Our friends from Korea visited Avoda school in Mae Sot/
” I want it too” – the little girl said to her brother,who was giving us his snack. “This is for our guests!” – the brother replied.This boy didn’t have much, but he showed us hospitality.After school, he invited us to his house, gave us a tricycle ride in town and bought us snack. That snack cost more than just money. It was his sincere care,respect, friendliness,hospitality,joy…
Would you say: “No,Thank you” ???Even if he and his sister don’t have it often.
How would you name this gift?
Some people come, some go away… Last month we said:”Goodbye and see you later..” to our brother in Christ,for someone Grandfather,Father,husband,brother,friend,village chief. “My father in law, received Christ eight years ago. He was not only a beloved village chief, in his time he started a church in the Golden Triangle, helped set up a Day Care Center for teens and planted seeds for a teen project in communist Laos. He has gold awaiting in heaven.
….and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor… 1 Corinthians 3:8
…And EVERY man… regardless of age, occupation, gender and abilities…
This month brought us a lot of contemplation’s on rewards…
Jesus Resurrection was exactly on the biblical First Fruit Festival. Here we write what we intend to give Jesus this year….
Early in the morning, God gave us a special time together and with His Word.
Praise the Lord!!!
Avoda: Homberg home…after 9 p.m…Here’s what happened: Ploy was sleeping in her room. Sao came in and froze. There was a venomous snake coiled up very near her. Sao was able to awake and alert Ploy right on time. The snake was taken care of (with a very thick Law book) and it was wonderful to see how God orchestrated every detail to keep Ploy and others away from harm.
He really really does. We have been praying and hoping for a someone to help with our website. God went above and beyond. We have an amazing group of people from all around the world (Canada, France, India, Singapore, and the U.S.) to help with exactly that! They are in training for ‘Business as Missions’ and Avoda is their hands-on training.
“Teacher, I don’t know what happened, but I don’t get angry anymore when someone mistreats me,” one of our girls told me on our bike ride. “Something inside me tells me that they have a hurt heart and that I should talk back nicely. So I smile and they ask me why and I say that I am practicing a new life.” Something inside me moved. Did she indeed get new life? The joy at a new saved soul, the one we have been praying for for over a year, grew. “Today God helped me teach Sunday school,” she said. I don’t yell at the students and they behaved so well. Someone inside me was telling me how to teach.” She indeed had done a very wonderful job teaching the little ones. “I tell you, I have new life!”
The kids in Avoda are not praying for new clothes. They are not praying for good food. They are not praying for new toys.
They are praying for their parents to be saved.
Every saturday we come together for prayer, they ask us to pray for their parents to become Christian.
Life is a zoo here in Avoda. Mother hens with their chicks roam the property looking for food. Roosters constantly picking a fight, 3 lazy dogs, 2 cats that don’t get along, 4 fat wild pigs cooped away in a pen, and numerous snakes and lizards. The numbers in Avoda don’t stop there. Last week we bought cows! We now have 5 mother cows and 3 baby calves, who appear in unexpected places, as they are free to go where they wish. Seeing them hiding under the roof of a bungalow was quite funny.
As soon as the funeral service ended, the Thai woman walked briskly and purposefully towards Anita. “ “What is your name?” she asked in English. There was a sense of urgency in her voice. She asked if we could meet sometime for dinner. Since then, the Lord has granted us a wonderful friendship with her and her teenage daughter, here in Tak.
The Lord has given me the opportunity to teach English in a Thai public school called Wanprachop, this semester. On my second day there, the school was celebrating teachers day. The hall and stage were decorated with purple and yellow flowers and a statue of a buddha stood surrounded by candles. The director then came over where I was sitting on the sidelines and asked me to sit up front with all the teachers on stage. I politely refused. There is no way that I could sit up there! I knew what was going to happen. The students will bring the teachers flowers to express thank you’s. I did not feel like I deserved that honor, especially since I had just started teaching. In my “humbleness”, I had disobeyed the director, I later realized.
It was no surprise to Anita and I when two tourists walked by us at the park and started a conversation. It was no surprise when the young girl joined us in painting. We have been in many situations where the Lord brought people our way to whom we could testify. This moment, we sensed, was another divine appointment planned in heaven, and we were right in the middle of it!
It has been a wonderful half year of teaching English in the neighboring Thai public school, and now it is time to say goodbye. The teachers ask us to come back the next semester. Over time we have developed relationships with them and even had opportunities to share bits of truth with them. These are not just unknown faces anymore. These are our friends.
One time over lunch, the teachers appeared to be scared about something. Turns out one of the teachers had seen a ghost and that petrified everyone else. “Are you afraid of ghosts?” they asked. This was the perfect opportunity to share of the power of our Great King and Highest Spirit. “What do you do? Do you use garlic?” they asked. “No, garlic has no life. I pray to the Highest Spirit and read the Bible. He protects me!”