Farewell India

This is our LAST blog while in India!!  None of us can believe how fast these last 2 months have gone!!  Though most of us are SO ready to go home, we have all been EXTREMELY blessed by this experience and would not trade it for the world!  You would think that these last few days because we were getting ready to leave, ministry would slow down.  Nope, this is India so we go full force until the end!

Starting on Tuesday we had our one day off of ministry and you would never guess what all of us girls did...  We all played Paintball, many of us for the first time, in India of all places!  It was Hilarious!  We all made it out with minor bumps, bruises and sore abs from laughing SO hard!  It was a great last day off that is for sure! 

On Wednesday we all had a full day of ministry starting with the Love Care Center, which is a home for Mentally and Physically handicapped individuals.  We spent time with them while they were doing their homework, sang songs with them and our favorite was dancing with them!  It was such a special place filled with Godly love and acceptance!  After this, the most of us went to a slum to do open airs and pray for individuals throughout the slum.  Solveig and Bethany were the only ones that did not go because they had to go to the Hearing God's Voice class to teach. 

The slums were very intense!  We would walk down the street and look to our right and see people just pooping on the sidewalk right next to us.  There were young kids running everywhere, hanging on our every limb.  When we posted up in the middle of the street and just started doing our Savior drama.  We would start with a crowd of about 15 people and then as soon as the music went on there would be HUNDREDS watching!  We literally stopped traffic in the middle of the street while we performed.  After it was over we would preach the gospel out of a speaker and pray for those who would come forward for blessings and healings!  God was so good and though none of us had any strength to do this, God provided everything we needed throughout this night.

On Thursday we started at 5AM wooooweee!  We had to travel pretty far to three different colonies to provide blankets and rice bags for the entire village while we prayed for and played with the children present.  The first camp we went to was called the Rag Pickers, who lived like the Gypsies we had visited last week.  Just in tents with no houses, in the middle of a dirt field.  Their primary source of income is digging through trash and finding recyclable material, which does not even provide enough money for them to eat.  Though it was hard to see such poverty, it was such a blessing to be able to bring a little bit of the kingdom to them and share with them the love of Christ.  The second camp was called the Irrulares, which were people who made their money through charming snakes.  It was a very dark camp, where they worshipped many gods and practiced black magic.  There was only one believer in the village and the only reason she believed was because God healed her miraculously from cancer.  Though none of them were really Christians they still allowed us to pray blessings over their lives. 

The third and final camp that we went to was a Leprosy camp.  When we pulled up I don't think that any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into, or even what leprosy looked like, but what a blessing it turned out to be.  We mostly performed for them as they smiled and clapped.  Most of them had disfigured fingers and toes, and a few did not even have hands or feet because of the disease.  We got to pray healing over them and trust that God had a plan for each of their lives.  It was an experience that NONE of us would ever trade!

On Friday we went up to Saint Thomas Mount where there was the church of Thomas in the spot where he was martyred for Christ.  We saw some of his bones and even got to walk in the cave where he stayed during his persecution.  At the top of this mount we prayed for India and submitted all of our ministries that we had been a part of to Him!  We also praised him for everything he is currently doing and everything he will eventually do!  Thank you Lord for your provision!  Later that day a bunch of us girls did a very Indian thing and got Henna on our hands! 

All in All, India was one of the most difficult but rewarding places any of us have ever been to.  God taught all of us so much while we were here and many of our hearts were attached to different ministries we were a part of.  Now all that is left is flying and traveling to 3 continents, 4 countries within 7 days!  Please pray for safety as well as God's provision with the flights not being canceled.  Thank you so much for following this blog and the way that God has been moving throughout India!  We are overjoyed to have had an experience like this and excited to share about our experiences with all of you in Person!  Thank you Lord for your eternal grace and love!  We trust you always!

This week started with an American celebration of Halloween on Monday.  Indian people had no idea what was going on as we walked around the mall downtown dressed up as Amish people, gangster, hippie and bums.  As if we did not already get enough stares this definitely added to the amount of people wondering what the heck we were doing!  It was so fun though and we also were blessed by the family we lived with who bought us 2 pumpkins to carve which we let our Australian Cassie and Norwegian Solveig carve into.  It was a first time experience for the both of them.

Tuesday through Friday we worked with an orphanage about an hour and a half away that housed "gypsy children" whose parents though some were alive, lived in tents in the mud and therefore believed the orphanage could provide a much better home then they were able to.  This orphanage was such a blessing to work with.  We got to shower the children in the morning, wash their clothes, clean the house, help cook lunch, play with the kids  and help build a toilet all throughout the few days.  It was extremely tiring because these kids had SOOO much energy but also extremely rewarding!  We all loved being able to make lasting connections throughout the week instead of just moving from ministry to ministry.  During some of the off time the children also taught all of us Westerners how to play their favorite sports game Cricket!  We all made it out with only a few scrapes and bruises to be recorded!  They are such special children and we all by the end, though were tired, were so refreshed by the experience with these beautiful children!

