Not Quite the end of the Story

I'm so glad that Craig shared the update from Rick and Cooky- we were completely excited when we received that one!! I'm always humbled and amazed that God would choose to use us to do incredible things for His kingdom. He is SO good to us.
Looking back now, I'm still saying that it was a great trip! It was emotionally draining in ways I've never experienced. Realizing the emptiness of Buddhism was particularly hard- you can't even call it a "false hope"; it's not even that. It's more like a game of luck or chance. They go to worship different statues in the temples, pay their money to buy tokens or flowers or incense for the gods, the more devout (or desperate) might even go and serve as a monk in the temple for a few days- all in "hope" of finding favor with one of the thousands of gods. Their hope is about as sure as going to Las Vegas and saying "I'm going to play roulette for an hour- I HOPE I win!" We have to tell the world that they can find TRUE HOPE in Jesus alone...
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the HOPE of the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2
Thanks to all of you who prayed us to Thailand and back. You were a huge part of us sharing the hope of Jesus with the people of Pattaya- we, Jomtien Baptist Church, Pin, and countless others are grateful for your prayers and support in making this trip happen. None of us will ever be the same for it.

Wrappin Up- What God Is Doing!!

We have been home for 2 weeks, Doug, Tiffany and Sybil are immersed in school, and Jess and I in work. But we have heard some WONDERFUL news from those we worked with in Pattaya. Praise God for letting us be a part of it. Here is the text of an email we got from the missionaries we worked with:

"It is so hard to believe that your God could love someone who has done things as bad as me! I am a terrible sinner!”

Ms. Pin had been scraping out enough money for food for herself and her 3 children by working on the streets of Pattaya. For the past several years, she had been living the life of a “disposable plastic bag”, where people used her for their own purposes and then threw her in a rubbish heap to fend for herself.

She was hanging out near the beach in the Thailand tourist city of Pattaya when a strange looking group of 4 people approached her. One of the local Thai Christians, Maliwan, was with the volunteer group.

They sat down on the sidewalk and began explaining about the hope available to all of us sinners through an extraordinary God/Man named Jesus Christ. They used an “Evangecube” to explain the story. Pin was completely amazed at the possibility that this Creator God had prepared a way for her to escape the misery of guilt and shame in which she lived. This was hard to imagine! To Pin, God accepting her was like a King wading down into a mud pit and placing a scarlet robe around a mud-covered vagrant and taking them home to live in the palace!!

But as the good News of there being a real God who loved Pin was explained, Pin knew that it was true. In her desperate lostness and guilt, she believed and decided to commit her life to this true God and He became her personal Savior and Lord. Hard to imagine!

The team had met Pin during the course of distributing thousands of Gospel materials during the week. YOU had been praying for them and their local Thai Christian partners as they built relationships with employees in businesses by teaching them conversational English. YOU had been praying for them as they moved throughout the tourist city meeting people. YOU had been praying for them as they visited in Buddhist temples to dialogue with worshippers there to tell them about the living God.

Team Member, Tiffany, with new sister in Christ, Pin

YOU had been praying for Pin although you didn’t know her by name. The team that met her had no plans that morning to go down that particular street. They had made a spontaneous decision to stop as they were passing by on their way to another place. Hard to imagine, but through prayer, the Spirit of God directed the team to the soul that He intended for them to meet that day.

The afternoon after making her decision, Pin telephoned Maliwan and asked when she could come to study the Bible with her and learn more about her new-found Master. Maliwan explained that members of their local Thai church and the volunteers would be having fellowship together that evening and Pin should come too. She did.

That evening after some of the volunteers and Thai church members had shared about the impact that the week of serving God had had on them, Pin stood boldly to share her personal testimony of what God had done for her that day: “I am such a terrible sinner and have done such terrible things. I had no hope. I am so thankful that these people found me on the street today and told me how God loves me and will forgive me if I trust in Jesus Christ. It’s hard to imagine that you would accept me as part of your God-family.” Pin could not contain her emotions as she continued to share and she wept uncontrollably, “This is the best day of my life! I am so thankful to know that God loves me and forgives me.”

