Christ through technology

Hail, Hail the King of Kings comes!

We have enjoyed learning about the King of Thailand.   Did you know he was actually born in America as his father was studying medicine at Harvard?   It has been a joy to learn the King is highly respected because of his care for the people as a servant king.  Yesterday we reflected on our Servant King the King of Kings we saw him serving the people of Thailand through the English class.  Dwayne and Tony were excellent leaders however Jim was able to introduce Christmas and Easter discussion for us to further share our faith of our King's birth and life saving death and resurrection.  

Later we were treated to a spectacular dinner and show Siam Narimit!  We have deeper understanding of the people and culture as well as upclose encounters with the elephants.  Thanks again to Brian for the pictures.   

Today, Friday we wrap up our teaching time and move on to Phuket for the weekend.   We remember the Tsumani victims and families as we interact with the people in this region.   Prayers for a great last session with Bob and PW, safe travel and continued health but most importantly the seeds we have planted may grow!

Up close and personal with elephants-at Siam Niramit in Bangkok

A new friend

I have been blessed with meeting a new friend at our classroom this afternoon.  The Thai people are amazing: humble, sweet, trusting, quiet and all this with a servant's heart.  We Americans, with our rushing to and fro could take a lesson from these people.  Within minutes of meeting you, they are willing and able to take you at face value and give you their hearts.  I am blessed to have this wonderful young woman consider me a friend.  Our picture was posted below by Brian.  Thanks Brian!

Continuing to form relationships at Luther Hour Ministries in Bangkok Thailand

Will you tell me about Jesus . . .

The sweetest words ever spoken at ESL class!  We have had many ask and we are humbled and honored to answer yes I will.   Why did we travel half way around the world?  For those moments!   Thanks to Brian the wiz of technology hopefully you have enjoyed some pictures of our experience.  However there are literally a thousand words behind each picture.  I encourage you to ask some of the people in the pictures when they get home to share.

We finished our third day of workshop today with presentations from Joanne, Kathy and Brian.  Yesterday Gale, Ann and Kay did their presentations even including a Skype conversation from all the Bennings and Grandma and Grandpa!  All did exceptionally well!   Not only have the participants been relaxing and therefore speaking English more, they are asking us questions about Jesus.  We sing songs about Jesus and refer to our faith many times in our presentation as well as regular prayers but you just never know where someone is in their walk.  The overwhelming majority of people are Buddhist.

Thai people are so kind, loving and happy.   They have welcomed us with open arms.  Our team is doing well all the way around.  As a leader, I have been so proud of each one of them for stepping out of their comfort zones in many many ways.  God has blessed our efforts and words.  We give Him all the glory for the connections we have made.

Last night and tonight some of our team is joining the "professionals" as they teach their classes to see how it is done and make connections with their students.  Please include Robin and David in your prayers as they have dedicated their lives to living in Bangkok and reaching people for Christ.

One last bit of trivia!  Did you know "God of this City" was written about a very dark city in Thailand?   As we sang it last night the words have taken on new meaning for our team.  We now understand the amazing about of work yet to be done in this world to tell people about their SAVIOR Jesus!   We are overwhelmed by the amount of people who have never heard of Jesus and his life saving work.

Sandy Rades shares a lotus with Pastor Whitfield

The Packers WON at 6:30 AM (Thailand Time) and "Fun with English Started"

Yes . . . it is a long day when you get up at 3:15 AM to watch the Packers game streamed in.  We have come to greatly appreciate Thailand's advanced use of technology.  We love that we have been so connected by wifi, skype phone calling, streaming, and googling EVERYTHING that we don't know what it is.  Our resident expert is Brian . . . have itouch, have info.  Mary has become addicted to Kay's ipad.  Sometimes we wonder who has it more.  Even Tony has figured out how to get his email!