On Thursday after working at the orphanage, we actually got the chance to pack up some rice bags and travel to the gypsy camp site where the children's parents lived and bless them with some rice.  We also were able  to pray for protection and healing for many of the individuals within the camp.  It was amazing to hear how God had already healed so many of them from sicknesses and disease.  While we were all praying for a man who had fallen off a motorbike and pretty much destroyed his knee we saw the Lord bring down the swelling in his knee and take away the pain of walking.  We are all just so wanting to see God's kingdom come to earth and though we have not seen a lot of physical results of healing, are encouraged daily knowing that all we can do is place the situation into God's hands and have faith that he is at work!  It was truly humbling to  see these people who had so little and we will continue to keep them in our prayers.

On Wednesdays and Fridays for this week and next week we are teaching at a Bible school at night about Hearing God's Voice, which was one of the topics during our lecture phase.  Though we all feel extremely underqualified to teach this subject in such a setting, God has continually shown up that his power is made PERFECT in our weakness.  During the practice time on Friday we asked them all to listen to what the Lord was telling them and it was AMAZING to hear all of their incredible visions the Lord was giving them and Bethany who some experience with visions and interpretation helped show them what the Lord often means with certain colors and animals and scenarios!  Also during our time their the translator was actually the director of the Bible school and a YWAMer himself, but he said God is so good because during his DTS one subject his school didn't teach on was actually Hearing God's Voice and he said he was learning so much through the teaching.  Praise the Lord!

On Saturday we left to travel about 7 hours south to these remote villages where we would stay for one night and two days to preach the gospel and evangelize in these villages.  These villages were SO remote that none of them had EVER even seen white people before.  Many of us received kisses and pinching of our cheeks and touching our skin because they were just so in awe of the difference.  We performed our Savior drama in the middle of the village and prayed for many individuals within the village.  We prayed for healing and blessing and salvation upon most of these individuals.  Though most were extremely receptive towards prayer, it is hard to judge where there hearts are at because the Hindu religion just accepts everything, including christian practices, yet does not limit their belief to God being the only God there is.  So we continued to pray that God would make himself known to all of these individuals.  In the morning we preached and did a short program for both the Large church and the children's Sunday school.  One thing that we could all agree on at this point is how Indian's truly know how to worship with everything they have!  They sing and shout and clap and jump up and down!  It is definitely different then the way us westerners are used to worshipping!

Yesterday (Monday) we all got to go back to our FAVORITE orphanage which houses about 25 children who are all HIV positive in different stages.  Though they all have this serious terminal disease, they are all filled with SUCH joy!  We loved every second of playing games, doing skits and DANCING like crazy with them!  We all agree that we are going to miss these children so much and will continue to pray that God will heal them COMPLETELY because God is that big!  He has no limits!  Later that night we went to the beach with the guys from City Rock Church, who we have worked with 3 or 4 times by now and have formed really fun relationships.  These guys are incredible and are just one big family that are all searching after the Lord!  We played Soccer, Volleyball and then some other games like Red Rover and what not.  It was really neat how just by being there and having fun, other people who were not a part of the church came over and played and heard about their church.  God has such big plans for this church and we were all sad to say Goodbye to them.

Can't believe that we only have 2 DAYS left of ministry here in India!  Wow how time flies!  God is so good and though these last 8 days of ministry have been extremely tiring, God has given us the strength to carry on! 

Thankful hearts

This week was filled with lots of opportunities for us to practice our preaching skills.  For the first few days (Tuesday through Friday), we went to different slum houses and churches and preached a message that one person in our group switched off preparing.  We preached and worshipped and prayed for the individuals who took part in these services.  This was an amazing blessing to have a week break from hard manual labor that we had done so much last week.  These houses that we spoke in were the size of a pretty small bedroom and they fit their beds, kitchens and living rooms all in the same room.  Even though these rooms were small we still fit close to 30 people all with our knees to our chest trying to take up as little space as possible.  The cool thing about the people who were in these homes was that often there were women there who did not even consider themselves Christian's, yet had rough home lives with their husbands who beat them and drank away all the little money that was earned.  They came because they were desperate for their house life to be changed and wanted prayer for it.  We were able to pray for healing and protection and whatever else they asked us to lift up in prayer.  It was truly humbling and broke most of our hearts just hearing about what these beautiful women were going through. 

