Stu says:
We spent the last few days of our trip in Bangkok before heading home. The first afternoon was our debrief time where we wrote ‘warm and fuzzy’ notes for each person, answered some questions about the trip, what God has been teaching us, our feelings about going home and what we hope to incorporate into our lives. We also wrote letters to ourselves and spent some time sharing with the team. This was a great way to make our trip feel completed.
In the evening we had a team dinner at one of the hotel restraunts. We had a selection of both Thai and western meals.

On friday morning we needed to be ready to leave the hotel at 6:30. Most of the team got up an hour before to allow time for showers and breakfast. Caleb and I accidently slept in til 6:30, when we were woken by loud knocks on our door. Fortunately the bus was running a bit late. We had a couple of places to visit: a WWII cemetary, a museum, the bridge over the river Kwae, a waterfall and the Tiger Temples (which is what we all wanted to see the most).
The bridge was an interesting spot to visit. The safety standards certainly didn’t meet Australian standards. There was a metal platform running between the tracks and wooden planks on the outsides, wide enough for two lines of people. I was wondering how many people fall off…
The Tiger temple was great. There was one place in the temple where all the adult tigers were gathered for their afternoon nap. We all lined up here and the guides would take us one by one, take our camera from us and lead around to different tigers and take photos of us with them. It was pretty quick, but in another section of the temple there were a couple of monks sitting with the younger tigers. This gave us the opportunity to take lots and lots of photos. We all really enjoyed this experience. A student that Louise met on her first trip to Thailand, who was now studying at a Bible College in Bangkok, spent the day with us. We all had dinner with her too.

Saturday was our final day. We a few hours in a really big, a really packed market place. I reckon you would need to spend a few days there to get an idea of everything thats available. Would you like a pet squirell or pet hedgehog?… This was a good place to do our final gift and souveneir shopping. Around 6pm we checked out of the hotel and made our way to the airport. Shayne and Boyette who were heading to the Philipines split from us to find their place to check in. Unfortunately they weren’t able to check in for an hour or so after the rest of us had checked in. Our flights weren’t until around 11:30 and 12, so we passed time by having dinner together and watching a slideshow of photos on Steve’s computer.

Our flight landed in Aus around 12pm yesterday.

Thankyou to everyone for your prayers. I’m sure you have seen from what’s been written in these blogs and what you have heard from your family or friends on this trip that God was truly at work in the lives of the Thai people and also keeping us safe, well and teaching us many things.
Please don’t stop praying.
Please continue to pray for the team as we settle back into our homes.
Please continue to pray for the people in Thailand. For the work of Tong, Dim, Arm, the Church Pastors and other Christians in Thailand. Please pray for the young Christians that they are working with, including the 50 or so students who gave their lives to Jesus at the English Day Camp.
Please pray for Shayne and Boyette during their time in the Philipines (which is where Boyette is from). Please also pray for their families as they go for another week without their husbands and fathers.

Thanks again.

Hi everyone.
Went to the orphanage today, we were able to spend the whole day there. Sam and Ooi got us to paint the girls house, and we didn’t think that we’d get as much done as what we did. We also painted the girls a mural on the front wall of their house, it looks amazing! A big bright rainbow, with a swirly sun, butterflys, ladybeetles, and flowers; very cheerful The kids loved it. When we go back next time, we are going to have to paint the boys house.
It was our last day on Korat, and a very special one. Steve came to the conculsion that it was the most benifical day this week, that we really have achived something, we all agreed.
Were heading off back to Bangkok this morning, only three more sleeps till we are back home in Australia!

Domi

Hi all, Today we visited the Slum. This was confronting for some of the people who hadn’t seen anything like it before. Because I went on the trip 2 years ago, I went in knowing what it was going to be like. My first impressions was that it looked a lot cleaner then last time. I’m sure Stu or Steve will upload some photos of it eventually and you may think I’m crazy, but it really does look a lot cleaner then it did last time. I think it might be because it had been raining before we came and everything looks green.

We got to see John again, who was a little boy that was everywhere lasttime we were here. He was everywhere we turned last time, hanging off one of us. It was good to see him. He hasn’t changed any. I dont think he’s even grown that much since last time!

It was also good to see how healthy all the childrten looked compared to last time. There weren’t a lot of kids there because some of them have been sick.

