Joy Camp and Arrival in Bangkok.

Hey guys!

Sorry we haven't updated in a few days. We just finished up the Youth Camp and I'm happy to say that we survived! A bit tired, but still okay. :) Thank you for your prayers and thoughts.

The camp turned out well. The numbers were a bit lower than usual--we were expecting 100 or more but only got about 30 students. The lower numbers, however, allowed us to get to know most of the students. We got to know the kids from the Manorom Youth House pretty well, as well as the Nahkon sawan, Phitsanulok, and Lopburi Youth House kids. (I realized that I never really explained what a youth house was; They are basically small Christian youth centers for the youth of the surrounding areas to go and play games, do bible studies, pray, and fellowship with other Christians, as well as bring in non-Christians.) The camp was an evangelical camp, so the students had messages on John 3:16, John 8, John 10, and John 3:1-18, but they also had games and activities time.

We were blessed to be able to lead 2 skits, 3 workshops and 1 booth at a small carnival we did. Our one skit was on Jesus removing our burdens and the other was about finding the only perfect friend.

One thing they really pushed was the idea that no one is perfect, which is why we need Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for all our sins and imperfections.

The biggest highlight was getting to meet so many Thai youths and getting to form relationships with them. We got some of their emails so hopefully we can stay in touch with them and be there for them if they decide to accept Christ and if they have any questions. Praise the Lord for just giving us Joy Camp as an opportunity to outreach to these students. Also a great thanksgiving was that God allowed the team to be able to befriend and “talk” with many of the students, even though our team doesn’t speak much, if any, Thai, and the students speaking little to no English. A lot of signing and use of bilingual staff got us through to them.

The students were extremely sweet and joyful! I’m really going to miss them.

So now we’re in Bangkok (After a 2.30 hour drive from Manorom) and we’re staying at the OMF Missions headquarters in Thailand. We FINALLY have air conditioning in our rooms! J

We met the national team today and tomorrow we will begin preparations for the Missions Conference we will be serving at starting on Wednesday. The missions conference is where all the missionaries from Thailand will be going to a nice resort (! J) to have a retreat and some rejuvenation and fellowship time. We, the short-termers get the opportunity to encourage them by taking care of their children, as they go about their retreat messages and what not.

Sorry about a long post. A lot has happened and this can’t even begin to describe the amazing, blessed time we had this weekend.

Prayer Requests:

1. Preparation of the hearts of those that will be serving at the Missions Conference; That we will have servant hearts, allowing God to use us how He may.
2. Being a good influence to the townspeople around the Missions House as the short-termers go explore Bangkok tomorrow; that we may be lights in this city.
3. Safety for those going around Bangkok tomorrow.
4. Safety of travel when we, as well as the missionaries, go to the resort.

Day 2: Camp Prep and Youth House

Not really an eventful day, but still quite tiring.

Today we prepped for the camp that is starting tomorrow!!!!!! oh my goodness. nerves.

We prepared skits and a booth we are making for a carnival like thing.

Later in the day we went to the Youth House again. We still weren't really able to talk to them but we managed to play a few games with the students. Hopefully this is helping to build up a relationship that we can further build at the camp.

Fun tidbit for the day.

Yesterday Ed had bought a green drink from the vendor next to the Youth House. Today, we got two. We were addicted. Later on when Johnny went to the convenience store next to the Youth House we decided to look for said green drink with high hopes it would come in a bigger container. We found it :D A 1.2ish Liter bottle of green drink!!!!!! :D success! This drink is actually green creme soda (if anyone's had it at Japanese restaurants) and tastes like marble soda. In Thai it's called "green water"--namkiel or something like that. lol. Namkeil is currently chilling in our fridge waiting to be enjoyed tomorrow in the midst of crazy preparation.

Prayer Requests:

1. Camp starts tomorrow: so, everyone is in a frenzy and nervous.

2. Language barrier still.

3. Pray for the two skits we have to do, that they will make a strong impact.

4. Buggers everywhere. big ones little ones. scary ones. D: and mosquitos. ew.

5. Workshops. We have to prepare three workshops between the four of us. Two cookery ones and one english one. Pray that we will be ready and prepared to cultivate meaningful conversations among the students and that we will be purposeful with our time.

