"...And lean not unto thine own understanding."
Truly we don't understand a thing! The key is to "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." Proverbs 3:5 On November 22, Wednesday, I was ready to head out to the main hwy by myself. My visa was due on the 24th. I planned to walk out, leaving before dawn, then I would have time to get a song tow into MaeSot and do my visa at the immigration office before 4p.m. I could then spend the night in MaeSot and get a song tow in the morning to drop me off at the road to BYT and walk back the following day. That is a LOT of walking in 2 days, but I was excited about doing it none-the-less. The following Sunday was a big day because the builder was going to visit us that day! We certainly all needed to be present.At the last minute Breck and Emily decided to go also. Their visas were due within a short period of time and if we could synchronize our runs, it sure would help. That is a long way to go in truck or on foot, every week until all of our visas are handled every 3 months. So it happened that we all drove in the truck to the border, and took care of our visas together.BletJaw, in the meantime, heard that the bulldozer was coming, and heading straight to BYT! We should leave very early Friday morning so we could direct them to our piece of property that needed leveling. As we turned to come down that last one hour stretch of road to BYT, we could hardly believe our eyes! The bulldozer had indeed come and the road was beautiful!! Instead of one bulldozer there were Three! Over half the way was completed, and it was just 9:30 in the morning!Now a new concern entered my mind. It looks like they will be finished and ready to start on our project Sabbath morning. We thought about the importance of this bulldozer:
- Now, while the government had these big bulldozers out, it would be almost free for us. It seemed like another golden opportunity like this would never come again!
- Also this was a perfect time for us as I had prayed that God would please send the bulldozer right away before the builder came.
- And, let’s not forget that we had been disappointed about the bulldozer not coming four or five times in the last 6 months.
- Finally, the entire time I have lived in BYT, this road had not been touched by a bulldozer. And by the way it looks, it hasn’t been worked on even longer than that! It is a very terrible road to travel on. Indeed it was a miracle that it was here at last!!
-But now we must tell them that we could not allow them to do that job on the Sabbath day. The Bible tells us not to do any work, this is not only for us to obey, but for “The stranger that is within thy gates.” I became overjoyed for an opportunity to show others how important the seventh-day Sabbath, of the Lord our God is! To me it did not matter whether we forever missed our golden opportunity to get this work done. This whole project belongs to God. He will see it through to completion through whatever means He sees is best. This land had already been dedicated to Him. He could never bless our work if we allowed such disobedience to His law.Another disappointmentAs we entered BYT we had another disappointment. The pastor told us that the villagers of BYT were not happy with us building up on that hill above their homes. They thought the dirt and water would come down on them. They also thought that toilets would smell and that somehow our living up there would contaminate their rice crops on the other side. They also thought that I must have a problem with the pastor to be moving out in that direction. Quickly another insult came upon my work. Someone had said that the baby I delivered 2 years ago that did not breath, and had multiple problems, was my fault. It could have been normal if I had let the women press on the Mother’s belly during the delivery.The pastor said that I should think about building here behind our house, but we had been told that we couldn’t do that, the water pours out of the ground here during the rainy season.I went to bed bewildered and unsure about what God had planned for me here. The way the human brain wants to work in situations like this is self pity, discouragement, and doubt. It seemed that all my hard work through every day of my life here was unrecognized, unappreciated and unwanted. But God does not want us to sink into doubt. What a dishonor to Him, when He has always blessed us abundantly! Now is the time to praise His name. He says: “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding." My understanding is worthless. I certainly did not want to lean that way! I knew nothing of what was going on just now. All I know it that I will NOT dishonor Him with doubts and fears. Through His strength, I will trust.The good news is, that now it is Sabbath, and we had these sacred hours to pray and spend time with God. Prayer is so powerful in the Christian’s life! I had just sent a prayer heavenward that the bulldozer would break down or something, so that they would not be ready to do our work on the Sabbath. One of the bulldozers did brake down and they would have to drive to Chiang Mai to get a part. We now had no Sabbath problem! The Sabbath – a delight!Sabbaths here always bring delight and this one was not exception! Today we fasted and prayed to know and do God’s will.In the afternoon ChaPoe came over from WST for a visit. Remember him? You have been praying for him and his friend, BeeHtu. (And your prayers have been answered)!! ChaPoe stopped smoking November 14. On the 16th we had gone to visit him and encourage him because he made it for 2 days! We also encouraged his wife to stop smoking along with him, because her smoking would be very hard on him. Together they could be strong. She told us that she would stop later, right now she had just purchased a large package of tobacco and she just could not throw that away! After she finished that bag she would stop smoking. We had prayed with them and left.ChaPoe told us that his wife had indeed stopped smoking that very day after we visited them! She had thrown away that large package of tobacco and God had helped her quit the habit. They both have not smoked this entire time and they were determined to keep up the good work!! He was just beaming with joy. Praise the Lord again and again! BeeHtu’s wife however, has not stopped smoking. Let’s keep praying for her and that her husband will stay strong.We had other visitors that Sabbath day, besides patients. DeePoe and her husband ChaHtu. We had given them an audio Bible about 6 weeks ago. She is the one I told you about who played the audio Bible over loud speakers for all around to hear! We had told her at the time that we wanted to take a picture of them with the audio Bible, because the people who gave them to us asked us to. Well here they were proudly holding the little audio Bible and ready to have their pictures taken!! Breck has a lovely camera and he had no problem getting this lovely picture of these 2 precious souls who are thristing after the Words of truth!!
Sunday is here!Mrs White says that when we have a bitter drought to drink that God holds to our lips a cup of blessing! You might have called our situation a bitter drought - I don't know. But I do know this one thing, that whether it was bitter or not, we sure got our cup of blessing!! Our neighbor, DJ came over and ate breakfast with us. He told us that the people in WST are now finished harvesting their rice. They had a meeting with the head man and decided unanimously that every family in that village would give us a big square tin full of rice, because they were so appreciative of all the medical care! Tears just wanted to spring out of my eyes! Then he said BYT wanted to do the same, and other villages that we walk to and visit routinely also wanted to show their appreciation by giving us as much rice as they could!! Surely God's windows in heaven had just opened up and poured us out a blessing that there really is not room enough to receive it!! (Malachi 3:10). We would not ever be able to eat that much rice, but could sell it and use the money for God's work here. The idea that all the people all the way around would want to give, out of the love in their hearts is too much joy and gratitude for me to handle! Truly the temptation to be discouraged over some few comments, is ridiculous. It is from the father of lies and must be squelched as fast as it tries to enter the heart. God can protect our reputation, as we quietly trust Him! How wonderful it is to be able to put our full weight on Him and cast all our cares upon the lovely Jesus and see how beautifully He carries out His will!Our decision is to build right here behind our house. We certainly do not want to offend the villagers by building on that hill, because we love them and are here to help them.Today the builder came. We showed him the areas behind our house that we had chosen to build on. He looked over our blueprints and after much talking with BletJaw and the assistant head man, he told us that he could begin working near the beginning of January. He could have 2 buildings up in one month! However we must transport the supplies. The people of the village will collect much sand and gravel for the concrete. I know there will be many problems but let's GO FORWARD!!