We added some pictures to our picasa site.
This week a missionary from China was here speaking on the Fear of God. It was very challenging. Everyone here is a little worn out now from the intensity of the week, but we are also very excited at what God is doing in our lives. The fear of God is essentially 2 things: 1. to hate sin like God does and 2. to respect and recognize God as God in every area of our life.
The highlight of the week was when we all were asked to confess our sins to each other in our small groups, believing that confessing them to God in front of people would bring them into light and release us from any shame or guilt. It was a little scary, but it did have a very freeing feeling. It brought each small group closer together. It is a good feeling to know that you can share your darkest secrets with friends and that their opinion of you is not lessened. It was painful, but it allowed a healing and purifying process to take place that was very good. God was faithful to give each of us a renewed sense of forgiveness, and also worked in us to point out some different areas in our lives that we need Him to renew our minds.
We have finalized plans for going on our outreach trip to China now. We will fly to Kunming in southern China on Nov. 4-Nov.18. Then we will split into 2 groups. Some will stay in Kunming and some will go to a different city by bus. We’ll get more details this week.
We finished the smell less pig pen finally. It was hard to communicate with everyone when there was 7 different people in charge and everyone spoke a different language. But, it was fun to build anyway. The pig is named Tinkerbell, and right now it is small and strong. We built the wall of the pen about 2’ high at first, and the pig climbed out of there pretty easily. Today, after an engineering analysis of how many bamboo “dowels” to use, we built the wall 8” higher. We just need to get the pig fat so that he can’t jump any more.
Another highlight was watching the movie Mr. Bean in Thai. It seems that they dubbed the words over into thai, and then translated the thai back into English for the subtitles. The translated subtitles had so many mistakes. “Go he to popcorn ate”, was what it would say for He went to eat popcorn.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
DTS, Week 2
The first week was a little long and intense, but now we are used to the schedule and the people and are enjoying it here. This week, a Hmong pastor from Northern Thailand spoke all week about Salvation. It was very good. He has a phenomenal memory. He had no notes and often nearly quoted chapters of the Bible, showing us how many things in the Old Testament point toward Jesus coming as Savior, and how Jesus life, death, and resurection fulfilled all the requirements for our sins to be forgiven and to be seen as holy and blameless before God. All this, to anyone who believes in Him and follows His teaching. He was very interesting because of his humility, humor, and his stories of christian friends in SE Asia and how they have responded to the persecution they have faced.
Also, a missionary couple from the Burma border visited us. They led Bible study and also taught us how to build a smellless pig pen. Jonathan, Kob, and a few other guys work hard about 2 hours per day, digging a 6'x6' x 33" deep pit, filling it with rice husk, salt, and a mixture designed to eat bacteria, building a 2' high block wall, and building a little roof to cover it all. It is actually fun. We should finish by wednesday. The goal is to breed pigs, either to sell (about $20/baby pig), or to grow to eat.
Kob
Kob is jonathan's new friend. He speaks about as much english as we speak thai, so they spend a lot of time pointing at things and repeating the name of it in both languages. It is working well, they are both learning how to communicate and learning each others language. Kob is a hard working man, who amazes everyone with how he can fix things and build things. Kob even took Jonathan hunting, for ciccadas (big grasshopper looking things). At night, they crawl out of there hole and make a loud noise, so we walked around with a flashlight and a hoe and crushed there hole before they could jump back in it. then we'd catch the bug with our hands and put it in a coke can. Kob fried them up later, and we ate them as a snack today. They kinda taste like chicken, seriously. I'm excited to go catch more.
Waterfall
Today, they loaded us all into a sawngthaew (a big truck with seats in the back) and took us to a waterfall. It was cool. It was a creek that runs down the steep hillside, depositing this white mineral that turns in to rock. The rock was very grippy, so you could run up teh waterfall and not be afraid of falling. From top to bottom, it was maybe 300 vertical feet. It was fun. We should be able to steal some pictures from our friends and post them next weekend.