On Saturday our team had a break from all the preaching that had been going on during the week and while our staff took their staff day, us students drove 2 hours away from our house to an Aids orphanage where there were 26 kids who lived their were HIV positive.  Almost all of these children's parents had died and many of the kids even watched their parents die.  Immediately when we got there, the man who ran the orphanage briefed us on his mission for these children of bringing them the true love and joy of Jesus, regardless of their circumstances.  Boy had he accomplished this!  These children, even though were terminally ill, were SO excited to see us and extremely joyful!  All of us were so moved by the way that these kids looked at life!  We had an hour and a half to play games, sing songs, do skits and just make them laugh.  Most of us had so much fun that when we got back home and were talking to Joshua we were begging him to allow us to go back and spend more time with these incredible children! 

Sunday may have been the longest day of all of our lives! haha We started at 7:30am when we left for our first church service, which was so neat because we got to preach, sing worship songs and do our savior drama for this church which was actually Joshua's church that we had worked so hard to build during the last week.  During this 3 /2 hour church service they worshipped and prayed for around 2 1/12 hours.  Most of us had never experienced this kind of dedication until we got to India.  Such love and devotion to God and wanting to see Him move.  After this we went to another church that we did the Savior drama, sang worship songs and preached at.  Many of the individuals here we had heard were not christian but still came.  This was another long service and we had zero time to rest in between.  As you can probably imagine we were all looking to God for our strength because our human selves were extremely tired.  When this was finished, the church had made everyone lunch.  We were all extremely thankful for this because it was now 3pm haha.  After lunch we headed back to the house for about a half hour rest before we off to our next church service.  This church was called City Rock Church and we had already done a couple other ministries with them, so it was so nice to be able to recognize faces at the service.  Another blessing was that the church was entirely in English!  It felt like we were back home in the states!  They were all our age and just had such fun personalities for us to play games, worship and preach to.  We also did the Savior Drama for the third time that day!  The pastor of this church has such an amazing apostle's heart and every student there adores him.  It was such a nice way to end the day because most of us felt extremely refreshed after this service.  Thank you Lord for filling up throughout these crazy days!

As for prayer requests for this past week, we have a praise that no one on our team was sick this week!  But one of our leaders, Fleur last week may have broken her toe and is wobbling around.  So prayer for her comfort.  Also, we would like to pray for our neighbor Nazir and his family who live in the same building that all of us live in and Bethany and Luke have really been pouring into.  They are a Muslim family, but the father Nazir is very open to talking and speaks English very well.  During this past week Nazir got very sick and was not able to go to work at all.  One day Luke and Bethany walked into the house and asked if they could pray for him and he agreed.  The next day that Luke and Bethany walked by his house Nazir came out and said that he was almost completely 100 percent better.  We were all amazed and he said, "Yes I pray to Jesus now because there is power in his name."   What this statement actually means, none of us our sure but all we know is that God is pursuing his heart!  Yesterday when Luke and Beth walked by Nazir came out to them and said that he had been at the hospital an hour away all day because his daughters best friend had been in a car accident and is in CRITICAL condition.  Her face is completely smashed and is getting air into her brain and he said that he had been praying for her.  He also asked all of us to begin praying and that is why I am asking you guys who read this to pray as well.  Thank you so much for keeping up with our lives and praying through our journey with us!  We are continually thankful!  Only a week and a half left here!

Eternal Joy

What a week this has been!  When Fleur said that India ministry was going to be full on she was NOT kidding! From Tuesday through Friday our whole team had some of the hardest manual labor any of us have experienced in a long time from 8am in the morning until 1pm or 2pm.  We laid the foundation for a church by shoveling up bricks, rocks and sand into buckets that we as a team lifted up and brought across the way to the land that needed to be leveled.  The first day was really fun just because it was so different than anything we had done thus far during outreach.  Yet as the week went on and each day we became more and more sore, we really had to search out God for his strength.  It is a good thing that as Christians our joy is not reliant on the circumstances we are in but should be consistent even when times get tough!  The next few days we continued to shove rock and then spread dirt by hand across the large area needed for building the church.  While shoveling we found many different bugs including a poisonous centipede as well as 3 different SNAKES (some enjoyed this find more than others).  We actually burnt one of the snakes that may or may not have been poisonous haha.  The ending product was great but I think that all of us will agree that our sore bodies are definitely happy for a little break!

After the manual labor each day we had a couple hours off in the afternoon to shower and rest and then around 5pm every day we were off again to more ministry.  On Tuesday we went to an orphanage where we did a performance much like the first one we did except because it was at night, we had to battle against random power outages.  This is something that India is very known for and not a rare experience.  The kids were VERY well behaved and loved to laugh and play with us!  The orphanage was such a blessing to visit and all of us agreed that even though we were tired and didn't get home until 10pm when we had dinner, we LOVED the  ministry we were involved with! 

