i ♥ acrostics

Those of you who know me well are aware of my love for acrostic poems and may have even received an acrostic poem from me in the past. If not, you can look forward to perhaps being given one in the future!

So I decided to make an acrostic to describe the New Life guys to you. There are actually two programs that the guys are in: one is Freedom Christian Center (for guys who have come out of prison) and the other is New Life (for guys who have either come out of drug rehab or off the streets). They all live together with Pastor Ed who is mentoring and discipling them.

This acrostic is about all of the guys but I just entitled it ‘NEW LIFE GUYS’ otherwise it would be way too long. Hope you enjoy learning a bit more about these incredible men of God!

N New in Christ. Their lives have been transformed by Jesus. It’s hard for me to imagine them as ex-convicts because their hearts are so changed – God has done an amazing work in each of their lives.

E Eager to learn. The progress that they have made in learning English has been encouraging to see and I’m so proud of them.

W Warm-hearted. I see incredible gentleness and kindness in these men, especially when they are around the Abba House kids.

L Liberated. They have been set free in Christ!

I Industrious. They work hard around the Abba House yard every day. Sometimes, from up in our room, I hear Sit saying, “Thank you, Jesus!” and Boy singing worship songs as they work.

F Fun. They are such a joy to be around and we have so much fun hanging out with, dancing, and worshipping with them.

E Entertaining. These guys make us laugh! Their antics always bring a smile to our faces!

G Generous. They often buy snacks and for us when people come around selling food. (Sometimes the flavours and textures of the food aren’t what we are used to, but we always appreciate the gesture and it’s fun to try new things! J )

U Unique. In a country that is majority Buddhist, these guys stand out as different because of the decision that they have made to follow Jesus Christ.

Y Yearning for more. Hungry to grow and wanting to truly leave behind all addictions and to resist the temptations of their former way of life.

S Servant-hearted. Their willingness to serve was evident during the time that we spent with them in the village. They loaded and unloaded our luggage, washed dishes, played with kids, sang songs, and performed skits.

Here are some pictures from our worship time together yesterday:

Our team with all the New Life/FCC guys

I’m going to miss spending my afternoons with these amazing guys! We never expected to be working with men during our outreach but God has really given us hearts for them and we have grown to truly love and care about them. God has an incredible plan for each of their lives!

Introducing...my English class!

I have the most amazing students ever...want to meet them?

Sih is 11 years old. This girl is so beautiful and full of grace (and she’s incredibly smart)! Sih showers me and Abbie with hugs and kisses everytime she sees us. Her arms are always wide open and ready for a hug. She loves singing and playing guitar and getting head massages.

Sophia is 8 years old. She has a contagious laugh and loves to play! She's always trying to climb up somebody and get into their arms or get them to give her a piggyback ride. She is very active...but when she gets tired, she's always ready for a cuddle!

Patcha is 11 years old. She is such a tomboy and loves to run and play and bike around the Abba House yard. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how she’s feeling and it has been difficult to get close to her. But Patcha is very smart and good at English and is great at drawing pictures!

Laa is 10 years old and is the only boy at Abba House. He loves his roommate Dave, who is from the U.S. and is living here for a year. Laa is always quick to answer questions in English class (sometimes we even have to tell him not to speak because he tells everybody else the answers!) Once after class, he carried my bag for me back to the room – what a gentleman!

Gift is 9 years old. When I first met her, she was very quiet and it was difficult to get her to engage in English class. She just wrote in her notebook and didn’t want to answer any questions. But within a week, Gift had totally warmed up to us! Now me and Gift love to make silly faces together and have special faces that we make for each other. Last night we discovered that we have the same birthday! AAA! We were SO excited! Birthday buddies!

It has been so fun for me and Abbie to teach and play with these five amazing kids. In class, we love to play games and sing songs and play with animal puppets! Since they've been at school all day, we try to make learning English fun for them. And after English, the fun continues as we chase them around the yard - we have learned lots of Thai games from the kids. Our times with them usually end with lying under the stars and singing together or tickling their backs.

For our last class, we had a little party! We ate some snacks, took lots of pictures and some videos, and played games (hide-and-seek-in-the-dark). Here are a few more pictures of our class together - we like to get a little crazy!

