Sister or brother?

Over the past couple weeks, Owen has been in copycat mode. He mimics our words (English, Thai, Northern Thai and even Karen - a hilltribe language here) and our actions as well.

Tonight I thought I figured I would tell him to say, sister please. However as soon as I said, Owen say "sister please", he replied "no sister".

After that, I said, Owen say "brother please", and to that Owen replied, "brother please". So if and when the time comes for Owen to have a younger sibling, we already know what Owen wants.

Owen at 20 months

Some of you haven't seen Owen in a while, so here is one pic to help you remember what he looks like.

TMBI Resumes with a Bang!

Last week, Thailand Missionary Baptist Seminary started its 2nd year. We are continuing with the modular system but making a few adjustments. The modules still run for one week per month but we've asked all the first year students to remain in the city so that we can build better relationships with them. We have 6 returning students (although a couple only completed the whole first year). We also have 2 new students. We're excited about that and pray that as word spreads we will continue to grow. First semester classes include Scriptural Church Association, Christian Doctrine, Pastoral Epistles and Bible Study Methods. I'm excited about the two classes I'm teaching. They've been a lot of work for me to prepare but it has been well worth the effort and the students seem to really enjoy them so far.



One other adjustment that we've made is that we are going to do something special on the Friday evening when the students are here. This past Friday we encouraged people to bring there friends to our house for a free dinner, movie and discussion afterwards. We had a great time of fellowship. Watched the movie "Fireproof" and then talked about relationships for a little bit after. A few of the students brought people that we had never met before and everyone said that they can't wait for us to do it again! That's always a great thing to hear.

Cell Phones and Church

One thing that bothers me a lot is when a cell phone goes off in the middle of church services, Sunday school or TMBI classes. Even more annoying is when people start to talk on their phone in the middle of services. It started to become a regular occurance and so we had to put a slide at the beginning of worship services asking people to shut off their phones. It helped somewhat, now people just put their phones on silent mode and when it rings, they walk out the door. Sometimes I think to myself, our church is full of very important people because they can't even turn their phones off for an hour or two.

Thankfully, things like twitter haven't hit mainstream here in Thailand yet and so we don't have to deal with it. I never even thought about it being a problem but I have seen a couple other bloggers in the States (John Piper, Josh Harris) have already been dealing with this issue.

I hope that twitter doesn't become a hit here too soon!

Sunday Tearfest

This past Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day. Mother's day here in Thailand falls on the queen's birthday (August 12). In children's Sunday school, the kids prepared cards and practiced a song. When I finished preaching, the kids came downstairs. All the mothers present sat at the front of the church and watched their children sing. Afterwards, the children gave their mothers jasmine flowers. The kids then joined their mothers and the kids told their moms what they appreciated about them and after that the mothers gave words of encouragement to their children. When it was all said and done, there wasn't many dry eyes in the house. Every year we celebrate mother's at this time and think it is fast becoming one of people's favorite Sundays, especially the moms.

Shoe Letdown

At the beginning of the new year, a new family started attending our church. They have a couple teenage boys who like to play basketball and so I started playing basketball again, even though it had been a few years since I played. Because I hadn't played in a few years, I didn't really have any basketball shoes to use and so one of my goals when I went back to North America was to find a cool pair of shoes to play basketball, a pair that no one else in Thailand had.

When we were in Indiana, Nike just released a new pair of Lebron's and so I purchased them. Last night I played basketball for the first time and was excited to show off my new shoes. The guys from the church thought that they were pretty cool. When I made it to the gym, the first Thai person I met had the exact same shoes as me, just in a different color. So much for my flashy shoes. I guess I have to rely on my skills to set me apart, not just my shoes! ;)

Belated Bday Surprise

This past Saturday was my birthday. On Sunday at church when I got to the pulpit to preach, one of the worship team members started to speak. He announced that it had been my birthday and then the worship team sang a song of blessing for me. People in the congregation gathered around me and after the song was finished, three people prayed for me. When the prayer was finished, one of our youth brought out a birthday cake with 6 candles on it, not because I was six, but because I was 33 and 3+3=6. It was a great surprise and I really appreciated it. The only problem was that when it was over, it was hard to regather my thoughts to preach. Thanks to everyone who made my Sunday morning special!

No Title Needed

As we left Canada, I promised myself that I'd keep people in North America more informed of what is going on with us here in Thailand and use our blog to post some pictures too (although facebook is much more convenient for that).
We've been back in Thailand for about a week now. Long enough to get over jetlag and get reroutined. Today's blogging goals:
1. Say Hey!
2. Get our background reworked since the old one seems to have disappeared.