“Prayer is getting into perfect communion with God” – Oswald Chambers

I cannot but overflow with praise for the way God is daily bringing me into deeper communion with Him through prayer. I feel as though if I accomplish nothing more here in Thailand than to commune more intimately with my Father and draw into better oneness with Him I will have accomplished everything.

I was drawn to increase my intentional time with God several weeks ago. Around this same time I was also feeling a burden to start praying for our village (it is similar to a gated community within the city). Here we are, 4 single ladies living in this village/neighborhood claiming to be ambassadors for Christ and it got me thinking. How is our village different because we live in it? Within our scope of influence, our neighbors are the closest to us and should therefore be some of the first we reach out to. One thing I’ve really been convicted of and taken to heart is that we too often “do and do” in the name of Christ but often forget to wait and listen for His advice on what to do or how to carry forward in the most effective way. There’s nothing wrong with staying busying doing work for Christ, but what if at times God is waiting for us to stop and look up? To stop and ask Him to open the doors, lead the way as He sees fit, and to reveal the most effective means of reaching hearts. Please don’t confuse taking time to stop and earnestly pray for His guidance for laziness and procrastination. Those are real traps as well and ones we must be careful of.

Anyways, as I’ve been feeling the need to increase my communion time with God and realizing my absolute need to seek God’s guidance as we labor for hearts I was impressed with an idea. I decided that one way I could begin to lay the ground work for God to work powerfully in our village was to begin a daily prayer walk. I would start at one corner of the village and zig zag back and forth throughout the village to the opposite corner, passing by every house and covering each with a special prayer of blessing. I began to do this around October 15 and ever since, God has given me the motivation to wake up at 5:45 am every morning and begin my prayer walk. For me the experience has been powerful! It’s almost as if I can feel the Spirit of God working in my community even though there are no big visible results yet by human standards. It has given me the chance to experience prolonged one-on-one quality time with my Maker (at least 45 minutes to 1 hour) at the first part of each day. And, it has already begun to bring results after only 5 days. One specific prayer I had was that God would bring about divine appointments with people in our village and that He would open doors and begin friendships. On October 20, a woman named *Kom approached me as I was doing my prayer walk. I’d seen her riding her bike every morning and had greeted her in Thai several times as she passed by. This particular morning she rode right up to me and began to speak in Thai. I communicated that I speak mostly English and a little Thai and she expressed surprise that I wasn’t Thai but then switched to speaking in broken English. I found out that she is a retired school teacher in her 50s, is divorced, has 2 children that do not live close, and is lonely. She was quite friendly and talkative and asked if I could come visit her that moment! I have since visited her several times and, in accordance with Thai culture and hospitality, always leave with some sort of gift be it soy milk, funny little snack beans, apples, or a variety of tea bags.

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her and have discovered that she is acquainted with most of the people in our village. She has begun to introduce me to many different neighbors. Last week she introduced me to a neighbor named *Grandma Pai who is a widow and I have begun to visit her regularly as well. They have requested that I must now consider them my mom and grandma and are always asking when I can visit them again! Talk about a divine appointments and open doors into the community and all I had to do was pray, walk, and smile!

God is utterly good as He opens me eyes to a whole new communion experience with Him and is leading my steps with a strong and decided hand. Thank you all for your continued prayers as well…they are important to this work and are making an impact!

*Names changed for privacy

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