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Joy

“Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5

Joy is beautiful. She is eight years old and is the youngest girl at Abba House. With her darker skin, she looks almost Indian because she is from southern Thailand. Her mischievous eyes reveal her playful, fun-loving personality. She is quick to laugh. She is silly. She is quieter and more shy during English class but she comes alive when we play games. She loves to be tickled…and to tickle (she knows how ticklish I am so she always gets me back J)! She is a cuddler. She loves holding hands. She loves piggyback rides. She loves hugs.

It’s hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn’t want this incredible little girl? She has captured my heart and I’m finding it difficult to comprehend how I’m going to say good-bye to her in just one week. I heard her story this past weekend and wanted to share it with you.

Joy has experienced a lot of rejection in her life. At a young age, her mother brought her to a Buddhist monastery and left her there. It’s much more common for Thai boys to grow up in monasteries and girls rarely live in this environment. Because of this, Joy was frequently picked on and bullied by the boys. She longed to run away and escape their abusive treatment.

Eventually Joy did run away from the monastery. But she had nowhere to go so she lived on the streets. I have no idea how long she lived on the streets but it scares me to think about what she experienced out there and what could have happened to her.

Thankfully, Joy was rescued and brought to Abba House a year ago. She was seven years old at the time. Her hair was infested with lice. They tried everything to get the lice out of her hair but finally had to shave her head to completely get rid of it!

Now Joy has been given the love and care that she needs and is thriving at Abba House. But she still experiences hurt and pain and rejection. Many of the girls receive phone calls each week from their mothers, but Joy’s mother has only called her two or three times during the year that she has been here. Sometimes this makes her sad and she cries because she wonders why her mother never calls her.

Francis (he and his wife Nid are house parents to the girls) told me Joy’s story this weekend on the way to the village. It broke my heart. When we got back from the village this weekend, most of the kids were inside but Joy was playing outside. When I got out of the song tao, I saw her and opened my arms wide. She lit up and immediately came running. She jumped into my arms and I spun her around. She held onto me and neither of us wanted to let go. Now that I know her story, I hold on a little tighter and a little longer. I don’t let go so quickly when she comes and sits on my lap and hugs me.

Joy has experienced a lot of injustice in her life and she is so hungry for love and affection. Even though it’s so hard for me to think about how she’s been hurt and abused by so many people, I see the grace and love of God so clearly as I look at her life. He loved Joy so much that He rescued her and brought her to Abba House. Before she was bullied, but now she is accepted and has lots of friends to play with. Before she was living on the streets, but now she has a home and a bed to sleep in each night. Before she was abandoned by her mother and had no one to care for her, but now she has a family. Before she didn’t know Jesus, but now she knows and loves Him deeply.

Joy isn’t her real name but I chose to use this name because I see such incredible joy in the way that she lives her life. There was a time of sadness and rejection in her life, but now this is a time of joy! She is alive and healthy and loved. And even though I’m leaving Abba House and won’t be here to take care of Joy, I know that God is protecting her, caring for her, and loving her in a far better way than I ever could. He knows what she needs. God loves her so much more than I do. Joy is His precious daughter and He knows her by name. She is in His hands.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name; you are Mine!

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they will not overflow you

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,

Nor will the flame burn you.

For I am the Lord your God.” (Isaiah 43:1-3)

Me and Abba House girls making funny faces!

Weekend in the village

This weekend we went to a village in the mountains of northern Thailand along with the New Life guys (New Life is the name of the program for the guys that come to Abba House). We had an incredible time and were so blessed by the people that we met there!

We left at around 9:30 on Friday morning and it was about a four or five hour drive to the village. It was our leader Jacque’s birthday so we surprised her with a birthday party along the way. We even had cake and candles! The last part of our drive up the mountain was a little bumpy and dusty. But we figured out a way to protect ourselves from the dust by wrapping our faces with scarves and putting on sunglasses!

It was so beautiful up in the mountains - the view was amazing! When we first arrived, we explored a bit and walked through some of the village. We were even invited into someone’s home and had the opportunity to pray for them!

The church where we stayed

During our time in the village, we participated in a few church services (Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning). We did skits, shared testimonies, sang songs, and Marissa shared the message on Saturday night. I really enjoyed the worship times in the church as everyone was jumping and dancing as they praised the Lord! It was so fun and the people were so full of joy!

