Greetings friends!  I have a special announcement to make.  Actually, my new fiance, Amanda, will share our story with you.

The date is March 27th, 2012. Brian and Amanda. Engaged! 4 months after meeting. 3 months after Brian moved across the world to begin his journey as a missionary to Thailand. 4 days after I (Amanda) traveled 36 hours to spend time and serve alongside him in Asia. So here we are. Sitting on the balcony of a hostel on Love Lane (truly!) in Penang, Malaysia staring at three brilliantly shining stars in a clear sky. I have a Thai elephant-engraved ring on my finger and we’re both donning awe-stricken grins. He had purchased the ring in Thailand in late December with the intent to – in a very gentleman-like fashion – ask me to be his girlfriend. God, as usual, was executing a loftier plan when he inspired Brian to this sweet gesture.

To appropriately illustrate our story, we’ll rewind to November 20th, 2011. Brian was in Tempe, Arizona for Ironman and happened to finish during my volunteer shift at the finish line. We had a mutual friend, Criselda, also at the race to support him. Having never met Brian myself, she described his Run:Free jersey and I promised to watch for him during my shift. Sure enough, and after a strong, jumping finish I caught Brian and walked with him down the finish line shoot. One of the first things I noticed about him was a blue stretchy bracelet on his wrist that read: “GOD IS BIG ENOUGH.” And now looking back on that moment, it’s quite telling of these last 4 months.

We didn’t have much of an opportunity to chat at the race – other than my offering him pizza and chocolate
milk as recovery food. Wow! For those of you who know him, this is pretty comical, no? And for those who don’t, Brian is a dietitian with a passion for organic, healthy eats. Pizza and chocolate milk didn’t stand a chance! Nonetheless, there was a second opportunity the following weekend for us to talk before he left town at a small get-together in Downtown Phoenix. We spent a few hours in a group setting and upon getting ready to head home, discovered that he was staying about a mile from me. I drove him home and in those 40 or so minutes, we touched on his upcoming move to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I shared a desire to do long-term mission work as well, but that it seemed unobtainable in my near future. Little did I know!

That was the last we saw of each other while in the U.S.. The same morning that he was flying to Texas I was flying to Florida for work. We were at the airport at the same time but had yet to exchange numbers to connect there. He later told me that he’d spent the time between getting through security and boarding looking for me. With no success, we connected on Facebook (as any legitimate friendship does, right?) a few days later and started messaging frequently. Facebook graduated to a “You awake?” text from him one Sunday night. That text turned into a 4-hour conversation – our first substantial conversation in which we shared our lives and the rawness of who we are and who we strive to be. And was followed by several more calls going into the wee hours of the morning that week.  Then came Skype. Skype partnered with handwritten letters and homemade cards from and to Thailand.

In all of this it’s absolutely and positively uncanny how utterly different we’ve discovered one another to be – especially in our finding our way with and in Christ – while in the same beat, so so so so very similar. When he told me he hadn’t had in years and didn’t ever want a TV in his home, I had to sit down. Be still my heart! I’d never heard those words other than in my own head. And both of our desire to invest in a younger generation – my leading in a Sunday school-esque capacity with elementary-aged kids these last 3 years and his relationship-building with kids at the Ban Pong community center in Thailand.

In our many conversations we began to unravel one another’s heart. Brian’s really amazing at asking deep, thoughtful questions. These fueled our conversations and built a solid foundation for our friendship, even despite the 14 hour time difference. That took a bit of coordinating and being flexible though! These hundreds of Facebook messages, countless hours on Skype, and dozens of letters eventually lead to a plane ticket to meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Brian planned to renew his visa in March 2012. We’d spend a few days there and then fly to Thailand for 3 weeks.

Meanwhile, between booking the flight in late January and actually getting on it, a whole host of God preparing was going on in Arizona. A few highlights include:

• A message at Cornerstone, my home church, where one of the pastors illustrated finding God’s will in your life as potentially “packing your bags and moving to Thailand.” Boy, did my heart nearly beat out of my chest!
• A series of circumstances leading to a tough decision to leave my work of 3.5 years, in which my last day was one week before leaving for Asia with no clue as to what was next for my career.
• An opportunity for Brian and I to serve children together at a SIL conference in Chiang Mai during the same timeframe that I’d already be there. Ummmm…mind you this is an international organization and there are 365 days in a year. Hello Lord!

Not to mention the countless friends of ours who were certain I wasn’t coming home. There must have been at least 30 instances where friends and family asked, and in some cases told, one of us that I wouldn’t be coming back from Thailand.

