Being in the mission field means being ready to have spiritual conversations with your friends whenever the Holy Spirit prompts you. I know!

I woke up in the morning feeling like I should go biking; I had the day off and thought I could get to know the city and exercise a bit. After meandering through roads I already knew, I decided to get to know a part of the city I hadn’t been to before. The city where the Tai-Kadai project is located is very safe. The main perils are stray dogs or other pesky animals. After biking a bit, I realized that I was completely lost!

I checked Google Maps and figured out how to get somewhere familiar. The only issue was that I needed to travel along a dirt road full of goats on both sides. I’ve been a little scared of goats, but I took a deep breath, said a prayer and went. Everything was okay; no goats attacked me, and I was very grateful for that.

A couple of days later, I went out with a student. On our project, building relationships by spending time together is the main way of testifying. We grabbed a bite and, on the way back home, we ended up getting lost. We checked Google Maps and found a route back to the school — over the same road where I faced all those goats.

“I biked through here the other day, and it was full of goats,” I said.

With her eyes wide open, she said, “You saw goats?”

“Yeah, the road was full of goats on both sides,” I answered.
 
“Were you not afraid?”

“I was! I don’t like goats!”

“I’ve heard so many stories about goats. They can kill you!”

At this point, I was beginning to suspect something wasn’t right. I don’t really trust goats that much, but kill a person? Well, maybe the goats in Southeast Asia are scarier than I thought. Maybe it was more dangerous than I imagined!

“Really? They can kill a person? Tell me the stories!”

She then proceeded to tell me a horror story that apparently some people believe. In Southeast Asia, people are afraid of spirits, and there are no limits to what they think the spirits can do to them if they don’t appease them.

I finally realized what was going on. Unbeknownst to me, my friend thought that I was saying “ghosts,” and I thought that she was saying “goats.”  So I asked, “You’re not talking about goats, like b-a-a-a-h?” as I mimicked the sound goats make.

“No! I’m talking about ghosts! B-o-o-o-o!” 

We laughed a lot about our miscommunication. Then she became silent and asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
 
At that moment, the Holy Spirit told me to give her some spiritual food, and I proceeded to tell her about the great war that happened in heaven and how there are fallen angels here who are evil and want to destroy us. 

“Are you afraid of them?” she asked.
 
“No, because I trust Jesus, and He is way more powerful!”
 
One silly mistranslation led to a deep spiritual conversation. I’m very grateful the Holy Spirit used me that day to testify of the great controversy to my friend. Are you ready to be used by Jesus to reach people? If you put yourself in His hands, great things will happen.

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