All Request Hour

Ok, so what do you all out there who actually take some time out of your lives to read this blog want to hear about? Leave me a comment and let me know what you're interested in hearing about.

New Christians

We have 9 people in our new Christian group right now (people that have been baptized in the past year): Son, Yut, Thoe, Tak, Jeab, Poopay, Gie, Jan, and Nut. Working with them is one of my favorite parts of the ministry here. Four of them have university exams coming up which is a stressful experience in Thai schools, so they have all been studying hard and are anxious about taking their exams.

Thoe is soon to join the military (it's long to explain the military and draft systems in Thailand, but joining was not Thoe's choice). He'll be serving 2 years in a city about 12 hours away from Bangkok.

Gie is still looking for a job. She must find one soon or she'll have to go back to her home town, something which she does not want to do as she'd be leaving her friends and her Christian family behind.

The new Christians have still been finding time to hang out and help out at the English center though. Some of them are especially good with the new students and it is wonderful to have them working with me. One in particular I've gotten a chance to work with lately is Tak. We have come to be as good of friends as two girls who don't speak the same language could be. The two of us have come to find that we work well together in talking to new students and those who come to visit the RCC.

It is a wonderful thing to be part of the new Christians' lives and to be able to discuss life and their growing faiths with them. As many of the new Christians are girls, and so my team mates and I have been discussing some ideas to further minister and mentor them. We already have a monthly women's Bible study, but we wanted to do more. Right now we're trying out some mentoring groups in which each of my female team mates and I have a couple of the girls that we focus on and spend time with.

A new post

It's high time I wrote another entry as it's been near 3 weeks since my last post. This time I'll tell you a little about what's going on in the work just now, and then about some of our students.

Right now (aside from our usual English and Bible classes/studies) we are busy preparing for the upcoming LST team that will arrive the 18th. We've been passing out alot of fliers and putting up posters in our area and around the university to recruit readers for the LST team. Responses have been good so far, but we could take more students as the team coming is pretty big. Kat and I have been reading with several bnew students preping them to read with the upcoming team, so our reading schedules are pretty full just now.

Now about some of our students:

Nit and Nut are pretty new to RCC. Nit has been coming for about a month, and Nut (her twin sister) just for a couple of days. Nit was brought to RCC by her brother, Snap. Snap was an RCC member several months ago but started a job that kept him very busy nd away from RCC, however, when his sister, Nit, came to stay with him in Bangkok he brought her to RCC and told us to take care of her (shows that he knows he can trust the people of God),and so that is how Nit came to us and now she has started bringing her sister. Right now Kat is reading with Nit and I with Nut, They will both read with LST when that team comes. Their English is very minimal right now, so there isn't much discussion about God or Christianity right now. Much remains to be seen with these two girls.

Yohd has been reading with me for a coupe of months now. She's a sweet, quieter girl, and she's become friends with me (as much as possible, considering that neither of us are very good at the other's language yet). Yohd understands the passages we are reading from Luke very well and is talking in Thai with my team mate Tuli. I say talking because she has not officially agreed to study Bible yet, but she and Tuli are talking, so she's open. One big thing that must be overcome in her thiking, is that all religions are equaly valid.

Pan has been my reader for about a month now. Since we've been reading Luke, I've been able to see him slowly go from being interested only in English to being interested in the stories we are reading. He asks lots and lots of questions about what things mean and wants to know the bigger story surrounding the people in the stories, especialy the Old Testament people and events reffered to. Tuli has been talking with him a little recently trying to get him to study Bible in Thai, not sure where their discussions have gone so far, and there is a long way yet to go with Pan, but there's always steady progress seen in him.

Songkran (April 12-15)

It was the Songkran holiday last week, an even though the holiday officially only lasts four days, everyone took the whole week off. Songkran is the Thai new year, and it is celebrated with a water festival, what that means is that the entire country has a four day long water fight (this holiday also conveniently takes place during the hottest week of the year). Traditionally people throw water on each other to cleanse from the old year, and they also smear power on each other to "refresh" from the old year; but in all actuallity the holiday is just for fun. Everyone is game during this holiday, all of your friends and family, and even complete strangers, everyone will crowd into the streets and play. This holiday was such a fun experience (and definitely one of my new favorite holidays). It was a great time to relax and play during an otherwise miserably hot time of year.