So, to Asia I go. We’d planned to meet at Sentral Station but left a pretty big window for arrival not knowing how my series of plane transfers would go. I found him sitting in the lobby and went straight for a big hug. We’d spent the last 4 months on Skype and I was so excited to see the real him! He later told me how incredibly nerve wracking it was to wait for me as he wasn’t sure whether we would high five, side hug, chest bump (kidding!) or just say “what up, yo” and carry on. Guarded hearts aside, I felt like I knew this guy of only 4 months better than some friends of many years because of our sole reliance on communication. It’s all we had being a world apart and I was excited for a hug!

We booked an overnight train to Penang to connect with a friend of Brian’s, and sat down to wait for it to arrive. To which he wasted no time in pulling out a two-page list of questions he’d constructed for us to walk through. (Remember when I said he’s really great at asking good questions? Proof!) These 16 questions were worked toward uncovering our openness to God’s will in our lives, friendship, and future – whatever that looks like, and the life we desired to live for Him. For example, a few questions were:

1. Is your relationship with God and your witness to others better or worse because of knowing and spending time with me?
2. If we were to take the next step in our friendship, how do you think your relationship with God and your ministry to others would be affected?
3. And, dare I say, if we were to get married someday, honestly, would you be drawn closer to God and be able to love and serve Him more, or would remaining single allow you to love God more and have a better relationship with Him?
4. I intend to live every day of my life in accordance with God’s will and purpose for me and my family. This means making sacrifices and living a life that may seem “crazy” to non-believers and to some lukewarm Christians, but normal, expected and appreciated by Jesus. It means a life of many uncertainties, instability, risks, questions, and giving up of being in control. I want God to be in complete control and provide the ultimate and only certainty in life. It may be a life of many difficulties and challenges, and there may be times of having very little money and/or few friends, but it will be a truly great life filled with love, joy, contentment, gratitude, peace, and God’s blessings. Would you willingly and cheerfully, accept, appreciate and support a life like this?

As you can imagine, we spent some time discussing each of these and only got through a few before parting ways for bed the first night. Brian later explained that he’d hoped to get through all 16 in the first night so we could officially be dubbed boyfriend and girlfriend. Such a cheese he is! All in all it took us four days to get through the questions. We were busy hiking in the rainforest, discovering waterfalls and rope swings into the water and swimming in the ocean with his friend and some folks she’d met in her travels. But it wasn’t all as perfect as it sounds. There were a few important questions that were really tough for us to talk through and come to terms with. We later agreed that this moment, as hard as it was, is and will be, was pivotal in our friendship. And in it was the first time Brian said he loved me – reminding me that love is a choice not just a feeling and although we’re two broken people, he would always strive to love me as Christ loves the church.

By the fourth night I was craving for some quiet time. So much activity the last few days and I was still feeling a bit nauseous at times from my jet lag. He ventured into the street with my flip camera and let me be for about an hour. Then, around 11pm on March 27th, 2011 he pulled me away to a balcony spot we’d discovered the night before. It was overlooking a quaint side street restaurant with a clear view of a cloudy, starless sky. We had 1 question and what I call his “closing argument” to go. The final stretch! We talked through the last question and he concluded with:

“Love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. If this is accomplished, everything else will follow step. Your ministry, love for others, and family life will be in line with God’s will and your joy will be complete. This is my main priority in life. To love and serve God with everything I have and am. If having a wife will help my relationship with God and allow me to know, understand, and love Him more, then I’m all in. If it will distract me and cause me not to love God 100% and seek Him and his kingdom first, and cause me to get caught up with the things of the world and place my attention, focus, energy, and devotion into temporary, earthly things and desires that will fade in time, then I want nothing to do with marriage.”

