It's Raining

Here are a few pictures from our time in Li. The first one is Ashley with Mango, See, and Am. These 3 girls spend a lot of time at the church, mostly because they can play computer there.



















The second pic is a picture of some adults playing musical chairs at one of the churches we visited. We stayed for a day and played games and ate with the people there to encourage them. It was very funny watching these people play a game. 1 man was obviously drunk, but he was hilarious.



The 3rd pic is of Tim teaching some English at a school. This school let us have story time, so Tim taught the story of Jonah and the whale. Here, Tim is the whale and is about to swallow the little kid (Jonah).

The 4th picture is us performing the "Heart" drama at the Christmas/New Years celebration. I am trying to convince ashley to give me her heart by doing pushups or a handstand. When she finally does give me her heart, I throw it down and break it. Then, Ashley picks up the broken pieces and gives it to God, who heals her heart and gives it back to her. Luckily, it's just a drama (I would never really stomp on her heart).

Today, Ashley and I decided to go for a walk. Monday is our 1 free day in the week, so we bought some food and started walking towards the hills. We had a nice time walking and eating bamboo sticky rice (our favorite snack, it's sticky rice cooked with sugar and condensed milk inside a bamboo stalk). We stopped to talk and eat our fried rice, fried bananas, and oranges. Then, a miracle happened. For the first time since November it rained. Actually, it was probably the first clouds in the sky since November.
It was nice. We found a little abandoned shelter to sit under. It reminded us of a rainy day in Colorado. The rain cleared up long enough for us to walk back home.
Now, we're in a internet shop, with loud music blasting all around us. The internet shops are the happening places in Thailand. The kids pack them and play computer games all day long. They turn on some music, and then lose themselves in some kind of game. It's kindof sad, you ask almost any boy here what they like to do, and they say "play computer". The girls, they either like to play games or to chat online with random people.

This is our last week here. If you haven't emailed us lately, send us one. We'd love to hear from you and soon we'll actually have time to email back.

Hello Again

We made it through another week in Li!!!! We have 2 weeks left here, then we will go back to school in Chiang Mai for a week. Then our school is finished! We are excited to get our freedom back. The school has been great for us, but we do miss making our own decisions and having some free time.
We have some short term plans for what we'll do after this school is over. We plan on spending about a week in Chiang Rai to visit Art and the House of Joy. Then we'll go to Guam to visit Tim and Joann for 3 weeks. After that, we have no set plans. We have some ideas, but that's it. We want to visit Vietnam and Laos, so we'll probably spend some time traveling through those places.
This week in Li we taught some more English at the schools. Sunday at Church, Jonathan "preached" for about 30 minutes about the Temple of God and the Church. God's temple is now in each of the hearts of those who believe in Jesus and repent from their sins. God promises to send his Holy Spirit into your heart, so that your heart is now the temple of God. This is very different from the buddhists here, who build a temple on every corner (almost) and wear a buddha necklace and build a little spirit house outside their house for their gods to live in. But, we don't have to do that, because the true God makes his home in us. Also, we talked about the church and that it does not mean a building or a meeting on sunday morning, but that it means a gathering of Christians to talk about what Jesus and what he is doing in our lives.
It was a stretching experience, but as a result we are now going to have "church" at someones house almost every day this week.
God Bless You all this week,
Jonathan & Ashley

Howdy from Li

Hello!!! The last few weeks we've continued teaching english at different schools. It has opened up several opportunities to talk to students and teachers about what we believe. At 1 school, we had a story hour where we shared the story of Jesus' life on earth with the kids.

We think the pastor didn't like how we led church the 1 week, so since then he has taken back control of preaching and singing songs. But we have continued to teach the kids sunday school and share our testimonies during church. Yesterday, Ashley shared her testimony at church. She is a very good speaker. The whole church got quiet and listened to her every word as she talked about how God has shown Himself to her and that He is trustworthy. She says, "I could feel the Holy Spirit speak through me because I said things that I hadn't planned to say and they actually made sense".

