Hola. Como estas? …Wait, that’s the wrong language…..lets try again…

Sawatdii kah/clep. Sabbay dii mai?
Hey guys! How are you? I hope you all had a splendid week, and if you didn’t, don’t worry: Joy comes in the morning and everything will be ay-okay! :D

                Lets see here, I believe we left off on January 30^th…The next day would be Thursday the 31^st…the last day of the first month of the year. Bekah and I went to Muang Ubon School and taught the 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th graders English. Afterwards, we went to grab a quick lunch at the local grocery store (more like a Walmart I guess) and headed off to Thai tutoring. In the afternoon we went to the Ubon Ratchathani Museum with our friend, Matt, and learned about this place. It was actually pretty eye-opening. It felt like a field trip at first, but then as we all started thinking and reflecting, it was very helpful. There were Buddhas everywhere and just thinking about that was pretty startling. The many different things that people believe here…Hmm…just interesting. We probably picked one of the hottest days to bike to the museum and our bikes kinda broke…soo! That was exciting (not really) but Jesus got us home so that was nice of Him. We just relaxed in the evening.

                Friday we went to the Psychiatric Hospital to help the staff learn English. Matt went to the Psychology Department. Bekah went to the Social Work Department and I stayed in the Outpatient Department. (Basically, the whole downstairs is the Outpatient Department and there are a few rooms on the side of the building that belong to the two other departments.) I got to role-play that I was a patient, while helping the staff ask me questions in English. I help translate a bit and figure out the best way to ask a question. (Ex: Instead of saying, “Sit down, I want to check your pulse.” We decided that, “Please take a seat. I would like to check your pulse,” would be better. Stuff like that.) Bekah talked with her people and Matt did the same with his department but he tried taking an IQ test that day as well-he’s into that kind of stuff so that’s good!) In the evening, we had a prayer meeting at Prakittikun Church (you may recall that we teach preschoolers at Kittikun Preschool, same place) for the Jesus Festival happening in March with speaker, Henry Madava. Bedtime came after that.

                Saturday the 2^nd of February we both went to Compassion International. We sang songs and played Sharks and Minnows with the kids out in the Soi (street). We made little sheep after that with Q-tip ends. That was a cute little craft. I played futbol with some of the kids afterwards. They fed us a bowl of yumminess, and then we headed off to find a song thaew. Kris and Silk were going to meet up in another part of Ubon so we could head off to a village. We revisited a lady there who is very sick and rests on a bed all day long, so that was nice to give her some company. Some kids from the village came over as well, so we sang some songs and played Twister and Uno with them. They loved Uno!  We spent about an hour playing that…it was nuts! We were pretty tired after moving all day long so we went to sleep.

                Sunday we had church. We sang these songs in church in Thai:

“Here I am to Worship”

“I Want to Know YOU More”

“YOU are the Everlasting God”

“Open the Eyes of My Heart”
       If you would like to know how to sing them in Thai….just wait a bit…we’re still trying to learn that too! :D  Haha. I love our house church though. We talked about Acts 14-16 and had a very good prayer time at the end, catching up on everyone’s lives and hearing what God had taught everyone throughout the week.        

                Monday is the Sabbath as you can remember. That was a great, restful, prayerful, very much needed day. We both enjoyed some good alone time with God and talked about it at the end of the day. Definitely blessed us with each other.

                Biking to Kittikun Church at 8:30am in the heat of Thailand is always fun. We taught the body parts and then sang “The Hokie Pokie” with them. They totally loved that. I’m sure we’ll have to teach them it again this Tuesday but it was cute to watch them try! We had Thai tutoring in the afternoon and then a Team Meeting in the evening filled with worship, prayer, discussion and love.

                Wednesday we got to rest in the morning and then went to the Psychiatric Hospital in the afternoon-just Bekah and I because Matt’s family came this week to visit him…awww! How cute-Mom and Dad, I’ll see you soon, right?  (Not really guys.) We had a Prayer Meeting in the evening at a nearby church.

