Thailand... A Sweeping Overview

Are you ready to hear about Thailand?!? I'm finally over my jet lag and feel put together enough to share with you all how the trip went! 

This blog will have three parts: 

1. A summary of how the trip came together and went overall 

2. A short timeline of events and photos

3. Links to a video and the testimonies from the students on the trip

I hope you will enjoy it and I hope it moves you as much as it has moved me. To God be the glory! 

God really moved and it was evident that he was with us throughout entire journey of our trip. 

There was a lot of confusion when I first began planning the trip last July. We were actually supposed to go to Haiti, but plans fell through in November. There was a lot of scrambling...trying to figure out if God had something different planned. I had about given up, but then during a prayer time I felt prompted to ask about Thailand. I received an answer almost immediately stating that Headquarters thought Thailand would be a great fit for our team. Without having the team fully set, I booked tickets in late December. Any later and the ticket prices would have become unaffordable. 

Over the next 4.5 months our team raised $31,500. There was not a week that went by that money did not come in. I was constantly blown away by how God continued to bless our team. We had fundraisers that were rained out and when people heard this they donated close to $1,000. We had fundraisers that should not have done as well as they did. Our yard sale raised close to $3,000. We sold water and hot dogs during a festival,  held a city-wide raffle, sold chocolate covered strawberries and wrote letters. In just 4.5 months... God gave us exactly what we needed. Hardly anybody could believe that it had happened to fast. I felt certain that God was calling us to go and preparing the way. 

In late May, early June (right around annual conference) I found out that we would be running an English camp at a Buddhist school while in Thailand. I had never done an English camp before, nor had anybody else on my team. Most of the people on my team had never been out of the country.

Two weeks before we were to go, I found out that the camp would be longer than I had anticipated. One week before we went, I found out we would have 600 kids on a daily basis. I about lost my mind. I spent about a day crying and wondering how God could have actually wanted us to do this trip. The next morning I received an e-mail from a friend who had no idea what was going on. She said she felt like God had prompted her to pray for me and she felt led to tell me that it was a good thing that I facing something I could not handle on my own. She said that God did not want me to get out of whatever it was that I was facing, but that instead he wanted to show me, show our team, show our church that God was the one who was in charge and that God would be glorified through it. Again, she had no idea what was going on...she just said it was something that God put on her heart to pray for and to tell me.
After that, I had a great confidence in moving foward. 

Our church pulled together in one week and donated craft supplies (due to this new large number) and it exceeded what our need was. 

It was extremely evident that God was working in Thailand, using us in Thailand, moving in the Thai Pastors and blessing their ministry abundantly. We spent five days teaching English at the school and we only had about 150 students each day instead of the 600. Instead of all the students coming at once, they had one grade come each day of the week. Every day we told the students and the teachers that we were Christians and that we believed in Jesus. I had prepared a theme for the week of "American Holidays" and each day we taught the students about a different holiday to illustrate a different Bible story. We taught them about the holiday through flashcards, games and crafts and we taught them the Bible stories through story telling, games and flashcards. Every morning we taught the students a new holiday. On Christmas we shared the story of Jesus' birth. On Valentine's Day we talked about the Prodigal Son. On Thanksgiving we told them the story of Jesus healing the blind man. On Independence day we talked about Jesus calming the wind and the waves. In the afternoons, we taught about Easter and with every group we told the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.

At this Buddhist school, kids were learning about Jesus for the very first time, talking about Jesus, singing about Jesus. Not only were the students participating, but the teachers started to get involved as well. One teacher, who we found out was a very strong Buddhist, ended up being the translator for the Bible story station. Everyday she was telling her students the story of Jesus' death and resurrection 3-4 times. The principle was so pleased with our work at the school that he invited our team to be part of a special ceremony which was a great honor. By the time we were done there were requests from 3 other schools to have our team or a team like ours come to their school and teach as well. 

One of the very best parts of the trip was that we had the ability to pray over every student in grades 2-6. Every day they would line up and ask for our autographs and our team members would pray for the students as we signed their papers. Imagine, a person who has never been prayed for receiving prayer for the very first time. 

I say this not to brag, but to say to God be the glory. From the beginning... our trip seemed impossible. A week before we went, our trip seemed impossible. We were not the most equipped and we were not the most prepared and we were not the most knowledgeable about the situation we were getting ourselves into. However, in our weakness, God was glorified. God made his presence known to around 800 Buddhist kids and there is a wide open door for the work to continue. 