6. Adjusting to climate. We are still sweating bullets.

Thanks guys! :) Hope your weeks are going well as well! Let us know if there is any way we can pray for you! :D

Day 1: Joy! camp bookmarks.

Today we spent half our day training and the other half meeting kids at the Youth House.

At the youth house we were supposed to have a table where kids could sit down and color bookmarks we made; these cute things :) :

It says JOY! because the youth camp we're holding later this week is called Joy Camp. It was supposed to promote the camp and encourage the youth to come out.We made 100, expecting tons of kids--because from what we heard there would be about 100-200 kids that would come out in waves. We ended up only using about 10. And of that 10, only 3 were actually done by the kids. The other 7 were done between Ed, Katelyn, Joshua, Bethan and me. -.- Asking the kids to sit down and color was harder than we expected. Language is really really a barrier. In addition to the language barrier the kids are also very shy, so most kids just shook their heads and smiled when we offered them bookmarks.

The amount of kids that came out felt more like 50 too... :(

The good news is that Kim got to talk to a little group of high school students that found Joshua, who was blowing bubbles and singing, very cute :D

Later, we had spaghetti with a few kids that stayed at the Youth House. It was hard for Ed and I to get

the courage to speak to them because we had experienced such a language barrier earlier. When we finally got the courage to ask them if the spaghetti was good (for some it was the first time having spaghetti) the conversation was short because of the language issues, again. We got to know their names and ages, but the names are really hard to remember. The ages would probably average to 14. Hopefully we get to see most of them again tomorrow. They are really friendly and full of smiles.

On a silly note, Ed and I got our first legit Thai Iced Tea today. All we need to say is, it was Leeeegit. :) mmm so good.

Prayer requests:

1) Courage to speak to the teens: Ed and I really need prayer that we will be able to step outside our comfort zones and reach out to the kids, even if it is in broken English and Thai. Pray that

we remember that we're just God's vessels, He will work through us. It's not us doing anything. We just need to be willing to do anything we are called to.

2) Courage to speak the language. We don't know much but even a few phrases could put the youth more at ease.

3) Energy. The team is still a bit jet laggy--PG gets tired around 8, and Ed and I around...now ahha: 9 ish. Which is SUPAA EARLY. I feel like I'm in elementary school again.

4) Adjusting to the weather. STILL really hot :( especially when we're outside doing stuff like the bookmarks today.

Thanksgivings:

1) We were informed that we get to leave for Bangkok at 1PM on Monday, which gives us a chance to re

st up a little after camp before heading to training in Bangkok.

2) It RAINED! :) That means it can only get cooler...until tomorrow.

Also, for here on out, the pictures will be uploaded on fb. just cuz it's a lot faster. :)

Also also, we ate our spaghetti dinner at 4PM. So early...so now we're eating...

RAMEN. :) Thai ramen. Mmm.

We live like college students, even on missions, all the way in Thailand. Thank God for making ram

en. The universal staple food for hungry people.

Okay. Good night!

Picture Purge.

Enjoy! :)

Katelyn hiding from the camera.

THE CARTS ARE AMAZING. They were soooo smooth it was ridic! We had a lot of fun driving them around. :)

Ed being passport holder.

Waiting for customs.

Fun umbrella exhibit thing.

CHIPS mm :)

Jello juice from the amazing 7-11. Like. :)

Hi Joshua!

Happy we are finally in Thailand.

Captain Ed salutes you.

More coming tomorrow. No more batteries for tonight. :(

Day 1/2.

Current Location: Manorom OMF House.

(hahah first came out as OMG House...-.-)

Hi guys!

We're finally in Thailand, after a lot of flying.

PTL for a safe and actually faster flight over than we expected! We actually didn't have to stop in Hong Kong like we expected.