We agreed that our desire for our relationship, if to proceed at all, was nothing more, nothing less, and nothing other than God’s will. That we’d always strive for this – to keep God as our linchpin and the focus and cornerstone of our lives and friendship. However, it’s not always easy to discern His will, especially for something as momentous as marriage. We then talked about the lack of burning bushes and bright lights on the road to Damascus to so clearly guide our paths. No fair, Moses and Paul! We prayed together, asking God’s direction for the progression of our relationship. Brian then looked up at the sky and said something to the tune of “God, give us a sign – like a star.” (He later told me that while saying this out loud he was pointedly asking God “Is this the girl you want me to marry?”) And up in the sky we looked. Nothing. Still full of clouds and not a star in sight. I eventually looked away but Brian kept his eyes upward, and moments later I heard him gasp and slowly ask “What is that?” I looked up to find a small patch of clear sky where the clouds had parted and a brightly shining stare was glaring at us. Breathless and speechless we sat there, staring and expecting it to fly away as if we’d mistaken it for a plane. When it stayed put, Brian reached into his backpack and pulled out a card that he’d already prepared. He had me read it out loud as he wrote on a pink heart-shaped piece of paper that he’d also had on hand. (Did I mention that he’s a total cheese of a romanticist? I love it so!) The card ended with “So…I have a question for you!” Reminding you, this was all intended to be working toward boyfriend/girlfriend-ness until God showed up in the stars. But instead, Brian jumped down off the ledge we were sitting on, grabbed me and pulled me down and proceeded to get on one knee. He handed me the pink heart paper that read “I love you so much! Will you marry me?” I can’t say I remember much else with 100% accuracy but I do know I was able to say “yes” through tears and wound up with this elephant ring on my finger.

Hearts still pounding and heads spinning, we looked back up at the sky as if to confirm that this was really happening. Our one star had multiplied. One. Two. Three. Three twinkling stars in a now clear sky. Can’t believe it? Us either. It was so surreal. Only hours before we were talking about the significance of March 27th – or 3/27 – and that the 3 represented God, Brian and Amanda. Now these three stars signified that same – a chord of three strands not easily broken. And, for whatever reason, the number 27 has always been a favorite of mine and has showed up all over my life. But until now it didn’t really have significance. Within an hour, the sky clouded up again and the stars were gone. That was it! God revealed himself and was on to the next miracle. I imagine He was grinning all the while. We certainly were.

This means a lot of things, but the big ones are: 1) We’re engaged, of course! 2) We have some real ring shopping to do! 3) A 2012 wedding is in order, and it’ll likely be in the States. 4) I’ll be moving to Thailand with Brian later this year to continue serving the Ban Pong community in Chiang Mai.

Our hope is that this not just be our story but an example of the incredibly loving Father we serve. God. Is. Big. Enough. Big enough to overcome the myriad obstacles and brokenness of two people getting to know one another millions of miles and dozens of hours apart. He has revealed this truth in every step of our friendship and we’re elated for what He has in store down the road. Our prayer for this marriage is that Christ’s perfect love will flow through us two imperfect people, all of our days in every step, stumble and leap so that from and through us it will flow to others – shining Jesus and drawing them closer to Him. We super hope you’ll join us in that prayer and we promise to keep you updated throughout our journey.

Questions? We’re happy to answer ‘em! Just let us know. And stay tuned for more updates!

Love,
Brian & Amanda

P.S. If you haven’t seen our vid, enjoy it now! https://vimeo.com/39609470

Wow!

So much has happened here over the last month! It’s crazy exciting. Here’s the rundown:

Fun Stuff/Relationship Building With Current Friends and New Friends!

On a day off, we loaded up a van with 12 people and headed to a place we call “Sticky Falls.” It’s about a 45 min drive from town and is not known or visited by many people despite the fact that it is SUPER FUN and very pretty. The national park has a series of waterfalls made out of limestone that you can climb up and down while water rushes over you. It’s in a forested area and is quite peaceful and serene. I even made a couple new Thai friends on the trip who are interested in coming to serve at the center in Ban Pong with us.

P’Doi and I started a tradition of having a bunch of friends over to our house on Thursday nights for Thai cooking night. We’ve made several dishes so far and usually have between 6 and 12 people attend. We cook, eat, talk, play games, and have great fellowship. My hope is to bring in some non-Christian friends so they can be around us and maybe have the opportunity to talk about Christ with them.

Despite the horrible smokey air and pollution, which makes it hard to breathe and gives many people a bad cough, I have been riding my bicycle everywhere I go. I love riding my bike. It allows me to see the local people and get to know the area better, and I feel more connected with the community, especially since many locals ride their bikes for transportation as well. It also saves money, which is good since I am still needing to raise another $275 in monthly support.

On one of my bike rides around town I came across an Organic Farmer’s Market. I was super excited!

A few weeks ago while I was out exploring on my bike, I came across a quaint little cafe out in a small village. The cafe is fantastic and is owned and operated by a nice Thai couple who loves to chat and help me with my Thai, and I help them learn English. They have two peacocks and many giant Koi. The place is kind of an unknown treasure. I go there to relax, study Thai, and talk with the locals. I’ve met some very interesting people there, including a professional photographer from France who found a dead cobra snake one time and kept it in a beer bottle for months. Near the shop is a trail you can hike up to get to a hidden waterfall, which I plan to thoroughly explore soon.

