January Update

January was an amazing month. This has been the most fruitful time here in Thailand. We continue to teach English at TLC and volunteer at the coffee shop. Scott is becoming quite the barista, but he prefers the term "baristo." We had our first Quest outreach in January as well. We made a trip to our friend's hill tribe village. We also had our first visitors, Julie's parents. God is answering prayers in amazing ways. It is a very exciting time here in Thailand.

English classes continue to go well. We still have around 30 students, which is a perfect number. We don't even have to advertise to gain students. We had many new students, who we are getting to know well. During this past English course, we invited our students to join TLC church's outreach to a nearby children's home called Hope House, during Thailand's Children's Day. We were very happy to have seven students that are not members of TLC church came along. The students organized a game to play with the students as well as brought treats for the children. TLC church planned games as well as songs, a skit, and prayer time with the children. We also gave the students gifts of school and art supplies that TLC church and English center had collected. The seven students that went told us they definitely want to go back and loved spending time with the children. The children also enjoyed the time and many hugs and sad good-byes were given when we had to leave.

In addition to the children's home outreach, we also invited our students to our first Quest outreach event. We created Quest as a time for students to come who want to learn more about God and Christianity. We also wanted to encourage students who had questions about God and Christianity to come as well. We first got the idea about hearing about how an AGWM English ministry in Bangkok had started what they call "seeker camps" and shared about it's success at a Fellowship meeting we had a couple months ago. We felt it would be a good event for us to try as well with the goal of having them with every English course. We also invited members of TLC church to come to become a part of the event as well to begin building relationships with the students as well as share their own testimonies. At our Quest outreach we had two of our students come, Nok and Iew. At first, we were discouraged by the low number of responses, but God had a plan in motion. Nok and Iew ended up having to come late because Iew's bus arrived late back into Chiang Mai after she went home for the weekend. Because they were our only two students, we were able to start the event an hour later than we had scheduled. Horm, a friend of Dee, a memeber of TLC church, came was well. It was well worth the wait! We all had fun playing games we had organized with a "quest" or "searching" theme, singing worship songs, and hearing King, the pastor of TLC church, share about Christianity. After King shared, his wife, Apple, asked the girls their thoughts. Nok and Iew shared that they had gone to a Catholic school when they were young and had heard about Christianity, but didn't know how to begin a relationship with Christ. They came to Quest seeking a relationship with Jesus and prayed to accept Jesus as their savior! The girls left excited and thankful for the Quest outreach. We left so thankful for how God hears and answers prayers! The next Sunday, Nok and Iew came to TLC church and Julie and Lauren met with them later that afternoon for discipleship time. Nok and Iew have begun their journey in knowing God. Sadly, already, they have had to learn quickly to lean on Him and trust God during tough times. Two weeks ago, Nok and Iew had a very bad week. A tree branch feel through the windshield of Nok's car during a storm, Iew returned home to be with her dad who was in the hospital with a broken leg, and Nok and Iew's friend died in a car accident. Through it all they have learned the comfort that God can provide through prayer and are continuing to trust God. Please keep them in the prayers to continue to persevere through this tough time.

The same Sunday God answered prayers for Quest, God also answered a prayer for our friend, Leemar. Leemar is a good friend of ours at TLC. His father has diabetes and he became very sick. He lost his sight, had seizures, had both of his kidneys fail, and he couldn't move. Our friend said he was rotting from the inside out. Leemar's family took the father to the doctor and the doctor said he was dying and there was nothing he could do. The family took him back home and waited. The father could not do anything for himself, his sons had to do everything for him. Leemar wanted his father to meet his friends from church before he died. Leemar invited the church to come and pray for his father. We all went to his village and prayed with his family and played some songs for his father. It was very hard to see our friend watch his father die. The next day the church received a call from Leemar. Leemar said that his father woke up the next morning completely healed. He could see, walk, and talk! The family was so happy. Leemar's father and mother went to church to get baptized that same day. It is an amazing story. We had never seen anything like it. God still works miracles.

Julie's parents visited this month. It was great to see them again. They enjoyed seeing the ministries here in Thailand. It was also nice to be able to do some of the tourist activities that we haven't done here yet. We saw some beautiful waterfalls. We caught some large MeeKong catfish.