Prayer Requests

-- For a distressing situation our ministry is in the midst of. Satan is attacking and everyone on the team is feeling it. Pray that God will grant us the wisdom, love, strength, and peace to work through it.
-- For my readers Boy, Ake, Tip, and Ja. That God will turn their hearts towards Him. That He will open their hearts and minds to His Word, and that He will guide my thoughts and words as I read and talk with them.
-- For Yut (Kat's readers who has recently become a Christian). Praise God for His work in his life. His faith and zeal to grow in God are such an encouragement to all our team. We are all certain that God has great things in store for him. Pray that God will strengthen him everyday and keep him from the Evil One.
-- For Heusamer. He is Aaron's reader and is showing great interest in learning more about God. He is dear to all our team and we all long to see him turn his life to God.
-- For Nut, Son, Kwan, Jon, Ning, Thoe, and Hong, Christian brothers and sisters whom I've gotten to know and love over the passed few weeks. Thank God that they are part of my Christian family and pray that He will grow and strengthen them in Him more and more every day.

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day in Thailand, and everyone got off work and out of school (that's how much they respect older people and parents in this country). We all gathered at the church building and had a day of games and sports (cards, volleyball, basketball, relay races, soccer, etc). It was a great time of fun and fellowship. After dinner we had our regular Wednesday evening worship. As part of it we had a foot washing for the leaders in the church, which, as foot washings are want to be, was very cool. It started with the leaders' children washing their feet (since it was father's day) and then anyone else that wished to show them their love and appreciation in this way was welcome to wash their feet also.

There was also a part of the evening where we lit candles and sang a song for Rama IX, the present king of Thailand, who is very much respected by the Thai people.

A regular day

I want to write about what a regular day is like. There really isn't much of a regular day or schedule on the mission field, but here's the general schedule that about half my days follow:

8:00am - Go to RCC. Partly by song tau and partly walking and sometimes stopping for breakfast along the way.

9:00am - Staff devo with Kat, Andy, Aaron, PiTuli, PiYai, and PiNong.

10:00am - Little bit of free time for staff to e-mail, blog, and prepare for classes.

12:00pm - Lunch. Usually at some restaurant in the area (eating out is very cheap here).

1:00pm - Thai class. Thai is comming along for me. The tones are difficult, but once I conquer them I will be well on my way with the language.

2:00pm-5:00pm - either having a reading session or hanging out with the students.

5:00pm-7:00pm - English class and Thai devo with all the students as a group.

7:00pm - Wrap things up at RCC. Go eat and then home. I'll usually get home between 9:00 and 10:00 and hang out with my room mates, unwind, and journal.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yesterday began to feel like the Christmas season, though I am in Thailand, and the weather is what most would call summerish.

Yesterday was monday, the missionaries' day off, and I met up with the Millers, Aaron, Yut and Huesamer in the morning. We first went and bought Yut a Bible of his own. It was cool to see someone get their first Bible. When he first got it, Yut was flipping through it and asked me what he should read first, so I got to explain to him how the Bible is divided up and what each part talks about. Then we all prepared for a xmas party the Millers were going to have at their house that evening. A lot of the RCC people came over and we had pot luck and played games and decorated the Millers' xmas tree and sang carols; it was very fun.

Yut's baptism slide show

Banana Village revival

Rejoice with us!

We have a new brother in Christ! The man named Yut whom I mentioned in my prayer requests post from Monday was baptized yesterday evening.

Yut has been reading with Kat for the past 3 weeks. When he was younger, Yut had been a monk for a period of time, and he said that he saw many evil things in the temple where he lived that convinced him that Buddhism was not the truth. After his experience as a monk, Yut looked into Islam. He said it made sense to him, but there was nothing in his heart that told him that this was the truth. Then he began to read the Bible and to study with Kat, and he said that immediately his heart knew that this was the truth. He said the truth he found in the Bible was so exciting to him, that he couldn't stop talking about what he was reading in his Bible with everyone he knows. Pray that God will bless our new brother and strengthen him in Him in every way.