I also discovered a giant mountain only a couple miles from my house, so I have been riding up and down it the last few weeks. This past week my roommate, P Doi, and I rode up it one morning and then around through the surrounding countryside. We ended up riding for almost 2.5 hours.

Last week we had our first rain in a looong time. It rained a little bit for 3 nights in a row. One of the nights it was real windy and stormed and all of Chiang Mai lost electricity for about an hour. We hoped it would clean the sky out, but the fires continued, so the sky continues to be smokey and polluted.

Last Saturday I raced in a sprint triathlon. Got 5th overall despite having a hurting leg that’s been bothering me for the past few weeks. It was still a ton of fun.

Church:

The last Sunday of February we took 8 kids from the Center to church, and then they came over to our house to make Som Tam. They had a great time.

I’ve been attending a local Thai church the last few weeks. It’s small and they only speak Thai, but I love it. There are a few other missionaries there, but most of them speak Thai very well. The church started as a home church a few years ago and grew into what it is now. They are very nice and eager to help me learn Thai. Two weeks ago we took 1 girl from the Center to this Church and last Sunday we took 6 kids. We are hoping to get them plugged in with a local church so they can make friends with local Christians who they can relate to, become friends with, and get mentored and taught by some of the members.

Ban Pong Center (HOSEA):

We had a special event at HOSEA for Valentine’s Day. We played a game called Indian chief to start the evening followed by pin the heart on the panda (see pictures below). We had a Christian Thai lady come as a guest speaker to talk with the kids about God’s love and how to love and serve each other, especially those who are less fortunate. After the talk the kids made Valentine cards for people they thought might not receive much love and would enjoy knowing that someone cares for them. The kids were given two cookies each, one to give with the card and the other to eat. At the end of the night the kids made us a giant Valentine’s card out of an entire posterboard (see pics below).

Ban Pong Boot Camp/Running Club has been going well. We workout 3-4 nights a week and sometimes I’ll have as many as 4 girls and 4 boys working out. We have a lot of fun and they usually leave exhausted.

One Saturday afternoon Candice and I took 4 of the girls swimming at a local international school. We worked some more on their technique and played some games. They loved it!

Last Friday was graduation for 9th grade students as well as the end-of-school-year celebration for Ban Pong school. Candice and I went to the festivities and enjoyed making tye dye bandanas, watching all the students dance in various costumes, and watching the 9th grade graduation ceremony. 5 of our girls graduated. Next year they will go to a couple different high schools in Chiang Mai. 3 of them were the girls that loved to run and work-out with me. There will only be one girl left, so I will have to recruit more…

In the afternoon, after the graduation ceremony, we met our two new interns, who will be helping out at the center for the next couple months. We took the graduates out for dinner at a nice restaurant where you select your meats, veggies, and noodles from a buffet bar and grill them yourself at your table. It was a lot of fun and the girls ate a lot! They loved it. We gave each of the graduates a present. Two of the girls, who have showed a lot of interest in church and learning about God and Christianity, received Thai/English New Testaments. The other 3 girls got some Christian books geared towards teenagers.

In the high schools here the kids start specializing what they want to study, kind of like college in the states. One of the girls wants to be a doctor, one wants to be a nurse, one a tour guide, and the other two are going to study nutrition so they can teach people how to eat and cook healthy! =) Several of them are also wanting to play various sports in high school.

Prayer Requests:
-Pray for opportunities to share Christ with non-saved friends at Thai cooking night at our house.
-Pray for rain and clean, smoke-free air.
-Pray for continual growth in our relationships with the kids and for the kids going off to high school to stay connected with us.
-Pray for God to continue working in the hearts of the kids and for them to seek Him.
-Pray that I continue to grow closer to God every day, learn more about Him, and love Him more all the time as He continues to teach me and help me grow.
-Pray for God to touch the hearts of many people in America, that they may be burdened by all the people who aren’t saved in Thailand (99% of the Pop.) and that a desire grows in their heart to reach out to them. That people may choose to partner with me in loving, serving, and sharing the Gospel with the Thai people, and especially the Ban Pong Community, by praying with and for me and by donating to support me on a monthly basis. Missionaries out on the battlefield truly need the support of the church body.

It’s raining!!!!!!!!!! Thank you God for answering our prayers!!!!! Clean air is coming!!!!!
Soooo Happy! I hope it rains all night!

