Christmas Day Outreach

In the evening on Christmas Day, we had held an outreach at our church building. It was a lot of fun. One of the highlights of the evening was the way everyone in our church participated. This Christmas was a lot less stressful than some of the previous outreaches because every really stepped up and Tawm and I didn't have to do much planning. The little kids sang a Christmas carol and a couple recited Scripture. The older kids/teenagers did a skit based on the Christmas Carol story and then the adults sang a couple specials. I had the opportunity to share afterwards. As always, one of the highlights of the evening was the huge buffet of amazing foods. We had about 50 people attend but we must have had enough food to feed another 50. Pray for those who came to the outreach that don't know Christ. We had a number of people.

As you can see from the pic, Owen really enjoyed the night too.

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.

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!

Early Easter

This past Sunday we celebrated Easter. April 13-15, is the water festival in Thailand. It is also the biggest holiday in Thailand and most people go home to spend time with relatives. Many of our members will be away on Easter Sunday and so we decided to have Easter services a week early so everyone could have a part.

Easter is one of our church's favorite Sundays as we always have special activities.
This year we went to a waterfall south of town. We had over 70 people in attendance, about 10 first time guests and a large number of second time guests too. I was very pleased. We packed into several vehicles in order to travel to the waterfall. We had worship services there. Afterwards we played games, had a huge picnic and of course played in the water. It was a great time and I'm already looking forward to Easter next year!

Worship services in the park

Water fight time!
 
Worn out after a long day.

Returning to an Old Role

Four or five years ago, Tawm and I led the worship when we first started Antioch Baptist Church. Tawm sang, I played guitar. But not long after, Tim, (now our church secretary) played. Tim is now expecting her first child and is struggling with some pretty bad morning sickness. As a result, I've had to play guitar for worship a couple times so far and will continue to play for the next little while.
The first time I played, I didn't know until the day before Sunday. Normally, this isn't a big deal but I hadn't played the guitar in a looooooonnnngg time and so by the end of worship, my fingers were killing me and my strumming finger was bleeding. [Just taking one for the team :)]
I enjoy helping with worship, but I like being in the audience better because when I'm playing, I have to think about what I'm playing that I can't sing in Thai and as a result, I don't feel like I really get an opportunity to worship God. It also makes for a long Sunday morning as I teach Sunday School, help with worship and then preach. But I'm glad that I can serve God in this way.
I'm excited that our church is going to have a couple kids younger than Owen in the near future, but am looking forward to when someone can take the role of guitar player away from me.

In with the New Year

This past Sunday we had a pretty good sized crowd at church but were missing some of our regulars. Since it was 5 day long weekend, many people took the opportunity to travel or visit relatives. I preached on our heavenly citizenship and challenged the people to focus on heaven and the Creator of heaven rather than the things of this earth.

Although I've been preaching in Thai for a couple years now, I still make some pretty silly mistakes. This past Sunday I was really nervous as I began my sermon. I tried a new way of preparing my sermon and I think that created the nerves. Anyways I began with an illustration about a man riding a horse all day long. In Thai, horse is maa with a high tone. However I said maa with a rising tone and instead of saying he rode a horse all day long, I said he rode a dog all day long. As soon as the word came out of my mouth I knew I had said it wrong and corrected myself. Everyone had a good chuckle.

At the end of the month we will be having a conference here in Chiang Mai. Many different missionaries and pastors from our work will be here. The weekend before the conference, Lynn Rayburn will be teaching our church about Faith Promise. The weekend after the seminar, Larry Fincher will be giving a parenting workshop. Excited about both seminars and that these men have agreed to do them. It is not too often that I get to sit and listen to someone else preach.

