Welcome to PlaaPlaaPlaa!

So you may be wondering why PlaaPlaaPlaa? What are those strange fish symbols above? What is ปลา and what does it mean? In short, this is a blog site, so surely there's going to be plenty of rambling. Unfortunately BlahBlahBlah was already taken, so I had to settle for the 'Plaa'. But there's actually more to it then just ramblings. The first fish symbol is actually a Christian symbol meaning ICTHUS - a greek acronymn which means "Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour". The other strange letters you see in the last fish is actually the thai word for fish which funnily enough is pronounced "Plaa". So when you put it all together, this site is going to be my ramblings in telling people about how Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour in Thailand (with plenty of good stories about food in between). Happy reading.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Mission to Mae Tia - December 10

Unfortunately, or should i say fortunately considering all the recent trouble that's been happening in down in Bangkok with the closure of the airport, we didn't have any teams from Oz come over this year but that hasn't stopped my church from doing it's own one day mission down to Mae Tia, a hill tribe about an hour out of Chiang Mai. This Wednesday (10th) is a public holiday here, so the church decided to use it for mission. It's actually really exciting for me on a few levels.

1, this is a hill tribe that Png, our good friend has been visiting and working with for the past couple years. i've had the chance to go down a few times now, and it's really exciting to see the people there being really open to hearing the gospel. Although none yet are christians, there are some who are showing interest. So this can potentially be an awesome opportunity further outreach to this group of people
2. it's exciting to see our church coming to help out other fellow thai christians in their ministry and outreach. it's thai's working with Thai's which is just awesome
3. i'm really pumped to see my church and many in the church so keen to be actively involved in mission.
4. we're not only able to share the gospel with them, but our church is one that is made up of lots of dr's (gp's, gynecologists, dermatologists, psychologists, physio's, optometrists just to name a few), plus hair dressers, really good cooks etc, so we're able to go down and run a medical mission for this poor hill tribe that really has no access to many of these types of dr's or services that we can offer them.

I think they're really excited about us all coming down, but can't seem to get their head around the fact that it's all FREE!! That God has footed the bill for it all now, and they don't have to pay a cent. there was a meeting a couple weeks ago with them to try and sort out a few of the details, and no matter how many times Png said to them it was free, they kept on coming back and asking, 'so how much is this going to cost?'

For me, it's a huge reminder for us too to remember how much God has done for us in Jesus and how that is just FREE too. all we have to do is accept it.

So in Sunday School for the past couple weeks, we've been teaching the kids about Christmas. That while it is a time that we do receive gifts - the biggest and best one of course being jesus, it's also a time where we should also be giving gifts out too - because of what God has given to us. So we've spent the past couple weeks preparing a whole lot of presents for the all the kids at Mae Tia (89 of them) which we'll give out to the kids there. On top of that, the church will also give out special packs which include a toothbrush, soap, tract and books to everyone there, and i think each household will get a simple medicine/first aid type pack.


with the sunday school kids preparing the present bags to give away at Mae Tia



It's going to be a monster day with lots happening with medical stuff, a kids program, a group who will be going to chat with the people there, plus others cooking and doing behind the scenes stuff. i'm going to be helping out with the kids, so hopefully that'll be fun and not too tiring. Cos we've got an EARLY start. not sure how i'm going to GET to church for 6am!! :) haha here's the rough program
6am at church for worship time and prayer
7am Breakky at church
8am travel to Mae Tia
9am get there, set up
9.30am it all starts
lunch at some stage
arvo activities
get back to CM.

For those praying, please pray that the time will be really worthwhile and beneficial, for open hearts of those that we get to talk to. Pray for safe travel there and back, and for the last minute prep that is currently taking place (believe me, there is quite a bit of it!!) Please also pray for language and ability to communicate. Because it is a hill tribe, they have their own dialect which can be hard even for native northern thai speakers to understand as well. Pray that won't be a hinderance.