So today was our first day of "Fun With English" workshop.  We started off with Mary get to know you games.   We introducing ourselves with knicknames.  Everyone here has one.  Mary Moose, Alexander Apple, Judi Jellybean, Kay Kids, Kathy Kangaroo, Dave Dad, Bob Bananna, Tony Toast, Gale Garden, Sandy Shrimp, Brian Baseball, Dwayne Dairy Queen, Ann Angel, Jim Jesus and Joann Jump rope.  Everyone was talking with in minutes.  And to think they wondered if BLC could have fun?  Then Dave led a session on Sports.  We all learned how to Mauy Thai Box and Elephant Polo.  We learned the Thai people are very competitive.   Dave challenged us to an intense ping pong game.  We also loved Dave leading us in song throughout the day.  We had mixed Christian campfire songs with motion songs.  After another amazing Thai lunch Ann led a session in animals and habitats.  She read a book about
"actual size" of animals which caused a scurrying of googling.  But the hit was the "telephone game"!   To help people repeat phases, teams had to pass on a message.  Strangely the message changed from the beginning to the end of the line of people.  

We also had  chance to tour Lutheran Hour Ministries Center.  What an amazing production studio to proclaim the Gospel.  

Overall we had many opportunities to share the love of Jesus.  "Seek Ye First" has a new meaning to us after seeing people who may not know Jesus singing it.  We have had many Godsightings each day that we share at evening devotions and debrief.

We ask for your prayers for continued safety and health.   Praise God!
 

A "Tok-Tok"; a motorcycle type covered taxi used in downtown Bangkok

Buildings on The Royal Thai Palace grounds

Buildings on The Royal Thai Palace grounds

Buildings on The Royal Tai Grand Palace grounds

Concordia Into Light Lutheran church

We were blessed to share in the service of Concordia Into Light Lutheran Church.  Pastor Sumpang opened the worship and Pastor Whitfield gave the sermon in English while Pastor Sumpang translated his words into Thai.  It was a wonderful message saying that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever even though our world is in constant change. It was well received by both the English and Thai speaking people.  We all shared an amazing experience of singing sings and saying prayers together: some in Thai and some in English, but all one in the same to the same God.  People with such different lives able to share their God together.  To make the service even more perfect, we were able to commune together with our new friends in Christ.

Pastor Whitfield and Pastor Sumpang at Sunday morning service

Our hosts at Lutheran Hour Ministries, Dennis & Boom Dennow

Where we are teaching in Bangkok Thailand

Advertisement for our mission workshop

You never know who you are sitting next to . . .

Do you wonder who you will be seated next to on an airplane?   It has been fun to see who God has seated next to us on this trip. We have had several witnessing opportunities to open people who have been interested in the trip and wished us well and offers to pray for us.  

But then there was one whom sat next to me (Mary) from Korea to Thailand.  He was not happy that Americans were headed to Thailand especially if it was a Christian mission trip.  You see he was on his way home to Pakistan from Korea to see his family.  You may have guessed by now that he is muslim.  He shared with me his beliefs in the Koran as well as the parts of the Bible that he believes are true.   We spent about 2 hours talking as I shared with him the hope we have in Jesus Christ and him alone.  We talked about passages in the Bible and who Jesus really is.  We talked about Americans and American Christianity which as you can guess was not popular.  He was deeply concerned about American economics and specifically how much money were were spending to go to Thailand. 

He runs a Islam outreach group on the internet.   It became clear that we were not going to agree on many things though he was passionate to share.  I just prayed that God would put his words in my mouth that would make a difference.  At this point in the trip we were all just exhausted so there was not a chance of an intelligent though on my part.   It is interesting that is when we are challenged.  God was faithful and his seeds were planted.  

I quickly remembered the teachings the PABLO leaders had just presented the week before and said "God Sighting"!  I ask you to join me in prayer for Mohammed Jamie that he will come out of the darkness into the light only JESUS shines.  

Mary

Welcome sign at Lutheran Hour Ministries in Bangkok

Getting to knooooow you . . . .

