Sharing with the Music 'Worship' Team

i was going to try and post a photo of me sharing with the 'worship' team last night, but the reality is that i ended up sharing in the dark by the light of my computer screen because for some reason the lights just wouldn't turn on at church. It seems a blessing in disguise that the printer i was trying to print my notes out on was out of ink, so i had to take my computer along. it's funny the way that God works :)

So during the week, i was trying to work out what to share with the team. While the temptation for many church musicians is to work out how to try and make music sound bigger and better, i thought instead that i'd spend my time encouraging them to think about why we meet as Christians, where music fits into church and the purpose of it, and what our attitudes should be as we serve the church. To do this we looked at a few passages from the Bible (Rom 12:1-2, Heb 10:23-25, Eph 5:19-20 and Col 3:16-17). We then had a think about choice of songs -how to choose songs, ideas on deciding what songs to sing each week, The importance of practice and our attitude of service with whatever God has given us to work with. While preparing for this time of sharing, it was a great way for me to be reminded of many things not only about serving with music in church, but also why we do meet up for church each week and the importance of wanting to build each other up in Christ, to spur each other on and to be giving thanks to God as we remember all that Christ has done for us.

I think it went well, i guess it's hard to tell when you're all sitting in the dark and can't really see people's faces by the end. :) haha Obviously i had to have it all translated, but there were lots of questions at the end and i think they found it helpful. Unfortunately i couldn't stay for the actual music practice as i had to head off to dinner, but hopefully i'll make it to a practice in a couple weeks time after i get back from conference.

I have accommodation

God never ceases to amaze me in how he provides for all our needs. Here's another massive praise point for God's provision of a great little townhouse. It's a 2 bedroom townhouse in a really good location close to the city, between my school and the orphanage, near the church, with a really good landlord who really wants to help look after me (apparently REALLY hard to find here) as she's going to repaint the place, provide extra furniture, a fridge and stove (believe it or not, stoves don't usually come with kitchens here), a bed, dining table, hot water for the bathroom (again - no, it's not a given). There's a restaurant 2 doors down if i need a good, quick, cheap feed, a laundry so i don't even need to do any washing or ironing, and it's really close to the shops and the bank. And she's happy to wait for me to move in in February (as i'll be away for a 10 days in January on at Hope Conference in Pattaya).

It's been pretty amazing how it's all happened as the townhouse was actually originally go to another family, but she thought that i'd be more suited to the townhouse and so she's found another place for this other family to move into so i can move in. So Praise God!! And there's a spare room too for anyone who wants to come and visit!

It's been a great day all around though. This morning, i also started my language classes and another great praise point is for an awesome teacher Khruu Kwan. She's awesome in being happy for me to not necessarily have to learn thai the 'conventional' way that the school teaches and is happy for me to be reading and writing Thai from the outset which i'm really happy about. She's also really nice and we seem to get on really well together. So something else to praise God for.

I'll try and get some photos of the townhouse and Khruu Kwan soon to post up :)

thanks for all your prayers. Know that God is hearing and answering them all!

สวัสดีปีใหม - that's Happy New Year!

It's been a great start to the year so far, where i feel like i've hit the ground running. The past week was spent organising school lessons, my student visa, bank accounts, thai drivers licences, buying my bike today which is a Yamaha Mio (which i just got today)
trying to find a place to live, going to my first bible study (which i reckon i understood all of about 5 %), going to various New Year parties, meeting up with various Thai friends i have previously met, spending way too much time on MSN with my new Thai friends in Korat, spending time at the orphanage and working out how i can best be helping them this year plus lots more. it's been a blast so far, and even though i don't actually start my Thai classes til tomorrow, i feel that my Thai has already improved heaps. Something to really praise God for so far.

So tomorrow kind of kicks off the formalities of my time here. I'll begin my day with my first team meeting with the Pioneers team that i'm here with, then i'll be off to school for my first Thai lesson. After only being here for a week, my weekly 'timetable' seems to be filling up pretty quickly. Monday, Wednesday & Friday mornings will be at school, Monday and Wednesday afternoon and evenings will be at the orphanage, Friday night i will have Bible Study, Saturday night i'll be heading off to music practice, then church on Sunday. There's still plenty of other things i want to do, but i think the wise thing to do for now is to hang back on committing to too much while i still try and settle in.

