“High tide is at 4:30,” Mary Ann reminded us as her husband Jerry pulled their 18-foot open-bow boat up to the rocky beach. “We should have plenty of time to saw logs into rounds and roll them down to the beach. We need to have the boat loaded before high tide. We will need all the firewood we can get, come winter.”

I eyed the magnum handgun strapped to her side. “What’s that for?” I asked.

“That’s in case we run into bears,” she replied.

At 85, Mary Ann credits her health and energy to the Adventist lifestyle. “When I was in my late twenties and beginning to read the Bible, I had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Jesus convicted me point by point.” Watching Mary Ann scramble up the beach and toss log rounds toward the boat, I thought, What a powerful testimony to the efficacy of God’s principles and the power of the gospel to change lives!

Jerry has a testimony, too: “I used to be an alcoholic. God changed my life. I probably wouldn’t even be alive today if I hadn’t discovered a relationship with God.”

Knowing Jesus changes lives. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

The apostle Paul listed off several categories of sinners and concluded to his Corinthian audience, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:10).

Duang and I want to introduce the people of southern Thailand to Jesus so that they can experience abundant life in Him.

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