Trip to the South (March 29 - April 5)

Saturday the 29th a group of us from the RCC (some team members, some old Christians, and some students who are not Christians yet) drove down to Pangnga (in the South of Thailand); many call this village Tsunamy Village because when the 2004 tsunami hit SE Asia, 70% of all those who were in that village at that time were killed. We went down to see the ocean when we arrived there; there was a tsunami memorial at that beach that we visited. It was a walk way and on one side a wall with the names of everyone the tsunami killed in that village, and on the other side a huge wave, the size of the tsunami wave that hit that beach. It was really neat. We stayed the with the church there that night and worshiped with them in the morning. We had lunch with them, and then, before leaving, we stopped at the work of one of the church member there. He works with an organization that is helping rebuilding in the area. They had just built a new building and they wanted us to pray over it and the work there.

We then drove to Krabpi and had Sunday evening worship there and dinner, and then we hung around roasting and eating cashews with the church members. We slept in the church building there and in the morning drove to Chang . . . a something, I forget the name of the village, but I shall refer to it as Arnon's village (cause that's the name of the student that we went to visit there). When we got to Arnon's village we ate and then were taken for a hike to see a waterfall. It was beautful. That day, and throughout the next 5 days we were there, we kept meeting Arnon's family members; there were so many (he is the youngest of six and he has so many aunts and uncles he couldn't count them; he tried, but they're too many). We stayed with one of Arnon's aunt and uncle for the next 4 days. His whole family are rubber tree farmers. And I'd have to say that a rubber tree field is one of the more beautiful things I've seen in nature, really, they're really pretty trees. While there we took several hikes, to see waterfalls. Took motorcycle rides to the nearest town the buy things at the market, went to visit many of Arnon's relatives and neighbors, played lots and lots of cards, and ate, and ate, and ate.

My Thai definitely got better on this trip, as there weren't alot of English speakers around and as the Southern dialect is very quick; it's made my ear better.

We also visited a couple of temples in the south. I hadn't gotten to go to one before. Before hand I tried to imagine what I would feel going into a pagan place of worship and seeing people worshiping idols. I couldn't quite decide how I would feel about it, but when I went there, I was surprised to find that I felt nothing. I didn't feel angry, sad, creeped, or anything. It didn't feel like a place of worship at all; it didn't feel sacred; it felt empty, like nothing, and all that I saw people around me doing to please their gods looked like nothing more than an empty ritual or dance, which I now suppose is exactly what I ought to have felt. The only pang of sadness I had was when all those who came with us payed their respects to the idols and prayed and bowed to them and Arnon with them, to see him devote himself to an image was so sad to see, as I love him and want him to be my brother and come to love and give himself to a God that is alive and real and will not disappoint him.

Friday evening the whole family took us down to the train station to see us off. I'm glad to say we really did manage to make a good impression on them (even if at first they didn't understand us too much). I'm so glad they liked us, as that was one of our purposes for the trip, to get closer with Arnon, but also to show his family that Christians are good people, so that they might be open to Arnon studying about Christianity and possibly becoming Christian some day.

Pictures

Nothing terribly interesting has happend this week for me to write about, so here are some pics from the past month for your viewing enjoyment.

Village English

RCC staff and members have started an English ministry in the slum village near the Watcharapon church (where we once helped with a Children's Day event). We are hoping to get the Watcharapon members involved in this outreach project in their own area.

This passed Sunday was our first Sunday there. We plan to go every Sunday afternoon for a few hours to teach English and play games. We divided our students into four age groups since we have everything from 4 year-olds to adults. We have one American, one Thai translator, and several helpers from each group. I get to lead the 4-6 years old class. This passed Sunday we had a class of about 20. The kids are so precious. My helpers were great, and we had lots of fun, though it was very hot; we teach in the village school house, so we had some shade, but that's about it.

Thank God for blessing us with this outreach opportunity, and pray for that we will find the time and people to keep it going, and that we will be able to get the Watcharapon church members involved.