A Quick Post From a Tired TREKer

Well, life keeps trucking on here in Thailand, and it seems like every day we become more and more busy. Don't get me wrong, my life is full, but I LOVE IT, however it can start to wear on you. Fortunately Jesus is about rest and refreshment, and even when it feels like I have nothing left to give, God meets me in that place, and gives me the strength to keep going.

One day I had a to do list as long as my arm (well, not really, but it was substantial) and I was almost at my breaking point. Our team had things to do and places to be, and one of our host missionaries, Ricky, came up to myself and another girl on my team, Fauna, and asked us to spend about an hour entertaining a man from Miami he had met at a pastor's conference who was just in Thailand for the afternoon. Well, my initial response was that I had a thousand and one things to get done, and I didn't have time, but because TREK sends us out on assignment to "learn and serve", I figured the appropriate response to say out loud was "of course we'll do that, we'd love to." So, a few minutes later we were at a coffee shop, talking with a man from Miami who we had never met before in our lives. I left the coffee shop about an hour later ready to take on anything. This man spent the time listening to our stories, and sharing his own, asking us what God was teaching us, and really listening and getting excited with us. This man, who I had never met before and will probably never meet again, showed me Jesus love in such a real way. He reminded me that I serve a God who is interested in what I think, and cares how I feel, and wants to meet me where I am at. Cop Coon Prajow (Thank you God)!!

Then another week or so passed, and yesterday arrived. Yesterday was our first day of teaching English in a formal setting. We went to an elementary school in a city called Ang Sila (where Michelle and Diana live). We will spend a few hours there every Tuesday teaching grade five and six students English, and the principal has requested we teach him as well. The principal is a lovely man, and we really enjoyed meeting with him. Please pray that as we teach both him and his students and build relationships that we will have the opportunity to invite him to church where somebody who speaks his language can share the gospel with him, and that as we get to know him, we will be able to share the gospel with him through how we treat him, his students and each other. (The picture above is a few of the students from the school!)

After our English classes there, I once again was stressing, because that evening I was teaching an adult English class that still needed a bit more prep, and then the next day I had two more English classes, one with youth, one with adults that still needed prep, and we had a scheduled worship time with Team 2000, and I had a meeting about Youth English to prep for. I had already missed my Thai lesson in the morning and there just didn't seem like there could ever be enough hours in the day to get everything done.

So we headed off to our worship time, and it was exactly what I needed. Andy (one of our host missionaries) read to us from 2 Timothy 2:8-13 (I would encourage you all to spend some time meditating on it), and asked us to think about the first three words "Remember Jesus Christ" and then asked the simple question, why would Paul need to remind Timothy, a pastor, to remember Jesus. That hit me, you see, I find it so easy to get caught up in planning a good English class, or a good kids club, or even a good bible study, and I find it so easy to loose sight of Jesus in all of that. The purpose of everything I'm doing here is ultimately to introduce people to the God that gives abundant life. Such a simple lesson, but I feel like I need to learn it over and over.

Later in our worship time we wrote acrostic poems about life with Jesus. I'm a little embarrassed to do this, but I'm going to share mine with you...please be gracious and remember that poetry is not my area of expertise.

C- Completion (he who has begun a good work in you will carry it through to completion- God is not done with you yet, no matter where you are at!)
H- Healer (Jesus is a physical healer, spiritual healer, emotional healer, healer of relationships, and the list goes on and on. I've really learned this lesson since TREK started in September, and God keeps showing me more and more aspects of life in which he heals)
R- Rock (Jesus never changes, even when I'm across the world in a different culture, he is the same yesterday, today and forever.)
I- Immeasurable greatness of his power (see Ephesians 1:19- we have access in Jesus to the power that raised him from the dead...all I can say is WOW)
S- Solid (going along with the Rock theme, God doesn't shift, we can completely trust him, and build our lives around him, because he's not going to change, that is an incredibly freeing truth for me)
T- Terrific :) (because life with Jesus is Terrific!!!!)