Wednesday during the late afternoon we met the pastor of City Rock church here in Chennai with about 20 of his guys from church and just hung out and talked with them.  Though most of them were christian there were a few who were either Muslim or Hindu and one of the guys on our team Jason was able to share with a Muslim guy about the whole story of the Jesus.  Though he had hung out with these guys, he had never really heard or known who Jesus was.  At the end, Jason was able to tell one of the pastors who was a part of that church and they got him a Bible.  God is so good to allow us to have blessed interaction such as this!  After hanging out for a couple hours with these guys we traveled to a few different houses to pray for some of the boys families who either were not christian or just needed prayer.  What a blessing that JUST because we are white westerners, we have the ability to walk into a completely Hindu house and even though we are Christians we are welcomed with open arms and able to pray to God for their family!

Thursday was staff day which means that us students were in charge.  We went to another orphanage which was pretty small.  Only 22 kids ranging from ages 5 to 18 and did an hour and a half performance.  Again these kids were extremely well behaved and respected their "Aunties" (just a respectful word for women older than them).  The performance went great even though all of us were EXTREMELY tired and worn out from all the days of hard labor.  The skits were really funny and the kids loved the games.  We wish that we could have spent more time with all of them because of how well we connected with them!  Friday night we went to the beach to hang out and play sports with over 30 young adults who were from this City Rock church we have been doing ministry with.  It was fun to have made relationships and be able to see them again.  We all had such a good time playing soccer, volleyball, and Frisbee.  They were so willing to talk about what they believed and what a blessing that most of them spoke English very well!  Not all of the students were christian and actually a few of us were able to have conversations with non Christians telling them about our testimonies and how the Lord has affected our own lives. 

Saturday was a planning day and then Sunday we were told we needed to preach at a church which Solveig stepped up to the plate and preached wonderfully about the Holy Spirit.  Yet in India and Thailand we have found that we need to be extremely flexible!  Arriving at church we found out that we are supposed to have an hour long Sunday school for little kids as well!  I love that our team handled this with such grace!  Thanks to singing and dancing and bible stories we were able to pull it off!  Thank you Lord!  Then on Sunday night all of us girls were very excited to find out that we got to dress up in Saree's and go to the very first Indian Gospel Music Awards!  As you can tell by the pictures it was the first time most of us had worn make up in MONTHS and actually taken time to look decent!  Such a fun break from the manual labor and sweating we were used to!  All in all we were VERY tired this week, but also feel great about what the Lord enabled us to get done!  By his strength alone were we able to survive!  Very excited about this next week and seeing God's kingdom come!

Hello India!

Well we have made it to India!  Lots and lots of traveling getting us to this point.  Thailand was so amazing and we could not have been more blessed with the accomodations that Pastor Sanguin's family offered us!  It was very difficult to say goodbye but we will all hold them close to our hearts!

As for India, though most of us were culture shocked the second we stepped off the plane, we are now very excited and getting more accostomed to the Indian way of life (very different than the Thai life we had become a little used to)!  The Indian people are awesome and full of life.  Not only do they look full of life with their amazing colored punjabis and saris but their vibrant personalities match their outfits!  We are so blessed to have such an amazing place to live while we are here and the family has been nothing but hospitable and loving towards us!  The first few days our main contact Joshua gave us some time to recooperate and get ready for ministry.  Our first ministry was working with an orphanage.  What an introduction to the Indian culture through these kids who were SO full of life and wanting anyone and everyone's attention.  We played games and they played jokes on us like asking for a high five and then taking it away before we got there (one of their favorite jokes) haha.  After playing we did a performance that had games, songs, and skits with some basic messages.  The performance looked similar to that of Thailand but these kids were MUCH louder and needed to be active!  When we said we were playing freeze dance there was NO hesitation and they never wanted to quit! They all had a very Balliwood type of dancing and all of us westerners tried our best to join in!

Later that night, we were blessed enough to be asked to speak and run a bible study at a house in a poor part of Chennai.  What a blessing to get to share things that we have learned as well as experience the life and passion that the Indian people have with the Holy Spirit.  Today being Sunday, we got to go to a church and not only be a part of but also preach, sing and do our savior drama in front of the whole church.  One of the many things that is very different in Indian churches compared to most western churches is that Indian people love to sing!  I think we worshipped for a FULL hour straight and no one was tired.  Clapping hands with an Intense Love for Jesus!  That night Cari preached at an English speaking church (So weird to not have a translator) and we did our Savior Drama and a few songs!  Basically the whole team is doing great so far and we cannot wait to see all that God has in store for us these next few weeks! 

Our team would love continued prayer for sickness as it has still been happening within our team and just strength as we continue to treck on through this journey.  God is our strength and we feel your prayers every day!  God bless you all!  

See you soon Thailand!