January 17 was Sports Competition Day at Ban Pong School. We watched the kids compete in many games, such as 3-legged race, potato sack race, batan relay, soccer, and other random games I had not seen before. The kids were split into teams by color and wore uniforms of that color. Each team had a flag, sign, drums, dancers/cheerleaders, and kids of all ages competing. They were cheering and screaming loudly, playing the drums loudly, and running up and down the field waving their color flag non-stop for hours. I hung out with the Pink and Orange teams because some of our kids were on those teams and they wanted me to stand in their section and cheer with them.

I went up to Chiang Rai for a couple days with some other missionaries who were visiting some ministry sites and shooting some video footage. We went to Rise Up Thailand in Chiang Rai and saw about 20 kids accept Christ into their lives as their Savior. We visited an Agricultural College where the AG church is looking to start a campus ministry. They were very welcoming and eager to have us. There are about 1,000 students, 500 of which live on campus and 20 of whom attend church every week. We met a group of 6 Christian guys who are on fired for God and desperately wanting help there to minister to the campus. They believe they could transform the school with some help and soon there would be hundreds of Christians there. I am excited to see what happens on this campus. The field is ripe. We also visited a coffee plantation owned by a Christian who supports churches and Christians with his business. We got to visit an Akha village where they pick the coffee beans off trees. Our last stop was at the location of a future church plant. It was very encouraging to see all these ministries happening around Thailand and to see God working through these people’s lives.

January 20 was the Children’s Day Festival at the Ban Pong Soccer Field. We had a booth there where kids came to play games and get prizes and snacks. It was a good opportunity to mix in with the locals and be a part of the community. I ate dried squid on a stick…

Jan 21 was National Children’s Day. I ran a 10k at 6am and got 2nd place overall in a sprint finish just barely beating the 3rd guy. I felt sick to my stomach the entire morning and race but still ran fairly well. After the race I headed to the Community Center to play with the kids.

The next week I ran another 10k, and my roommate, P Doi joined me. I got 4th overall and 2nd in age running a new PR despite another upset stomach. Played a bunch of games at the Center and then swam with some of the kids at a local swimming pool. We played keep-away for a while until I discovered that none of them knew how to swim. So I taught 4 of them some swimming basics, one of whom was a 7 year old. The 3 older ones did very well and picked it up quickly. P Doi and I ate dinner with many of our neighbors at a block party for our Mu Bahn (neighborhood).

The next day I woke up at 4:15am again to run another 10k. The race ended up being only 4.3 miles and I was pacing myself for a 6.2 mile race, so I did not place as well as I could have. I still had energy left to run a couple more miles. Apparently everyone else knew the course was short so they went out a lot faster that I did and I ended up getting 4th overall, 3rd in my age.

After each race I’ve been showing my trophies to the kids at the Center to encourage them to run and exercise. 4 of them said they want to run a 10k race up Doi Suthep (very large mountain in Chiang Mai) with us next week. So we started training…

That next Monday 4 of the older girls from the Center went running with me. We ran up a 999 stair mountain and then down a long, windy, dirt-trail on the back side of the mountain. Tuesday we did a 45 min run around Ban Pong followed by a great cool-down session.
[Temple at top of 999 Stair Mountain that we ran to]

Wed. was my first day teaching English at Ban Pong Primary School. Candice and I taught 7th and 8th graders and then played soccer with the kids for a bit after lunch. Another girl from the Center joined us in running that evening. We did a boot-camp style warm-up, jogged around the village, did sprints and relays at the soccer field, jogged back to the Center, and stretched. We had a great time!

Thursday I started Thai language school. Learning the tones, vowels, and consonants is rough. I had 4 girls run with me today. We ran 1 mile to a soccer field, did squat-jumps, sprints, and pull-ups, and then ran back to the Center for some push-ups and stretching.

Sunday Feb 5 was the day of the big race. 10 Kilometer (6.2 mile) run up a seemingly never ending steep winding road to the top of a mountain. I woke up at 3:45 am to go pick up the girls. Nobody showed. We later saw they had called while we were at the race. Apparently they slept in but they were very upset they missed the race. The race was a lot harder than I predicted. My calves were burning the entire way up and I could barely keep running the last 500 meters were it was the steepest. I ended up getting 2nd in my age group and got a sweet trophy and a little prize money.

The girls said they wanted to go with us to the race the next weekend, so we decided to give them another chance. So the next week I continued to train the girls from the Center. Their legs are always sore and half the time they take off their shoes and run barefoot because they don’t have running shoes and the shoes they do have hurt their feet. They are hard-core though and keep going without complaining.