More Christmas Festivities

(kids in their costumes)

Since Christmas isn't a holiday here in Thailand, it is difficult to do things on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day because everyone works. So we celebrated Christmas at our church on the 28th instead. We gathered for worship in the morning and after church we loaded up and headed out to Jom Tong to have a special Christmas outreach. For me, the greatest part of the day was that 42 people from Antioch travelled in 5 trucks in order to participate in the outreach. Like always we played games, the children from Antioch had a special Christmas performance and afterwards I was able to talk for a few minutes about Christmas. The past 2 Sundays, we have had about 80 kids come to our English club. Last Sunday there were a number of adults too.

I am so thankful for Tawm who worked especially hard before the outreach preparing costumes. Tawm and 3 women from church spent a number of long days sewing the costumes (Tawm didn't even know how to sew but learned in order to make the costumes). The costumes looked great, the kids did a great job of acting too. Everyone from Antioch and the people that came really enjoyed their time. We also handed out a lot of tracts and pray that our Christmas outreach will begin to bear fruit that way too.

(our church gang and others)

Christmas Serenading

This year Tawm got some of the kids from Antioch Baptist Church together in order to do some Christmas Caroling or as they call it here in Thailand, Christmas Serenading. Tawm, a few adults and about 15 kids loaded into 2 vehicles and drove to different church member's houses to do some caroling. At each house, the hosts had different foods prepared for the kids, including a main meal at one house, to snacks and fruit at other houses. I stayed home to look after Owen. Caroling started about 7 o'clock but Tawm didn't get home until after midnight! I think everyone really enjoyed it.

New Work in Jom Tong

Over the past several weeks, we've been doing evangelism in Jom Tong or having special prayer meetings on Sunday afternoons for the city of Jom Tong. This past Sunday, we started a children's club at one of the schools there. The school has given us permission to use their facility free of charge and the school's English teacher has been promoting the club to other schools in the area. This Thursday, I will go out to Jom Tong to teach English in the school and promote the children's club.

We've been eagerly anticipating the new work in Jom Tong but had no idea what to expect. We were excited to see over 40 kids from grade 3-9 show up. The teacher told us that she was unable to promote it at all the schools that she wanted to and this week she will promote it some more. We had kids from about 5 different schools in Jom Tong.

On December 28th, many of the people of Antioch Baptist Church will be journeying out there to do a special Christmas program. We will encourage the kids to bring their parents and we will present the gospel that day. I've included some pics of the day of Jom Tong and a pic of Owen too.

 

 

 

 

-> Exciting Times Ahead ->

Things are going to get extremely busy around here, but we are really excited. For the past while, we've been praying about starting a new ministry in a new location (not that the one where we currently are isn't keeping us busy).

A few months ago when the basketball team was here, God opened doors for us to go to Jom Tong (a city about 1 hour from Chiang Mai) to teach English in 3 different schools. Since then we haven't done any ministry there, but our church and us have been praying for an opportunity to start a work there for the past few months.

This coming Sunday, God has opened a door for us to go there and share the gospel. The thing that has me really excited is that over half our church here in Chiang Mai (including a number of kids) will be heading to Jom Tong with us after services to do evangelism there and I pray that this will be the first big step in establishing a new ministry there.

My hope is that this isn't a stepping stone for a ministry in Jom Tong but that it will be a life changing experience for the members of Antioch as well.

Another Big Step Taken!

Earlier this year, Antioch sent Samson, a former student at our village Bible school to Sukothai, another province located about 5 hours away from Chiang Mai. Samson had a burden to go there and plant a church. He decided to go to a village that didn't have any Christians and begin laboring there. Unlike many hilltribe villages, this village is Buddhist but like most Thais, they mix some Animism with Buddhism.

When Samson went there, he told me that the people were nice but not real friendly, but Samson continued laboring there, helping them with their crops and planting Spiritual seeds too. This past week, one villager came to Samson and asked Samson to pray for him. Samson explained the gospel to him and the man accepted Christ. Samson said he didn't think this man would become a Christian, let alone be the first convert there because he had amulets around his neck and waist protecting him from evil spirits but after he turned to Christ, he removed all the amulets and burned them as a sign that he was turning his back to his old lifestyle.