                We didn’t teach at Muang Ubon School on Thursday morning, but just went back to our apartment and got some stuff done. We went to Thai tutoring and then went swimming!  Finally! Even though it wasn’t for a very long time, it was incredibly nice. There’s a pool in the mall that we go to a lot. Man! Glorious. Fifth floor. Thanks God for big pools of water (we don’t have a tub so it’s not like we could really make our own pool. We could flood the bathroom! But, I don’t think our Apartment Guy/Leader/Owner person would enjoy that very much :/   SOO! We’ll just go to Sunee Mall for now! :D In the evening we went to a friend’s house and helped them make dinner (we didn’t have a clue what it do) Ate some delicious Isaan food and then played some card games. They liked that but the game never ended! Still, it was good to see our University friends again because last week that all had projects to do so we didn’t see anyone. Hurray to Jesus for letting us see them again! ;D

                Friday we had a pastor’s prayer meeting. We went to a new place for lunch! It has American food and it was very yummy…never even knew that it was there!  Gotta go exploring more I guess, huh? We went to the Hospital after that (we will go every Wednesday and Friday until the end of February). The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed I guess.

                On Saturday Bekah went to Compassion, and I went with Kris and Silk to the village. That was my very first experience in a village. Definitely learned a lot there and had some good discussions in the house church. We also visited a lot of friends on the way home, so it was good to meet new people and see some friends that I haven’t seen in a while. The ride home was full of worship songs and processing and some good discussion between the three of us. Definitely thankful for our leaders. In the evening we went to a birthday party with the same friends we hung out with on Thursday, only with more people. They made food again-fish, clams, and soup. I actually tried a clam!! Totally branching out over here! And the fish was really yummy too! :D Its hard to stop eating when there’s so much food and it’s all just sitting out in front of you on the floor so it was bit rough, but when everyone finally stopped eating, we cleaned up and then played a game. Bekah and I taught them how to play spoons. THAT WAS GREAT! The university students really enjoyed that-once they picked it up and finally understood how to play it! There were eight of us playing so it took a while to finish the game. Then, two of our closest friends took us back to our apartment. That was a great night. Very kind, compassionate, humble people who are already sweet and giving, so we like them a lot! (They’re the group we played bad minton with all those weeks ago.)

                Today is Sunday so we had our house church. We read Ephesians 6:10-20 and talked about what we learned and felt like God was teaching us. Putting on all of God’s armor. Every morning we wake up. Here are some of the things that we talked about:

- Its not that we just have to put on a shield of faith whenever the time arises, we must put it and all the other things on every day, because we do not know what we will face throughout the day.

-In Thailand, you don’t leave your house without shoes. You put them on before you go anywhere; put on the shoes of peace. Meaning that you never leave your house without putting on peace so that wherever your feet go, peace goes with you.

-We are to fear God, but we are also to fearlessly go out and tell other people about the mystery of the gospel.

-We struggle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms….in other words, we struggle against invisible things. Not against people. But against what the powers of evil do in people.

-We need to fight for other people and put on the full armor of God …for them and with them. We are brothers and sister in Christ. Together. Stand firm.

-We are not to just stop the fiery arrows of the Devil, but to extinguish them. The battle doesn’t end until evil is dead and gone so keep fighting until the arrow is broken and the fiery-ness is put out, or else it will still be able to hurt.

-Pray in all circumstances. No matter if you come with a broken heart, a servants heart, if you just need to complain or talk it out, if you want to hear something from God….whatever. Pray.

                Today was a good day. We went to lunch with two of our fahrang friends. That was delicious-I have no idea what I got, but it was good!-Bekah and I came home and took a nap after that. We ate at Sunee and then went to Kris and Silk’s house. We watched a movie that….well….made me think. Good thing tomorrow is our Sabbath so I can journal everything out, huh? Then we sat and talked about the movie and told stories. Our fahrang friends came to that again as well. Hurray! Super fun times there.

 

                Hello. Today is now tomorrow. Its 12:00am on Monday morning. I’m finally done with this blog. I hope you guys have a wonderful week. Sorry it was a bit late. We write these things at the weirdest times! Always remember who your number One fan and number One lover is!  :D