prayer request

Hello everyone! Tomorrow I'll be going to a retreat for CTS (the seminary school that Pastor Daniel is involved in). The short term missionaries and I will be running the programs for the children, so please pray for us. Also, please pray for the staff of CTS and the students and their families that will be attending the retreat. The theme is Spirit filled servants, so please pray that God spirit will be with us and refresh the few faithful Christians in Chiang Mai.

Lots of love :)

- Grace

phone number with country code

hello the country code is 53 (082-036-3431)

actually i think its 66 (802-036-3431)

Night safari and festival

Hello Everyone :)

So praise God and thanks for all you're prayers about the Night Safari (day time) trip. The turn out was a lot more than expected, 46 kids, and it was seriously a blast. We had three stations: bible station, bible memory verse, and song station. It was great because we got to teach them John 3:16 (thanks Pauline for the song) in Thai. What's more is that the kids from the Temple got to learn about the bible and Adam and Eve :). After our activities, it started to rain, but we prayed and it went away :). The Night (day) Safari was cool because we got to see the animals really close, as opposed to America zoo's where you sometimes can't find the animals. But, these animals only get a tiny plot of land, and I heard that a lot of the animals are dying off because of unsuitable habitats :(. It's so sad...

Oh and on Friday I cooked at Ban Noy school for the teacher, but I BURNT the soup. How do you do that you say? well let me tell you. First, you should have no clue how to work the stove. The pot/kettle was made out of thin metal, and I didn't know how to control the fire. The stove was, well nothing like in the states, so I didn't know the soup was burning. And God bless Thai people, cuz they ate it all. Well, it was eatable but not as good as it should have been. I was pretty sad/embarrassed, but the situation was really funny, so I couldn't help but laugh at myself and half sorrowfully/happily watch the teachers eat the soup.

Tuesday:

I got to go to the Sankampaeng hot springs with the students from Kantanusoon!

I wasn't allowed to swim with the kids, so I was on life guard duty :)

cutie cuties

Saturday:

God gave me an opportunity to go to a Buddhist festival to watch my students play music for donations. I watched them play their stringed instrument, along with their wooden flutes and drums. Basically, I picked up the children at 8am and watched them play until 2pm. They were so cute and they did so well :) I felt so bad that they weren't allowed a proper break so I bought them some squid sticks (fyi: children in Thailand love squid sticks, they're magic). Oh and I met James and Boy there too! (the monks from Temple I teach).

The festival is normally held once every 5 or 10 years for each temple, so I was lucky to have gone. Basically the Thai people bring money and materials to the temple to give to the monks. Since the monks cannot buy their own materials, the Thai people buy it for them. Also, there is a time to give rice to the poor, which would earn the Thai people great merit.

A man preforming a ritual to the spirit of the heavens for the rain to stop.

Thai people giving rice to the poor, in which they believe they will receive great merit.

Gifts that were given to the monks. Some had simple toiletries hanging on them.

My main purpose for being there was just to pray. As I walked around the temple, and looked at all the people that were faithfully serving their lost ways, God placed an indescribable sadness into my heart. There were so many people, so many, and all were lost.

My memory verse the day before was

Psalms 135 v14-18

"The Lord will vindicate His people, and have compassion on his servants. The idols of the nations are sliver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see, ears but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do who trusts in them!"

What does that mean then? That would mean that everyone there were like the idols, having ears, but not truly being able to hear. This implies that they are like dead spirits, walking toward the wrong path without knowing it. Then I kept thinking what do we do as Christians? what do we do?

I prayed, but not enough. I prayed for the people to be relieved from the clutches of Satan. I prayed for special protection over my students, who were consistently surrounded by false hope, to be delivered from evil.

So to the question, what to do? I don't know. As a Christian, there is nothing I can do but pray, for it is only God who changes the hearts of man. But one thing we can do. As Paul states, how will people know about Christ if they do not hear? And how would they hear if no one is sent.

Here in Thailand, I have the opportunity to talk to people who don't know God. But, that isn't much different from America. We have tons of opportunities, tons, and I don't think that we actually look with our spiritual eyes at the amount of people that are truly lost.

The teachers at Ban noy told me they believed in the river goddess(spirit), the tree spirit, and many other spirits. So, they basically trust in the created. All i could think of is that song "lead me to the cross," cuz that's what we are meant to do. Be vessels to lead people to the Cross.

Recently, a friend asked why I thought God brought me to Thailand. To be honest, I know that God has not sent me here to learn how to struggle and gain patience and all that. I felt from beginning of the trip, God asking me "do you love me?"

like Jesus asking Peter "do you love me?"

and our obvious answer is yes, but I can't seem to really do what He then asks me (Peter) to do

"then feed my lambs"

"tend my sheep"

"feed my sheep"

"follow me..."

Today, I went to Ahjan Yawalak's house and brought her Korean curry. I thought, yah I'll be the light, but when i was there I was at times distracted by the TV, and felt like I didn't say all the things I should have said. After dinner, she told me that I was a sweet and kind girl. ... And I felt compelled to say"no its not me, its because of Christ" but I didn't. Was it the spirit telling me to tell her? I have no idea. But, I knew the truth inside me heart and I failed to say it. When I leave Thailand and all the teachers and the children can say is "grace was a kind girl," then all I have done here was in vain. If I don't show Christ, ... I think that's my biggest fear, a fear that could only be overcome through prayer.

The thing is, I have told her about Christ, and how Jesus has changed my life. I can tell people all I want about Christ, but in the end it is God that brings about change. I realized the only thing I can do is pray.

So,

Please pray for me. My requests:

1) to pray

2) to have compassion on God's people, real compassion, real love.

3) to be able to love Christ, enough to tend his sheep, to feed his lambs, to follow him.

Not to us, O Lord , not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Palms 115:1