Staff Training Week

This week was the training week for all of the staff with the Central Thailand Student Ministry. There are 3 Youth Houses in Central Thailand (Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sawan, Lopburi). Noon (Thailand), Julia (England), Jesse and Kristen (Florida) will work at the Phitsanulok Youth House. Caroline (England) and Zo (Thailand) will work at the Nakhon Sawan Youth House. We will work with Off and Pheung (Thailand) and Dtam (Thailand) at the Lopburi Youth House. Johnny and Ann McClean will look after all of the staff. 10 of the staff all came to Nakhon Sawan for an intense week of training, planning, and fellowship.
Each morning we started with a time of worship and then a Bible study about God’s Glory. We studied about God’s Glory because the mission of the team is to bring God glory by living our lives for Him, teaching students about Him, and teaching them how to live lives that bring Him glory.
In the afternoon we took time to talk about how God has been working through the ministry and to plan and discuss our vision, mission, and goals for the upcoming year. We had several long meetings sharing ideas and prioritizing our ideas. So, here it is (keep in mind that the statements are translated from Thai):

Vision
By God’s grace to see students of CT receiving salvation, growing as disciples, being faithful witnesses and living holy lives according to the Word of God.

Mission
To glorify God by Living, Proclaiming and Teaching the Word of God so that Thai students follow Christ in every area of life.

Goals
1. Students and outsiders acknowledge the Youth House is a place of good and appropriate activities (fun and trustworthy)
2. Students are passionately committed to regular, creative, widespread Biblical evangelism as God calls them (Acts 1:8)
3. Students passionate about studying and applying Scripture so that their lives glorify God in every area
4. Students commit themselves to regular prayer
5. Students take every opportunity to use their gifts to humbly serve others both in their church and their YH.
6. To have ‘small groups’ on each campus able to witness and encourage one another to grow spiritually
7. More Thai team members who are able to use their skills for God’s glory in CTSM
8. Thai churches and Christian organizations know and support CTSM/T2S

From these goals, we started making a schedule of activities and specific goals for what we will do at the Lopburi Youth House. Next week we will have more time to plan for specific events and activities at the Lopburi Youth House.

This week we also started our Train To Serve (T2S) program. The Train to Serve program is 2 years long and is for Thai students also (Noon, Zo, and Dtam will also be studying T2S). Unfortunately we won’t be able to complete the whole program. Johnny and Ann McClean will be our mentors for the program. We each chose 10 “modules” from the following list that we have to study and complete over the next 4 months.

• Evangelism
• Discipleship
• Training Others
• Inductive Bible Study
• Theology
• Biblical Leadership
• Practical Service
• Biblical Overview
• Personal Spiritual Life
• World Mission
• Thai Language

Each module has a list of assignments to complete and discuss with our mentor. The assignments often include working with students, so that the training is “on the job” training. For example, for discipleship we must prepare bible studies and meet weekly with 1 specific student that we will disciple. For Inductive Bible Study, we will study the Inductive Bible Study method and then prepare 6 Bible studies that we will then use. It looks like it will be challenging to complete all of the tasks but we are excited about the spiritual growth and skills that it will develop.

Ashley Dancing Aerobics

Check out this video of Ashley dancing Aerobics at the downtown park. She pays 35cents to dance with 30-50 other ladies. Ashley says many of the older ladies put her to shame, shaking their hips in a funky simultaneous side-to-side and rotation movement while doing something else with their arms and hands. She comes out drenched in sweat...great workout and fun too!!!

Thailand is Sanuk Sanuk (fun fun)!!!

A lot has happened in the last month, and it's hard to put into words, so we've put up some pictures also. We went to the beach for a retreat with the Central Thailand Student Ministry Team. Jonathan played in a basketball tournament and won!!! We went climbing in Lopburi. Ashley turned 28. And, we continued studying Thai Language.

Prajuab Team Retreat

16 people met at the beach at "The Pines" for a retreat to get to know each other, relax, and study and worship God together. "The Pines" is a special retreat place owned by OMF for OMF missionaries to use. It was a fun time to get to know the other "student ministry workers". We had time set aside each day to read and pray by ourselves, to worship God together, and for fun team building games. We celebrated Ashley's 28th birthday in Prajuab. Ashley went with the girls for a massage, then we all went to the beach and played games and ate, and came back to "The Pines" to eat cake and ice cream. Ashley was given several nice gifts and cards. Thanks for everyones birthday wishes!!! To see pictures of Prajuab click here.

Basketball Tournament

A group of guys that Jonathan plays basketball with invited him to play with them in a tournament in a nearby city. The tournament had 7 teams and had a $250 cash prize for the winners. WE WON, in overtime thanks to a missed layup at the buzzer by the other team. The game was played outside in the dark on cracked concrete, and the refs apparently had some connection with the other team that made them refuse to call fouls against them. Basketball in Thailand usually has very little contact, but this game felt more like football and took Jonathan a week to recover from. Afterwards, we posed for pictures and went out to eat to celebrate.

Climbing in Lopburi

We found some climbing in Lopburi. We borrowed a motorcycle from Off and Pheung and drove about 15 kms to a temple at the base of a big 600' tall mountain. Just getting there was an adventure, not really knowing where it is and not yet too comfortable driving a bike. Luckily, we found the cliff easily and found some easy climbs to warm up on.Climbing for the first time in 9 months also has some challenges. We remembered how to do everything but our hands and feet are sore from the sharp rock and tight climbing shoes and we also have lots of mosquito bites. The climbing was fun though, and it looks like there is quite a bit of climbing to explore while we're here (especially after the weather cools down). For our climber friends, we'll explain a little more. The rock is limestone and is bolted with nice new bolts. Most of the +-40 climbs are 5.10a-5.11b. There are a few multipitch climbs, including a 6pitch climb that goes to the peak (you must rappel the route to get down). Most of the climbing is vertical, but there are a few cave formations with some hard routes.

For more pictures of climbing, basketball, dancing, and Lopburi click here.