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Thank you all for signing up to be on Vision's prayer list. We are leaving on Monday, July 10 for Thailand. Sue Utadache has left already on July 4 to prepare the way, check up on our van rentals, buy tracts in Thai, etc. Thank God for this lady and her heart for the Thai people. While we think we are ready, we know it is only by God's grace and His protection that we can go, but as our theme this year says, "all thing beautiful in God's time". We believe this is a mission God has called us to go. We arenot sure what this trip will bring, but all our past trips has been blessed by God so much, we are sure He has something beautiful planned for us. Pray that we will be obedient to His leading. We just want to be available to do His will. Pray for prepared hearts, both ours and the people we will be ministering to. Thank you for standing by us with your prayers. We so much appreciate it.
We arrived at Bangkok a little after 11 PM, really tired since it is now about 9 AM LA time. By the time we got through immigration and checked into the hotel, it was about 1:30 AM, about 24 hours after we left LAX and most of us slept only a few hours on the plane. But we praise God that we were able to get some sleep in probably the nicest hotel we will stay in this trip (for only $36 a room for two people with free breakfast). Marshall and Meiring spotted a mosquito in their room and he prayed that God would shut the mosquito's mouth like He did with the lions in Daniel's den before they went to sleep. This is only a small thing, but just shows the graciousness of our God, they did not get any mosquito bites that night!
Wednesday, July 12 - We met up with Sue at our hotel, had group devotions and headed out to the airport to catch our flight to Chiang Rai. We met Vida Mahachavaroj and her husband at the airport. Vida was in Vision in 2001 and her brother Yod was with Vision in 2003. When we flew up to Chiang Rai, Sue told the stewardess about Vision, and we were introduced over the PA system to the entire plane and Slim led the group in singing "We Will Rejoice" and "In His Time" to everyone on the plane. It was an unexpected opportunity the Lord gave us to minister. We landed at Chiang Rai in the early afternoon after a pleasant flight over beautifully forested land and farm fields. Chiang Rai is a small city set among a forest and surrounded by hills close to the Miramar, Laos and China. We stayed at Ben's guesthouse, owned by Maew, whom we met at the Thai church in LA when she was there, and run by her husband Patrick, an ex-lawyer turned hotel manager. The guesthouse is quaint and primitive, kind of like a retreat cabin. Only three rooms have air conditioning, which doesn't cool much anyway but helps cut down the humidity. On a 5 star amenities scale, this place probably rates a 1/2 star, with water barely coming out of the shower if someone is using the sink, alternating between hot and cold water continuously. As we learned in our devotion this morning, we give God a sacrifice of praise when we can praise Him when things are not going well, so praise God. We left right after dinner for a revival meeting at a church about 30 minutes away. The church is a cement building seating about 50. As hot as it was outside (maybe 90 degrees F), it was at least 10 degrees warmer inside. We opened all the windows and turned on the fan, but there was no relief from the heat. A worship team composed of some seminarians (from Miramar and China) came and enthusiastically led worship. Even in the heat, they played enthusiastically, jumping up and down and showed us what the sacrifice of praise means. The meeting, which was to start at 7 PM, started about 7:30, and we started Vision's part about 8:15. We were to have a 2-hour program, but were grateful we started late and only sang and preached for about an hour. Dan talked appropriately about Jesus giving us the water of life. The audience of about 37 listened attentively and responded well although Dan did not give an altar call. We returned back a little after 10, after being served rice porridge and all kinds of fruit, rambutan, bananas, and longan. We were exhausted with the heat, lack of sleep, yet thrilled to be here and appreciate so much more sacrifices of the missionaries who have gone to much worse places all for the Gospel of Jesus.
