Disinterested Act

“But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:13, NAS.

Tooktar really wanted to improve her English. She was working as a nurse in a blood center and decided to try the Baptist Student English Language Center (BSC). When she started studying there, she was very impressed with the caring teachers. She said, “They worked so hard, but they always took time to go out with us and talk to us after class.”

Although she enjoyed these relationships, Tooktar was a serious student. She was somewhat bothered by the amount of time these Christian teachers discussed spiritual things in class. Finally she decided to make her point. She convinced some of her classmates to walk out of class with her when her teacher, Ryan E., began to share his faith.

“I was really interested in Christianity, but I pretended not to be,” she admits now. “I had grown up in a Buddhist family and had tried to follow all the teachings of my elders. I didn’t think I needed to listen to anything about another religion.”

Tooktar’s motivation to learn English kept her going to the BSC. She made lots of good friends there. One of these friends was a Christian who invited her to a special evangelistic meeting at Bangkok’s National Stadium. It was an evening that changed her life. At the end of the meeting, the speaker invited people who wanted to accept Jesus into their lives to come to the front. Tooktar started crying and could not stop. She couldn’t understand why she was crying and was very embarrassed that all the people around her could see that something was happening to her. The Christians with her urged her to go forward, but she did not want to go. She thought, “No, I am not ready to believe in Jesus.”

But then the speaker said, “Even if you are just interested, come on up here, and we will pray for you.” Then Tooktar thought, “Okay, I am just interested. I will go up, they will pray for me, and then I can go home.” But when she went to the front and Christians took her to the side to pray for her, Tooktar opened her heart, laid down the burden of her sin, and received Christ into her life.

At the meeting, Tooktar was given a New Testament. She read it cover to cover in one week. She started attending New Vision Church which meets at the BSC. When she told her parents of her decision to be a Christian, they were upset and did not understand, but they did not cast her out of the family. She continued to testify of her faith to them as God gave her opportunities.

Tooktar quickly took on many roles at church. One of those was to teach English. After some time, Aacaan Tongchai began to encourage her to begin thinking about full-time Christian service. Tooktar really enjoyed her job, her financial freedom and independence. She did not really want to give all that up to become a full-time student. But Aacaan Tongchai challenged the young people at New Vision to be willing to “quit anything” to serve God. This was when Tooktar knew that God was indeed calling her to serve Him and that He would take care of her needs.

Just eight years after she accepted Christ, Tooktar is finishing her Master of Divinity degree at Thailand Baptist Theological Seminary. She is writing a thesis this year on Jonah. She believes that like Jonah, God is going to use her to proclaim his message in a distant place. 

Tooktar has not forgotten her former BSC English teacher, Ryan E., whose class she fled because of his strong witness. Two years after she became a Christian, she discovered that Ryan had put her name on his special prayer list. He had faithfully prayed for her salvation and then her growth in Christ. Tooktar knows for certain that those prayers were not in vain.

Pray that:

God will encourage believers to continue sharing and praying for people in Bangkok, even when they seem to be uninterested.

Tooktar will continue to yield to God’s call to share His Gospel in Bangkok, and wherever else He leads her.

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