5 of the children that attend the preaschool are now orphans, due to their pareents either being in jail or dying from HIV. 2 of the teachers at the preschool we visited, have taken them in as their own, however they cannot keep them forever, and will eventually have to tell the authorities about them, where they will be taken off to a children’s home.

There are also a lot more houses there then before. It is amazing how resourceful these people can be, hopw they are able to make their houses out of anything and everything and still be able to survive.

After visiting the Slum area, we went to the silk factory, where they make lots of material and shirts and ties and bags and purses and pillowcases, etc out of silk. They have a big workshop area out the back, with big looms and people are there making the silk material.

We had our Celebration Dinner tonight, where we went to a Korean BBQ place, where you have your own little dome bbq thing with a moat around it. You cook your meat on the dome thing and put your veges in the cook in the water around the moat. It’s pretty kool!

When we got there Shayne and Louise had to close their eyes. Tong had a surprise for them. Out came Proud, one of the girls, Shayne and Louise met on their first trip here. Louise was sooo excited. She had been wanting to see Proud this whole trip, but couldn’t because Proud has been in Kohn Kaen studying. It was really good to see her there.

Lots of people came to the dinner- students, kids from the new Christian group, Tong, Arm and Ae and their 2 children, Dim and her niece Ice and some others that I cant remeber their names!

It was great to get together and see everyone for the last time before we leave. We gave Bob and the others their presents. Shayne had taken some photos of Bob’s daughter at the English Day Camp because Bob had asked him to because he didnt have any good photos of her. Shayne did a greatjob. He could be a photographer! He put them in a nice frame for him. We gave Bob the card and as he read it he started crying, then Cayley, then Dom! Then when Shayne handed him the frame and he began to unwrap it, he sobbed. I have never seen a man sob like he did!

When we got back from the dinner, Bob gave Shayne a big kiss and a hug whcih was… beautiful to see

Today we are going to the orphanage to fix up their roof and do some painting and who knows what else. Time will tell

Jacqui

Steve Says:

Monday was our rest day. We all seem a little washed out after last week so today was a welcome break. We travelled south for 1.5hrs to a resort called ‘The Jungle House’ on the edge of a national park. We were greeted by a sad little monkey who was tied up near the entrance. Jacqui seemed to have quite a facination with him. While Cayley sniffed out a rabbit enclosure where she made friends with a few babies.

Then the main event arrived, 3 elephants sauntered into their parking lot. This is where we got on, Cayley & Dom jumped in the seat while Caleb sat on it’s neck. The old men were next, Shayne, Boyette & me, followed by Louise, Jacqui & Stu. It was amazing how the handlers controlled these powerful animals. We went round a track and everyone had a turn of riding on it’s neck. It was a really good massage but you always had the feeling that it could flick you off without thinking twice. Some rude people in our group made a comparison between the elephants hair growth & mine. Jacqui tried different shouts & sounds to get their’s moving faster but the elephant only knows Thai. On the track there was an incredible sight, a large elephant was standing on the opposite bank of the river overlooking our trek, he was about 20 m away. He looked so majestic, he was probably laughing at the other elephants who were forced to carry their weird load.  The ride lasted about 1/2hour but it was worth the trip. They are amazing animals.

In the afternoon we went to “THE BIG C” which is just a supermarket, where we picked up supplies for the slum visit today. Loads of rice, mackeral in tomato sauce & cleaning products. We’re all warned that the sights, sounds & smells of the slum are very confronting & we’d better prepare ourselves. This will be a challenge.

At night we went to a lake that had huts all around the edge. We sat on the floor & the food was delivered by boat. You know you’re getting old when you can’t cross your legs for more than a minute. Apart from the seating the food was fabulous. Boyette nearly caught a fish bare-handed with rice he pinched from the table. It was this big [-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------] well that’s what he told us.

Hope all is going well at home, we all miss you.

Keep praying for us & the slum visit today, that we would have God’s perspective.

Loads of Love from us

Steve T

Stu says:

This morning our team was split into 2 again and headed to different churches. The half that went to Tong’s church last week went to Pastor Anun’s church, where Boyette presented the sermon. The other half went to Tong’s church, where Shayne presented the sermon.

