“Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.” — Proverbs 16:3
จงมอบงานของเจ้าไว้กับพระเจ้า
และแผนงานของเจ้าจะได้รับการสถาปนาไว้ — สุภาษิต 16:3
Elizabeth writes: Hello everyone,
We’ve landed in Dallas! We had a great trip, driving all the way from New York to Texas — so many visits and so many stories. We saw both Robin’s and Elizabeth’s college friends, and relatives from both sides as well. But one visit in particular stood out.
When we passed through Pennsylvania, we stayed with friends we hadn’t seen in a long time. Robin lived in Dallas briefly when he was two years old, and these friends had been his next-door neighbors at the time, and good friends of his parents. As we visited them, they mentioned that they had another friend, Stephanie, who had also been a missionary in Thailand. She had married a man from Thailand (named Sompop, but nicknamed “Pope”), and the two of them now live nearby in Pennsylvania with their three daughters. Since we had a Thai connection, they offered to take us over and introduce us.
They told us Pope was from northern Thailand, near Chiang Rai area (north of where we live in Chiang Mai), so I wondered whether Pope might belong to one of Thailand’s hill tribes. Thailand has many small language groups, especially in the north — there are actually 72 different languages spoken in Thailand. I thought Pope might come from the Lahu group, or maybe Lisu, Karen, or Hmong.
When we arrived at Pope and Stephanie’s house, Pope wasn’t home from work yet, so I started chatting with Stephanie. I asked her more specifically where Pope was from around Chiang Rai. “Oh, he’s not really from Chiang Rai,” she said. “He’s actually from a small language group south of Chiang Mai. They’re called Bui.”
I was amazed! Eastern and Western Bui are pretty small language groups, even within Thailand. Even people in Chiang Mai usually haven’t heard of them! I thought to myself, well, he must be Western Bui — Western Bui is a much larger group than Eastern Bui. Besides, he’s a Christian. The Western Bui church is strong, but there are only about ten Eastern Bui Christians.
I asked Stephanie what village Pope was from. She said, “A tiny village called Na Fon — you wouldn’t have heard of it.” I was floored again — that’s an Eastern Bui village! I’ve been there several times, and even attended church there with the Eastern Bui believers!
When Pope came in, I greeted him in Eastern Bui. His jaw dropped! He couldn’t believe he met an American who knew any Eastern Bui (apart from his wife), and I couldn’t believe I’d run into an Eastern Bui speaker in Pennsylvania.
Over lunch, we shared our stories. We told them how we came to be working with the Eastern Bui language through Wycliffe, and Pope told us his testimony of how he came to Christ. We were deeply moved by his story. We really wanted to share it with you as well, so we’ll be sending that to you in our next update — look out for it!
God’s plans never cease to amaze us. We see just a small corner of what He is doing, but God is always working in a million ways, large and small, in the lives of all those around us, in every corner of the world. God was working in Pope’s life long before we joined the Eastern Bui translation project. God has been working in all of our relationships and connections, giving us opportunities to meet new people and share about our ministry throughout our time in America this year. We didn’t know there was an Eastern Bui Christian living in Pennsylvania, but God knew, and he brought us together. In all our travels around the US this year, we commit our journey to the Lord, but it’s God who establishes our plans.
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