Welcome to KantharalakThis month we are serving in Kantharalak, a small town in Thailand near the Cambodian boarder. We are staying at a local church and working with the Pastor and his wife. They truly have servant hearts and their love for the Lord is so apparent in their lives.
We have had many different opportunities these past couple of weeks. Our first week here we visited one of the local villages. We sang praise songs, shared testimonies, and were able to pray for some of the locals that were sick.
Our team visited a boy/girl scout camp a couple of times that is run by teachers in the military. We passed out Thai Bibles to the scouts and Thai/English Bibles to the teachers. On our second visit to the camp one of the teaches said that he has been studying different religions, but that when he read that bible we gave him he felt a lot of peace! It is so amazing to see how the Lord is moving!
Another way that we have been serving this month is through teaching English at private elementary and high schools. We are all expert “Head and Shoulders” song singers J However, teaching English is just our “in” to these places. It gives us an opportunity to share our testimonies and the gospel message to students who have never heard of Jesus Christ. It is exciting to have these schools welcome us in with open arms!
In the evenings our team splits up into two groups. One group teaches English to elementary aged children and the other group teaches English to high school aged students. Our first night teaching I was looking out the window and saw about 20 women doing aerobics outside. My heart immediately went out to them. I wanted to be out there with them, getting to know them, building relationships with them! I told my teammates those feelings later that night and they encouraged me to join the aerobics class the next night. Yippee!
I started attending aerobics class with them and I am having a blast. While I don’t speak Thai and they speak very little English it is so awesome how exercise breaks the communication barrier. We are all doing the same moves, and laughing with each other when we don’t get the moves quite right. I’m also really enjoying the time before and after class to interact with the women. They are teaching me simple Thai phrases, but my greatest desire is that they would be able to see Christ shining through me. I pray for opportunities to share with them His great love!
