Two Repeats

For those of you that have tracked my blog for 3 years, these will just be reminders. Yet they are so picturesque of Thailand that I must share them with you again!

I went strollin around King's Park today in the abnormally cool weather and spotted a monitor lizard in the water. Yes, we have these lizards chillin' at the nearby park. Isn't that awesome? (The photo wasn't taken by me because I didn't have my camera. I borrowed it from another internet site.)
Do you see the bumper sticker on this car? This story was told to me two different times, and its so interesting, I relay it on to you. So, the story goes...the owner of this car had some bad mishap like a car accident. So, he went to the Buddhist temple and asked the monk why he was having such bad luck with his car. The monk asked him what color it was. The guy said his car was blue. The monk responded, "well, that explains it, RED is your lucky color! Go buy a red car." The guy doesn't want to buy a red car so he just buys a red bumper sticker that says, "This car is red." He thinks the bumper sticker will give him good luck. (Thank you, Jane, for the picture!)

Foreign yet the Same

I have never taken a philosophy class, partly because it wasn't needed for my major and partly because I had no particular interest. Yet as I study the Buddhist religion in my language class this month, I feel that I am in a philosophy class. I am trying to get my mind to step into another world of thought that has existed since about the time Jesus came to Earth.

God provided me with such a wonderful conversation a couple days ago. A new friend and I talked about religion together. I was able to use a lot of my new vocabulary to ask him questions about Buddhism and his way of thinking. He in turn, very curiously, asked me about Christianity. Amazingly enough, we understood each other most the time while speaking in Thai.

Please pray the Lord helps me to understand this Thai worldview in such a way as to speak his truth into it. Though Jesus may be a foreign idea to these people, He will bring such hope and light into their lives! We are all still people with the same needs--needs to be loved and rescued from our efforts to reach righteousness on our own. Thank you for your prayers.

Church Retreat!

Wow, what an amazing retreat. Really, I think this was my favorite one yet! The theme of the retreat was, "Love God's Word, Love God's World." We learned about how to approach the Bible as well as how to be active Christians in our society. There's a lot of pics below, with praises to go with each.

If you haven't heard yet, there's some huge flooding problems in rural Thailand. We stopped on the way to the retreat center to help prepare emergency packages for the flood victims.

Our gang of 70 or so people at the church retreat! What an amazing bunch of people. God grew the relationships amongst the church members and established great connections among the visitors. Praise God!
The bus ride to and from included techno Thai music as well as Lady Gaga. The thing to do is stand in the back of the bus and dance. I embraced the culture and did just that--making some good friends in the process. We must remember--be all things to all people in order to win some. :) And who wouldn't want to dance on a bus while it passed rice fields and palm trees?
Melanie and Katie as karaoke stars singing Bohemian Rhapsody. I think we left the small audience in shock but we had fun.
Another amazing answer to prayer--this whole group of fun, karaoke-singing, stylish college guys came! Praise God for how he is showing them who he is.
One small bit of the awesome waterfall we visited. I am pictured with Jane, who I am so glad was able to come to the retreat. Pray God continues showing his love in her life. (This would also be where my toe jammed a rock and hurt itself.)
And for you history buffs like myself, here is the Bridge over the River Kwae--a subject of a movie and numerous books. WW2 prisoners of the Japanese were forced to build this bridge resulting in many deaths as well. The book I read however, also discusses how amazingly God worked in the prisoner camp.

Clumsy and Beautiful

Thai people have a funny idiom about how only beautiful people are clumsy. Well, today, my pain in the toe shows you what they have to say about me. (Heehee!)

While playing in the waterfall yesterday, I jammed it pretty good on a rock. It's the middle toe on my right foot. It's turning pretty shades of pink and purple right now. Please pray for quick healing and no complications. May I have wisdom to know how to care for it. Thanks for your prayers!

(Yes, I have broken the big toe and little toe on the same foot before, so I have some previous experience with this pain and recovery process.)

Besides this mishap, the church retreat was awesome! Pictures and stories will be coming soon.

Upcoming Church Retreat!

Please pray for our upcoming church retreat! We have about 70 people leaving tomorrow through Monday. We will be headed to Kanchanaburi, which is a more mountainous area East of Bangkok.

Of the group going, we have church members, church visitors, believers, and non-believers. Please pray God works to grow his Kingdom through this retreat!

My New Black Hair!

It all started when one of my former Thai language teachers said, "Melanie, you're Thai people already. All you need to do is change your hair color." Then I talked to my friend, Leah, on Skype about it and she sent me the hairdye. Now, as you see, the experiment has begun.

Here's the question you ask: "Melanie, why have you dyed your hair black?"
Answer: Many reasons really....
1. Fun
2. An experiment on if I'll get less stares if I don't look so different.
3. Hudson Taylor: My favorite biography and also the first missionary to change his appearance to mimic the people he was ministering to. He was also the first white person most of China had seen, so it was very helpful to shave his head except the top part, dye it black, and braid it.

Either way, its temporary. Reactions start tomorrow--when I go to language school and then Saturday-Monday at our church's retreat!

First Class Down

Today marks the end of my first module back at language school. Wow, that went fast. None of the folks in my class will be able to continue studying, so I sent up a prayer for classmates. The Lord answered that prayer within the day. (Yet again, I was surprised by his response, though I shouldn't be. He is after all, in all, over all, and through all.) The school's allowed me to jump ahead to the Buddhist religion module which will allow me to study with two other American missionaries.

This next module is supposedly a lot harder with bigger vocabulary and longer stories though. It's like skipping a grade level. So, please pray the Lord helps me along as I start Friday. The module will last 20 days. I wonder if there's another hidden reason God wants me to learn the info in this module sooner than usual. I am looking forward to understanding the national religion better. Thanks for your prayers.