As Promised

Time is just speeding up and flying by. It’s hard to believe that we have already spent 50 days in Thailand. It feels like we are really beginning to make a difference in the lives of students here, and it breaks my heart to think about our departure in a mere three weeks. The rest of this week is going to be consumed by camp. Thursday and Friday are vacation days for MSU, so we are having English camp for them (I’m sharing a story during a big-group session- I’m still not sure what I’m going to say exactly; please pray that they will not be my words, but from the Lord.) Then on Saturday and Sunday morning we are having camp for children at the elementary school. A church group from Oklahoma is coming today and staying for the week to help us with camps and teaching.
Okay, so let me share some things that have happened this past week. Last Thursday a couple of us went to a costume party for the Humanities department. Some of our students asked us to go (we didn’t know we were supposed to wear costumes, so we were a little out of place. We just said we were dressed up as “farangs” or foreigners ) It was really cool to see our students out of uniform and watch them perform little skits and dance with the live band. I had a really good time and danced right along with them. Friday we had our regular get-together with students at our apartment. Aa was playing the guitar (singing Avril Lavigne- he said listening to American music helped him improve his English… anyway) and Pi and I were singing along. Then Beth started playing “Your Love is Deep” and we sang along. I asked them if they knew what the song was about. Aa said “yes, God’s love for us.” Then he and Beth started playing guitar and singing more songs. Pi and I ended up talking for over two hours! (Of course, I was using T, a Christian friend, to help with some translation, so that made it take a little longer.) Pi and I talked about Jesus, the devil, demons, ghosts, reincarnation, other religions, how Jesus is ALIVE!! He asked how to become a Christian and if Christians have to follow any rules like Buddhists. I told him that in Mark 12:28, Jesus tells us to love Him first and then love other people like we love ourselves. I said that because we love Jesus we don’t want to do anything to hurt him and because we love other people we don’t want to do anything to hurt them (Even though we mess up sometimes- there is forgiveness). Then T shared his story with Pi (you can read about T in a previous post). I told him that the two things I love most about God is His love and the hope He has to offer- I know that sometimes this world is hard and sad, but I know that Jesus makes life worth living and that we don’t have re-live in this world over and over again for eternity. Freedom. He asked if we would pray for him, and T wrote down some simple verses for him to read in the Bible that Valerie had given him. I told Pi that God likes it when people ask questions and search for Him- because when we seek we will find.
Then on Sunday I talked to a girl about why she wouldn’t become a Christian even though she’s been studying the Bible for years and believes it. It’s because of her family. Thais rarely step outside of what their families believe because they don’t want to hurt the closeness and stability of the family. I told her that the decision to follow Jesus couldn’t be based on her family- and I couldn’t even imagine the pain of being rejected by my family. But I assured her that Jesus loves her even more than her family.
Pray for Pi and PM; and Green, Aa, AR and a few others who are really looking for truth and hope. For the team, please pray that our energy will stay up this week as we embark on 4 days of camp- and the team from Oklahoma for safe traveling and that they will not suffer from too much jet lag.
Here’s a run-down of the rest of our time here:
Camps: July 17-20
Teaching: July 21-31 (only two more weeks!!! Crazy.)
Day camp: Hopefully Aug. 2
Bangkok: Aug. 5
Fly home: Aug. 6

Okay, well thinking about only having 21 days left is making me sad, so I’ll wrap this up. I will write after I have recovered from camp.

Corinne
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