As I said in my other post, on Thursday P Doi announced to all the kids the new name of the Center, HOSEA, which means salvation of the Lord. We told the kids we are Christians and that we are saved because of Jesus. This was a huge step of faith! Hopefully it will stir many questions from the kids and open some doors for us. Pray that God protects us from any opposition from the monks or community that may come from our boldness in sharing the Gospel.

On Saturday we picked 4 girls up at 4:45 am and took them to their first race, a 9k. I felt good and finished 4th overall, 3rd in age group (BTW, for most races in Thailand, age groups are 10 years instead of 5 like in the US). One of our girls got 4th in her age. The others struggled to finish. One of the girls, Pond, was the very last person to finish. She came walking in, barefoot, after the finish line had been taken down and the awards ceremony was about to start, with a look of pain on her face and her shoes in her hands. Apparently her shoes made her feet her really bad. After the race we had activities at the Center. We played a game called Eagle’s Nest where we were all basically sprinting back and forth across a soccer field barefoot for an hour on very sore and tired legs. When we got back to HOSEA one of the girls, Nid, asked me what I want to do in life and what I did in America. I told her about how I was a Dietitian on an Indian Reservation but I quit my job to come here to Thailand and volunteer at the Center. I told her I want to help the community here and share Jesus/God with them because he is very important to me. She seemed interested in learning more so I gave her a couple tracts about a very famous Thai pop singer who became a Christian and now sings only Christian songs. She read both tracts front to back and seemed very interested in learning more.

The girls begged us to take them to the race at Payap University on Sunday morning, so we picked them up at 4:45 am. I was very sleepy and my calves were sore from the race the day before so i wasn’t sure how I would do. Since it was 10.5 Kilometers I decided to start off conservatively and then pick up the pace the last couple miles to pass everyone. Well, the race turned out to be short by about a mile and a half so I didn’t do as well as I could have and had lots of energy left at the end. So, I decided to run back to find where our girls were and run with them. I found our lead girl about 1.2 miles back and ran in with her. About a minute after she finished Pond, the girl who came in last the day before, suddenly appeared next to us. We were totally surprised. She had ran fast and beat everyone else. She was smiling and very happy. A few minutes later the others came in.

After the race we asked the girls if they wanted us to take them home or if they wanted to come to church with us. Two of them said they wanted to come to church, Pond and Mon. We helped P’ Doi with the children’s class and then listened to the sermon on love and how God loves all of us. After lunch we asked the girls if they wanted to go home or go to a park where the college ministry from another church was meeting to talk about love and relationships. We figured they would be sleepy and tired of hearing about love and relationships but they said they wanted to go. On the drive home from the park, Pond asked if it is true that God loves them. P’ Doi told them yes and asked if they would like to learn more. They said they would, so he said they could come to church with us next week and we would find some Christian Thai women to mentor them and teach them about Christianity. He told them they don’t have to make any decisions right away, but to just take their time and learn about Christianity and God and Jesus. It is all completely new and foreign to them so it’s a long process but surely an exciting journey that they are about to embark upon.

Please pray for these girls and for us at HOSEA. Pray for wisdom for us in teaching these girls and for protection and strength in dealing with spiritual opposition that we are already facing and may face even more as the LORD continues to move and work in people’s lives here.

Exciting News! We have been praying about how to reach out to the kids and share Jesus with them because that is the most important thing to us and the reason why we are here. We love and serve these kids and this community because Jesus loves them, and we want them to know about His love, grace, mercy, and salvation. We just informed the kids that we have named the center HOSEA, which means salvation of the Lord. We told the kids we are Christians and that we are saved because of Jesus. This was a huge step of faith! Hopefully it will stir many questions from the kids and open some doors for us. Pray that God protects us from any opposition from the monks or community that may come from our boldness in sharing the Gospel.

We started the new year off with lots of good and exciting things.

-Made new friends at church
-Played badminton for 3.5 hours with some hard-core Thai badminton players from church
-Drank lots of fresh coconut water
-Rode elephants, played with large tigers

[caption id="attachment_159" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="our girls getting prayed for"][/caption]
-Taught English to kids at the center and played lots of games
-Painted the fence and built a basketball hoop at the center with the kids’ help.
-After working, we took the kids out for lunch
-As we started to head to a church in a Mung Village up in the mountains the 5 kids begged us to take them with us, so we did.
-At the church we did some testimony sharing and talking about Christ. I talked with the kids about using the gifts, talents, skills, and passions God gives us to serve, honor, and glorify Him and to help and love other people. We also handed out comic books in Thai about the birth of Jesus. The kids from the center had not heard us talk about spiritual things before, except for the Christmas presentation they did about the birth of Jesus before our team arrived in Thailand. So this was a wonderful opportunity to build on that and was a total blessing for us to be able to talk about our faith and Christ around them. They even took the Christian comic books we were handing out.
-I made a delicious fruit smoothie for the guys and enjoyed some delicious mangosteen fruit.