This is so exciting because my primary goal here in Thailand is to see churches plant churches. Antioch Baptist Church sending out missionaries was step one in seeing this happen. Now we are seeing fruit from the missionary's labor. So Cool!

Unique Opportunity

During my blogging hiatus, I had the opportunity to do something that I've never done in Thailand before. I had the opportunity to preach at a house warming party. Normally when Thai people buy a house, the have monks come and bless the house however relatives of one of our church members bought a house here in town and asked if I could come and preach. I'd been to a house warming party before but never a Christian one, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Tawm and a couple people from our worship team led the people in singing and then I had the opportunity to speak. It went well and I preached from the verse in Joshua that says "as for me and my house we will serve the Lord."

The next day was Sunday and a number of people from this family came to church. As a result, Antioch had its biggest attendance to date: 54 people

I'm Still Here

I know its been awhile since I last posted. It's been busy around but part of the reason for not posting has been laziness.

Tawm and I are doing good. Owen is now 8 months old (I will post some pics soon). He is crawling, standing, going up stairs and has two teeth now. He is still a very good boy and the center of attention whereever he goes [reminds me a little of me :)]

The work is going good. We have had really good attendance the last month or so and have been really pushing for a stronger commitment from our members. We are busy praying that God would lead us to a new building. The rent of the one we are in will be going up next year and so we looking into different options. Bible School is going good too.

Well, I will post some more later, just wanting to let you know that we're still here.
Thanks to all those who check our blog.

Why are you guys different??

At the beginning of the month, we had a team come from America. The first weekend they were here, we had an English Camp outside Chiang Mai and we invited every person who has ever applied to study English at our foundation. In total about 20 students came and it was the highlight of the trip for me. After the weekend, a couple students decided to help on the next portion of the trip, even though they were Buddhist. One of those people was Tong, a young man about 30 years old. After helping us at the basketball camp, he talked to Tawm and said that he was interested in knowing more about Christianity. As a Buddhist, he lacked purpose in life and he noticed something different in our lives.
Since the team left, he has been to church every Sunday, he attended seminary classes a couple times and he is even inviting his friends to come to church and he doesn't understand why they don't want to come. Tong hasn't made a commitment to Christ yet (that we know of) but please pray for him that he would come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Last week we had an opportunity to hang out together for 5-6 hours and plan to hang out again this week.

Another Weird Sunday

I'm not sure what's been happening the last 2 Sundays (you can read about what happened last Sunday in the previous post). A few days before Sunday, Owen, Tawm and I were all feeling pretty crummy. On Friday evening, I started to lose my voice and on Saturday it was pretty much gone. I emailed Rusty (since I couldn't really talk) to preach for me and Tawm would translate. Even though it was really short notice, he agreed to do it. When Sunday morning arrived, my voice was coming back some but Tawm's was pretty much gone. Tawm tried to find a translator but its hard to find a translator for Sunday services when it is Sunday morning. In the end we got Kaimook, the daughter of one of our members who studies at an international school to translate. She has done it a few times for Rusty at cell group, but this was her first time in front of a bigger group of people. Although she struggled at times, she did a good job. We're just glad that we are feeling under the weather before the team comes, not when they arrive!

Some Daddy Firsts

Over the past week, I've had some new experiences as a dad. Last week Owen got sick for the first time. He had an eye and ear infection but after we saw the doctor and got some medicine, Owen was better the next day. Owen sure didn't like the feeling of being sick, he was not the normal, happy Owen at all. After Owen got better, both mommy and daddy got sick. I've always heard of that happening, but this is my first experience.

