Weekend Away to Pijit

I had the chance to head away last weekend to Pijit, a small town about 5hrs drive south of Chiang Mai. I went with my friends family as it was the 100 day 'after death' ceremony of the young child that they have had to 'pseudo adopt'. That's a whole other story about having how Jai and her family have had to look after this little girl. But the short of it is, her mother abandoned her when she was not even a year old after trying to abort her when she found out she was pregnant. Her father is supposedly trying to work to earn money to support her (but who knows really where most of the money goes), so she was left to the grandmother and grandfather to look after. However the grandmother was ill and passed away (hence the funeral) and the grandfather still needs to work to earn money, so is unable to look after her. So they were going to send her away to an orphanage if my friend and her family would not take her. Despite being distant family, they felt they had to take her on, and it's been really encouraging to see, that despite the big changes and sacrifices they've had to make to take her on, how they've got a heart to want to help her to come to know God and to give her a good chance in life.

Back to the time away, it was a really interesting time away. In addition to getting some time out with my friend and her family, it was also a real insight into 'country' life and many customs that i still know very little about and can barely understand. It seems that this 100 day ceremony is like one last attempt by the family and friends to help the person who died be able to go to a better place in the next life. The monks come along to the house, chant all these various things (which i was told no one actually understands as they use a really ancient language), the bones of the dead person are there so they can be blessed. Afterwards, the monks get a special meal, and the dead person is also given plates of food as well. After the monks eat, they then go, then everyone else can then eat. The thing that struck me most was just the lack of certainty that these people could ever have with regards to what really happens after we die. It made me really want to praise God for giving us such a confidence and living hope that we know that we will have a resurrected life after this world. Seeing a house full of people who were there at the 100 day ceremony really made me think how many people are out there who are yet to know Jesus and what he has done for us. Please be praying for all those that do not yet have the same hope that we have.

Here are a few pics from the weekend.


me with Im and Jai


Dao, the 'pseudo adopted daughter' of Jai


Dao's old house


the ceremony


the monks that came


at the house

3 months to go

I can't believe that there's only 3 months to go before i have to head back to Australia. And one of those months is going to be completely flat chat with 2 mission teams coming, so i'm feeling like now is when i'm really having to make it count in spending lots of time with lots of people. Only problem is finding that time.

I was pretty stoked to get a phone call from my parents a couple weeks back saying that i had a free ticket home as they had some frequent flyer points to use. God in his goodness has timed it perfectly too, in that the only flights available were on the 13th January, which allows me to get the 10 day visa extension and hopefully saves me a trip up to the border as well.

So the diary is filling up quickly over the next few months with weekend trips away with friends, cell group, the school teachers, the sunday school teachers, church camp, a trip to HK/China with my parents, a wedding and i think that leaves me 2 spare weekends, and that's all before december when the short term teams come. Each week is pretty full too with catching up with friends, preparing bible studies, activities for the SS kids each week. There's lots to do and not much time. So your prayer for time management would be awesome.

We're just about to finish a series in Sunday School on 'Jesus, this is your life'. Thought i'd share a few of the activities that we've done with the kids each week. The plan is to make it into a book which we'll bind together, so the kids will have a book of 11 weeks of stories about Jesus - from his birth, his baptism, temptation, calling of disciples, power of sickness and nature, healing lepers, eventually to his death. Hopefully the kids have got heaps out of it and have been understanding important truths about Jesus and his life and what they all mean.

Here are some pics of the first few weeks of activities we did. I tried to make most of them a bit more exciting then just colouring in, so i tried to make little mechanisms so when jesus is baptised, he actually goes under the water, or when the man is lowered through the roof, he actually lowers. It's can be a bit of a nightmare doing it with the kids at times, but hey, it's a bit of fun too.


We can all be part of God's family, no matter who we are


Jesus is baptised (when some friends saw jesus coming and going, they thought it was the story about Jesus rising from the dead. haha)


Temptation of Jesus - tried to get the kids to think about things that they are tempted by that could cause them to do things that aren't pleasing to God


Calling of the disciples


Jesus has power over all. The wool actually lowers and raises the man


Jesus is the good shepherd. i wanted to do it so there was a sliding gate and when you open it, the sheep more down, but all proved to be a bit too complicated, so ended up with an opening gate.


Washing of the disciples feet


Jesus heals the leper - basically tried to show that all the things that make us unclean, are moved to Jesus - so the cloud and yellow cellophane that has words about things we do that make us 'unclean' slides over to Jesus


Unfortunately i could only find a decent pic of a boy to use.My niece wasn't too happy about that idea, so she decided to make the boy into a girl. not a bad effort i reckon.

Skirmish!

It's been YEARS since i've played skirmish (or paintball). We've been talking about going to play it with for the past year, but we only finally managed to go play yesterday with our cell group. And can i say how much fun it was, how cheap it is to play over here (but maybe not so cheap by thai standards) and how amazed i am that i managed to get away without major bruises after battle and how it was a great day of bonding for our cell group. The last point was actually the biggest highlight. Given all that's gone on in the past few months with our group, we decided to go play a game of skirmish to encourage one of the guys who hasn't been coming to cell group to give the group another go. As he's someone who loves guns and 'warfare', he was keen to come along, which was really exciting for us. Of course after a day, well morning out on the field, there are plenty of good stories about who got who and just general craziness. Somehow i was the only one who managed to avoid serious bruising, although, after getting shot in the face, i got a good taste of what's inside a paintball, and can i just say, it's not nice!

Anyway, here are a few shots from our day out


breakfast at church before heading out


everyone looking all innocent before the games began


ready for action!


ganging up on Musir


the girls trying to look scary


but really not that scary


the girls trying to guard the fort


Kim


Love this shot of Daa


Musir trying to a Kungfu Panda