So to kick off the holiday season here in Thailand I started by going to Laos to visit family there with my parents who came to visit. I know my parents have been worried about me staying here but I think that after this visit they are a little less worried about me and they are putting more trust in God to do the rest. As for me adapting to my new home for the next year has been fairly easy. I think that knowing the language has helped me adapt much faster than I thought I would and it also makes going from here and there a lot easier as well. However, I have been realizing the need to learn to read Thai. I will be learning to read and write from one the girls here at the church and in exchange I will teach her more english. :)
I also realized how much Christmas is not like Christmas without the weather and decorations. In my mind Christmas is cold and/or rainy where decorations fill the city and everyone is in the festive mood all around. So 'tis was a Christmas like no other. It was actually quite warm and there was no Christmas service where the choir sings and everyone exchanges presents. We had a big festival where about 400 people form the community came and received free food, games, entertainment, and it was an opportunity for our church to evangelize. BUT one thing seems to never change, I somehow ended up in the Christmas skit! I was really looking forward to just being able to watch the skit, but God had other plans haha...nevertheless I still enjoy being able to be apart of something great. This is a picture from the festival, it's blurry but you can get the idea of how many people were there.
New year's was also another first. Every year for new years my family either spends it with the church or just ourselves at home and countdown. This year I still went to church, but instead of counting down waiting for the clock to strike midnight we prayed through the countdown. We spent time to pray for not only the church in the new year, but also for all the different small groups and new events coming in this new year. I really enjoyed doing this. It was a chance to think about which direction we wanted the church to go towards and also what are we as the congregation going to do knowing this. I really appreciate that this church decided to do more than just throw a new year's party, but instead encouraged and created an environment where the church can spend time together as a family with God.
So now that all the festivities have calmed down the real work begins. English classes for the Phileo Language School starts tonight! I won't be teaching right away instead I will shadowing one of the other teachers. This is only the second term in session since the reopening of the language school late last year. We now have enough students for two classes and the students are mostly people who are not from the church, which means that this allows for us to share the gospel with these students as well as teach them a life skill.
I may have mentioned in one of my earlier posts that this church also works with Compassion International which is an Non-profit that works with children whose families make less than 300 baht a day (That would be less than $10 US). Most children from this NGO come from broken families and are lead down a path that is dark and filled with hate, revenge, greed or some other sort of evil. Every Saturday P'Gop, who is a person that works for the church, drives the church van to pick up all the kids in our area to come to church and we teach them English and also a bible lesson. The bible lesson is like VBS to the kids. Since I am here to teach English and also have a passion for the youth I was offered to teach the high school English class which is mostly filled with young girls who are believers or borderline believers. Their foundation isn't very strong, but they come to learn English and not so much the bible study since it is very much geared toward the younger generation which they have clearly outgrown. So I have been challenged with the task to help the youth in this class to come to church for the purpose of knowing God and not just for English. We will be starting a new program just for these older kids and we hope to make it like a retreat environment where they feel more their age and hopefully more willing to open up to God.
So I ask you to pray that the team working with these older kids may be able to change the hearts of these kids, that we won't only teach them English but also be able to mentor them in way that glorifies and leads them to the Lord. I also ask you to pray for the whole Compassion program not only here within this church but also throughout all of the world. Seeing first hand what this organization is doing for the lives of these young children really gave me a new perspective of what it means to give. And lastly please pray for the country of Thailand. The protesters have really been bad news for Thais because it causes high amounts of traffic and also stops business for a lot of people due to the lack of customers. It brings down the economy and also causes unnecessary tensions between those who are on opposing parties. Pray for peace within the country.