Thursday, July 13 - Today we went to Panish Trade College, arriving before 8 AM at the school for about 3000 students, mostly senior high school age learning a trade (instead of going to a university). We split into two groups, with Slim leading the English speaking group and Dan Harmon, and Marshall leading the Chinese speaking group. We sang and shared testimonies, performed skits and played games at each class for between 25 and 50 minutes from 8:30 to 10, took a 30-minute break and repeated the same until noon. After lunch at the school cafeteria (cost 15 baht or about 45 cents courtesy of the school, we went to more classes until about 3 PM. In all, we sang and shared to about 15 classes of about 40 to 50 students each. Some of the classrooms were air conditioned, and others just had fans, but we were all exhausted by 3 PM. Right before our break, we joined forces to sing some more, sounding quite good together after singing as two groups most of the day. We were served more snacks, and presented gifts by the school's director, who seemed very pleased with what we did even though he was not a Christian, although many of the teachers (about 8 were Christians). Then we presented a final program for all the Chinese classes combined (about 400 students) and Dan shared a powerful message about God loving us so much He sent His Son to come die for us. We returned dead tired to our guesthouse for dinner, devotions, and a group debriefing before settling down for the night. One exciting thing we found out is that this school is where Sue is slated to come with her English teaching team in October to teach the English teachers English. With the connections we made today, we can see God has really prepared the way for the English teachers, many from FEC Glendale, to come in the Fall. What mysterious ways God works to prepare the way! In our processing what God is doing, we are seeing a little of how we fit "in His time". Like a tapestry, where we are only a tiny thread that from the back looks like a jumble, we are seeing connections of what God is doing in Thailand and the little things we do. Four examples come to mind in our debriefing: 1. Dan talked to a man at the Wed. night "hot house" meeting. This man was a businessman who has been coming to this church part time while attending a Buddhist temple the other half time. He speaks English and Dan encouraged him to ask Jesus to show Himself. Than man replied that the local Pastor had been telling him the same thing, so Dan is just affirming what God is already doing in his life. 2. Tiffany and Sue separately prayed for one of the teachers at the school yesterday who had a burn on her hand. The teacher was very appreciative. Her grandfather was a believer but she and her parents are Buddhists. We don't know what these prayers will do in bringing her to the Lord, but we are learning it is all about God and what HE is doing, we just need to do as He leads us. 3. We don't know how many of the students we really reached yesterday, but we believe we were of great encouragement to the Christian teachers in the trade school. They are laboring in a vast harvest field, meet biweekly for fellowship and support and we have encouraged them. 4. As mentioned, Sue will be coming back with her English teaching team this fall to this same school where we have been used to pave the way. God is working in Thailand and we are so privileged to be part of what God is doing.
Friday, July 14 - After breakfast, we had a quick devotion since today is going to be a long day. However, as Dan instructed us to ask God to show us what He has for us, Victoria had a strange image come to mind. She saw a sunny side up egg turned upside down, and the yellow-orange yolk broke and flowed and flowed down. Later during the day, George said he thought the egg is a symbol of Thailand. It is happy being a fried egg steeped in Buddhism and royalty worship, but soon, God is going to flip Thailand over, and the yolk dripping is Jesus' blood covering the land. Later that night, Meiring and Dan both said the young people (and we sang to orphans and students in a minority boarding school later) would be the pastors and missionaries who are going to lead this revival. Praise God, may this vision come to pass quickly in and God turn Thailand upside down for Him soon. We divided into two teams, Dan, Sue, Echo, Sarah, Dillon and Justin led by Slim went to a prison to minister. We sang to over 100 men, and one prisoner accepted Christ while several others asked for and received prayer. While Dan was preaching, he was also competing with a Thai rock band playing in the adjacent pavilion but God worked anyway. The other team (everyone else) went to Mae Fah Luang University; a beautiful campus built only 6 years ago. We were to meet a church member there who was going to lead us, but we waited for him at one cafeteria while he was sitting in another cafeteria. After an hour and a half, he left thinking we were not going to show. In the meantime, we prayed for the other team, and then started to talk to the students and passed out some tracts. We sang a little and developed some friendship with the students who all spoke reasonable English since their lectures are all in English. After the prison, the other team joined us and we ate lunch at the cafeteria and then passed out some more tracts and sang some more. We then left to go to a primary school nearby the University. This school is next to a Buddhist temple and run by them but they said we could do anything we wanted. We sang and Dan preached to about 100 children. A large number said their hearts were dirty and prayed to accept the Lord. Afterwards, Sue asked them if their hearts felt clean and they said yes, because Jesus had cleaned them. Pray that God in His sovereignty will not cause any of these little ones to fall away and that there will be follow up to develop their new-found faith. At 6 PM, we went to Prakoon Boarding School, basically an orphanage for hill tribe minority youths and ate dinner there. About 60 kids live there, ages 12 to early twenties. Run by a Chinese-Thai couple and strongly supported by some church in Taiwan, they are reaching the young people who come here for Christ and training them to become pastors and missionaries. They have plans to build a seminary building. Typical of the young people here, one young man named Bas, who speaks some English and decent Mandarin and is from the Lahu tribe, said he is 17 and has been there 3 years. In another 3, he will finish his schooling, attend seminary and wants to return to his village to tell them about Christ. When we worshiped together, it was joyous dancing in the Spirit, and their singing was so loud it hurt and drowned out even the song leader's amplified voice, guitars and drums. Vision sang its best the whole year and Dan preached our theme, how God has a time planned for each of us and we need to live every moment for Him, not only when we are worshiping like earlier in the evening. He ended asking those who felt their lives were in ashes (that is, discouraged) but that God can make everything beautiful in His time. About a score stood for prayer and the whole congregation gathered around them to pray for them. It was a beautiful sight. How we praise God for tonight's service. Yet even as we have breakthroughs, we are sensing the enemy is working harder so we need your prayers even more.