I believe our students were deeply impacted by this trip and experience. I know that God is moving and working in their lives as much as he was in the students' lives at the school. 

Enjoy the pictures below! 

July 24th - We left bright and early and headed to the airport. We boarded our plane and flew for the next 20 hours until we reached Bangkok. Can I just say that international flights have come a LONG way from what they used to be back in the day. No more of this one movie per flight business. No, it is like Redbox! You can pick whatever movie you want to see, however many movies you want to see all flight long. Plus, each seat has a touch screen complete with T.V. shows, music, games plus all the movies. I don't even know why I bothered bringing a book. :-P

In the airport...the kids are making a "Glory Tunnel" for one of the team members who was not able to make it to our Sunday day of prayer before we left. 

Final Destination! 

Late July 25th we spent the night at a hotel and the next morning we traveled to our main location.

Our bedroom! 

July 27th the pastors wanted to take us to a zoo and aquarium...which was so fun! The main thing that stood out to me was that they felt the need to keep the guinea pigs locked up in a cage, but let the zebras roam free around the zoo grounds... 

You could get so close to the animals! Kris got his foot bit by a baby tiger!

Just hanging out with an orangutan... you know. 

Lock up those crazy guinea pigs! Let the Zebras roam free! 

Nothing like ending your day with a good sip of coconut milk. Apparently I was going for a romantic kind of photo and Kris was going for a "We're a gang and we're gonna beat you if you steal our coconut" kind of photo. 

July 28th we held a church service and spent time coloring a mural on the wall of one of the children's play rooms at the place we were staying.

Not the best picture...but you get the idea. 

July 29- August 2 we held our English camp at the school. We had close to 800 kids throughout the week, but thankfully only about 150 kids during each day. They divided the kids into groups based on their grades and this made way more manageable than what we had anticipated going in.

One of the grades at the school. 

All the kids wanted our autographs. We used it as a time to pray for each student who came to us. 

This kid wanted his stomach signed.... and Kris did it. 

The team teaching the kids the song "I've got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy." 

The kids loved singing and dancing with us! 

At the end of the week they honored us by giving us a gift and thanking us for coming. We actually received invitations to come to three other schools while we were there. 

 August 3rd we headed back to Bangkok and visited the world's largest market and discovered the best mall I have ever been to in my life.

This mall was across the street from our hotel. 

August 4th we took the team to a place called Elephant World...which was amazing. We got to pet, feed, hang out with, make food for, sit on, swim with elephants.

Making elephant food! 

August 5th we toured the city of Bangkok, got caught in a thunderstorm, cut our tour short. Headed to a new hotel for the night.

Reclining Buddha 

August 6th we flew home. 

It was truly an amazing and incredible experience. 

If you would like, below you can watch a video of our trip that one of the girls on our team made. 

If you would like to hear the students, leaders and myself talk about the trip you can follow this link and hear our report from church this past Sunday! 

Thank you so much to all those who supported us on this adventure! 

Yard Sale Madness

This past week has been insane. INSANE. I feel like I say that most weeks and then it always seems like the next week is more insane than the last. That does not make me feel very good about the future. :)

Me, at the start of Friday morning. I never know what to do with my hands in pictures so I often opt for an awkward pose. :D 

But truly, this week has been more crazy than normal because a lot happened all at once. We lost a wonderful woman in our congregation due to surgery complications. It was completely unexpected and devastating. There was a very serious issue between two of my youth students that needed extra and immediate attention. We had youth group which runs every Wednesday night. One of our freshman girls said she felt called to give a message to the other students so I was working with her this past week (she really needed very little help though...she rocked it) to prepare for Wednesday. On top of all that, it was yard sale week. (This was a fundraiser for our teen mission trip.) By Tuesday, I had a pounding headache. At this point in my week, nothing had been resolved on any of the things I mentioned previously. The woman was in critical condition, nothing had been done on the situation between the youth, youth group hadn't happened OH and we were just coming off of Easter, which at a church is a HUGE ordeal. Okay. So Tuesday, before noon, my head felt like it was seriously going to explode. I never get headaches, so when they do happen I pay attention because I know it is usually a result of too much stress. I had done very little at this point to prepare for the yard sale sans FaceBooking the kids and asking them to sign up for shifts - which only a few replied to. Also, I had picked up some pricing stickers at the dollar store. That was it.