Running
The weather has cooled off lately, and we've gone for several runs. It is pretty out here. This morning we ran up a long hill to a temple, and had a good view of the countryside and the surrounding mountains. Ashley's actually convinced a group of girls to go running tomorrow.
Ping Pong
We have a ping pong table, and we've been having a great time playing each other on it.
Also, a missionary couple from the Burma border visited us. They led Bible study and also taught us how to build a smellless pig pen. Jonathan, Kob, and a few other guys work hard about 2 hours per day, digging a 6'x6' x 33" deep pit, filling it with rice husk, salt, and a mixture designed to eat bacteria, building a 2' high block wall, and building a little roof to cover it all. It is actually fun. We should finish by wednesday. The goal is to breed pigs, either to sell (about $20/baby pig), or to grow to eat.
Kob
Kob is jonathan's new friend. He speaks about as much english as we speak thai, so they spend a lot of time pointing at things and repeating the name of it in both languages. It is working well, they are both learning how to communicate and learning each others language. Kob is a hard working man, who amazes everyone with how he can fix things and build things. Kob even took Jonathan hunting, for ciccadas (big grasshopper looking things). At night, they crawl out of there hole and make a loud noise, so we walked around with a flashlight and a hoe and crushed there hole before they could jump back in it. then we'd catch the bug with our hands and put it in a coke can. Kob fried them up later, and we ate them as a snack today. They kinda taste like chicken, seriously. I'm excited to go catch more.
Waterfall
Today, they loaded us all into a sawngthaew (a big truck with seats in the back) and took us to a waterfall. It was cool. It was a creek that runs down the steep hillside, depositing this white mineral that turns in to rock. The rock was very grippy, so you could run up teh waterfall and not be afraid of falling. From top to bottom, it was maybe 300 vertical feet. It was fun. We should be able to steal some pictures from our friends and post them next weekend.
Running
The weather has cooled off lately, and we've gone for several runs. It is pretty out here. This morning we ran up a long hill to a temple, and had a good view of the countryside and the surrounding mountains. Ashley's actually convinced a group of girls to go running tomorrow.
Ping Pong
We have a ping pong table, and we've been having a great time playing each other on it.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
We started DTS!!!!!
Sunday, Sept. 7, Chiang Rai
The Bus
We decided to try out the ordinary night bus for the ride to Bangkok because it’s a little cheaper. It all turned out to be $38 for both of us. We got on at 7pm, and everyone quickly fell asleep to the sound of Thai music videos that were playing at the front. The bus was pretty nice at first. It was pretty similar to a greyhound bus in the USA, except the seats are a little skinnier and shorter. After a while though, we realized that something wasn’t quite right with the seats. No matter how we tried to rest our heads to sleep, it wouldn’t work, and would leave us with a stiff neck. After about 10 hours of trying to figure out how to look as comfortable as everyone else looked, we decided it was because we were Big Fat Americans, and the seats weren’t made for us. The bus stopped 3 times at little plazas to let everyone out to use the bathroom and buy some snacks. The trip went pretty well, so we decided to try another bus to Chiang Rai. This bus was supposed to only be 10 hours. We got tickets for the next bus, waited for around 2 hours, and then left expecting to arrive around 9:30pm. Around 1:00 am, we finally arrived in Chiang Rai and were happily greeted by Art and his friend ZhuFong, whom we are staying with.
Chiang Rai
This week we are visiting our Thai missionary friend, Art. We have just told him of the financial support that many of you have offered to help him start the teenage dormitory for Akha village boys. He is very excited and is now able to take firm steps to make his vision/dream happen! We are spending some time this week to develop those plans and the budget with him. We have added some info to his website, www.akhadorm.blogspot.com.
Sunday night Sept. 2 we went to the International Church and met some wonderful people and heard Nancy, the woman who runs the Akha Outreach Orphanage, speak about sacrifices. She spoke from her heart about her own recent loss. One of the kids named Manoon at the orphanage was hit by a car on his way to school and after about 2 weeks of battling, he passed away. It was hard to fight the tears as she described the boys determined character and that during this hard time God brought peace and compassion to Manoon’s family and guidance to the orphanage staff. Nancy said that because of their attitudes the medical staff continued working to save Manoon past when they would normally give up. She also mentioned how the bible students at the orphanage had been able to reach out to many people while they were visiting Manoon at the hospital and even in his village during his funeral. Nancy said that she never thought she would have to sacrifice one of her own kids but that God used Manoon in life and even through is passing to bring many people to God.
