Thanksgiving!

My team had the wonderful privilege of traveling 3 hours north to Chiang Rai to spend Thanksgiving with the Stint team there. Similar to other traveling experiences the roads were really winding and rough in some places, but we made it there with no car sickness.

Naturally, we all wanted to have turkey, but it was just too expensive for the imported birds. So, we decided that chicken and fish from the market would do. Almost all of the women on the teams made some sort of side dish and dessert; therefore, we had so so so much food!! It was incredible!



I'll go ahead and give you the list: 10 small chickens, 10 fish, scalloped potatoes au gratin, broccoli rice casserole, chicken rice casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, home-made bread, black and green olives, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, and cranberry sauce!




Dessert included Tricia's famous chocolate chip cookies, cake, pumpkin pie, peanut butter cup cake, peach cobbler, and ice cream!

We all sat on Thai mats on the floor in a big circle. We also had the Thai staff over, and 2 other friends that run a coffee shop down the street. After the feast we all went around the circle and said what we were thankful for. It was so touching that all of the Thai staff said they enjoyed their first Thanksgiving and felt so special that we had invited them.

I was so thankful that the Lord provided a family in Thailand for me to spend Thanksgiving with and to do life with. I am so thankful for my team and how they have been God's provision for me while I'm away from my family and friends.

Thanks to all of my supporters for all of your encouragement! Thanks to all my family and friends that attempted in various ways to contact me this holiday--it was so encouraging that y'all remembered me! Much Love!

The Big Event: Bowling

Our team decided that each week we would try to have a "Big Event" that would allow us to invite our students and their friends. This past week we invited all of our contacts to go bowling with us. We had 24 students come!! Praise the Lord! This was the most Rajabhat students that we have ever had at one event.

Lane 22 was my lane and I had all Chinese students. It was so hilarious teaching these girls to bowl, mainly because I am not that good. They were all first time bowlers--good times. After we had bowled two games, P'Pai, one of the Thai staff guys, gave a brief message about discipleship. I think the students had a really great time, I know my team did.


The Lane 22 Girls: Helen, Cathy, Ching Ching, Wendy, Me, and Wan Soon.


All of the students that attended the Big Event

Speaking the Hard Truth

Speaking the truth is not always easy. There is this spectrum, one end grace and the other truth. Personally I am more of a grace giver, meaning that if someone was to do me wrong I would usually extend grace. It is hard for me sometimes to speak truth to that person. However, it is usually easier for me to accept truth, than it is for someone to give me grace. I have learned that you need to have balance and let the Holy Spirit guide you in which is best in that particular situation.

The past three days I have found myself in situations where speaking the truth was very challenging. It was challenging because it affected these students' lives and beliefs directly. Many believers realize that the gospel of Jesus can be highly offensive, and I think that it should be. It is powerful because it is the power of Christ. The gospel reveals sin and the serious problem that arises from man's sinful nature. We cannot have fellowship with God when we have sin. This is bad news. But this is when the gospel shows love and hope. Jesus died once and for all of our sins past, present, and future. Through the redemptive blood of Jesus, we can have fellowship with God. All those who accept Christ into their lives and yield their own will to Him, will have life in Christ for eternity.

We met this cute girl named Tety. I cannot explain to you how hard it was for us to tell her that believing in Jesus and becoming a Christian doesn't mean life would be a breeze and that she wouldn't face hard times. In fact, in Thailand where the Christian population in less than 1%, it may actually be "harder." Tety's family is Buddhist. And not just claiming to be Buddhist because they are Thai, but really practicing Buddhists that go to temple and are involved with the rituals. Tety said that her family would not approve of her if she claimed Jesus in her life. Tety's cousin went to American to study, and while she was there she had accepted Christ. Tety said that she saw her cousin's life change because she was now living for God. But her cousin was met with disapproval from the family. Tety was facing a serious stronghold. She expressed the desire to accept Christ, but was scared that her family would shun her. The hard truth was telling her that she was right and that her family might shun her. She would face persecution, she would have to take a stand to not go to the temple when the rest of her family went. Jesus says in John 15:18 "if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." And while it is so hard to be hated on, Jesus also says in Matthew 5:11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you."

After speaking on the phone with one of our staff girls P'Muu, whose parents do not like the fact that their daughter is Christian, Tety prayed to accept Jesus! Today Tricia and La, one of our students, were able to meet with her today to talk more about what the Christian life is about. Tety even came to Friday Chapel tonight and was bold enough to go up to the front, get on the mic, and tell everyone there that she had just become a Christian four days ago. And, she told her parents! We are praising the Lord that her parents didn't get angry and totally cut her off. Tety says that she is now praying that her family will become followers of Jesus, and so is my team.

This is just one example of how God is moving in Thailand. There is so much spiritual darkness here especially with idol worshiping, spirit houses, and even with homosexuality. But despite all these strongholds, we know that the Lord will win the battle! This is Thailand...

Things Thai People Love

Some cultural insights on the day...things Thai people love..

~The King, his picture is everywhere
~the color yellow, it is the King's color and it is worn on Monday because the King was born on Monday.
~Hello Kitty
~Motorbikes
~Markets
~Liverpool football team
~Volleyball and badmitten
~Thai massages
~Driving trucks with tons of stuff strapped down

That's all I could think of today, I will update when I can think of some more.

I thought of some more..
~little plastic bags
~drinking out of plastic bags with ice and a straw
~straws, you always get a straw
~7-Eleven, they are on every corner. They don't sell gas there, but you can pay bills there.
~Rice, duh.
~Chicken, but don't eat too much otherwise your knees might hurt.
~yo-yo and pocky candy
~Eating seaweed sheets
~Fruit of all kinds, but most important is Durian followed by the Mango
~Soy milk
~Roti, kind of like a crepe but it's fried and you put sugar and chocolate on it. Only 10 baht.

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.