Good News Club Still Growing!

60 happy students and growing rapidly! Even the interested parents look on from the sidelines.


Even fed the students for six dollars and sixty cents!


The fearless teaching team:

Happy Birthday Anders!

It was a great one for the birthday boy! We went with our new Thai friends and housemate out to the local waterfall and hiking trails.


We even found a rock to jump off of! For all the "worriers" out there- sleep well, it was safe. We thoroughly checked it out first!

Our white shirts did turn a rustic brown color, though.

Mmmmm, delicious birthday dinner- fried chicken & green curry!

Moto Auction!

While driving around a real junker rental motorbike over the past week, we were wondering how we were going to find a good moto for cheap. As we were eating lunch today, we heard there was a moto auction going on behind the nearby department store, so we went to scope it out. We had no idea that 10 minutes later we’d be a proud owner of a practically new motorbike then 2 minutes later the auction would be complete!


A kind auctioneer helped translate the prices of what the motorbikes were going for. Unbelievable- about $500 for new or nearly new bikes! Normally we see them advertised for around $1000. Well, we couldn't believe it, so as Lori went to the ATM, I quickly signed up. By the time we had regrouped, there were only a few left, so we prayed then seven seconds later we were the proud owners of a red 110cc 2008 Yamaha Mio Amore with only 1200 miles on the odometer! Other than a number of mangy bumper stickers, we were very pleased with God's selection for us. I later realized, I hadn't even looked at the entire left side of the moto before bidding! Whoops-looks like someone else was again looking out for us!

Good News Club Update

The group continues to grow. There are now 46 regular attendees, including children and adults- so many they've had to split the class into two groups!



God is greatly blessing this group meeting and many children’s lives are being changed. We are very excited to see what God will be doing through this very passionate group of students and teachers!


Thank you again to our Singapore friends for the Bibles!

Moving to Chiang Mai!

You may have noticed that we’ve had a pause in our posts. Things have been pretty busy with our move to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand.

Our new place:


We felt God leading us here so that we could attend upcoming discipleship training classes, business classes, language classes and more easily access outlying areas for outreaches, building projects, etc. It’s beautiful city too! So many missionaries and aid organizations from all over Asia use this city as their home base.

It’s also a great place to learn Thai! Our progress so far has been pretty slow, but we have just hired a tutor and she has already taught us so much! We have probably learned more in one day than in the 3 months up till now combined! It sounds pitiful but is true, you just learn it so much faster with a local. There are five tones in Thai so one word can have five different meanings!! But we are finding that the locals just appreciate your attempt... When they laugh, I can just imagine how ridiculous we must sound!

The Good News Club is now underway...

The “Good News Club” is now underway in the local refugee camps! Villagers from children on up now have the opportunity to learn English through the “Good News” of Jesus Christ with songs and Bible lessons!


The senior students have been meeting for weekly Bible studies together and have shown such pure and giving hearts to want to share with the unreached. So, the students along with the local pastor have begun an English-Bible outreach program, reaching many children and their parents from other zones of the camp. In the very first meeting, over twenty children attended. The rumor is that next week they will actually need to divide and have two separate meetings in order to accommodate the growing demand!


The goal is to soon reach all zones of the camp (which encompass over 100,000 people) and make small home groups available on a regular basis. They are using the English Bibles, which we recently brought from a kind donor in Signapore. We have been invited to speak and be a part of the upcoming meetings, so please do keep us in your prayers as the camp has recently been closed to foreigners. Please also pray for the upcoming first-ever VBS, scheduled for April!

Run 4 Relief!

Lori and Anders went for it today with an entire 5k! It was a blast (and a pain in Lori's side- Anders is glad he's not the cause this time!) and reminded us how much we’ve been neglecting going out for some good quality runs. It was an awesome event put on by the “Christians Concerned for ‘B’” in which all proceeds go to the aid of displaced or hurting people within the nation. Except for maybe two locals, the rest of the large turnout consisted of “farangs” (foreigners). When advertising the race to our Thai friend, he asked (seriously) "Well, where are you running?" and "Why?" We had to explain races are good exercise and fun for foreigners, beside the cause this run was supporting. He looked as us oddly. This is probably due to the slogan on the back of the race T-shirts, "For a million villagers in "B", running is not a choice."

They even had a flip-flop division, since many villagers often have to run from their villages in nothing more than their sandals. There were very few takers, and those who did it were not looking like they enjoyed it much by the end of the race =(



Our friend teaching nearby came out for a fun time too!

COC Thailand National Conference

Missionaries from all around Thailand came together in Chiang Mai for a three day national conference. Several pastors from various walks of life provided timely encouragement. We were so grateful to be able to attend after almost missing the bus. See "Recent Videos" for what happened... or click here.



We were even able to meet a number of people who live in our hometown, whom we hadn’t yet met. This was very encouraging, as our hometown is very dark. To testify to that darkness, we were recently told by a missionary with over forty years in the field in Thailand, that many cannot venture here nor deal with the darkness. Read on to see how God is in the process of delivering us, during this learning and growing phase.

Success!

Today we safely delivered the packages of donated Bibles to the eegufer camps! Unfortunately we couldn't go into the camp, as the authorities have been recently strictly enforcing the comings and goings of foreigners. But, it was a real blessing to speak with our camp contact.

He is giving these Bible to his twenty eight students who have been sharing just ONE Bible, and for 2+ months have been praying for more. With their own copy and with the high demand to learn English, the class seniors will now travel throughout the camp and teach English from their new Bible Sunday School Style!


With his new Good News Club he just began a weekly church service in English. It sounds funny to have a church service in English where such few people speak English. But in fact, it draws people from all around the camp, even those who haven't heard the good news, but desire to learn English. We were delighted to be asked to deliver messages on a regular basis, so are currently praying for access.


It is by grace he's been able to develop such a program in a short while with few resources. We can see he has such a heart to spread the gospel to his people. He shared his plans including a VBS and other many great ideas how to train up the next generation. We told him we would do all we can to enable he and his ministry.

We're currently trying to find him: a used laptop, printer, digital camera & copy machine, student supplies (pen & notebook), flip charts, 1 meal/month for meeting, pre-school & Sunday school teachers guides.

This time he was the one who was an encouragement!

From Mar '09