AFC Bangkok 2008

This past Sunday was Jacob and Rachel’s last Sunday here in Bangkok, which meant it was their last Activity Day with the students. We had a picture scavenger hunt that led the students all around the area that the church is located. The winning team of the scavenger hunt won the opportunity to sing a song in English in front of the auditorium. Everyone had such a fun time. After activities was over, students started to get pictures with Jacob and Rachel and some students had gifts for them. Monday morning, we took a taxi to the airport and jumped on a plane to Phuket. We had a nice hotel across the street from the beach. We got to hang out with Caleb Henderson, who grew up as a missionary kid in Bangkok. He spends a couple months in Phuket every summer. It rained quite a bit while we were there, but we still enjoyed our stay. Thursday, we checked out of the hotel and went into Phuket town to spend some time at the church with the secretary, preacher and AFCPhuket team, before our evening flight back to Bangkok.
The AFCO group is in Bangkok for a few days before they return to the States. I went to a nursing school with them where they were putting on an English camp. Last night, we went to another English teachers house, to eat pizza and drink Dr. Pepper. It was amazing to have a Dr. Pepper. When we got back to the church, me and Jacob played cards with some of the youth group. I got a call this morning from an old student of mine. She is one who has always shown interest in Christianity, but there was always something holding her back from really learning. Hopefully that will change this year. Please be praying for her and other students who show interest in God.

In Him,
Amos

So yesterday’s classes in the evening went very well. My morning classes could not make it because of school work, but they were able to make it today. In the evening, I was asked to speak at Bible class. I had a student during the time Bible class went on, but he joined the us in worship. I talked about how the work here cannot be done by just our team. It is a partnership between you all back home, our team, the Christians here, and God. Our team plants the seed, the church waters it through fellowship and prayer, and God makes it grow! It’s amazing how we all work together as one to do God’s work.
Today, was a great day as well. After some very fun classes, P’Hui, a deacon’s wife, made spagetti for everyone.
Tomorrow, I am going to buy ingredients to make Tuna salad for my last class of the day. One of my students is also going to make a Thai version of tuna salad. After dinner, our team is going with the youth group to go ice skating. I’ve only been about 2 times my whole life but I’m sure we will have a blast!

Here is one of my favorite pictures from our trip to Chiang Mai.

This is from the Queen’s Rose Garden at Bhuping Palace.

It seems like only a couple days since I last made posted on here. This week has just flown by for us. We spent lots of time outside of class with different students. We started our week of teaching on Wednesday. After classes, the team went to Big C with a couple Christians (P’Tdon and Amnaht) and a couple students (P’Lynne and Kong) to go Karaoke. People here in Thailand love to karaoke. The karaoke place they went to was closed so they went to a arcade room that had a karaoke booth in it. On Thursday, night we went to watch “The Happening” with P’Sam, and our students, Ah, Dew, and Keng. On Friday night, we went with a couple students (Poy and Tarn) to eat dinner at a Vietnamese restraunt.
Saturday afternoon, we hopped on a plane to Chiang Mai, Thailand. We were picked up at the airport by one of the Christians, Bay. We went and took a nap at the church building before going to eat dinner and then going to the night bazaar. Sunday morning we went to church at a church on the edge of town. Five churches from the city worshipped together because the AFCO group was there in Chiang Mai. Kelly Davidson preached the sermon in Thai but there was no translator for all the Americans. After service, the AFCO group sang about 5 or 6 songs. After they sang, we all had lunch there at the church. We got to spend time with the AFCO group and getting to know some of the members of the churches there in Chiang Mai.
Sunday afternoon, we went up to the top of a mountain to Bhuping Palace (the King’s winter palace). While we were driving up there, I recieved a call from P’Rung in Bangkok, saying that P’Lynne (one of our students from the past 6 years) was baptized!!! What amazing news to hear! I’ve known P’Lynne for 4 years. She was so involved with the youth group and church activities, I thought she was a Christian at first. She started studying the Bible with P’Rung last year while I was in Bangkok.
Monday morning, we rented a van to take us to Chiang Rai, which was about 3 hours north of Chiang Mai. We pretty much used our time in Chiang Rai to relax some. We stayed at a resort on the edge of the Maekok River. We rented a small boat to take us up river to see what we thought would be a Longneck tribe, but it wasn’t. When we got back, we relaxed at the resort for the rest of the night.
Tuesday morning, we loaded back into the van to head back to Chiang Mai. We were locked out of the church building when we returned and had to wait for someone to come let us in. After we put our stuff up, we went to eat lunch and then go to the Umbrella Factory to get our Bibles and other things painted. In the evening, we had a Bible study there at the church with the AFCO group and some members at the Chueng Doi church where we were staying. After the Bible study, one of the missionaries took our team to the airport to fly back to Bangkok.
Sorry for waiting so long to post all of this. Please continue praying for our students, and for our team. Pray for P’Lynne that she may grow spiritually and be an amazing Child of God!