The pastor of the church, Pastor Ed, and Dave - there was double translation because they speak a different language in this village

On Saturday, we played with kids all day! Around 100 kids gathered at the church and we split them up into four groups so that it was easier to handle. The New Life guys and us rotated the groups so they all got to have fun doing different activities. There was singing, lots of games (‘duck, duck, goose’, relay races, soccer, musical chairs, etc), and face painting! We gathered all the kids together at different times to all sing together and to tell them some Bible stories. I got to be the narrator as my team acted out Noah’s ark, the Christmas story, and the Good Shepherd!

Playing games with kids

While in the village, we stayed with the pastor and his family and they were so welcoming and hospitable to us. They prepared delicious food for us each meal and gave us a great place to stay. It was inspiring to see their hearts to serve those around them and to reach out in their community.

We also had an amazing time hanging out with the New Life guys! God has done such an incredible work in each of their lives. They also performed skits and songs and helped out with the kids – they were totally involved in the ministry right along with us. It was really a missions trip for them and it was cool to see how they came alive in that setting and their love for Jesus shone through in all that they did.

New Life guys doing a skit

Please pray for all the people that came to the church services and the kids that we spent the day with on Saturday. Pray that they will continually be reminded of what they heard and that they will truly know the love of Jesus. Pray also that the New Life guys will continue to grow in their relationships with Jesus. There are a lot of temptations from their former way of living so it’s not an easy thing for them to follow Jesus - pray that they will stand firm in their faith.

P.S. We had to get up early today and go to the immigration office to get a visa extension since we initially only got 60 day visas. We had no problems and got a 30 day extension so we are good to go! Thank you, Jesus!

Fun times with my wonderful team!

Happy New Year!

“From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.” (John 1:16)

This morning I was thinking about how much God has blessed me over the past year and even just in the past week! Another week in Thailand has flown by and we had an amazing time celebrating the new year along with another YWAM team from Australia and the Abba House kids!

Some of the blessings of this week:

1. Sharing the love of Christ with 150 kids

We went to the kids’ school on Thursday morning and had the opportunity to play with about 150 kids and tell them about our Saviour! We sang songs, played games with them, did a Christmas skit, and Ivy shared with them about Jesus. This is pretty incredible since Thailand is only about 1% Christian – pray that these seeds will produce fruit and that these children will be drawn to Jesus.

2. Rich times in God’s word!

On Wednesday, I shared during the Bible study time that we have each day with the guys here. I spent a lot of time preparing and spoke from Ephesians 2:1-10 about who we are in Christ – alive, raised up, and seated with Christ! Through this time of preparation, God has given me an incredible hunger to know Him more through really studying His word so I’ve been digging into the book of Ephesians and it’s been amazing! God’s word is alive!

3. Great internet connection

That sounds lame but it is seriously a blessing! It is helpful in communicating to friends and family, updating my blog, researching ideas for English lessons, studying the Bible, and googling random things that I NEED to know right at that moment! Thank You, Jesus, for internet!

4. Worship!

On New Years Eve, a few of us girls had been talking about how we missed Monday night ministry nights in Hawaii. Ministry night is always an amazing time of worship and focusing in on Jesus – and we always come away from it with increased passion and excitement about how God is moving! God knew how much we needed that so on the same day that we were talking about it, He blessed us with an incredible time of worship. That night, we had a worship service at Abba House and the music time was led by two of the guys from the YWAM Australia team. It was exactly what we needed when we needed it – God is SO good! He knows us and loves us so wonderfully. :)

5. Agape House

Our team and the Australia team headed over to Agape house (a home for kids with HIV/AIDS) today. I spent the morning hanging out with a beautiful little girl named Miley – we had so much fun together with piggyback rides, playing on the swing set and see-saw, a game of ‘duck, duck, goose’, and letting Miley style my hair (it was an interesting look…but I’m not sure that it really suited me).