There's a pregnant woman (Pi Noi) who sells flowers in the market that Ashley talks to often. She is so loving, she always gives Ashley flowers and wont accept any gifts. Last week, when we had a Thai friend with us, she told us about a monk from this area. It is a cool story. Here it is: The monk was meditating, and his spirit left him and went to heaven. In heaven he saw Jesus, at the highest level of heaven. He saw buddha at a lower level. He didn't see Muhammed at all. Then his spirit came back to him on earth. He believed that Jesus was real and told many people about his experience. He continued as a buddhist because he thought his good works would get him to heaven.
She believes this story, and because of it she knows that Islam is false, and thinks that Christians are good. What we think she doesn't know is that Jesus taught that our good works will never get us to heaven. We can only get to heaven through the forgiveness of our sins that comes through believing in Jesus' death and resurrection. There are many people here who know & believe this story of this monk, so we feel like it is a good opening to share with them.
We gave her a New Testament Bible that is in Thai & English and she said she would read it all. We hope God will open her eyes through it and our conversations about it.

Jonathan has been playing basketball often at the school. Thai's are not very good at basketball, but there are a couple who are decent. It is fun to be the tallest guy on the court. Keep us in your prayers.

Happy New Year

For new year's eve, we all went to Mae Ping Nat. Park, to Kao Waterfall and swam. It was fun. I found some bouldering over the water. It was good. It's been 4 months since we have climbed.

On the way there I listened to at song be Mute Math, called You Are Mine. Here are the lyrics.

Everyone has their obsession

Consuming thoughts, Consuming time

They hold high their prized possessions

It defines the meaning of their life

You are Mine, You are Mine, You are Mine, All Mine

There are objects of affection

That can mesmerize the soul

there is always one addiction

that can never be controlled.

You are Mine, You are Mine, You are Mine, All Mine

God created us in His image. Today he was telling me, "I created you, and I am

Obessed with you, you are my prized possession, You consume my thoughts, You are mine, All mine

In addition to that, I was seeing that this is the truth, But satan is busy trying to make us his, by trapping us in sin, addicting us to things of this world that lead to death. He dangles cheap candy in front of us, trying to get us to follow him in to the pit of destruction. But, the truth is, I am His.

This is a beautiful thought to me. God, looking at me, saying, singing, screaming, "You are mine. Everyone has an obsession, you are my obsession. I made this whole world for you."

So, as I swam under a beautiful waterfall and bouldered on a rock over crystal clear water, I head God saying, "I made this for you to enjoy. All this, is for you. There is no limit to what I would do for you. I am so glad you can enjoy my creation the way I want you to.

You are mine. You are mine. You are mine. All Mine."

It was a beautiful picture. Surreal. 12 of us piled into the bed of a truck and drove 60kms through beautiful countryside, and I just sat amazed at God's love for me.

He loves each of us that much.

Happy New 2008.

Li Outreach first 2 weeks

We've been here 2 weeks now. We're staying at the church in Li. We have 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms to split between the 10 of us. Luckily, me and Ashley get our own room. We've spent a lot of time teaching english at 2 schools. It's fun hanging out with kids. Some are very nice.
We had a big CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION at the church. We invited everyone we met to come. About 250 people showed up and ate food, sang songs, and then watched us do a few dramas, dances, and share what God has done in our lives. It was interesting.
We also got to lead the church service this week. The church has about 25 adults and 40 kids (many from an orphanage the pastor runs). Jonathan, Edna, and Jiew taught the adults. Instead of preaching, we asked the members to share their testimony. Surprisingly, people did. It was the first time the pastor had heard their testimonies. It was good to see that even though they don't have much knowledge or background of the Bible, God has still been working in their lives and answering prayers and showing himself to them.
Ashley, Megan, Amima, and Nu taught the youth (10-16 year olds). There was almost 30 of em, and it was hard to keep order. But some of them did want to be there and did listen as Ashley taught about God's Character.
Tim and Em taught the kids. It was a good experience for all of us. We think we will be leading church here for the next 5 weeks.

We've seen that the Christians here are committed, but they know very little. They are only taught on sunday and they don't meet together or talk with each other during the week. Some read teh Bible & pray, but they have trouble knowing how to do this. So, we have a great opportunity to help them grow in their faith and encourage them so that they can themselves reach out to the community.

We also went to a big Buddhist temple. It is weird to drive through a poor village to get to a huge beautiful temple. This place had many different buildings with statues, idols, incense, and monks everywhere. They painted many walls to tell different stories of the buddhist beliefs. They even preserved & displayed the body of a respected monk. To me, it reminds me of Acts 17, when Paul was in Athens. Read it & you'll know how I feel.