(Sorry, no pictures yet. Stay tuned for this month's episode of Cribs for a tour of the house!)
Lodging: Top half of someones house. We have 4 bedrooms-each with one bed, one full bathroom, a half-bath, kitchen, dining room, patio, and roof. There are two teams-14 of us. Most of us sleep on the patio/roof as there is a slight breeze. Water is scarce so we are on a once-a-week shower schedule. Luckily there is another team on our squad down the street with unlimited water so we sometimes go down there to shower.
Ministry: Various. Painting, construction, VBS, hanging out with kids, tent flap to tent flab, leading bible studies and preaching at services.
Food: Once again we are on our own to cook. We have a kitchen to ourselves so no locals help us cook. We just make stuff we know…spaghetti, rice and beans, etc. We settle for edible, but most days we get lucky and it turns out delicious.
People: They speak Creole. They are very, very poor. We get asked for money a lot. Even from our contacts. The men don’t whistle at us all the time here like in the DR, but the kids who know a little english will sometimes yell out, “kiss me.” Everyone is friendly when you are friendly first. We are in a big city versus a small town so the dynamics are a little bit different. We have already built a good rapport with the internet guy, a lady that sells soda, and another that sells little packages of cookies. There is tremendous joy found in the small things 🙂
Prayer Requests:
- Pray for cool weather, a breeze, and rain.
- Increased energy in the heat. (Even hotter than the DR with no reprieve.)
- For team identity to remain despite there being two teams here. Pray we get along well with the other team, also. We will be with them for this month and the next.
- To not compare anything to the DR. To not think too much about Thailand. Pray for contentment in ministry and location.
- That we better understand/accept/embrace God’s love for us and the identities we have been given.
- That we better understand the power of our words.
- The ability for us to forgive. A lot of us on our team are working on how to forgive and love people back home.
- Pastor Noel and Pastor Edward and their churches and orphanages/schools.