Everybody in the room came up with different words, but they all contained so much truth. It was cool to be reminded that Jesus meets us where we are at, and that there are so many aspects to his character that become especially significant to us at different points in our lives. Try it out- write an a little acrostic poem about what Jesus is teaching you, or what is significant to you about his character right now, and then share it with somebody (for example, ME) and encourage them!!!

I love you all...

Week Song (two)

Well, we have made it through two weeks, and this is starting to feel like "real life."
On Tuesday we had the opportunity to go for a little tour of Burapa University, a place where Fauna and I will likely be starting some sort of ministry. There are thousands of students and we're excited to see how we can connect, then in the evening we got a chance to go out for dinner with two exchange students from China studying here- Annie and Egg, we went out for noodle soup, and then to a place called a Milk Shop, where they serve...milk. We didn't fully understand the conse We've gotten to know quite a few exchange students, who are starting to connect with the church. Egg was baptized a few weeks ago, and we are praying for opportunities to introduce the rest of them to Jesus! A lot of our ministry so far has been just connecting with people, which I love.
Wednesday we went to Ang Sila, a fishing village really close to Bang Saen, where Michelle and Diana (two of my team members) are living now, and got some orientation about Ang Sila specifically, and about Thailand in general. We learned some useful tips about Thai hospitality, which can look different than ours, for example if you offer somebody something they will always refuse, so even if you've asked if they want a cup of water, or coffee twenty times and they said no, you still need to give it to them to honour them, or if somebody wants something they will never tell you directly, instead they will mention that they like that, or they will bring up the thing they want in conversation. We are starting to learn but that is defintely going to take some getting used to.
Thursday I had the oppertunity to go to a place called Chachoengsaow, which is one of the least reached area's in all of Thailand. I went with Louise (from team 2000), Nitra (another short termmer who has been here for seven months now), P' Nat (a national) and Fauna (another member of our team). Louise, Nitra and P' Nat have been going for a few months consistently, running a bible study and a kids club, and God has started to do some pretty incredible things. In the last few months, fifteen children have accepted Jesus (PRAISE GOD- this is the next generation) and the cell- group has grown to about 6 adults. This week another man accepted the Lord! We are praying that God will give him complete freedom, as many people in this city who have initially made decisions for the Lord have fallen back into lives of drug abuse, sexual immorality and witch craft. My team will be starting an outreach through this church aimed at students, teaching ESL, PLEASE PRAY for us, as there has been spiritual, emotional and physical attacks on Nitra, Louise and P' Nat each time the go there, because God is breaking strongholds, and Satan is not happy about that. The spiritual warfare is intense. This video is the kids from Chechengsaow singing
Friday we had the opportunity to go to Pattaya for a worship night. Pattaya is another dark place in Thailand. It's a tourist city with a population of about 100000, where there are about 50000 tourists at any given time, from all around the world, most of whom are there for the sex trade. The premise of this night (part of a weekend put on by YWAM (I think)), was to bring people from all over the world to Pattaya for the purpose of glorifying God, to bring light to this dark place. It was great, lots of people from TLC and Ang Sila came and we had an incredible time of worship together, and of connecting with new people. Our team even got to take some Thai friends out to Subway for their first sandwiches EVER, it was quite the experience!
Then on Saturday Diana and Michelle packed their suitcases and moved to The Friendship Centre in Ang Sila, where they will stay for the next seven months, and I worked on English lessons- we teach our first class on Tuesday and after that we teach at least seven a week, we're starting to feel pretty nervous about that. Please pray for our team as we are living in two separate locations, well we feel our ministries in both respective places are important, it's difficult to be split up, and we really want to stay unified as a group!
Again I just want to tell you all how much I appreciate your encouragement and prayers, it's so great to know that being out here on the field we aren't doing this alone! So thank you!

