Holding on to hope

Some people think the Pacers should rebuild. In almost all the NBA season expert predictions, the Pacers have been picked to finish last in their division and in the bottom 2 or 3 in their conference. I must say that I disagree. Call me a die-hard Pacers fan if you will blinded by visions of grandeur. Last year the Pacers were doing fine before they ended the season with a horrible losing streak to miss the playoffs. I think the players have had time to mesh some more and the addition of a new coach that allows the team to run and play more freely will definitely help the Pacers rather than the half court offense they ran last year.
Do I think the Pacers will win the Chip? No. I'm hoping that the Suns do this year. (Go Captain Canada!!!)
Do I think the Pacers will surprise a lot of people (in a good way)? Yes
Do I think the Pacers make the playoffs? Yes, but only because they are in the eastern conference.
No matter what, I am excited about the start of the NBA season.

Passing of a loved one

We just found out a little while ago that my grandpa passed away in Canada. I think he was 87 years old. We are so thankful that we had the opportunity to see him while we were in Canada this past summer. At that time, his health problems were just beginning and as a result, he seemed quite normal. From what I hear, he had been in a lot of pain lately before his passing. I will always remember him being a very patient man and a man that was always in a good mood. We'll miss you grandpa.

Problems lead to Change

Over the past few weeks, I've had a few people tell me that they have been having problems opening our blog. I've been having the same problems here in Thailand. At first I thought it was just me and my slow speed internet, however, people with high speed internet said the same thing. Since I don't know much about HTML, I don't know how to play around with the setting and figure out the problem. Therefore the easiest thing is to change the whole thing and that is what you are seeing now. Let me know if you have any problems opening this website and what you think about this design.

Attempting something new...

This coming Sunday we are trying something that we have never tried before and both Tawm and I and everyone else is really excited about it. This Sunday after church, lunch and prayer are finished, the young adults group we started last month will be hitting the streets to do evangelism. This was one of our major goals in forming this group. We wanted to have fun, get to know each other more and study the Bible but we also wanted to make a difference in the community. What better way to make a difference than to share the gospel. Pray that all of us would be bold and that is would be an encouraging time for everyone as it is many people's first time sharing their faith.

Uncertainties... Plese Pray

This year the king of Thailand celebrated his 60th year of being king of Thailand. This makes him the longest reigning monarch in the world. Unlike the English monarchy, the king of Thailand is loved, honored and respected by all. Although he has no legal powers, he has tremendous influence and many major political decisions made by are run by the king first. This coming December 5th, the king will be celebrating his 80th birthday as well. There are big plans for a huge celebration in his honor on that day. Unfortunately, the king's health hasn't been the greatest in recent months and he has been in the hospital for the past several days. Please pray for him.

On December 23rd, Thailand will be going to the polls to elect a new prime minister. It has taken more than a year for the interm military government to finally set a date for the election. Please pray that God's man would be elected into power.

A Houseful

For the next few days we will have a houseful full of people. Tawm's cousin is coming home for the next few days. She is bringing her husband and 3 inlaws from Phuket too. Tawm's cousin was married a couple years ago but the inlaws have never met. Tawm's cousin's house isn't big enough so everyone is at our house. It should be fun.

Prayer and Praise

Yesterday was a good day. When we arrived at the church, there was a letter there from a 14 year old girl requesting more information about Christianity. She got a tract/workbook that we give away for free and on the last page is a request form for people who would like more information. We have no idea who the girl is or how she got the information because she lives in a suburb of Chiang Mai on the opposite side of the city. We praise God for her interest and the way God works in ways we don't expect.

On top of that, next to Antioch is a wood store. M, one of our Bible students talked to Gai (pronounced like "guy") about Christ and he gave her a Bible. Gai loves to read and was very interested in Christianity. From what I understand, she read the whole New Testament and then began on the Old Testament. However when she got to Leviticus, she started to have a problem. Buddhists thinking killing animals is a sin (strict Buddhists don't even eat meat) and she didn't understand how God could command His followers to make sacrifices. M tried to explain some and he asked Tawm to help him explain more. Tawm has spoken to her a couple times and yesterday as we passed her store, she yelled at Tawm to come inside and visit. Tawm only had a couple minutes, but the thing Gai wanted to talk about is, what do I need to do to be saved. Tawm didn't want to rush it so Tawm told her she'd be back to talk to her about that.

We praise God for answered prayer and that God is working in the lives of people here in Thailand. Please pray for these 2 ladies. It would be awesome if we had a tons of people that wanted more information about Christ.