The other first happened Sunday morning at church. During worship, I was holding Owen as Tawm was working the powerpoint. As I was holding him, there was a rumbling in Owen's diaper and I knew he had just done his deed. Mimi, one of the girls at church, just happened to be watching us at the time when her jaw dropped and she pointed at me. Owen's diaper didn't catch all the poop. It had started running down his leg, on to me and on to the floor. All this happened during the second to last song before I had to preach. Well, I got us both cleaned up just as they were praying before the sermon. Usually when that prayer is finished, I am standing at the front ready to preach. Last Sunday I wasn't and everyone started looking for me. That's when they discovered the poopy incident. Needless to say, we had a few minutes between prayer and preaching and when I started to preach, I was pretty flustered and as a result my introduction didn't go too smoothly. Oh well, it will be a Sunday that I never forget.

Changing Preaching Style.

The last two Sundays I have changed the way I preach in church. For the past year and a half, I have typed out my sermon in English, translated as much as i could. Then Tawm editted it or helped me to finish translating the sermon. Then Saturdays were spent memorizing the sermon. With all the translating and memorizing, it really cut down on time I had in really preparing the sermon. On top of that, I could only memorize so much and as a result, my sermons were pretty short. On Sundays when I preached, I was pretty rigid and I couldn't really go off on tangents because I didn't want to lose my place in the sermon.

However, I came to the point now where I figure my Thai is good enough to begin preaching. My Thai still needs lots of improvement, but I could be here 20 years and say the same. As a result, I decided to try to preach for real. I now go into the pulpit with my introduction typed out in Thai, just so I get off on the right foot and after that, my skeleton outline is in English and i preach from that. The past 2 Sundays have gone well, there is still lots of room for improvement. My sermons have now doubled in time (don't know if that is good or bad). The biggest plus is that I am now excited about preaching again and I feel my sermons have more life and passion too. A couple people have told me that they like it when I preach this new way better which has been an encouragement to me.

Gettin' Excited

Earlier this week, Robert Wallace returned to the States. Tomorrow, Joe Morrell and Ed Brown are coming to Thailand. The main reason that they will be here is to give us a seminar in how to start a Bible School. Since I am currently overseeing two of them, this will be very beneficial. The guys from Udon will also be joining us for the seminar.

On top of that, they will be the speakers at Antioch's revival services and Joe Morrell will be accompanying me to Kinetchu, a village about 5 hours away, to visit a church that Nicky Barnett helped start. Haven't been there in over a year so I am looking forward to their visit.

Standing Room Only

Today, one of my dreams and I think the dream of every missionary or pastor happened at church today. When all the kids came down for morning worship (the kids have Sunday school during adult Sunday school and during the preaching part of our services), we didn't have enough seats for everyone to sit down on. As a result, some of our young adults had to stand in the back. Counting everyone, we had 46 people in attendance which is a new record (outside our special Christmas outreach) during the song service, we had 46 people present. I thank God for that and for answered prayer. One of my New Year's resolutions was to make a more concerted effort to pray for the growth of our church. We had 13 first-time visitors today. One of the weaknesses of our church is that people don't really invite their friends. Today we had 5 of our regular attenders bring a friend, more than any other Sunday that I can remember.

Hello New Year!!

Instead of saying Happy New Year, Thai people say Hello New Year. As I reflect on the year the was, have been really seen God working in our lives and in the lives of those we minister to here in Thailand. We rejoice over those who were saved and those who were baptized over the past year but like I told our church last Sunday, I believe that God wants to do even greater things in us and through us in the year to come.

With the start of the New Year, I have decided to make some New Year's resolutions, something I have never really done before. I am also planning on making a change to the way I've been preaching. Over the past year, I have been preaching through the book of Matthew and doing a couple of short series here and there. This year I am going to try to do more topical series. I haven't really preached this way before so it is going to be a challenge. We are starting the year off with a series of sermons called "Doing it for Each Other". Last week we talked about loving one another, this week we will be talking about encouraging one another. Other topics in the series are serving one another and praying for one another. Although I don't have a computer person to make some cool logos like some of my friends in the states, I pray that this new series will make our church stronger.