Welcome to Thailand

It’s officially been one week since our team packed into a van, left the Mark Centre and headed to YVR to catch a flight that would take us around the world. Travel itself was an adventure! We had a thirteen hour flight to Taipei and then a seven hour layover there, and then another three and a half hours to Bangkok. After a brief meeting with two of our host missionaries Dave and Louise, our team was loaded into another van and sent off to find the OMF home in Bangkok- alone. Fortunately Dave had given the driver good directions, because we definitely could not communicate very effectively. After a few wrong turns, stopping for directions a few times, backing up on the highway and a couple of U-turns we finally arrived! Here we met Andy Owen, another one of our missionary hosts who helped get our very jet-lagged team and all our luggage up to our room! Let me tell you, I was certainly thankful to see my bed that night.

The next three days we spent at the OMF home with Andy’s wife Carmen and their two boys, having a bit of orientation. They gave us lots of time to sleep and rest, to get used to the heat and humidity and 13 hour difference in time. We also had team time and bible study, as well as some fun trips out to the hair dresser and for Thai massage. Carmen encouraged us to explore the area, and view the culture, and keep a journal about the differences that we noticed.

Let me tell you a little bit about what I noticed. First of all, everybody in Thailand loves and respects their king, they hold him in such high reverence that they don’t even talk about him! They have monuments and life size pictures (like the one on the right), and buildings painted with him on almost every block. Twice a day in public places the king’s song is played- and people stop what they are doing in respect. Another thing that I saw was that in every shop there is a spirit house, where people invite the spirits to bless their business, and they offer it food and drink every day. We also see Buddhist monks all over the place, and we learned that every Thai male at some point is supposed to become a monk for a short period of time to secure his parents “salvation.” The spiritual deception here is incredible. Please join me in praying for this nation, that they will see the truth that is found only in Jesus!

After our time at OMF we loaded up into another van and headed to Bang Saen, our final location for the next seven months. We finally saw TLC church and got to meet some of the people we will be working with. It’s been exhausting meeting everybody, there are so many names and faces to remember. We haven’t started the ministries that we will be working in yet, but we are starting to get a feel for what life will be like here.

On Thursday we visited the Abundant Life Home, and went with Karen (another of our missionary hosts- there are six in total) to pick up the children from school. In total there are six boys in the boys home and three girls in the girls home. We will likely go to these homes on Friday and Saturday nights to give the house moms time off. After that P’ Ganiga, the house mom in the boys home took us for a tour of Ang Sila, a fishing village where two of our team members, Michelle and Diana will be living (the picture on the left is in Ang Sila). Please pray for them as life there will be difficult, it is a poorer community and they lack a lot of the comforts that we are used to, and are definitely relinquishing many rights to live there. Pray that God will honour that, and help them form many relationships, and will give them safety.

On Friday I had the opportunity to go to the Bang Saen hospital with another short-term worker here named Nitra, and sit in on an English class that she teaches, which our team will take over when she leaves in December. I loved it. The format of the class that she uses, is she goes over an English worksheet with them, or teaches them a new grammatical tool, or set of vocabulary, and then they read through a section of the Purpose Driven Life together in English, and she sends home the same section in Thai for them to read during the week. I really see now how English teaching will be a way for building relationship with people, since you spend the whole time talking. Please pray for me as I step into these sort of roles, that I will be able to effectively build relationships that go beyond just teaching a language.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to our first church event- the TLC high school and college group. They met at Andy and Carmen’s, where they sang (in Thai), played games (explained in Thai), shared testimonies (in Thai) and studied the bible (in Thai). In case you didn’t get it in the last sentence there was definitely a language barrier, but somehow with our nit-noy (little bit) of Thai, and many people’s ability to speak some English we got by and had a great time, I’m looking forward to connecting with this group of young people. Later that day we had the opportunity to attend the English service at TLC, another neat community I’m looking forward to connecting with.

Well, it’s Sunday now, and I’m babysitting in a little bit, and then should get ready for service (which doesn’t start until 4:00). I miss you all, and can’t tell you how much I appreciate your prayers and emails of encouragement. Please continue to pray for my team as we really start to jump into ministry in this next week, as well as begin some language study!