Pin came to worship on Sunday and brought a friend with her. She came again to the Wednesday night Bible study. So did 4 others who had received the materials that were distributed by the team and church members earlier that week. Two of those 4 decided to give their lives to Christ that night and entered into the Kingdom for all eternity. The other two are very interested as well, but want more time to consider this decision.

It’s hard to imagine but at another meeting this evening, Pastor Saeng and his wife Maliwan said that Pin had witnessed to the father of her children and had him call Saeng and Maliwan. They led him to the Lord over the telephone. Pray for him too as he begins a new life in Christ. He has been diagnosed as HIV positive, so needs your prayers in that regard too.

AL portion of our GA/AL team

Hard to imagine! So much fruit! We saw so many miracles of God’s orchestrating encounters and circumstances working to achieve our connecting with those who were receptive to hearing the Great News.

Ms. Jip is a new Thai believer who went out with the team every night. She had been so sick with fever one night while were distributing materials in the market that we insisted that she go home and go to bed. On our final night of fellowship Jip explained, “I came home from work and was very sick and wondered if I should go out with the team that night. I had to go because I knew they had come from the other side of the world to help us share God’s hope with our lost Thai neighbors. I could not stay at home in bed.

THANK YOU for praying for us all last week!!! It’s hard to imagine that the many miracles we saw would have happened without your prayers.

Without prayer, we don’t believe the team would have connected with Pin. Without prayer, Pin and the others who responded would not have been ready to believe and accept. Without prayer, Jip, Maliwan, Saeng and other church members who fell ill during the week would have not been able to have strength to continue on and work so hard. Without prayer, the team would not have been able to persevere having traveled the 25 hour trip to Thailand, and then working 14 hour days before returning home.

Please continue to pray for those that are still reading the books, watching the videos and hearing the voice of God’s Spirit encouraging them to call the telephone number stamped on every piece of material or visiting the church.

It would not happen without YOUR prayer support. We are so thankful for you!!!!

Rick and Cooky

About to leave!

Wow.. we are about to leave to go to the airport to get on our really long flights home!! None of us slept since we had to leave here at 3 in the morning!! We figured we would have plenty of time to sleep on the plane rides!! Anyways.. Friday was an amazing day!! God was all in it! Friday morning we randomly without planning decided to go and pass out literature on the beach! Well we passed out a lot of literature and also shared the salvation bracalet with a few people! There was this one lady I shared the salvation bracalet with along with Doug, Sybil, and Moliwan, and she accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior! It was amazing.. thank God for that, he truly is wonderful! Well then Friday night we had fellowship with the Thais at the church! They cooked for us, and then we sang songs, shared testimonies, and took lots of pictures! It was an awesome time of worship and fellowship! The Thais sung songs in Korean, Thai, and Cambodian! I enjoyed it soo much, and it is awesome to know we can all worship God all over the world in so many different ways, cultures, and languages! Also, the testimonies shared by the Thai people were absolutely amazing and I will share that more with you guys when I come home! Well, Saturday morning we left Pattaya to come to Bangkok at 9 am! Bangkok is like New York City except for in Asia! Well I am sorry to have to run and stop so abruptly, but our van is here to carry us to the airport! Love you guys and say a prayer for us to have a safe trip back!!

So we're here at the Baptist guest house in Bangkok waiting for our Van to take us to the airport. Is been an incredible week. I know we've learned a lot about serving God. Since I let everyone see a little bit of our recreation I thought I take this opportunity it show a little bit of our ministry here in Thailand.As you probably know, Thailand is all up in some Buddhism. 97% of the country is Buddhist. So we spent some time at the temples.

We had som opportunites to witness to the Thais worshiping at the temple.
Here's Maliwan sharing with a lady at the temple.
We also did witnessing throughout the city. Wednesday night we went to Walking street, Pattaya's Bourbon Street.
After we talked to these ladies on Walking Street Sybil and Tiffany get them a couple of New Testaments.