Saturday, July 15 - So far this trip, everyone is reasonably healthy until today. Sarah and Jaspher had slight colds coming but are doing OK, but Dillon has a bad sore throat and probably a slight fever so he is staying back today to recover. After devotion, we left to go minister at a leper colony. This place, about half an hour away, is a Baptist colony, and most everyone is already Christian. We sang, gave our testimonies and Dan preached. It was interesting singing to these people that Jesus took special pity on when He was on earth. We are reminded again that it is the meek (and humble and powerless) who will inherit the earth, and these who have had leprosy, are among the world's most humble. But they greeted us with joy and were very appreciative of our coming. After a quick lunch back at the guesthouse, we proceeded to Chiangrai University to do a one hour live broadcast on 104.25 MHz FM radio and apparently on the www. We sang, Tiffany and Long gave testimonies, and Dan preached about Zacchaeus. It was an interesting experience to do a live broadcast with no re-takes, but we prayed while recording and felt God's smiling approval on us. Pray that among the tens of thousands reached by this broadcast, many will hear the Lord calling them as He called Zacchaeus and respond. After the radio broadcast, we returned to the guesthouse and rested for an hour and then went to the municipal market to pass out tracts for an hour. Some local believers from Hope Church met us there to help us with translation. The Thai people were polite, and most would read what we gave them. We had opportunity to talk to some people. One of us saw a tract we passed out earlier on the street, but before we could pick it up, a young boy picked it up and started reading it. At the end of the hour, a heavy rain started to come down. We took refuge under an awning on the sidewalk as business stopped. With a captive audience, we sang "Majesty and Glory" since we saw how God could halt everything with just a little rain. We were waiting over a half-hour for the rain to let up. At this time, Sue was able to lead a teenager to Christ. We also met a Filipino girl who was so lonely and just wanted to talk English with someone. We introduced her to Hope Church and urged her to go to their English service even though she said she was Catholic, and she promised to meet us Sunday night at the Night Bazaar. May God give us an opportunity to befriend her and affirm that she has a living faith in Jesus and not just be a name Catholic. One observation we have is that to work with the local believers, we need much more training together. This is best illustrated by Meiring trying to initiate conversation with a local merchant by asking what the merchandize was. Instead of translating, her translator started to answer her questions.
