helped out with the cell group. Dan led the bible study and Kusha shared his testimony. After that, as usual, there was a call for ministry time. This is where the fun starts haha. Not saying that bible study isn’t fun, but it doesn’t make compelling reporting haha.
Neo, Eunice and Uncle Henry ministered to a 56 year old lady whom UH had a burden for since Sunday. Although she is 56, she looks way older than that. With hair that has turned mostly white, she looked older than her mother who was standing next to her. After talking to her, they realized that she suffered from a nervous breakdown and henceforth stopped talking to people. Strangely enough, the doctors attributed this to her eating too much coffee powder and sugar. Well, the explanation sounded weird (am sure many readers would agree), so they continued praying for the breaking of the spirit of mute and many others. After prayer, although she did not start on a long verbose ramble, she responded to the team’s greeting of “Pra Jao uay pon” with the same. And she also praised the Lord. This is really cool. (Sorry we don’t sound very excited but vocab tends to die late at night). Realised the importance and power of all these simple sayings like God bless you and God is good, because the confession of God’s goodness can break strongholds.
Dan, Keith, Kusha, Louisa and Peilin ministered to this old grandma who had a headache from neck up+ giddiness+ high B.P. Something about the Thai diet doesn’t seem that right, lots of old people seem to have rather high B.P. Okay anyways, continuing with the testimony, this woman was described by Pastor Eng Kiat to be a woman with simple faith. This was really apparent when she said that she believed that she will be healed. The first time we prayed had a 30% healing, but as our glorious leader (Neo) said, must persevere and pray for complete healing otherwise we are kinda leaving stuff half done. And God is good, why would He only want to heal someone like 10% right?
So we continued and at the 2nd time, she said it was about 90% better. In addition, when we measured her B.P. again, it had dropped from 179 to 165. Which is still high, but haha it dropped right? She was really happy though, as her headache was gone and she walked around with a great big smile on her face. We prayed one more time, but were afraid to face up to our results (okay, not true, we had to go) so didn’t measure her B.P. Anyway, we have faith that she will be healed, as those with faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, and I am pretty sure hers surpasses that. This is the greatest gift of the Thai people, they are really very simple people with humongous faith in God. And we believe that they will be great great people for God, because their level of faith is just amazing.
After that, we had English camp. Thank God that the people who were doing visiting came back on time, so we had translators for the camp. Even though it is an English
Van: This Louisa, seriously, the younger generation nowadays is sorely lacking in dedication to see any task through.
Dan: Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?
V: No. I am ice queen. Hear me roar. *Zaps Louisa and she freezes in the corner*
D: Right… *Cringes in fear* Ok then let’s try not to digress too far. So what happened was that during the bible study, I was falling asleep and in an attempt to stay awake I asked God for a word of knowledge for something to pray for, and I got ‘breathing difficulties’ (I mean, the phrase, not the physical condition.)
V: Go on…
D: Yeah so the thing is we asked around the ladies and none of them had breathing difficulties. But we neglected to ask Uncle Leeyang as he had not requested for prayer.
V: So flash forward to post English camp! I saw Uncle LY sitting by the side alone and I asked Neo to join me in talking to him. We didn’t know what to say besides ‘Sawadee-ka/kap’ so we took out our notes. Then Aunty Anong came along and told us he needed prayer for his heart and knees (because he has no toes, there’s a lot of pressure on his knees.)
L: And also cos he’s fat.
V: You’re mean! *Zaps Louisa and freezes her mouth*
D: No la, to be fair that was Aunty Anong’s description. I think you should melt her!
V: Don’t make me freeze you too.
D: *Gasps* At this point Neo called me over because of the word of knowledge that I had in the afternoon. So I asked him if he had breathing difficulties and coincidentally, he had a near-death experience sometime this week because he choked on phlegm. So I affirmed him and told him that God wanted to heal him that’s why he gave me the word, and we prayed for him.
