The Body of Christ

a few pictures of the past couple days:

Love her!

Some of my favorite girls. (I think I say that about all of them).

A mural Mackenzie and I had an opportunity paint. They would like us to come back, so we are praying about a theme we can use. It is a government school, and we want to paint to glorify God, so are asking for guidance and a theme from the Lord. :)

I thought this picture was awesome. This is Rob, our 'knows how to do everything' handy-man! He set up the mural painting for us.

These are a bit older, and I THINK Emma dear took all the following of the kids

This is what the public transportation looks like :)
If I remember, I'll try to post another picture of the inside sometime
but this was too great not to post :)

After the inside acrobatics,
they demonstrated their climbing abilities...

Mackenzie has been laminating, and laminating, and laminating.
Shall I say it again?
Laminating.

My housemates and I had a creative writing 45 minutes. It was fun. Just wanted to share this poem:

The Body of Christ.

Thinking of the woman at the well
and thinking of her willing heart.
A women in despair who believed this man
who told her all the things she had ever done.
Running to tell those who cut their eyes at her.
The fingers locked around her throat
were loosened,
and she had forgiven.

Thinking of the 7 lepers
and their desire to be healed
and the one who returned.
This was more than a sickness
that was healed
it stemmed from a heart
overcome
with what had been given.
Lord, thank you,
for what you have given.

Thinking of the disciples
who were expected to receive brother Paul
after he had killed so many loved ones.
No longer, he is Brother Paul.
Teach us how to pray for those who persecute
our family.
And Lord, let us be people full of grace.

Thinking of Jonah
and how he was given the honor
to deliver honey-filled words
with the protection of his Father
to bring redemption to an unbelieving nation
But the hardness in his heart hindered.
And I am glad to know his story,
but Father, let us learn from his folly.

Let us be like King David
dancing in joy.
A voice to sing with and hands to serve with.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within.

Above all,
this man Christ
who has seen you
who has opened his arms
and sacrificed for all.
Lord Jesus, in my heart
give me love
so I can be more like you,
more and more like you.

MILESTONE

I have a milestone to celebrate.

Today I finished the bible.

I have so much to say about this, but every time I try to type it out or explain how much this has affected me, I just stumble over my words and it sounds so cheesy, because how can you explain something that feels like your whole being is overflowing with thanksgiving?

In Thailand they have this word to describe your heart. You can say "Thank you" or "Thank you from my heart". When you say "Thank you from my heart" it is like thanking somebody with your whole being, heart soul and mind. I want to thank God from my heart.

I am thanking God because I do not deserve one thing except for death. Yet He has given me the eternal life, through Jesus Christ. Not  for condemnation and slavery but because He loves me and wants only good things for me. In this life, I want only to serve Him, the maker of heaven and earth.

"A maid dressed in filthy rags comes to serve her master, and he gives her lovely clothes to wear and an ear to listen to her woes. This continues and soon those woes become stories of joy and laughter and praise. A joy to her Father."

We have a new library!!

BEFORE -- 5 weeks ago.










Waldeena, one of our volunteers here from Canada, in charge of cataloging about 900 books. It was quite a task!

NEW SHELVES! They took about 3 weeks to make. And Bertha restocking them, about a week ago.

Inessa, our lovely muralist, volunteering here for two weeks from Australia.

Tada!!! What a change, eh?

Joel dedicating the library to God. Our verse is Isaiah 55:10-12
"¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
¹² You will go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
   will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
   will clap their hands.

photo compliments of Bob

Whoah, check out that library! Now scroll back up to the before picture. God is good. Mackenzie and I had a lot of fun helping out with the project. Mackenzie helped do some cataloging and painting. I helped choose the color scheme. It has been really cool to see how the Lord has orchestrated this whole thing. When we cam to the school, there were LOTS of new books that had been recently donated. Prior to that, our book collection was severely lacking. So, new books. However, the library was dark and scummy. Mackenzie and I spent a lot of time in there the first couple of weeks we were here helping organizing books and stuff, and we noticed that we were getting bitten SO MUCH, the room had lots of bugs because I think they were hiding out in the books or something. It was NOT a place that you would want to read books in. Money had been raised for the book renovation project, so we installed new windows and got an air conditioner (bye-bye-bugs!). Now look at it! A group of volunteers from Canada needed some things to do (perfect timing!) and so they began building us shelves and painting the walls and re cataloging books. Then we heard a muralist was coming to town! I mean, the whole thing, happened with perfect, God orchestrated timing. It just amazes me so much to see the transformation of this room.

Photo compliments of Bob

This is most of our staff with our volunteers. This picture, however, is missing a very important person! Her name is Rhoda, and she was the one who really spear-headed this project (through God's guidance). She was the one who raised all of the money and organized the whole project! Now we have a new library. Rhoda is such a lovely, beautiful person. I am glad to know her.

