20 going on 40 (Ch 38)

สัวสดีค่ะทุกคน​

I am ringing in the new year with style! The other day, someone asked if Sister Maughan was my child. I don't know what all the Pad Thai and heat has done to me, but apparently I look old enough to have a 19-year-old daughter. It's okay. I cried a couple tears (just a couple--water is scarce here in the jungle) and biked on.

Nah, just kidding! It was a great week. We met a lot of wonderful new people in our area. I need your help praying for them! One of them is named Sister เอ๋​ (A). She will be baptized someday! She's originally from Burma. When she was there, she said she just worshipped God without caring too much for details. She liked the way she felt. When she came to Thailand, she was confused by all the different Christian sects (ring familiar to anyone...?) (sidenote: she came to church with us this Sunday, and said she felt good, but that she was mostly confused!) We asked her if she thinks there's one true church and she said yes, so we committed her to study and pray about which it is. Pray for her to get an answer!! The truth will bring her so much happiness. 

The other lady we met this week is ศรี​ (C)​ (making our way through the alphabet...hoping we meet D and E this week). ศรี​ is a nice woman who lives a quiet life in a cute little home. When we taught her this past week, she said she felt peaceful. She said that we have something special about us. We want her to have this something special (the light of Christ!) in her life, too. Things we're working on: getting her to come to church (she's a little shy, we think, and prefers the walls of her own home) and helping her get an answer about God's role as our loving Heavenly Father and our role as His servants. Any and all prayers would be appreciated! Prayer is so powerful. The catalyst in Alma the Younger's conversion was the prayers of a faithful father. I know earnest prayers will help เอ๋​ and ศรี​, too. 

So, other than that, I'm still out here! I hit nine months in country this week--crazy! Exciting! I'm still loving, still praying, still biking, still eating a ton of Thai food, still happy as can be, still ready to grow and change and be a little better every day!

I just want to share a quote from C.S. Lewis that Sister Maughan and I read this week. I love this quote, especially in the context of missionary work (sorry it's a bit long) :

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. 

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

- C.S. Lewis 

I love you all so much! Thanks for everything you do for me and everything you are to me! Stay happy and healthy. 

All my love, 

Sister Harris

Elephant riding on P-day!