Hey Everyone! Another Quick Update from Thailand… We had an
incredible first half of the month working in Northern Thailand. The first
night we took the 12 hr bus from Bangkok to Chang Mai. We spend the day walking
around getting to know the city and thoroughly enjoyed the Sunday Night Market.
The next day we headed to the hills for a week of work. We spent the week
clearing the ground at a property that will soon be home to a dozen refugee
children. Another cool part about the property is once it is built it will be
self sustainable. The property has a rice field, banana trees, coconut trees,
and pond that will soon be home to 3000 fish. The pastor and his wife will use
the crops to feed the children and sell the remaining fish and crops in the market
to fund the rest of the ministry.
The work was
perfect for our Man-istry month. We built big bonfires to burn all the dead
banana and coconut trees we collected, cut down and burned full trees to clear
room for the childrens home, cleaned out the over vegetated pond and built a
bathroom.
The work was
exhausting but well worth it. We took several breaks over the ten days to enjoy
the beautiful surrounding nature. Everyday (well almost everyday) we would bath
in the river a couple hundred yards from the property. One bathing trip was
especially memorable as it turned into a full contact tackle football game. The
current was pretty strong so when you would surface after getting tackled it
would no doubtably be several yards down river from the initial tackle. We also
stopped on the drive up to go white water rafting, well worth the $10 🙂 and
finally while we were up in a remote village we had the opportunity to go
caving in this massive cave. We walking in the river through this pitch black
cave for about a hundred yards they got to slide down some waterfalls.
Northern Thailand is a gourgeous area!
It wasn’t all just work on the property though, we also had several fun opportunities to get out into the
community as well. We played
soccer with the locals and put on a Christmas party in a remote village for
several hundred villagers. The Christmas party involved putting on a drama,
singing Christmas songs, playing games with the kids, and giving everyone goody
bags as Christmas gifts. We enjoyed it so much that we returned the next day to
put on a sports camp for them. It was incredible being able to see the
community they have built and how these villagers live being so far removed from the
rest of the world.
I was the net for the soccer/volleyball game 🙂
I have a lot more to tell you all about but have limited
Internet right now. I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as I did! I
love and miss you all! Merry Belated Christmas!!
If you would like to see more pictures you can go to
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2477900&id=10203730&l=8e3e0d068e
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2477868&id=10203730&l=3633fa447f
Please keep all the squad in your prayers as us men work
putting on sports camps and sharing the gospel at schools and the woman
continue to share the love of Jesus Christ with the prostitutes in bars all
around Thailand
Another update to come shortly…