V: The first round we had a small improvement; he said he felt a strange sensation in his chest / heart area, and we told him it’s because we asked God for a new heart. In reply, he said he was happy that he a new heart and he laughed! But I sensed that there was a spirit of condemnation and that he was believing in the lies that his condition was a punishment from God.
D: So I asked him if he had any disappointments with God. Louisa, you seem like you have a lot to add?
V: *Grudgingly unzaps Louisa*
L: *relishing her new-found freedom of speech* Phew! I have tons to say about this… He said yes but that was long ago and he got over it because God had a better plan in store and he understood why God didn’t grant him his request. He then went on to share about his journey with God, which spans 67 years! During which there were times when he ran out of strength because of his weak state, but he would still persevere in serving God. (Pastor Eng Kiat affirmed this later on) He also said that he felt like a soldier, always obeying God’s commands, and Ice Queen over here affirmed him as she saw him as a warrior.
V: And after that he shared his vision for his life, that he would live long enough to see the 3 churches of Singburi –
L: My brother sensed that this was not his own personal vision, but God’s vision for His life, and so we affirmed him and told him that it would come to pass.
D: So we went on to pray for him again, for both his physical and spiritual needs. I remember praying that God would anoint his hands and feet (though he doesn’t have proper hands or feet).
L: I remember praying that he would get a new body.
V: The astounding thing was that after we were done, not only was the chest discomfort gone, he said he felt a tingling sensation on his legs! So we got him to stand up, and he got up and walked. He walked! This was a man who previously wasn’t able to fully extend his legs, needed 2 minutes to compose himself before he could start walking… He just got up and walked like he had discovered new feet!
L: I remember Aunty Anong’s reaction so clearly too! Her eyes were wide open and she excitedly tried to get Pastor EK’s attention. I think at this point we were all very elated, like really happy to see such joy in both Uncle LY’s and Pastor EK’s & Anong :)
V: Do you remember when we first saw him on Sunday, every step he took looked excruciatingly painful, but there we was, walking!
D: Then after walking a few rounds he said he felt some tightness, which I thought was normal since he’s essentially got new muscles in his legs that he needs to stretch out. But we prayed for him anyway (3rd round), for complete healing in his entire body.
L: I was praying that his fingers and toes would grow out too!
V: Can you imagine if that happened, we would’ve been so freaked out!
D: Yeah, secretly we all didn’t want to see it happen I think… But after we prayed the 3rd time, and Aunty Anong closed, he just spontaneously jumped up to his feet and walked around at like twice the pace that he was before! It was… Amazing!
V: We were just really too stunned to react!
L: I just felt very stoned.
D: Whatever. Anyway I thought that after witnessing this great miracle, we should all gather and offer praise and thanksgiving to God, so we rounded up all the various groups that were dispersed in the church, and got Uncle LY to share his testimony. AND THIS WAS THE BEST PART, after sharing, he burst into song, thanking God and praising Him for the miracle; even the Thais were amazed. And it really struck me how similar this was to Zechariah’s spontaneous worship after he named his son “John” in Luke 1. I then asked him to share his vision for the 3 churches, and I noticed that Pastor EK had tears in his eyes when he was done. Coolio Julio.
L: So after this, we sang praises of thanksgiving, both in Thai and English. IT was just such a memorable night. Many of those gathered were very touched by the whole episode.
V: And Daniel says that if tomorrow morning, Uncle LY wakes up with fully formed hands and feet, he will dance around naked.
D: Eh. This is a family programme, no such inappropriate content, MDA filter.
L: Ok la, that’s the end of the Uncle LY story. All glory to God. It’s really just so amazing, astounding, incredible, coolio Julio. Frankly, I didn’t know what I was praying for half the time, but God knew what Uncle LY needed and that was the important bit. God is so good!
V: Goodnight everyone! *Zaps Louisa one last time for good measure.*
Okay prayer requests:
- English camp day two: That the turnout would be good and that God will grant us with ideas and energy to carry out everything well. And that the response is good!
- Good health as we return and a good return trip.
Yours truly,
Daryl and Louisa with Ice Queen Van and Dan
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