-We taught English lessons at Ban Pong Primary school and then did more water games and English teaching on sports at the center after school was out.

For our last weekend together as a team we headed to the border town of Mae Ramaat. We worked at the site of where Venture Expeditions is building a school/storage building to hold food to be snuck into Burma to help the victims there. For more info on that go to www.ventureexpeditions.org We visited the Mae La refugee camp where over 100,000 Karen people live in small bamboo huts with no running water and very few have electricity. It sounds bad but it is actually really good for them It’s a lot better than the situation they were in before. They were being starved, raped, beaten, tortured, and killed back in Burma. Now they are safe and together. The people there are about half Christian and half Muslim. There are schools, churches, a Bible School, small stores, etc. there. There is a giant open field with soccer goals that is used by the entire camp. Several kids were running around with nothing on but a shirt. Many bikes the kids were riding had no pedals, only bars where pedals used to be, and the kids were pedal around furiously on them without any shoes, only feet that must be tough as nails. The people there were smiling, joking, and seemed happy. Some said they would like to go to America or Australia, but many liked it there. There is a great movie called The Road about the situation in Burma. Go to http://roadofresistance.com/ to watch the movie and learn more. There is also an article by CNN about the refugee camp here: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/27/thai.karen/ It’s from 2008, but is still pretty accurate.

We also went to a village of Karen squatters who lived in Thailand illegally in small bamboo huts by a river, where they get there water….for everything. We played a bunch of games with the kids including a water balloon toss, relay races, bracelet making, face painting, paper airplane making and throwing contest, and soccer. We did a short devotional and handed out snacks, toys, and gifts. We took 6 girls, who stay with and are being cared for by a local pastor, to visit a national park and climb through a giant 9 room cave that took 3 hours to tour. The cave was surprisingly hot, humid, and full of bats and a couple spiders. We also saw a Thailand Redneck Keelback snake by the cave. If it bites a person and latches on, its venom will destroy the kidneys and can be fatal. Sunday morning we led the church service. Aaron presented a good message on Psalm 37:4 about delighting ourselves in the Lord and being given the desires of our heart.

The next few days consisted of teaching English in schools, playing games with the kids, and dropping off the other guys from the team at the airport so they could head back to America. On Thurs I did my first run up a 999 stair mountain to a beautiful view on top where they are constructing a giant Buddhist temple. Friday we had a booth at the Ban Pong Childrens’ Festival to celebrate Children’s Day. Sat I ran the 999 stairs again, on very sore calves, and still beat my previous time. Then I played with the kids at the Center. They love badminton, Jenga, and soccer.

Sunday I went to church with my roommate, P’ Doi to hear him preach his first ever sermon. He spoke on Colossians about Christ being our head. In the afternoon we took our oldest kids, who have been practicing a dance for months, to Rise Up Thailand to perform their dance and compete with many other kids. Their team, Step-Up 9, did great and won the “Funnest Team Award.” After the Pastor gave a message about Christ and salvation, two of our girls went to the front to be prayed for. We aren’t sure what they wanted prayers for exactly, but it was still very exciting. We did find out that they are interested in learning more about Christianity. None of our kids accepted Christ that night, but 13 other kids did! And fireworks were going off in the sky (from another event in the city totally unrelated, but still very cool!) All of our kids went to the front and danced a lot when the band played and were clapping, smiling, and having a great time. What a huge breakthrough opportunity!

12/30/11

The team worked at the Ban Pong Center. We scraped mold off fences, built a basketball goal, cleaned a storage room, planned activities for kids’ events, and played with an absolutely stunningly beautiful baby Golden Tree Snake we found on the fence post. After we roamed around the super crowded night bazaar soaking in all the noise, lights, people, music, random stuff to buy, watching some people get massages on the street and other people get their callused flesh eaten off their feet by hundreds of tiny fish.

