พระเจ้าให้พร

We have now been in Thailand for 10 days... or 9... time is a jumble here. Since our last post we have done a few kinda cool things... haha just kidding God has blessed us with a vast variety of awesome opportunities to share his love in VERY unique ways. I wrote in the last post about how we had met up with Kaison here in Tonsai. We spent a couple days here with him sharing the truth with some and just building friendship with others that God led us to. Our Christmas Eve night consisted of sitting around a table on the beach listening to a live reggae band, playing pool and explaining the reason for the joy we have with a few interesting characters. The next morning we awoke to a gorgeous, sunny Christmas day. Myself (Ryan, for those that don't know who's writing) and Cristina went climbing while Gabe and Isaac hung out on the beach and talked to a few of our new friends. Cristina had her first lead fall (25') which she was stoked about and which she greatly enjoyed. For anyone who cringed at reading this she survived this fall with only a small bruise and... a HUGE smile. While we were climbing Gabe, Isaac and Kaison made plans for us to go to a small church in Nakhon Si Thammarat. We were able to bless a couple we had met by giving them our room since this plan was made past our check out time. So once we figured out our room situation we packed up and chartered a boat.

The ocean is a beautiful creation. After a picturesque boat ride through a series of islands and peninsulas we arrived in Krabi town. After a quick scare over whether or not we had left a money belt back in Tonsai we climbed on the back of a truck that gave us a ride to the bus station. We had a dinner (a little to spicy) and then collapsed into the bus for our 4 hour ride. We arrived at a hotel at 12:00 p.m. and quickly got one room and pass out on the hard marble floors. The next morning Pastor Sarapohn picked us up and drove us to his church in Nakhon.

Within the first ten minutes the Lord blessed Isaac and I with a phenomenal opportunity. They asked us to play on their worship team. It was "SWEET AS". After the service (completely in Thai) we had a อร่อย (delicious) lunch provided by the church and the spent the rest of the day just relaxing. 

The next day we traveled back to Aonang where we stayed with a delightful missionary couple, Jeremy and Lisa. After arriving we walked down to a market to get some lunch. As we sat there eating we saw a local working on his dreads. All the guys on our team (Cristina REFUSES) want to get dreads. We asked him where he had got his... Before we knew it we were in the back of his truck flying along the road to his friends Rasta bar where Kaison proceeded to get dreads. INSANE.

When we awoke the next morning Jeremy invited us to go and do a prayer walk with him at one of the Buddhist temples. After climbing some 1200 stairs we arrived at the top looking out over the beautiful landscape we sat up there for a while praying and reading out scripture until the heat grew near unbearable. We made the descent and drove back to the Aonang beach to get a boat back to Toansai. We arrived back and checked into a bungalow... this time we made sure that it wasn't mosquito infested. After that we spentthe rest of the night just relaxing. Yesterday was our "free" day so we slept in and the did what we do for fun... went climbing. A few routes we received an invite to do just what we had been dreaming about doing... DEEP WATER SOLOING!!!!! Gabe, Kaison, Kevin (another friend from Gabe's travels) and I piled on a boat and headed out. It was a blast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not sure if I used enough exclamation marks to truly do justice the fun we had. We arrived back at the beach to find Cristina and Isaac tear the husk off one of the eight coconuts they had found... อร่อย (delicious).

This morning we awoke rather lazily and ate breakfast then went about our usual activities: worship, intercession... finding Gabe's headphone ear buds in a coconut... Then we came up with a vision for a way to make our outreach in this village a little more blatant. We decided to begin hosting Bible studies (hopefully the beginning of a church) twice a week and advertising everywhere we can. :)

So I suppose that is one large prayer request that the Lord would move in those times.
Other requests:

Isaac's wrist has been bothering him

Cristina's back has been bothering her

For the prayer meetings that Jeremy hosts in Aonang

That we would continue to push how far we will go to share the gospel

That even if we don't see one person come to our Bible studies we would grow in our personal walks.

