Wedding, Mission & War

It's a been a pretty full on month for me with all sorts of music practices for special church services, a massive combined churches in Chiang Mai service, my good friends Mayz and Boom's wedding, plus the usual weekly music practices. I feel like I had over 50 songs to learn and practice over this past month alone! I was so thankful that my friends have left their keyboard at my place while waiting for their house to get finished otherwise music at the wedding would've been interesting.

So for the wedding, I thought I'd be a sport and not only follow the pink and white theme of the wedding, but also wear a dress. Yes you read it right, a dress!! And not only was a dress, it was a PINK DRESS with polka dots at that!! I know that there are many who have been hanging to see some pics of me in the dress, so I figure, if you're good enough to come check out my blog, then you deserve some kind of reward. So here are a few goes, here are few pics of me at the wedding....


Muso shot - with Word

    With Boom & Mayz

With some of the gals from church

Me and Boom, and a partly pink wedding outfit?

So there you have it.... Definite once in a lifetime!!

This morning, we had our annual church mission trip. Rather than go to a hill tribe village, or somewhere out of town, we thought we'd do a medical mission in the area of our new church building as a way to meet some of the neighbours and build some relationships with them. There probably wasn't quite the same amount of advertising that we'd do back home, but a bit of spontaneous door knocking of the area soon had quite a few people come along. After doing a bit of door knocking, I ended up helping to distribute medicine.

thankfully some of them were harmless - like vitamin C

Counting out the tablets

People coming along to get checked

Em sharing the gospel with 3 neighbours

Even though we won't be able to move into the new church til late next year, it was nice to be able to get to know the area a bit better, and who knows what will eventuate from today's opportunity to practically give to the community and to share the gospel with them.

Whilst tiring at times, all the extra music practices this past month have been great as it's meant that I've had a chance to spend lots more time with the church worship team and get to know some of them better. Here's the combined churches meeting that we had to play for recently.

Combined churches meeting, about 14 churches joined together to worship God. 
Here's our worship team leading the music for the day - me on the drums in the background

Tonight, we decided to have a social after our music practice which ended up as dinner at my place which turned into a spontaneous nerf wars with live music to go. Everyone had a great time. Times like that that I'm so thankful for my place and the ability to just have people over over.

Dinner before the 'war'

It's nice just to be able to be spontaneous and have random times together. Ended up videoing the nerf wars, so here's a quick clip of it.

For those who pray:

- Praise God for sustaining me through this month

- Praise God for ongoing relationship building. Pray for continued wisdom in relationship building

- Praise God for the recent mission trip. Pray that God will continue to bring people back to himself

- Pray for the church building project and required funds to finish it

Take a tour of my place

So here's my new place. Hope you enjoy the tour and don't get too motion sick watching it :)

An Amazing Day!!

Today has been an amazing day which has just blown my mind in terms of God's provision and the amazing support and encouragement of family and friends from all over.

The morning started with sharing at the 9am service and morning tea afterwards. It was such an encouragement chatting to the 9am congregation. I then went to the 10.30 service where, even though there was a bit of fun in doing the chicken dance for everyone, on a more serious note, i was 'commissioned' and prayed for by some of the Lions kids (kids i taught last year). I was so touched and encouraged by the prayers of the kids. I'm so going to miss them, and even though i won't get to teach them each week, they will continue to be remembered in my prayers.



Chatting with so many people after church was also a huge encouragement. To have many more people continue to come forward wanting to support me in various ways is just so humbling and encouraging. It's hard not to be blown away by God's provision. As an added bonus the kids came back after kids church where they had made some gingerbread as part of their lesson, and they made a special box of ginger bread for me which included my pieces that spelt 'DEB' :)



Then, early this afternoon, i had a couple come round to look at my car. Having never sold a car privately before, there were times that i was a bit anxious in wondering if i would ever sell it, and for how much. Thanks to lots of advice and encouragement from some friends to hold out for the right buyer, God delivered the right buyer this afternoon, and i have now sold my car for more than i thought i would get for it. It's a real answer to prayer, not only for price, but also for the timing of the sale.

