NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Rice almost ready for harvest

Your gratitude can change lives.

The Red Karen people, whom Julie and I visited last month, know that.

They’ve just completed their rice harvest. Rice is a staple food and a key money-maker. Flooding in other parts of Thailand cut into the rice harvest nationwide. So the need for rice, and the potential to make money, was even greater this year.

But when the harvest was poor, it was a double-whammy.

The believers responded with a celebration. They gave thanks “even though they only harvested a little from their farms,” wrote missionary Peter Bangcong. “Their joy is no longer from the good harvest but to the Giver of the harvest.”

They expressed their gratitude with a day of thanksgiving. “Each believer brought to the church rice, fruits and vegetables,” Peter wrote. “After the worship to God they ate together inside the church.”

It was also an opportunity for Red Karens who have not placed their faith in Christ to see the gratitude that springs from an understanding of grace, and to hear God’s Word.

“Khora, a young man, preached during this thanksgiving celebration,” Peter wrote. “He expounded the story of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed but only one came back to express his gratitude to Jesus. … The highlight of his message was the re-enactment of the scene of ten lepers presented by the Red Karen children.”

I trust you’ll have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

But if you don’t – or if your circumstances are otherwise less than you had hoped for – I pray that you’ll keep your focus on the Giver of the harvest, and respond to Him with gratitude.

Then your less-than-hoped-for circumstances become opportunities to change lives.