Sunday, July 16 - This Sabbath gives us a chance to describe our living situation here in Chiang Rai. While the amenities are very basic, they are more than adequate. What is wonderful is the food at the guesthouse. Maew, a sister in the Lord owns this house, and we have been given very special rates. They cook for us at whatever time we need to eat in order to meet our schedule, some days, breakfast at 6:30, other days at 8, etc. The meals have been delicious, rice porridge every morning (our request) which is hydrating and loaded with meatballs, chicken, fish and other goodies on different days. They made the food especially non- or mini-spicy just for us. The lunches and dinners have been mostly eaten elsewhere, but the meals at the guesthouse have been delightful, supplemented by lots of fruit from the local area, marvelous pineapples, smooth mangos, juicy longans, mangosteins, salas, and other exotic fruit. No one has had any serious stomach problems, and Dillon seems to be much better after a day of rest. We have rented two large vans with drivers to take us around. The owner of the vans is also a brother in the Lord who has been so gracious to us. We will be taking these vans to Chiang Mai and they will stay with us an additional three days in Chiang Mai to drive us around there also until we leave for Bangkok. Also, Sue Utadache has been marvelous. She has translated for all the meetings we sang at. For some reason, the local translators never showed up, but Sue has been more than adequate for the task. Not only has she coordinated all our schedules, she has been our most ardent supporter and encourager. Praise God for Sue. She could not be more "missionary" than she is. We went to Puchia Bible Believer's Church for their Sunday morning worship service. This is a church started only a year ago by Pastor Wisut, our main contact here in Chiang Rai. He is a fervent evangelist whose car is painted with "Jesus saves" slogans and he preaches through external speakers on his car while driving. His church only has about 30 people, but has a strong college group. In fact, 5 students came to the Lord this past week during their weekly College group meeting which meets at the dorm room of one of their college leaders. Dan blessed them with a message about Gideon and we ate lunch at the church. We returned to the guesthouse to sing a special performance for the guesthouse staff. Some are already Christians, but there are several who don't yet know the Lord. After dinner, we went to Hope Church and joined their worship and sang 3 songs. Their worship style, while different from the minority boarding house, was very well done and deeply moving. There were maybe close to 70, mostly young people in this worship service. After we sang, we left for the night bazaar. We sang for 10 minutes on their stage where people sat at tables and ate (we were part of the evening's entertainment) and then were joined by about 10 members from Hope Church who were our translators. We walked around the bazaar, passing out tracts and talked to people. We actually met a lot of locals and foreigners who were Christians already. Echo met two girls who were with YWAM. They heard us singing and said they sensed resistance in the air when we sang. One man Long shared with was quite open to the Gospel, but he ran out of time since the group was leaving. Victoria learned how to be bold in sharing with strangers, learning how to overcome her fears of talking to strangers. Sarah also learned how to be bolder each successive time we went out to pass out tracts. Tiffany shared with a Muslim who wanted her to come to share at his Muslim school. Ellison and the people with him shared with a man who prayed to accept Christ.
Monday, July 17 - This morning, we arrived at the Witayakom Christian School at 8:30 to present an hour and a half program to 500-600 students. The school has 3000 students and about 200 teachers (about 50 were Christians). Praise God that a young man stood to indicate he accepted Christ after Dan's message. Probably more prayed to accept Christ but there was a lot of peer pressure with most of the students looking to see who stood up. After this one student stood, the Christians were also asked to stand. Only about 10-15% of the students stood up to indicate they were Christians. Among them was a student from Pastor Wisut's church and another was from the "hot house" church. After a break at 10, we all went to different classes with specially selected student leaders from the school. There we shared our testimonies. After this, Sue led a girl, than 3 more, than another 4 to Christ (they were all ready and all Sue had to do was ask them if they wanted to become Christians). During this time, the guys played a basketball game with their students. There were two referees and the students played extremely well (compared to us) beating us by 2 points. We then had lunch and returned to clean up before heading off to Sahasartsukua School for our 2:30 program. This school has about 2100 students with a heavy minority student body. We sang to 400-500 students, mainly late pre-teenagers. Before preaching, Dan asked Sarah what she sensed the Lord was telling her. After a while, she said Jesus is our friend and He came as a baby. When Echo gave her testimony, not knowing what Sarah told Dan, she shared about friends. Then Justin testified about attending the funeral of his friend a few weeks ago, who had died of a brain tumor. This was God orchestrating the whole program. After Dan preached the message Sarah told him, the response was wonderful, even though the students were young. About 100 raised their hands to indicate their desire to accept Christ. When Dan asked these to stand, over 300 stood, maybe the result of reverse peer pressure from the school this morning. Pray that God will confirm these decisions in the years to come, will bring them mentors and disciplers, and these students will grow up to become future Christian leaders in Thailand. We met up with Bas from the minority boarding house who is a student here. On the way home, we took a short side trip to visit a waterfall park to enjoy God's creation.
