2009 Thailand Assemblies of God Youth Camp and Visit to Thoeng

Last weekend we visited Thoeng, Thailand.  The reason for our visit was to meet the people of a church that was recently planted in Thoeng.  During the months of March, April, and May, Thoeng will be our new home.  We will be teaching English at some schools in Thoeng and also at the church as an outreach to the community.  Thoeng is about 3 hours North of Chiang Mai and is quite different than Chiang Mai. Their are no Seven Elevens and you do not see many foreigners. It is hard to find someone who speaks English which means we will need to really become serious about learning the Thai language.  Overall, our visit was a success.  While in Thoeng we went with the pastor of the church and the missionary we are assigned to, Mark, to visit the parents of our friend, Doi.  Doi's parents were open to having a pastor come and pray with them.  During the visit, his parents and neice prayed to accept Jesus.  We also prayed for healing for some pain Doi's father was feeling in his joints.  Please keep them in your prayers that they continue to know God more with each day.  On Sunday, we visited the church in Thoeng.  Everyone was very welcoming and we enjoyed meeting the people we will be working with in March, April, and May.

We stopped at this waterfall on our way to Thoeng, Thailand.

A view from our hotel.

Members of the church in Thoeng.

After our trip to Thoeng, we headed to Chiang Rai, Thailand.  On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we went to the 2009 Thailand Assemblies of God Youth Camp.  The theme of the camp was, "In Christ We Are World Shakers."  We were given the job of taking pictures and videos during the camp and creating a slideshow to show the students during camp.  We also helped with an English workshop. We had a lot of fun doing these jobs and seeing the students get excited about God during their time at camp.  Many students grew closer to God and it was so amazing seeing the passion they had for God.  We could see that God has wonderful plans for the lives of these students and they will become world shakers.

The students learned that in Christ we are world shakers!

Each morning, students met in small groups for devotion time.

There were about 140 students who came to the camp.

At the end of the camp the students prayed that the world may hear about and accept Christ.

This week we also finished our second English course.  Many of our students from our first course went home during break so we had the opportunity to work with some new students.  We were really able to build relationships with the students we had and had so much fun teaching during this course.  Julie also had the opportunity to tutor a 14 year old boy during his break from school.  We had so much fun getting to know our students and hope that our relationships with them will continue to grow.  During the past four weeks we have also been starting to focus more on creating a curriculum for the English classes for future English teachers to use. 

Leemer, Korn, Ta, and Rote

We have about 20 students that have signed up to learn English during the next four weeks.  Please be in prayer that we will have many opportunities to build relationships with these students and show God's love to them.  Please also pray that we will have opportunties to share about Christ's love for them.