Then tonight was the commissioning service. If i wasn't already blown away by all the support and encouragement in the morning, i was even more blown away in the evening. After having a chance to share what i was going to be doing, it was really encouraging to hear from Kevin Murray (APWM) and Craig (DPC) about mission and partnership. Then Simon Longdon gave a really challenging talk from 2 Corinthians 4 about why we need to persevere and not lose heart. It was a great reminder to know that we have God on our side, that we need to be renewed inwardly day by day and make sure that we do not drift, and to be fixing our eyes on what is unseen. Then came the time for the commissioning which you can watch below if you missed it.



It's a huge responsibility to be taking the gospel to Thailand, and i know it's only possible because of God and the support of my Christian family in DPC, CCC, Pioneers, APWM and many others. It was just a huge encouragement to see a church full of people standing as an expression of their support and partnership in heading to Thailand. As Luke and Kevin prayed at the end, i was so overwhelmed by the support, prayers, encouragement and reality of the future that the emotions hit and the tears began flowing. Thankfully being at the front during the last song meant that most people probably didn't notice, but I am just so thankful for all God's blessings, for the amazing family and friends he has provided me and for the encouragement, support and prayers of so many.

For those who pray:
- Praise God for all his abundant blessings
- Praise God for the partnership that we can have in the gospel
- Pray that i will be someone who perseveres, is renewed daily by God and continues to fix my eyes on the things that are unseen

CCC Missions Dinner Video

One down side of going across the Tasman last week was that it meant i couldn't make it to the CCC missions dinner. However, the upside of not being there meant that I had the chance to make a quick video to explain some of the needs in Thailand and what i'll be up to when I get there which i can now post up. So for those of you who missed my info night, my sharing time at CCC or the CCC missions dinner, here's a quick video which outlines briefly what i'll be up to and how you can be a part of it.

Post Info Night

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Info Night last night. I was truly blown away by the encouragement and support from everyone that came, and also from many who weren't able to make it. God is indeed good in providing so many faithful brothers and sisters to encourage, support and partner with me.

For those who weren't able to make the night, here's a quick run down of the night. The idea for the night was to give people an an experience of Thailand, where they could experience the tastes, sights and sounds of Thailand and get introduced to a few Thai friends along the way. So i thought it would be appropriate to kick off the night by getting everyone to stand and watch the Thai Royal Anthem, a very appropriate way to start any 'auspicious' occasion. That was then followed by the following vox pop about peoples impressions and knowledge about Thailand.



I then attempted to embark on teaching everyone how to make Khao Niaw Ma Muang (mango sticky rice). Thankfully it actually worked - despite the water running dry in the wok a couple times. Thankfully there were a few observant people who noticed 'smoke' and came to the rescue.


About to steam the rice


Here's a pic of the dessert after people have hoed into it

While the rice was cooking, I then began the tour of Thailand, showing them some of the sights of beaches, food, markets, festivals, traffic, as well as wats, Buddha images and monks. This naturally led us to getting a greater understanding of the needs in Thailand for people to not only hear the gospel, but also for the opportunity to learn how to read, understand the Bible for themselves in order to teach it to others. I introduced my everyone to some of my friends, Kim, Ajarn Jazz and Maggie and Ice and shared a little bit about how they have been impacted by Gods word and are keen to be serving God.


Taking everyone on the tour of Thailand

We then played a quick game of 'Place or Food' to give everyone a chance to stretch before i went onto to share about what my plans are for ministry in Thailand.

I then answered a few quick FAQ's then had a chance for questions. There were some really good questions that came out, and a few unexpected answers they got about some of the potential challenges of being a single female doing mission work (if you want to find out what those answers were, you'll just have to come and ask me). Craig then got up to talk about partnership and support before we broke up into smaller groups to pray for Thailand and for me.

We wrapped up the night by finishing up the dessert and then eating an amazing supper that many friends kindly provided.


The supper spread!

