Graciously Tenacious

 24 hour prayer for the Photong Community was epic...as you can see in the picture above :)  This is my roommate Elena, P Nok and I. Were hanging out before P Nok got baptised!!!!  I had to get a picture with Team who also got baptised this Easter!!! A few years ago his older brother got baptised, then the next year his older sister, now its Teams turn! Yay!  Upcountry, playing in the river thats right behind Sprites house, with some of my favorite thai people Waiting for Sprite to find out if he has to join the army...our version of Hunger Games.

I feel the need to update my blog...though I feel like its a little too late to talk about December and I kind of want to leave that busy, hectic, stressful month  in the past. If I wrote about my trip to sisaket then it would be full of stories about me catching fish with my bare hands and eating my weight in sticky rice,so I think I will pass on that. Or if I wrote about my trip to the south that would involve walking around phuket by myself and the interns retreat but I don't really feel like recalling those stories either. So since those stories happened like a month ago I thought I would write on something different. Back home when missionaries are sharing their stories they leave out a few details, and having been in Thailand for 5 months I think I have noticed a few of those details. So this blog is dedicated to all the missional millennials out there and the next generation of aspiring overseas workers, don't let these details hinder from going out into...

So Friday night I'm hanging out at home, just chilling, after a while my roommate gets home. Before she even opens the door she yells, "Pack a bag!!!" Then I start asking twenty questions, "Where are we going? Who is going with us? What is going on?!?!?!" She explains that the other intern, Sprite, is taking the visiting L.A. intern to Patayaa for the weekend and he invited us, and the bus is leaving in two hours. By the time she was done explaining, I was done packing, (I pride myself as the worlds fastest last minute packer) and was just sitting around waiting to get this adventure started. My roommate went to our directors house down the street to let her know what our plans were and as she was gone, I started to get this weird feeling, like a feeling that I shouldn't go. Then I remembered that I had promised a teen int he neighborhood that I would hang out with her that next day. I was really looking forward to it because I havn't been able to hang o...

The other day was Halloween, for everyone in America that's obvious but here in Thailand it was just another ordinary day...or I thought it was. It was nothing like my previous Halloween experiences, I didn't dress up like a witch or superhero and go door to door asking for candy. There wasn't a Halloween party or decorations in sight. Instead there was flooding, water filled houses, hungry people and the holy spirit doing work. Let me back up and explain what that means. This weekend we had youth camp for the kids it the neighborhood, the theme of the camp was serving God. We had an awesome opportunity to serve God at the National Stadium which for the last month has been the headquarters for the flooding relief. People were donating clothes, cooking food, making sandbags and lots of other stuff. So with the kids we got to walk the walk after we talked the talk. It really was great and the kids learned alot. Once camp was over,we saw that we had...

This weekend was the first time I sincerely referred to Samaki as "home". We had a long weekend of youth camp, which included lots of kids running around, playing games, volunteering at the flood rescue relief center and all the prep that needed to be done to get through this weekend. On the last day, tired and wanting to get back to Samaki the thought rolled into my head, "I just want to get home, sleep in my own bed and use my own shower". I never thought I would say that because my shower is a bucket, my bed is about two inches thick and above all...I live in a slum. But after two months I now call it home. So there's this verse that has been popping up alot lately, its Jeremiah 29:4-7 which says, "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give yo...