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Another few months have come and gone.  And life over here has yet to really slow down, make sense, etc.  We still feel like we are holding on for dear life at times!

But we are doing well.  If you haven’t already, check out our latest newsletter by clicking on the image above.  It’s an exciting update on church camps completely in Thai, language tests, and prayer meetings (again; all in Thai!).  Your thoughts and prayers continue to be such an encouragement to us…

If you are not currently receiving our newsletters and would like to get them delivered straight to your email inbox, please fill out the online form here!

Thanks for your ongoing prayers and support…  Life has been crazy over here and we look forward to sharing more and more about our lives here in Thailand!

Blessings!

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It’s not always this way.  But it happens surprisingly more often than we had anticipated experiencing a year and a half into.  Sure, we can joke with our neighbors, translate parts of the sermon on Sunday and bargain for lower prices at the market, but every week we make some sort of a mistake that makes us feel just like this:

So many things can go wrong just when you need it the most!  Yet we keep at it every week.  Studying more.  Practicing more.  Communicating more..  Overall it’s been a frustrating sort of fun.  As people come and visit us in Thailand we get a sense of just how far our Thai language ability has come along.  We can translate for them.  Help them in nearly any situation that arises.  And yet I still struggle with the correct tone to use when saying “behind” or “downstairs” (they are literally only a voice inflection away from each other…  Which doesn’t help when I try to tell people where they can find Sara!)

Another thing that we have encountered are Thai people who pretty much refuse to speak Thai to us.  I’m sure they want to practice their English and in some instances it really does help, but other times I ask someone a question in Thai and they answer in such broken English that I have no idea what they are trying to say.  Then, when I ask them again in Thai, they give me the same broken English answer!  I CAN SPEAK THAI PEOPLE!!!  (on some occasions better than others…)

And still in other instances all of us are speaking Thai, but none of us have any idea what each other are trying to say.  All too many conversations wind up a lot like this:

In just a few days we will travel back to Lopburi for our periodic language tests.  We’ve both been working this week to prepare for these tests.  Please continue to pray for us.  Pray for an increasing ability to remember things we’ve already learned and for stickiness of mind as we study new vocab and sentence structure.  Pray also that this hard work in language study in the past year+ would translate into increased meaningful relationships in our new community and ability to be involved in ministries at the Thai church we are partnering with.

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But, it doesn’t take an expert to soon see upon arrival in Thailand that Thai Buddhism isn’t clear-cut Buddhism by the books.  While the original teachings of Buddha don’t speak at all to the spirit realm, Thailand is engrossed in fear of and want to appease the spirits that surround them.

OMF recently published a short video showcasing how Folk Buddhism has taken over in Thailand and what that means for its people.  I’ll show the video below, but do be warned that it contains some graphic material…

The People’s Buddhism from OMF Media on Vimeo.

Please Pray…

Well, look who’s faces made the cut!

Extended version- Call to prayer for 900 new workers from OMF Media on Vimeo.

Join us in praying for more workers to come to serve in this needy part of our world.  Obviously our heart aches for Thailand and the Thai people, but also the many other countries and people groups in Southeast Asia that need to hear the Gospel of Christ.

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First off, we finished up our first “semester” in language study.  We’ve been hitting the books hard for 5 months now and it shows.  We are learning as much as our brains will allow us to cram in there!

Children's Christmas song in a Bangkok Church

Secondly, Christmas-time in Thailand and Thai churches is used mostly as a time for outreach.  Where we often use the Christmas season to solemnly reflect on the gift that is Christ, in Thailand we found ourselves handing out tracts and invitations to learn more about Christmas in a neighborhood where a new church plant is getting started, dressing up in all sorts of ridiculous costumes to act out the Christmas story to kids and youth in local schools, watching Thai kids put on a Christmas program, and Sara baking Christmasy things for our neighbors.

Local Thai students line up to learn about Christmas around the world and a bit of English along the way. See the dog lying there? Yeah, that's common here!

Thirdly, we spent nearly a week in Bangkok looking at possible ministry locations for us once we finish up out Thai language studies here in Lopburi.  We met a lot of cool people, Thai pastors with aching hearts for the Thai people, Bangkok universities and university students, just recently started church plants, and got to know several missionaries working in Bangkok quite well.  It was a great time and rejuvenating for us as it is easy to lose track of “what’s next” for us when all we have been doing is cramming new Thai vocab down our brains’ throats!

Christmas decorations at MBK, one of Bangkok's most well known shopping centers

Finally (but not really…  so much more has been happening!), we also took some time during this two-week break from language school to relax and have some time for each other….  AND IT HAS BEEN AWESOME!  While in Bangkok we took the time to watch a movie or two (in English) at a movie theater there.  We walked around and saw the Christmas lights and decorations (yes, despite not believing in Christ, the Thai people really do jump right into the decorations, Santa, light-up snow flakes, etc.).  It was so nice just to spend some time together and have some “us” time.  Despite not yet having kids and ALWAYS being around each other, enough “us” time has still been difficult to find lately…

Here’s a short clip of the commercial side to Thai “Christmas” taken by one of our friends also working in Bangkok.