HOW FAR WILL WE GO?

passports, money, and bibles

So after a few days in Bangkok, filled with temples, strange foods and insane Tuk-Tuk drivers (one kicked us out because we wouldn't buy any silk shirts) we took a 12 hour bus ride to the south of Thailand. We arrived in Krabi town at 8 in the morning tired and sore. We caught a taxi to Ao Nam and jumped on a boat to Tonsai. We arrived in tonsai to a practically deserted town. Everyone was sleeping off the booze from the night before. Look up Half Moon Party on Google images to see the sort of lifestyle that is lived here. We spent the morning looking for a pair of bungalows for the night we found a pair deep in the jungle for 250 baht a night. That's about 7 USD. After we settled in we had a worship session and then struck out to scope out the locals and the climbing spots. As we were walking through the streets we ran into a student (Kaison) who was on last years school. We caught up with him and found out he already has a huge heart for this area. We ended up going to bed pretty early so that we could wake up this morning and climb. After prayer and intersession this morning we headed out and hit some sick spots and met a few couples and set up the foundations for future conversation. :)

Prayer Points:

Health (infections are a serious issue here)

Blessed conversations

Hearts open to hear the Truth

Long term believers in Tonsai (locals)

Khao Jai Mai

First day in Thailand. Landed safely in Bangkok along with one of the other teams from our YWAM base in Oxford, New Zealand. God provided a safe flight, even ironing out a slight hitch at the airport in Christchurch. When our teams arrived at the airport in Christchurch we discovered that we didn't have the right kind of visa (a reoccurring problem for YWAM I feel). The visa we were using only allowed 30 days in Thailand but our return flight wasn't for 2 months. Fortunately the lady at the check-in counter booked us a false flight which allowed us to go to Thailand and then cancel it once we arrived. God is good.

We arrived in Thailand at midnight local time. We stepped off the plane into 25 degree Celsius heat... at midnight. The Lord provided both teams a problem free trip through customs and after we made some currency exchanges our two teams said goodbye and went our separate ways.

The Lord continued to provide as we quickly got a taxi and zipped towards the Bangkok YWAM base. He definitely kept His hand of protection over us as we flew down the road... seemingly ignoring any common laws of the road. After a slight mix-up on actually finding the base we settled in for the night, praying to get enough rest for the next day.

This morning we awoke to the roar of traffic by our window and the temperature already rising. Our team gathered together and headed out for our first market experience. As we walked through the city we were constantly bombarded with sights and smells... LOTS of smells, some good.... some not so good. We had a pleasant breakfast of pineapple, bananas, and milk after which we had orientation. The woman who lead our orientation was a quite Thai woman named Jiap, after our class she joined our team for a our first true Thai meal... which was delicious.

The next few days for our team will be filled with shopping on Kho San road (the backpackers central), visiting and praying over the temples, and finding a way down south to Krabi.

Prayer points: Safe/ cheap travel
Blessings for the YWAM Bangkok base
That the King would live long and prosper
That the corruption in the police force would be brought to an end
That our brothers and sisters would stay strong (locals and fellow Oxford YWAMers)

Thailand

"Sawat dee khrab" Hello friends, family and others. This is the first blog of our team's outreach to Thailand. We are a determined young group of Christ followers with the vision to radically impact the GLOBAL NOMADIC YOUTH of the world with the good news of JESUS CHRIST. We are called to reach out to these intrepid adventurers by way of relational, friendship evangelism, hospitality, and discipleship training. We will climb with them, eat with them, travel alongside them, live life with them, live life with them. WE WILL BE THEIR FAMILY. We see them searching. We see them being transformed by the places they have seen and the people they have met along their journey. WE REFUSE TO BE BYSTANDERS. We insist that we have what they are searching for and we commit to sharing THE TRUTH with them, even if that means we are hot, sweaty, hungry and road weary. THEY ARE ON THE HEART OF GOD AND SO ON OUR HEARTS TOO.