'Library Lawning' at Moor Choor

Those of you who went to UNSW might be familiar with the term 'Library Lawning'. It was basically when we had a spare hour (or 5) to go to one of the few patches of grass in UNSW at the time (funnily enough outside the library) and basically go up to people and talk about Jesus. During easter, our church did some 'outreach' after our easter dawn service, which basically comprised of us walking back to church and handing out various tracts. i'm not sure if the tracts are any good or what, but when handing out the tract, i found it interesting that we didn't even introduce ourselves or say where we were from or try to engage in any sort of conversation. At the time, i did ask why they didn't and i think it was because the never thought to do it. so from then on, they decided it might be a good idea to at least say they were from Grace church.

So last night when i went over to the music meeting, their 'team time' was to go over to Chiang Mai Uni and Library Lawn thai style. I didn't realise till after that it was actually the first time that most of them had ever done that. previously, they had only handed out the tracts but not engaged in conversation. I went with Kim and she was actually pretty scared to do it, not knowing what to say, but she ended up doing really well i think. We approached a girl called 'Iit' who was a first year student waiting for her parents to come and visit her. She had learnt a little bit about God when she was younger, but basically didn't really know too much about her. Kim then got to share her testimony briefly with her and we got to chat a bit and even got to chat to her parents a bit when they arrived too. there was an exchange of phone numbers and hopefully we might see Iit at church sometime. If you can pray for her, that'd be great.

It was great when we all got back to church to share our stories of people we got to talk to. i think for many of them, they realised that it is a great thing to be able to engage in a conversation and speak more deeply about God and Jesus with people. Of all the 7 pairs of people that went, every group had a least one really good conversation and everyone was really encouraged by the trip out. We all got to pray for all the people we spoke to which was great.

One of the things that came out of it for me, apart from being really encouraged by how my friends were so challenged and encouraged by the time, was how ill equipped i was to be able to do it myself cos of my lack of language. Again, it was a good way to be forced into sitting back and observing what goes on, rather then accidentally say something heretical in Thai and not know about it. But it also provided for some great opportunities to chat with Kim about ways to approach people and what to talk about and how to introduce the gospel to them. So, here's another thing that's spurring me onto wanting to be able to speak and understand LOTS more Thai.

For those who are praying:
- please pray for all those we got to speak to yesterday, that God will be using that opportunity to open their hearts and get them interested in wanting to find out more
- pray for Thai Christians to have the boldness to go out evangelising and also wisdom in knowing what to say, and that they'll present the gospel clearly
- pray for more opportunities to go out and do it