At Tong’s church they started with lots of singing and a bit of dancing too.  For some of the songs they had the words in english, so it was great to be able to sing along. We’ve had a few opportunities to worship with the Thai people and most times they’ve sung songs with familiar tunes that we could sing along to in english. It is really great because it shows that worship isn’t about the words we say.
Shayne’s sermon was on the topic of ‘Running the race.’ He talked about there being two different crowns that we can live for, one that doesn’t last and one that last forever. Some of the things that don’t last might be our material possessions or our strive to look as great as possible, but these things don’t last. People who give their lives to Jesus receive a crown of life and of righteousness, a crown that lasts forever. To run the race we need to train, we need to take the time to read from God’s word and listen to him. Shayne ended the sermon by asking us to think about what crown we are running for.
After the service we had lunch with the congregation, took a few photos and had fun riding on the back of a motor scooter. Some of us had the chance to drive it by ourself… or attempt to drive it by ourself.

Later in the afternoon the team headed to Boong Park, where there’s lots of activities to do. We headed for the canoes. I wasn’t keen at first to go in, but decided I would. It was great fun racing eachother and splashing eachother. We were all pretty soaked by the end.

We headed for the markets for dinner and to do a bit of shopping. I can tell that Domi and Cayley really enjoy the markets and they have become quite good at bargaining.

Tomorrow we will be riding elephants. Although we’ve all been having a great time doing so many things, I think we’re all looking forward to having some rest.

Thanks for all your prayers. God is clearly at work here, both in our team and in the lives of the Thai people.
-Stu

G’day,

All is going well. Today was the english camp, a day of doing some english intensive training for the teenagers we had been meeting throughout the week at the different schools. 250+ teenagers Rocked up to the local shopping mall, to be husseled into backs of trucks that they call buses and we’re off. Not enough room for the team to fit, so we jump in the van and head to the zoo were the camp will be held. We all arrive and quickly setup english stations that teenagers will rotate around through out the day getting a different task to complete. The theme is God has power over nature, sickness, death and sin. My job is to take photos and make sure all the special moments are captured. As i moved around the camp I got a feel for the different styles of creative teaching and experiance the joy and fun the teenagers had learning english from their aussie mates. Boyette and Stu took on the blind man Bartamus, blind folding teenagers and getting them to carry out certain tasks, Louise and Dom a word scramble and in groups putting the words together, Steve and Caleb would get the award for the most amusing local, on top of the hall which happened to be covered in pidgeon poop and seemed to me to be a grave yard for baby pidgeons and directly in the Thai sun. Dont worry Steve swept it, but the smell was unavoidible and the Thai students enjoyed being microwaved for half an hour. They did move for the next group and the cheers,  screems  and popping baloons confirmed the teenagers enjoyed the new spot Steve and Caleb had found.  Jacqui and Cayley mixed up their Bible story in the form of about 17 dices, which the students had to put together. Good idea, where did they get that from? Dave continued to monitor the entire day with Dim, Tong, Arm and the Thai team. I took LOTS of photos. 

The weather was perfect, hot but a nice breese and plenty of shade, lunch was the usual Thai food in foam containers, plenty of water flowing throughout the day. Then came the big event, after the students had done their 4 rounds of english workshops the were some big games:  thanks Steve,  singing thanks Cayley, I still have the song stuck in my head and myself and a Thai student Chem shared our testimoneys, some seemed to listen, others seemed to not care, then Dim gave her message. The aussies had no idea what she was saying, but when the teenagers bowed their heads to pray the responce was clear, God had touched theirs and 1 more persons heart. When Dim asked those who had prayed to stand up 50 did and walked across the room to recieve some material and counseling. The responce was awesome and the joy on everyones faces was awesome. Whilst taking photo’s of students recieving counseling 1 more person came up to me.  She wasnt Thai and that beutiful smile made me stop and listen very carefully. ” Wow she said, is that how many people responded to the message?” ” I said yeah its cool hey?” ” She said I’ve never seen that before”. ” Its so real”, “its not like the other church I used to go to with mum” ” I’m going to cry”. ” I said you can do it too if you want”. “So together we prayed” and well Dom can tell you the rest, when its her turn to blog. God is simply amazing. After 385 photos and good byes, the team loaded into the van and headed to the mall, for a well earned coffee and ice cream. What added to our joy again was to see the kids from the Orphanage eating at Pizzahut. They were so excited to see us and we were just as excited to see them. It looks at this stage, we will be going back to the Orphanage on Wednesday to help with fixing a few things up. As Steve said this evening ” this trip is like riding a wave, one moment your going this way, then next moment your going the other way. You just hangon for the ride”.  After the icecream we got into the Tuk Tuk’s and the drivers never let the opportunty to make some ”Forwrongs” scream and laugh has they race down skinny laneways dodging all manner of things. I think Caleb has still got the smile on his face. Devotion time was funny, I had to leave the room, but also deep as we debriefed and reflected on what had happen today.  Im trying to summerise today, especially as its 11:23pm and there is Kareokee  in a room next to this computer and its AWEFUL, some body shoot them! My conclusion is I cant conclude as  Gods work is in-concludible and there is more to do. God bless and THANKYOU SO much for your prayers and support. We celebrate together, as are the Angels in heaven. Shayne

