For the past couple of years I have been trying to start Bible studies with Pear, a young lady who has been attending church off and on with the daughter of one of our members. Pear has attended many church functions and expressed interest in getting baptized about two years ago. However, even though she had told us she wanted to study, whenever I or anyone else on the team would try to schedule a time to study with her, she would always make an excuse, often saying she was too busy with school. We kept praying for her, but I was skeptical that she would ever study with me since she didn’t know me well.
In addition to coming to church, Pear has consistently attended the small group that our student missionaries (SMs) have held for the past year and a half. This year she has connected especially well with SM Anna Rorabeck. As I saw the friendship developing between Pear and Anna, I had the idea to ask Anna to invite Pear to do Bible studies with the three of us. A couple of days later, before I’d even had a chance to share this idea with Anna, she asked me if I would be willing to do Bible studies with her and Pear! I knew this was God’s leading. We scheduled our first study.
In our second study we talked about Genesis 3, the entrance of sin into the world, and how everything bad that we see is a result of sin. We talked about how God promised to send Jesus to defeat Satan, and how there would be a battle between good and evil. As we got to the end of the lesson, I felt impressed to ask Pear if she understood what Jesus had done for her personally. Even though she reaffirmed that she wanted to get baptized, and that she no longer gave homage to Buddha images at the temples, she said she didn’t understand what Jesus had done for her, so I shared the gospel. I then asked her if she would like to accept Jesus into her heart right then and say a prayer together with Anna and me. She said she wanted to accept Jesus as her personal Savior, so I led her in a prayer.
After we finished the prayer, Anna and I welcomed Pear into the family of Christ and told her how excited we were about her decision. We told her that this was just the beginning of her journey with Christ. There would be trials to face, but we wanted to help and encourage her. We also told her that we would get her a Thai / English Bible.
Please pray for Pear and us as we continue studying together.
