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“What kind of massage are you looking for?” the young Thai woman behind the counter asked.

Liz, a cross-cultural worker who was new in the city, opened her mouth to answer when God stopped her. “Ask her if she wants to know some good news.”

Without hesitation, Liz ignored the receptionist’s question and asked God’s question instead: “Do you want to know some good news?”

“Yeah, I do,” the receptionist said.

Liz told her the good news about Jesus and the hope found in Christ. But Liz hadn’t been speaking Thai for long, and she wasn’t sure if her message had been complete and coherent.

Still, when Liz finished, the receptionist (we’ll call her Bobbi) said, “This is amazing because just this week I had a dream that somebody was going to tell me some news, some good news that was going to change my life.”

“Well,” Liz said, “I believe this is it.”

“Can we meet again for coffee?” Bobbi asked. “Can we talk more about this?”

Liz invited Bobbi to her home, and a couple of days later, she was knocking on the door. As soon as Bobbi stepped inside Liz’s house, she began to cry.

“What’s wrong?” Liz wanted to know.

“This is the table that was in my dream,” Bobbi said. “This is where I was sitting in my dream when I felt like somebody was going to come and tell me this good news.”

Liz and her husband, James, started meeting with Bobbi regularly. Together, they discussed questions like: Who is Jesus? What does Jesus do? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?

At one point, Bobbi asked them, “Can I pray for a new job? Because I really don’t like my job. I don’t want to be at my job anymore.”

So, Liz, James, and Bobbi started praying for a new job. And God answered Bobbi’s prayers...but not for Bobbi. As the weeks passed, it seemed like everybody around her was getting a new job — her husband, her sister, her friends; everybody was getting a new job but her.

“What’s up?” Bobbi asked Liz and James. “I’ve been praying. Why won’t God give me a new job?”

“Well, maybe God wants you to stay in your job,” they suggested. “Maybe He wants you to tell the people that you work with this good news that you now have heard.”

Bobbi thought about that. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I am supposed to tell people at my job about this good news.”

Before she knew Christ, when other people would come and tell their problems to her, she would get annoyed. Although she listened politely, Bobbi always wanted to say: “I don’t want to hear about your problems. I have problems of my own. I can’t help you.”

Now that she knew Jesus, Bobbi saw an opportunity instead of an annoyance. When the women who entered the shop for massages would share their lives, Bobbi could reply, “You know what? Jesus is the answer to this problem.”

Soon, Thai women were asking Bobbi, “Well, okay, who is Jesus, and why is he the answer?”

Before long, three women were joining Bobbi and Liz in their Bible study. Leading a Bible study in Thai with four ladies was taxing Liz’s early-stage Thai skills. She asked Dora Barbee, a TMS Global cross-cultural worker who has spoken Thai for years, “Will you please come and help me?”

“At first, I thought I was coming to help translate,” Dora said. “I thought, ‘I’ll come a few times, and then it’ll be somebody else’s thing.’”

On the first Sunday that Dora showed up at Liz’s house, she knew: This wasn’t going to be somebody else’s thing.

“It was amazing!” Dora said. “These four women, Bobbi and three others, wanted to know about God. They wanted to know about Jesus. How can they give their lives to him? How can they depend on him in situations? I could see God was at work there.”

A couple of weeks in, Bobbi asked Liz if she would go to her hometown, which was about two hours away, and tell her parents about Jesus. Bobbi had told her parents, and they had listened, but they hadn’t fully accepted Christ.

Liz agreed. A trip was planned. And Dora went with them. “We got to Bobbi’s house at about 8:30 in the morning,” Dora said. “Her older parents, her husband, her daughter, who was about five years old, and her 12-year-old niece were all there.”

All of them had heard something from Bobbi about following Jesus but none had yet made a move to do so.

In her family’s kitchen, Bobbi looked at Liz and said, “Okay, tell them the gospel. Tell them all the good news.”

Liz looked at Dora and said, “Go.”

Dora took a deep breath and started with a question: “What do you already know about Jesus?”

Bobbi’s niece said, “He’s the Son of God. He died on the cross. He saved us from our sins.”

Good start, Dora thought. Aloud she asked, “What about the resurrection?”

Bobbi spoke up. “The what?”

“When Jesus died and then he came back to life,” Dora explained.

Bobbi, shocked, repeated her question: “What?”

Together, Dora, Liz, Bobbi, and Bobbi’s family read the Gospel accounts of the Easter story. Bobbi, who had been reading, looked up and said, “He didn’t stay dead. He came back to life.”

Dora and Liz nodded.

Bobbi went on. “This changes everything. It’s not just that he died on the cross. It’s not just that he gives us eternal life and he cleanses us now and forever, but also because he is resurrected, we have purpose and we have hope and reason for living. We can live this life now with just as much excitement as we can when we go to heaven. This really is the best part.”

Bobbi’s parents, her husband, her daughter, and her niece had been there the whole time listening. They all stayed at their kitchen table for almost three hours, just talking through the good news of Jesus.

Finally, Bobbi asked, “Why didn’t anyone ever come and tell us this before?”

Good question, Dora thought.

“I want people to come here,” Bobbi continued. “And I want them to know this is a place of peace. This is a place of hope and joy and life, and it’s because of Jesus.”

Later, they went to dinner at a restaurant with Bobbi’s family. Dora was sitting next to her aunt, making conversation, when the aunt shared details about Bobbi’s life that Dora didn’t know.

For a long time, Bobbi struggled with addiction. Her family was worried about her. Not anymore. “I’ve seen the change in Bobbi’s life,” her aunt told Dora. “She’s like a different person now.”

Back in the city, the four Thai women continued meeting regularly every Monday and every Sunday with Liz and Dora. Liz began teaching them how to share their testimonies, which they began to do at once.

Soon, two new women started coming on Sundays. One woman’s fiancé began attending the Bible study. Then, another woman’s husband started showing up.

“It was just growing,” Dora said.

A few months ago, Bobbi had been standing behind the counter of a massage place when someone asked if she wanted to hear some good news. Now she was telling that good news herself to coworkers, friends and family, and to anyone who wanted to know why Jesus had changed her life.

The news Bobbi dreamed would change her life hadn’t stopped with her.

TMS Global cross-cultural workers like Dora come alongside people and communities for the long haul, helping relationships grow into communities where people can meet and follow Jesus. Your partnership helps sustain that work.

Will you help more stories like Bobbi’s begin? Give today at tms-global.org/give.