It is amazing to see the affects of prayer!  This last week was our very last week here in Thailand and all of us were just really feeling like we needed to dive into more prayer for a deeper connection with the people we were ministering to even though there was an extreme Language difference.  One day in the back of the pastor's truck we all sat for a little over an hour and just prayed and gave our relationships with the people in ministry into God's hands (we all were laughing because we felt like God was saying "Finally!  IT is about time!" haha).  The day after this happened an extreme change in the connection with people changed!  God is so good and merciful even when we as humans seem to not even get the simple things!

This week started off with our day off (every Monday is our day off) and BOY did we have an adventure!  We got to RIDE ELEPHANTS in THAILAND!  We all agreed that it was one of the most amazing experiences ever!  Pastor took us up into the hills where there was this one hill tribe that was actually almost all christian and they ran this elephant riding business.  We all got to ride for an hour through the hills and rice fields.  Breath taking beauty all around us and we were even allowed to ride on the head of the elephant for a little while instead of just having to stay on the chairs on their back the whole time!  We all felt so blessed to have this opportunity!  Tons of pictures!  After that we headed to the hill tribe pastors house where he had a HUGE anaconda snake!  Of course our whole team had to hold this as well because we were now accomplished elephant riders, how could we turn down a GIANT snake?  This tribe of people were amazing individuals who really displayed God's character!  Needless to say this was a DAY TO REMEMBER!

Tuesday and Wednesday we taught and ran an English camp for about 40, 13-18 year olds who were a part of a center where Ying worked (the pastor's wife who we are living with).  We got to teach things like verbs, nouns, adjectives, common phrases, and penmanship.  These kids were so eager to learn and really did remember tons of information we through at them!  Most of us had never experienced teaching but truly felt blessed at seeing the kids progress in their understanding of English.  We felt such a strong connection with these kids and were able to get many of the kids emails and of course they always said "Facebook Facebook" haha so we had to give them our names for that!  We are probably going to have like 80 friend requests by the time we get home, but oh well it is worth it!  By the end of the camp they had all made Thank You Notes for all of us for teaching them English.

Thursday was a nice break from waking up early in the morning because are ministry was at night.  During the morning we took time to plan and have team time where we got to pray for each other and worship and pray.  This is a much needed time in the week because of how much you are constantly pouring out, we have made such an emphasis on daily quiet time so that we are not trying to pour out of our own strength.  Christ is the only one that can sustain us!  That night we went to this Community Center for women in a more rural area.  This tribe had only 2 Christians in the WHOLE VILLAGE!  When we got there, the building was right next door to a Buddhist temple with monks walking around everywhere.  Many of us felt the heaviness of Buddhism at every corner of this town, but God was so protecting of us!  We got to do a performance for them including a gospel message.  The pastor did not want us to do an altar call because they were very focused on a long term relational ministry with this community center.  The performance went well and many of us felt that the Savior drama we did was the best it had ever been!  After the performance we did this "work out" with the woman, which consisted of dancing in a circle for about an hour.  You would be surprised how tired all of us were after this experience!  After dancing the only christian in town had ALL of us over for supper and cooked us a FEAST!  We were all amazed at how this one little lady could produce so much food for us!  I will tell you one thing, Thai people really have the whole serving others and treating others as better than yourself DOWN!  They are amazing hospitable people that don't even eat until after their guests are done!  We are continually blessed!  Please keep this christian lady in your prayers as she has no community but is still looking to further God's kingdom!

Friday and Saturday we taught and ran another English camp in the hills at this Compassion center where the kids who are supported by Compassion sponsors gathered.  There were probably 80 kids ranging from age 8 to 20.  Though there were so many children, they were extremely well behaved and the leaders of this center were truly inspiring individuals!  We taught all kinds of things like verbs, parts of the bodies, days of the week, colors, games, songs, hygiene and many more.  The second day a group of us were even able to help clip the kids finger nails and wash lice out of their hair (we are all praying that we ourselves don't have it).  This camp ran extremely smooth even though it was from 8am to 4pm God gave us the needed energy to keep up with these little fire crackers!  They were all eager to be loved on and often members of our team had kids literally hanging on them.  At the end of the two days we were able to pray with them and challenge them more with believing in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  When Pastor Sanguin gave the altar call for who wanted to accept Christ nearly all of them raised their head (though I think most of them had already accepted Christ but just wanted to do it again).  They are such a blessing to us and all agree that if you are thinking about supporting a child, Compassion is the one to do it with!  They really place God at the center and take SUCH good care of these kids!