Here are a few good quotes from Art in Thaienglish:
1. “I have to use the bathroom, but, if I scratch my calf muscle, it helps me hold it. I can hold it for up to an hour”. I tried this, and it didn’t work. Let me know if it works for you.
2. “It is sprinkling outside. I don’t want to go outside. Everyone get sick when they go outside when it is sprinkling. I would rather it be raining hard”
3. “The egg can do many thing, you can grill, fry, skewer, boil, bake. Many thing”
Chiang Mai DTS, Sept. 10-15
We made it through our first week at DTS. There are 23 students and 9 staff. The students are from Thailand (9), Australia, US (10), Ireland, Phillipines, and Canada and range in age from 18-39. We include missionary kids, Bible School Graduates, computer programmers, new Christians, and former drug and alcohol addicts. It is a good mix of people, and we are having a good time getting to know everyone.
We’re not having too much fun, though. Here is our schedule for Monday – Friday.
6:30-7:00 Exercise
7:00-8:00 Shower, Breakfast, clean dishes
8:00-8:45 Individual Quiet Time
8:45-9:45 Worship or Group Intercessory Prayer
9:45-12:45 Lecture
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:30 Work Duties (Jonathan helped make a few benches, moved piles of wood, sharpen knives and machetes. Ashley helped prepare dinner and clean bamboo curtains)
3:30-5:30 Free Time (we spend most of this showering, reading books, and washing clothes, but we also went for two runs).
5:30-6:30 Bible Study
6:30-7:30 Dinner
7:30-9:30 Lecture or Small Group Time
10:30 Lights Out
In addition to all this, we have several books to read and write book reports on. Also, we must keep a journal and turn it in each week. This week, Tom Hallas from Australia spoke to us on the Character of God. It was good. He went over lots of things, but the main topics were God’s description of himself in Exodus 34:6-7, and His great plan for our adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. He often went over his allotted time, once lecturing for 3:30 straight hours with only 15 minutes of break time. Because of that, we only had a 30 minute lunch!!!
Being the only married couple on base, the staff has gone above and beyond to give us some privacy. Instead of dorm style bunk beds with 6 people per room, we were given a little 10x15 room with cute lime-green homemade curtains, a double bed with a broken mattress, a dresser that we’ve cleaned up and most importantly…a fan! The bathrooms are Thai style, which means you wear the bathroom slippers, have no hot water, you don’t put the toilet paper in the toilet, instead you dump water into the toilet to flush it. It’s not bad once you get used to it.
New Experiences:
-Hand washing all of our clothes, then running to the clothes line when it rains
-No air conditioning, internet, tv
-Hitchhiking to town (in a large group…don’t worry mom)
We are very excited about our time here. Keep us in your prayers.
The Bus
We decided to try out the ordinary night bus for the ride to Bangkok because it’s a little cheaper. It all turned out to be $38 for both of us. We got on at 7pm, and everyone quickly fell asleep to the sound of Thai music videos that were playing at the front. The bus was pretty nice at first. It was pretty similar to a greyhound bus in the USA, except the seats are a little skinnier and shorter. After a while though, we realized that something wasn’t quite right with the seats. No matter how we tried to rest our heads to sleep, it wouldn’t work, and would leave us with a stiff neck. After about 10 hours of trying to figure out how to look as comfortable as everyone else looked, we decided it was because we were Big Fat Americans, and the seats weren’t made for us. The bus stopped 3 times at little plazas to let everyone out to use the bathroom and buy some snacks. The trip went pretty well, so we decided to try another bus to Chiang Rai. This bus was supposed to only be 10 hours. We got tickets for the next bus, waited for around 2 hours, and then left expecting to arrive around 9:30pm. Around 1:00 am, we finally arrived in Chiang Rai and were happily greeted by Art and his friend ZhuFong, whom we are staying with.
