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aunty_ingIn these days of Facebook, My Space and Twitter, many people in the west are discovering old friends they haven’t seen for many years. I, myself, since giving in to the inevitable and joining Facebook, have linked up with many old friends from high school, university and Bible College whom I haven’t met for ages. While this is a pleasure denied to the computer-illiterate older generation in upcountry Thailand, last week the Lord bestowed a similar blessing on one of the old Christian aunties in Pak Phanang.

The story started two weeks ago when I visited Mr Brateep, a former church member of a church started by a missionary friend in Bangkok. Mr Brateep had recently returned his to childhood home in Krabi province, not too far from where I live in Pak Phanang. Mr Brateep introduced me to Pastor Samart, the pastor of Lam Thap Church where Brateep had started attending. As we chatted, it turned out that Pastor Samart had spent two years evangelising in Pak Phanang back thirty years ago when he was a young man. “Do you know Mrs Ing?” he asked me. “She was one of the people who believed back then.”
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Category: Serving in Mission
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namkhem_prayer_nightOn the 31st. we had an all night prayer time to thank the Lord for all that happened throughout the year with photos (as far as possible) for each event to remind us again of Gods faithfulness and provision and to pray and plan for what was to come in the New Year. Most of us made it till 4am. It was good to spend time together praying, watching videos on the end times, reading Bible together, singing and sharing prayer-points for the various families. We did not have to rush with anything because there were many hours in the night Smile.

God who brought darkness out of light at creation, and who opened our blinded eyes to behold His glory (His perfection) in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, will continue through out this New Year to change us into His image from glory to glory. Let us turn our eyes on to Jesus, look full in His wonderful face so that the things of this earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace

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Category: Serving in Mission
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namkhem_christmas09The week before the 20th December we went out caroling from house to house, Tuesday to Friday in a different place every night. With the help of a big man size poster with two hands holding the crib with the baby Jesus in it, we explained the gospel. We also handed out three different invitations to all who was willing to listen to us. One invitation was to the events of Christmas on the 25th, the next for a TV show 18-19 Dec. with Billy Graham as the evangelist with lots of Thai testimonies woven in to his talk, and the last was to our own church Sunday 20th afternoon with a number on the invitation with which they had a chance to  get a small gift. All got a free home made ice cream and a chat with the Christians

Many people came and we were glad for the opportunity to show them where we were and to make contact with them.

Please pray for all these different contacts that we may know how to follow up and lead them to the Lord.
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Category: Serving in Mission
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Here is a summary of what happened with our Christmas play and other Christmas activities:

namkhem_christmasplay

• The play that started with Genesis and ended with Revelation (everything in just half an hour) was rehearsed only once and not even very thoroughly. There were more than  40 people involved from 10 different churches  This is a perfect recipe for  a catastrophe
 
• 5 people had to carry two trees, sun, moon and star on to the stage during creation. 3 Others were to make two big fishes swim pass on a stick and one big bird had to fly pass, also on a long stick (all made of cloth and bamboo) Adam and Eve had to talk to the snake and ate the fruit and hid themselves behind fig leaves Everybody had to know exactly what to do when. The words on the CD did not wait for anybody. This all went amazingly well.
 
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Category: Serving in Mission
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train_door

A week ago I travelled to Bangkok to collect my oldest son, Nathan, who was returning home for Christmas holidays from his international school in Chiang Mai. (Nathan travelled to Bangkok with a friend who has a daughter at the same school.) Nathan and I then caught the night train back to Nakhon Si Thammarat. We've caught the train many times so far, and have never really had a problem, but this time we had booked tickets at the end of the carriage right next to the door which leads to the external door for the carriage and to the next carriage. Some of these doors close automatically, but not this one. It had to be manually shut by hand.
 
I found it extremely interesting to note that almost no-one bothered to shut it. Despite a sign on the door politely requesting all to shut the door, very few did so. Bothered by the loud noise from the track, the lady across the aisle from us, my son and I shut the door each time a person walked past and left the door open after him/her. We started asking the railway employees to shut the door after them but to little effect. One young fellow did so twice, while a waitress said "Sure!" and then totally ignored our request!
 
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Category: Life in Thailand
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money_cant_buy_everythingVaughan & Cathy, our team-mates here in Pak Phanang were both admitted to hospital yesterday with dengue fever. Today as I was visiting them, the old lady who wanders around selling fruit stopped for a chat. It turns out that her son studied chemical engineering in Australia, and worked there for a while. As she was telling me how much money engineers earn in Australia I remarked that, yes, I used to work as an engineer in Australia and earn that amount of money also.

Intrigued, she asked me how much money I make now. When I told her that my monthly allowance was roughly one tenth of what I used to earn, plus benefits, she said, "You're lying! No one would give up a wage like that to come a live here on such a fraction of their previous salary."  As I tried to explain that it was because of my love of God that led me here, she continued to insist that I must be lying. Only when she finally understood that I came as a "teacher of religion" and I offered to show her my bank book that she finally realised that I was telling the truth.

"He's a very devout man," she said to Vaughan's neighbour as she walked off to continue to selling her little bags of fruit. Quickly I grabbed a tract from my bag to give her before she left. It turned out that title of the tract that I had grabbed for her was "Money can't buy everything" (though in Thai language of course). How appropriate!
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Category: Life in Thailand
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long_distance_brotherYou've heard of long distance telephone calls and even long distance romances, but at the moment Matthew and Rowan, our two younger boys, have a long distance brother! Nathan, our oldest son who recently turned 11, started international school in Chiang Mai in August. Nathan has my old mobile phone (mobile phone calls here are quite cheap) and rings us whenever he needs to talk or ask a question. But every week we set a time when we all sit down with Skype and have a good, long chat. What has been really fun is to see Matthew and Rowan interacting with Nathan via Skype. We turn on the webcam, and then the fun begins!

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Category: Life in Thailand
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