The night was a huge encouragement to me and has made me even more excited about heading back to Thailand. However, at the same time, it also made me sad to think about all the people that I won't get to see on a regular basis back here. But i'm hoping that coming back for home assignment ever couple years will mean that i do still get to see people on a semi regular basis.

Just wanted to also say a huge THANKS to everyone who came and who helped in so many ways - providing supper, setting up, doing tech, washing up and cleaning up. You guys are the BEST!!!

Here are a few photos from the night.


Setting up the night - with my little cooking demonstration setup


My 'geeky' setup so i could run everything from the front


Bec trying to imitate me...keep trying Bec :P


Supper up close


Catching up with people over supper


Mich & Ange dared to try the Mango Sticky Rice


Some of the wash up team doing....not sure.....

SMBC 2011 End of Year Dinner Video

So, last year it was All the Single Ladies, this year, we decided to do another video for the SMBC End of Year Dinner, which we did to a tune from Mulan, renamed 'SMBC'll Make a Missionary Out of you'. Was heaps of fun filming, recording and editing this years video with lots of great memories from the past couple years. If you want to check it out, you can check it out on youtube here. Hope you enjoy :)

Learn to Swim Video

So late last year, my friend and I thought we'd enter a video into a Swim Australia competition - and we won! Here's the winning creation

Flying Squirrel

While my sister has been away, i've had the job of babysitting her 2 flying squirrels. I was actually quite excited about it at first, until they refused to come out of the cage, then one of them started biting really hard and the other became so scared, it just ran from me. Not to mention how much they smell as well, or how much wee and poo they leave when running around the house. So what turned out as an exciting couple of weeks of babysitting has turned into a slightly longer feeling 2 weeks.

Both Kim and I have been bitten really hard by one of the squirrels ('Skip'). Unfortunately i didn't have any bandaids in the house, so Kim had to settle for a home made bandaid, consisting of rolled up tissue and rubber band.



Anyway, last night i was feeling a bit sorry for the squirrels having been stuck in the cage, so thought i'd let them out for a run. Usually they just run around the furniture and don't do much, but last night, one of the squirrels decided to go up on the curtain rack and do cool jumps from there to the ground. I actually managed to get the camera out in time to catch it doing it for the second time, so though it'd share it with you. It almost makes them cool pets again....almost.

Cell Group and new video

thanks to those who prayed for my 'cell group' leading time last week. The short version, i think it went well and that i didn't completely confuse everyone. :) haha Having said that, i'm so thankful that it wasn't actually a 'proper' study, as leading the group through a broad read of many OT books stretched me a lot. However, i'm really glad that i had the chance to do it and i've learnt a lot through the experience. i'm really thankful for my teacher who was able to help me at midnight on skype the night before in doing the hand out for the group, which meant that even if i wasn't able to explain everything clearly, they could still read the main idea of what i wanted to say. I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, i'm actually taking it as a good thing, that there was no comments made about the handout eg laughing about what i had written, words of encouragement to say 'good try' or corrections on wording and grammar etc. Basically, i reckon if there were comments to try and encourage me on them, it would mean that i had way too much wrong on there and they had no idea what i meant or wanted to say, but they all read it and used it as if it were 'normal', so i was actually really happy about that (hope that makes sense). i'm sure having a teacher fix lots of my bad grammar the night before was a massive help. :)

anyway, in the past couple weeks, i've been working on a deputation video for the Dickson's as they head back to Oz in less then 2 weeks time now. So for those of you who go to churches that support them, you can get a sneak peak at some of the stuff they'll be showing around Sydney when they go back. For others, you can check out some of the stuff they're doing, as some of the stuff they do is what i'm doing as well.





For those of you who are praying, please pray for the Dicksons as they head back to Oz, that it'll be a good time of rest, recuperation and time spent with family, friends and supporters.
Please pray for those of us who are left back here (Ken, Kristy and I) and the extra 'workload' we take up as the dicksons head back ie Baan Tawai, Sunday School training, cell groups, cell group leader training etc. It'll be a massive workload especially for Ken, so please keep him in your prayers.

