Inviting Himself Over

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, NIV.

When Acrapon invited himself and his new Christian girlfriend over to our house, we smiled and agreed that he could come. In Thai culture you only invite yourself over with family or close friends, so we knew that God had grown our relationship. We also smiled as we remembered how the Lord had pursued this young man.

Our first meeting with Acrapon almost didn’t happen. We were trying to follow up from an address he had given us at a restaurant where we had shared the gospel with him. He had said that he wanted to know more about the Christian faith, but addresses in Thailand are not quite as exact as they are in the States. We’d just about given up on finding him when a neighbor gave us the directions that we needed.

He was a heavy smoker and looked sickly and thin. As we shared with him with a bi-lingual tract he responded, “As soon as I read that tract at the restaurant, I wanted to follow Jesus.” We hugged him and rejoiced with him over his decision.

We invited him to church, but he soon began missing services. When we followed up with him, we discovered that he had gone to the Buddhist temple to become a monk and that he was done with Christianity. We thought that was that, but God wasn’t done with Acrapon.

A month later he turned up again. He never said anything about going to the temple or why he left. He seemed happy to see us and accepted a Thai Bible from us. He also started attending church regularly. Even more encouraging was the fact that he stopped smoking and has been able to hold a good job as a restaurant manager. He doesn’t look thin and sickly anymore. We credit that to the saving work of Jesus in his life. We’ve been discussing baptism with him, and we are excited to see what Jesus has in store for this changed young man that invited himself over to our house!

Pray that:

God will continue to grow Acrapon to be like Jesus and that others will be drawn to the Savior through his changed life.

Satan will be bound in this young man’s life so that he will remain steadfast in the faith.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.