Going home

We are at the end of our time here. We have traveled, prayed to Jesus at a popular shrine to a useless and powerless idol, and shopped in Bangkok today, and in an hour or two we'll get to the airport and start the long journey home. Thanks so much for your prayers. Our work has accomplished some good here, your prayers have accomplished some more, and God's gracious love for these people has accomplished a great deal. We are blessed to be a part of it and blessed by the support we have had from you. There have been over a thousand views of this blog this week- and hopefully well over a thousand prayers for the Thai people. Please keep praying for them, for us, and for God's worldwide mission that we all have the chance to be a part of.
Thank you so much.
God's rich blessings to you,
Craig

I agree- a very good day

Sybil is right, we ended this trip on a high note. Today has been exciting in so many ways! Craig and I spent the morning at the church preparing more materials for the church members to distribute later while our students went out with Maliwan. Then after lunch we had our final English class... my students did so well! I was teaching the waitresses in our hotel restaurant. Yesterday we worked on several phrases that might come up, and this morning at breakfast I was thrilled when one of them came to our table and asked, "May I take your plate?" Corny, I know, but we had worked hard on that one, and I was excited that she had carried it over into a realistic situation.
Tonight, the church hosted a goodbye dinner for us. We ate some yummy authentic Thai food and had an encouraging time of worship and testimonies with our Thai brothers and sisters. Pin, the woman who accepted Christ THIS AFTERNOON, also joined us and shared her moving story... pray for her as she begins her new life!! The church presented each of us with a Thai/English Bible that they had all signed- a beautiful gift, and likely all of our favorite souvenier. The week could not have ended better.
Tomorrow morning we'll head into Bangkok and have some time in the afternoon for a little shopping and sightseeing (if we finish shopping), and our van to the airport will pick us up at 2:30am tomorrow night. We've got two more long days ahead of us, but the journey was definitely worth it. I can't say how powerful your prayers for us have been- thank you so much!!
As for me personally, I've not got a full-on head cold or sinus infection or something like that, and only two doses of medicine left. Please pray that this will not cause my head to feel like it's exploding during the flight home! God has been good, and I know He will continue to sustain me all the way home. See you or talk to you soon!

what a wonderful day

God has truly blessed us on our last day in patalla, making us never want to leave (almost). this morning tiffany, doug, and i went out with MolyWan to the beach. we walked along and handed out packets filled with books, VCDs and magazines. However, MolyWan would not let us stop there. She encouraged us to share the salvation braclets with people. These braclets contain a black, red, white, green, and gold bead which each represent a different part of the change that comes about because of Christ. We each got a chance to share. One girl that Tiffany shared with (MolyWan translating) was Pin. After Tiffany shared, Pin prayed to receive Christ.

The goal of our team on this trip was to saturate this area with the story of Christ, so that no one in Patalla could say that they had never heard of Jesus. We were sowers, and we did not expect to be reapers, but God allowed us to see the joy of the harvest. I am sure that this one soul is only a small portion of what is to come. I pray that the Thai workers will be able to see an abundant harvest. Maybe they will send us word of the miracles that they see.

This afternoon, Craig and I taught English to a group at a local interior design shop. The staff there is amazingly talented. I told one of the architects that i was going to call him when i got ready to build a house. The company, Leewadee, does everything from architecture to paint colors and fabrics. the designs are amazing! I love being there in the shop and sharing with these men. Craig and I do get a little stumped sometimes when they want to know the name of some items, like yesterday they wanted to know about slab roofs and other architectual terms. Today we covered window treatments like venetian blinds and vertical blinds. they may be calling something the completely wrong name because of our teaching ;-) They are actually fairly good english speakers, especially the owner, mr. dick, who is a believer and a member at the local church.

it was sad to leave them today, knowing that i may never see them again. maybe i can come back someday!

tonight we are going to fellowship with the church, i believe that they are cooking an authentic thai meal for us (kind of scary?).

Thank you so much for all of your prayers. Continue to pray for us as we travel tomorrow morning back to Bangkok and Sunday on the planes. The Georgia team will fly back to the states tomorrow morning, so remember them in your prayers as well.

Alex and Jon, thank for you emails!

Mom, DAD and Corey, love you so much! see you soon