'Education Sunday'

Yesterday at church, John introduced an 'education sunday'. Basically what we wanted to try and do was share with the rest of church what the kids do in Sunday School each week. On a typical Sunday, the kids will stay in church during the singing time, and when that's over and the communion and sermon start in 'big church', the kids go out to sunday school. More often then not, most people have no idea what happens in sunday school, and often think of it as a baby sitting session. But it's really more then that. For us, it's a time when we get to help train and equip 2 girls in church (in the past year at least) - Kim and Gun, to be able to read and teach the bible themselves, with the hope that in the future, they will be able to train up others to do likewise. At the same time, we also get to give the kids some really good bible teaching and hopefully help lay a firm foundation for them for the future. It worked out really well in the end with Kim and Gun getting some time to share some of the things they learnt and what they've got out of teaching the kids in the past year. Then the kids also got to sing a song that we taught them called 'the Body Song'. For those of you who grew up in the whole sunday school thing, you might remember the Kid's Praise songs with Psalty (yes, this is showing my age BIG TIME!!) Anyway, there was a cool song that for some reason has stuck in my head all these years which is about the Body of Christ, and how the body of Christ is made up of many parts - all of which are important - whether you can see them or not. Since it was an english song, we thought we'd never get to sing it, but when we put our minds to it, we actually managed to translate the song into Thai, and it actually worked really well :) hehe So here's the video of the kids singing 'the Body Song'.



The original english words go like this (the thai is not an exact translation, but it captures the same idea)

I, I am the eye, i go blink blink
yes, i am the eye and i can wink
i am the eye, but i can't think
that belongs to my friend the brain

i fritter fratter frit, fritter fratter frit
i'm the brain with an electric current patter pit
i'm the brain and i fritter learning bit by bit
yes i fritter fratter fritter all the time

i go lub dub, lub dub i go
i am the heart, i pump like so
i'm bringing life to all the parts
i am consistent, i'm the heart

i'm swinging, i'm swinging
swinging on life's merry way
i'm the arm, i'm the arm
im bringing life to all

hearing, hearing
small ears, hearing
we don't miss much
hearing all the time

We are the body of Christ,
we are the body of Christ
together bringing His love to the world
We work together, we work together
we do it with cooperation
Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen


For those who are praying:
please keep all the sunday school kids in your prayers. that the things they learn as kids will become a firm foundation for them for life as they learn truths about God
please pray for those of us teaching the kids to, to be faithful in our teaching of the Bible to the kids, and for us to always continue growing in our love and knowledge of God

School Christmas Party

So today we had our school christmas party which ended up being rather amusing, since i was asked to help MC the party and translate into english all the Khruu Tor said. So given that i was handed the mic on many occasions, i thought i'd take the opportunity to 'elaborate' at times on things that were happening or said to help make the day a bit more fun too. A very dangerous thing if you're people who i tend to enjoy glaanging (teasing) :) hehe

Anyway, here's a video of my teacher with a few of her students singing Last Christmas. My teacher is the one who's completely embarrassed in the video. not hard to miss. She'll kill me for putting this up, but hey, why not? :)



For those who are interested, Gai Yaang is a dance that kids get each other to do as a 'punishment' - or more a way of embarrassing those who might come in last or lose a game. So here's Khruu Jai with Eugene doing Gai Yaang since they came in last when playing the 'relay' game.



Since i ended up doing lots of the talking and forgot to hand my camera to someone to happy snap, i didn't manage to many photos of me in action at all. but here are few shots of the day anyway.


Christmas at CLS


Me with Khruu Jai


Some of the teachers at school


Group Photo

Expand Youth Camp

Over the past couple years, my church in Oz (Drummoyne Pressie) has had the chance to work with the Subsiri Church in Korat. Unfortunately this year, they're not able to send a team over, but that hasn't stopped many past team members from having a heart for many in the church and those that the church is reaching out to, to get to know God more and more. A couple weeks ago, there was a Youth Camp 'Expand' that Subsiri Church were wanting to send their youth group to. However, the 450bht cost (approx $16 AUD at the time before our $ plummeted) for the 4 day camp was preventing some of the kids in going (if only camps were that cheap in oz!!). God in his goodness gave many back home an extremely generous heart and we were able to send over quite a lot of money to help pay the rego fees for some kids to go and also help with the transportation costs to get 28 people from Subsiri church over to the camp.