6. Amazing, fun, crazy team

My team is such a blessing! They are so fun and crazy and we are always laughing at/with each other! We make up random songs and dances and raps together and have quickly been learning and picking up each other’s mannerisms and sayings. “Do you know what I mean?” (Marissa) “Ice-cream?... What?... Who said that?” (Abbie) “Oh mamachkee!” (Gulya)

7. Cuddling with kids

Oh my! Between going to the school and Agape house and being with the kids at Abba house, I’ve had so much good cuddle time this past week! I love running around and playing with all the kids, but I also love just holding their hands or sitting with them in my lap and tickling their backs (or bellies – lots of laughs!).

I am so blessed! God is so good! I am overwhelmed by how He has blessed us in so many ways both physically and spiritually.

Since yesterday, this line from a song has been stuck in my head: "Let us fall more in love with You." This is my prayer for myself in this next year and also for you: that you would fall more deeply and passionately in love with Jesus in 2011. He has blessed us abundantly and is so worthy of our worship and devotion and love!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)

Happy New Year!

Celebrating Christmas in Thailand

We have just finished our first week of ministry at Abba House and I already love it here! Every day is filled with lots of joy and laughter!

On most days, we are with the guys in the afternoon for Bible study, worship, and English lessons. Abbie and I are teaching the beginners class and we have two students – Sit and Lek. It’s great because we can do more one-on-one stuff and really focus in on what their needs are. So far, we’ve been learning ABC’s, counting to 100, some vocabulary, and conversational English (How are you? What is your name? Where are you from? etc). It’s awesome to see them learning and really grasping what we are teaching them. And it can also be pretty funny! Picture this scenario with me for a minute:

Me: How are you?

Lek: My name is Lek.

Me: No…how ARE you? (re-emphasizing the words and saying it slower…)

Lek: I am from Thailand.

Me: OK…repeat after me…I am fine.

Lek: I am fine.

Haha…these are frequent conversations in our class but both of our students are doing SO good at learning English! I’m amazed at their progress already! Sit often shouts out ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ when he gets something right! I love his enthusiasm!

We eat dinner with the kids almost every night and have English lessons with them in the evening. Again, Abbie and I are teaching the beginners and we have 5 students: one boy (Laa) and four girls (Sih, Patcha, Sophia, and Gift). They are ages 8 to 11 and we all have so much fun together! We do lots of songs and games with the kids and they love it! We often end up chasing them around after class because they are very playful and love to run around. They are also very affectionate and like to hold our hands and give us hugs (we like it when they do that too! J).

My first Thai Christmas was incredible! We had an amazing opportunity on Christmas Eve to go and speak at a men’s prison. We were there for about an hour and a half and we each shared part of our testimonies and about what an awesome God we know and love and serve. God is so good and it was great that we got to go there because the doors have closed now for churches to go into that prison – we were the last group that was allowed in to the prison for a while. Pray with us for the 150 men that we had the opportunity to share with about the love and grace of Jesus Christ!

Later on Christmas Eve, we all (guys, kids, and YWAM team) went Christmas caroling from 7pm til almost 1 in the morning! We squeezed in to 2 song tao’s and set off on our adventure! Our team quickly discovered that Christmas caroling here is different from caroling back in Canada and the States. We drove to the first house and all hopped out of the song tao’s. We then snuck up to the house (with lots of ‘SH’ing and whispering) and, once we were all ready, yelled ‘Merry Christmas!’ and started singing loudly and dancing around! After we finished singing a few songs, the lights came on inside the house and they opened the doors to welcome us in for snacks! We drove around to about 10 houses of people from the church and this is pretty much what happened at each house. Thai people are so welcoming and hospitable! I think that we need to start welcoming people into our homes in Canada and feeding them delicious treats when they carol for us!

Loading into the song tao on Christmas Eve (the guy on the left doing the peace sign is Sit and the guy to the right of him with the purple sweater is Lek - they are in my English class)

Caroling and dancing at the first house

Laa (one of my students) eating some soup at the last house where we went caroling

Christmas day was a full day and it was even better than Christmas Eve! Our team met together and enjoyed a little celebration that included stockings and a gift exchange. I got a beautiful purse from Catherine! In the afternoon, we played outdoor games with everyone - there were water balloons and sack races! Our Christmas dinner was a barbeque which was so cool since that’s how my family always celebrates Christmas! Because we lived in Botswana, we had summer Christmases and would have a barbeque (or ‘braai’, as we would say in Botswana) each year on Christmas day. So fun! After dinner, there was a piñata (how random is that? I never expected to see a piñata in Thailand…) and we all laughed as people took turns trying to punch it down! Later, there were Christmas skits, opening presents, and a dance party to end off an amazing Christmas day!