Cayley says:

First the pajamas then the lollies. We have found the maids in the Sri Patana Hotel to be funny and really interesting. After the first night my pajamas went missing. After searching the entire room we came to the conclusion that someone had taken them. They were “australian flag” boxer shorts which is why we thought someone had taken them. Then today Jaqui, Dom and I were preparing our lessons in our room and the maids came to make the beds. After 5 minutes one of the maids came out with one of my mentos and was eating it. We were watching them make our beds and helping themselves to my mentos…which was hilareous and bizarre. So now we have thought of interesting plans to see what they do when we aren’t here

Today we started with a sleep in and a slow morning which everyone loved. We then met and got all our supplies and started to prepare for our english day camp stories. There will be 4 stations and they include: Jesus is the boss of nature, jesus is the boss of sickness, jesus is the boss of death and jesus is the boss of sin. With a great response of 259 kids coming (and possibly more to come) it should be a great day of fun and a good chance to share God with them by sharing testimonies, teaching stories and a short message. Please pray that we will feel strong and confident and that we won’t be tired but full of energy and ready to share the word of God.

Also Dave will be leaving us after the english camp to go to Kong Keng (think thats how you spell it). Please pray for safe travel for him and our driver Bob.

We finished the day with another trip to toffee to buy supplies for the camp and to add to our own stash

Thank you for all your support so far

“Each one should use whaterver gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in it’s various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10

Dave writes on Thursday…

It was great to attend the new Christian follow up group at the Korat World Vision office last night. Shayne, Cayley, Caleb and Stu tagged along. There were around 15x Thai students, all who I’d seen at the April Immerse Camp. What a rich time we shared together. I was gave some input to challenge students to adopt a faith that takes risks and trusts Jesus to take us deeper. The three Aussie teenagers each shared their stories, all translated by Tong and Dim.

Shayne met with Dim and others to prepare for tesimonies and gospel message at this Saturday’s English Day Camp outreach at Korat Zoo. It was good to see the Aussie crew interacting and laughing with the Thai young people. Many of these Thai students will serve as team members for Saturday’s outreach-great!! We returned to our hotel weary but very encouraged around 9.00pm.

We had another early rise today for our 4th consecutive day of Ebglish teaching in local schools. Tong was very keen for us to go to Boon Lea school this am, and so we happily sacrificed our rest day (elephant rides will have to wait till next week!!), and Bob our driver got us safely to the school (another large one, of perhaps 2500+ students). Folloeing our Project theme of “Serve”, the team pushed through tiredness and did a top job to round out an amazing 4x days of teaching.

By my rough calculations, to date we have taught a combined total of 47x classes of approx 2000 students, wow!! All very challenging, encouraing and exciting. Every school has appreciated our preparation and presentation and would welcome us back anytime!

The momentum is clearly building towards Saturday’s English camp. Many students are expressing a desire to attend. It is difficult to know just how many may come along, so it makes preparation challenging, hwoever the team is expectant of great things on the day. Current estimates are that we may see around 150 or so students plus some teachers attend. The team will enjoy a sleep in tomorrow followed by further preparations for Saturday.

I am looking forward to my trip up the highway to Khon Kaen this Saturdy evening. I have preaching, teaching and training appointments and I’d value your prayers for God to lead the way and keep me safe and well, thanks.

Tonight Shayne and I will be dining with Tong, Arm, Ae and Dim to cacth up and talk about future plans for this region in the area of local church, schools and community youth ministry.
We are blessed to be here and thank you for your faithful prayers. God is working and God is good!

In Him
Dave

Louise says…Hello all,

The last 24hrs have been pretty full on so let me try and give you a picture of what has been happening.

I think Caleb left you after the english lessons and a trip to Barista for a coffee. We were invited to attend a Cell group from Tong’s church at someone’s house so we headed off to that with Bob’s van fully loaded.