Pictures from flight to Taipei and finally landing in Taipei! :)

The airport was beautiful--extremely modern. We got to wait for a good hour because the plane arrived earlier than expected. 7-11 to the rescue! Asian 7-11's are pretty much the coolest things in the world--lots of Asian food and drinks for

cheap :) mmm good.

Then we hopped on a huge bus and drove for 3 hours to Manorom! We slept the whole way...jet lag kicked in haha. But we're okay now.

Met the McClean family: Johnny and Ann and their three kids, Matthew, Joshua, and Bethan. :) The kids are super cute and outgoing and Johnny and Ann are super nice.

Only downside--it is so. extremely. hot. Ed and I know hot from Taiwan--but no A/C makes it an entirely new experience. And it's really humid too. It's like we're breathing liquid air. Bugs everywhere too. :( and a GIANT millipede....GIANT.

I got schooled on how to climb trees by Matthew. That kid is a right little monkey :P

Tomorrow we start training.

Prayer Requests.

1) Getting used to the weather--like we shared, it'

s uncomfortably hot. :(

2) Jet Lag: hasn't hit yet--hopefully it won't

3) The kids; they are way excited--a little too excited. Pray that they stay hydrated and out of trouble :P

More pictures on the next post.

Until then! Bye bye!

Looking for soda...

Current Location: The best place on earth! haha Taiwan Taoyuan Airport

Hellloooo~

So right now we're waiting in Taiwan Taoyuan Airport to transfer over to Hong Kong and then to Thailand. We've been on the airplane for 12 hours and 45 minutes-- slept more in one day than we've slept all week. It was a good flight. haha :)

Ed got super excited because we got to watch How to Train a Dragon. The kids got really excited when they watched it too. I slept...oops.

Funny story time.

When we were getting off the airplane, Ed got too excited and forgot one of his carry ons on the plane. By the time he realized and went back to the airplane they had already unloaded all the baggage that was left behind. He went on an epic quest to find his luggage and they had transferred it to another flight since he had changed seats with another person. After following them over "to a place kind of far" he finally got his stuff. :) silly Ed. hahaha.

While Ed went to find his luggage the rest of us went through to transfers. The kids' stomachs weren't feeling too great so we went on a search for soda and some food. We walk all the way to our gate in search of restaurants, but to our disappointment, we find nothing. We then proceeded to walk back to the center where the sole restaurant was. Unwilling to give into the expensive cafe rates, we continued to walk to the other side of the terminal. Still, there was nothing. TT____TT so sad. Finally we settled on vending machine soda. The kids got Sprite. After drinking it they kept complaining it was too "gingery." We were so confused. Kim took a drink and said, "there's a weird flavor to it...." Then I read the bottle and saw 祿茶口味－green tea flavored. hehehe.

The end. No wifi in SFO was very sad. Sad wifi in TPE is also sad.

Pictures to come because airport internet is slow :(

PS: Ed says he's ready for some yummy Thai food. Must be what he was thinking about when he forgot his luggage :P

Leaving in a few hours...

Current Location: Ed’s house

Hi guys!

So, here we go! The first post on our Thailand blog. :)

We just got out from church and I am currently sitting at Ed’s dining room table munching away at a Nestle Drumstick (o^________^o) as Ed does some last minute packing and cleaning his house.

We will be heading out to San Jose in about an hour and then from there to SFO later tonight. The flight is scheduled to leave at 1 AM and from there on out we’ll be on airplanes and in airports for about the next 18 hours. It’s going to be quite a day…(s)…

I’ll probably be doing a few updates today when we wait in airports and airplanes, but after we get to Thailand I’ll try to update every other day at least, just on daily occurrences. Some days will probably be more dry than others, sorry! I’ll try to provide some pictures so you can see the people we are working with and that you are praying for!

Okay, we’re off! Laters. :)

Prayer requests for the day:

1) Safe flights

2) Smooth flights (some of our team have motion/flight sickness issues, so pray that we all stay healthy and happy)

3) Team unity; it’s going to be a long day/flight.

4) Peace of mind

5) Game ideas for our camps