Tuesday, July 18 - We ate breakfast, packed up and left Chiang Rai via our two vans at 9:15, only 15 minutes off our schedule. We left with a bittersweet feeling, grateful to God for our wonderful time and the fruitful ministry we had in Chiang Rai and hating to leave, yet looking forward to more of what God has for us in Thailand. The drive to Chiang Mai is 190 km and should have taken about 3 hours. About half way into the trip, George suddenly remembered we left our passports in the safe at Ben's Guesthouse. Due to the ubiquitous cell phone, we were able to call back and Eddie, the manager of the guesthouse, drove to meet us as we waited at a roadside rest stop. This rest stop is called the Cabbage and Condom Restaurant, and was started by a man nicknamed "The Condom King", considered a national hero and winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award (sort of the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize), for his effort to publicize suing condoms to halt AIDS. He has expanded his work to rural development and plows the profits from his roadside restaurants and souvenir shops back for the locals. We ate lunch here, and about 1 PM, continued on our way to Chiang Mai. In the meantime, we found out that our 2 PM concert was canceled so we took our time driving, stopping at a silver factory and a silk umbrella factory before we came to the Sasawan Court, our home for the next 3 days. This hotel, located minutes from Chiang Mai University, is much more urban and all the rooms have AC but certainly lacks the charm of the guesthouse. We met Pastor Lumyai and her staff of two to go over the plans for the next two days. She is a young lady still going to school to get her MBA, but is fervent for the Lord. After dinner, half the team, all the girls (except Meiring and Sarah) plus Ellison and Jaspher (who were so excited about seeing this man accept Christ at the Chiang Rai night bazaar), went to the local night bazaar to pass out tracts and witness for the Lord. The other half went to Pastor Lumyai's church to pray for the next two days' events. The prayer time was very blessed and refreshing as we sensed the Lord's presence during worship and prayer. Her church is only a year old and has 24 members, mostly students from the Universities, but they have a vision to have 100 members by year-end and double their cell groups from 7 cells to 14. They also asked us to pray that they can be self-supporting rather than depend on support from missionaries, really quite remarkable for such a young person and church. At the night bazaar, we divided into two teams since we only had two translators, Sue and a man from the local Hope Church. Using the 5 color beads on the bracelet that Sarah had fabricated proved to be a very effective tool for sharing the Gospel. One person accepted Christ on Sue's team and the first two girls Victoria shared with accepted Christ. Praise God.
Wednesday, July 19 - So far, this has been the healthiest Vision tour in memory. Only Dillon has had to miss a day so far but this morning, we found Tim sick with essentially the same symptoms as Dillon, sore throat, slight fever, and fatigue so we left him back at the hotel to rest and recuperate. We left after a quick breakfast at the hotel to go to Rachabat University where we were scheduled to sing and witness at two classes of English students. Several members of Lumyai's church came with us. At the first class, we went a full hour and had a chance to talk to the students after Dan preached. At the second class, just after two songs, we were told the student who was suppose to get permission for us to sing and witness failed to do so and we had to stop our performance early, but nevertheless, we shared several tracts with the students. We then ate lunch at the school cafeteria, during which time we talked to many groups of students during lunch (some are students from Yunnan who speak Mandarin) and shared the Gospel through the tracts we had and Sarah's beads. Victoria shared with a girl at lunch who immediately told her she wanted to become a Christian. Xen shared with a Mandarin teacher who was quite open to Christ. Pray for her. Dillon talked to three girls who were all Christians, but two of them did not have any other family members who were believers. They were quite encouraged by Dillon's prayer for them. Stephanie talked to 7 girls, one of who could translate her English and two of whom were already Christians. Five of them said they would come to our "party" (outreach) tomorrow night at Lumyai's church. We also met a group of teenagers from TeenMania, who came from all over the US to share at the campuses here in Chiang Mai. After lunch, we went to a trade college to share at the Christian group meeting. They have only 15 students at this meeting led by a Christian teacher, but over 30 students showed up and although a few left half way through to return to classes, another 20 more showed up to listen to us. After our program, we talked to the students and shared with them. Meiring shared with an orphan from Burma (it turns out she is an illegal immigrant) who was ready and eager to accept Christ. Long and Sue shared with 4 young ladies who wanted to accept Christ but were reticent because of their Buddhist background. That is quite typical of the people we talked to, they really need your prayers to break the hold of Buddha. We returned to our hotel to pick up the toys that we had brought to give to the