Goodbye Henrys!

Yesterday, my friends, the Henry family, headed back to America after a four year term serving here in Thailand to pursue seminary studies. Paul hopes to come back here as a pastor, to start a new church in Thailand. I will miss their friendship, but am excited about God's future calling on their lives. They were very instrumental in starting the campus ministry here for our church as well as Crystal's role in discipling the women of our church and helping with the mom's group. PJ, Calvin, and Adele were great fun to spend time with, playing dinosaurs and racing cars. Please pray for their transition back to life in America.

Church Camp

Church Camp was this past weekend! What a blessing to our church! This year was the first year where we had church members go, not just people from the community that come to our church sometimes. We focused our teaching on Spiritual Gifts so we could encourage our church members to be involved in serving our church, instead of just our Thai staff and missionaries. As our church grows, we pray that our members will take over the operations.

For fun on Saturday, we visited a large dam near our retreat center. Fern and I posed for a picture with our intertube.
(left to right: Yu is Thai staff, Pa and Wi are church members, and Kai is involved in our mom's group and campus ministry, yet not yet a believer.
Kirk, a new missionary to Thailand, is here to serve with us for three months. So glad God is sending more workers here!

Monkeys for Hire

Recently, while learning some people make a living by having a coconut tree farm, I thought to myself--how do they reach the coconuts? Coconut trees are so high in the air. Finally I voiced my latest contemplation to a Thai friend who casually offered the answer--with monkeys. Monkeys work for these coconut farmers. They climb up the trees for the farmers and pull all the coconuts down. They have great hands for that. I asked if the farmers wait at the bottom trying to catch the coconuts. Nope, that would be a danger to their craniums. So, they wait til all the coconuts are down and then go and pick them all up, hoist them in their pickup trucks, and sell them to the market. I thought you'd like that bit of knowledge. Coconut tree farms are found in the middle and south parts of Thailand.

Anything you can do, I umm...

The song goes, "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you." Cute song, but sadly not true cross-culturally. I'm working on a list of wierd quirky things that Thai people just do better.

-Peel a Watermelon: Flipping half a watermelon upside down, they peel off the outside and then cut it. It looks beautiful.

-Use Saran Wrap: Without getting it all stuck to itself, they can seal a bowl of curry with Sarah Wrap so nothing, I mean it, nothing will spill out.

-Cut Peppers: While cutting large amounts of chili pepper, they never touch their face or eyeball causing serious swelling and stinging!

Feel free to add your own....

The Buddha Fell Off!

On our way home from our holiday, we had a fender-bender. Good damage to the car I was in, but no physical damage to us. Yet the spiritual repercussions have been interesting to hear about...

The car belonged to Kieow's youngest sister, Gew. On the dashboard is a yellow bandana cloth with many Buddhist "lucky charms" sitting on it like a coin in a jewelry case, a gold Buddha, and some jasmine flowers. Above the two front seats on the ceiling of the car, three dots are painted as well as some writing which is a blessing placed on the car by Buddhist monks. And hanging on her rearview mirror are at least two jasmine flower chains and one necklace with a Buddhist idol inside. On our drive, they bought a new flower chain twice from roadside vendors. Once placed around the rearview mirror, they bowed to it and asked for blessings for their trip. As you can tell, its a religion where if you follow the right rules, live in fear of the spirits, and buy and worship the appropriate gods, you are supposed to be blessed.

Yet, on our way home, like I said, we had a fender bender. Kieow says one of the Buddha's fell off the dashboard during the accident. Huge deal! What is the meaning of this to a Buddhist person? Kieow, the only Christian in her family, would ask them that question and tell them that their god was not powerful enough to help them. Like a coward, he ran away at their time of need. Gew said she would take that Buddha out of her car and leave it in her room. Yet through this circumstance, Kieow tried to explain the trivialness of trusting in golden statues and "lucky charms" for our salvation.

Please continue praying for her family. Pray for God to open their hearts to Jesus Christ who died for their sins. God loves us and his only requirement from us is to believe in Jesus Christ and we will be saved. Not necessarily in fender-benders, but regards to our whole life and death.

Thai New Year with Kieow

Kieow's family was so fun to visit for the Thai New Year! They picked jasmine flowers from around the house and strung up jasmine necklaces for everyone. Add a "hawaiian shirt" to the outfit and we were dressed for the holiday.
The houses in the NE of Thailand are on stilts mainly and more open to the air and elements. I woke up early each morning to the roosters and went to sleep early too. All the mango, banana, and other Thai fruit trees surrounded the house! I've adjusted to bucket baths now and washed my hair successfully! Yet, it helped being the hottest month of the year!
Kieow's sister, Gew, was in the village's beauty contest for the SongKran Festival. Whoever had the most flowers bought for them won the contest, so it was quite expensive for Kieow's family!
The family had reserved their own section of the festival to party, play in the water, and dance around. What a crazy family pulling me on to dance with all the older ladies!
Everyone wanted to take a picture with the white girl! Many people had never even seen a foreigner before. Kieow's uncle gave me a bag of mangos because I was the first foreigner he'd ever seen and I could eat Thai food!
During the Thai New Year, the water ceremony is a very important part. It shows respect to the elders and allows a time to bless one another. I felt honored to be able to play a part in it. I poured water on the hands and feet of the elders in Kieow's family and received a blessing while they tied a string around my wrist.
God mightily kept me able to eat everything put in front of me, including swirly oyster shells, frogs, and really spicy papaya and mango salad!! It's amazing how much respect I can receive just by being able to eat their food. They all would just stare at me until I swallowed, smiled, and declared it "Delicious!" This lady shoved a whole spoon of spicy mango salad in my mouth right when the picture was taking, causing my eyes to water up. :)

Tough Unrest

With concern shown through emails, I felt it good to write about the political situation. I'll try to do it in a way that I can on the blog. I did just return yesterday from a great trip to Kieow's hometown from the SongKran holiday. Yet throughout the time I was there, the political situation was tough. This situation is not new, but has been happening long before I came here for this two year term. Presently, the "red shirts" are protesting against the present government. Many of the members of this group gathered together in large mobs in Bangkok and other cities this past week to try to cause upheaval of the government, which often works. It became violent in their mob risings, causing soldiers to have to come into the main city and enforce curfew for a few days. Feel free to check the news for more. The present holiday season has caused things to be simmering down some.

Please do keep Thailand in your prayers. God reassures us many times in his Word of his hand at work within powers, authorities, and uprisings. Pray that amidst this tough time for all the Thais, that God will soften their hearts to recognize their need for him. The protests have not reached our neighborhood which is located outside of downtown. Our team has been in no danger, but always do pray for our safety during these times. Thank you for your interest, prayers, and thoughts.