By Corrine Tucker, OMF short-term worker to Thailand
I was definitely out of my comfort zone! Here I was in Thailand as a short-term worker helping to teach English. Not only am I not a teacher, but English isn’t even my first language!
Thankfully, the level of English was quite basic, and the enthusiasm of the students soon erased any fear I’d had. In fact, I never expected teaching to be so much fun.
But I soon learned to expect the unexpected when God is at work.
In my second week, I got a severe toothache and had to go to a dentist for root canal work. What I didn’t know was that an OMF missionary used the same dentist, and had started to befriend her.
Anyway, having had to return five – yes, five! – times to the dentist to sort out my teeth, I started to pray for the lady.
On my final visit, she began to fit the crown. This, I thought, would surely be simple.
However, as the dentist began moving the crown into place, something tickled the back of my throat and I swallowed. It was then, as something small and hard disappeared down my throat and I noticed the stunned look on the dentist’s face, that I realised I had swallowed the tooth!
The dentist was so upset and embarrassed that she later phoned the OMF worker to explain.
A few weeks later I discovered that, as a result of the conversation, the dentist had become a Christian. For me, tooth or no tooth, Thailand’s other name – ‘The land of smiles’ – took on an entirely new meaning!