LTI Camp

Praise the Lord for success at LTI camp!!

The Lord answered big prayers at Doi Inthanon. We had 145 students from all over the northern region of Thailand attend the camp. There were several non-believers there also and 6 accepted Christ! The theme for camp was "Approved" with a soldier theme. We definitely wore a lot of camo.

The verse for camp comes from 2 Timothy 2:15 and says, "Do your best to present yourselves as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth."

LTI was a great experience to serve the Thai staff. I had the privilege of helping with the step show performance, doing a Thai dance performance, and being a hair stylist for the skits. It really is amazing how the Lord is using my random interests and talents in Thailand at a camp.

The first few days of camp the students heard sermons from P'BJ and P'Fu, pastor of the church at Doi Inthanon, as well as attend seminars. There were seminars for key students, new believers, and non-believers. The students also got to participate in recreation during the afternoon. Basically rec time is a competition between the 7 different teams. My team was responsible for coordinating the activities. Some favorites included three-legged soccer, eating gross stuff, and dizzy sword (we couldn't find a baseball bat). Everything went really well and the students had a lot of fun.

The Green Team getting ready for rec time.

The last day of camp we were split up into teams and were sent out to the nearby villages. My team had seven students and P'Cha who is on staff in Chiang Rai. Our designated village was Mae Ep Nay. To get there we loaded up in the back of the truck and had about a 30 minute ride on dirt and gravel roads up and around the mountains. Then we got dropped off to begin our hike the rest of the way. Let me tell you that some of these inclines were pretty serious and I was really feeling it with a back pack on, and not to mention the slippery mud. I was so amazed at how excited the students were. There was absolutely no complaining and they were always looking out for me.

God really answered prayers about the village experience. I was so nervous that I wouldn't be able to communicate well because P'Cha doesn't speak English that well and my Thai is so limited. I was also worried about the food since I can be a pretty picky eater. And of course I was worried that I wouldn't be able to connect well with the students. But despite all the worries, the Lord answered my prayers!!! Somehow P'Cha and I were always on the same page, I made friends with the students despite the language barrier, and even the food was really tame! I ate a lot of rice and pumpkin and mama noodles, but no the fried crickets.

My team and I hiking through the rice fields

The village of Mae Ep Nay is fairly small and has only about 50 people or so and many of them were already Christian. We broke up into smaller teams to go visit the people and share the gospel. The first lady that my team met was already a Christian and so we got to talk to her about her faith and her walk and then shared the Holy Spirit Booklet which explains how to walk in the power of the Spirit everyday. The second lady we met was not a Christian so we shared the gospel with her and she accepted Christ!! It was so awesome! The third lady was a very old woman that ran the general store and she chewed this crazy looking gum the whole time. She had a very hard heart and was not interested in anything spiritual at all. The Bible says that to some the gospel of Jesus Christ is the fragrance of life while to other the smell of death.(2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

The young lady that accepted Christ.

At night we had a little bonfire for the village where we sang songs, heard some testimonies, played some games, and I got to do a 'special show'...really all I did was do the step show. It was good fun and I think the people enjoyed it. We all found homes to sleep in for the night and woke up early the next morning to the sounds of the roosters.

At the bonfire

I think that going to the village was my favorite part of all of LTI camp because it was great to see the students in action and to see how much they trust the Lord.

Lao P.D.R. and green roads

Words of advice to those traveling across the country of Thailand via automobile: use only red roads on the atlas! Well unless you want to go offroading through the mountains and jungle!

This past week the team had to go to the People's Democratic Republic of Lao aka Laos. What an adventure!! Getting there was for sure the best part. Laos itself was pretty shady and honestly I didn't really feel that safe. The capital city of Vientiane was our destination and more specifically the Thai embassy that renews Visas. To get to Vientiane we had to travel across the northern part of the country estimated to be a 10 hour drive. We would then cross the border north of a city called Udon Thani.