Here's a what Tong (the youth leader at the church had to say):
we had the great time in camp with 500 youth from around thailand. Worshiping God and Seeking Him is Highlight of the camp. Holy Spirit of God come among us and most of them have experience by that. We got great message from Youth Pastor in Singapore and India, Some of youth from my church received Jesus in camp. They are more hungry in God and he put fire in their heart to serve him. I feel very thank God for this camp. This is good time to meet pastor and old friends and new person and have time for 4 day to spend with God and retreat. I love to serve with the youth and love to see them worship and pray to God. I was cry many time in the camp because touching his love and see my youth seek God with all heart. That was great time :)

One of the kids there, Shem even posted up a video if you're keen to check out some of what happened at the camp Expand Youth Camp video Looks like heaps of fun! i'm hoping that maybe i'll get to join them sometime in the future if there's another camp

6 months on.....

I can't believe that 6 months has already gone by! Time has seriously flown - in a really good way! i'm continually being amazed at the people God brings into my life over here and the way that God continues to work in so many ways over here.

The past 2-3 weeks has felt like a bit of a bit of a 'breakthrough' time with language. i can no longer speak english very well, often finding that i'm mixing thai words into my english now - maybe not quite as much as i mix english into Thai, but i can now no longer speak any language fluently! :) haha Seriously though, the past couple weeks has felt like a breakthrough in that i feel like i'm now generally understanding MORE then less when people are just speaking Thai all around me, and that i can communicate so much more. Obviously still have a long way to go yet, but it's a nice feeling to actually know more of what's going on and guessing less (even though there is still plenty of guessing too).

Last night, i had dinner at my teachers place. There ended up being 9 of us there - a mix of Thai's and Aussies (3 aussies, 6 thai's) - all of who spoke varying degrees of each others language, but no one fluent in both. What i thought was the most amusing was out of everyone there, my teachers husband and i were probably the most bi-lingual people there, so ended up having to try and do most of the translation when needed. How hilarious is that? i'd hate to think what i did translate at times, but it's always a great way to push me in my language and force me to work out ways of explaining stuff with whatever vocab i do have.

But with more language also comes more knowledge too though of 'issues' that are going on in other peoples lives as they want to share with me, ask me for advice, ask for my prayer etc. At the moment, my teacher has a few personal issues. For those who are praying, please pray that she'll have wisdom to think clearly and make decisions that will be helpful for her and her family and that she'll keep on trusting God more and more as she faces difficult decisions.

Anyway, i also mentioned that i'd post up a video that gives a quick glimpse of just some of the stuff that i've been up to in the past 6 months while i'm here. for DPCers, this is a bit of a sneak preview if you happen to check this out before it gets shown at church :) hope you enjoy

The Dicksons

the past month has been pretty busy producing and editing a couple videos, one for me and one for the Dicksons (my sisters family who i'm working with here). i thought i'd upload their video so you can get a feel for some of the stuff that they're doing and be praying for them as well (plus see what's been keeping me up at nights). i'll post up the video i've done for me soon too :)

enjoy

Opkan Camping Trip

So it's been a while since i've uploaded a video. Sorry about that. it's not because i don't want to, it's mainly cos i just haven't really had the time of late, but had a couple spare hours this morning so i though i'd make up a quick video for our cell group that went camping at Opkan a couple weeks back. It'll at least give you a quick snap shot of some of the things that went on there.

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......'

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

Our first week in Khorat

It just occurred to a few of us last night that we only have 1 more week left of our short term mission trip with the team. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone, and it's after realisations like that that i'm really glad that i'm staying on for the year. Once again, i'm just starting to feel like i'm getting more of a handle on the language and being able to form even better relationships with some of the Thai people here and i'm having soooooo much fun it almost doesn't seem quite right that moving countries can be quite this easy. Of course i need to remember that right now isn't quite reality with the team around and all the organised activities we're doing, but hey, at least it's a great way to start.

