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| The Thailand gap team are based in Bangkok. They are a team of 10 – Henry, Sarah, Becky, Becky, Hannah, Ruth, Adam, Chris, James and Lloyd. |
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Chris’ perspective on the first couple of weeks of April:
Hua Hin break, Youth barge and Holiday club (28thMarch - 11thApril)
Week 1
On Sunday 27th or 28th we left for Hua Hin. This is a fairly touristy town a few hours south of Bangkok. We stayed there in a Christian guesthouse for 3 days. It was an awesome minibreak. Table tennis table, pool and beach kept all satisfied! :-)
We arrived back from Hua hin on the Wednesday and started ministry again on the Thursday. I was in the half of the team who spent two days (Thursday and Friday) preparing for the Christ Church youth barge. The Barge took place on the 4th and 5th and was basically a weekend spent on a river barge on the chao praya river. There was loads of fun and 4 bible teaching sessions. The team (Ruth, Becky K, Adam and I) arranged the spiritual stuff. I had a great opportunity to run an hours session titled ''what is the best news you have ever heard?". I preached on the cross, which was such a privelage. I also helped run bible studies over the weekend. Awesome. It was one of the best things I have done since being here.
Week 2
Week 2 was slightly different. Two pieces of ministry took place. We had an RCDC session on Thursday afternoon and the kids (3-12) easter holiday club on Friday and Saturday. On Monday I was supposed to have a meeting to arrange a week of bible fun in Suan Phlu slum, but it turned out that had to be cancelled due to memorials taking place for a fire that happened in the slum 5 years ago.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent prepping for the holiday club and RCDC.
RCDC on Thurday was great. We are currently going there on Thursday and Friday every week to run ''English fun under the sun''. We teach them English, with little links to Christian themes. At the moment we are going through a story book. The main point of the book is that we are all special because God made us and he loves us whatever we do. It was hard work, but great fun.
Holiday club was absolutely awesome. 4 of us did talks. We went through 4 sessions over the 2 days on The trial, the cross, the resurrection, and the great commission. I did the resurrection one! Was awesome doing a kids talk!
We also did bible studies with the kids. I was the leader of the 5-6 age group, so found it hard (especially as some of their English was bad), but we did the best we could to teach them the simple truths of the gospel.
The theme of the club was ''detectives'', so we had a great laugh making fools of ourselves on stage. Adam and I formed the 'truth squad' - two first-cenmtury detectives, out to find out the truth about Jesus....So much fun. James played 'Mystery Mark', a first-century chat-show host. He interviewed people like the disciples and people in the crowd at the crucifixtion.
There is so much more I could say about holiday club, but I feel I am typing lots, so will stop now.
We have Songkran festival for the next few days, so that should be a good chance to have a laugh and maybe go see some prisoners.
Please thank God for Holiday club and youth barge! Praise him that he has the power to come back from the dead.
Happy Easter day 09
Moon
April 2009 - Ruth writes:
13th - 15th April is the Buddhist New Year, which Thai people celebrate with water. The festival is called Songkran and everyone getting involved (where you like it or not!!). On Monday we headed to the hub of the water festival. It was so weird sitting in the tuk-tuk that took us to the road as there were so many people on the streets with huge buckets of water. We got absolutely drenched with icy-cold water. By the end of the morning we were all shivering - a first for Bangkok!!
As you might have heard there have been riots in Bangkok for the last couple of days and whilst I have seen some of the protests, we have been staying out of harms way and are all safe. There has been a huge difference to the streets of Bangkok - certain areas you can't get any way near, the usually congested roads nearly deserted and people generally seem to be a lot more cautious about venturing outside.
Older items:
The team have been involved in various things since their arrival in January. After a week of acclimatisation and orientation they helped at a conference. They ran the children’s groups for around 50 kids and young people. Chris was helping with the 10-12s group and writes:
“Our teaching was based on 'Kings and the King of Kings'. We went through kings Saul, David, Solomon, Reheboam, Abijah, Asa and Jehoshaphat, using the books of Kings and Chronicles. We also used Deut 17, Eze 34 and 1 Sam 8 to explain why kings are in the Bible and to set out God's idea of the perfect king. Throughout the week, we gradually found that all the kings had faults, which meant that they weren’t perfect. Of course, we finished with Jesus and how he is Gods perfect king! An awesome week.”
Now in Bangkok the team’s work involves serving at Christ Church Bangkok, helping them out in various ministries. These include helping at an orphanage, being part of the children’s and youth ministry team, prison visiting, running holiday clubs in the slums, doing some English teaching - and lots of other things.
In February, one aspect of the team’s work involved visiting Julia Burkett, doing outreach to students at Phitsanulok. The team were able to help her by running a special Valentine’s Day event, running a stall in the night market and using that as a way of inviting people to come and hear the gospel the following evening. Around 40 came and heard the good news!
The team are currently out of Bangkok at a place called No Boh until the 19th of March, when they’ll be returning to Bangkok again. They are staying at a school where the students are largely from the Karen people group. They are teaching English, doing assemblies, CU's (the school has a mixture of Bhuddist and Christian) running games and getting alongside the students. They’ll be visiting churches and doing much the same on the weekends and then will drive West to another Karen school to help there.
For more news on the Thailand team have a look at their blog: http://www.freewebs.com/thailand09/
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