In the next few posts, i'll fill you in on a few more specific details of what i'll be up to this year. For this one, i'll start with an outline of what i hope to do at the orphanage. Most of my time will be spent with one of the Orphanage houses from Bethany House, but this one is called Cana House. The parents of this house, Niphon & Ratree go to the church that i will be going to (grace church). It's been awesome getting to know them better in the past week and they actually helped me to buy my bike today too which was really nice. On the days that i go over to Cana House, i'll mainly be helping the kids with their english and possibly even teaching them how to play some instruments (whatever they want to learn that i can play). For many Thai's, if they are able to speak english, it will really help them have the chance to get better jobs, so when the time comes for them to have to leave the orphanage, hopefully we can give the kids the best chance of being able to have a 'better' life.

The second thing that i hope to help the orphanage with is with a business they have just started which is a small restaurant in Chiang Mai. There are several really good reasons why it would be really good for this business venture to be successful. Firstly, it's a bit of a tent making business to help them to be able to pay the rent of their new house,
Secondly, to give the kids an opportunity to get some work experience and for those that are able, to learn some business skills that will help them in the future
Thirdly, if it is something that is successful, hopefully in the future when the kids are at an age where they need to leave the orphanage, they could provide some employment for the kids that need to leave if they want.

There are just so many opportunities to be helping the orphanage with this new restaurant as they don't really have a business plan or any ideas of what they want to. i've already got heaps of ideas of ways to help the restaurant already which i reckon would be really easy, but i need to be wise in how to go about it all.

Another opportunity that just came up today at church with 'help' with the worship team at church. I'm not sure what that means exactly to be honest. i'm sure some of it will be to help play various instruments (which would be heaps of fun), but ideally, i'd love to be sharing with them 'Why' we do sing songs and what is 'worship'? i must admit It's not something i've looked at for a while, so it would be great for those who are praying, for wisdom in what to share, and ability to be able to do it in a helpful way despite my lack of language, so hopefully not too much will be lost in translation.

For those who are praying:
- please pray for wisdom in how to best help Cana House and especially in providing advice and what i do to that will be helpful and useful for their business. Also pray that i won't be stepping on toes and doing things that are culturally inappropriate.
- pray for wisdom in what to share and 'help' the worship team with on Saturday night
- pray that this awesome townhouse that we've been looking at will come through - great location, great landlord, all essentials like fridge, stove, hot water, furniture etc for a great price. Just waiting on the landlord to get back to me

Fun In Thailand

As mentioned in the previous post, here's a quick video of how Thai's have fun with karaoke. I reckon the DPC team were having just as much fun and if it wasn't for the fact that the song was in Thai, they would've been doing more then just being backup dancers. Mind you, i know that DPC team members have managed to find the Ice Saranyu CD (cd that this song is from), so next time, they'll be singing along for sure!

singing... 'jat jaa daa daa jat jaa daa daa daa......'

Happy New Year

Thai's are a cack! i love their sense of fun, their humour, their games. It fully cracks me up.

The day started with going to church at Grace Church which i've now learnt that the thai name is คริสตจักรพระคุณ (which i'm sure means nothing to most of you but is pronounced chrisijak pra kun). I was really excited to go for a number of reasons, firstly i'd get to see some of the orphanage kids who go there, 2 my brother in law John was preaching today and thirdly, i'd get to test out how my thai is actually going. God was very kind in allowing all the songs that were sung today to be ones that were 'slow' so i actually had a chance of following the words of the song on the screen. Then John preached on Philippians. i decided at the outset declined the use of the headphones that would give me the translation of the sermon. i reckon i understood about 5-10% of the words he said. Not bad i reckon considering i haven't started Thai school just yet. Anyway, see how i go in future weeks.





Tonight we went to an early New Years Party at one of Denise & John's friends place. It was heaps of fun. We had a cook it yourself 'Muu GaTar' dinner (like korean BBQ), played heaps of games with the kids - like pin the tail on the Charng (Elephant), too many ballon games, food and flour games. It was hilarious! Makes me look forward to making my own friends and learning more thai so that i can actually communicate more. It really is frustrating not being able to say more then hello, do you want some food, i'm here to learn Thai this year, it tastes nice and it's funny. I'll get better in time, i know.

I have been really thankful for some cool thai friends in Korat who i've been msn'ing with everyday. They've been really helpful and patient in helping me read and write in Thai. It definitely makes learning to read and write a lot more fun. Only really major blunders - calling my sister a ghost (i wrote ผี instead of พี่ - can you spot the difference?) and accidentally telling someone to 'Get lost!' instead of saying they 'got lost'.

In an attempt to embarrass some of my new Thai friends and old Aussie friends, i was wanting to share a quick video of our last night in Korat with our friends from Suebsiri Church doing karaoke and the DPC team as the backup dancers. However technology isn't being too co-operative at the moment, so i'll post that another time when i can get it to work.

