New Life Wednesday

What's funny is that in Houston on KSBJ they really do call Wednesdays "new life Wednesday" b/c that's the day on the radio that they share the gospel. well, today was that for us in clinic. i have amazing news!

again, seizing every moment with the patients... i had a lady maybe in her 50's who was there today with her daughter maybe in her 20's. the mom was the patient b/c she was having her left eye twitch now for two weeks. this was the first time we had seen her. she was seen by an outside clinic, and they were not able to help her. first thing on my mind was that it was eye strain or stress. i get these too. i went and talked to dr. tom about it and we agreed that she was stressed and not sleeping. i clarified this with the patient and we gave her some meds to help her sleep better at night and to help lessen the anxiety. i asked her what she was worried about. noi was with me translating. she is a mother of three girls and she is worried about each one of them. they have all moved off to different provinces and it is overwhelming. i explained the eye twitch to her and what it was caused by and she agreed with us. they were from the hmong village people. at times, the daughter would translate to the mom, what we were saying in thai (or what noi was saying after i said it in english). after a good discussion about her stress, i told noi that we needed to tell her about how we believe in the God of true peace. i gave excerpts from going through difficult times in my own life and noi passed it on. i then went to grab the tract in my coat pocket. it had the picture of the hearts before and after Christ. i mentioned that in another blog about how some of these tribal people can't read or write, so pictures are the best. the before picture depicted her heart with anxiety and stress as seen by the different animals with characteristic meanings. the after knowing christ picture shows all of those bad things or lies outside the heart with an open eye, light, the cross, the dove in the inside of the heart. they kept smiling as we told them.

i asked noi to ask them what they thought. they said they think it is good. they have some relatives in their village who are christians and they have been thinking about it. they said they wanted to go back to their village and discuss it first. i shared with them that this is a personal decision we must all make and how we can't be influenced by others. i started to get excited at the thought, so i shared it with them, "what if you made the decision to believe here and then got to go back to your village and share the good news with everyone!" they smiled and asked for the phone number so they could get back in touch with us. i told them i would give it to them, but also said i had someone they could talk to here more about it if they wanted. they said they'd stay and ask more questions. so, we got Bang, a nurse aid who is a christian and also from the hmong people group. she was perfect to share with them. she can more closely identify with the strong family ties they have in their villages and the previous lifestyle of worshipping spirits. when bang came out of the room, noi came over and gave me a huge high five!!!!!!! the daughter got saved! can you believe it? she wasn't even the patient! she just came with her mom to help translate. God works in mysterious ways. the mom is still going to think about it, but i'm pretty sure she is almost ready to accept Christ when she goes home. all of us who got to partake in that experience know our reason for living today. wow.