orphanage children and were met there by Pastor Gampon, Tom Cheng's friend from YWAM. We gave Pastor Gampon the gift Tom gave us to bring him and then headed out to Zoe Orphanage. Zoe orphanage has 60 children, ranging from a year to early twenties. The last couple of years, they have taken only children at risk. They have leased a beautiful mansion a half hour away from the city center to house the girls and the boys stay at a nearby building which we did not visit. Greg and Nancy Nakamura, Kimmie Wada's nephew, has been serving here as a missionary along with several other missionaries to care for these children. It turns out Pastor Donald Chia was also here a year or two ago so they already have warm thoughts about FEC. Visiting Zoe the same time is a short-term team from the San Fernando Valley Holiness Church where the Nakamuras come from. This team of about 20 ranged in age from a couple of college students to several older, gray haired folks. Among the people on their team were Dave, Linda Hom's brother and a young man who was a classmate of Erin Cokeh. It also turns out Greg grew up friends with Jared Kira, Sarah Lock's husband and he has attended FEC Glendale a few times, including the baptism of Jonathan Wada, his cousin. After a wonderful dinner hosted by the Holiness church (catered pizza, fried chicken, salad, and fried rice - what a combination!), we (about 140 total) worshiped together (led by Zoe orphans), the Holiness Church presented a short program, and we did a short program. We left refreshed and renewed by the worship and fellowship. It is indeed wonderful to meet brothers and sisters in Christ half way around the world and find we have so many connections already. Tiffany felt maybe God wants her to come back to serve at this orphanage.
Thursday, July 20 - We spent an hour processing what we had done in Chiang Mai to date and were again impressed with what God is doing and the small part He has given us to play in His wider plan. We were able to reap some souls from seeds planted and watered by many others, unknown to us but perfectly remembered by an omniscient God. In turn, we believe what we have sown, others will reap in His time. After devotions and processing, we headed off to Chiang Mai University, the largest and most prestigious school in Northern Thailand. We ate brunch in one of the school cafeterias so we could invite the students to come hear us later and this evening at the "party" at Pastor Lumyai's church. At noon, we stood under the courtyard of one of their campus building and sang for a half-hour to any students passing by and those who came due to our luncheon invitations. About 30-40 students were there. Then we proceeded to a gym where a secondary school met on the grounds of the University. 600-700 students were there, and we had a chance to present our music, a skit and Dan gave a short message but no invitation. We believe we were just there to sow the seeds. After returning to the hotel for a short rest, Tim rejoined us after a day and a half of rest. Thanks to your prayers, everyone has been in quite good health with no one having any serious stomach problems. Justin is coming down with a sore throat so we are praying he will not get sick like Dillon and Tim. We went to McDonald's to eat an early dinner, spending 3-4 times more for one meal than we had been averaging on this trip (but it was still less than 100 baht or about $2.70 per person). On the way to dinner, it started to rain so we prayed that God would stop the rain at 5:30 and hold it off until the meeting was over. The rain slowed to a drizzle at 5:30 and eventually stopped completely soon after we arrived at the church. About 50 students showed up to Pastor Lumyai's church (filling every seat), many whom we had met in the last two days and invited to this party, among them, 4 of 6 girls that Stephanie had met. We met Pastor Kim, the Senior Pastor of a Korean church that had started this church and another one in a different town 100 km away. We also met a Navigator short-term team who is here for 6 weeks. Since this is a student ministry (meaning poor), we collected over 10,000 baht - about $300 - offering among us to give to this church. After the program, we divided into 7 small groups to have fellowship with 2-3 Vision members in each group (since it stopped raining, some groups were able to meet outside in the courtyard). Many of the students said they did not want to be pushed into a quick decision and we did not want to bruise any fruit, so we cautiously planted some seeds and trust the Lord to water and harvest in His time. Nevertheless, Sarah and Long talked to a girl who prayed to receive Christ. On the other hand, Dan talked to a staunch Buddhist with no visible effect. This man loved choral singing and was invited to the program this evening by Echo when she met earlier in the day. There are two stories we want to share with you that we think will inspire you, for they certainly made us praise God and stand in awesome wonder at His workings. When we were singing at the school courtyard at noon, a young man passed by and wondered what we were doing so he asked Sue. Sue told him and suddenly, this young man switched from speaking Thai to Mandarin, so Sue asked Sarah to share with this young man, named Chao. Chao really wanted to believe in Jesus, but said he had to call his parents that night to get their permission for him to accept the Lord. What is wonderful is that Sarah