Sunday (today) is our last day of ministry where we are in charge of running pastor Sanguin's church and then are going to a family's house who wanted to bless us with lunch.  Then we are just cleaning up and getting ready to head back to Bangkok.  It is amazing how fast this time has gone and all of us are EXTREMELY sad t leave the Sanguin family and Thailand!  We have loved it and have had our eyes opened.  These next few days we will be doing HEAPS of traveling so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we start this adventure towards India.  Sickness is subsiding so thank you so much for your prayers for that!  Unity in the team has been awesome!  Please pray for our team as we are going to be making a HUGE culture change from Thailand to India.  Pray that God would continue to be present with us in ministry and prepare the hearts of those we are going to meet.  Please pray for the Sanguin family and their church here in Chang Rai.  They have blessed us above and beyond and I pray that they would feel just as blessed by us and that God would let their ministry flourish!  Thank you so much for all of the prayer and support we receive from all of you who read on a daily basis.  We are sooo grateful!

Adventures of Week 2!

Wow!  Another week already finished!  These days and weeks seem to be flying by with amazing speed!  After the first week of jumping from Hill top tribe to hill top tribe we were all thankful to be sleeping in the same place for a couple of nights in a row.  We all have such amazing memories from those hill top tribes and the people that we were able to minister to!  Keep them in your thoughts and prayers that God would keep meeting them where they are at.  Even though they have little to nothing (often not even electricity or running water) they are so content and joyful with what the Lord HAS provided for them (They are the most hospitable people you will ever meet)!

As for this week we FINALLY had our complete team with us here in Thailand!  Praise the Lord for instant unity and no weird feelings of being separated.  Since Monday is always our day off I will start with Tuesday, which was our first full day of ministry together this week.  Tuesday we had most of the day off to prepare for that night when we were traveling to yet another tribe about 30 minutes from our house, except this time was a really neat opportunity because it wasn't just us encouraging a church but we were doing a performance for a group of non-Christians!  As we drove up we were greeted by children and pigs and chickens as well as the loving women of the tribe.  They set out large rice bag mats which we would soon find out was our stage.  It was a simple performance with a few dramas and testimonies.  At the end we did what we call, "The Savior Drama" and then Solveig shared a gospel message after.  At the end we asked if anyone would like to accept Christ into their hearts.  FIVE adults and a couple children raised their hands!  What a blessing!  We were able to pray with them all as well as pray for some of the individuals with illness.  Thank you Lord for your provision!

The next day the staff took their first staff day, leaving us students to take ownership of ministry.  Pastor Sanguin took us to the local hospital where we were each placed into groups of 3 Thai and then one of us students.  Each group was designated a different floor of the hospital.  We would then knock on each door and ask if we could pray for them.  Even through the language barrier all of us agreed that it was such a special time.  A few of us even had situations where the patients knew a little English and we were able to talk to them.  With all of the groups combined we were able to pray for 146 ROOMS throughout the day!  The hospital staff was incredibly welcoming and were ecstatic to have us there.  I think we felt just as blessed as they did!

Most of Thursday was spent traveling between houses of individuals in Pastor Sanguin's church who though were Christians either worked on Sundays in the rice fields or lived to far away to make ti to service.  We prayed for each individual and just spent time letting them know how much they still meant to the church!  One of the families made a huge impact on us in the sense that there was one girl in the family who said she was christian yet her family was not.  When we got there the girl wasn't even there but the family welcomed us with open arms.  They showered us with gifts of their rice and bananas (which are INCREDIBLE!) and allowed us to pray for them.  Even though they are not Christians their hearts to serve and to bring the Kingdom were amazing!  We will continue to pray a blessing over this family!

Friday was an early morning for us all.  The family that we are staying with have a son named Prom who is in Kindergarten and part of our agenda today was to go to his school and do a performance for over 200 kids.  We did funny performances like "The Doctor Skit", we performed David and Goliath and the Savior drama.  The kids were a great audience and so fun to perform in front of!  After that we had what Bethany has designated an "outreach moment" haha.  These moments are those awkward moments on the trip where you just have to laugh.  After the school we headed to the same hospital we had prayed before.  When we got there they had told us that we were supposed to do some dramas right in the middle of the waiting room.  Now this in itself is a little awkward but bearable.  Well it gets worse!  All of our dramas have background music, but we were informed that we needed to perform all of these dramas without music or talking and without anyone telling people in the waiting room what was going on.  We did about 4 performances and then just had to laugh after each one and trust that God had a plan and will follow through.  Quite the experience!

Saturday, we performed and helped out with a Woman's Retreat for a local church.  We did dramas and testimonies and worship songs throughout the day and just encouraged the local church.  We were at this retreat from 8am til about 1:30pm and then Pastor decided to bless us with a little bit of site seeing!  We went to this temple called the "White Temple" which is incredibly appropriate and looks much like the castle out of the movie Narnia.  It was definitely an interesting place.  It was sooo beautiful on the outside yet when we walked in it was very strange to see that the walls were all decorated with superheros and movie characters and demonic figures and many other strange things... haha.  After taking a few pictures there we went to a waterfall that was close by.  It was about a 45 minute hike in straight RED MUD haha and it was such a beautiful jungle walk.  Tons of bamboo and palm tree and just green everywhere you looked!  When we finally got to the waterfall it was WELL worth it!  We all stood at the bottom and got SOAKED with the water that sprayed off of the falls.  We were seriously feet from the waterfall.  Not many of us have ever experienced anything like this.  Amazing!