We left Chiang Mai at approximately 7:45am and everything was going great. We stopped and had an early lunch at a really cute roadside cafe. I would say it was about 4ish hours into the drive when we passed an orange sign with a flashing light. Since the sign was written in Thai we obviuosly couldn't read it, so we kept driving. A few kilometers later we saw another one, and then we are beginning to notice that some of the rice fields are looking quite flooded. So we thought that the signs meant to beware of possible flooding. It is rainy season you know. Finally we make it around a curve and see tons of motorbikes, people hanging out, a drink cart, and a big river flooding the road. No way to get across except to get out of the car and let these random men row you across in a boat. Obviously we had to turn around and find an alternate route. We decided to a green road up and around. Looked like it would take about an hour.

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Now here's the catch. Red=interstate, yellow=two-way highways, green=scenic. Unfortnately we were not aware of this little detail and the estimated hour turned into about 4 hours! We went all through, up, around, and over these mountains. The jungle was so beautiful. We also got to see some hill tribes, water buffalos, and some other kind of huge livestock that is yet to be identified. While the view was pretty. the road however was not. At one point we came to this sign that said in Thai and English "ACCIDENT AHEAD." We were cracking up--why was this sign in English and how is there a car wreck ahead because we haven't seen another car this whole time we've been driving? Turns out that this 'accident' was the bridge ahead that was missing huge pieces of road on either side. Two men were standing there waving us on to cross over the 4 feet space. I could have peed my pants. I was honestly scared that we were going to break this bridge. Who knows that last time that anyone has driven on it?! The Lord totally protected our car to get us across. After that we got safely to Udon Thani with no problems.

Crossing the border was much more of a process than I ever could have imagined. It took about two hours to get through. Here is about how the 24 hours went that we were in Laos: Pay this, pay that, wait here, take a bus, wait in this line, pay some more, take a taxi bus, finally get to the embassy, wait in line, give paper work and passport, wait in line again, pay more money, wait a full day, do some karaoke with the team, sing Celin Dion and Queen, go back to the embassy, wait in line again, get passport, get the heck out of dodge!

We definitely took the red roads all the way home. Still equaled an 11 hour drive, but we knew that we wouldn't have to worry about floods! Praise the Lord for his protection of the team as we traveled and while in Laos. FYI it is illegal for Laotians to be Christians. Just within the last year, two pastors have been murdered for the sake of claiming Christ (these are the only two that are known. It is highly likely that more have been killed.) It was an amazing feeling of relief to come back to Thailand where we know we are safe. It was then when I realized that Thailand is our home.

Beautiful Sunset

This is what sunsets look like almost everyday. This shot was taken from the end of our street.

Happy Bags

It's that time of the semester. You can just sense it when you walk on campus. Final exams. This probably seems odd seeing as that it is October. The "Fall Semester" actually begins in June and ends the first week of October. The students then have about 3 weeks off, kind of like Christmas break. Then the "Spring Semester" begins the first week of November and ends the first week of March. Then the students have March, April, and May off for Summer break. April is the hottest month of the year so apparently everyone hangs out at the pools to relax and stay cool. Keep in mind that many Thais do not have A/C. We are so blessed to have A/C in our bedrooms!

Anyway, so what to do about this week of dreaded exams? The Lord gave us a wonderful, amazing idea! We call them Happy Bags. Basically what it contains is a cookie, some Milo chocolate milk mix, and these little candies that kind of look like Jello shots, and then of course we included a Four Laws booklet that explains the gospel in Thai. These bags are basically a little study break and just a way to show love to the students during this highly stressful time.

It was so great to talk a student right before they were about to go to a test and then give them a little gift. Their eyes would light up! But it was even better to walk past someone who had already received a booklet and to see them reading it! We constructed 500 Happy Bags and gave them away on Wednesday and Thursday.


The team constructing the Happy Bags


That's about 300 Happy Bags


This is Mint, a second year Japanese major involved in CCC. She was so pumped to get a Happy Bag!