could share her experience with Chao, for Sarah wanted to get baptized, but her non-believing parents always told her "no". She prayed and just before the baptism date, she called home again to Hong Kong and this time her mom said it's OK if that is what you want. Her dad also echoed the same sentiment. Sarah wanted to obey and honor her parents and the Lord answered her heart's desire even though her parents were non-believers. God brought Sarah specifically to share with Chao her life experience to encourage him to trust the Lord and still be obedient to his parents. Pray for this young man. The second story is about another young man, Yok. George saw him and was led to talk to him both before and after the party. Yok was invited to come by his Buddhist friend who loved choral music that Echo had invited. Yok had come to know the Lord 10 years ago and even went on missions trips. But he lost hope in God when he saw the sufferings and needs in the field and for the last 5 years had turned his back on God. It turns out this was exactly the devotional material we had read that morning and George was able to share what he had learned about developing a biblical hope vs. a non-biblical hope. During our singing, God was touching Yok's heart and bringing him back. After the concert, George continued to talk to Yok, citing 9-11, missionary friends who gave up their luxurious life to Christ's sake, etc. George reminded Yok that God did not leave him, but he left God. Yok acknowledged that George just verified all these things as he had heard Vision sang, and at the end of the evening, turned his life back to Christ. Isn't that wonderful? God used a Buddhist to bring a prodigal back using, among other things, devotional material that was prepared weeks ago. Truly our God is beyond time and space constraints and just loves us so much He will not let even one lost sheep perish!
Friday, July 21 - Before we left Chiang Mai, we sang to the hotel lobby personnel and the cook/washlady. Meiring had a burden for this lady and Sue shared with her. She is a seeker, and even took a radio correspondence class offered by the Baptist. She is confused about Mormons, who have been trying to convert her and also does not want to give up her Buddhist gods. Pray for her as we feel she has a seeker's heart, especially that she will not be led astray by the Mormons. We flew back to Bangkok and was met by Dr. Apithan, and his Pastor (Binding Heart Church, BH for short), our main contact and host in Bangkok this time. After stopping for a delicious lunch, we checked in about 5 PM (traffic was terrible) at the Bangkok Christian Guest House, clearly the nicest place we have stayed in on this trip. The rooms cost 3 times the other places we stayed but is still only about $36 a night for two people. We debriefed about Chiang Mai (which is reported above), and were invited to dinner by the young people and leaders of the BH church. We had a great time of fellowship, briefed the schedule for the remaining days of our stay here and retired early as the next three days are going to be long and hectic.
Saturday, July 22 - After an early breakfast, we left at 8 AM to attend and sing at a service at Hope Church of Bangkok. We arrived at about 9 to see hundreds of young people assembled in small groups for Bible study and/or fellowship. We were ushered into a nice room, welcomed, given a small gift, and introduced to Hope Church. This church started in 1981, purchased their first building in 1989, and currently has hundreds of churches all over Thailand (several in Bangkok) and even around the world. The church we attended leased their building about a year ago, and has 4 services on Saturday and probably a similar number on Sundays. Their worship is energetic, with lots of dancing and actions, and had close to 1000 students attending this service with many more outside in small groups (perhaps waiting for the next service). Not one older person could be seen at this church which is close to one of the universities. Here is the hope for Thailand for the future; maybe, we are seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of Victoria's vision of the upside-down egg. We sang for almost 20 minutes, then saw another video about the philosophy of ministry of Hope Church, with their emphasis on missions, church planting, and commitment. We returned to our guesthouse to be met by the youth of BH church who took us to the food court at a nearby mall for lunch. We then spent a half hour praying together and proceeded to BH church (which is renting the facilities of the Bangkok Christian College (BCC) for their meetings) to warm up and do some sound checks. After a nice dinner cooked by their church members, we started our evening program a half-hour late (Thai time) with about 150-200 in the audience. Although we had prayed for many to come to Christ in this outreach meeting, only one person raised her hand to indicate she prayed to accept Christ. But she did not stand nor come forward to be prayed for, but we trust God will do the work of sanctification in her life. We came back around 10:30, tired. We are nearing the end of our tour, and some other people are starting to feel sick. Meiring has a sore throat and Long has a runny nose while Echo has the first serious case of the "runs" on this team (must be a record for least bad stomachs on a foreign missions trip). As Tim and Dillon get better. Justin seems to be holding his own, health-wise.