We’re now back in our home in Lopburi and have a few more days before school starts back up.  We have plenty coming up to keep up just as busy.  The next few months we’ll start back up at the language school, travel to Malaysia to pick up our year-long Religious Affairs visa from the Thai embassy there (Praise God!), spend a week on on a Thai beach as after six-months on the field OMF suggests/strongly urges their workers take a vacation, more Thai studies and finally we will travel to Singapore for a month long Orientation course at OMF’s international headquarters.

So, there you have it.  We hope you all have had a great holiday time with family and friends so far.  So, tell us, what have you been up to?

We invite you to join with us as we pray these nine blessings for Thailand. If you want to know more, or get hold of the prayer guide – visit www.nineblessings.org.

Will you join us in praying for Thailand?

This video is not produced by me, but rather just a re-upload of a video produced by OMF Media. I simply added a background track as there was none in the original video.

I happened across this short video clip produced by OMF (the organization we are partnering with here in Thailand) which helps paint a picture of life in Bangkok, the people living in this HUGE city and ministries that are taking place there.  The video is a few years old now, directors mentioned here have changed positions, but life in the City of Angels is still much the same.

If you have a minute or two, this will be worth watching!

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Earlier this week we read the story of Zacchaeus as it would be told in a Children’s Bible.  I’d thought I’d share that story with you!

Luke 19:1-10 - Thai Contemporary Bible

The Story of Zacchaeus Spoken in Thai
Click link to play Audio

This isn’t an exact translation of the passage above, but it should give you a good idea of what we have been doing and what we are continuing to work through.  Who knew learning a new language could be so fun/difficult!

Have you ever learned another language fluently?

Our fellow Thai newbies!

We’ve been here for two months, experienced A LOT, and are continuing to get settled in.  A lot has gone on, and thus, it is hard to know where to start.

First thing once we got started was to move to Lopburi, the provincial capital of Lopburi province about an hour and a half north of Bangkok.  This is where OMF has their language school that new missionaries attend for up to a year of language study.  Because there are currently so many new missionaries studying Thai at the LLC (Language Learning Center), Sara and I were unable to move into an actual home once we arrived.  So, seeing as we have no children (yet) and are young (still), we moved into a one-room youth hostel.  It was quite stretching to start with.  I’d be lying if I said that tears didn’t flow from my wife’s eyes at times due to the circumstances (lack of kitchen, lack of another room, and lack of internet or even a computer desk to study at).

But even through that God was gracious.  I was able to build friendships with the Thai people working at the hostel and honestly it made moving into our current home all the more sweet!  Now, Sara has a kitchen, we have more than one room, two desks to study at and even internet to once again begin blogging and sharing our hearts with you as God grows our passion for the Thai people.

Aside from physical stresses, we’ve also experienced quite a bit of emotional and mental stress.  Attempting to get back into the swing of being a full-time student was harder than we had thought.  But even through this the Lord’s grace was there and we are (Praise the Lord!) able to remember much of what we studying almost 4 years ago when we lived in Thailand the first time.

This is just a short, sweet update as it’s been way too long.  Thanks for checking in and we look forward to sharing with you more often now that we are getting settled in!  Now off to sweat in our living room as it is currently 90 degrees Fahrenheit and Sara is off baking brownies for Fellowship Group tomorrow…  yeah, she loves finally having a kitchen…

We can’t deny the fact that God has called us to serve in Thailand.  He’s moved too many mountains and continued to open doors in that direction for the past 3 years for it not to be the case.  With that said, we know opposition to us and the message we will be bringing will find us.  We may not know exactly when or how, but do understand that it will be there.

I’ve recently been re-reading a book by an OMF missionary who served in Thailand called “HELP! My Halo’s Slipping”.  In one of Larry Dinkins’ chapters he comments on the stronghold that Buddhism has in Thailand.  Check out the passage from chapter 7 below:

Take [Thai Buddhist's] understanding of John 3:16, for instance.  This famous verse, run through the Buddhist grid, presents a very confused picture of Christianity:

“For God (Buddhism has no concept of a creator God) … so loved (a desire to be quenched) … the world (an illusion) … that He gave (giving is done in order to get, repayment is expected) … His only begotten Son (this God has a wife?) … that whoever believes in Him (Buddha said, ‘Be a lamp unto yourself,’ and ‘work out your own salvation with diligence.’) … should not perish (hell is not eternal separation but temporary) … but have eternal life (the goal of Buddhism is nirvana–the extinction of suffering and the end of conscious existence).”

In fact, the whole of John 3 presents problems for the Thai.  Take being born again.  The last thing a Thai wants to do is be reborn.  As a believer in reincarnation, his goal is to stop the never-ending cycle of birth/ old age/ sickness/ death.  The Thai equate rebirth not with spiritual renewal but suffering.

This just caught my eye and mind in a new way as I read it on the flight here to Thailand.  It reminds me of the fact that, once again, it is Christ alone who is able to bring about true life change and work through these cultural mis-/understandings.

Pray that the Thai people might first have the opportunity to hear about the gospel and then secondly pray for their response to that gospel message.  Pray also for the missionaries who have, undoubtedly, all struggled to bridge the gap between Thai understanding and the Truth of the message.

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