The reading today reminds me of my dear friend in Thailand, Nu. She was our helper in our home and became an older sister to our kids and a friend to us. We had a wonderful time when she was in our lives.
We first met Nu when her sister who worked for a friend of ours and knew we did not have a helper any longer, brought her to our door to interview. Nu was so shy and her sister had to translate most everything. She could not speak much English that day. She had worked for a Chinese family for many years and spoke their language.....but had not had any reason to learn English.
When she came to our home we had friends staying with us. They had adopted a child from Latin America and were in the process of adopting another girl from Vietnam. While they were awaiting the final papers, they were staying with us. So Nu came to work at our home with the five Trumans and four Koops. A full house. And she was amazing from the first day. She quietly went about doing her work, never complaining at the fact she was helping nine people, a cat, birds and turtles. She was such a blessing to us.
Over the years Nu became a house manager really. She would make sure that everything was ready since we were such a busy household.....she set the menus, made sure there was sufficient food for the many guests we had and set up for the women's group that met in our home weekly. She set up the chairs, made snacks just in case those who agreed to bring snacks forgot, prepared the drinks, refilled things as they became empty and when they all went home, she cleaned everything up and all this with a smile on her face. She also became known in our community of Nichada Thani as an amazing baker. After all her other chores, she would spend hours with a baking business she set up....making cakes, cookies and eventually entrees to sell in the community. I personally think people loved coming to our home for many reasons but Nu's baking was a huge draw.
The women's group I mentioned was a Bible Study set up for the women in the community. Most of the foreign women living in Thailand had left jobs outside of the home to follow their husbands there. With the adjustment to a new culture and a loss of their own work, many came to study the Bible and for the support. We called this group, Encouraging Women. This group stared with about 20 women and by the time we moved, was having 70 attend regularly.
The Lord placed on my heart to reach out to limited English speakers so we started an ESL Bible Study class at Encouraging Women. This class would take a story of Jesus' teaching, read it and answer a few simple questions......always ending with 'What did I learn today?'. This class grew to about 15 and included Thai, Korean, Japanese, French and Taiwanese women. We talked about how I understood their intent was to learn English and I was happy to help with that but I had another purpose and that was for them to learn about Jesus. We were very open about these agendas.
In order for Nu to be able to hear about the Lord as her English proficiency improved, I had this class meet in the kitchen each week. Some days Nu would quietly stand around and listen, and other times she would go to her room which was off the kitchen and leave her door open a little. Our whole family prayed for her to come to know the Lord before we left Thailand.
One Christmas Craig Pansing, a friend of Justin, our second son, came to visit. Justin and Craig had met each other in Kindergarten and went to school through half of second grade together in Claremont California. They were good friends and we were friends with his parents as well. When we moved, they stayed in contact. When Jeremy had his accident, Justin went to stay with their family for part of the summer to give him a break from the intensity of ICU and the beginnings of rehabilitation. So when we returned to Thailand, Craig wanted to come and see what it was like.
We decided to take a trip to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand for him to see the differences of the hill tribe areas and Bangkok where we lived. Nu came with us for a break for her too. We went to see a famous Buddhist temple Doi Su Thep and it was there that we watched Nu preform the rituals of the Buddhist religion. She went to one place and took a bamboo container with what looked like chopsticks in it with writing on them. What you do is shake the container as you kneel down in front of the Buddha and one chopstick will begin to move out of the container. When this one is clearly separated, you read this to know your fortune. When Nu did this the first time, one stick came out and she looked concerned. She repeated it and two sticks fell out onto the ground and she looked very distressed....got up and left the site. I walked with her and asked her what this all meant. She said the first was not good but the second that fell out with two chopsticks was very bad. She was visably shaken......and I put my arm around her and told her that she did not need to have this guide her life......God is waiting for her and He is the one who holds her life in His hands. She was quiet and so I stopped talking too. I just prayed that God would reveal Himself to her to take away her fear......
Several years later my Mom fell and broke her hip. I went to the USA to be with her for an extended time of about 4 months. After she died I returned to Thailand and was so surprised that Nu had become a Christian, was attending the Thai Church and was so content. I asked her what had happened. Was it what she had heard all those years with the English as a Second Language (ESL) Bible Studies in the kitchen......."No"......so what was it? She said, I just decided to follow Jesus. We were so happy. She became a vocal part of the ESL classes......did not seem at all shy meeting with business women and everyone accepted her wholeheartedly. It was wonderful. She even asked if she could host the Thai Church at our home when it needed a new location. We were very happy to have her do this. It was wonderful. Oswald Chambers writes: "Many people begin coming to God once they stop being religious, because there is only one master of the human heart— Jesus Christ, not religion." Nu made it very clear that she had thought about all she had heard and had made her own decision to follow Jesus......it was not something I had done but was her following the leading of the Holy Spirit in her heart. "...whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God." John 3:21
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