For those praying:
- thank God for great Thai friends who have been helping me with my Thai and offering help in finding accommodation and transport
- pray for chats this week with Ratree & Niphon who are one set of parents at the orphanage who i hope to help. For wisdom in how i can best be helping them
- that things will go smoothly this Wednesday when i go to school and try to sort out my visa and start classes
- thank God for so many people (and new friends) who have been such a huge encouragement to me in support through prayer, practical means and heaps of other things
- pray that many more Thai's will come to know God

The Short Term Mission ends

After a hectic 2 1/2 weeks, the DPC short term mission (STM) has drawn to and end and the team has left and reality is now starting to sink in. The STM overall was awesome. It was such a privilege to be able to meet, work with and get to know Thai christians who have such a huge heart to serve God in all that they do. How they have such a huge desire to see youth in schools and on the street come to know Christ and how they are people who do not just talk about big dreams and visions for God, but are people who also get in there and do the hard yards with God's help and strength to make it happen. I've been so challenged and encouraged by their way of life and willingness to serve God in whatever ways they can. I know many of the team were also encouraged and challenged by their passion and servant heart. Overall, it's been a great 3 weeks of getting a better grasp on the language (still a LONG way to go), and understanding of the culture and to see glimpses of the ways that God is at work over here.

Here's a short video on the highlights from the STM team of our time here in Thailand


Here's also a few words from Tong, one of the guys that we were working with in Korat.


After a teary farewell of the team at the airport on Sunday, the reality of my new life for the next year is starting to sink in. i'm really excited about the idea that language classes could start as early as next week (have to wait til school comes back from their 2 week Christmas holiday to find that out), also new opportunities continue to arise eg in teaching in schools - not sure if i'll do it yet tho - and even possibly helping teach the orphanage kids kids some music), plus building on relationships with Thai's here and the opportunities to get to know new ones. As i look around, it seems that possibilities are endless, i feel like time and energy will be my biggest enemy.

For those that are praying:
- Pray for wisdom in what opportunities i pursue
- Thank God for safety so far and all the things i have learnt and been challenged by
- Pray for the ability to learn language quickly and thank God for great Thai friends who have already been so helpful in teaching me so much already.
- Thank God for so many great things and especially that today we were able to celebrate Christmas and remember the amazing gift that God has given us in sending His son into the world to save us.

Suebsiri Church

Suebsiri Church is one of the churches that the team got to work with in our time here at Korat. It's a 'small' church (by aussie standards) which has a bunch of great brothers and sisters in Christ who have a huge love for God and willingness to want others to come to be a part of God's family. The SEA (South East Asian) Game played here in Korat last week i think turned what seemed to be an initial disaster in teaching in schools into a real blessing, as it allowed us to spend heaps of time with some of the keen youth group kids like Peace, Proud, Shem and Bang who were able to come along and join us as we taught english camps. It meant that we could really get to build some great relationships with the church people. One of the major highlights was going caroling with the church last friday night - who knew you could go singing in the street in front of someones house (and all the neighbours for that matter) at 12.30am! it was a real blast (apart from having to sing Jingle Bells for the 50millionth time).

But one of the big highlights for me in the past few days was being able to help Suebsiri church make a video (which they don't yet know about) which they will use next sunday for their Christmas service to help the church introduce the idea of Christmas and the greatest gift that any of us could ever receive. They've NEVER had any multimedia done for them before, so it was kinda interesting trying to work out what to do and how to do it, not to mention what the response will be to it. Plus having to try and edit in Thai and make the cuts was rather amusing, even with Tong's help. But i think it worked well all up given our major time constraints and lack of direction. It's been really cool having the chance to work a bit with Tong and to hear the vision he has for reaching non christian youth in Korat. It's such an encouragement to see how hard he does work in wanting to serve God and the way he wants to be relevant and engaging with those he has such a heart and passion for. This video was actually his idea after he caught a glimpse of the team video i edited up last weekend. I know you're not going to understand any of this (apart from 1 aussie guy's comments), but i wanted to share with you some stuff that i hope will be helpful to the church. (Tong is the 1st guy you'll see in the video).

PS - i was majorly excited to discover that i could incorporate Thai fonts into Live Type! Very COOL!!

For those praying:
- pray for Suebsiri Church, that the christians there will grown in their love and knowledge of God and for their outreach and eagerness for so many others to also know God
- pray for Tong as he leads the youth and that he will continue to love and serve God in all he does
- pray for the youth group kids, that they will build a firm foundation on Christ and grown in their love and knowledge of God