Less than a week left until we leave. I'm still going through my Thai language lessons. I can now tell someone I want to eat rice at a restaurant.    Oh boy!

 

The thoughts of leaving my wife and boys keep getting more intense. Aimee keeps telling me that it will go by fast. Robbie is excited that I'm getting to go tell people about Jesus. He says he wants to go to Thailand to tell others about Jesus someday too. That's exciting to me. I hope when he's old enough to go on an international mission trip that we can go to Thailand together. I can't think of many other things that would be better than doing ministry work with your own child. It makes me think about what Scott and Ken must be feeling having their daughters go with us this time.  Very cool stuff...

 

:-)

13 days left until I depart to Thailand. I have gotten a copy of Pimsleur's Thai and am going through it. I've gotten to lesson five out of ten. I still can't say very much though. The Thai language is very difficult to me. It's tonal, meaning you have to use the correct tone or series of tones in a word or it means something else entirely. So far I only know how to say I can understand/speak Thai/English and how to ask where something is. I guess that's important.  I'm still excited and a little scared. Also I am sad thinking about being away from Aimee and the boys for almost two weeks.

 

We finally got our trip itinerary. It's not finalized yet, but it looks pretty much as I expected. We'll be actually on the ground in Phang-gna on Wednesday the 7th at about 6:45pm local time. That gives us just enough time to eat something and go to bed. So three days of our trip is pretty much just us getting there and getting rested. Thursday morning we start with a worship time together and then it’s off to evangelism. Every day with the exception of Sunday we will be doing door to door evangelism. This is very exciting to me. We will be able to do a lot of footwork for the missionaries in just a few days that would take them a month. While we are telling people about Jesus, we will be using a device called an evangicube. It's a pretty cool cube that changes shapes and tells the gospel with pictures. We're learning how to use short sentences the translators can easily translate into Thai. Here is a video that gives an example of how to use the evangicube: http://www.simplysharejesus.com

 

The only day we won't be doing any evangelism is Sunday. Instead, we will be having a joint house church meeting. This is something that doesn't happen too often there. All the small house churches will be getting together for one large worship service. Another thing I am excited about is the men will be going to speak with Buddhist monks. Pray for us that we will be able to share our faith with them.

 

The last day we will be there is Friday May 16th so that gives us a total of 11 days there. That's not too bad for a 15 and a half day trip total. We will be arriving home on Saturday the 17th at 6:30am. That will be interesting.  I think I'll probably feel like a zombie for a few days but I know it will be all good.

 

 

We have started a new Bible study in our Sunday school class on the book of Acts. So Aimee and I have been reading the first few chapters. I think it's amazing how God brings different areas of your life together to teach you things...

 

The area where we will be going on the mission trip is much like the early church in Acts. Most of the believers there are new to the faith. The house churches are growing at a very fast rate. God is doing some miracles there such as healing in some of the villages. As I read about the first church in Acts and apply it to the young church in southern Thailand, I am praying that God would help me to learn lessons that can be used on my mission trip.

 

 

 

We had a good meeting about our upcoming trip last night. We still do not have an itenerary, but Scott will be talking with the Keith to plan out our trip. We did, however, get our flight information. We will be flying Malaysia Air. We will go from Charlotte to Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Phuket Thailand. The whole trip will be 36 hours. (WOW) I don't think the flight was that long last time. I'm worried I may go a little stir crazy.

 

We also got a list of prayer requests from Keith and Tracy. They asked for us to pray for four villiages: Butay and Deen Cow villages these are villiages with established house churches. Pray for the groups in these villages to grow in Christ and for leaders to emerge to start new house churches. Also pray for the Bring and Band Duhee villages. These are "seeker" villages where there are few believers. Pray for the people in these villiages to accept Christ and for the gospel to be clearly presented.

 

Of course please remember my team (Scott, Brian, Ken, Amanda, Emily, and myself), the missionaries (Keith and Tracy), and the Thai pastor (Ong) in your prayers.

 

I will be writing my testamony for the translators to put into Thai. It needs to be writen in a way that can be easily translated and without any "church" words. The audience who will be hearing it would not understand many of the church words we take for granted like sin, salvation, or saved. So please pray for me as I write.

 

Thank you all for supporting me.