Mackenzie, Emma and I think we should give ALL of the rooms an uplift. We are praying.

Photo compliments of Bob

Our Canadian volunteers. They were such a joy to have! Truly a highlight to my time here.

AND THE FINISHED MURAL!!!! Inessa is so talented and she has been such a blessing to Mackenzie and I in so many ways -- we are so glad to have her staying at our house. Inessa has this almost aura about her where she can walk into a room a lighten it up by just a few words. She is very thoughtful. I can see the fruits of the spirit in her :)

Things we've been doing

OH what a week!

Haha, I feel like I say that every week :) Things are constantly changing here, but rarely do they go as planned. I think it fits me.

I wanted to share with you that I was able to go to the Prayer meeting last night. It was such a blessing to me. We had a short bible study -- Mary, the lady who came last week was there and we went over Matthew 1 with her. We asked her if she wanted to receive Christ but she says she is not quite ready. Please continue your prayers for her and for the others.

Speaking of praying, a huge prayer request we have for the school right now is that we are in a desperate need for English teachers for the upcoming school year. 


I went to the doctors last Tuesday -- and his recommendation was 2 more weeks with my cast on. Not because things weren't healing correctly, he just said it would be better that it was completely healed. Here is my X-Ray from the first day!

I must say -- I know this is probably pretty odd, but I really enjoy going to the doctor. It seems every time I go, I meet somebody new and we have a very pleasant conversation. I always get a good laugh too. As inconvenient as a broken leg is, it is okay.

 We have a new volunteer! She'll be here for 2 weeks painting murals!! Oh my, she is awesome. AND she is staying at our house! She did this mural in TWO DAYS. She is really helping to make our school a beautiful place. She's currently now working on a mural in our library.

Wow, I just think this is so awesome. It is so much better than before!! (THANKS INESSA)

Wanted to share a few things I've been doing. Here is the FINISHED van :)

Also I've been helping another ministry with some of their graphic design. It is called the River. I've helped them make some bookmarks and storefront redesign and also van and song-teaw designs. These are all simply mock-ups and probably not the final copies (in fact there have been several variations to the bookmark design already -- this was the original)

The current storefront:

The potential after storefront:


The River is a great ministry. Their focus is transforming communities. They have a church. As outreach they also have a hotel and coffeeshop. Several of the children who attend our school live at the River.


So you can see I've been busy :)







Mackenzie, Emma and I have begun Thai lessons -- it has been so beneficial already just to help us along. We are all three in different levels of our Thai knowledge, but we have lessons together so we can help each other.

I want so badly to know the language and be able to read it. I'm currently working on the textbook project (it's hobbling along, but we're beginning to have some real progress.) It would be so helpful to be able to read Thai especially for this project. Please pray for me.

Today, Inessa, Mackenzie and I got to go ride an elephant! It was super fun. Here are some pictures:

Can I just say "Whoah. I am in Thailand..?!!?"

Some Updates

I told a story a couple weeks ago about a boy at our school who prayed to become a Christian. I asked him what he did this weekend and he said, exactly like this: "Eat. Pray. Study. Games." Ha!

The Prayer meeting was positive. 2 Thais came, one of them was Nurse (The other one I'll call Mary). Nurse is very interested in Christianity, and is keen on enrolling her 2 kids at our school next year. They want to meet again this Friday. Continue to pray for these four, and keep the Friday prayer meeting in YOUR prayers (Friday morning 6am Central time): 

Nurse

June

Becky

Mary

Many people were praying for this prayer event. Thank you for your faithfulness. One of our friends here (a new Christian) was at home and felt really convicted all of a sudden to pray during the meeting. She began praying for all of these people, and she 'felt' that there was just something circling her house, something bad. She didn't know what it was but it was circling her house like a whirlwind or something. She was praying and all of a sudden her body just started shaking, (maybe like someone was shaking her? I don't know for sure) but she knew she had to continue praying and that she couldn't let this distract or stop her. She KEPT praying for about 10 minutes and her body just kept shaking. When she finished "in the name of Jesus, Amen." The shaking stopped and she was back to normal.

Please pray for her, that the Lord would keep her safe and protected. I was reminded of this verse:

6 xHumble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 ycasting all your anxieties on him, because zhe cares for you. 8 aBe sober-minded; bbe watchful. Your cadversary the devil dprowls around elike a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 fResist him,gfirm in your faith, knowing that hthe same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And iafter you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, jwho has called you to his keternal glory in Christ, will himself lrestore, mconfirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 nTo him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.  (www.esvbible.org)

Spiritual warfare works differently here. In America, we are all just so convinced things like this don't happen -- that's one way the devil blinds us.

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A huge praise: THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING BILLS WERE PRIORITIZED! This is really great news. Wow.

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