The Reason I'm Here.

 Service Update! 

Some times I even surprise myself with how much I let the "amount" of productivity I feel is produced from our ministry affect how I feel about my day. Service here, in this country, comes with a happiness I have never felt before, and a frustration beyond belief.

I'll try to explain as I run you through a service day...although so far no two days have been the same.

7:00 a.m

Tyese, sometimes another sister Ruth, and I start preaching by going to bus stations, train stations, or the early morning local food market. 

There certainly is not a lack of interest of the local Thai people here...the first few days I couldn't believe my eyes when people (even if they were working, walking down the street, riding their motorbike, shopping) would stop EVERYTHING they were doing, sit down, and thoroughly read what you just gave them. Most of them have never looked at a bible, and certainly don't know who Jehovah is.

One of the amazing early morning markets. Food is packed into trucks and hauled fresh daily from the surrounding hill tribe Mong Villages...Organic food at its finest. We were able to do a little shopping, 1/2 a kilo of lettuce, 4 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and an avocado. Enough to make a salad every night this week, all for $1.50

9:00 a.m.

We scooter to the Kingdom Hall, have a proper service meeting, and stack ourselves into cars (sometimes in the back of trucks, my favorite of course) to head to gated, "high security" communities they call Moo Bans.

Here, if the security guards are willing we enter. Moo Ban security wont let the local Thai brothers and Sisters into these communities to preach (why? no one really knows...security wants to keep their neighborhoods tightly, quite, and safe...and anyone that is a foreigner is thought of as having lots of $$ and a potential house buyer). So, although we are an English Cong. and we are obviously trying to target foreigners, we need talk to everyone that lives in the Moo Ban, even Thai's, because there's no one else that will be able to reach them. 

This is the frustrating part, there are well over 100 Moo Bans in Chaing Mai, with hundreds of houses in each development. Literally thousands of Thai people can only be witnessed to by us...people that don't speak their native tongue. Sure, I have my simple presentation in Thai that gets a small message across, but I don't know enough to reason, or explain anything more than than that. Moral of this story: I NEED TO LEARN THAI

 

We're ready to start the day!

Seriously, you never know what you could possibly run into in service here

Lunch Break

The Afternoon

 Everyone that has lived here for a while has numerous calls and bible study's that they do in the afternoon. There isn't a meeting, so people make their arrangements themselves. Yesterday "Nee" invited us to go on her Blind bible study with her. We all sat on a bamboo rug on the floor in a circle...after "Nee" read the paragraph and asked the question, it was so amazing to watch her truly give answers from her heart (as she had no book to look at). Her son (7 years old) and daughter (12 years old) are studying as well.  Its pretty awesome how much effort people put into to learning the truth despite limitations they currently face.

By the time 4:00 rolls around, this is what we all feel like doing

  

If there is one thing I have learned so far: Expect the Unexpected 

Yay for a terenchal downpour on our way to meet up for evening witnessing.

As if our bright yellow helmets didn't make us look crazy enough...lets add skittle colored ponchos 

Tyese was a little overzealous putting hers on. haha

8:00 p.m.

Despite the rain, we had a productive evening catching not at homes. Once it got to dark to see the house numbers we headed too the Night Market for a quick bite to eat before we continued to witness to the workers until nearly 10:00 p.m.

The crew: Nee, Melody, Sharmea, Ruth, Me, and Tyese

Out of Control...

All in all, I come home feeling accomplished, and slightly overwhelmed at the amount of teaching that is still left to do here.   Teaching methods are completely opposite to what we are use to back in the states. Because of how people are raised here, at first we are discouraged to ask the householder questions to help them reason and we usually quote scriptures out of the literature instead of opening the bible (often times they don't even know what the bible is, instead we refer to it as a "holy book"). I certainly have much to learn...a whole new language and a whole new way to teach.

Anyone else want to join us??? Brush up on your Thai, and head to Asia!