12/31/11

This was our first day of teaching and hanging out with the kids at the Venture Expeditions Ban Pong Community Center! We had a ton of fun teaching the kids English words about food and cooking. After the teaching we played a matching game to help them remember the words and then went outside and played other games using the words and water balloons (We also played some other games and did relay races using regular balloons)! Thai kids absolutely love playing with water balloons and anything that involves getting wet! Once the games were finished and we were soaked, we served the kids an “American lunch” of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup with puppy chow for dessert (none of which were my suggestions….) It was a great day hanging out with the kids and beginning to build relationships with them. Learning, knowing, and being able to speak English is HUGE for Thai people. It opens so many doors and gives them opportunities to do many things that will give them a chance to make decent money so they can provide adequately for their families.

Some people say Ban Pong is THE most difficult place to share Jesus and have people accept Christ’s redeeming love. Ban Pong has one of the strongest and most outspoken Buddhist monks in all of Thailand, so for there to be a Christian influence in Ban Pong was quite an upset in the community. But after a year and a half, the Venture Ban Pong Community Center has started to make an impact… and it is starting with the kids. It is now more than ever that Ban Pong needs your prayers, so please remember to pray for Ban Pong, for the kids, for the strong oppression of Buddhism in the community and just for the people to start to become more open to Christ and the hope he holds for the world.

Run the race, fight the good fight, keep the faith.

[caption id="attachment_109" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Buddhist Temple in Ban Pong"][/caption]

I’m a little behind on blogging, but my goal is to catch up in the next couple days on what’s been happening the past couple weeks. I have been keeping a journal so I will take some excerpts from it to share with everyone on here.

12/26/11

Final preparations and packing for my move to Thailand. Excited about the journey/new life ahead. Praying for God to do amazing things in my life and the lives of the people in Ban Pong. Praying God uses my life, willingness to serve, and sacrificial heart to touch the lives of many friends, family, and strangers so that they may see God in a new way, draw close to Him, and seek His will in their lives and be inspired and encouraged to live a sacrificial life in obedience to God’s will. That they may all rest in the peace of God’s saving grace and choose to live a life honoring Him and striving for the utmost purity. I pray for the Venture Expeditions community and all those who are impacted by them. I thank God for bringing me into this family and giving me the opportunity to give of myself in serving the people of Thailand. God has blessed me in many new and unexpected ways in the past month and am very thankful for that, especially for all the new friends/encouragers/supporters he has put in my life and blessed me with. It is always refreshing to meet other believers. I expect God to use these new relationships to do mighty things for His kingdom.

12/27/11

Checked in my two bags weighing 51 pounds each and my bike box with no problems, just a $200 bike fee. Made some last minute phone calls in the airport prior to take-off and prayed for the journey. 14.5 hour flight from DFW to Seoul, South Korea, a few hours of lay-over, then another 6 hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand. 9 hour overnight lay-over in Bangkok with about an hours sleep on a wooden bench in a long corridor and then a 1 hour flight to Chiang Mai. I set three alarms to make sure I wouldn’t miss my flight, but I ended up waking 30 min before they were set to go off because I was so nervous about sleeping through them. As I went through security one of the alarms went off in my backpack as it was being scanned in the x-ray machine. Probably the worst time for an alarm to go off. They gave me a funny look and asked what the noise was. It sounded like something about to detonate. I explained it was my alarm and reached in my bag to turn it off. No problems, fortunately. As I sat and waited for my plane I ate a bunch of food I was carrying so I could lighten my bags a bit because I was scared my carry-ons would be too big for this domestic flight. Mark and Aaron picked me up from the airport and took me to my new home where I will be staying with P. Doi, the director of the Community Center. I took a nice refreshing shower and played with the two dogs, Felix and Pik Thai while I waited to be picked up and meet the rest of the team. Sam and Nate came with them and dropped their bags off here. They stayed with us for the two weeks they were here. We headed to the Ban Pong Community Center and met with Charity and Erica, who will be joining our team for the next two weeks, for our orientation. Met up for dinner with Mark and Aaron’s families and another missionary family from Bangkok who were in town visiting. We ate at a Thai restaurant where you sit on the floor and watch traditional Thai dancers. Erica and I got pulled up on stage by a couple of the dancers to show off our sweet Thai dancing moves. I remembered a little bit from what I learned last year, but it was still rough…and I was falling asleep due to the weariness of traveling and jet lag.

Hi Friends!

It’s official! I’m going to serve as a missionary in Thailand with Venture Expeditions! In the next few weeks I will be updating this site with information about me and the work I’ll be doing in Thailand. You can support my work in Thailand by making a donation here.