The Bags are Packed...

For those counting, I have five more days before I'm on American soil. Crazy wierd feeling. Yep. Wierd.

Teen Night

While the short-term team was here, we had an awesome teen-to-teen night. The American teens spoke with the girls about their testimonies, about inner beauty from the Lord, and about boys! Then we all went out to a karaoke restaurant together to eat, fellowship, and sing!The whole group on one long table together. I am on the far end.

The teenagers singing together.
Singing some Thai song with Name.

The sea- food menu!

Living out of your Truck

As I was eating lunch with the ladies who work in our Handicrafts Office, a motorized cart pulled up with four people in it. They needed a place to live. Nong was going to take them to Mahathai 3 to help them rent a room. Everything in their truck was all they had--including their Buddhist idol. They left their rural lifestyle about three years ago to come to Bangkok and make money--3 guys and 1 girl all in their early twenties. They had only six dollars right now, between the four of them for food and housing. They had been working for a women sewing cloth. Yet after a month, the woman they worked for did not pay them for their work. She was even a wife of a policeman. So, they left that looking for something else. Right now, they are staying at Mahathai 3 and a few of them picked up temporary employment with our handicrafts ministry.

This encounter helped me so much understanding the life of squatters. Due to the economic status of life now, people leave their rural homes and wander Bangkok looking for employment. They squat where they can along the way. I pray our church can have a place in these people's lives. Please do pray for our reactions to people we encounter here.

Building Leaders

Part of being the mercy ministry sub-branch of our church plant is bringing God's Gospel by word and deed to the poor. We help bring God's kingdom to places where God is not seen through the darkness yet. One way is bringing social unity and community justice to Mahathai. A couple months ago, we invited the whole leadership committee of Mahathai to eat with us. During that time, we desired to keep growing our church's relationship with them as well as encouraging change by equipping and enabling them as indigenous leadership. What a blessing to see God working there.
The leadership commiitee around the table with our Foundation's staff from our church.

Nong and Pawn
Kieow and Fern's mom, Wan.
The current leader of Mahathai, Somboon.
Some of the elders of the community.

Getting Punched

As I sat around the circle of people during prayer meeting at Mahathai's community center, I felt so warm and fuzzy. Man, I love these people at Mahathai. I turned to my left to endearingly touch the face of the new kid sitting beside me. And before I could think, in response to my endearing touch, the four year old threw up his fist and hit me in the face! As I was trying to realize what just happened, he hit me again! Wow.

That same kid came to church on Sunday for the first time with the truckload of other kids we pick up from Mahathai. Through lunch, he screamed. I sat there and smiled. When we started this church two years ago, it was all staff and Mahathai kids. They come without their parents. They don't know how to sit in church or be quiet. But slowly with patience and teaching, they are learning. Some kids come in so reluctantly with their parents. They run around during the service stealing the music from the keyboardist or rattling the powerpoint screen, as we run after them to put them down in their chair again. (Parent discipline in Thailand is very different than that of America.) But just last week, another little boy who usually puts up a hard fight of coming to church, came in smiling and happy to be there. God is growing and changing the hearts of his kids too. But there are always new faces, so that helps me not get too comfortable.

Chillin' with Campus Ministry

While Yu and Kieow were home with family emergencies, I stayed over at the intern house. Yep, such suffering. Spending time with 10 of the coolest college students who are here serving the Lord for the summer. I got to their house yesterday in the middle of a party for their basketball friends. Helping translate English, I made quite a few friends. These guys have graduated already, selling clothes and shoes now in the nearby market. God is greatly blessing our campus ministry this summer with willing servants and lots of new friendships!

Reading Leaves

The lottery is a very popular thing here in Thailand. One of my neighbors' restaurants went out of business because they used all their money on lottery tickets. Yesterday, while sitting with some friends at Mahathai, one of them noticed the leaves in their vegetable garden. She exclaimed, "There are numbers written in the leaves! Who wrote them?!" The leaves had natural lines flowing through them as plants do, yet a couple lines had resemblances of the numbers 1 and 3. Therefore she thought that those lines were written to her by the spirits so she could use those numbers to pick lottery tickets and win! Wow, I couldn't believe I was hearing this. But later, as I told Kieow, she showed no surprise. It seems to be a normal thing here.