All in all this week was an incredible time of ministry and fun!  We are looking forward to this next week which is our LAST week in Thailand!  Can you believe it?  Then off to India!  God has provided so much for us throughout this trip!  Especially through Pastor Sanguin and his family!  We could not be more blessed by this family, please pray that God would continue to bless their lives.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers!  We feel them every day!  A few requests would just be for sickness that has been going around our team (colds nothing serious), for strength for this final push in Thailand, that whatever ministry we are helping with this week God would use us to bring the kingdom.  Thank you so much! 

Hill Top Tribes

Sorry about the lack of updates, we have little to no internet access especially this last week.  This is an update that Ali sent to all of her family so we are just going to put it up as our blog.  Hopefully you all enjoy it!  We will try and get pictures up as soon as possible!  Thank you for all of the love support and prayers we have received!  You guys are awesome!
We got to our pastors house in the morning and led a bible study for some thai girls at night (our translator is sweet so it works actually pretty well ) then the next morning we did 2 performances at a school (skits, testimonies, games) these wet pretty well although since our plans change so spiratically here, everything was on the fly but hey its made it kinda fun and interesting lol. ok and this is were it gets good. so wednesday night we drove up to the mountains to where there are hill tribes and did a performance for them at night. then we slept in a little hut on the hard ground with no pillow. oh and squatty potties? most def. cold bucket showers? oh heck yeah. theyre actually not too bad surprisingly. and the food they fed us was seriously grown right on the mountain we were living on..rice for breakfast lunch and dinner? yuupppp. the foods all been super good though just bc its alot of veggies and organice although its left me crying at several meals because its so spicy. ok so anyways the next morning we packed up and went to another hill tribe about 2 hours away ( oh and did i mention that our transportain is riding in the back of a truck? its fricken sweet especially through the mountain bc the views are so gorgoues. it kinda hurts though when it rains (which is everyday) but whatev. so then at this hill tribe we went on a walk and passed a hut that was full out roasting and skinning a pig..yeah then we ate in this hut for dinner (no joke it was a tree house..yes i feel like im in a movie since everything is so surreal but fricken awesome) and discoverd that the pork we were eating was the same one we saw earlier since we were theyre honored guests! then that night we did another performance for them (we needed 2 translators since they speak theyre own tribe language, not thai) and then left to go to our 3rd hill tribe the next morning. this place was like a boarding school kinda for kids and i got to play soccer with the boys for the first time in like 4 years! it was so fun bc the guys were super legit at soccer but i actually found i wasnt too bad so they actaully passed it to me every once in a while lol. oh and i dont think iv ever sweat so much in my life just bc its so hot. i got to play ping pong too! reigning champ? yup. i think so. and yes, even this made me drip sweat lol. they guys in my group decided they should give me a chinese name bc thatd be fitting with my abilities lol. then we did another performance for them at night and i gave a testimony about confidence and finding my idently in chirst and one of the girls came up to me after and told me that she really appreciated my story and that shed remember it forever. it was so encouraging to hear. the next day we went to this camp where Compassion sponswered kids come and play and we played with them for a little while. it was so cool to be able to actually play with the kids after sponsering one last year. then we went to this monkey cave thing and came within a foot of like 50 wild monkeys. it was sweet bc some of them were babies (wayyy better tahn the zoo) but they were fricken vicious, especially since they were like all buddhitst monkeys im prety sure as there are temples and staues every where..its kinda creepy. but yeah then we came back to our chruch were staying at and pretty much all crashed. like i said longest, craziest week of my life. but it was super cool to live the hill tribe life style and also at some of the houses we saw miracles as once lady couldnt move here arm and after we prayed for her could! and another lady was def and could hear after we prayed for her! it was so cool. but yeah the people here are so nice and hospitable..and if you want a good view of my scenery, just watch rambo lol.

Traveling Tales

The day started this morning around 5:30am when we left for the airport in Brisbane, Australia.  It was very sad to say goodbye to some friends and the house that we have been living in for the past three months yet we are all EXTATIC because of the adventure that lay ahead!  We flew from Brisbane to Sydney and then had about a 4 hour layover and they flew from Sydney to Bangkok (10 hour flight).  We arrived safely in Bangkok at about 11pm their time (though at times during the last flight we may or may not have feared for our life during CRAZY turbulence.  But God is good and we were greeted in the Bangkok airport by 2 lovely staff members from the YWAM base here in Bangkok. 