Chiang Rai
This week we are visiting our Thai missionary friend, Art. We have just told him of the financial support that many of you have offered to help him start the teenage dormitory for Akha village boys. He is very excited and is now able to take firm steps to make his vision/dream happen! We are spending some time this week to develop those plans and the budget with him. We have added some info to his website, www.akhadorm.blogspot.com.
Sunday night Sept. 2 we went to the International Church and met some wonderful people and heard Nancy, the woman who runs the Akha Outreach Orphanage, speak about sacrifices. She spoke from her heart about her own recent loss. One of the kids named Manoon at the orphanage was hit by a car on his way to school and after about 2 weeks of battling, he passed away. It was hard to fight the tears as she described the boys determined character and that during this hard time God brought peace and compassion to Manoon’s family and guidance to the orphanage staff. Nancy said that because of their attitudes the medical staff continued working to save Manoon past when they would normally give up. She also mentioned how the bible students at the orphanage had been able to reach out to many people while they were visiting Manoon at the hospital and even in his village during his funeral. Nancy said that she never thought she would have to sacrifice one of her own kids but that God used Manoon in life and even through is passing to bring many people to God.
Here are a few good quotes from Art in Thaienglish:
1. “I have to use the bathroom, but, if I scratch my calf muscle, it helps me hold it. I can hold it for up to an hour”. I tried this, and it didn’t work. Let me know if it works for you.
2. “It is sprinkling outside. I don’t want to go outside. Everyone get sick when they go outside when it is sprinkling. I would rather it be raining hard”
3. “The egg can do many thing, you can grill, fry, skewer, boil, bake. Many thing”
Chiang Mai DTS, Sept. 10-15
We made it through our first week at DTS. There are 23 students and 9 staff. The students are from Thailand (9), Australia, US (10), Ireland, Phillipines, and Canada and range in age from 18-39. We include missionary kids, Bible School Graduates, computer programmers, new Christians, and former drug and alcohol addicts. It is a good mix of people, and we are having a good time getting to know everyone.
We’re not having too much fun, though. Here is our schedule for Monday – Friday.
6:30-7:00 Exercise
7:00-8:00 Shower, Breakfast, clean dishes
8:00-8:45 Individual Quiet Time
8:45-9:45 Worship or Group Intercessory Prayer
9:45-12:45 Lecture
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:30 Work Duties (Jonathan helped make a few benches, moved piles of wood, sharpen knives and machetes. Ashley helped prepare dinner and clean bamboo curtains)
3:30-5:30 Free Time (we spend most of this showering, reading books, and washing clothes, but we also went for two runs).
5:30-6:30 Bible Study
6:30-7:30 Dinner
7:30-9:30 Lecture or Small Group Time
10:30 Lights Out
In addition to all this, we have several books to read and write book reports on. Also, we must keep a journal and turn it in each week. This week, Tom Hallas from Australia spoke to us on the Character of God. It was good. He went over lots of things, but the main topics were God’s description of himself in Exodus 34:6-7, and His great plan for our adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. He often went over his allotted time, once lecturing for 3:30 straight hours with only 15 minutes of break time. Because of that, we only had a 30 minute lunch!!!
Being the only married couple on base, the staff has gone above and beyond to give us some privacy. Instead of dorm style bunk beds with 6 people per room, we were given a little 10x15 room with cute lime-green homemade curtains, a double bed with a broken mattress, a dresser that we’ve cleaned up and most importantly…a fan! The bathrooms are Thai style, which means you wear the bathroom slippers, have no hot water, you don’t put the toilet paper in the toilet, instead you dump water into the toilet to flush it. It’s not bad once you get used to it.
New Experiences:
-Hand washing all of our clothes, then running to the clothes line when it rains
-No air conditioning, internet, tv
-Hitchhiking to town (in a large group…don’t worry mom)
We are very excited about our time here. Keep us in your prayers.
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