Noon on Tuesday rolls around and I felt like I was going to lose my mind. I had never had a yard sale in my life and now I was in charge of this one. I had no idea if people would drop stuff off, if people would come, if we would have enough people to work it. To top all that off, I knew my Wednesday was completely booked (seriously, 9:00 am - 9:00 pm booked) and being that Thursday (9:00 am) was our starting drop off time for the sale, I would have no time to get ready.

I reached my breaking point and got up from my desk, announced to the office that I was "taking a break" and went to the kitchen and ate 6 1 cookie. After that I went and sat on a bench in the sun and contemplated my life. Then, I got back up, went to my office, put my head on the desk and prayed, "Dear God, you have led the way, every step of the way. I trust that you will lead me in this. I trust that the yard sale will go fine. Show your power Lord."

Seriously, I immediately felt better.

Roll tape, and we get to Thursday morning. First answer to prayer, a family with two home schooled teenage boys, shows up first thing to stay all day and help Kris and me with the sorting. Yes, we worked all day, but everything was completely organized all day long. Second answer to prayer, tons of people dropped stuff off and we seriously looked like a thrift store.

This is one room of the yard sale. The room with the open door was also full of stuff and we had furniture lined up outside the front of the church and taking up the entire foyer. 

Third answer to prayer, one woman who dropped stuff off was a huge yard saler and decided just to stay all day with us and help us sort stuff and then she proceeded to come back all day Friday and Saturday to help run it. Fourth answer to prayer, a second woman who is great at yard sales, stops by to see how it was going and tells me that she will be back later in the evening to help us with the set-up and that she will come back on Friday and Saturday as well to help run it. The other teens all showed up at 5:00 and with all of us working, things were completely ready to go for the next day by a reasonable hour.

Friday morning comes and so the does the sixth answer to my prayers. A good friend of mine from small group, who works from home, shows up early in the morning and tells me she is going to stay all day and do whatever I need her to. Let me just say, this was sooo good because my brain was still not functioning and she handled the money box like a pro. (My brain was so fried I couldn't count out five $10 bills to make $50. I kept thinking five bills made $40. Yikes!) Seventh answer to prayer, a husband and wife in the church volunteered (they had volunteered much earlier, but I didn't know how awesome they were until this) and did everything from the heavy lifting and moving of all our furniture, to pricing everything. Seriously, when people asked me questions that I didn't have the answer to, I would direct them to this woman and say, "She knows all. Go ask her." Eighth answer to prayer, Kris and I had specifically prayed the night before that God would give us $2,000 from the yard sale (total profit from both days). In the first hour we made over $500. By the end of the first day, we had just over $1,900.

Saturday comes, ninth answer to prayer. All the students show up to help, along with another student who is not going on the mission trip, but wanted to lend a hand. Plus, all the other people who God had brought along in the two days before. Tenth answer to prayer, there was not one argument or bad attitude in the entire three day event. (We seriously prayed about this.) Everybody jumped in, everybody worked hard, everybody got along wonderfully and it was a great great team building experience for the kids. I wish I had a picture, but I forgot to get one. The majority of them took signs down to the road and danced around to get attention and bring people into the sale. Later in the afternoon, they discovered the costume box and dressed up as clowns, in grass skirts and with masquarade masks and did round two of advertising in character form. It was hilarious.

I did manage to snap this shot. I love these two teens! They found Target vests (and accessories)  in the hoards of clothes we had, wore them and walked around assisting people with their shopping needs. LOVE IT! 

Eleventh answer to prayer, for as much stuff as we had donated, there was a relatively small amount left at the end. We were able to clean up and take the remaining stuff to a thrift store in about an hour. Twelfth answer to prayer, in total, we made about $2,800. There was never a down time and there was a constant flow of people both days.

God is so good. 

Thank you to all the people who helped. Thank you God for making this yard sale a success. Thank you all of you who read my blog and can celebrate this joy with me. :D 

One last really cool thing. We have to raise a total of $31,500 to go on the mission trip in July. At this point, we are only about $3,500 away from our final total. In four months we have raised around $28,000. This is not only an answer to prayer, but a testament to how great our God is. He can truly do more than we could ask or imagine!