This past week has been very busy, which is why I haven’t made an update in awhile, so I apologize for that. Our classes this past week went very well. I continue to hear lots of positive feedback from the students so that is something to be very thankful for. To go this long with only a few number of students dropping out has been amazing. Sunday was Larry and Pam Henderson’s last day with us here in Thailand. They left very early Monday morning back to the states. It was great having them here for the first couple weeks. We were very encouraged by their presence and their amazing love for God’s work here in Thailand.

Sunday afternoon, was our second Sunday Activities Day, in which we held a “fashion show” to teach about clothing. The students had lots of fun as did we. After the fashion show, we sang “Hide Me Away,” the song we learned last week. We then taught them the song “Sanctuary.”

Sunday evening, I preached about God calling us to do His work, even when we don’t feel like we are qualified to carry out His work. It was great to see four of our students that stayed after the activities to join us for evening worship, and dinner to follow. I pray that this be a beginning to these students’ journey towards Christ. The Christians have done a great job in welcoming the students and making them feel accepted and loved here.

Monday morning was used as a much needed time to rest. Sleeping until almost 11:00 was excellent. In the afternoon, we took a trip to the Grand Palace/Temple of the Emerald Buhdda that was interrupted by a nice monsoon rain. After we finished looking at everything that we wanted to see there, we tried to catch a taxi back to the church, but none of them would take us. So, after standing in the rain for about 10 minutes, we jumped on a bus that took us where we needed to go. It was the first time for me to ever take a bus anywhere. It was actually pretty cool. Later that night, we went to Central World Plaza to eat dinner and watch a movie. Because that was kind of late, we didn’t get back to the church until about midnight.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that we had to wake up around 5:45 so that we could leave the church at 6:00 am. We took a trip along with a few Thais to Khao Yai National Park. We were in search of a waterfall that we could go swimming at. We arrived in the later morning, ate lunch and then began our 3.1 km hike to the waterfall. After about 1.5 km, we noticed we took a wrong turn some where, and turned back around to find the right path. It was about this time that it started raining as well. We found the correct path and 1.5 km later, we made it to the waterfall and that trek through mud, forest, leeches, and riverbeds, was totally worth the trip. The waterfall was amazing!

On our way back, we stopped to eat dinner with a member of the church who lives in the Nakorn Nayok province about 100 km outside of Bangkok.

Tomorrow will begin a new teaching week for us. I hope I will be able to make more updates when I have some free time. Please pray for us and for our students. Thank you so much for everything!

In Him,
Amos

Monday was a great day of relaxing after a long week of teaching. Jacob and I were able to get all caught up on our laundry, and in the evening, we all went to a fancy mall to walk around and eat dinner. We found a Japanese hamburger place that was really not that good. Afterwards we walked around to find ice cream. This is when I saw one of the greatest signs, Famous Amos Cookies! I showed my driver’s license to the two ladies who were working to show them my name, and after I paid for my cookies, they gave me an extra bag of cookies for free! Sarah and I then walked around looking for a gelatto stand that we saw earlier. It turned out that the gelatto stand we saw, was also the Famous Amos cookie stand.

After our dinner and dessert, we decided to go watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. After the movie was over, we took the sky train back to the church.

Tuesday night, we went to Na’Sao’s house for dinner and Bible study. As usual, the food was amazing and spending time studying with and fellowshipping with the family was so great.

Today’s classes went great! I got to talk to a couple students about Christianity a little bit, and invited them to hear me preach on Sunday night. Hopefully they will stay after Activities to attend worship with us.

It is bedtime, so I should probably get some rest.

In Him,
Amos

This first week went very well. It was very exciting for me because, we normally have many no-shows the first week, but this year was different. The number of no-shows, was probably less than 5. That in itself makes it a great start. After hearing what some of the students have said, they are really enjoying the English classes and their teachers. Yesterday was our second Sunday here at the church. We had morning service and class in the morning and then we had Sunday Activities in the afternoon. Sunday Activities are an hour and a half of English activities. For those who remember from last year, we used to do Saturday Activities. We moved it to Sunday in hopes of having more church members attend. This should help in building relationships between the students and Thai Christians. During the activities, we divided the students and church members into 6 groups. Each group was to write a skit that had a solution and a problem. We chose 4 groups to come up and perform their skits. Each group did a very good job and everyone enjoyed laughing and watching them. After the skits, we taught the students the song “Hide Me Away, O’Lord” in English, and Larry Henderson explained the meaning of the song in Thai. The students then joined us in singing the song in English. We finished with a prayer from Khun Dej, one of the elders at the church. We had a couple of students stay after the activities and join us for evening worship. We had a special guest preacher, Lynn Nelson, a missionary from Alabama, come and give a message with great enthusiasm and passion for God’s Word. After church we had a meal together and finished the night with volleyball. Sarah and Rachel went to eat ice cream with a couple of Thai Christians and a student, instead of playing volleyball.

Today is our much needed day off. I am trying to get caught up on my laundry and just relaxing as much as possible. Tomorrow we may go to a national park that is about 120 kilometers from here. It will be a fun day trip and hopefully we will be back in time to go to Na’ Sao’s for Bible study and dinner.

Continue to pray for our students, especially for Gkeng and Gaye, the two students who joined us for church last night. Gkeng seems to be interested in Christianity!

In Him,
Amos