1 Month to Go

Well, according to the doctor's calculations, Tawm's due date is November 17th. That means only one month to go until I am a real father. Although technically I am a father already, I am sure the job will get much harder and much more hectic once the baby meets the real world. Exciting days ahead.

Tawm is doing good. We praise God that she hasn't had any difficulties throughout the pregnancy.

Going High Tech

Well, this past week we splurged and bought an external modem for our computer. It can be used anywhere you that you can get a cell phone signal. It is definitely faster than dial up but not as fast I would like it to be. It is nice having internet access anytime we want rather than waiting to be in certain places to access it. We wanted to get wireless but we live too far out of town and we can't get a signal. So this is the best we got right now.

VeggieThailes

This past Thursday through Saturday we had our second annual VBS.

This year we didn't do as much advertising as last year but have relied heavily on word of mouth (the best and cheapest way to advertise according to my marketing degree!)

We had 21 kids show up the first day and 23 the next 2. We were excited because over half the kids are not church kids and a good bunch of them were people we had never met. The kids were with us 3 hours each day, 1 hour of English which is what draws the kids (actually it is the thing that draws the parents of the kids), 1 hour of games and 1 hour of Bible stories and gospel presentation.

This year we had some special guests with us Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato. Although the 2 didn't speak Thai, we had some Thai people dub for them. The kids thought it was fun which was great and I admit that I had fun too. Although there we no salvations we pray that the seeds planted would be brought into fruition as a result. Two of the kids that came to the VBS were in church this morning so we are excited about that.

Thanks for Tawm and all the work she did organizing it. The best measure of success is the kids and parents ask, when will we be doing it again?
 

The Not So Simple Life

I've been reading the book, The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. I am glad that he named the book the normal Christian life and not the simple Christian life because some of the stuff he says takes a few times to digest, but overall if you like deep books, it is a good book. I have really enjoyed some of the quotes because they have really prodded my heart.

We cannot expect a tailor to make us a coat if we do not give him any cloth, nor a builder to build us a house if we let him have no building material; and in just the same way we cannot expect the Lord to live out his life in us is we do not give him our lives in which to live.

Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins, but God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. The result of sin is that we forfeit God's glory: the result of redemption is that we are qualified again for glory. God's purpose in redemption is glory, glory, glory.

Please Pray for Us

This coming Thursday through Saturday we will be attempting our 2nd English slash VBS here in Chiang Mai. People seem to be excited. We are busy handing out flyers and trying to spread the word. We a group of people that said they will be coming. Pray that they do, that they invite their friends and that souls would be saved. Appreciate it.

Going Loonie

The past few months have been a bunch of highs and lows because of the exchange rates. The American Dollar is doing horribly but the good old loonie is finally pulling some weight. I remember when I came to Thailand, the exchange rate was 40 Baht for 1 $US and it was 25 Baht for 1 $Canadian. As it stands today, the exchange rate is about 33 Baht for each dollar respectively. I'm hoping that after the election here in December that both the Canadian and American dollars will get stronger.

New Setup

How do you like the new look?
Took me forever to figure out but it adds a little pizzaz to the old blog.

Can you help me?

I've been looking at different people's blogs lately and have seen that people have different headers than the templates that are given by the blog. I'd like to make our blog a little more personal. Can anyone give me some tips on how to do that. Would appreciate it.

Adventures in Language

Preaching in a second language is always a challenge. There is still so much that I need to learn about the Thai language and still feel very inadequate to be doing what I am doing but I know that God has called me to do this. It is only because of God's grace and His help that people can learn from my teaching and preaching. The compliment I hear most often about my teaching is that I make the Bible easy to understand because I use normal language (because that's all I know :)) People say other Thai pastors are difficult to understand because they use lofty language and sometimes never get to their point. I am thankful that I am able to do that.

Each Sunday is a challenge, but this past Sunday was an even bigger challenge as we had two guests from the Philippines come to Antioch. Both work in Thailand but neither of them spoke any Thai and so on the spot, I had to change from teaching in Thai to teaching in Thai and English. Sunday school wasn't too difficult because my notes were in English. Preaching was more of an adventure as only practice my sermon in Thai. I hadn't looked at my English outline in 4 or 5 days, so sometimes I couldn't remember exactly what I was saying in English. I didn't think the sermon went so well but I had more people encourage me after yesterday's sermon than any other sermon I have preached in Thailand. It is defintely true that God works best when we are weak so that we cannot take any of the glory.

Since coming to Thailand, I have realized how difficult being a translator is. Just because you speak 2 languages doesn't mean you can translate. It takes another skill and yesterday made me more thankful for the people who had helped me with translation work in the past.