It was an amazing night. We started off being served an amazing variety of food. There was whole fish that Tong and Bob said was a kind of tuna but it was only about 20cm long, there was chicken fresh from the garden so Dom couldn’t eat it and we named it Betsy, there was fish soup, there was spicy green mango salad, there was omlette (again with eggs from the garden), there was cucumbers and green beans, sausages that were kind of like mini frankfurts and there was much more that I have probably forgotten.

After the meal, we had lots of fresh fruit- jack fruit and longan (i think) and custard apples! All very good!

We went for a quick walk after tea where Shayne caught a toad and then headed back to the house for cell group. What a cool time that was! We sang together in English and Thai, we prayed together, we shared together and then Dave preached and Tong translated and again we prayed together. It is hard to put down in words how beautiful it was. We were in a house sitting on a mat with geckos climbing all around the walls and yet it was beautiful. It really felt like we connected with people even though we could not speak Thai and they could not speak English.

On the way home, the more adventurous went part of the way in the back of a ute. It was loads of fun even though Tong didn’t get much above 40k/h. It was even fun when Bob in the van drove past us and Dave and Shayne decided we looked a little dry so gave us a shower with the water bottles from the van!

We had a quick team meeting as we were all feeling tired and headed off to bed.

Today has been another day of English classes. I don’t know the name of the school but it was the school that Tong went to for three years. it was a little harder to teach because theie English wasn’t as good but they were still a great bunch of kids. We were even welcomed and interviewed at a whole school assembly which all the microphone-shy people loved. There was a great kid there named Fie (I think that’s how his name is spelt!) and he was the one who interviewed us. He was one of the kids who went to the English camp in march with the Yma team. His English was brilliant and he had us and the whole school in stitches.

After our classes, we were again treated to lunch by the school staff in the cafeteria and again it was beautiful. bob arrived soon after with some fruit including Durian for us to try. Durian has an interesting smell, how can I describe the smell…probably better that I don’t. We’ll just call it an acquired taste!! Caleb was the only one to try it as a number of us have tried it before and have bad memories of the experience. The bizarre thing is that he actually liked it!!

After lunch we headed off to the Mall! Yes, it is a shopping mall and it is massive. It has a series of fish ponds throughout the bottom level with fish that looked like they were almost 2 metres long. They even have a massive waterfall! We walked around and looked at the stalls and shops and bought a couple of presents but then settled in for a coffee at Black Canyon Coffee. It was kind of weird to be in such a western shopping centre when every now and again you would see something so obviously not western…like a Buddhist temple on the top floor, or the massive catfish like creatures!

Tonight the team has split in two. Dave, Shayne, Stu, Caleb and Cayley have gone to the New Christian group. As there was not enough room for all of us, the rest of us are about to head out for dinner. We are thinking of a little Pizza place that also sells Swedish and Hamburgers and various other western foods. We get a little worried if we don’t have a local to show us the good spots!!

Thanks again for your prayers! We appreciate them greatly in the busyness of all these English lessons!

Caleb Says- Today we went into a Catholic school to teach more English. I was surprised to see that on a timetable there was a Buddhism class even though it was at a catholic school. We arrived at the school, which is basically a mini city with its own roads, stationery shop, water features and a heap of other stuff, at about 8:30. When we arrived we went straight to a room met some teachers and went off to the first class (no singing this time =] ). Our group (Shayne, Louise, Cayley and I) stood outside the first classroom for while but we eventually got in there and shortened our lesson because we thought we had 20 minutes but after we had pretty much finished the lesson the teacher told us we still had 40 min left, so we did some more activities with them. The other 2 groups did 2 lessons while we only did 1, we had a short break and then it was onto period 3 with some more teaching. After period three and four (our group only did 1 longer lesson again and the others did 2) we went for lunch which was very aroy (delicious in Thai) we watched some basketball and went to period 5 and 6(this time we did the same as the other groups and taught 2 lessons.) By this time everyone was very tired and were fighting to stay alert, I even forgot which word I was doin gin hang man a couple of times and had to double check what it was. We had less time in period 6 so we skipped the story and just did some of the activities. After period 6 we went to our designated room and got a school shirt. We went back to the Hotel and were told to prepare our testimonies for tonight which we had ready and everyone relaxed for a few hours before we went to Dinner and back to work at a Christian cell group which is new in Korat.