Thai New Year

Tomorrow, I hope all of you celebrate the Thai New Year, or SongGran. For this holiday, you should pull out all your water guns, hoses and water buckets and have huge water fights. At least that is what we do here for this three day water festival. It is a time of "atonement" in the Buddhist holidays, for everyone to turn a new leaf and "be clean." Pray for opportunities for us to share the good news of Jesus amidst this Thai holiday.

I'll be going home with Kieow today through Thursday to her parents' home about 10 hours away by car. Please pray for safety on the roads. Pray also for humility for me amidst language and other cultural things. Kieow was one of the first fruits of our ministry in Thailand, being a Christian through our English school ministry about eight years ago. She has been working for us two years in mercy ministry. Pray for her family who aren't yet believers.

And as a sidenote, this has been a tough week for me. My cousin, 13 years old, died in a car accident this past week. He was young and the news was hard. Hard to receive from across the world. Yet many heard the Gospel through this tragedy. Pray also for my health during this hottest month of the year. Struggling with fevers and strep throat already has made it a tough week. Thank you so much.

And if I Lose?

The losers of this game modeling the frog dance.The great and famous papaya salad song modeled for you by losers (yet dear friends of mine).

The key to many group games here is humiliation. With various games involving amazing acts of coordination, quick reflexes, and Thai comprehension, I inevitably lose. For example, the game of flying animals. If the leader says the name of an animal that flies, clap twice. If the animal doesn't fly, don't clap. Upon losing, I am told to go sit in the middle of the circle. After a sufficient number of victims have been picked out of the original group, all attention falls on us. We are all told to stand up together, and to dance and sing a familiar humiliating song. The choices include the frog dance, the chicken on a skewer dance, and my personal favorite, the papaya salad dance. After enough laughing and clapping, the "best performer" is voted on to sit down while the rest of the losers dance for everyone one more time. Surprisingly, I have grown to love losing and being in the middle.

I am a White Truck.

My friend in Asheville spots all the hilariously wierd bumperstickers found in our beloved city. I felt it only fair to write about one I saw in Bangkok.

Riding down the road, I spotted a black SUV with a bumper sticker stuck on the back saying "I am a white truck." "What?" I said out loud and pointed out the truck to my English students sitting with me in the car. Instead of the apparent contradiction or lack of English skills I presume that truck driver had, my friends told me a much stranger but appropriate story to Thai culture...

The driver of the truck might have gotten into an accident one day. He felt that the spirits were not happy with him causing his accident, so he went to see a Buddhist monk. The monk told him that in order to change his "luck", he'd need to buy a white truck. So, instead of buying a white truck, the guy decided he'd just buy a sticker that says "I am a white truck." to put on his black truck. So interesting, huh?

But do you know the female heavyweight Olympic gold medalist from Thailand had her name completely changed out of supposedly "bad luck." The monk she went to see gave her a new name to give her "good luck" and then she won this past year. Doesn't this story give you new light into the religious views here?

Pray for Maisie

The lovely family you see is the Tanchanapongs. They are Thai and have recently added another member to their family...Meno. Natee is a huge encouragement and support to the church plant the MTW Thailand team has begun here in Ram 2 and it was actually thru his friendship with Natee at Covenant Seminary that our team leader, Dave, came to Thailand as a missionary. A couple weeks ago Maisie (shown in picture at her first birthday last year, April 4) was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. Please keep this precious family in your prayers as they see their baby girl go through chemo and as they trust in God to do His work in them and through them. Meno, Maisie's baby brother is just six weeks old. Pray for us as a team to know how to encourage them during this time. We know we can trust God and we know He is good. May He prove Himself faithful, once again. Thank you for praying.

The Karen HillTribe Trip

Boonchu is a Karen pastor that travels around churches all over the North of Thailand and border with Burma to encourage and support the pastors of small village churches. At one time, many missionaries shared the Gospel with this Karen Hilltribe group, yet since then, these churches have been left to learn on their own with a Bible in their own language. With Boonchu's partnering with Mission to the World, we can go up often and provide training for the pastors, teachers, and families in this mountainous area.

With a different dress, a different language, and a different culture, this people group still lives in the North of Thailand. I helped teach children, share my testimony, and encourage the people. More than that, I felt how they encouraged me. Whole villages have come to know Christ in our lifetimes! And they are evangelizing their own people in other villages now. What encouragement to see God working so quickly there. He works much slower in Bangkok, yet I was encouraged to continue sharing his good news to see complete communities here one day come to know Christ here too!

A Mission Trip within a Mission Trip

Thanks so much for your prayers for our trip North. No sickness, except a little car sickness from all the twisty, dusty, steep roads going up and down. I even learned some words in the Karen language. I am "keechee queenie" which means I am 29 years old! They couldn't believe it. Only injury was a good scrape up from falling down a small hill in the dark. I would have kept rolling if Dave's leg didn't stop me. This morning I woke up feeling like I was home from a mission trip, but I'm still here in Thailand. I'm just in a hotel in Chiang Mai for the night before heading on to Bangkok. A warm shower, a soft bed, and 3 English TV channels makes me feel like I'm in luxury. I hope to share pictures in just a bit.

God has so many believers in the North of Thailand. I haven't been to churches that size since leaving America. So many fellow believers to meet and encourage. At least 70 kids to teach, with a hilarious skit of David and Goliath told by myself. Praise God for how he brings full villages to Christ here in our lifetime!

Finally, I get to see the North!!

Tomorrow, I'm headed up the mountains, by plane to Chiang Mai and then by pickup trip to the area where the Karen Hilltribe people live. My team leader, two Thai staff women, and myself are going to teach at a Women's Conference. Our church supports a Thai pastor (Karen actually) who pastors to about a dozen churches on the border up there. We're going where there is little electricity, a lot of pigs and roosters, as well as lots of people who don't receive Bible training often.

Ying, Tang, and I will be teaching 50-100 Karen kids while Dave teaches the women. Though the kids are small, we hope to encourage them about how God uses them by talking about David, Daniel, and Zaccheus. We will also get to visit some of the villages and the people to encourage them and spend time together. Please pray for our travel protection, health, and ministry. I'll be back Thursday.

To see pictures of my destination--click on the "Henrys" link on the right.