And then there are times when those opportunities surprise you.
This past week we had some friends from the states come visit, and it required us utilizing a few more taxis than normal. (They had 6 joint replacements between the two of them... and they came to Thailand! Hats off to these amazing friends, they really are troopers!)
It is difficult getting taxis in Thailand (Sometimes they just refuse to take you and drive off). We've medical emergencies and had taxis refuse to drive us the 10 minutes to a hospital!
But on this particular day, we were going to the Grand Palace, and on our 5-6th attempt to find a taxi had ended with us loading up and driving 15 minutes to a nearby mall (located on a larger road) where Megan's grabtaxi app finally picked up a driver. Mr. Pan took us the 20 minutes to the Grand Palace, and on the way struck up a conversation about him being raised in Catholic school, although he is a Buddhist. We talked a lot - and about a lot of subjects, but he kept coming back to faith. I had a lot of time to explain the difference between Christianity and other faiths.
He dropped us off and we enjoyed our day at the grand palace. We called him but he was across town and couldn't pick us up when it was time to go home. However,the next day, we had difficult locating a taxi again and we called Mr. Pan. He picked us up again - this time for a long haul, all day adventure to an elephant park.
The two hour drive (including a 45 minute missed turn/u-turn adventure) yielded some amazing theological discussion. Some of his questions:
- Do Christians worship more than 1 God?
- Is the trinity made up of God, Jesus, and Mary?
- Isn't obtaining eternity about weighing the Good with the Bad we've done?
- How old is our religion (testing validity by age)?
These were just some of the questions along the way as we dove deeply into the issues of sin and how to pay for our sins. He truly was intrigued and continued to ask questions - sometime getting so distracted that we missed turns along the way (resulting in our 45 minute detour and U-turn)
When we arrived at the Elephant park, he decided to spend the day with us - coming in and watching an alligator show, a magic show, and an elephant show with us. I took a photo of him feeding the elephants that I later sent to him.
Everyone was so tired we really didn't talk much on the way home - but he heard a full explanation of the gospel and had his questions answered... all on a trip to an elephant park.