Sunday, July 23 - We left to sing at two services at Surb Sampanatawong Church, a Presbyterian Chinese/Thai church 5 minutes walk from BCC. Dan preached about "Living Water" at the first service and "In God's Time" at the second. There were about 100 at each service. The first service was more contemporary and the second was very traditional, but we had a good time in both. It contrasts with the energy of some of the services we had been to but God is not concerned so much with our styles of worship but the heart of worship, however it is expressed by different people. We walked back to BBC and ate lunch with BH church people. Because we are still tired, most of us went back to the guesthouse to rest before returning at 2:30 for BH's service, which starts at 3 PM. We sang for 40 minutes and listened to a Thai preacher speak on how God prepared King Saul and how He will prepare us when He calls us. Then the church presented us with all sorts of gifts including their church polo shirts. We then went to Vida and Yod's parents home for dinner, the fanciest dinner we have eaten on this trip with real shark's fin soup, genuine abalone, and assorted exotic dishes. He invited not only Vision but also about 30 members from BH church. We then sang a few songs to our host and the BH church guests with Yod joining us and even Vida's elder sister sang "Lamb of God" with us (since she sang this in Ching Hong with us back in 2003 and Vida wasn't feeling well so we missed her at dinner). We then returned to the guesthouse before 9 PM, an early night finally! Tomorrow, we sing for some students at BCC and will spend the rest of the day debriefing. Thanks for your prayers.
Monday, July 24 - We begin our last day here in Thailand both grateful our trip is almost over and yet regretting it is over. God has been very good to us on this trip, giving us much fruit to harvest in Chiang Rai, wonderful personal witnessing experience as well as some students coming to the Lord in Chiang Mai, and we have been very busy in Bangkok sowing seeds with only one decision. Today, we return to BCC for the service with 5th and 6th grade boys. About 1000 students filled the chapel and we began about 9:30 AM. Only about 20% of them professed to be Christians when we asked. Sarah gave a powerful testimony about how she came to the Lord, holding most of the students in rapt attention. We performed the sin chair and prodigal son skit, ending the skit with George giving his testimony about talking to Yok in Chiang Mai, the prodigal who returned to the Lord after 5 years. Dan then gave a short message about the most powerful man on earth, Jesus, powerful in character and deeds. When Dan gave the invitation, about 20 stood up, then eventually, easily over a hundred (maybe closer to 200) stood to indicate their desire to accept Christ. We praise God for these decisions. After the meeting, the volunteer chaplain, who is a member of BH Church (note - BH Church has made it one of their objectives to reach the students at this school for Christ), asked those who raised their hand to stay and 83 students stayed (the brave souls who were serious about their decisions). What an encouraging ending to our stay here in Thailand, after the hard sowing here in Bangkok! Indeed, our God is good! We then started our debriefing at 1 PM and ended at 9:30 with about an hour break for dinner. We first shared about Bangkok. The common theme among many was how much we learned from the young people of the BH church in their welcoming us, spending over 2 days hanging out with us and how we need to learn to be more welcoming of visitors and guests to our own church. We then talked about what we see God is doing in Thailand, with many seeing how God will bring a future movement of revival in Thailand, with the youth being pivotal. Then we spent most of our time sharing what we see God doing in our own lives and praying for one another. Many things shared are personal and specific but we were all blessed to have been here on this missions trip. God indeed is good and your prayers were crucial. Thank you Lord, and thank you, prayer warriors.
Tuesday, July 25 - We left the hotel at 4:45 AM with little, if any, sleep. Most or us leave to return to LA at 8 AM but Tim leaves for Taiwan at 7 AM, Sarah, Long, Victoria for Hong Kong at 8, George for China at 10 and Sue returns later at 5 PM. We (12 of us) arrived LA at 11:15 AM to joyful greetings, especially from Dan's family, the end of another wonderful blessed tour.
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