Walking out to the cars I don't really know what we were expecting but were all SO EXCITED to see the cars that we got to ride in from the airport back to the base.  They looked almost like little safari trucks.  Basically we all jumped in the back of the pick up that had roll bars and two rows of seating and held on!  This was an EXCELLENT introduction to Thai culture and we finally felt like we were in another culture.  It was also a nice wake up after 10 hours on the plane.  When we arrived at the base we walked up to our accommodations and were so blessed by the way they had set up the room for us.  Not only did we have bunk beds to sleep on with a bottle of water, flowers and a little home made note with a bible verse in it, but we also had AIR CONDITIONING!  This is something that all of us have already realized how thankful we are for it! 

The orientation the next day (Day 2) was AWESOME!  Chris, who is the Thailand, Bangkok YWAM director and is extremely amusing!  He made us do all kinds of crazy demonstrations and things just to get us excited about Thailand!  The first is a rap about Bananas and Peanut butter from the boys on the team, Bianca and Coleen were back up dancers and Lyndzie was the beat boxer.  Jason ended up getting the most votes for the win and got a free T-shirt!  The second is one of Andrew demonstrating the proper way to go to the bathroom on a squaty potty.  VERY FUNNY! 

After a wonderful lunch and quick walk around the city we packed back up to get taken to the bus station to get on the bus for our 12 hour bus ride up north.  Now normally we would be a little irritated with a LONG bus ride like this, especially one that went from 7:30pm to 7:45am but this was NO ordinary bus!  This was a bus with seats that layed FULLY back to sleep, had a little massage going on in your lower back with a kick out foot rest.  Needless to say we all slept very well and are now excited to be in our final destination for the next 3 weeks.  We are staying at Yellow Bridge Church with Pastor Sanguin, his wife and 5 year old son.  They are the sweetest people and we appreciate everything that they have already done for us!  All of the team had our first few Thailand squaty potty encounters throughout today and are excited to say that we all passed!  Andrew must have been a good teacher!  Tonight we will be having an outreach at the university close by to help out in a Bible study type setting.  Very excited to get started!  Thank you so much for all of the prayer that we have received, we truly feel it every day!

Prayer Request

Just a quick update on a prayer request for our team is that there has been a delay in 3 of the girls on our team Indian Visas which are in their passport, restricting them from leaving Australia.  We are praying that God would show up in whatever way he chooses (Including asking him to leave the visas and passports under the girls pillows tonight haha).  The plan so far, unless God performs a miracle, is that the 3 girls on our team that don't have their passport and one staff will be staying here in Australia for an additional week and will be doing ministry here around town.  Please pray that God would show them exactly what He wants from them during this time.  They have good attitudes so far, so we pray that the devil will NOT get a foothold on our team.  We are such a unified team already and we are praying that this does not change that.

A cool God moment that has already happened was that the price for changing the airplane tickets we thought was going to be somewhere around $85 but then when we checked with the travel agent she said that because it was holiday season it was going to cost the girls $300 EACH!  This was such a sad moment and we just were lifting it up in prayer.  A few hours later the travel agent called again and said it turned our WHOLE teams original airplane tickets were actually cheaper that what we payed and therefore we used that money we were going to get back and just put it towards changing the ticket.  With this extra money it brought the changing of plane flights back down to about $88!!!  God is so good!!  We KNOW that God has a plan with this and are excited to come along side Him and say Yes Lord, Your will be done!  Please pray for this stressful time and situation that has turned up!  Thank you so much!

And We're Off!

Starting this Sunday, September 18th, our team of ten will be flying out from the Brisbane airport all the way over to Bangkok, Thailand.  We have been looking forward to this day ever since week 4 of our lecture phase where we found out our team and location for this outreach.  We will be spending 3 weeks in ChangRai, Thailand and 4 weeks in Chenai, India.  Though we don't know exactly what specific ministries we will be working with from day to day in each country we are extremely confident that God has an AMAZING plan for this trip.  We want to be led by the Holy Spirit to different divine appointments and serving opportunities, in order to be the hands and feet of Jesus in both of these places.  A couple ideas of the ministries we will be working with are things such as "Open Airs" where we will be posting up on street corners and performing dramas that portray the gospel message through drama with a message directly to follow.  We will also be serving our contacts and the churches they are involved in with anything that needs to be done, helping orphanages, street evangelizing as well as praying for the different cities (just to name a few).

Some prayer requests that our team would have in these next few weeks are travel safety, that God would prepare the heart of individuals we are going to meet, team unity, needed team visas, patience, sickness within the team, and that we may help further God's Kingdom.

Thank you so much for the Prayer, Love and Support you have already shown us!!