Hello everyone! This is my first real blog post from the “other side”, and I an tell you it’s amazing. There are a lot of new and exciting things about Thailand that I never expected:
1) I am sleeping on a bed in a house, and not as I was led to believe a tent for 9 months
2) The food. Oh my. It is so good and rich in flavor. It seems like everything they give us keeps getting better and better than the last.
3)Wifi. The house we are staying at has wifi, which is both a blessing and a curse, because se end up using our phones a lot.
My ministry is also not what I expected it to be. Our ministry contact is YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Chaiyaphum, which is a local ministry of a larger mission organization. Our hosts names are Raem and Nan, and they have 5 kids: Nation, Asia, Paul, Naomi, Tip and Yud. Except for Asia and Nation, the rest of their children are adopted. These children had nowhere else to go and felt abandoned at home, so Raem and Nan took them into their family. When it comes to ministry, our schedule is very loose and subject to change. Our first week it rained the first five days, so we were only able to go and work in the families rice fields and plant rice after a big rain. We also worked on constructing a new house for Raem’s parents, who only live in a straw hut on the family’s farm. But, once the rain stopped, we got down to the main ministry of YWAM Chaiyaphum: soccer ministry. This made me so happy, because I live and breathe soccer, so the opportunity to play soccer with a bunch of kids and share the gospel with them makes me so happy. So far we have only been scrimmaging the children, preparing the team for a tournament with other schools on the 28th of September. After this, we prepare a team of adults for the YWAM Cup in November. I am truly excited for this!
Some fun things our team has done over the last week or so is that we went to the Tat Ton Waterfall. We had an amazing time just basking in God’s beautiful creation, and playing in the lower, less rapid part of the river downstream. In the midst of many shenanigans, I managed to rip my shorts sliding down a rock in the river!! Needless to say I was a little more careful how I slid for the rest of the day.
Even though my life may not be what I expected, I am loving my new life in Thailand, and look forward to three months in this paradise! Please keep me in your prayers as I work through this heat and spread the gospel to this nation!