Playing outdoor games on Christmas

Sack race

Watching the games (the girl next to me is Sih, one of my students)

Gift (another one of my students) getting ready to throw some water balloons

Christmas BBQ!

Throwing punches at the piñata

Dance party!

Christmas in Thailand is all about being together to celebrate Jesus’ birth! It was really amazing to see how gentle and loving the guys were with the kids. They were all holding hands and joking around! These guys that used to be in prison have been totally transformed by Jesus! They are some of the most gentle and caring people that I’ve ever met!

It is such a blessing to be at Abba House and I’m looking forward to this next week of ministry! Thank you for your prayers and financial support! Merry Christmas!

We're here!!!

I’m in Thailand! We got here on Wednesday morning at 1:00am and headed over to the Nancy Ross Training Center (YWAM base in Bangkok). After spending two days there, we took an overnight bus to Chiang Mai and arrived at Abba House early on Friday morning.

Abba House is where our team will be living and serving for the next month. David and Joyce Moore are the founders of Abba House. There are about 20 girls that live here – these are girls who were at risk of being trafficked (had been sexually abused, have mothers in the sex trade, or are orphans). There are also 10 men that come here on a regular basis who were in drug rehab or prison before but are now following Jesus.

So what will our team be doing while we are here?

We will be teaching English lessons to both the men and the girls; sharing devotionals, songs, and skits; and leading some worship services. We will also be doing some prison ministry, visiting a home for disabled children, and maybe going to a village for a weekend. All of this ministry started yesterday for our team!

We had this past weekend off to settle in and see some more of Chiang Mai. On Saturday night, we had a neat experience while visiting a night market. I was exploring the market along with two other members of my team; Marissa and Gulya. While walking along and checking out the numerous stalls full of different fun things to look at and buy, we eventually ended up at a Buddhist temple. After going in and looking around the temple, we began talking to a Buddhist monk who was standing outside. His name was Jan and he was from Cambodia. He was very well-educated and had studied and read lots of books. Gulya asked him if he had ever read the Bible before and he replied that he actually had three Bibles (all in different languages). We started asking Jan questions about Buddhism and discussing our faith. We talked about how we place our trust in Jesus, and he told us that his faith was in himself and his good works. We had the opportunity to hear more about what he believed and to also share the truth with Jan about how we need God and we are only made clean and whole through Him, not by our good works. We talked for a long time and Gulya and I prayed for him at the end of our conversation. We encouraged Jan to continue reading the Bible, specifically the book of John, and to pray to Jesus. He seemed to really enjoy our conversation and to be genuinely interested in what we had to say about Jesus and our lives as followers of Christ.

About halfway through our conversation with Jan, Marissa noticed that there was a girl standing nearby who was listening to our discussion so she invited her to join us. The girl asked what we were talking about and Marissa told her that we were sharing our different beliefs (Buddhism and Christianity). She seemed interested so Marissa stepped aside and began having a separate conversation with her. Her name was Chloe and she was from China. Chloe told Marissa that she admires people with different beliefs because she didn’t grow up having faith in any religion. She had gone to church before with two of her friends who were Christians but she was still unsure and had questions about Christianity. Because Marissa grew up in a Catholic family, she was able to share from her experience of also not growing up as a Christian and really wanting to be sure of the truth. Chloe was very interested and open. She was curious about Christianity but seemed to be unsure of where to start in asking questions. Marissa explained the gospel to her and talked about how we serve a living God – we don’t worship idols and statues. God is always with us and the Holy Spirit lives in us. At the end of their conversation, we all prayed for Chloe. We prayed that she would continue to seek the truth and that Jesus would reveal the truth to her.

It was great to have these conversations with both Jan and Chloe and to see their hunger for the truth. Pray with us that both Jan and Chloe will remember our conversations and will truly seek after Jesus. Pray that God will reveal Himself to them and that they will come to know Him. Only He can truly satisfy them!

Our team now has a blog so I probably won't be updating my blog as often. Here is the link: www.pleasebringtherain.blogspot.com.

Merry Christmas!