I’ve appreciated all your emails concerning Thailand being under Marshall Law. We are all totally fine and haven’t had any problems. We found out what was going on while we were on our yarp retreat in Koh Chang. Luckily we didn’t have to drive through Bangkok on our way home so we avoided any possible conflict!
The Kui team (Naomi, me, and our supervisors family) took a four day yarp retreat to an island called Koh Chang. It was an amazing and well needed time! Every morning and evening we worshipped together and yarped for each other and the Kui people. It was a great time personally for me to get away alone and spend some good time with God. In addition, the island was absolutely beautiful! We got to go kayaking and Naomi and I rented a motorcycle (it only cost $3.00) for a day! Yes, I actually drove it (on a back road of course) but it was a ton of fun!
Village wise, spending more time with our Thai friends has been a huge blessing. I got to spend some time with Pi Anne, our hair stylist friend at her hair shop. Instead of her doing my hair, I ended up washing and straightening hers! I had no idea what I was doing, and she later told my supervisor that I’m not good at washing hair. However, I did straighten her hair and she said I did a really good job! I’ve had a blast spending time with her. While our supervisors were gone in Bangkok (this was before the coup deal) us girls had a "girls night" and invited Pi Anne to join us. We had a blast doing facials and scrubs and all that other girly kind of stuff. We all had a blast!
Most of our witnessing opportunities in the village are with the children. Last week, we were making dinner under our house and some of the kids came over to chim "taste" our farong (foreigner) food. Yat (age 10) started getting this distressed look on her face and kept saying that she heard a pii "spirit" calling Woot’s (her brother) name. Woot was there with us and looked around and didn’t find anything. Yat confessed that she has seen a spirit before, and that it didn’t have a human face and had no legs. Then little Ayo talked about how her mother had a spirit in her and it caused her to hit Ayo’s aunt. We pulled out our Book to show them a scripture about evil spirits but we couldn’t find it. Yat took Naomi’s Book and opened it right to the story in Matthew chapter 9 that talks about J healing the man with the two demons. As we had told the girls, Prat Jao (the Father) has complete control over all spirits and He can help us when spirits are scaring us. This was an amazing, Father sent opportunity to talk about Him. Praise the Father!
As for our little ones, they continue to keep coming over. Our girls are starting to bring their brothers and cousins over, so it’s always a big party at our house. They come before school, after school, and stay until we make them gee dung (Kui language for "go home). We continue to grow closer to them, our 3 girls (Loy, Ayo, Yat) especially. Sadly, Loy and Yat’s parents aren’t allowing them to come to house church on Saturday nights anymore. The parents haven’t told the girls why. These girls love coming to house church to learn Book stories and to sing praise songs. Out of all our little ones, these two have taken the most interest in learning about Prat Jao (the Father) so it’s a very sad affair that they’re not able to come. However, every time the girls come over they try to read the Thai Book. Today while all the kids were watching a movie, Yat asked me to find verses for her to read. It is very encouraging! Please pray that Loy and Yat will continue to seek God by reading His Word!
Please pray for Naomi and me as we begin some of our major assignments of our semester abroad. We hope our time interviewing Kui people for our Ethnography study and doing Book study with some of our Thai friends will be very enjoyable!
Miss you all!
jenn
P.S. PICS of Koh Chang and the Village kids are on pages 2 & 3 on this website:
http://sbuniv.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006520&id=177500365&l=3f901
Old Updates can be viewed at:
http://www.sbuniv.edu/ICS/Journals/Summer06/jennifer/index.html
P.S. Yarp Requests:
Hey Yarping Friends,
It’s been awhile since I’ve sent any personal prayer requests, so sorry about that! I already mentioned these things in my email, but here’s a list of things that are on my heart!
1. Loy and Yat- these are the two girls that aren’t allowed to go to house church anymore. They have showed the most interest in the Father and try to read the Book when they come over. Please yarp that they would keep searching for the Father and that they would encourage their friends to learn about the Father also.
2. Assignments- Naomi and I have a lot of "official" school work to do. For our Ethnography class, we are to create a strategy for reaching the Kui people in Thailand. We already know a lot about the Kui people but we need to start doing personal interviews. Chris, our m's son, speaks Kui and we are depending on him to translate for us. Please pray that this would go well and that our research would be a great aid to m’s that come to witness to the Kui in the future!
We also have a Book study that we’ll be doing with some friends at the church in Kun Han. What we mainly have to do is observe the Thais' reaction to the passages that they read. As Americans, what comes to our minds first when we read Book passages is in light of our surrounding culture. Same with Thais, and their culture is different from ours. Please yarp that we get some good observations and that our English speaking Thai friends would be able to translate well for us!
3. Naomi and I – we need continued yarps! Probably one of the best and hardest parts of this trip has been being with my teammate 24-7. God has used our relationship to edify both of us and show us where we need change. Please yarp for us that we would be of one mind so that we can work together to glorify the Father (Romans 15:5-7). I have discovered that I have a very hard time forgiving people and hold grudges pretty easily. Please yarp for me in this area!
I miss all of you tons, and please send yarp requests if you have any!
Love you all!
jenn