How do you get to know someone when you totally speak different languages?   You EAT!

We were blessed with a late gathering time so some could sleep in, work out, explore, swim and have a leisurely breakfast.  It was much needed to adjust to the time difference.  We are 12 hours ahead of everyone in Wisconsin.   

We gathered for lunch at one of PW's favorites  S & P.  We were thankful the menu was all pictures.   Everyone tried something new.  In the afternoon we had training with Boom and Dennis and met the team of wonderful Lutheran Hour Workers.   We were welcomed by beautiful flowers again, coffee and eclairs.  We have come to find out Thais are really into desserts!   They all look amazing.  

We had good opportunities to ask questions and to start to get a feel for where we will be working this week.   

We had a short break where a few of us discovered "Thai Massage".  It was in my book of 1000 things to do before you die and now I know why.  :)

Then we were blessed with a wonderful Thai dinner made by the people of the church - Journey into Light.  We also met the full time missionaries who teach ESL - Birdie and Dave.   What a joy they are.  

We have also found out everyone has nickname in Thai.  We look forward to find out what ours are by the end of the week.  We had a chance to practice "Fun with English" - the name of our workshop.   We may have some refining to do but overall it was well received. 

http://www.jilthailand.org/aboutus_en.php
Check out Journey into Light Church's website to find out more about the ministry we are working with.

We're Here - Yea!!!

Praise the Lord! We traveled from BLC to Chicago O'Hare to Seoul, Korea to Bangkok Thailand - and we are here safe and sound. - 27 hours later.  We are very tired and going to bed, but we wanted you to know we are safe and sound. 

Take a quick look at this picture from the airport in Bangkok.  We were met by Boom from Lutheran Hour Ministries and her team and Boom's husband Dennis from LCMS.  They presented each of us with a beautiful orchid leigh and wisked us off to our hotel, the TK Palace.

We are most thankful for all the prayers our support team has provided.  Your continued to prayers for our team would be appreciated, as we begin tomorrow! - Judi

Our capsule for the next 17 hrs!

Ready to go!

We made it to BLC to find many staff and supports there ready to send us off and pray with us.  We were so blessed with a very quick trip to Ohare.  We arrived to find NO ONE at the airport.  So we sailed through check in and security with ease.   We now just patiently wait to load the plane.  It was a TOTAL group effort of how to log on to the airport wifi.  So already we are working as a group.  PTL!

GETTIN' READY!!!

Well, we are getting ready to go to Thailand, it's getting closer and CLOSER!! We are very excited for the opportunity to share our love of Jesus with our new Thai friends.  We had the privledge of meeting with Dennis Denow from LCMS who currently lives in Thailand.  What a great opportunity to ask all of our questions.  So, now we are armed with proper information and we're ready to go.  Just a few more things to get done here before we leave.

We are all working on our presentations for the ESL program and we're trying to make them as entertaining as possible.  Dennis says that the Thai people are very soft spoken, humble and sensitive.  I guess maybe Americans are kind of more "bull in the china shop" in our way of dealing with things.  (Those are my words, not Dennis'!)  We are not sure who will come to our classes, but the classes have been well advertised and the idea seems to be well received.  We know that God has a plan for us, whether it's 10 people or 70 people in our classes, we'll be ready to go forward.  We do know that these will be adults of at least 18 years of age.  We also know that Thai people are well groomed, so we must put our best foot forward.

Once again, we request your prayers for our mission, for safety, for successful relationships and for the Holy Spirit to be with each of us. Thanks for your prayers

Elephants and Polo - WHAT???

And to think we missed this !!!!!!!

Audemars Piguet and Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas kicked off the 2011 King’s Cup Elephant Polo tournament on September 5^th in Hua Hin Thailand, the royal seaside town some 200km south of Bangkok. The event offered a day with seasoned elephant polo players, colourful parades, Thailand’s last elephant spirit men (Khru Ba Yai) and pachyderms - all providing a taste of the excitement to come all week.