So I finally got round to making a short summary video of just a couple things that we've been up to while in Khorat - in going to church and teaching at one of the schools. you can check it out here.

We've also done heaps of other stuff too which i couldn't include in the last vid - going to other schools, visiting a world vision project, going caroling at night with members of the Suebsiri church til 1am (i think we probably went to about 10 houses to sing carols, pray for the families at the houses and eat lots of food!!), we've visited Pi Mai - an old ruins place, we've managed to have a day off, ange and i gatecrashed the music rehearsal from the church and had a great jam session with the music team, we almost got to see some of the SEA games tacraw semi finals - until officials realised after they had announced the 2 teams playing that 3 teams in fact had finished on equal points so they were trying to work out who should get to play. So we ended up sitting around for 2 1/2 hrs learning Thai cheers, participating in 'Mexican Waves', eating a variety of 'surprise' foods and chatting with one of the teachers from the english camp who we happened to bump into (which was really cool!). It's been awesome so far!

Today, we're heading to church and then i'm going to attempt to help Tong (one of the Thai guys we've been working with here) try and make a video for his church christmas service next week. He's hoping to use the video to introduce the talk on getting people think about what the greatest gift we can ever receive is - leading into the fact that Jesus is the best gift we could receive. Due to the time constraints of making the video, i figured doing a vox pop would be easiest and quickest - only i know somehow it's going to take longer then usual since i'm not going to be able to understand what the respondents are going to say, so editing could be..... well, interesting. Might be a great way to learn thai tho :) hehe

For those who are praying:
- thank God for a great trip so far and the ways that God has been opening doors for the local thai churches here in Korat
- for the great relationships i've been able to form with Thai people here so far
- for the thai christians here - for their amazing love and trust of God, and that they'll continue to grow in their knowledge, love and understanding of God
- for the millions of other Thai's who don't yet know God, that they will

Finally, I can look forward to Thailand

Sorry for the couple weeks of silence. To say the last 3 months have been 'busy' i personally think is a bit of an understatement. Since visiting Thailand in July, it's been all systems go...until this weeked. The last of my 'big projects' was the Ignite film festival last weekend. For those who don't know what Ignite is, its a Christian short film festival (bit like a christian tropfest if that helps) that we (my work) started 4 years ago (you can check out details about it at www.ignite.tvs.net.au). Last Saturday was our awards night that was heaps of fun, but also quite a bit of work, which meant i was unfortunately unable to focus on doing any Thailand prep stuff for a bit. But now all that's changed. At last count I have just under 7 weeks before i head off.

While work will be steadily busy until i go, my hope is that from this week i'll be working 4 day weeks which will give me time to get back into language learning, continue to build relationships with Thai friends over in Thailand via email, get my medical checks done, get my visa sorted, start getting into gear for our church short term mission (which will kick off my trip), catch up with friends and family here and sort out lots of other odd bits and pieces that i know will come up. I know the next few weeks are going to fly by and before i know it, i'll be on the plane.

I promise that in the next few weeks i'll also update this blog to include more details of what i hope to be doing next year. Time has prevented me from being able to do so so far, so sorry for those who have been waiting for that.

For those of you who are praying, here are some prayer points i'd appreciate at the moment:
- that i'll be able to start getting back into language learning
- that i'll be able to get all my medicals sorted and that i won't have anything majoryly wrong with me that might prevent me from going
- for work, that they'll be able to find a replacement for me soon
- that i'll be able to spend time with God and in his word and grow in my knowledge of him

thanks guys.

As another quick plug for Ignite, here's a short clip i had to edit up that has a snapshot of every film entered into this years festival (all 49 of them).


Some of the films this year are seriously AWESOME! I'm even keen to see how i can use some of them in Thailand! If you're in ministry and looking for a dvd which has some really good bible based films, i'd recommend you get the Ignite DVD's (sorry for the plug but i wouldn't do it if i didn't believe in the product).